Seeing himself placed next the Priest, and noting the ceremony, and thinking himself⁠—being Captain of a ship⁠—as having plain precedence over a mere island King, especially in the King’s own house⁠—the Captain coolly proceeds to wash his hands in the punchbowl;⁠—taking it I suppose for a huge finger-glass. “Now,” said Queequeg, “what you tink now?⁠—Didn’t our people laugh?”

At last, passage paid, and luggage safe, we stood on board the schooner. Hoisting sail, it glided down the Acushnet river. On one side, New Bedford rose in terraces of streets, their ice-covered trees all glittering in the clear, cold air. Huge hills and mountains of casks on casks were piled upon her wharves, and side by side the world-wandering whale ships lay silent and safely moored at last; while from others came a sound of carpenters and coopers, with blended noises of fires and forges to melt the pitch, all betokening that new cruises were on the start; that one most perilous and long voyage ended, only begins a second; and a second ended, only begins a third, and so on, forever and for aye. Such is the endlessness, yea, the intolerableness of all earthly effort.