97. CHAPTER XCVII.
THE LAMP.
Had you descended from the Pequod's try-works to the
Pequod's forecastle, where the off duty watch were sleeping, for
one single moment you would have almost thought you were
standing in some illuminated shrine of canonized kings and
counsellors. There they lay in their triangular oaken vaults,
each mariner a chiselled muteness; a score of lamps flashing
upon his hooded eyes.
In merchantmen, oil for the sailor is more scarce than the
milk of queens. To dress in the dark, and eat in the dark, and
stumble in darkness to his pallet, this is his usual lot. But the
whaleman, as he seeks the food of light, so he lives in light.
He makes his berth an Aladdin's lamp, and lays him down in
it; so that in the pitchiest night the ship's black hull still
houses an illumination.
See with what entire freedom the whaleman takes his handful
of lamps—often but old bottles and vials, though—to the
copper cooler at the try-works, and replenishes them there, as
mugs of ale at a vat. He burns, too, the purest of oil, in its
unmanufactured, and, therefore, unvitiated state; a fluid unknown
to solar, lunar, or astral contrivances ashore. It is
sweet as early grass butter in April. He goes and hunts for
his oil, so as to be sure of its freshness and genuineness, even
as the traveller on the prairie hunts up his own supper of game.
