THE WHITE WHALE 357 
ing looped, it can in a moment be fastened to a harpoon. It is chiefly 
among gallied whales that this drugg is used. For then, more whales 
are close round you than you can possibly chase at one time. But 
sperm whales are not every day encountered ; while you may, then, you 
must kill all you can. And if you cannot kill them all at once, you 
must wing them, so that they can be afterwards killed at your leisure. 
Hence it is, that at times like these, the drugg comes into requisition. 
Our boat was furnished with three of them. The first and second were 
successfully darted, and we saw the whales staggeringly running off, 
fettered by the enormous sidelong resistance of the towing drugg. 
They were cramped like malefactors with the chain and ball. But 
upon flinging the third, in the act of tossing overboard the clumsy 
wooden block, it caught under one of the seats of the boat, and in an 
instant tore it out and carried it away, dropping the oarsman in the 
boat’s bottom as the seat slid from under him. On both sides the 
sea came in at the wounded planks, but we stuffed two or three drawers 
and shirts in, and so stopped the leaks for the time. 
It had been next to impossible to dart these drugged-harpoons, were 
it nut that as we advanced into the herd, our whale’s way greatly 
diminished; moreover, that as we went still farther and farther 
from the circumference of commotion, the direful disorders seemed 
waning. So that when at last the jerking harpoon drew out, and the 
towing whale sideways vanished; then, with the tapering force of his 
parting momentum, we glided between two whales into the innermost 
heart of the shoal, as if from some mountain torrent we had slid into 
a serene valley lake. Here the storms in the roaring glens between 
the outermost whales, were heard but not felt. In this central expanse 
the sea presented that smooth satin-like surface, called a sleek, produced 
by the subtle moisture thrown off by the whale in his more quiet 
moods. Yes, we were now in that enchanted calm which they say lurks 
at the heart of every commotion. And still in the distracted distance 
we beheld the tumults of the outer concentric circles, and saw succes- 
sive pods of whales, eight or ten in each, swiftly going round and 
round, like multipled spans of horses in a ring ; and so closely shoulder 
to shoulder, that a Titanic circus-rider might easily have overarched 
the middle ones, and so have gone round on their backs. Owing to the 
density of the crowd of reposing whales, more immediately surround- 
