Nor even down to so late a time as Cuvier's, were these or almost
similar impressions effaced. For in his Natural History,
the Baron himself affirms that at sight of the Sperm Whale, all fish
(sharks included) are "struck with the most lively terrors,"
and "often in the precipitancy of their flight dash themselves against
the rocks with such violence as to cause instantaneous death."
And however the general experiences in the fishery may amend
such reports as these; yet in their full terribleness, even to the
bloodthirsty item of Povelson, the superstitious belief in them is,
in some vicissitudes of their vocation, revived in the minds
of the hunters.
So that overawed by the rumors and portents concerning him,
not a few of the fishermen recalled, in reference to Moby Dick,
the earlier days of the Sperm Whale fishery, when it was oftentimes
hard to induce long practised Right whalemen to embark in the perils
of this new and daring warfare; such men protesting that although
other leviathans might be hopefully pursued, yet to chase and point
lances at such an apparition as the Sperm Whale was not for mortal man.
That to attempt it, would be inevitably to be torn into a quick eternity.
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