372 
MOBY DICK; OR 
“I will bet something now,” said Stubb, “that somewhere hereabouts 
are some of those drugged whales we tickled the other day. I thought 
they would keel up before long.” 
Presently, the vapours in advance slid aside ; and there in the distance 
lay a ship, whose furled sails betokened that some sort of whale must 
be alongside. As we glided nearer, the stranger showed F rench colours 
from his peak; and by the eddying cloud of vulture sea-foul that 
circled, and hovered, and swooped around him, it was plain that the 
whale alongside must be what the fisherman call a blasted whale, that 
is, a whale that has died unmolested on the sea, and so floated an un- 
appropriated corpse. It may well be conceived, what an unsavoury 
odour such a mass must exhale; worse than an Assyrian city in the 
plague, when the living are incompetent to bury the departed. So in- 
tolerable indeed is it regarded by some, that no cupidity could persuade 
them to moor alongside of it. Yet are there those who will still do it ; 
notwithstanding the fact that the oil obtained from such subjects is of 
a very inferior quality, and by no means of the nature of attar-of-rose. 
Coming still nearer with the expiring breeze, we saw that the French- 
man had a second whale alongside ; and this second whale seemed even 
more of a nosegay than the first. In truth, it turned out to be one of 
those problematical whales that seem to dry up and die with a sort of 
prodigious dyspepsia, or indigestion; leaving their defunct bodies al- 
most entirely bankrupt of anything like oil. Nevertheless, in the 
proper place we shall see that no knowing fisherman will ever turn 
up his nose at such a whale as this, however much he may shun blasted 
whales in general. 
The Pequod had now swept so nigh to the stranger, that Stubb vowed 
he recognised his cuttle spade-pole entangled in the lines that were 
knotted round the tail of one of these whales. 
“There’s a pretty fellow, now,” he banteringly laughed, standing in 
the ship’s bows; “there’s a jackal for ye! I well know that the Crap- 
poes of Frenchmen are but poor devils in the fishery; sometimes lower- 
ing their boats for breakers, mistaking them for Sperm Whale spouts ; 
yes, and sometimes sailing from their port with their hold full of boxes 
of tallow candles, and cases of snuffers, foreseeing that all the oil they 
will get won’t be enough to dip the captain’s wick into ; aye, we all know 
these things ; but look ye, here’s a Crappo that is content with our leav- 
