e 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 savo