.. < chapter xiii 2  WHEELBARROW >


     wheelbarrow next morning, Monday, after disposing of

the embalmed head to a barber, for a block, I settled my own and comrade's

bill; using, however, my comrade's money.  The grinning landlord, as well as

the boarders, seemed amazingly tickled at the sudden friendship which had

sprung up between me and Queequeg -- especially as Peter Coffin's cock and bull

stories about him had previously so much alarmed me concerning the very person

whom I now companied with.  We borrowed a wheelbarrow, and embarking our

things, including my own poor carpet-bag, and Queequeg's canvas sack and

hammock, away we went down to the Moss, the little Nantucket packet

schooner moored at the wharf.  As we were going along the people stared; not

at Queequeg so much --for they were used to seeing cannibals like him in their

streets, -- but at seeing him and me upon such confidential terms.  But we

heeded them not, going along wheeling the barrow by turns, and Queequeg now

and then stopping to adjust the sheath on his harpoon barbs.  I asked him why

he carried such a troublesome thing with him ashore, and whether all whaling

ships did not find their own harpoons.  To this, in substance, he replied,

that though what I hinted was true enough, yet he had a particular affection

for his own harpoon, because it was of assured stuff, well tried in many a

mortal combat, and deeply intimate with the hearts of whales.  In short, like

many inland reapers and mowers, who go into the farmers' meadows armed with

their own scythes --though in no wise obliged to furnished them -- even so,

Queequeg, for his own private reasons, preferred his own harpoon.  Shifting

the barrow from my hand to his, he told me a funny story about the first

wheelbarrow he had ever seen.  It was in Sag Harbor.  The owners of his ship,

it seems, had lent him one,

.. <p 58 >

in which to carry his heavy chest to his boarding house.  Not to seem ignorant

about the thing --though in truth he was entirely so, concerning the precise

way in which to manage the barrow --Queequeg puts his chest upon it; lashes

it fast; and then shoulders the barrow and marches up the wharf.  Why, said

I, Queequeg, you might have known better than that, one would think.  Didn't

the people laugh?  Upon this, he told me another story.  The people of his

island of Rokovoko, it seems, at their wedding feasts express the fragrant

water of young cocoanuts into a large stained calabash like a punchbowl; and

this punchbowl always forms the great central ornament on the braided mat

where the feast is held.  Now a certain grand merchant ship once touched at

Rokovoko, and its commander --from all accounts, a very stately punctilious

gentleman, at least for a sea captain --this commander was invited to the

wedding feast of Queequeg's sister, a pretty young princess just turned of

ten.  Well; when all the wedding guests were assembled at the bride's bamboo

cottage, this Captain marches in, and being assigned the post of honor,

placed himself over against the punchbowl, and between the High Priest and

his majesty the King, Queequeg's father.  Grace being said, -- for those people

have their grace as well as we --though Queequeg told me that unlike us, who

at such times look downwards to our platters, they, on the contrary, copying

the ducks, glance upwards to the great Giver of all feasts --Grace, I say,

being said, the High Priest opens the banquet by the immemorial ceremony of

the island; that is, dipping his consecrated and consecrating fingers into

the bowl before the blessed beverage circulates.  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 punch

bowl; --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

.. <p 59 >

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, for ever and for aye.  Such is the

endlessness, yea, the intolerableness of all earthly effort.  Gaining the

more open water, the bracing breeze waxed fresh; the little Moss tossed the

quick foam from her bows, as a young colt his snortings.  How I snuffed that

Tartar air! --how I spurned that turnpike earth! --that common highway all over

dented with the marks of slavish heels and hoofs; and turned me to admire the

magnanimity of the sea which will permit no records.  At the same

foam-fountain, Queequeg seemed to drink and reel with me.  His dusky nostrils

swelled apart; he showed his filed and pointed teeth.  On, on we flew, and

our offing gained, the Moss did homage to the blast; ducked and dived her

brows as a slave before the Sultan.  Sideways leaning, we sideways darted;

every ropeyarn tingling like a wire; the two tall masts buckling like Indian

canes in land tornadoes.  So full of this reeling scene were we, as we stood

by the plunging bowsprit, that for some time we did not notice the jeering

glances of the passengers, a lubber-like assembly, who marvelled that two

fellow beings should be so companionable; as though a white man were anything

more dignified than a whitewashed negro.  But there were some boobies and

bumpkins there, who, by their intense greenness, must have come from the heart

and centre of all verdure.  Queequeg caught one of these young saplings

mimicking him behind his back.  I thought the bumpkin's hour of doom was come.


     Dropping his harpoon, the brawny savage caught him in his arms, and by an

almost miraculous dexterity and strength, sent him high up bodily into the

air; then slightly

.. <p 60 >

tapping his stern in mid-somerset, the fellow landed with bursting lungs upon

his feet, while Queequeg, turning his back upon him, lighted his tomahawk

pipe and passed it to me for a puff.  Capting!  Capting!  yelled the

bumpkin, running towards that officer; Capting, Capting, here's the devil.


     Hallo, you sir, cried the Captain, a gaunt rib of the sea, stalking up to

Queequeg, what in thunder do you mean by that?  Don't you know you might have

killed that chap?  What him say?  said Queequeg, as he mildly turned to me.


     He say, said I, that you came near kill-e that man there, pointing to the

still shivering greenhorn.  Kill-e, cried Queequeg, twisting his tattooed

face into an unearthly expression of disdain, ah!  him bevy small-e fish-e;

Queequeg no kill-e so small-e fish-e; Queequeg kill-e big whale!  Look you,

roared the Captain, I'll kill-e you, you cannibal, if you try any more of

your tricks aboard here; so mind your eye.  But it so happened just then,

that it was high time for the Captain to mind his own eye.  The prodigious

strain upon the main-sail had parted the weather-sheet, and the tremendous

boom was now flying from side to side, completely sweeping the entire after

part of the deck.  The poor fellow whom Queequeg had handled so roughly, was

swept overboard; all hands were in a panic; and to attempt snatching at the

boom to stay it, seemed madness.  It flew from right to left, and back again,

almost in one ticking of a watch, and every instant seemed on the point of

snapping into splinters.  Nothing was done, and nothing seemed capable of

being done; those on deck rushed towards the bows, and stood eyeing the boom

as if it were the lower jaw of an exasperated whale.  In the midst of this

consternation, Queequeg dropped deftly to his knees, and crawling under the

path of the boom, whipped hold of a rope, secured one end to the bulwarks,

and then flinging the other like a lasso, caught it round the boom as it swept

over his head, and at the next jerk, the spar was that way trapped, and all

was safe.  The schooner was run into the wind, and while the hands were

clearing away the stern boat, Queequeg, stripped to the waist, darted from

the side with a long living arc of a leap.  For three

.. <p 61 >

minutes or more he was seen swimming like a dog, throwing his long arms

straight out before him, and by turns revealing his brawny shoulders through

the freezing foam.  I looked at the grand and glorious fellow, but saw no one

to be saved.  The greenhorn had gone down.  Shooting himself perpendicularly

from the water, Queequeg now took an instant's glance around him, and

seeming to see just how matters were, dived down and disappeared.  A few

minutes more, and he rose again, one arm still striking out, and with the

other dragging a lifeless form.  The boat soon picked them up.  The poor

bumpkin was restored.  All hands voted Queequeg a noble trump; the captain

begged his pardon.  From that hour I clove to Queequeg like a barnacle; yea,

till poor Queequeg took his last long dive.  Was there ever such

unconsciousness?  He did not seem to think that he at all deserved a medal

from the Humane and Magnanimous Societies.  He only asked for water --fresh

water -- something to wipe the brine off; that done, he put on dry clothes,

lighted his pipe, and leaning against the bulwarks, and mildly eyeing those

around him, seemed to be saying to himself -- It's a mutual, joint-stock

world, in all meridians.  We cannibals must help these Christians.

.. <p 61 >

