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But one cannot sustain an indifferent air concerning Fedallah . He was such a creature as civilized , domestic people in the temperate zone only see in their dreams , and that but dimly ; but the like of whom now and then glide among the unchanging Asiatic communities , especially the Oriental isles to the east of the continent — those insulated , immemorial , unalterable countries , which even in these modern days still preserve much of the ghostly aboriginalness of earth’s primal generations , when the memory of the first man was a distinct recollection , and all men his descendants , unknowing whence he came , eyed each other as real phantoms , and asked of the sun and the moon why they were created and to what end ; when though , according to Genesis , the angels indeed consorted with the daughters of men , the devils also , add the uncanonical Rabbins , indulged in mundane amours . CHAPTER 51 . The Spirit - Spout . Days , weeks passed , and under easy sail , the ivory Pequod had slowly swept across four several cruising - grounds ; that off the Azores ; off the Cape de Verdes ; on the Plate ( so called ) , being off the mouth of the Rio de la Plata ; and the Carrol Ground , an unstaked , watery locality , southerly from St . Helena . It was while gliding through these latter waters that one serene and moonlight night , when all the waves rolled by like scrolls of silver ; and , by their soft , suffusing seethings , made what seemed a silvery silence , not a solitude ; on such a silent night a silvery jet was seen far in advance of the white bubbles at the bow . Lit up by the moon , it looked celestial ; seemed some plumed and glittering god uprising from the sea . Fedallah first descried this jet . For of these moonlight nights , it was his wont to mount to the main - mast head , and stand a look - out there , with the same precision as if it had been day . And yet , though herds of whales were seen by night , not one whaleman in a hundred would venture a lowering for them . You may think with what emotions , then , the seamen beheld this old Oriental perched aloft at such unusual hours ; his turban and the moon , companions in one sky . But when , after spending his uniform interval there for several successive nights without uttering a single sound ; when , after all this silence , his unearthly voice was heard announcing that silvery , moon - lit jet , every reclining mariner started to his feet as if some winged spirit had lighted in the rigging , and hailed the mortal crew . “ There she blows ! ” Had the trump of judgment blown , they could not have quivered more ; yet still they felt no terror ; rather pleasure . For though it was a most unwonted hour , yet so impressive was the cry , and so deliriously exciting , that almost every soul on board instinctively desired a lowering .
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