9 53 
THE WHITE WHALE 
ling; though we know the sea to be an everlasting terra incognita > so 
that Columbus sailed over numberless unknown worlds to discover his 
one superficial western one ; though, by vast odds, the most terrific of all 
mortal disasters have immemorially and indiscriminately befallen tens 
and hundreds of thousands of those who have gone upon the waters; 
though hut a moment’s consideration will teach, that however baby-man 
may brag of his science and skill and however much, in a flattering 
future, that science and skill may augment; yet for ever and for 
ever, to the crack of doom, the sea will insult and murder him, and 
pulverise the stateliest, stiffest frigate he can make ; nevertheless, by the 
continual repetition of these very impressions, man has lost that sense 
of the full awfulness of the sea which aboriginally belongs to it. 
The first boat we read of, floated on an ocean, that with Portuguese 
vengeance had whelmed a whole world without leaving so much as a 
widow. That same ocean rolls now; that same ocean destroyed the 
wrecked ships of last year. Yea, foolish mortals, Noah’s flood is not 
yet subsided ; two-thirds of the fair world it yet covers. 
Wherein differ the sea and the land, that a miracle upon one is not 
a miracle upon the other ? Preternatural terrors rested upon the He- 
brews, when under the feet of Korah and his company the live ground 
opened and swallowed them up for ever; yet not a modern sun ever 
sets, but in precisely the same manner the live sea swallows up ships 
and crews. 
But not only is the sea such a foe to man who is an alien to it, hut it is 
also a fiend to its own offspring ; worse than the Persian host who mur- 
dered his own guests; sparing not the creatures which itself hath 
spawned. Like a savage tigress that tossing in the jungle overlays her 
own cubs, so the sea dashes even the mightiest whales against the rocks, 
and leaves them there side by side with the split wrecks of ships. No 
mercy, no power hut its own controls it. Panting and snorting like a 
mad battle steed that has lost its rider, the masterless ocean overruns 
the globe. 
Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures 
glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously 
hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure. Consider also the devilish 
brilliance and beauty of many of its most remorseless tribes, as the 
dainty embellished shape of many species of sharks. Consider, once 
