 the marvels of his outer aspect; or separately and in detail upon some few
interior structural features. But to a large and thorough sweeping comprehension
of him, it behoves me now to unbutton him still further, and untagging the
points of his hose unbuckling his garters, and casting loose the hooks and the
eyes of the joints of his innermost bones, set him before you in his ultimatum;
that is to say, in his unconditional skeleton.
    But how now, Ishmael? How is it, that you, a mere oarsman in the fishery,
pretend to know aught about the subterranean parts of the whale? Did erudite
Stubb, mounted upon your capstan, deliver lectures on the anatomy of the
Cetacea; and by help of the windlass hold up a specimen rib for exhibition?
Explain thyself Ishmael. Can you land a full-grown whale on your deck for
examination, as a cook dishes a roast-pig? Surely not. A veritable witness have
you hitherto been Ishmael; but have a care how you seize the privilege of Jonah
alone; the privilege of discoursing upon the joists and beams; the rafters,
ridge-pole, sleepers, and under-pinnings, making up the framework of Leviathan;
and belike of the tallow-vats, dairy-rooms, butteries and cheeseries in his
bowels.
    I confess, that since Jonah, few whalemen have penetrated very far beneath
the skin of the adult whale; nevertheless, I have been blessed with an
opportunity to dissect him in miniature. In a ship I belonged to, a small cub
sperm whale was once bodily hoisted to the deck for his poke or bag, to make
sheaths for the barbs of the harpoons, and for the heads of the lances. Think
you I let that chance go, without using my boat-hatchet and jack-knife, and
breaking the seal and reading all the contents of that young cub?
    And as for my exact knowledge of the bones of the leviathan in their
gigantic, full-grown development, for that rare knowledge I am indebted to my
late royal friend Tranquo, king of Tranque, one of the Arsacides. For being at
Tranque years ago, when attached to the trading-ship Dey of Algiers, I was
invited to spend part of the Arsacidean holidays with the lord of Tranque, at
his retired palm villa at Pupella; a seaside glen not very far distant from what
our sailors called Bamboo-Town, his capital.
    Among many other fine qualities, my royal friend Tranquo, being gifted with
a devout love for all matters of barbaric vertù, had brought together in Pupella
whatever rare things
