Whaleboats - A Brief History

Ahab had not solicited a boat's crew from them, nor had he in any way hinted his desires on that head. He well knew that such generous conceits never entered the heads of the owners of the pequod. Now and then, such unaccountable odds and ends of st nations come up from the unknown nooks and ash holes of the earth to man these floating outlaws of whalers. But with the subordinate phantoms, what wonder remained soon waned away.