I mention this circumstance, because, as if the cows and
calves had been purposely locked up in this innermost fold;
and as if the wide extent of the herd had hitherto prevented them
from learning the precise cause of its stopping; or, possibly,
being so young, unsophisticated, and every way innocent
and inexperienced; however it may have been, these smaller whales--
now and then visiting our becalmed boat from the margin of the lake--
evinced a wondrous fearlessness and confidence, or else a still
becharmed panic which it was impossible not to marvel at.
Like household dogs they came snuffling round us,
right up to our gunwales, and touching them; till it almost
seemed that some spell had suddenly domesticated them.
Queequeg patted their foreheads; Starbuck scratched their backs
with his lance; but fearful of the consequences, for the time
refrained from darting it.
But far beneath this wondrous world upon the surface, another and
still stranger world met our eyes as we gazed over the side.
For, suspended in those watery vaults, floated the forms
of the nursing mothers of the whales, and those that by their
enormous girth seemed shortly to become mothers. The lake, as I
have hinted, was to a considerable depth exceedingly transparent;
and as human infants while suckling will calmly and fixedly gaze
away from the breast, as if leading two different lives at the time;
and while yet drawing mortal nourishment, be still spiritually
feasting upon some unearthly reminiscence;--even so did the young
of these whales seem looking up towards us, but not at us,
as if we were but a bit of Gulfweed in their new-born sight.
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