's Voyages,
speaks of a Turkish Mosque built in honour of Jonah, in which Mosque was
a miraculous lamp that burnt without any oil.

CHAPTER 84. Pitchpoling.

To make them run easily and swiftly, the axles of carriages are
anointed; and for much the same purpose, some whalers perform an
analogous operation upon their boat; they grease the bottom. Nor is it
to be doubted that as such a procedure can do no harm, it may possibly
be of no contemptible advantage; considering that oil and water are
hostile; that oil is a sliding thing, and that the object in view is to
make the boat slide bravely. Queequeg believed strongly in anointing
his boat, and one morning not long after the German ship Jungfrau
disappeared, took more than customary pains in that occupation; crawling
under its bottom, where it hung over the side, and rubbing in the
unctuousness as though diligently seeking to insure a crop of hair from
the craft's bald keel. He seemed to be working in obedience to some
particular presentiment. Nor did it remain unwarranted by the event.

Towards noon whales were raised; but so soon as the ship sailed down to
them, they turned and fled with swift precipitancy; a disordered flight,
as of Cleopatra's barges from Actium.

Nevertheless, the boats pursued, and Stubb's was foremost. By great
exertion, Tashtego at last succeeded in planting one iron; but the
stricken whale, without at all sounding, still continued his horizontal
flight, with added fleetness. Such unintermitted strainings upon the
planted iron must sooner or later inevitably extract it. It became
imperative to lance the flying whale, or be content to lose him. But
to haul the boat up to his flank was impossible, he swam so fast and
furious. What then remained?

Of all the wondrous devices and dexterities, the sleights of hand and
countless subtleties, to which the veteran whaleman is so often forced,
none exceed that fine manoeuvre with the lance called pitchpoling. Small
sword, or broad sword, in all its exercises boasts nothing like it. It
is only indispensable with an inveterate running whale; its grand
fact and feature is the wonderful distance to which the long lance is
accurately darted from a violently rocking, jerking boat, under extreme
headway. Steel and wood included, the entire spear is some ten or twelve
feet in length; the staff is much slighter than that of the harpoon,
and also of a lighter material--pine. It is furnished with a small r