Now, in the whale ship, it is not every one that goes in the boats.
Some few hands are reserved called shipkeepers, whose province it
is to work the vessel while the boats are pursuing the whale.
As a general thing, these shipkeepers are as hardy fellows
as the men comprising the boats' crews. But if there happen
to be an unduly slender, clumsy, or timorous wight in the ship,
that wight is certain to be made a ship-keeper. It was so in the Pequod
with the little negro Pippin by nick-name, Pip by abbreviation.
Poor Pip! ye have heard of him before; ye must remember his tambourine
on that dramatic midnight, so gloomy-jolly.
In outer aspect, Pip and Dough-Boy made a match, like a black pony
and a white one, of equal developments, though of dissimilar color,
driven in one eccentric span. But while hapless Dough-Boy was by nature
dull and torpid in his intellects, Pip, though over tender-hearted,
was at bottom very bright, with that pleasant, genial, jolly brightness
peculiar to his tribe; a tribe, which ever enjoy all holidays
and festivities with finer, freer relish than any other race.
For blacks, the year's calendar should show naught but three hundred
and sixty-five Fourth of Julys and New Year's Days.
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