THE WHITE WHALE 251 
than partly merged in grass, which of a windy day breaks against them 
in a surf of green surges. 
Then, again, in mountainous countries where the traveller is con- 
tinually girdled by amphitheatrical heights ; here and there from some 
lucky point of view you will catch passing glimpses of the profiles of 
whales defined along the undulating ridges. But you must he a 
thorough whaleman, to see these sights; and not only that, but if you 
wish to return to such a sight again, you must he sure and take the 
exact intersecting latitude and longitude of your first standpoint, else 
so chancelike are such observations of the hills, that your precise, pre- 
vious standpoint would require a laborious re-discovery ; like the Soloma 
Islands, which still remain incognita, though once high-ruffed Men- 
danna trod them and old Figuera chronicled them. 
Nor when expandingly lifted by your subject, can you fail to trace 
out great whales in the starry heavens, and boats in pursuit of them; 
as when long filled with thoughts of war the Eastern nations, saw armies 
locked in battle among the clouds. Thus at the North have I chased 
Leviathan round and round the Pole with the revolutions of the bright 
points that first defined him to me. And beneath the effulgent Ant- 
arctic skies I have boarded the Argo-Navis, and joined the chase against 
the starry Cetus far beyond the utmost stretch of Hydrus and the Fly- 
ing Fish. 
With a frigate’s anchors for my bridle-bitts, and fasces of harpoons 
for spurs, would I could mount that whale and lead the topmost skies, 
to see whether the fabled heavens with all their countless tents really 
lie encamped beyond my mortal sight ! 
CHAPTEE LYII 
BRIT 
Steering north-eastward from the Crozetts, we fell in with vast 
meadows of brit, the minute, yellow substance, upon which the -Eight 
Whale largely feeds. For leagues and leagues it undulated round us, 
so that we seemed to be sailing through boundless fields of ripe and 
golden wheat. 
