and so fallacious; and the modern restationing of two of these writers, Anthony Trollope and Herman Melville, is a blessed instance of the subtle revolution which at length redresses all inequity. Little audacity, indeed, is wanted to repeat now, in concluding, the assertion with which this volume opened, that Melville is the most powerful of all the great American writers.

It is, nevertheless, not quite easy to see his work, or himself in his work, except in an image and at a little distance. The needed image is the simplestthat of a mountain or shape of mountain-like proportions, rising from a confused plain into confused cloud; a dark irregular formation with deep forests and falling waters and chasms that seem like mere defeats of creation; facing the east an abundance of green pasture, and to the west a wild mystery of incumbent shape and shadow. At times the head is obscure, at times clear, according as you look through glasses or without them, and see the mountain simply or with perverse prepossessions. The great mass is lonely and silent, as all places of natural growth or upheaval; it is heaved out of American soil, sustained by and in turn sustaining native resources. The brightness is never delusive, for in Melville's youthful, impetuous books, such as Typee and Redburn, there is no more than there seems, and symbols have not yet seduced him; but the western shadows are strange, and the forest growth of Moby-Dick and Pierre is painful, haunted and unholy. The remote grandeur of the mountain head was once invisible, but to-day it is clear, for time has passed and questions have yielded their own answers.

In

1921-thirty years after Melville's death-Professor Raymond Weaver first surveyed the mountain, and now in 1925 the present light railway is opened, and offers a humble passage about the ravined, irregular rock.

THE confirmation by Mr. Hawes in his book Whaling (1924) of Melville's extraordinary stories of whales is amplified by an anonymous article in The Detroit Free Press a few months after Melville's death.

"Between the years 1840 and 1859 the whaling vessels of such nations as pursued the leviathan of the deep for his ⚫ commercial value encountered no less than five whales who became famous as terrors of the sea. They were' Mocha Dick', 'Spotted Tom', 'Shy Jack', 'Ugly Tom', and 'Fighting Joe'. These names were of course given them by the sailors, but they came to be known to whalers of all nations. You may think it curious that one whale could be identified from another of the same size and species, but it was no more difficult than to identify one particular horse in a drove of several hundred. In other words, each leviathan has some peculiar mark or characteristic of his own, and if sighted two or three times can be identified for ever afterward.

"Mocha Dick' headed the list of terrors from the start, and kept his place for nineteen long years. No whale was so fiercely hunted, and none ever created so much damage among the hunters. What I am going to tell you is partly a matter of published record in England, Scotland and America, and was partly gleaned from Nantucket and

New Bedford whalers who battled with the cachelot time after time, to suffer defeat on each occasion.

"On the 5th day of July, 1840, the English whaling brig' Desmond', being then 215 miles due west of the port of Valparaiso, Chili, sighted a lone whale which breached his full length above the surface about two miles away. The boats were lowered, but before they were within half a mile of the whale he slued around head on to them and advanced to meet them. He struck one boat with his head, and drove her under stern first and then chewed her up. He then sounded and was lost to sight for fifteen minutes. When he came up it was to lift the other boat thirty feet high on his head, and of course she was completely shattered. Oars and planks were ground fine by his teeth as he wallowed about, and two men were drowned before the whale finally went slowly off to the north. This was Mocha Dick's' introduction to the blubber hunters. He was the largest whale any one aboard the brig had ever seen, and across his head was a scar about eight feet long, which showed almost white on the grey-black background. It was by this scar he was ever afterward identified.

"The next craft to encounter Mocha Dick' was the Russian bark Sarepta'. This was on the 30th of August, almost two months later, and she was fully 500 miles to the south of the spot where he was first seen. She lowered two boats for a lone whale and killed him. The bark was three miles away, and beating down to the whale under a light breeze, when Mocha Dick' suddenly shot out of the water between the vessel and the boats. Such was his impetus that nearly his full length could be traced before he fell with a crash that could have been heard for miles around. As soon as he had righted himself he made straight for the boats. One of them passed around the dead whale before he got up, but the other was caught by the sweep of his jaw as he came on and was knocked to

pieces. He then took up his position beside the dead whale and remained quiet for half an hour, during which interval the other boat pulled off to the bark.

"Three men had been lost, and a fourth had both arms broken, while the sailors had been given such a fright that they could not be induced to attack. The vessel hung about the spot for three hours, hoping the fierce leviathan would take himself off, but finally had to sail away and leave him in possession. The dead whale was taken possession of two days later by the whaling ship 'John Bruce', of Nantucket, but it was no longer guarded.

"The next authentic record of 'Mocha Dick' was furnished by the Bristol whaler' John Day' in May of the year following. She was then to the east of the Falkland Islands, and was trying out blubber as she drifted with a light breeze. At two o'clock in the afternoon a gigantic whale breached within 300 feet of her, shooting his full length out of water, and raising such a sea by his fall that the ship rolled as if in a gale. The whale then swam slowly about, and as soon as the men caught sight of his head they identified him as 'Mocha Dick'. His actions were menacing, but the captain at once decided to attack him. Three boats were lowered, and as the whale made off to windward the first mate put a harpoon into him. This was the first iron Mocha Dick' had ever felt. He sounded at once and ran for three miles, and when he came up it was to slue around and head for the boat. His action was so unexpected and his speed so great, that he caught the boat unprepared and ran right over it.

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As it went under he stopped short and turned as on a pivot, beating the water all the time with flukes which measured twenty-four feet across. Nothing was left of the boat but splinters, and two of her crew were killed or drowned. The other two boats advanced to the attack, but before they were near enough to dart the whale settled