THE WHITE WHALE 249 
to a quay ; and a boat, hurriedly pushing off from this scene of activity, 
is about giving chase to whales in the distance. The harpoons and 
lances lie levelled for use; three oarsmen are just setting the mast in 
its hole ; while from the sudden roll of the sea, the little craft stands 
half erect out of the water, like a rearing horse. From the ship, the 
smoke of the torments of the boiling whale is going up like the smoke 
over a village of smithies; and to windward, a black cloud, rising up 
with earnest squalls and rains, seems to quicken the activity of the 
excited seamen. 
CHAPTEE LVI 
OF WHALES IN PAINT; IN TEETH; IN WOOD; IN SHEET-IRON; 
in stone; in mountains; in stars 
On Tower Hill, as you go down to the London docks, you may have 
seen a crippled beggar (or hedger , as the sailors say) holding a painted 
board before him, representing the tragic scene in which he lost his leg. 
There are three whales and three boats ; and one of the boats (presumed 
to contain the missing leg in all its original integrity) is being crunched 
by the jaws of the foremost whale. Any time these ten years, they tell 
me, has that man held up that picture, and exhibited that stump to an 
incredulous world. But the time of his justification has now come. 
His three whales are as good whales as- were ever published in Wapping, 
at any rate; and his stump as unquestionable a stump as any you will 
find in the western clearings. But, though for ever mounted on that 
stump, never a stump-speech does the poor whaleman make ; but, with 
downcast eyes, stands ruefully contemplating his own amputation. 
Throughout the Pacific, and also in Hantucket, and Hew Bedford, 
and Sag Harbour, you will come across lively sketches of whales and 
whaling scenes, graven by the fishermen themselves on Sperm Whale 
teeth, or ladies 7 busks wrought out of the Eight Whale bone, and other 
like skrimshander articles, as the whalemen call the numerous little 
ingenious contrivances they elaborately carve out of the rough material, 
in their hours of ocean leisure. Some of them have little boxes of den- 
tistical-looking implements, specially intended for the skrimshandering 
