any creature, fish, flesh, or fowl, so
little in love with life, as not to cherish hopes of a future state?
Why does man believe in it? One reason, reckoned cogent, is, that he
desires it. Who shall say, then, that the leviathan this day
harpooned on the coast of Japan, goes not straight to his ancestor,
who rolled all Jonah, as a sweet morsel, under his tongue?

Though herein, some sailors are slow believers, or at best hold
themselves in a state of philosophical suspense. Say they--"That
catastrophe took place in the Mediterranean; and the only whales
frequenting the Mediterranean, are of a sort having not a swallow
large enough to pass a man entire; for those Mediterranean whales
feed upon small things, as horses upon oats." But hence, the sailors
draw a rash inference. Are not the Straits of Gibralter wide enough
to admit a sperm-whale, even though none have sailed through, since
Nineveh and the gourd in its suburbs dried up?

As for the possible hereafter of the whales; a creature eighty feet
long without stockings, and thirty feet round the waist before
dinner, is not inconsiderately to be consigned to annihilation.

CHAPTER XCV
That Jolly Old Lord Borabolla Laughs On Both Sides Of His Face

"A very good palace, this, coz, for you and me," said waddling old
Borabolla to Media, as, returned from our excursion, he slowly
lowered himself down to his mat, sighing like a grampus.

By this, he again made known the vastness of his hospitality, which
led him for the nonce to parcel out his kingdom with his guests.

But apart from these extravagant expressions of good feeling,
Borabolla was the prince of good fellows. His great tun of a person
was indispensable to the housing of his bullock-heart; under which,
any lean wight would have sunk. But alas! unlike Media and Taji,
Borabolla, though a crowned king, was accounted no demi-god; his
obesity excluding him from that honor. Indeed, in some quarters of
Mardi, certain pagans maintain, that no fat man can be even immortal.
A dogma! truly, which should be thrown to the dogs. For fat men are
the salt and savor of the earth; full of good humor, high spirits,
fun, and all manner of jollity. Their breath clears the atmosphere:
their exhalations air the world. Of men, they are the good measures;
brimmed, heaped, pressed down, piled up, and running over. They are
as ships from Teneriffe; swimming deep, full of old wine, and twenty
steps down into their holds. Soft and