45 The Affidavit
CHAPTER 45
THE AFFIDAVIT.
So far as what there may be of a narrative in this book; and, indeed, as indirectly touching one or two very interesting and curious particulars in the habits of sperm whales, the foregoing chapter, in its earlier part, is as important a one as will be found in this volume; but the leading matter of it requires to be still further and more familiarly enlarged upon, in order to be adequately understood, and moreover to take away any incredulity which a profound ignorance of the entire subject may induce in some minds, as to the natural verity of the main points of this affair.
I care not to perform this part of my task methodically; but shall be content to produce the desired impression by separate citations of items, practically or reliably known to me as a whaleman; and from these citations, I take it—the conclusion aimed at will naturally follow of itself.
First: I have personally known three instances where a whale, after receiving a harpoon, has effected a complete escape; and, after an interval (in one instance of three years), has been again struck by the same hand, and slain; when the two irons, both marked by the same private cypher, have been taken from the body. In the instance where three years intervened between the flinging of the two harpoons; and I think it may have been something more than that; the man who darted them happening, in the interval, to go in a trading ship on a voyage to Africa, went ashore there, joined a discovery party, and penetrated far into the interior, where he travelled for a period of nearly two years, often endangered by serpents, savages, tigers, poisonous miasmas, with all the other common perils incident to wandering in the heart of unknown regions. Meanwhile, the whale he had struck must also have been on its travels; no doubt it had thrice circumnavigated the globe, brushing with its flanks all the coasts of Africa; but to no purpose. This man and this whale again came together, and the one vanquished the other. I say I, myself, have known three instances similar to this; that is in two of them I saw the whales struck; and, upon the second attack, saw the two irons with the respective marks cut in them, afterwards taken from the dead fish. In the three-year instance, it so fell out that I was in the boat both times, first and last, and the last time distinctly recognized a peculiar sort of huge mole under the whale’s eye, which I had observed there three years previous. I say three years, but I am pretty sure it was more than that. Here are three instances, then, which I personally know the truth of; but I have heard of many other instances from persons whose veracity in the matter there is no good ground to impeach.
Secondly: It is well known in the Sperm Whale Fishery, however ignorant the world ashore may be of it, that there have been several memorable historical instances where a particular whale in the ocean has been at distant times and places popularly cognisable. Why such a whale became thus marked was not altogether and originally owing to his bodily peculiarities as distinguished from other whales; for however peculiar in that respect any chance whale may be, they soon put an end to his peculiarities by killing him, and boiling him down into a peculiarly valuable oil. No: the reason was this: that from the fatal experiences of the fishery there hung a terrible prestige of perilousness about such a whale as there did about Rinaldo RinaldiniRinaldo Rinaldini: A violent knight in Italian chivalric poems, particularly Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso (revised ed. 1532) and Torquato Tasso’s Rinaldo (1562). Rinaldini is a robber chief in Rinaldo Rinaldini, der Räuberhauptmann (1799–1801), by Christian Vulpius, which became very popular in English translation as a novel and play in the early nineteenth century., insomuch that most fishermen were content to recognise him by merely touching their tarpaulins when he would be discovered lounging by them on the sea, without seeking to cultivate a more intimate acquaintance. Like some poor devils ashore that happen to know an irascible great man, they make distant unobtrusive salutations to him in the street, lest if they pursued the acquaintance further, they might receive a summary thump for their presumption.
But not only did each of these famous whales enjoy great individual celebrity—nay, you may call it an ocean-wide renown; not only was he famous in life and now is immortal in forecastle stories after death, but he was admitted into all the rights, privileges, and distinctions of a name; had as much a name indeed as Cambyses or CæsarCambyses or Cæsar: Cambyses II, sixth-century BCE Persian king and conqueror of Egypt; the Cæsar here is Julius Caesar (100?–48 BCE), dictator of Rome.. Was it not so, O Timor JackTimor Jack] Timor Tom in the American edition: NN, Longman, and MEL emend to Timor Jack. See Revision Narrative for "But this is not all. New Zealand Tom," below.! thou famed leviathan, scarred like an iceberg, who so long did’st lurk in the
Oriental straits
Oriental straits: actually Melville means the Ombai Strait, which separates Alot (once called Ombay) and Timor in Indonesia's Lesser Sunda Islands.
of that name, whose spout was oft seen from the palmy beach of Ombay? Was it not so, O New Zealand TomNew Zealand Tom] New Zealand Jack in the American edition: NN, Longman, and MEL emend to New Zealand Tom. See Revision Narrative for "But this is not all. New Zealand Tom," below.! thou terror of all cruisers that crossed their wakes in the vicinity of the Tattoo LandTattoo Land: New Zealand’s indigenous Maoris were elaborately tattooed.? Was it not so, O Morquan! King of Japan, whose lofty jet they say at times assumed the semblance of a snow-white cross against the sky? Was it not so, O Don Miguel! thou Chilian whale, marked like an old tortoise with mystic hieroglyphics upon the back! In plain prose, here are four whales as well known to the students of Cetacean History as Marius or SyllaMarius or Sylla: The rivalry of generals Marius and Sulla caused a major civil war in second-century BCE Rome. to the classic scholar.
But this is not all. New Zealand TomREVISION NARRATIVE: Was it not so, O Timor Jack…. Was it not so, O New Zealand Tom…. But this is not all. New Zealand Tom //
In attesting to the fame and celebrity of individual whales (like the fictional Moby Dick), Melville invites readers to enjoy the oddity of their names, but a “mix-up” seems to have occurred in the first American edition (NN Moby-Dick 867), which gives these whale names as “Timor Tom … New Zealand Jack … and New Zealand Tom.” Apparently, an editor saw a problem with “New Zealand Tom,” and the first British edition "corrects" it to “New Zealand Jack.” But the correction was misguided. Actually, the first two names are the problem, for two of Melville’s whaling sources (Bennett’s Narrative and Beale’s Natural History) give the proper historical names as “Timor Jack” and “New Zealand Tom.” In fact, Melville underlined “Timor Jack” in his copy of Beale, indicating his awareness of the actual name. One possible scenario concerning the mix-up in the American text involves a compounding of errors: In writing “The Affidavit,” Melville inscribed the whale names from memory, confusing the first two but getting “New Zealand Tom” right, and neglected the inconsistency. The British “correction” of the correct New Zealand “Tom” to the erroneous New Zealand “Jack” only compounded the confusion. In their scholarly edition, the NN editors intervened to bring Melville’s misremembered names into conformity with his whaling sources, emending the first two names to the historically accurate “Timor Jack” and “New Zealand Tom.” Recognizing that the inconsistency in the American edition might unnecessarily confuse readers, Longman and MEL also emend to “Timor Jack” and “New Zealand Tom.” To compare American and British pages, click the thumbnails in the right margin. and Don Miguel, after at various times creating great havoc among the boats of different vessels, were finally gone in quest of, systematically hunted out, chased and killed by valiant whaling captains, who heaved up their anchors with that express object as much in view, as in setting out through the Narragansett Woods, Captain ButlerCaptain Butler . . . Annawon: Melville confused Col. William Butler, who pursued Mohawk leader Joseph Brant (Thayendanegea), with the much earlier Capt. Benjamin Church, commissioned by the Plymouth Colony, who captured Annawon, a Wampanoag chief loyal to King Philip (Pometacom or Metacomet). Brant appears again in Pierre, and Philip in The Confidence-Man. The editors of the NN Moby-Dick revise “Butler” to “Church.” In keeping with its policy of not correcting Melville’s errors of fact, MEL annotates the confusion here but makes no change to its reading text. of old had it in his mind to capture that notorious murderous savage Annawon, the headmost warrior of the Indian King Philip.
I do not know where I can find a better place than just here, to make mention of one or two other things, which to me seem important, as in printed form establishing in all respects the reasonableness of the whole story of the White Whale, more especially the catastrophe. For this is one of those disheartening instances where truth requires full as much bolstering as error. So ignorant are most landsmen of some of the plainest and most palpable wonders of the world, that without some hints touching the plain facts, historical and otherwise, of the fishery, they might scoutscout: scoff. at Moby Dick as a monstrous fable, or still worse and more detestable, a hideous and intolerable allegorya hideous and intolerable allegory: Having registered the white whale’s mythic features in Ch. 41 and essayed the fluid symbolism of its whiteness in Ch. 42, Ishmael here worries that readers will lose sight of the white whale as a living fact and take Moby Dick to be fictional, or more specifically a fable or allegory, which if poorly executed might reduce the whale to an "intolerable" set of fixed meanings. Melville probably added Ch. 45, or this section of it which underscores the “reasonableness” of the book’s “catastrophe” (i.e., the whale’s sinking of the ship), as he was nearing the end of the compositional process..
First: Though most men have some vague flitting ideas of the general perils of the grand fishery, yet they have nothing like a fixed, vivid conception of those perils, and the frequency with which they recur. One reason perhaps is, that not one in fifty of the actual disasters and deaths by casualties in the fishery, ever finds a public record at home, however transient and immediately forgotten that record. Do you suppose that that poor fellow there, who this moment perhaps caught by the whale-line off the coast of New Guinea, is being carried down to the bottom of the sea by the sounding leviathan—do you suppose that that poor fellow’s name will appear in the newspaper obituary you will read to-morrow at your breakfast? No: because the mails are very irregular between here and New Guinea. In fact, did you ever hear what might be called regular news direct or indirect from New Guinea? Yet I tell you that upon one particular voyage which I made to the Pacific, among many others,among many others, we spoke about thirty different ships: The American and British editions do not include a comma after "others"; and its absence is confusing. Without this comma, “among many others” must refer to “thirty different ships,” with the implication that these thirty are only a fraction of the many ships Ishmael met (or “spoke”). In turn, the lack of punctuation would mean that the total number of men reported killed came only from the thirty ships and that many other ships reported no deaths. This reduced death rate would undercut, if not contradict, the conclusion that there is at least one drop of human blood in each gallon of whale oil. However, with the comma included, “among many others” refers to the voyages Ishmael has made in his life, and the implication is that on this one particular voyage, he met thirty ships, each one of which reported at least one death, a fact that substantiates Ishmael’s claim concerning blood and whale oil. The NN edition adds the second comma, as does MEL. we spokespoke: to “speak” a ship at sea is to communicate with it, often with the use of signal flags. thirty different ships, every one of which had had a death by a whale, some of them more than one, and three that had each lost a boat’s crew. For God’s sake, be economical with your lamps and candles! not a gallon you burn, but at least one drop of man’s blood was spilled for it.
Secondly: People ashore have indeed some indefinite idea that a whale is an enormous creature of enormous power; but I have ever found that when narrating to them some specific example of this two-fold enormousness, they have significantly complimented me upon my facetiousness; when, I declare upon my soul, I had no more idea of being facetious than MosesMoses, . . . the plagues of Egypt: Moses, traditional author of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, relates the seven plagues of Egypt in Exodus 7–12., when he wrote the history of the plagues of Egypt.
But fortunately the special point I here seek can be established upon testimony entirely independent of my own. That point is this: The Sperm Whale is in some cases sufficiently powerful, knowing, and judiciously malicious, as with direct aforethought to stave in, utterly destroy, and sink a large ship; and what is more, the Sperm Whale has done it.
First: In the year 1820 the ship Essexthe ship Essex . . . I have conversed with his son: Ishmael’s story of the Essex and of Captain George Pollard’s later history is factual. In addition, in August 1841, while whaling in the Pacific, Melville met Owen Chase’s son William, who loaned him a copy of his father’s narrative, which Melville read and returned. In April 1851, Melville’s father-in-law gave him a copy of Chase’s narrative as he was completing Moby-Dick, and, probably that spring or summer, he added to Ch. 45 the footnoted excerpts from Chase’s “plain and faithful narrative." In fly leaves added to this copy of the narrative (and reproduced in the NN edition), Melville inscribed notes apparently in preparation for a prose work on the Essex that he never composed. In one note, titled “What I know of Owen Chace,” he claims (as does Ishmael) to have "seen" Owen Chace at sea; however, Melville was mistaken because during his whaling years Chase had already retired from the fleet. Melville did meet the Essex’s retired Captain Pollard on Nantucket in 1852, a year after the publication of Moby-Dick. Pollard is featured as a haunted shell of a man in "A Sketch" in Clarel (Book 1, canto 37). See Bryant, Herman Melville: A Half Known Life, vol. 2, ch. 72., Captain Pollard, of Nantucket, was cruising in the Pacific Ocean. One day she saw spouts, lowered her boats, and gave chase to a shoal of sperm whales. Ere long, several of the whales were wounded; when, suddenly, a very large whale escaping from the boats, issued from the shoal, and bore directly down upon the ship. Dashing his forehead against her hull, he so stove her in, that in less than “ten minutes” she settled down and fell over. Not a surviving plank of her has been seen since. After the severest exposure, part of the crew reached the land in their boats. Being returned home at last, Captain Pollard once more sailed for the Pacific in command of another ship, but the gods shipwrecked him again upon unknown rocks and breakers; for the second time his ship was utterly lost, and forthwith forswearing the sea, he has never tempted it since. At this day Captain Pollard is a resident of Nantucket. I have seen Owen Chace, who was chief mate of the Essex at the time of the tragedy; I have read his plain and faithful narrative; I have conversed with his son; and all this within a few miles of the scene of the catastrophe.*
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* [Melville's Note] The following are extracts from Chace’s narrative: “Every fact seemed to warrant me in concluding that it was anything but chance which directed his operations; he made two several attacks upon the ship, at a short interval between them, both of which, according to their direction, were calculated to do us the most injury, by being made ahead, and thereby combining the speed of the two objects for the shock; to effect which, the exact manœuvres which he made were necessary. His aspect was most horrible, and such as indicated resentment and fury. He came directly from the shoal which we had just before entered, and in which we had struck three of his companions, as if fired with revenge for their sufferings.” Again: “At all events, the whole circumstances taken together, all happening before my own eyes, and producing, at the time, impressions in my mind of decided, calculating mischief, on the part of the whale (many of which impressions I cannot now recall), induce me to be satisfied that I am correct in my opinion.”
Here are his reflections some time after quitting the ship, during a black night in an open boat, when almost despairing of reaching any hospitable shore. “The dark ocean and swelling waters were nothing; the fears of being swallowed up by some dreadful tempest, or dashed upon hidden [Melville's note, continued below]
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Secondly: The ship Unionship Union: Obed Macy's History of Nantucket (1835) has a full account of the sinking; Ishmael’s statement of ignorance may be due to forgetfulness or might imply that Melville did not use Macy's work directly while writing Moby-Dick., also of Nantucket, was in the year 1807 totally lost off the Azores by a similar onset, but the authentic particulars of this catastrophe I have never chanced to encounter, though from the whale hunters I have now and then heard casual allusions to it.
Thirdly: Some eighteen or twenty years ago Commodore J—Commodore J—: Most certainly Thomas ap Catesby Jones (1789–1858), commodore of the US Pacific fleet. Recognizing that he was about to be relieved of duty for his unauthorized invasion of Mexico, Jones sailed aboard the US United States to Hawai'i and in August 1843 hosted a dinner party, on board ship in Oahu's Honolulu harbor, for British, American, and Hawai'ian dignitaries, but no whaling captains. A few days later, on August 17, 1843, eight (not eighteen) years before the publication of Moby-Dick, Melville enlisted as an ordinary seaman aboard the United States, a frigate not sloop-of-war. Jones is also satirized in White-Jacket. (See Bryant, Herman Melville: A Half Known Life, vol. 2, ch. 89.) then commanding an American sloop-of-war of the first class, happened to be dining with a party of whaling captains, on board a Nantucket ship in the harbor of Oahu, Sandwich IslandsSandwich Islands: British explorer Capt. James Cook named present-day Hawai’i for the Earl of Sandwich. After his third and last whalng voyage, on the Charles and Henry, Melville spent several weeks during the summer of 1843 in Honolulu. He worked briefly as a clerk and enlisted in the US Navy for his return home from the Pacific.. Conversation turning upon whales, the Commodore was pleased to be sceptical touching the amazing strength ascribed to them by the professional gentlemen present. He peremptorily denied for example, that any whale could so smite his stout sloop-of-war as to cause her to leak so much as a thimbleful. Very good; but there is more coming. Some weeks after, the commodore set sail in this impregnable craft for Valparaiso. But he was stopped on the way by a portly sperm whale, that begged a few moments’ confidential business with him. That business consisted in fetching the Commodore’s craft such a thwack, that with all his pumps going he made straight for the nearest port to heave down and repair. I am not superstitious, but I consider the Commodore’s interview with that whale as providential.
Was not Saul of Tarsus converted from unbelief by a similar fright?REVISION NARRATIVE: Was not Saul of Tarsus converted from unbelief by a similar fright? // Saul, born in Tarsus (on the southern coast of present-day Turkey) to Jewish parents, was a Roman citizen raised in Jerusalem. Heading one day for Damascus to suppress Christians there, he was temporarily blinded when, on the road, he witnessed a vision of Jesus and subsequently converted to Christianity (Acts 9.3–18). Adopting the name Paul, the Roman version of Saul, he became the religion’s principal apostle and ultimately St. Paul. Ishmael facetiously compares Saul’s dramatic conversion to the Commodore’s brush with death, and his British editor expurgated the entire line. To compare American and British pages, click the thumbnails in the right margin. I tell you, the sperm whale will stand no nonsense.
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[Melville's Note, continued] rocks, with all the other ordinary subjects of fearful contemplation, seemed scarcely entitled to a moment’s thought; the dismal looking wreck, and the horrid aspect and revenge of the whale, wholly engrossed my reflections, until day again made its appearance.”
In another place—p. 45,—he speaks of “the mysterious and mortal attack of the animal.” [Melville's note, completed]
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I will now refer you to Langsdorff’s VoyagesLangsdorff's Voyages: In addition to being referenced here, Voyages and Travels in Various Parts of the World . . . 1803-1807 by George H. von Langsdorff (1774–1852) was an important source for Melville's first book, Typee. for a little circumstance in point, peculiarly interesting to the writer hereof. Langsdorff, you must know by the way, was attached to the Russian Admiral Krusenstern’s famous Discovery ExpeditionKrusenstern’s famous Discovery Expedition: As related in Voyage round the World by Adam Johann Krusenstern (1770–1846). in the beginning of the present century. Captain Langsdorff thus begins his seventeenth chapter.
“By the thirteenth of May our ship was ready to sail, and the next day we were out in the open sea, on our way to OchotskOchotsk: a small Russian seaport on the Northern Pacific Sea of Okhotsk.. The weather was very clear and fine, but so intolerably cold that we were obliged to keep on our fur clothing. For some days we had very little wind; it was not till the nineteenth that a brisk gale from the northwest sprang up. An uncommon large whale, the body of which was larger than the ship itself, lay almost at the surface of the water, but was not perceived by any one on board till the moment when the ship, which was in full sail, was almost upon him, so that it was impossible to prevent its striking against him. We were thus placed in the most imminent danger, as this gigantic creature, setting up its back, raised the ship three feet at least out of the water. The masts reeled, and the sails fell altogether, while we who were below all sprang instantly upon the deck, concluding that we had struck upon some rock; instead of this we saw the monster sailing off with the utmost gravity and solemnity. Captain D’Wolf applied immediately to the pumps to examine whether or not the vessel had received any damage from the shock, but we found that very happily it had escaped entirely uninjured.”
Now, the Captain D’Wolf
Captain D’Wolf: Melville's admired uncle John D’Wolf (1779–1872), also mentioned in Redburn, spent two years with Langsdorff and much later wrote his own account of the voyage. He was married to Melville’s paternal aunt, Mary. here alluded to as commanding the ship in question, is a New Englander, who, after a long life of unusual adventures as a sea-captain, this day resides in the village of Dorchester near Boston. I have the honor of being a nephew of his. I have particularly questioned him concerning this passage in Langsdorff. He substantiates every word. The ship, however, was by no means a large one: a Russian craft built on the Siberian coast, and purchased by my uncle after bartering away the vessel in which he sailed from home.
In that up and down manly book of old-fashioned adventure, so full, too, of honest wonders—the voyage of Lionel WaferLionel Wafer, one of ancient Dampier’s old chums: Both men were seventeenth-century buccaneers, attacking Spanish shipping. Melville drew upon Wafer’s 1699 New Voyage and Description of the Isthmus of America for this and the following paragraph., one of ancient Dampier’s old chums—I found a little matter set down so like that just quoted from Langsdorff, that I cannot forbear inserting it here for a corroborative example, if such be needed.
Lionel, it seems, was on his way to “John Ferdinando,” as he calls the modern Juan FernandesJuan Fernandes: Juan Fernández, a small cluster of Pacific islands about 400 miles off the Chilean coast. Isla Más Afuera and Isla Más a Tierra are also called Isla Alejandro Selkirk and Isla Robinson Crusoe, recognizing the abandoned man on whose adventures Daniel Defoe based Robinson Crusoe (1719).. “In our way thither,” he says, “about four o’clock in the morning, when we were about one hundred and fifty leagues from the Main of Americathe Main of America: The Spanish colonies in Central and South America (known as the Spanish Main)., our ship felt a terrible shock, which put our men in such consternation that they could hardly tell where they were or what to think; but every one began to prepare for death. And, indeed, the shock was so sudden and violent, that we took it for granted the ship had struck against a rock; but when the amazement was a little over, we cast the lead, and sounded, but found no ground. * * * * *
The suddenness of the shock made the guns leap in their carriages, and several of the men were shaken out of their hammocks. Captain Davis, who lay with his head on a gunhead on a gun: In borrowing from Wafer’s 1699 New Voyage (see above), Melville changed several passages. According to the NN editors, one such change—head on a gun—“does not make sense” (869), and, assuming the word “on” to be a mistranscription of Wafer’s original word “over,” they emend their text in conformity with the Wafer source text to read “head over a gun.” The point of the Wafer anecdote is that the force of the whale’s impact is so great that it knocks cannons out of their carriages and men out of their hammocks; in addition, the captain sleeping in his cabin directly over the guns situated below decks is also knocked out of his room. However, the change to “head on a gun” also makes sense. One possible reading is that the buccaneer captain is to be seen sleeping with a gun under his pillow; another is that the captain may have his head resting on a small cannon, often mounted in captains’ stern quarters. Whatever the scenario Melville might have intended, the change to "head on a gun" heightens the drama of the anecdote and is not misleading; and since it may be Melville’s intended revision of his Wafer source, MEL makes no change., was thrown out of his cabin!” Lionel then goes on to impute the shock to an earthquake, and seems to substantiate the imputation by stating that a great earthquake, somewhere about that time, did actually do great mischief along the Spanish land. But I should not much wonder if, in the darkness of that early hour of the morning, the shock was after all caused by an unseen whale vertically bumping the hull from beneath.
I might proceed with several more examples, one way or another known to me, of the great power and malice at times of the sperm whale. In more than one instance, he has been known, not only to chase the assailing boats back to their ships, but to pursue the ship itself, and long withstand all the lances hurled at him from its decks. The English ship Pusie Hallship Pusie Hall: The story is told in Frederick Debell Bennett's Narrative of a Whaling Voyage round the Globe. can tell a story on that head; and, as for his strength, let me say, that there have been examples where the lines attached to a running sperm whale have, in a calm, been transferred to the ship, and secured there; the whale towing her great hull through the water, as a horse walks off with a cart. Again, it is very often observed that, if the sperm whale, once struck, is allowed time to rally, he then acts, not so often with blind rage, as with wilful, deliberate designs of destruction to his pursuers; nor is it without conveying some eloquent indication of his character, that upon being attacked he will frequently open his mouth, and retain it in that dread expansion for several consecutive minutes. But I must be content with only one more and a concluding illustration; a remarkable and most significant one, by which you will not fail to see, that not only is the most marvellous event in this book corroborated by plain facts of the present day, but that these marvels (like all marvels) are mere repetitions of the ages; so that for the millionth time we say amen with Solomon—Verily there is nothing new under the sunnothing new under the sun: Paraphrase of Ecclesiastes 1.9: “and there is no new thing under the sun.”.
In the sixth Christian century lived ProcopiusProcopius: Melville’s source for this paragraph was the article titled “Whale” in John Kitto's Cyclopaedia of Biblical Literature; see Vincent's The Trying-Out of Moby-Dick (271–74)., a Christian magistrate of Constantinople, in the days when Justinian was Emperor and Belisarius general. As many know, he wrote the history of his own times, a work every way of uncommon value. By the best authorities, he has always been considered a most trustworthy and unexaggerating historian, except in some one or two particulars, not at all affecting the matter presently to be mentioned.
Now, in this history of his, Procopius mentions that, during the term of his prefecture at Constantinople, a great sea-monster was captured in the neighboring Propontis, or Sea of MarmoraPropontis, or Sea of Marmora: Properly Sea of Marmara, the inland sea in Turkey that is connected to the north with the Black Sea and to the south (by the narrow Dardanelles strait) with the Aegean Sea., after having destroyed vessels at intervals in those waters for a period of more than fifty years. A fact thus set down in substantial history cannot easily be gainsaid. Nor is there any reason it should be. Of what precise species this sea-monster was, is not mentioned. But as he destroyed ships, as well as for other reasons, he must have been a whale; and I am strongly inclined to think a sperm whale. And I will tell you why. For a long time I fancied that the sperm whale had been always unknown in the Mediterranean and the deep waters connecting with it. Even now I am certain that those seas are not, and perhaps never can be, in the present constitution of things, a place for his habitual gregarious resort. But further investigations have recently proved to me, that in modern times there have been isolated instances of the presence of the sperm whale in the Mediterranean. I am told, on good authority, that on the Barbary coastBarbary coast: Famously infested with pirates, the coastline stretched along the shores of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya., a Commodore DavisCommodore Davis: Melville’s “good authority” is the article on “Whale” in John Kitto’s 1845 Cyclopaedia of Biblical Literature; however, the officer mentioned in that source is “Commander Davies.” The NN edition revises "Commodore Davis" to “Commander Davies.” In keeping with its practice of not correcting Melville’s errors of fact, MEL makes no change. of the British navy found the skeleton of a sperm whale. Now, as a vessel of war readily passes through the Dardanelles, hence a sperm whale could, by the same route, pass out of the Mediterranean into the Propontis.
In the Propontis, as far as I can learn, none of that peculiar substance called britbrit: tiny, floating crustaceans; see Ch. 58. is to be found, the aliment of the right whale. But I have every reason to believe that the food of the sperm whale—squid or cuttle-fish—lurks at the bottom of that sea, because large creatures, but by no means the largest of that sort, have been found at its surface. If, then, you properly put these statements together, and reason upon them a bit, you will clearly perceive that, according to all human reasoning, Procopius’s sea-monster, that for half a century stove the ships of a Roman Emperor, must in all probability have been a sperm whale.