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Mardi, and a Voyage Thither - ebook
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Mardi, and a Voyage Thither - ebook
The first major novel by Herman Melville. This is a combination of pamphlet and melodrama, ethnics and esoterics, psychology and memoirs, a detective and travel notes, philosophy and poetry, woven into the historical canvas of the mid-19th century. The main character finds himself in a metaphorical world, reflecting the appearance of the countries of the Old and New Worlds in the mirror of the societies of conditional Oceania, where each island has its own prototype or social model.
| Kategoria: | Classic Literature |
| Język: | Angielski |
| Zabezpieczenie: |
Watermark
|
| ISBN: | 978-83-8217-107-5 |
| Rozmiar pliku: | 3,1 MB |
FRAGMENT KSIĄŻKI
Contents
VOLUME I
CHAPTER I Foot In Stirrup
CHAPTER II A Calm
CHAPTER III A King For A Comrade
CHAPTER IV A Chat In The Clouds
CHAPTER V Seats Secured And Portmanteaus Packed
CHAPTER VI Eight Bells
CHAPTER VII A Pause
CHAPTER VIII They Push Off, Velis Et Remis
CHAPTER IX The Watery World Is All Before Them
CHAPTER X They Arrange Their Canopies And Lounges, And Try To Make Things Comfortable
CHAPTER XI Jarl Afflicted With The Lockjaw
CHAPTER XII More About Being In An Open Boat
CHAPTER XIII Of The Chondropterygii, And Other Uncouth Hordes Infesting The South Seas
CHAPTER XIV Jarl's Misgivings
CHAPTER XV A Stitch In Time Saves Nine
CHAPTER XVI They Are Becalmed
CHAPTER XVII In High Spirits, They Push On For The Terra Incognita
CHAPTER XVIII My Lord Shark And His Pages
CHAPTER XIX Who Goes There?
CHAPTER XX Noises And Portents
CHAPTER XXI Man Ho!
CHAPTER XXII What Befel The Brigantine At The Pearl Shell Islands
CHAPTER XXIII Sailing From The Island They Pillage The Cabin
CHAPTER XXIV Dedicated To The College Of Physicians And Surgeons
CHAPTER XXV Peril A Peace-Maker
CHAPTER XXVI Containing A Pennyweight Of Philosophy
CHAPTER XXVII In Which The Past History Op The Parki Is Concluded
CHAPTER XXVIII Suspicions Laid, And Something About The Calmuc
CHAPTER XXIX What They Lighted Upon In Further Searching The Craft, And The Resolution They Came To
CHAPTER XXX Hints For A Full Length Of Samoa
CHAPTER XXXI Rovings Alow And Aloft
CHAPTER XXXII Xiphius Platypterus
CHAPTER XXXIII Otard
CHAPTER XXXIV How They Steered On Their Way
CHAPTER XXXV Ah, Annatoo!
CHAPTER XXXVI The Parki Gives Up The Ghost
CHAPTER XXXVII Once More They Take To The Chamois
CHAPTER XXXVIII The Sea On Fire
CHAPTER XXXIX They Fall In With Strangers
CHAPTER XL Sire And Sons
CHAPTER XLI A Fray
CHAPTER XLII Remorse
CHAPTER XLIII The Tent Entered
CHAPTER XLIV Away
CHAPTER XLV Reminiscences
CHAPTER XLVI The Chamois With A Roving Commission
CHAPTER XLVII Yillah, Jarl, And Samoa
CHAPTER XLVIII Something Under The Surface
CHAPTER XLIX Yillah
CHAPTER L Yillah In Ardair
CHAPTER LI The Dream Begins To Fade
CHAPTER LII World Ho!
CHAPTER LIII The Chamois Ashore
CHAPTER LIV A Gentleman From The Sun
CHAPTER LV Tiffin In A Temple
CHAPTER LVI King Media A Host
CHAPTER LVII Taji Takes Counsel With Himself
CHAPTER LVIII Mardi By Night And Yillah By Day
CHAPTER LIX Their Morning Meal
CHAPTER LX Belshazzar On The Bench
CHAPTER LXI An Incognito
CHAPTER LXII Taji Retires From The World
CHAPTER LXIII Odo And Its Lord
CHAPTER LXIV Yillah A Phantom
CHAPTER LXV Taji Makes Three Acquaintances
CHAPTER LXVI With A Fair Wind, At Sunrise They Sail
CHAPTER LXVII Little King Peepi
CHAPTER LXVIII How Teeth Were Regarded In Valapee
CHAPTER LXIX The Company Discourse, And Braid-Beard Rehearses A Legend
CHAPTER LXX The Minstrel Leads Off With A Paddle-Song; And A Message Is Received From Abroad
CHAPTER LXXI They Land Upon The Island Of Juam
CHAPTER LXXII A Book From The Chronicles Of Mohi
CHAPTER LXXIII Something More Of The Prince
CHAPTER LXXIV Advancing Deeper Into The Vale, They Encounter Donjalolo
CHAPTER LXXV Time And Temples
CHAPTER LXXVI A Pleasant Place For A Lounge
CHAPTER LXXVII The House Of The Afternoon
CHAPTER LXXVIII Babbalanja Solus
CHAPTER LXXIX The Center Of Many Circumferences
CHAPTER LXXX Donjalolo In The Bosom Of His Family
CHAPTER LXXXI Wherein Babbalanja Relates The Adventure Of One Karkeke In The Land Of Shades
CHAPTER LXXXII How Donjalolo, Sent Agents To The Surrounding Isles; With The Result
CHAPTER LXXXIII They Visit The Tributary Islets
CHAPTER LXXXIV Taji Sits Down To Dinner With Five-And-Twenty Kings, And A Royal Time They Have
CHAPTER LXXXV After Dinner
CHAPTER LXXXVI Of Those Scamps The Plujii
CHAPTER LXXXVII Nora-Bamma
CHAPTER LXXXVIII In A Calm, Hautia's Heralds Approach
CHAPTER LXXXIX Braid-Beard Rehearses The Origin Of The Isle Of Rogues
CHAPTER XC Rare Sport At Ohonoo
CHAPTER XCI Of King Uhia And His Subjects
CHAPTER XCII The God Keevi And The Precipice Op Mondo
CHAPTER XCIII Babbalanja Steps In Between Mohi And Yoomy; And Yoomy Relates A Legend
CHAPTER XCIV Of That Jolly Old Lord, Borabolla; And That Jolly Island Of His, Mondoldo; And Of The Fish-Ponds, And The Hereafters Of Fish
CHAPTER XCV That Jolly Old Lord Borabolla Laughs On Both Sides Of His Face
CHAPTER XCVI Samoa A Surgeon
CHAPTER XCVII Faith And Knowledge
CHAPTER XCVIII The Tale Of A Traveler
CHAPTER XCIX "Marnee Ora, Ora Marnee"
CHAPTER C The Pursuer Himself Is Pursued
CHAPTER CI The Iris
CHAPTER CII They Depart From Mondoldo
CHAPTER CIII As They Sail
CHAPTER CIV Wherein Babbalanja Broaches A Diabolical Theory, And, In His Own Person, Proves It
VOLUME II
CHAPTER I Maramma
CHAPTER II They Land
CHAPTER III They Pass Through The Woods
CHAPTER IV Hivohitee MDCCCXLVIII
CHAPTER V They Visit The Great Morai
CHAPTER VI They Discourse Of The Gods Of Mardi, And Braid-Beard Tells Of One Foni
CHAPTER VII They Visit The Lake Of Yammo
CHAPTER VIII They Meet The Pilgrims At The Temple Of Oro
CHAPTER IX They Discourse Of Alma
CHAPTER X Mohi Tells Of One Ravoo, And They Land To Visit Revaneva, A Flourishing Artisan
CHAPTER XI A Nursery-Tale Of Babbalanja's
CHAPTER XII Landing To Visit Hivohitee The Pontiff, They Encounter An Extraordinary Old Hermit; With Whom Yoomy Has A Confidential Interview, But Learns Little
CHAPTER XIII Babbalanja Endeavors To Explain The Mystery
CHAPTER XIV Taji Receives Tidings And Omens
CHAPTER XV Dreams
CHAPTER XVI Media And Babbalanja Discourse
CHAPTER XVII They Regale Themselves With Their Pipes
CHAPTER XVIII They Visit An Extraordinary Old Antiquary
CHAPTER XIX They Go Down Into The Catacombs
CHAPTER XX Babbalanja Quotes From An Antique Pagan; And Earnestly Presses It Upon The Company, That What He Recites Is Not His, But Another's
CHAPTER XXI They Visit A Wealthy Old Pauper
CHAPTER XXII Yoomy Sings Some Odd Verses, And Babbalanja Quotes From The Old Authors Right And Left
CHAPTER XXIII What Manner Of Men The Tapparians Were
CHAPTER XXIV Their Adventures Upon Landing At Pimminee
CHAPTER XXV A, I, AND O
CHAPTER XXVI A Reception Day At Pimminee
CHAPTER XXVII Babbalanja Falleth Upon Pimminee Tooth And Nail
CHAPTER XXVIII Babbalanja Regales The Company With Some Sandwiches
CHAPTER XXIX They Still Remain Upon The Rock
CHAPTER XXX Behind And Before
CHAPTER XXXI Babbalanja Discourses In The Dark
CHAPTER XXXII My Lord Media Summons Mohi To The Stand
CHAPTER XXXIII Wherein Babbalanja And Yoomy Embrace
CHAPTER XXXIV Of The Isle Of Diranda
CHAPTER XXXV They Visit The Lords Piko And Hello
CHAPTER XXXVI They Attend The Games
CHAPTER XXXVII Taji Still Hunted, And Beckoned
CHAPTER XXXVIII They Embark From Diranda
CHAPTER XXXIX Wherein Babbalanja Discourses Of Himself
CHAPTER XL Of The Sorcerers In The Isle Of Minda
CHAPTER XLI Chiefly Of Sing Bello
CHAPTER XLII Dominora And Vivenza
CHAPTER XLIII They Land At Dominora
CHAPTER XLIV Through Dominora, They Wander After Yillah
CHAPTER XLV They Behold King Bello's State Canoe
CHAPTER XLVI Wherein Babbalanja Bows Thrice
CHAPTER XLVII Babbalanja Philosophizes, And My Lord Media Passes Round The Calabashes
CHAPTER XLVIII They Sail Round An Island Without Landing; And Talk Round A Subject Without Getting At It
CHAPTER XLIX They Draw Nigh To Porpheero; Where They Behold A Terrific Eruption
CHAPTER L Wherein King Media Celebrates The Glories Of Autumn, The Minstrel, The Promise Of Spring
CHAPTER LI In Which Azzageddi Seems To Use Babbalanja For A Mouth-Piece
CHAPTER LII The Charming Yoomy Sings
CHAPTER LIII They Draw Nigh Unto Land
CHAPTER LIV They Visit The Great Central Temple Of Vivenza
CHAPTER LV Wherein Babbalanja Comments Upon The Speech Of Alanno
CHAPTER LVI A Scene In Tee Land Of Warwicks, Or King-Makers
CHAPTER LVII They Hearken Unto A Voice From The Gods
CHAPTER LVIII They Visit The Extreme South Of Vivenza
CHAPTER LIX They Converse Of The Mollusca, Kings, Toad-Stools And Other Matters
CHAPTER LX Wherein, That Gallant Gentleman And Demi-God, King Media, Scepter In Hand, Throws Himself Into The Breach
CHAPTER LXI They Round The Stormy Cape Of Capes
CHAPTER LXII They Encounter Gold-Hunters
CHAPTER LXIII They Seek Through The Isles Of Palms; And Pass The Isles Of Myrrh
CHAPTER LXIV Concentric, Inward, With Mardi's Reef, They Leave Their Wake Around The World
CHAPTER LXV Sailing On
CHAPTER LXVI A Flight Of Nightingales From Yoomy's Mouth
CHAPTER LXVII They Visit One Doxodox
CHAPTER LXVIII King Media Dreams
CHAPTER LXIX After A Long Interval, By Night They Are Becalmed
CHAPTER LXX They Land At Hooloomooloo
CHAPTER LXXI A Book From The "Ponderings Of Old Bardianna"
CHAPTER LXXII Babbalanja Starts To His Feet
CHAPTER LXXIII At Last, The Last Mention Is Made Of Old Bardianna; And His Last Will And Testament Is Recited At Length
CHAPTER LXXIV A Death-Cloud Sweeps By Them, As They Sail
CHAPTER LXXV They Visit The Palmy King Abrazza
CHAPTER LXXVI Some Pleasant, Shady Talk In The Groves, Between My Lords Abrazza And Media, Babbalanja, Mohi, And Yoomy
CHAPTER LXXVII They Sup
CHAPTER LXXVIII They Embark
CHAPTER LXXIX Babbalanja At The Full Of The Moon
CHAPTER LXXX Morning
CHAPTER LXXXI L'ultima Sera
CHAPTER LXXXII They Sail From Night To Day
CHAPTER LXXXIII They Land
CHAPTER LXXXIV Babbalanja Relates To Them A Vision
CHAPTER LXXXV They Depart From Serenia
CHAPTER LXXXVI They Meet The Phantoms
CHAPTER LXXXVII They Draw Nigh To Flozella
CHAPTER LXXXVIII They Land
CHAPTER LXXXIX They Enter The Bower Of Hautia
CHAPTER XC Taji With Hautia
CHAPTER XCI Mardi Behind: An Ocean BeforeVOLUME I
CHAPTER I Foot In Stirrup
We are off! The courses and topsails are set: the coral-hung anchor swings from the bow: and together, the three royals are given to the breeze, that follows us out to sea like the baying of a hound. Out spreads the canvas–alow, aloft-boom-stretched, on both sides, with many a stun’ sail; till like a hawk, with pinions poised, we shadow the sea with our sails, and reelingly cleave the brine.
But whence, and whither wend ye, mariners?
We sail from Ravavai, an isle in the sea, not very far northward from the tropic of Capricorn, nor very far westward from Pitcairn’s island, where the mutineers of the Bounty settled. At Ravavai I had stepped ashore some few months previous; and now was embarked on a cruise for the whale, whose brain enlightens the world.
And from Ravavai we sail for the Gallipagos, otherwise called the Enchanted Islands, by reason of the many wild currents and eddies there met.
Now, round about those isles, which Dampier once trod, where the Spanish bucaniers once hived their gold moidores, the Cachalot, or sperm whale, at certain seasons abounds.
But thither, 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 monotonous; 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; standing 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 hermit goats winding down to the sea, in a ravine; and presently, a signal: a tattered flag upon a summit beyond. Well knowing, however, that there was nobody on the island but two or three noose-fulls of runaway convicts from Chili, our captain had no mind to comply with their invitation to land. Though, haply, he may have erred 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 leeward.
In good time making the desired longitude 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 prey. For some of their hunters believe, that whales, like the silver ore in Peru, run in veins through the ocean. So, day after day, daily; and week after week, weekly, we traversed the self-same longitudinal intersection 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 naught.
It was during this weary time, that I experienced the first symptoms of that bitter impatience 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 precisely to my mind. There was no soul a magnet to mine; none with whom to mingle sympathies; save in deploring the calms with which we were now and then overtaken; or in hailing the breeze when it came. Under other and livelier auspices the tarry knaves 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 mettle. 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 trump; 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 sociable, nay, loquacious, 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 quotation from Burton on Blue Devils; what to me, indeed, were flat repetitions of long-drawn yarns, and the everlasting stanzas of Black-eyed Susan sung by our full forecastle choir? Staler than stale ale.
Ay, ay, Arcturion! I say it in no malice, 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 rusty 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, chronologically 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 lurked 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 broiling coast of Papua? That region of sun- strokes, typhoons, and bitter pulls after whales unattainable. Far worse. We were going, it seemed, to illustrate the Whistonian theory concerning the damned and the comets;–hurried from equinoctial heats to arctic frosts. To be short, with the true fickleness of his tribe, our skipper had abandoned all thought of the Cachalot. In desperation, he was bent 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 juncture may perhaps be hard to understand. But this much let me say: that Right whaling on the Nor’-West Coast, in chill and dismal fogs, the sullen inert monsters rafting the sea all round like Hartz forest logs on the Rhine, and submitting to the harpoon like half-stunned bullocks to the knife; this horrid and indecent Right whaling, I say, compared to a spirited hunt for the gentlemanly Cachalot in southern and more genial seas, is as the butchery of white bears upon blank Greenland icebergs to zebra hunting in Caffraria, where the lively quarry bounds before you through leafy glades.
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 detailed. 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 vile 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 tar. Sperm and spermaceti! It was unendurable.
“Captain,” said I, touching my sombrero to him as I stood at the wheel one day, “It’s very hard to carry me off this way to purgatory. 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 gulf 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 prospect extended into an immensity of Macassar. “Sir,” said I, “I did not ship for it; put me ashore somewhere, I beseech.” He stared, but no answer vouchsafed; and for a moment I thought I had roused the domineering spirit of the sea-captain, to the prejudice of the more kindly 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 bravado. It savored 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 spun a long yarn about being the only survivors 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 hearty, and stolen away from her, off soundings. Among seamen 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 Cape Horn, waits not for port. He regards that ocean as one mighty 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 bagatelle.
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 allotted two hours at the mast-head. It was toward the close of a day, serene 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 planks of the dull, plodding ship, silent from stem to stern; then abroad.
In the distance what visions were spread! The entire western horizon high piled with gold and crimson clouds; airy arches, domes, and minarets; as if the yellow, Moorish sun were setting behind some vast Alhambra. Vistas 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 cadence of mild billows laving a beach of shells, the waving of boughs, and the voices of maidens, and the lulled 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 wrought upon me so, that thenceforth my desire to quit the Arcturion became little short of a frenzy.CHAPTER II A Calm
Next day there was a calm, which added not a little to my impatience of the ship. And, furthermore, by certain nameless associations revived in me my old impressions upon first witnessing as a landsman this phenomenon of the sea. Those impressions may merit a page.
To a landsman a calm is no joke. It not only revolutionizes his abdomen, but unsettles his mind; tempts him to recant his belief in the eternal fitness of things; in short, almost makes an infidel of him.
At first he is taken by surprise, never having dreamt of a state of existence where existence itself seems suspended. He shakes himself in his coat, to see whether it be empty or no. He closes his eyes, to test the reality of the glassy expanse. He fetches a deep breath, by way of experiment, and for the sake of witnessing the effect. If a reader of books, Priestley on Necessity occurs to him; and he believes in that old Sir Anthony Absolute to the very last chapter. His faith in Malte Brun, however, begins to fail; for the geography, which from boyhood he had implicitly confided in, always assured him, that though expatiating all over the globe, the sea was at least margined by land. That over against America, for example, was Asia. But it is a calm, and he grows madly skeptical.
To his alarmed fancy, parallels and meridians become emphatically what they are merely designated as being: imaginary lines drawn round the earth’s surface.
The log assures him that he is in such a place; but the log is a liar; for no place, nor any thing possessed of a local angularity, is to be lighted upon in the watery waste.
At length horrible doubts overtake him as to the captain’s competency to navigate his ship. The ignoramus must have lost his way, and drifted into the outer confines of creation, the region of the everlasting lull, introductory to a positive vacuity.
Thoughts of eternity thicken. He begins to feel anxious concerning his soul.
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VOLUME I
CHAPTER I Foot In Stirrup
CHAPTER II A Calm
CHAPTER III A King For A Comrade
CHAPTER IV A Chat In The Clouds
CHAPTER V Seats Secured And Portmanteaus Packed
CHAPTER VI Eight Bells
CHAPTER VII A Pause
CHAPTER VIII They Push Off, Velis Et Remis
CHAPTER IX The Watery World Is All Before Them
CHAPTER X They Arrange Their Canopies And Lounges, And Try To Make Things Comfortable
CHAPTER XI Jarl Afflicted With The Lockjaw
CHAPTER XII More About Being In An Open Boat
CHAPTER XIII Of The Chondropterygii, And Other Uncouth Hordes Infesting The South Seas
CHAPTER XIV Jarl's Misgivings
CHAPTER XV A Stitch In Time Saves Nine
CHAPTER XVI They Are Becalmed
CHAPTER XVII In High Spirits, They Push On For The Terra Incognita
CHAPTER XVIII My Lord Shark And His Pages
CHAPTER XIX Who Goes There?
CHAPTER XX Noises And Portents
CHAPTER XXI Man Ho!
CHAPTER XXII What Befel The Brigantine At The Pearl Shell Islands
CHAPTER XXIII Sailing From The Island They Pillage The Cabin
CHAPTER XXIV Dedicated To The College Of Physicians And Surgeons
CHAPTER XXV Peril A Peace-Maker
CHAPTER XXVI Containing A Pennyweight Of Philosophy
CHAPTER XXVII In Which The Past History Op The Parki Is Concluded
CHAPTER XXVIII Suspicions Laid, And Something About The Calmuc
CHAPTER XXIX What They Lighted Upon In Further Searching The Craft, And The Resolution They Came To
CHAPTER XXX Hints For A Full Length Of Samoa
CHAPTER XXXI Rovings Alow And Aloft
CHAPTER XXXII Xiphius Platypterus
CHAPTER XXXIII Otard
CHAPTER XXXIV How They Steered On Their Way
CHAPTER XXXV Ah, Annatoo!
CHAPTER XXXVI The Parki Gives Up The Ghost
CHAPTER XXXVII Once More They Take To The Chamois
CHAPTER XXXVIII The Sea On Fire
CHAPTER XXXIX They Fall In With Strangers
CHAPTER XL Sire And Sons
CHAPTER XLI A Fray
CHAPTER XLII Remorse
CHAPTER XLIII The Tent Entered
CHAPTER XLIV Away
CHAPTER XLV Reminiscences
CHAPTER XLVI The Chamois With A Roving Commission
CHAPTER XLVII Yillah, Jarl, And Samoa
CHAPTER XLVIII Something Under The Surface
CHAPTER XLIX Yillah
CHAPTER L Yillah In Ardair
CHAPTER LI The Dream Begins To Fade
CHAPTER LII World Ho!
CHAPTER LIII The Chamois Ashore
CHAPTER LIV A Gentleman From The Sun
CHAPTER LV Tiffin In A Temple
CHAPTER LVI King Media A Host
CHAPTER LVII Taji Takes Counsel With Himself
CHAPTER LVIII Mardi By Night And Yillah By Day
CHAPTER LIX Their Morning Meal
CHAPTER LX Belshazzar On The Bench
CHAPTER LXI An Incognito
CHAPTER LXII Taji Retires From The World
CHAPTER LXIII Odo And Its Lord
CHAPTER LXIV Yillah A Phantom
CHAPTER LXV Taji Makes Three Acquaintances
CHAPTER LXVI With A Fair Wind, At Sunrise They Sail
CHAPTER LXVII Little King Peepi
CHAPTER LXVIII How Teeth Were Regarded In Valapee
CHAPTER LXIX The Company Discourse, And Braid-Beard Rehearses A Legend
CHAPTER LXX The Minstrel Leads Off With A Paddle-Song; And A Message Is Received From Abroad
CHAPTER LXXI They Land Upon The Island Of Juam
CHAPTER LXXII A Book From The Chronicles Of Mohi
CHAPTER LXXIII Something More Of The Prince
CHAPTER LXXIV Advancing Deeper Into The Vale, They Encounter Donjalolo
CHAPTER LXXV Time And Temples
CHAPTER LXXVI A Pleasant Place For A Lounge
CHAPTER LXXVII The House Of The Afternoon
CHAPTER LXXVIII Babbalanja Solus
CHAPTER LXXIX The Center Of Many Circumferences
CHAPTER LXXX Donjalolo In The Bosom Of His Family
CHAPTER LXXXI Wherein Babbalanja Relates The Adventure Of One Karkeke In The Land Of Shades
CHAPTER LXXXII How Donjalolo, Sent Agents To The Surrounding Isles; With The Result
CHAPTER LXXXIII They Visit The Tributary Islets
CHAPTER LXXXIV Taji Sits Down To Dinner With Five-And-Twenty Kings, And A Royal Time They Have
CHAPTER LXXXV After Dinner
CHAPTER LXXXVI Of Those Scamps The Plujii
CHAPTER LXXXVII Nora-Bamma
CHAPTER LXXXVIII In A Calm, Hautia's Heralds Approach
CHAPTER LXXXIX Braid-Beard Rehearses The Origin Of The Isle Of Rogues
CHAPTER XC Rare Sport At Ohonoo
CHAPTER XCI Of King Uhia And His Subjects
CHAPTER XCII The God Keevi And The Precipice Op Mondo
CHAPTER XCIII Babbalanja Steps In Between Mohi And Yoomy; And Yoomy Relates A Legend
CHAPTER XCIV Of That Jolly Old Lord, Borabolla; And That Jolly Island Of His, Mondoldo; And Of The Fish-Ponds, And The Hereafters Of Fish
CHAPTER XCV That Jolly Old Lord Borabolla Laughs On Both Sides Of His Face
CHAPTER XCVI Samoa A Surgeon
CHAPTER XCVII Faith And Knowledge
CHAPTER XCVIII The Tale Of A Traveler
CHAPTER XCIX "Marnee Ora, Ora Marnee"
CHAPTER C The Pursuer Himself Is Pursued
CHAPTER CI The Iris
CHAPTER CII They Depart From Mondoldo
CHAPTER CIII As They Sail
CHAPTER CIV Wherein Babbalanja Broaches A Diabolical Theory, And, In His Own Person, Proves It
VOLUME II
CHAPTER I Maramma
CHAPTER II They Land
CHAPTER III They Pass Through The Woods
CHAPTER IV Hivohitee MDCCCXLVIII
CHAPTER V They Visit The Great Morai
CHAPTER VI They Discourse Of The Gods Of Mardi, And Braid-Beard Tells Of One Foni
CHAPTER VII They Visit The Lake Of Yammo
CHAPTER VIII They Meet The Pilgrims At The Temple Of Oro
CHAPTER IX They Discourse Of Alma
CHAPTER X Mohi Tells Of One Ravoo, And They Land To Visit Revaneva, A Flourishing Artisan
CHAPTER XI A Nursery-Tale Of Babbalanja's
CHAPTER XII Landing To Visit Hivohitee The Pontiff, They Encounter An Extraordinary Old Hermit; With Whom Yoomy Has A Confidential Interview, But Learns Little
CHAPTER XIII Babbalanja Endeavors To Explain The Mystery
CHAPTER XIV Taji Receives Tidings And Omens
CHAPTER XV Dreams
CHAPTER XVI Media And Babbalanja Discourse
CHAPTER XVII They Regale Themselves With Their Pipes
CHAPTER XVIII They Visit An Extraordinary Old Antiquary
CHAPTER XIX They Go Down Into The Catacombs
CHAPTER XX Babbalanja Quotes From An Antique Pagan; And Earnestly Presses It Upon The Company, That What He Recites Is Not His, But Another's
CHAPTER XXI They Visit A Wealthy Old Pauper
CHAPTER XXII Yoomy Sings Some Odd Verses, And Babbalanja Quotes From The Old Authors Right And Left
CHAPTER XXIII What Manner Of Men The Tapparians Were
CHAPTER XXIV Their Adventures Upon Landing At Pimminee
CHAPTER XXV A, I, AND O
CHAPTER XXVI A Reception Day At Pimminee
CHAPTER XXVII Babbalanja Falleth Upon Pimminee Tooth And Nail
CHAPTER XXVIII Babbalanja Regales The Company With Some Sandwiches
CHAPTER XXIX They Still Remain Upon The Rock
CHAPTER XXX Behind And Before
CHAPTER XXXI Babbalanja Discourses In The Dark
CHAPTER XXXII My Lord Media Summons Mohi To The Stand
CHAPTER XXXIII Wherein Babbalanja And Yoomy Embrace
CHAPTER XXXIV Of The Isle Of Diranda
CHAPTER XXXV They Visit The Lords Piko And Hello
CHAPTER XXXVI They Attend The Games
CHAPTER XXXVII Taji Still Hunted, And Beckoned
CHAPTER XXXVIII They Embark From Diranda
CHAPTER XXXIX Wherein Babbalanja Discourses Of Himself
CHAPTER XL Of The Sorcerers In The Isle Of Minda
CHAPTER XLI Chiefly Of Sing Bello
CHAPTER XLII Dominora And Vivenza
CHAPTER XLIII They Land At Dominora
CHAPTER XLIV Through Dominora, They Wander After Yillah
CHAPTER XLV They Behold King Bello's State Canoe
CHAPTER XLVI Wherein Babbalanja Bows Thrice
CHAPTER XLVII Babbalanja Philosophizes, And My Lord Media Passes Round The Calabashes
CHAPTER XLVIII They Sail Round An Island Without Landing; And Talk Round A Subject Without Getting At It
CHAPTER XLIX They Draw Nigh To Porpheero; Where They Behold A Terrific Eruption
CHAPTER L Wherein King Media Celebrates The Glories Of Autumn, The Minstrel, The Promise Of Spring
CHAPTER LI In Which Azzageddi Seems To Use Babbalanja For A Mouth-Piece
CHAPTER LII The Charming Yoomy Sings
CHAPTER LIII They Draw Nigh Unto Land
CHAPTER LIV They Visit The Great Central Temple Of Vivenza
CHAPTER LV Wherein Babbalanja Comments Upon The Speech Of Alanno
CHAPTER LVI A Scene In Tee Land Of Warwicks, Or King-Makers
CHAPTER LVII They Hearken Unto A Voice From The Gods
CHAPTER LVIII They Visit The Extreme South Of Vivenza
CHAPTER LIX They Converse Of The Mollusca, Kings, Toad-Stools And Other Matters
CHAPTER LX Wherein, That Gallant Gentleman And Demi-God, King Media, Scepter In Hand, Throws Himself Into The Breach
CHAPTER LXI They Round The Stormy Cape Of Capes
CHAPTER LXII They Encounter Gold-Hunters
CHAPTER LXIII They Seek Through The Isles Of Palms; And Pass The Isles Of Myrrh
CHAPTER LXIV Concentric, Inward, With Mardi's Reef, They Leave Their Wake Around The World
CHAPTER LXV Sailing On
CHAPTER LXVI A Flight Of Nightingales From Yoomy's Mouth
CHAPTER LXVII They Visit One Doxodox
CHAPTER LXVIII King Media Dreams
CHAPTER LXIX After A Long Interval, By Night They Are Becalmed
CHAPTER LXX They Land At Hooloomooloo
CHAPTER LXXI A Book From The "Ponderings Of Old Bardianna"
CHAPTER LXXII Babbalanja Starts To His Feet
CHAPTER LXXIII At Last, The Last Mention Is Made Of Old Bardianna; And His Last Will And Testament Is Recited At Length
CHAPTER LXXIV A Death-Cloud Sweeps By Them, As They Sail
CHAPTER LXXV They Visit The Palmy King Abrazza
CHAPTER LXXVI Some Pleasant, Shady Talk In The Groves, Between My Lords Abrazza And Media, Babbalanja, Mohi, And Yoomy
CHAPTER LXXVII They Sup
CHAPTER LXXVIII They Embark
CHAPTER LXXIX Babbalanja At The Full Of The Moon
CHAPTER LXXX Morning
CHAPTER LXXXI L'ultima Sera
CHAPTER LXXXII They Sail From Night To Day
CHAPTER LXXXIII They Land
CHAPTER LXXXIV Babbalanja Relates To Them A Vision
CHAPTER LXXXV They Depart From Serenia
CHAPTER LXXXVI They Meet The Phantoms
CHAPTER LXXXVII They Draw Nigh To Flozella
CHAPTER LXXXVIII They Land
CHAPTER LXXXIX They Enter The Bower Of Hautia
CHAPTER XC Taji With Hautia
CHAPTER XCI Mardi Behind: An Ocean BeforeVOLUME I
CHAPTER I Foot In Stirrup
We are off! The courses and topsails are set: the coral-hung anchor swings from the bow: and together, the three royals are given to the breeze, that follows us out to sea like the baying of a hound. Out spreads the canvas–alow, aloft-boom-stretched, on both sides, with many a stun’ sail; till like a hawk, with pinions poised, we shadow the sea with our sails, and reelingly cleave the brine.
But whence, and whither wend ye, mariners?
We sail from Ravavai, an isle in the sea, not very far northward from the tropic of Capricorn, nor very far westward from Pitcairn’s island, where the mutineers of the Bounty settled. At Ravavai I had stepped ashore some few months previous; and now was embarked on a cruise for the whale, whose brain enlightens the world.
And from Ravavai we sail for the Gallipagos, otherwise called the Enchanted Islands, by reason of the many wild currents and eddies there met.
Now, round about those isles, which Dampier once trod, where the Spanish bucaniers once hived their gold moidores, the Cachalot, or sperm whale, at certain seasons abounds.
But thither, 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 monotonous; 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; standing 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 hermit goats winding down to the sea, in a ravine; and presently, a signal: a tattered flag upon a summit beyond. Well knowing, however, that there was nobody on the island but two or three noose-fulls of runaway convicts from Chili, our captain had no mind to comply with their invitation to land. Though, haply, he may have erred 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 leeward.
In good time making the desired longitude 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 prey. For some of their hunters believe, that whales, like the silver ore in Peru, run in veins through the ocean. So, day after day, daily; and week after week, weekly, we traversed the self-same longitudinal intersection 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 naught.
It was during this weary time, that I experienced the first symptoms of that bitter impatience 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 precisely to my mind. There was no soul a magnet to mine; none with whom to mingle sympathies; save in deploring the calms with which we were now and then overtaken; or in hailing the breeze when it came. Under other and livelier auspices the tarry knaves 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 mettle. 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 trump; 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 sociable, nay, loquacious, 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 quotation from Burton on Blue Devils; what to me, indeed, were flat repetitions of long-drawn yarns, and the everlasting stanzas of Black-eyed Susan sung by our full forecastle choir? Staler than stale ale.
Ay, ay, Arcturion! I say it in no malice, 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 rusty 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, chronologically 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 lurked 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 broiling coast of Papua? That region of sun- strokes, typhoons, and bitter pulls after whales unattainable. Far worse. We were going, it seemed, to illustrate the Whistonian theory concerning the damned and the comets;–hurried from equinoctial heats to arctic frosts. To be short, with the true fickleness of his tribe, our skipper had abandoned all thought of the Cachalot. In desperation, he was bent 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 juncture may perhaps be hard to understand. But this much let me say: that Right whaling on the Nor’-West Coast, in chill and dismal fogs, the sullen inert monsters rafting the sea all round like Hartz forest logs on the Rhine, and submitting to the harpoon like half-stunned bullocks to the knife; this horrid and indecent Right whaling, I say, compared to a spirited hunt for the gentlemanly Cachalot in southern and more genial seas, is as the butchery of white bears upon blank Greenland icebergs to zebra hunting in Caffraria, where the lively quarry bounds before you through leafy glades.
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 detailed. 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 vile 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 tar. Sperm and spermaceti! It was unendurable.
“Captain,” said I, touching my sombrero to him as I stood at the wheel one day, “It’s very hard to carry me off this way to purgatory. 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 gulf 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 prospect extended into an immensity of Macassar. “Sir,” said I, “I did not ship for it; put me ashore somewhere, I beseech.” He stared, but no answer vouchsafed; and for a moment I thought I had roused the domineering spirit of the sea-captain, to the prejudice of the more kindly 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 bravado. It savored 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 spun a long yarn about being the only survivors 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 hearty, and stolen away from her, off soundings. Among seamen 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 Cape Horn, waits not for port. He regards that ocean as one mighty 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 bagatelle.
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 allotted two hours at the mast-head. It was toward the close of a day, serene 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 planks of the dull, plodding ship, silent from stem to stern; then abroad.
In the distance what visions were spread! The entire western horizon high piled with gold and crimson clouds; airy arches, domes, and minarets; as if the yellow, Moorish sun were setting behind some vast Alhambra. Vistas 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 cadence of mild billows laving a beach of shells, the waving of boughs, and the voices of maidens, and the lulled 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 wrought upon me so, that thenceforth my desire to quit the Arcturion became little short of a frenzy.CHAPTER II A Calm
Next day there was a calm, which added not a little to my impatience of the ship. And, furthermore, by certain nameless associations revived in me my old impressions upon first witnessing as a landsman this phenomenon of the sea. Those impressions may merit a page.
To a landsman a calm is no joke. It not only revolutionizes his abdomen, but unsettles his mind; tempts him to recant his belief in the eternal fitness of things; in short, almost makes an infidel of him.
At first he is taken by surprise, never having dreamt of a state of existence where existence itself seems suspended. He shakes himself in his coat, to see whether it be empty or no. He closes his eyes, to test the reality of the glassy expanse. He fetches a deep breath, by way of experiment, and for the sake of witnessing the effect. If a reader of books, Priestley on Necessity occurs to him; and he believes in that old Sir Anthony Absolute to the very last chapter. His faith in Malte Brun, however, begins to fail; for the geography, which from boyhood he had implicitly confided in, always assured him, that though expatiating all over the globe, the sea was at least margined by land. That over against America, for example, was Asia. But it is a calm, and he grows madly skeptical.
To his alarmed fancy, parallels and meridians become emphatically what they are merely designated as being: imaginary lines drawn round the earth’s surface.
The log assures him that he is in such a place; but the log is a liar; for no place, nor any thing possessed of a local angularity, is to be lighted upon in the watery waste.
At length horrible doubts overtake him as to the captain’s competency to navigate his ship. The ignoramus must have lost his way, and drifted into the outer confines of creation, the region of the everlasting lull, introductory to a positive vacuity.
Thoughts of eternity thicken. He begins to feel anxious concerning his soul.
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