This was still more strangely evinced
by those of their number, who, completely paralysed as it were,
helplessly floated like water-logged dismantled ships on the sea.
Had these Leviathans been but a flock of simple sheep,
pursued over the pasture by three fierce wolves, they could not
possibly have evinced such excessive dismay. But this occasional
timidity is characteristic of almost all herding creatures.
Though banding together in tens of thousands, the lion-maned
buffaloes of the West have fled before a solitary horseman.
Witness, too, all human beings, how when herded together in the sheepfold
of a theatre's pit, they will, at the slightest alarm of fire,
rush helter-skelter for the outlets, crowding, trampling, jamming,
and remorselessly dashing each other to death. Best, therefore,
withhold any amazement at the strangely gallied whales before us,
for there is no folly of the beasts of the earth which is not
infinitely outdone by the madness of men.
* To gally, or gallow, is to frighten excessively--
to confound with fright. It is an old Saxon word.
It occurs once in Shakespeare:--
The wrathful skies Gallow the very wanderers of the dark And make
them keep their caves.
Pages:
605
606
607
608
609
610
611
612
613
614
615
616
617
618
619
620
621
622
623
624
625
626
627
628
629