380 
MOBY DICK; OR 
perhaps, consume fifty days in the business of boiling out ; and in the 
state that it is casked, the oil is nearly scentless. The truth is, that 
living or dead, if hut decently treated, whales as a species are by no 
means creatures of ill odour ; nor can whalemen be recognised, as the 
people of the middle ages affected to detect a Jew in the company, by 
the nose. Nor indeed can the whale possibly be otherwise than fragrant, 
when, as a general thing, he enjoys such high health ; taking abundance 
of exercise ; always out of doors ; though, it is true, seldom in the open 
air. I say, that the motion of a Sperm Whale’s flukes above water dis- 
penses a perfume, as when a musk-scented lady rustles her dress in a 
warm parlour. What then shall I liken the Sperm Whale to for fra- 
grance, considering his magnitude? Must it not be to that famous 
elephant, with jewelled tusks, and redolent with myrrh, which 
was led out of an Indian town to do honour to Alexander the 
Great ? 
CHAPTER XCII 
THE CASTAWAY 
It was hut some few days after encountering the Frenchman, that a 
most significant event befell the most insignificant of the Pequod’s 
crew; an event most lamentable; which ended in providing the some- 
times madly merry and predestinated craft with a living and ever 
accompanying prophecy of whatever shattered sequel might prove her 
own. 
Now, in the whale ship, it is not every one that goes in the boats. 
Some few hands are reserved called shipkeepers, whose province it is to 
work the vessel while the boats are pursuing the whale. As a general 
thing, these shipkeepers are as hardy fellows as the men comprising 
the boats’ crews. But if there happen to be an unduly slender, clumsy, 
or timorous wight in the ship, that wight is certain to be made a ship- 
keeper. It was so in the Pequod with the little negro Pippin by nick- 
name, Pip by abbreviation. Poor Pip ! ye have heard of him before ; 
ye must remember his tambourine on that dramatic midnight, so 
gloomy-jolly. 
In outer aspect, Pip and Dough-Boy made a match, like a black pony 
