ving is
quite a different affair: the ship hove-to upon the open sea, and in the
very heart of the Leviathanic life, with a Right Whale alongside; the
vessel (in the act of cutting-in) hove over to the monster as if to a
quay; and a boat, hurriedly pushing off from this scene of activity, is
about giving chase to whales in the distance. The harpoons and lances
lie levelled for use; three oarsmen are just setting the mast in its
hole; while from a sudden roll of the sea, the little craft stands
half-erect out of the water, like a rearing horse. From the ship, the
smoke of the torments of the boiling whale is going up like the smoke
over a village of smithies; and to windward, a black cloud, rising up
with earnest of squalls and rains, seems to quicken the activity of the
excited seamen.

CHAPTER 57. Of Whales in Paint; in Teeth; in Wood; in Sheet-Iron; in
Stone; in Mountains; in Stars.

On Tower-hill, as you go down to the London docks, you may have seen a
crippled beggar (or KEDGER, as the sailors say) holding a painted board
before him, representing the tragic scene in which he lost his leg.
There are three whales and three boats; and one of the boats (presumed
to contain the missing leg in all its original integrity) is being
crunched by the jaws of the foremost whale. Any time these ten years,
they tell me, has that man held up that picture, and exhibited that
stump to an incredulous world. But the time of his justification has
now come. His three whales are as good whales as were ever published in
Wapping, at any rate; and his stump as unquestionable a stump as any you
will find in the western clearings. But, though for ever mounted on
that stump, never a stump-speech does the poor whaleman make; but, with
downcast eyes, stands ruefully contemplating his own amputation.

Throughout the Pacific, and also in Nantucket, and New Bedford, and
Sag Harbor, you will come across lively sketches of whales and
whaling-scenes, graven by the fishermen themselves on Sperm Whale-teeth,
or ladies' busks wrought out of the Right Whale-bone, and other
like skrimshander articles, as the whalemen call the numerous little
ingenious contrivances they elaborately carve out of the rough material,
in their hours of ocean leisure. Some of them have little boxes
of dentistical-looking implements, specially intended for the
skrimshandering business. But, in general, they toil with their
jack-knives alone; and, with that almost omnipot