£56 
MOBY DICK; OR 
being so very unusual, that circumstance has gone far to invest it 
with portentousness. So rarely is it beheld, that though one and all of 
them declare it to be the largest animated thing in the ocean, yet very 
few of them have any but the most vague ideas concerning its true 
nature and form; notwithstanding, they believe it to furnish to the 
Sperm Whale his only food. For though other species of whales find 
their food, above water, and may be seen by man in the act of feeding, 
the Spermaceti Whale obtains his whole food in unknown zones below 
the surface; and only by interference is it that any one can tell of 
what, precisely, that food consists. At times, when closely pursued, 
he will disgorge what are supposed to be the detached arms of the 
squid; some of them thus exhibited exceeding twenty and thirty 
feet in length. They fancy that the monster to which these arms 
belonged ordinarily clings by them to the bed of the ocean; and that 
the Sperm whale, unlike other species, is supplied with teeth in 
order to attack and tear it. 
There seems some ground to imagine that the great Kraken of 
Bishop Pontoppodan may ultimately resolve itself into squid. The 
manner in which the Bishop describes it, as alternately rising and 
sinking, with some other particulars he narrates, in all this the two 
correspond. But much abatement is necessary with respect to the 
incredible bulk he assigns it. 
By some naturalists who have vaguely heard rumours of the mys- 
terious creature here spoken of, it is included among the class of 
cuttle-fish, to which, indeed, in certain external respects it would 
seem to belong, but only as the Anak of the tribe. 
CHAPTER LIX 
THE LINE 
With reference to the whaling scene shortly to be described, as well 
as for the better understanding of all similar scenes elsewhere pre- 
sented, I have here to speak of the magical, sometimes horrible whale- 
line. 
The line originally used in the fishery was of the best hemp, slightly 
