by that coffin, for almost one whole day and night, I floated on
a soft and dirge-like main. The unharming sharks, they glided by as if with
padlocks on their mouths; the savage sea-hawks sailed with sheathed beaks. On
the second day, a sail drew near, nearer, and picked me up at last. It was the
devious-cruising »Rachel,« that in her retracing search after her missing
children only found another orphan.
 

                                     Notes

1 See subsequent chapters for something more on this head.
 
2 I am aware that down to the present time, the fish styled Lamatins and Dugongs
(Pig-fish and Sow-fish of the Coffins of Nantucket) are included by many
naturalists among the whales. But as these pig-fish are a nosy, contemptible
set, mostly lurking in the mouths of rivers, and feeding on wet hay, and
especially as they do not spout, I deny their credentials as whales; and have
presented them with their passports to quit the Kingdom of Cetology.
 
3 Why this book of whales is not denominated the Quarto is very plain. Because,
while the whales of this order, though smaller than those of the former order,
nevertheless retain a proportionate likeness to them in figure, yet the
bookbinder's Quarto volume in its diminished form does not preserve the shape of
the Folio volume, but the Octavo volume does.
 
4 With reference to the Polar bear, it may possibly be urged by him who would
fain go still deeper into this matter, that it is not the whiteness, separately
regarded, which heightens the intolerable hideousness of that brute; for,
analysed, that heightened hideousness, it might be said, only arises from the
circumstance, that the irresponsible ferociousness of the creature stands
invested in the fleece of celestial innocence and love: and hence, by bringing
together two such opposite emotions in our minds, the Polar bear frightens us
with so unnatural a contrast. But even assuming all this to be true; yet, were
it not for the whiteness, you would not have that intensified terror.
As for the white shark, the white gliding ghostliness of repose in that
creature, when beheld in his ordinary moods, strangely tallies with the same
quality in the Polar quadruped. This peculiarity is most vividly hit by the
French in the name they bestow upon that fish. The Romish mass for the dead
begins with »Requiem eternam« (eternal rest), whence Requiem denominating the
mass itself, and any other funereal music. Now, in allusion to the white, silent
stillness of death in this shark, and