Nor can any son of mortal woman, for the first time, seat himself amid
those hempen intricacies, and while straining his utmost at the oar,
bethink him that at any unknown instant the harpoon may be darted,
and all these horrible contortions be put in play like ringed lightnings;
he cannot be thus circumstanced without a shudder that makes
the very marrow in his bones to quiver in him like a shaken jelly.
Yet habit--strange thing! what cannot habit accomplish?--Gayer sallies,
more merry mirth, better jokes, and brighter repartees, you never
heard over your mahogany, than you will hear over the half-inch
white cedar of the whaleboat, when thus hung in hangman's nooses;
and, like the six burghers of Calais before King Edward, the six
men composing the crew pull into the jaws of death, with a halter
around every neck, as you may say.
Perhaps a very little thought will now enable you to account
for those repeated whaling disasters--some few of which are
casually chronicled--of this man or that man being taken out of
the boat by the line, and lost. For, when the line is darting out,
to be seated then in the boat, is like being seated in the midst
of the manifold whizzings of a steam-engine in full play,
when every flying beam, and shaft, and wheel, is grazing you.
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