We sail from Ravavai, an isle7 in the sea, not very far northward8 from the tropic of Capricorn, nor very far westward9 from Pitcairn's island, where the mutineers of the Bounty10 settled. At Ravavai I had stepped ashore11 some few months previous; and now was embarked12 on a cruise for the whale, whose brain enlightens the world.
And from Ravavai we sail for the Gallipagos, otherwise called the Enchanted13 Islands, by reason of the many wild currents and eddies14 there met.
Now, round about those isles15, which Dampier once trod, where the Spanish bucaniers once hived their gold moidores, the Cachalot, or sperm16 whale, at certain seasons abounds17.
But thither18, from Ravavai, your craft may not fly, as flies the sea-gull, straight to her nest. For, owing to the prevalence of the trade winds, ships bound to the northeast from the vicinity of Ravavai are fain to take something of a circuit; a few thousand miles or so. First, in pursuit of the variable winds, they make all haste to the south; and there, at length picking up a stray breeze, they stand for the main: then, making their easting, up helm, and away down the coast, toward the Line.
This round-about way did the Arcturion take; and in all conscience a weary one it was. Never before had the ocean appeared so monotonous19; thank fate, never since.
But bravo! in two weeks' time, an event. Out of the gray of the morning, and right ahead, as we sailed along, a dark object rose out of the sea; standing20 dimly before us, mists wreathing and curling aloft, and creamy breakers frothing round its base.—We turned aside, and, at length, when day dawned, passed Massafuero. With a glass, we spied two or three hermit21 goats winding22 down to the sea, in a ravine; and presently, a signal: a tattered23 flag upon a summit beyond. Well knowing, however, that there was nobody on the island but two or three noose-fulls of runaway24 convicts from Chili25, our captain had no mind to comply with their invitation to land. Though, haply, he may have erred26 in not sending a boat off with his card.
A few days more and we "took the trades." Like favors snappishly conferred, they came to us, as is often the case, in a very sharp squall; the shock of which carried away one of our spars; also our fat old cook off his legs; depositing him plump in the scuppers to leeward27.
In good time making the desired longitude28 upon the equator, a few leagues west of the Gallipagos, we spent several weeks chassezing across the Line, to and fro, in unavailing search for our prey29. For some of their hunters believe, that whales, like the silver ore in Peru, run in veins30 through the ocean. So, day after day, daily; and week after week, weekly, we traversed the self-same longitudinal intersection31 of the self-same Line; till we were almost ready to swear that we felt the ship strike every time her keel crossed that imaginary locality.
At length, dead before the equatorial breeze, we threaded our way straight along the very Line itself. Westward sailing; peering right, and peering left, but seeing naught32.
It was during this weary time, that I experienced the first symptoms of that bitter impatience33 of our monotonous craft, which ultimately led to the adventures herein recounted.
But hold you! Not a word against that rare old ship, nor its crew. The sailors were good fellows all, the half, score of pagans we had shipped at the islands included. Nevertheless, they were not precisely34 to my mind. There was no soul a magnet to mine; none with whom to mingle35 sympathies; save in deploring36 the calms with which we were now and then overtaken; or in hailing the breeze when it came. Under other and livelier auspices37 the tarry knaves39 might have developed qualities more attractive. Had we sprung a leak, been "stove" by a whale, or been blessed with some despot of a captain against whom to stir up some spirited revolt, these shipmates of mine might have proved limber lads, and men of mettle40. But as it was, there was naught to strike fire from their steel.
There were other things, also, tending to make my lot on ship-board very hard to be borne. True, the skipper himself was a trump41; stood upon no quarter-deck dignity; and had a tongue for a sailor. Let me do him justice, furthermore: he took a sort of fancy for me in particular; was sociable42, nay43, loquacious44, when I happened to stand at the helm. But what of that? Could he talk sentiment or philosophy? Not a bit. His library was eight inches by four: Bowditch, and Hamilton Moore.
And what to me, thus pining for some one who could page me a quotation45 from Burton on Blue Devils; what to me, indeed, were flat repetitions of long-drawn yarns46, and the everlasting48 stanzas49 of Black-eyed Susan sung by our full forecastle choir50? Staler than stale ale.
Ay, ay, Arcturion! I say it in no malice51, but thou wast exceedingly dull. Not only at sailing: hard though it was, that I could have borne; but in every other respect. The days went slowly round and round, endless and uneventful as cycles in space. Time, and time- pieces; How many centuries did my hammock tell, as pendulum-like it swung to the ship's dull roll, and ticked the hours and ages. Sacred forever be the Areturion's fore-hatch—alas! sea-moss is over it now—and rusty52 forever the bolts that held together that old sea hearth-stone, about which we so often lounged. Nevertheless, ye lost and leaden hours, I will rail at ye while life lasts.
Well: weeks, chronologically53 speaking, went by. Bill Marvel's stories were told over and over again, till the beginning and end dovetailed into each other, and were united for aye. Ned Ballad's songs were sung till the echoes lurked54 in the very tops, and nested in the bunts of the sails. My poor patience was clean gone.
But, at last after some time sailing due westward we quitted the Line in high disgust; having seen there, no sign of a whale.
But whither now? To the broiling55 coast of Papua? That region of sun- strokes, typhoons, and bitter pulls after whales unattainable. Far worse. We were going, it seemed, to illustrate56 the Whistonian theory concerning the damned and the comets;—hurried from equinoctial heats to arctic frosts. To be short, with the true fickleness57 of his tribe, our skipper had abandoned all thought of the Cachalot. In desperation, he was bent58 upon bobbing for the Right whale on the Nor'-West Coast and in the Bay of Kamschatska.
To the uninitiated in the business of whaling, my feelings at this juncture59 may perhaps be hard to understand. But this much let me say: that Right whaling on the Nor'-West Coast, in chill and dismal60 fogs, the sullen61 inert62 monsters rafting the sea all round like Hartz forest logs on the Rhine, and submitting to the harpoon63 like half-stunned bullocks to the knife; this horrid64 and indecent Right whaling, I say, compared to a spirited hunt for the gentlemanly Cachalot in southern and more genial65 seas, is as the butchery of white bears upon blank Greenland icebergs66 to zebra hunting in Caffraria, where the lively quarry67 bounds before you through leafy glades68.
Now, this most unforeseen determination on the part of my captain to measure the arctic circle was nothing more nor less than a tacit contravention of the agreement between us. That agreement needs not to be detailed69. And having shipped but for a single cruise, I had embarked aboard his craft as one might put foot in stirrup for a day's following of the hounds. And here, Heaven help me, he was going to carry me off to the Pole! And on such a vile70 errand too! For there was something degrading in it. Your true whaleman glories in keeping his harpoon unspotted by blood of aught but Cachalot. By my halidome, it touched the knighthood of a tar38. Sperm and spermaceti! It was unendurable.
"Captain," said I, touching71 my sombrero to him as I stood at the wheel one day, "It's very hard to carry me off this way to purgatory72. I shipped to go elsewhere."
"Yes, and so did I," was his reply. "But it can't be helped. Sperm whales are not to be had. We've been out now three years, and something or other must be got; for the ship is hungry for oil, and her hold a gulf73 to look into. But cheer up my boy; once in the Bay of Kamschatka, and we'll be all afloat with what we want, though it be none of the best."
Worse and worse! The oleaginous prospect74 extended into an immensity of Macassar. "Sir," said I, "I did not ship for it; put me ashore somewhere, I beseech75." He stared, but no answer vouchsafed76; and for a moment I thought I had roused the domineering spirit of the sea-captain, to the prejudice of the more kindly77 nature of the man.
But not so. Taking three turns on the deck, he placed his hand on the wheel, and said, "Right or wrong, my lad, go with us you must. Putting you ashore is now out of the question. I make no port till this ship is full to the combings of her hatchways. However, you may leave her if you can." And so saying he entered his cabin, like Julius Caesar into his tent.
He may have meant little by it, but that last sentence rung in my ear like a bravado78. It savored79 of the turnkey's compliments to the prisoner in Newgate, when he shoots to the bolt on him.
"Leave the ship if I can!" Leave the ship when neither sail nor shore was in sight! Ay, my fine captain, stranger things have been done. For on board that very craft, the old Arcturion, were four tall fellows, whom two years previous our skipper himself had picked up in an open boat, far from the farthest shoal. To be sure, they spun80 a long yarn47 about being the only survivors81 of an Indiaman burnt down to the water's edge. But who credited their tale? Like many others, they were keepers of a secret: had doubtless contracted a disgust for some ugly craft still afloat and hearty82, and stolen away from her, off soundings. Among seamen83 in the Pacific such adventures not seldom occur. Nor are they accounted great wonders. They are but incidents, not events, in the career of the brethren of the order of South Sea rovers. For what matters it, though hundreds of miles from land, if a good whale-boat be under foot, the Trades behind, and mild, warm seas before? And herein lies the difference between the Atlantic and Pacific:—that once within the Tropics, the bold sailor who has a mind to quit his ship round Cape84 Horn, waits not for port. He regards that ocean as one mighty85 harbor.
Nevertheless, the enterprise hinted at was no light one; and I — resolved to weigh well the chances. It's worth noticing, this way we all have of pondering for ourselves the enterprise, which, for others, we hold a bagatelle86.
My first thoughts were of the boat to be obtained, and the right or wrong of abstracting it, under the circumstances. But to split no hairs on this point, let me say, that were I placed in the same situation again, I would repeat the thing I did then. The captain well knew that he was going to detain me unlawfully: against our agreement; and it was he himself who threw out the very hint, which I merely adopted, with many thanks to him.
In some such willful mood as this, I went aloft one day, to stand my allotted87 two hours at the mast-head. It was toward the close of a day, serene88 and beautiful. There I stood, high upon the mast, and away, away, illimitably rolled the ocean beneath. Where we then were was perhaps the most unfrequented and least known portion of these seas. Westward, however, lay numerous groups of islands, loosely laid down upon the charts, and invested with all the charms of dream-land. But soon these regions would be past; the mild equatorial breeze exchanged for cold, fierce squalls, and all the horrors of northern voyaging.
I cast my eyes downward to the brown planks89 of the dull, plodding90 ship, silent from stem to stern; then abroad.
In the distance what visions were spread! The entire western horizon high piled with gold and crimson91 clouds; airy arches, domes92, and minarets93; as if the yellow, Moorish94 sun were setting behind some vast Alhambra. Vistas95 seemed leading to worlds beyond. To and fro, and all over the towers of this Nineveh in the sky, flew troops of birds. Watching them long, one crossed my sight, flew through a low arch, and was lost to view. My spirit must have sailed in with it; for directly, as in a trance, came upon me the cadence96 of mild billows laving a beach of shells, the waving of boughs97, and the voices of maidens98, and the lulled99 beatings of my own dissolved heart, all blended together.
Now, all this, to be plain, was but one of the many visions one has up aloft. But coming upon me at this time, it wrought100 upon me so, that thenceforth my desire to quit the Arcturion became little short of a frenzy101.
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1
stun
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| vt.打昏，使昏迷，使震惊，使惊叹 | |
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2
hawk
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| n.鹰，骗子；鹰派成员 | |
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pinions
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| v.抓住[捆住]（双臂）( pinion的第三人称单数 ) | |
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poised
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| a.摆好姿势不动的 | |
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cleave
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| v．(clave；cleaved)粘着，粘住；坚持；依恋 | |
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mariners
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| 海员，水手（mariner的复数形式） | |
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isle
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| n.小岛，岛 | |
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northward
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| adv.向北；n.北方的地区 | |
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westward
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| n.西方，西部；adj.西方的，向西的；adv.向西 | |
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bounty
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| n.慷慨的赠予物，奖金；慷慨，大方；施与 | |
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ashore
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| adv.在(向)岸上，上岸 | |
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embarked
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| 乘船( embark的过去式和过去分词 )； 装载； 从事 | |
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enchanted
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| adj. 被施魔法的，陶醉的，入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词 | |
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14
eddies
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| （水、烟等的）漩涡，涡流( eddy的名词复数 ) | |
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isles
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| 岛( isle的名词复数 ) | |
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sperm
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| n.精子，精液 | |
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abounds
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| v.大量存在，充满，富于( abound的第三人称单数 ) | |
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thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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monotonous
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| adj.单调的，一成不变的，使人厌倦的 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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hermit
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| n.隐士，修道者；隐居 | |
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winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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tattered
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| adj.破旧的，衣衫破的 | |
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runaway
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| n.逃走的人，逃亡，亡命者；adj.逃亡的，逃走的 | |
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chili
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| n.辣椒 | |
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erred
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| 犯错误，做错事( err的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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leeward
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| adj.背风的；下风的 | |
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longitude
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| n.经线，经度 | |
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prey
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| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
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veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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intersection
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| n.交集，十字路口，交叉点；[计算机] 交集 | |
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naught
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| n.无，零 [=nought] | |
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impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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mingle
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| vt.使混合，使相混；vi.混合起来；相交往 | |
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deploring
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| v.悲叹，痛惜，强烈反对( deplore的现在分词 ) | |
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auspices
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| n.资助，赞助 | |
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tar
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| n.柏油，焦油；vt.涂或浇柏油/焦油于 | |
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knaves
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| n.恶棍，无赖( knave的名词复数 )；（纸牌中的）杰克 | |
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mettle
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| n.勇气，精神 | |
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trump
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| n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭 | |
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sociable
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| adj.好交际的，友好的，合群的 | |
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nay
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| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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loquacious
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| adj.多嘴的，饶舌的 | |
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quotation
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| n.引文，引语，语录；报价，牌价，行情 | |
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yarns
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| n.纱( yarn的名词复数 )；纱线；奇闻漫谈；旅行轶事 | |
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yarn
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| n.纱，纱线，纺线；奇闻漫谈，旅行轶事 | |
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everlasting
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| adj.永恒的，持久的，无止境的 | |
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stanzas
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| 节，段( stanza的名词复数 ) | |
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choir
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| n.唱诗班，唱诗班的席位，合唱团，舞蹈团；v.合唱 | |
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malice
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| n.恶意，怨恨，蓄意；[律]预谋 | |
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52
rusty
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| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
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53
chronologically
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| ad. 按年代的 | |
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54
lurked
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| vi.潜伏，埋伏（lurk的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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55
broiling
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| adj.酷热的，炽热的，似烧的v.（用火）烤（焙、炙等）( broil的现在分词 )；使卷入争吵；使混乱；被烤（或炙） | |
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56
illustrate
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| v.举例说明，阐明；图解，加插图 | |
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fickleness
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| n.易变；无常；浮躁；变化无常 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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juncture
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| n.时刻，关键时刻，紧要关头 | |
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60
dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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sullen
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| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
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inert
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| adj.无活动能力的，惰性的；迟钝的 | |
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harpoon
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| n.鱼叉；vt.用鱼叉叉，用鱼叉捕获 | |
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horrid
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| adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的 | |
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genial
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| adj.亲切的，和蔼的，愉快的，脾气好的 | |
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66
icebergs
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| n.冰山，流冰( iceberg的名词复数 ) | |
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quarry
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| n.采石场；v.采石；费力地找 | |
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glades
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| n.林中空地( glade的名词复数 ) | |
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detailed
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| adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的 | |
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vile
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| adj.卑鄙的，可耻的，邪恶的；坏透的 | |
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71
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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72
purgatory
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| n.炼狱；苦难；adj.净化的，清洗的 | |
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gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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74
prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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beseech
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| v.祈求，恳求 | |
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vouchsafed
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| v.给予，赐予( vouchsafe的过去式和过去分词 )；允诺 | |
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kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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bravado
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| n.虚张声势，故作勇敢，逞能 | |
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savored
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| v.意味，带有…的性质( savor的过去式和过去分词 )；给…加调味品；使有风味；品尝 | |
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80
spun
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| v.纺，杜撰，急转身 | |
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81
survivors
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| 幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 ) | |
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hearty
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| adj.热情友好的；衷心的；尽情的，纵情的 | |
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seamen
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| n.海员 | |
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84
cape
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| n.海角，岬；披肩，短披风 | |
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85
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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86
bagatelle
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| n.琐事；小曲儿 | |
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87
allotted
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| 分配，拨给，摊派( allot的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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serene
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| adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的 | |
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89
planks
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| （厚）木板( plank的名词复数 )； 政纲条目，政策要点 | |
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plodding
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| a.proceeding in a slow or dull way | |
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crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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92
domes
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| n.圆屋顶( dome的名词复数 )；像圆屋顶一样的东西；圆顶体育场 | |
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93
minarets
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| n.（清真寺旁由报告祈祷时刻的人使用的）光塔( minaret的名词复数 ) | |
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moorish
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| adj.沼地的，荒野的，生[住]在沼地的 | |
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95
vistas
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| 长条形景色( vista的名词复数 )； 回顾； 展望； （未来可能发生的）一系列情景 | |
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cadence
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| n.（说话声调的）抑扬顿挫 | |
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boughs
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| 大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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maidens
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| 处女( maiden的名词复数 )； 少女； 未婚女子； （板球运动）未得分的一轮投球 | |
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99
lulled
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| vt.使镇静，使安静（lull的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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100
wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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101
frenzy
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| n.疯狂，狂热，极度的激动 | |
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