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Melville, Herman, 1819-1891

"Moby Dick: or, the White Whale"

He has been frequently captured there,
and towed into harbor. He has a great pack on him like a peddler;
or you might call him the Elephant and Castle whale. At any rate,
the popular name for him does not sufficiently distinguish him,
since the sperm whale also has a hump though a smaller one.
His oil is not very valuable. He has baleen. He is the most gamesome
and light-hearted of all the whales, making more gay foam and white
water generally than any other of them.
BOOK I. (Folio), CHAPTER V. ( Razor Back).--Of this whale
little is known but his name. I have seen him at a distance
off Cape Horn. Of a retiring nature, he eludes both hunters
and philosophers. Though no coward, he has never yet shown any
part of him but his back, which rises in a long sharp ridge.
Let him go. I know little more of him, nor does anybody else.
BOOK I. (Folio), CHAPTER VI. (Sulphur Bottom).--Another retiring
gentleman, with a brimstone belly, doubtless got by scraping along
the Tartarian tiles in some of his profounder divings. He is seldom seen;
at least I have never seen him except in the remoter southern seas,
and then always at too great a distance to study his countenance.
He is never chased; he would run away with rope-walks of line.


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