.. < 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;

.. <p 363 >

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

.. <p 364 >

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.

.. <p 365 >

