358 
MOBY DICK; OR 
ing the embayed axis of the herd, no possible chance of escape was at 
present afforded us. We must watch for a breach in the living wall 
that hemmed us in; the wall that had only admitted us in order to 
shut us up. Keeping at the centre of the lake, we were occasionally 
visited by small tame cows and calves; the women and children of 
this routed host. 
Kow, inclusive of the occasional wide intervals between the revolving 
outer circles, and inclusive of the spaces between the various pods in 
any one of those circles, the entire area at this juncture, embraced by 
the whole multitude, must have contained at least two or three square 
miles. At any rate — though indeed such a test at such a time might 
be deceptive — spoutings might be discovered from our low boat that 
seemed playing up almost from the rim of the horizon. I mention 
this circumstance, because, as if the cows and calves had been pur- 
posely locked up in this innermost fold; and as if the wide extent of 
the herd had hitherto prevented them from learning the precise cause 
of its stopping; or, possibly, being so young, unsophisticated, and 
every way innocent and inexperienced; however it may have been, 
these smaller whales — now and then visiting our becalmed boat from 
the margin of the lake — evinced a wondrous fearlessness and confi- 
dence, or else a still becharmed panic which it was impossible not to 
marvel at. Like household dogs they came snuffing round us, right up 
to our gunwales, and touching them; till it almost seemed that some 
spell had suddenly domesticated them. Queequeg patted their fore- 
heads; Starbuck scratched their backs with his lance; but fearful of 
the consequences, for the time refrained from darting it. 
But far beneath this wondrous world upon the surface, another and 
still stranger world met our eyes as we gazed over the side. For, sus- 
pended in those watery vaults, floated the forms of the nursing mothers 
of the whales, and those that by their enormous girth seemed shortly 
to become mothers. The lake, as I have hinted, was to a considerable 
depth exceedingly transparent; and as human infants while suckling 
will calmly and fixedly gaze away from the breast, as if leading two 
different lives at the time ; and while yet drawing mortal nourishment, 
be still spiritually feasting upon some unearthly reminiscence; — even 
so did the young of these whales seem looking up towards us, but not 
