 rather had I seen Moby-Dick and fought him, than to have seen thee, thou
white ghost!«
    »What was it, sir?« said Flask.
    »The great live squid, which, they say, few whale-ships ever beheld, and
returned to their ports to tell of it.«
    But Ahab said nothing; turning his boat, he sailed back to the vessel; the
rest as silently following.
    Whatever superstitions the sperm whalemen in general have connected with the
sight of this object, certain it is, that a glimpse of it being so very unusual,
that circumstance has gone far to invest it with portentousness. So rarely is it
beheld, that though one and all of them declare it to be the largest animated
thing in the ocean, yet very few of them have any but the most vague ideas
concerning its true nature and form; notwithstanding, they believe it to furnish
to the sperm whale his only food. For though other species of whales find their
food above water, and may be seen by man in the act of feeding, the spermaceti
whale obtains his whole food in unknown zones below the surface; and only by
inference is it that any one can tell of what, precisely, that food consists. At
times, when closely pursued, he will disgorge what are supposed to be the
detached arms of the squid; some of them thus exhibited exceeding twenty and
thirty feet in length. They fancy that the monster to which these arms belonged
ordinarily clings by them to the bed of the ocean; and that the sperm whale,
unlike other species, is supplied with teeth in order to attack and tear it.
    There seems some ground to imagine that the great Kraken of Bishop
Pontoppodan may ultimately resolve itself into Squid. The manner in which the
Bishop describes it, as alternately rising and sinking, with some other
particulars he narrates, in all this the two correspond. But much abatement is
necessary with respect to the incredible bulk he assigns it.
    By some naturalists who have vaguely heard rumours of the mysterious
creature, here spoken of, it is included among the class of cuttle-fish, to
which, indeed, in certain external respects it would seem to belong, but only as
the Anak of the tribe.
 

                                   Chapter LX

                                    The Line

With reference to the whaling scene shortly to be described, as well as for the
better understanding of all similar scenes elsewhere presented, I have here to
speak of the magical, sometimes horrible whale-line.
    The line originally used in the fishery was of the best hemp, slightly
vapoured with tar, not impregnated
