Chapter 21

A WHALEMAN AND A MAN-OF-WAR'S-MAN

The sight of the whales mentioned in the preceding chapter was the

bringing out of Larry, one of our crew, who hitherto had been quite

silent and reserved, as if from some conscious inferiority, though he

had shipped as an ordinary seaman, and, for aught I could see, performed

his duty very well.

When the men fell into a dispute concerning what kind of whales they

were which we saw, Larry stood by attentively, and after garnering in

their ignorance, all at once broke out, and astonished every body by his

intimate acquaintance with the monsters.

"They ar'n't sperm whales," said Larry, "their spouts ar'n't bushy

enough; they ar'n't Sulphur-bottoms, or they wouldn't stay up so long;

they ar'n't Hump-backs, for they ar'n't got any humps; they ar'n't

Fin-backs, for you won't catch a Finback so near a ship; they ar'n't

Greenland whales, for we ar'n't off the coast of Greenland; and they

ar'n't right whales, for it wouldn't be right to say so. I tell ye, men,

them's Crinkum-crankum whales."

"And what are them?" said a sailor.

"Why, them is whales that can't be cotched."

Now, as it turned out that this Larry had been bred to the sea in a

whaler, and had sailed out of Nantucket many times; no one but Jackson

ventured to dispute his opinion; and even Jackson did not press him very

hard. And ever after, Larry's judgment was relied upon concerning all

strange fish that happened to float by us during the voyage; for

whalemen are far more familiar with the wonders of the deep than any

other class of seaman.

This was Larry's first voyage in the merchant service, and that was the

reason why, hitherto, he had been so reserved; since he well knew that

merchant seamen generally affect a certain superiority to "blubber-

boilers," as they contemptuously style those who hunt the leviathan.

But Larry turned out to be such an inoffensive fellow, and so well

understood his business aboard ship, and was so ready to jump to an

order, that he was exempted from the taunts which he might otherwise

have encountered.

He was a somewhat singular man, who wore his hat slanting forward over

the bridge of his nose, with his eyes cast down, and seemed always

examining your boots, when speaking to you. I loved to hear him talk

about the wild places in the Indian Ocean, and on the coast of

Madagascar, where he had frequently touched during his whaling voyages.

And this familiarity with the life of nature led by the people in that

remote part of the world, had furnished Larry with a sentimental

distaste for civilized society. When opportunity offered, he never

omitted extolling the delights of the free and easy Indian Ocean.

"Why," said Larry, talking through his nose, as usual, "in Madagasky

there, they don't wear any togs at all, nothing but a bowline round the

midships; they don't have no dinners, but keeps a dinin' all day off fat

pigs and dogs; they don't go to bed any where, but keeps a noddin' all

the time; and they gets drunk, too, from some first rate arrack they

make from cocoa-nuts; and smokes plenty of 'baccy, too, I tell ye. Fine

country, that! Blast Ameriky, I say!"

To tell the truth, this Larry dealt in some illiberal insinuations

against civilization.

"And what's the use of bein' snivelized!" said he to me one night during

our watch on deck; "snivelized chaps only learns the way to take on

'bout life, and snivel. You don't see any Methodist chaps feelin'

dreadful about their souls; you don't see any darned beggars and pesky

constables in Madagasky, I tell ye; and none o' them kings there gets

their big toes pinched by the gout. Blast Ameriky, I say."

Indeed, this Larry was rather cutting in his innuendoes.

"Are you now, Buttons, any better off for bein' snivelized?" coming

close up to me and eying the wreck of my gaff-topsail-boots very

steadfastly. "No; you ar'n't a bit--but you're a good deal worse for it,

Buttons. I tell ye, ye wouldn't have been to sea here, leadin' this

dog's life, if you hadn't been snivelized--that's the cause why, now.

Snivelization has been the ruin on ye; and it's spiled me complete; I

might have been a great man in Madagasky; it's too darned bad! Blast

Ameriky, I say." And in bitter grief at the social blight upon his whole

past, present, and future, Larry turned away, pulling his hat still

lower down over the bridge of his nose.

In strong contrast to Larry, was a young man-of-war's man we had, who

went by the name of "Gun-Deck," from his always talking of sailor life

in the navy. He was a little fellow with a small face and a prodigious

mop of brown hair; who always dressed in man-of-war style, with a wide,

braided collar to his frock, and Turkish trowsers. But he particularly

prided himself upon his feet, which were quite small; and when we washed

down decks of a morning, never mind how chilly it might be, he always

took off his boots, and went paddling about like a duck, turning out his

pretty toes to show his charming feet.

He had served in the armed steamers during the Seminole War in Florida,

and had a good deal to say about sailing up the rivers there, through

the everglades, and popping off Indians on the banks. I remember his

telling a story about a party being discovered at quite a distance from

them; but one of the savages was made very conspicuous by a pewter

plate, which he wore round his neck, and which glittered in the sun.

This plate proved his death; for, according to Gun-Deck, he himself shot

it through the middle, and the ball entered the wearer's heart. It was a

rat-killing war, he said.

Gun-Deck had touched at Cadiz: had been to Gibraltar; and ashore at

Marseilles. He had sunned himself in the Bay of Naples: eaten figs and

oranges in Messina; and cheerfully lost one of his hearts at Malta,

among the ladies there. And about all these things, he talked like a

romantic man-of-war's man, who had seen the civilized world, and loved

it; found it good, and a comfortable place to live in. So he and Larry

never could agree in their respective views of civilization, and of

savagery, of the Mediterranean and Madagasky.