For such is the wonderful skill, prescience of experience,
and invincible confidence acquired by some great natural geniuses among
the Nantucket commanders; that from the simple observation of a whale
when last descried, they will, under certain given circumstances,
pretty accurately foretell both the direction in which he will continue
to swim for a time, while out of sight, as well as his probable
rate of progression during that period. And, in these cases,
somewhat as a pilot, when about losing sight of a coast, whose general
trending he well knows, and which he desires shortly to return to again,
but at some further point; like as this pilot stands by his compass,
and takes the precise bearing of the cape at present visible,
in order the more certainly to hit aright the remote, unseen headland,
eventually to be visited: so does the fisherman, at his compass,
with the whale; for after being chased, and diligently marked,
through several hours of daylight, then, when night obscures
the fish, the creature's future wake through the darkness is almost
as established to the sagacious mind of the hunter, as the pilot's
coast is to him. So that to this hunter's wondrous skill,
the proverbial evanescence of a thing writ in water, a wake,
is to all desired purposes well nigh as reliable as the steadfast land.
Pages:
863
864
865
866
867
868
869
870
871
872
873
874
875
876
877
878
879
880
881
882
883
884
885
886
887