Though, in these
cases, the direction taken by any one whale be straight as a
surveyor's parallel, and though the line of advance be strictly
confined to its own unavoidable, straight wake, yet the arbitrary
VEIN in which at these times he is said to swim, generally embraces
some few miles in width (more or less, as the vein is presumed to
expand or contract); but never exceeds the visual sweep from the
whale-ship's mast-heads, when circumspectly gliding along this magic
zone. The sum is, that at particular seasons within that breadth and
along that path, migrating whales may with great confidence be looked
for.
And hence not only at substantiated times, upon well known separate
feeding-grounds, could Ahab hope to encounter his prey; but in
crossing the widest expanses of water between those grounds he could,
by his art, so place and time himself on his way, as even then not to
be wholly without prospect of a meeting.
There was a circumstance which at first sight seemed to entangle his
delirious but still methodical scheme. But not so in the reality,
perhaps. Though the gregarious sperm whales have their regular
seasons for particular grounds, yet in general you cannot conclude
that the herds which haunted such and such a latitude or longitude
this year, say, will turn out to be identically the same with those
that were found there the preceding season; though there are peculiar
and unquestionable instances where the contrary of this has proved
true.
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