.. < chapter lviii 11  BRIT >

     Steering north-eastward from the Crozetts, we
fell in with vast meadows of brit, the minute, yellow substance, upon which
the Right Whale largely feeds.  For leagues and leagues it undulated round us,

     so that we seemed to be sailing through boundless fields of ripe and golden
wheat.  On the second day, numbers of Right Whales were seen, who, secure
from the attack of a Sperm Whaler like the Pequod, with open jaws sluggishly
swam through the brit, which, adhering to the fringing fibres of that wondrous
Venetian blind in their mouths, was in that manner separated from the water
that escaped at the lip.  As morning mowers, who side by side slowly and
seethingly advance their scythes through the long wet grass of marshy meads;
even so these monsters swam, making a strange, grassy, cutting sound; and
leaving behind them endless swaths of blue upon the yellow sea.
.. 

But it was only the sound they made as they parted the brit which at all
reminded one of mowers.  Seen from the mast-heads, especially when they paused
and were stationary for a while, their vast black forms looked more like
lifeless masses of rock than anything else.  And as in the great hunting
countries of India, the stranger at a distance will sometimes pass on the
plains recumbent elephants without knowing them to be such, taking them for
bare, blackened elevations of the soil; even so, often, with him, who for the
first time beholds this species of the leviathans of the sea.  And even when
recognised at last, their immense magnitude renders it very hard really to
believe that such bulky masses of overgrowth can possibly be instinct, in all
parts, with the same sort of life that lives in a dog or a horse.  Indeed, in
other respects, you can hardly regard any creatures of the deep with the same
feelings that you do those of the shore.  For though some old naturalists have
maintained that all creatures of the land are of their kind in the sea; and
though taking a broad general view of the thing, this may very well be; yet
coming to specialties, where, for example, does the ocean furnish any fish
that in disposition answers to the sagacious kindness of the dog?  The
accursed shark alone can in any generic respect be said to bear comparative
analogy to him.  But though, to landsmen in general, the native inhabitants
of the seas have ever been regarded with emotions unspeakably unsocial and
repelling; though we know the sea to be an everlasting terra incognita, so
that Columbus sailed over numberless unknown worlds to discover his one
superficial western one; though, by vast odds, the most terrific of all mortal
disasters have immemorially and indiscriminately befallen tens and hundreds
of thousands of those who have gone upon the waters; though but a moment's
consideration will teach, that however baby man may brag of his science and
skill, and however much, in a flattering future, that science and skill may
augment; yet for ever and for ever, to the crack of doom, the sea will
insult and murder him, and pulverize the stateliest, stiffest frigate he can
make; nevertheless, by the continual repetition of these
.. 

very impressions, man has lost that sense of the full awfulness of the sea
which aboriginally belongs to it.  The first boat we read of, floated on an
ocean, that with Portuguese vengeance had whelmed a whole world without
leaving so much as a widow.  That same ocean rolls now; that same ocean
destroyed the wrecked ships of last year.  Yea, foolish mortals, Noah's flood
is not yet subsided; two thirds of the fair world it yet covers.  Wherein
differ the sea and the land, that a miracle upon one is not a miracle upon
the other?  Preternatural terrors rested upon the Hebrews, when under the
feet of Korah and his company the live ground opened and swallowed them up for
ever; yet not a modern sun ever sets, but in precisely the same manner the
live sea swallows up ships and crews.  But not only is the sea such a foe to
man who is an alien to it, but it is also a fiend to its own offspring;
worse than the Persian host who murdered his own guests; sparing not the
creatures which itself hath spawned.  Like a savage tigress that tossing in
the jungle overlays her own cubs, so the sea dashes even the mightiest whales
against the rocks, and leaves them there side by side with the split wrecks
of ships.  No mercy, no power but its own controls it.  Panting and snorting
like a mad battle steed that has lost its rider, the masterless ocean
overruns the globe.  Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded
creatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously
hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure.  Consider also the devilish
brilliance and beauty of many of its most remorseless tribes, as the dainty
embellished shape of many species of sharks.  Consider, once more, the
universal cannibalism of the sea; all whose creatures prey upon each other,
carrying on eternal war since the world began.  Consider all this; and then
turn to this green, gentle, and most docile earth; consider them both, the
sea and the land; and do you not find a strange analogy to something in
yourself?  For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the
soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but
encompassed by all the horrors of the half known life.
.. 

God keep thee!  Push not off from that isle, thou canst never return!
.. 

That part of the sea known among whalemen as the Brazil Banks does not bear
that name as the Banks of Newfoundland do, because of there being shallows
and soundings there, but because of this remarkable meadow-like appearance,

     caused by the vast drifts of brit continually floating in those latitudes,
where the Right Whale is often chased.
..