.. < chapter lxxxiii 26  JONAH HISTORICALLY REGARDED >

     Reference was made to
the historical story of Jonah and the whale in the preceding chapter.  Now
some Nantucketers rather distrust this historical story of Jonah and the
whale.  But then there were some sceptical Greeks and Romans, who, standing
out from the orthodox pagans of their times, equally doubted the story of
Hercules and the whale, and Arion and the dolphin;
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and yet their doubting those traditions did not make those traditions one
whit the less facts, for all that.  One old Sag-Harbor whaleman's chief reason
for questioning the Hebrew story was this: --He had one of those quaint
old-fashioned Bibles, embellished with curious, unscientific plates; one of
which represented Jonah's whale with two spouts in his head --a peculiarity
only true with respect to a species of the Leviathan (the Right Whale, and
the varieties of that order), concerning which the fishermen have this saying,

     A penny roll would choke him; his swallow is so very small.  But, to this,

     Bishop Jebb's anticipative answer is ready.  It is not necessary, hints the
Bishop, that we consider Jonah as tombed in the whale's belly, but as
temporarily lodged in some part of his mouth.  And this seems reasonable
enough in the good Bishop.  For truly, the Right Whale's mouth would
accommodate a couple of whist tables, and comfortably seat all the players.
Possibly, too, Jonah might have ensconced himself in a hollow tooth; but, on
second thoughts, the Right Whale is toothless.  Another reason which
Sag-Harbor (he went by that name) urged for his want of faith in this matter
of the prophet, was something obscurely in reference to his incarcerated body
and the whale's gastric juices.  But this objection likewise falls to the
ground, because a German exegetist supposes that Jonah must have taken refuge
in the floating body of a dead whale -- even as the French soldiers in the
Russian campaign turned their dead horses into tents, and crawled into them.
Besides, it has been divined by other continental commentators, that when
Jonah was thrown overboard from the Joppa ship, he straightway effected his
escape to another vessel near by, some vessel with a whale for a figure-head;

     and, I would add, possibly called The Whale, as some craft are nowadays
christened the Shark, the Gull, the Eagle.  Nor have there been wanting
learned exegetists who have opined that the whale mentioned in the book of
Jonah merely meant a life-preserver --an inflated bag of wind --which the
endangered prophet swam to, and so was saved from a watery doom.  Poor
Sag-Harbor, therefore, seems worsted all round.  But he had still another
reason for his want of faith.  It was this, if I remember right: Jonah was
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swallowed by the whale in the Mediterranean Sea, and after three days he was
vomited up somewhere within three days' journey of Nineveh, a city on the
Tigris, very much more than three days' journey across from the nearest point
of the Mediterranean coast.  How is that?  But was there no other way for the
whale to land the prophet within that short distance of Nineveh?  Yes.  He
might have carried him round by the way of the Cape of Good Hope.  But not to
speak of the passage through the whole length of the Mediterranean, and
another passage up the Persian Gulf and Red Sea, such a supposition would
involve the complete circumnavigation of all Africa in three days, not to
speak of the Tigris waters, near the site of Nineveh, being too shallow for
any whale to swim in.  Besides, this idea of Jonah's weathering the Cape of
Good Hope at so early a day would wrest the honor of the discovery of that
great headland from Bartholomew Diaz, its reputed discoverer, and so make
modern history a liar.  But all these foolish arguments of old Sag-Harbor only
evinced his foolish pride of reason --a thing still more reprehensible in
him, seeing that he had but little learning except what he had picked up from
the sun and the sea.  I say it only shows his foolish, impious pride, and
abominable, devilish rebellion against the reverend clergy.  For by a
Portuguese Catholic priest, this very idea of Jonah's going to Nineveh via
the Cape of Good Hope was advanced as a signal magnification of the general
miracle.  And so it was.  Besides, to this day, the highly enlightened Turks
devoutly believe in the historical story of Jonah.  And some three centuries
ago, an English traveller in old Harris's Voyages, speaks of a Turkish
Mosque built in honor of Jonah, in which mosque was a miraculous lamp that
burnt without any oil.
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