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CHAPTER 35 . The Mast - Head . It was during the more pleasant weather , that in due rotation with the other seamen my first mast - head came round . In most American whalemen the mast - heads are manned almost simultaneously with the vessel’s leaving her port ; even though she may have fifteen thousand miles , and more , to sail ere reaching her proper cruising ground . And if , after a three , four , or five years ’ voyage she is drawing nigh home with anything empty in her — say , an empty vial even — then , her mast - heads are kept manned to the last ; and not till her skysail - poles sail in among the spires of the port , does she altogether relinquish the hope of capturing one whale more . Now , as the business of standing mast - heads , ashore or afloat , is a very ancient and interesting one , let us in some measure expatiate here . I take it , that the earliest standers of mast - heads were the old Egyptians ; because , in all my researches , I find none prior to them . For though their progenitors , the builders of Babel , must doubtless , by their tower , have intended to rear the loftiest mast - head in all Asia , or Africa either ; yet ( ere the final truck was put to it ) as that great stone mast of theirs may be said to have gone by the board , in the dread gale of God’s wrath ; therefore , we cannot give these Babel builders priority over the Egyptians . And that the Egyptians were a nation of mast - head standers , is an assertion based upon the general belief among archæologists , that the first pyramids were founded for astronomical purposes : a theory singularly supported by the peculiar stair - like formation of all four sides of those edifices ; whereby , with prodigious long upliftings of their legs , those old astronomers were wont to mount to the apex , and sing out for new stars ; even as the look - outs of a modern ship sing out for a sail , or a whale just bearing in sight . In Saint Stylites , the famous Christian hermit of old times , who built him a lofty stone pillar in the desert and spent the whole latter portion of his life on its summit , hoisting his food from the ground with a tackle ; in him we have a remarkable instance of a dauntless stander - of - mast - heads ; who was not to be driven from his place by fogs or frosts , rain , hail , or sleet ; but valiantly facing everything out to the last , literally died at his post . Of modern standers - of - mast - heads we have but a lifeless set ; mere stone , iron , and bronze men ; who , though well capable of facing out a stiff gale , are still entirely incompetent to the business of singing out upon discovering any strange sight . There is Napoleon ; who , upon the top of the column of Vendome , stands with arms folded , some one hundred and fifty feet in the air ; careless , now , who rules the decks below ; whether Louis Philippe , Louis Blanc , or Louis the Devil . Great Washington , too , stands high aloft on his towering main - mast in Baltimore , and like one of Hercules ’ pillars , his column marks that point of human grandeur beyond which few mortals will go . Admiral Nelson , also , on a capstan of gun - metal , stands his mast - head in Trafalgar Square ; and ever when most obscured by that London smoke , token is yet given that a hidden hero is there ; for where there is smoke , must be fire . But neither great Washington , nor Napoleon , nor Nelson , will answer a single hail from below , however madly invoked to befriend by their counsels the distracted decks upon which they gaze ; however it may be surmised , that their spirits penetrate through the thick haze of the future , and descry what shoals and what rocks must be shunned .
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