Introduction

A whaler at sea and long absent from home. As if the waves had been fullers, this craft was bleached like the skeleton of a stranded walrus. All down her sides, this spectral appearance was traced with long channels of reddened rust. Only her lower sails were set. A wild sight it was to see her long bearded lookouts at those three mastheads. They seemed clad in the skins of beasts so torn and bepatched the raiment that had survived nearly four years of cruising. Ahoy, have ye seen the white whale? But as the strange captain, leaning over the pallid bulwarks, was in the act of putting his trumpet to his