CodalSearch this book — or all of Codal…⌘K
Page 195 of 735
Table of Contents

XXXII

is the most gamesome and lighthearted of all the whales, making more gay foam and white water generally than any other of them.

Book I (“Folio”), chapter V (“Razor Back”).⁠—Of this whale little is known but his name. I have seen him at a distance off Cape Horn. Of a retiring nature, he eludes both hunters and philosophers. Though no coward, he has never yet shown any part of him but his back, which rises in a long sharp ridge. Let him go. I know little more of him, nor does anybody else.

Book I (“Folio”), chapter VI (“Sulphur Bottom”).⁠—Another retiring gentleman, with a brimstone belly, doubtless got by scraping along the Tartarian tiles in some of his profounder divings. He is seldom seen; at least I have never seen him except in the remoter southern seas, and then always at too great a distance to study his countenance. He is never chased; he would run away with rope-walks of line. Prodigies are told of him. Adieu, Sulphur Bottom! I can say nothing more that is true of ye, nor can the oldest Nantucketer.

195