But if we Southern whale-fishers are not so snugly housed aloft
as Captain Sleet and his Greenlandmen were; yet that disadvantage
is greatly counter-balanced by the widely contrasting serenity
of those seductive seas in which we South fishers mostly float.
For one, I used to lounge up the rigging very leisurely,
resting in the top to have a chat with Queequeg, or any one
else off duty whom I might find there; then ascending a little
way further, and throwing a lazy leg over the top-sail yard,
take a preliminary view of the watery pastures, and so at last
mount to my ultimate destination.
Let me make a clean breast of it here, and frankly admit
that I kept but sorry guard. With the problem of the universe
revolving in me, how could I--being left completely to myself
at such a thought-engendering altitude--how could I but lightly
hold my obligations to observe all whaleships' standing orders,
"Keep your weather eye open, and sing out every time."
And let me in this place movingly admonish you, ye ship-owners
of Nantucket! Beware of enlisting in your vigilant fisheries any lad
with lean brow and hollow eye; given to unseasonable meditativeness;
and who offers to ship with the Phaedon instead of Bowditch in his head.
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