164 
MOBY DICK; OR 
are “struck with the most lively terrors,” and “often in the precipi- 
tancy of their flight dash themselves against the rocks with such vio- 
lence as to cause instantaneous death.” And however the general 
experiences in the fishery may amend such reports as these; yet in 
their full terribleness, even to the bloodthirsty item of Povelson, the 
superstitious belief in them is, in some vicissitudes of their vocation, 
revived in the minds of the hunters. 
So that overawed by the rumours and portents concerning him, not 
a few of the fishermen recalled, in reference to Moby Dick, the earlier 
days of the Sperm Whale fishery, when it was oftentimes hard to in- 
duce long practised Right whalemen to embark in the perils of this 
new and daring warfare; such men protesting that although other 
leviathans might he hopefully pursued, yet to chase and point lance 
at such an apparition as the Sperm Whale was not for mortal man — 
that to attempt it, would be inevitably to be torn into a quick eternity. 
On this head, there are some remarkable documents that may be 
consulted. 
Nevertheless, some there were, who even in the face of these things 
were ready to give chase to Moby Dick ; and a still greater number who, 
chancing only to hear of him distantly and vaguely, without the spe- 
cific details of any certain calamity, and without superstitious accom- 
paniments, were sufficiently hardy not to flee from the battle if offered. 
One of the wild suggestions referred to, as at last coming to be 
linked with the White Whale in the minds of the superstitiously in- 
clined, was the unearthly conceit that Moby Dick was ubiquitous ; that 
he had actually been encountered in opposite latitudes at one and the 
same instant of time. 
Nor, credulous as such minds must have been, was this conceit alto- 
gether without some faint show of superstitious probability. Dor as 
the secrets of the currents in the seas have never yet been divulged, even 
to the most erudite research ; so the hidden ways of the Sperm Whale 
when beneath the surface remain, in great part, unaccountable to his 
pursuers ; and from time to time have originated the most curious and 
contradictory speculations regarding them, especially concerning the 
mystic modes whereby, after sounding to a great depth, he transports 
himself with such vast swiftness to the most widely distant points. 
