185 
THE WHITE WHALE 
practically or reliably known to me as a whaleman; and from these 
citations — I take it — the conclusion aimed at will naturally follow of 
itself. 
First: I have personally known three instances where a whale, after 
receiving a harpoon, has effected a complete escape; and, after an in- 
terval (in one instance of three years), has been again struck by the 
same hand, and slain; when the two irons, both marked by the same 
private cypher, have been taken from the body. In the instance where 
three years intervened between the flinging of the two harpoons; and 
I think it may have been something more than that ; the man who darted 
them happening, in the interval, to go in a trading ship on a voyage 
to Africa, went ashore there, joined a discovery party and penetrated 
far into the interior, where he travelled for a period of nearly two 
years, often endangered by, serpents, savages, tigers, poisonous miasmas, 
with all the other common perils incident to wandering in the heart of 
unknown regions. Meanwhile, the whale he had struck must also have 
been on its travels ; no doubt it had thrice circumnavigated the globe, 
brushing with its flanks all the coasts of Africa; but to no purpose. 
This man and this whale again came together, and the one vanquished 
the other. I say, I myself have known three instances similar to this ; 
that is, in two of them I saw the whales struck, and, upon the second 
attack, saw the two irons with the respective marks cut in them, after- 
wards taken from the dead fish. In the three-year instance, it so fell 
out that I was in the boat both times, first and last, and the last time 
distinctly recognised a peculiar sort of huge mole under the whale’s 
eye, which I had observed there three years previous. I say three 
years, but I am pretty sure it was more than that. Here are three 
instances, then, which I personally know the truth of ; but I have heard 
of many other instances from persons whose veracity in the matter 
there is no good ground to impeach. 
Secondly: It is well known in the Sperm Whale Fishery, however 
ignorant the world ashore may be of it, that there have been several 
memorable historical instances where a particular whale in the ocean 
has been at distant times and places popularly cognisable. Why such 
a whale became thus marked was not altogether and originally owing 
to his bodily peculiarities as distinguished from other whales ; for how- 
ever peculiar in that respect any chance whale may be they soon put an 
