CHAPTER 2. The Carpet-Bag (carpet-bag politician: a Northern adventurer in the South after the war).

I stuffed a shirt or two into my old carpet-bag, tucked it under my arm, and started for Cape Horn (the stormy southern tip of South America) and the Pacific. Quitting the good city of old Manhatto, I duly arrived in New Bedford (the Massachusetts port that was the centre of American whaling). It was a Saturday night in December. Much was I disappointed upon learning that the little packet for Nantucket (the small Massachusetts island that was the heart of American whaling) had already sailed, and that no way of reaching that place would offer, till the following Monday.

As most young candidates for the pains and penalties of whaling stop at this same New Bedford, thence (from there) to embark on their voyage, it may as well be related that I, for one, had no idea of so doing. For my mind was made up to sail in no other than a Nantucket craft, because there was a fine, boisterous (loud and wild with fun) something about everything connected with that famous old island, which amazingly pleased me. Besides though New Bedford has of late been gradually monopolising (to keep all for oneself) the business of whaling, and though in this matter poor old Nantucket is now much behind her, yet Nantucket was her great original—the Tyre (an old trading city of the near east) of this Carthage;—the place where the first dead American whale was stranded. Where else but from Nantucket did those aboriginal whalemen (a man who hunts whales), the Red-Men, first sally out in canoes to give chase to the Leviathan (the great sea beast of the Bible, taken to mean the whale)? And where but from Nantucket, too, did that first adventurous little sloop (a small ship with one mast) put forth, partly laden with imported cobblestones (rounded paving stones)—so goes the story—to throw at the whales, in order to discover when they were nigh enough to risk a harpoon (a spear on a rope, thrown to catch a whale) from the bowsprit (the spar sticking out from a ship's bow)?

Now having a night, a day, and still another night following before me in New Bedford, ere (before — an old word) I could embark for my destined port, it became a matter of concernment (a matter that touches one closely) where I was to eat and sleep meanwhile. It was a very dubious-looking (looking not to be trusted), nay, a very dark and dismal night, bitingly (in a sharp cutting way) cold and cheerless (gloomy; without cheer). I knew no one in the place. With anxious grapnels (a small anchor with several hooks) I had sounded my pocket, and only brought up a few pieces of silver,—So, wherever you go, Ishmael (the narrator of this book), said I to myself, as I stood in the middle of a dreary (gloomy and dull) street shouldering my bag, and comparing the gloom towards the north with the darkness towards the south—wherever in your wisdom you may conclude to lodge for the night, my dear Ishmael, be sure to inquire the price, and don’t be too particular.

With halting steps I paced the streets, and passed the sign of “The Crossed Harpoons”—but it looked too expensive and jolly there. Further on, from the bright red windows of the “Sword-Fish Inn,” there came such fervent (burning with feeling) rays, that it seemed to have melted the packed snow and ice from before the house, for everywhere else the congealed (to set solid; clot) frost lay ten inches thick in a hard, asphaltic (like black tar) pavement,—rather weary for me, when I struck my foot against the flinty (hard as flint) projections, because from hard, remorseless (without pity) service the soles of my boots were in a most miserable plight. Too expensive and jolly, again thought I, pausing one moment to watch the broad glare in the street, and hear the sounds of the tinkling (to ring lightly) glasses within. But go on, Ishmael, said I at last; don’t you hear? get away from before the door; your patched boots are stopping the way. So on I went. I now by instinct followed the streets that took me waterward (toward the water), for there, doubtless, were the cheapest, if not the cheeriest inns.

Such dreary streets! blocks of blackness, not houses, on either hand, and here and there a candle, like a candle moving about in a tomb. At this hour of the night, of the last day of the week, that quarter of the town proved all but deserted. But presently I came to a smoky light proceeding from a low, wide building, the door of which stood invitingly (temptingly) open. It had a careless look, as if it were meant for the uses of the public; so, entering, the first thing I did was to stumble over an ash-box (a box for ashes) in the porch. Ha! thought I, ha, as the flying particles almost choked me, are these ashes from that destroyed city, Gomorrah? But “The Crossed Harpoons,” and “The Sword-Fish?”—this, then must needs be the sign of “The Trap.” However, I picked myself up and hearing a loud voice within, pushed on and opened a second, interior door.

It seemed the great Black Parliament sitting in Tophet (a place of burning outside Jerusalem, taken to mean hell). A hundred black faces turned round in their rows to peer; and beyond, a black Angel of Doom was beating a book in a pulpit. It was a negro church; and the preacher’s text was about the blackness of darkness, and the weeping and wailing (to cry long and loud) and teeth-gnashing (grinding the teeth in rage) there. Ha, Ishmael, muttered (to speak low in the throat) I, backing out, Wretched entertainment at the sign of ‘The Trap!’

Moving on, I at last came to a dim sort of light not far from the docks, and heard a forlorn (hopeless and sad) creaking (making a dry rubbing sound) in the air; and looking up, saw a swinging sign over the door with a white painting upon it, faintly representing a tall straight jet of misty spray, and these words underneath—“The Spouter Inn:—Peter Coffin (the landlord of the Spouter Inn at New Bedford).”

Coffin (the box a dead body is laid in; also a common family name on Nantucket)?—Spouter?—Rather ominous in that particular connexion (connection), thought I. But it is a common name in Nantucket, they say, and I suppose this Peter here is an emigrant (one who leaves his country) from there. As the light looked so dim, and the place, for the time, looked quiet enough, and the dilapidated (falling into ruin) little wooden house itself looked as if it might have been carted here from the ruins of some burnt district, and as the swinging sign had a poverty-stricken (very poor) sort of creak to it, I thought that here was the very spot for cheap lodgings, and the best of pea coffee.

It was a queer sort of place—a gable-ended (with a pointed end wall) old house, one side palsied as it were, and leaning over sadly. It stood on a sharp bleak corner, where that tempestuous (stormy) wind Euroclydon (a fierce northeast wind named in the Bible) kept up a worse howling than ever it did about poor Paul’s tossed craft. Euroclydon, nevertheless, is a mighty pleasant zephyr (a soft gentle wind) to any one in-doors, with his feet on the hob (the shelf at the side of a fireplace for keeping pots warm) quietly toasting for bed. “In judging of that tempestuous wind called Euroclydon,” says an old writer—of whose works I possess the only copy extant—“it maketh (makes) a marvellous difference, whether thou lookest (look, in old speech used with "thou") out at it from a glass window where the frost is all on the outside, or whether thou observest (observest: watch, in old speech used with "thou") it from that sashless (having no frame in the window) window, where the frost is on both sides, and of which the wight Death is the only glazier (a man who fits glass into windows).” True enough, thought I, as this passage (passage: a sea-journey — the old sense here) occurred to my mind—old black-letter (black-letter: old heavy Gothic type), thou reasonest well. Yes, these eyes are windows, and this body of mine is the house. What a pity they didn’t stop up the chinks (a narrow crack; the ring of coins) and the crannies (crannies: small cracks) though, and thrust in a little lint (soft scraped cloth for wounds) here and there. But it’s too late to make any improvements now. The universe is finished; the copestone (the finishing stone) is on, and the chips were carted off a million years ago. Poor Lazarus (in the Bible, the beggar full of sores who lay at a rich man's gate) there, chattering his teeth against the curbstone (the stone edge of a path) for his pillow, and shaking off his tatters with his shiverings (trembling with cold), he might plug up both ears with rags, and put a corn-cob (the hard middle part of an ear of maize) into his mouth, and yet that would not keep out the tempestuous Euroclydon. Euroclydon! says old Dives, in his red silken (made of silk) wrapper—(he had a redder one afterwards) pooh, pooh! What a fine frosty night; how Orion (the Hunter, a bright group of stars) glitters; what northern lights! Let them talk of their oriental summer climes (lands; regions) of everlasting conservatories; give me the privilege of making my own summer with my own coals.

But what thinks Lazarus? Can he warm his blue hands by holding them up to the grand northern lights? Would not Lazarus rather be in Sumatra (a large island of southeast Asia) than here? Would he not far rather lay him down lengthwise along the line of the equator; yea, ye gods! go down to the fiery pit itself, in order to keep out this frost?

Now, that Lazarus should lie stranded there on the curbstone before the door of Dives, this is more wonderful than that an iceberg should be moored to one of the Moluccas (the spice islands of southeast Asia). Yet Dives himself, he too lives like a Czar (the emperor of Russia) in an ice palace made of frozen sighs, and being a president of a temperance (the going without strong drink) society, he only drinks the tepid (lukewarm) tears of orphans.

But no more of this blubbering (crying with a loud wet noise) now, we are going a-whaling (out hunting whales), and there is plenty of that yet to come. Let us scrape the ice from our frosted feet, and see what sort of a place this “Spouter” may be.