MELVILLE'S MOCKERY
OF FOREIGN WHALERS
BY CORNELIS DE JONG
Herman Melville used many books on whales and whaling in writing >>Moby Dick«: some com
mentators maintain that he pillaged them, but he honestly mentions most of them. Some of his
most important sources were the following:
Thomas Beale: The Natural History of the Sperm Whale ... to Which Is Added a Sketch of a
South Sea Whaling Voyage. London 1839.
Frederick Debell Bennett: Narrative of a Whaling Voyage Round the Globe from the Year 1833
to 1836. London 1840.
William Scoresby,Junior: An Account of the Arctic Regions, with a History and Description of
the Northern Whale Fishery. Two volumes. Edinburgh 1820.
Beale and Bennett were British surgeons on a British whaleship participating in the South Sea
fishery. Scoresby was the captain of English whaleships in the Arctic sea from 1810 to 1823. His
father, Capt. William Scoresby, Sr , was a pioneer of British Arctic whaling. William Scoresby,
jJ.mior was hirnself a conspiciously successful whaler, a devotee of the natural sciences, a histo
rian of European whaling, and a faunder of Polar science.
It is remarkable that Melville mocks Scoresby as an author but not Beale or Bennett, though
he admits frankly that he owes much to all three. In chapter 32, Cetology, he writes of his sour
ces: .. . one of them was a real professional harpooner and whaleman: Captain Scoresby. This is
much praise for Scoresby, though I have not read that he served as a harpooner.
To explain Melville's satire of Scoresby mild, not bitter the reader should realize that this
mockery had a !arger bearing. It concerns: (A) nations who competed with Americans in whal
ing, (B) his readers, and (C) learned authors such as William Scoresby, jr.
(A). In »Moby Dick<< Melville aimed at writing an epic in prose on United States whaling.
Therefore he wished to deprecate competing nations benignly. This was not very difficult, for
the other nations had much less success in the South Sea fishery than the Americans . The British
performed best, according to Melville, the French and Germans much more poorly. The reader
should mentally include the Durch with the Germans as was often c one in the Untited Stares.
Melville ridicules successively, and to an increasing extent, the British whalers (chapter 100, Leg
and Arm), the French (chapter 91, The Pequod Meets the Rose Sud), and the Germans (chapter
81, The Pequod Meets the Virgin).
(B). Melville repeatedly interrupts his narrative of Ahab's hunt for Moby Dick to the won
der of his reader and sometimes to his irritation. In this way Melville gradually increases the ten
sion in his tale and teases his readers. An example of this subtle mockery is chapter 82, jonah
Historically Regarded. Here he maintains thatJonah in the whale was the first man who circum
navigated the Cape of Good Hope.
(C). Melville lists as his sources a series of historical, learned men, as weil as invented, quasi
learned men with funny names, in which the reader often recognizes Scoresby. Examples of
these quacks in cetology are Charley Coffin (chapter 32, Cetology), Captain Sleet (chapter 35,

218
The Masthead), Doctor Zogranda (chapter 65, The Whale as a Dish), Fogo von Slack (chapter
92, Ambergris), Doctor Snodhead, a very learned man (chapter 101, The Decanter), and Fitz
Swackhammer (chapter 101, The Decanter). Melville's mild satire reaches its culmination with
the two last mentioned celebrities. Thereafter the seriousness and tension of his narrative grow
rapidly and as an able author he silences his mockery.
Why did Melville Ievel a great deal of his satire at Scoresby? Before the reader attempts to
identify Melville's quasi learned disguises of Scoresby, he should ask why Melville chose this
able whaling captain as the main object of his satire, although he repeatedly quotes him with his
proper name as an authority, mostly respectfully (pp. 228, 372, 563, 571), once with criticism
(p. 372).1 And why did his mockery spare Beale and Bennen?
Captain William Scoresby, sen.
From: Basil Lubbock: The
Arctic Whalers, (Glasgow,
1937; Reprint 1955)
One of the best commentators on »Moby Dick<<, H. P. Vincent, in >>The Trying Out of Moby
Dick«2lists three reasons for Melville's mockery of Scoresby:
(1). Melville intended to write the epic of American whaling, as stated above, and to elevate
this dangerous, dirty, and underpaid profession, which was despised by merchant sailors, to a
noble craft. Therefore, he had to deprecate the older, and at that time much more reputed, hunt
of the Greenland whale (the Great Whale, Melville writes) and the most authoritative author of
the Arctic fishery, Scoresby. For this. reason he proclaims to the credulous among his readers,
too emphatically: Hear ye! good people! the Greenland whale is deposed the Great Sperm
Whale now reigneth! (chapter 32, Cetology).

219
(2). Scoresby wrote mainly about Arctic whaling and little about sperm whaling in the
South Seas, in cantrast to Beale and Bennett. Scoresby describes sperm whaling in appendix
VIII, Some Account of the Whalefishery Conducted in the Southern Sea, in volume II of >>An
Account of the Arctic Regions<<, pp. 529 537. Either Melville was not satisfied with this appen
dix or overlooked it. He writes of Scoresby in chapter 32, Cetology: On the separate subject of
the Greenland or right whale he is the best existing authority. But Scoresby knows nothing and
says nothing of the great Sperm Whale, compared with which the Greenland whale is almost
unworthy mentioning.
(3). Scoresby wrote with 19th century seriousness and thoroughness. His major work, »An
Account of the Arctic Regions<<, in two volumes with 1,100 pages is il classic and a standard
Captain William Scoresby, jun.
From: Basil Lubbock: The
Arctic Whalers, (Glasgow,
1937; Reprint 1955)
work. However, for laymen and men of Iiterature it is a tedious book. Melville read it attentively
and used it for his novel, but as a novelist he apparently wondered how such an experienced
whaler and learned man could write such an unimaginative work about such a fascinating subject
as whaling. This characteristic of Scoresby also stimulated Melville's inclination to mockery.
The following paragraphs are a supplement and explanation of Vincent's references to foreign
whalers in »Moby Dick<<.
When »Moby Dick<< appeared in 1851 Scoresby was alive and perhaps for this reason Melville
spared him and in his mockery of Scoresby chose disguises which the reader can easily see
through. In his so called scientific survey of whale species according to the book sizes of folio,

220
TIIE UHilEH CET.\CF..\.
Previous to the time of the
elder Captain Scuresby, C'lp
tain!i ur harpoone-r!i on watch,
at the mast heau, were only
protected from the inclemency
of the weather hy a lJit of can
vass; but, this heing fuund ex
trernely incon\"enient, this gen
tlernan constructed what is
tcchnically called "the Crow's
Xest," which is as simple as
ingeuious, consisting merdy of
a species of sentry-box, made of
light wood in the shape of a
cask, having a scat in the mid
d!c, nnd a species of tr::�p-door
in tbe floor; this is pru\-ided
" ith a tclescope, a speakin;;
trurupet, nnd a signal instru
ment of this shnpe, Jenomi-
nated
Captain William Scoresby's crow's nest for the look out man on
whaleships in the Arctic sea. From: Henry William Dewhurst:
Natural history of the Order Cetacea and the Oceanic Inhabitants
of the Arctic regions, (London 1834)
octavo, and duodecimo (chapter 32, Cetology) he parodies Scoresby's biological classification in
vol. I, pp. 449 501 of >>An Account of the Arctic Regions«.
In regard to the narwhal's tooth, Melville writes in chapter 32: Charley Coffin said, it was used
for an ice piercer. This is a clear allusion to Scoresby, volume I, p. 492: It is not improbable that
it [the narwhal toothJ may be used in piercing thin ice for the convenience of respiring. Melville's
comment on p. 238 runs: It would certainly be very convenient to him [the narwhalj for a folder
in reading pamphlets. Another allusion to the dry world of books.
In chapter 35, The Mast head, Melville makes game of Scoresby's description of the proteered
crow's nest for the lookout man in the mast top. lt has been introduced by Scoresby's father on
whaleships in the Arctic sea to proteer the lookout man against the Polar cold. He was evidently
very pleased with his father's innovation and described it extensively in »An Account of the Arc
tic Regions<< , volume II, pp. 203 205, and in the biography, »My Father, Being Records of the
Adventurous Life of the Late William Scoresby Esq. of Whitby<c3 He always wrote Fatherwith
a capital to show respect to his domineering dad.
Melville parodies him in his description on page 254 of Captain Sleet's crow's nest. This wor
thy was master of the good ship GLACIER and author of the admirable volume, »A Voyage
among the Icebergs in Quest of the Greenland Whale and Incidentally for the Rediscovery of the
Lost leefandie Colanies of old Greenland«. The invented title refers to the subject of the search
for the disappeared Norwegian colanies in Greenland, a subject which was quite unimportant to
whalemen, but which bad evoked Scoresby's interest, as shown in his work, »An Account of the

221
Arctic Regions<< . Melville ridicules the proteered crow's nest unjustly. This contraption may
have been superfluous in the tropical and subtropical seas visited by Melville, where the sperm
whale was hunted, but it was a blessing for the look out man in his elevated post in the Arctic sea
and a proof of the humane spirit of the Scoresbys.
Melville presumably based some of his tall stories on Scoresby's work. He probably imitates
the scientific accuracy of this scienrific whaling captain in his exaggeration of the dimensions of
a whale in chapter 103, Measurement of the Whale's Skeleton. Melville maimains that he hirnself
saw a sperm whale that measured exactly 85 to 90 feet (not very exactly !) in length. Such a whale
will weigh at least 90 ton, he assures us. In this he correctly applies the well known rule of thumb
that each foot of a sperm whale's length represents a weight of about one metric ton. According
to genuine sciemific handbooks, the sperm whale measures at most 60 feet and weighs at most
60 metric tons.
Melville also takes the story of the verdict regarding the property rights in relation to a Green
land whale in chapter 90 from Scoresby's volume II, pp. 518 521, and he does not disguise the
fact that he thinks the case ridiculous.
A Parallel to Melville's Satire
There exists an imeresting parallel to Melville's attitude towards Scoresby. Professor A.P.
Grove of the University of Pretoria, South Africa, has found the origin of the two whale poems
of the nored poet in Durch Afrikaans, Niebolas Petrus van Wyk Louw.4 Louw's short poems
bear the titles, The Narwhal and Svend Foyn. The latter is one of the few non Norwegian poems
regarding Foyn, the faunder of modern, industrial whaling. Each of rhe two poems alternately
contains a cool, sciemific, and economic view and, in contrast, an emotional view of whaling.
Grove proves with quotations that the source of Louw's poems was the unemotional, historical
book of W.H.G. Palm, >>Walvisschen en Walvischvaart<<.5 An error by Palm was repeated by
Louw and this convinces me that Grove is right. Palm calls the improver of Svend Foyn's
harpoon gun Captain Julsrud, but Julsrud was no captain. He was the managing-director of
Kongsberg Vaabenfabrikk in Norway, which manufactured whaling guns.
Though it is doubtful whether Louw was inspired by »Moby Dick<< , just as Scoresby evoked
Melville's liking for banter, Louw mocks the learnedness concerning whales in Palm's scientific,
dry treatise.
My translation of Louw's Svend Foyn follows. The alternation of the two above mentioned
views in this poem is indicated by typefaces: Palm's Statements are printed in Roman letters,
while Louw's ironic comments, charged with emotion, are printed in Italics.
Svend Foyn
Svend Foyn invented the harpoon gun
and mounted it on an iron pivot;
he then directed the harpoon at whales
(oh, those soft softnesses, in that white
snow sea, snow surf,
oh, those soft islands of blood)
But then that iron pivot had no spring,
so often it broke down
(oh, snow, is it not good!)
from the shock of that speared gun
(oh snow, is it not good, that iron pivot!)

222
And then the other Norwegian, Captain Julsrud,
had shifted a dear, tender recoil mount
under that steel thorn; and
(snow, snow, my snow, cover it alt!)
set silent force against soft blood.
N.P. van Wyk Louw
from >>Tristia<< (Amsterdam 1962)
The Dutch as a Target of Melville's Satire
In the irony he levelled at the Dutch, Melville followed the example of the British and American
authors of his time. In 17th and 18th century Britain there was a hatred of the Durch as maritime
and commercial competitors. This anti Dutch sentiment was often tied to the murder of Am
boina in 1623, when, on ehe spiee island of Amboina, the Durch East India Company ordered
the execution of some Englishmen, who had been accused of high treason, but who were consi
dered innocent according to public opinion in Great Britain. Towards ehe end of ehe 18th cen
tury British hatred of the Durch turned into contempt as a result of ehe decline in Durch shipping
and commerce, fisheries and whaling. This decline, in quality as weil as in quantity, was espe
cially evident in the chartered East India and West India Companies and in the whaling industry.
Some contemporary authors wrote disparagingly of ehe naval officers of ehe East India Com
pany, whose personnel numbered increasingly more foreigners and deteriorated in quality.
In volume I I of »An Account of the Areeie RegionS<< William Scoresby, jr. wrote wich com
passion not only about Dutch whaling bur about Durch naval power as weil:
From being one of the most enterprising and intrepid nations in the world, they, through the
dissolution of their unanimity by the presence and influence of French soldiery, and the conse
quent introduction of French principles among them, have greatly degenerated in public spirit
and commercial talent. Hence, of late years, their energies have been relaxed and they have been
unable to keep pace with the improvements which have been adopted in the art of the fishery by
the British and their success has in consequence been much inferior. (p. 146) This remark was
probably weil noted by Melville.
The Scot, J.R. McCulloch, refers in his »Dictionary, Practical, Theoretical and Historical, of
Commerce and Commercial Navigation<<6 to ehe French domination of ehe Netherlands from
1795 until 1813 as an explanation for ehe decline of Dutch whaling: The war [between Britain
and the Netherlands} entirely annihilated that [whalefishery} of the Dutch. According to
McCulloch, this war probably contributed more to ehe rise of British whaling than the subsidies
granred by the British government to British whaleship owners. This excuse for the decline of
Dutch whaling is not entirely valid, however, for the decline had set in twenty years before the
French domination of ehe Netherlands starred the British blockade in 1795.
British pride and disdain of other seafaring nations grew with British naval power after ehe
defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte, and concerned in the first place ehe Durch as rivals who had
dropped behind. This attitude was also adopted by North Americans. It is true that they were
ehe strongest competitors of ehe British merchant marine in ehe first half of the nineteenth cen
tury and dominared the whaling industry, but they viewed the world abroad usually through
British coloured spectacles because of their common language and ehe popularity of British Iite
rature in the United Stares.
Melville and other American authors poked fun at the Durch as bragging cowards and good
hearted, fickle small-burghers. See, for example, Washington Irving's »Diederick Knicker
bocker's History of New Yorb, in which he mocks the snobbism of old New York families of
Durch descent. The Durch are also parodied in ehe tales of Rip van Winkle and »The Legend of
Sleepy Hollow<< . Likewise, James Fenimore Cooper, in »The Pilot<< , chapter 34, has as a prota
gonist an anti-British rebel, who says of the Durch: Had I but the moiety of the navy of that

223
degenerate republic, the proudest among those haughty islanders [theBritish} would tremble in
his castle.
Melville pokes fun at Scoresby and, over his head, at the Durch, who are quoted several times
by Scoresby as his source. Following Scoresby's example, Melville >>quotes<< from the works of
learned men, who are his own inventions. In this group we find Dr. Zogranda, Fogo von Slack,
Fitz Swackhammer, Doctor Snodhead, and Peter Peterson from Friesland. These appelations are
deliberately chosen, for Melville liked to play with the sound of names. I hear in >>slack« and
>>swack<< the Dutch »zwak<< (weak). Snodhead resembles Snorehead, Swackhammer Stands for
Swackhead, as Melville would not use »head<< in two names on the same page.
He writes of the Eskimos in p. 405: Zogranda, one of their most farnaus doctors, recommends
strips of blubber for infants. Melville praises the nutritional properties of finks of whale blubber,
and teils us that among Durch whalemen the scraps of blubber are called fritters that greatly re
semble the tasteful old Amsterdam housewives' doughnuts or »oly cooks«. Apart from oly cooks,
this knowledge is derived from Scoresby's >>Account of the Arctic Regions<< , vol. I. pp. 475 476.
According to Harold Beaver, the editor of the Penguin edition of »Moby Dick<<, p. 825,
Zogranda is an anagram; William Thorpe thinks that Zogranda refers to Sangrado, the Vallado
lid doctor to whom GilBlas attached hirnself I fail to see, however, why Melville would have
thought of Sangrado, who has no connection with whaling. I suppose that Melville had the
Durch commandeur (whaling captain) Cornelis Gijsbertus Zorgdrager in mind. This Durchman
was the author or rather, one of the two authors of the famous book, >>Bloeyende Opkomst
der Aloude en Hedendaagsche Groenlandsche Visschery<<, a treatise on Arctic whaling which
appeared in Amsterdam in 1720, was reprinted in 1727, and printed in a German translation at
Leipzig in 1723.7
Scoresby quotes Zorgdrager on pp. 150, 168, and 169 of vol. II. The connection is strength
erred by the reference to the Dutch whalemen in the same paragraph in >>Moby Dick<< in which
Zogranda is mentioned. Because some non Dutch people would have difficulty in pronouncing
the name Zorgdrager, Melville has presumably simplified it to Zogranda. In this way he mocks
the British whaling captain and author, Scoresby, and his Dutch counterpart, Zorgdrager.
Several times Melville refers seriously, or quasi seriously, to the Dutch whaling industry,
using Scoresby's rambling work. He elaborates in chapter 92, pp. 520 521, on Smeerenburg
(Durch for Blubbertown), the Dutch whaling Settlement on Amsterdam Island of Spitsbergen.
His alleged source is the learned Fogo von Slack in his great work on smells, a textbook on that
subject. This is another humerous reference to Scoresby's Standard work, volume II, pp. 143
144, which comments extensively on Smeerenburg. Scoresby's source for his description was
»Nieuwe Beschryving der Walvischvangst<< , volume I, a reprint of the anonymaus work, »De
Walvischvangst met Veele Byzonderheden Daartoe Betrekkelyk<<8; the reprint is often referred
to under the name of D. de Jong, one of the illustrators, not the auhtor. Melville denies empha
tically that the trying-out of fresh blubber, as was usually clone in Smeerenburg, would have
been malodorous. As an ex-whaleman he could speak with authority; I agree with him.
Melville's quasi-serious remarks regarding the consumption of victuals on Durch whaleships
in chapter 101, The Decanter, pp. 556 558, are based on a table with specifications of victuals
consumed which he found in Scoresby, volume II, pp. 151 152. Melville mentions as his source
the work of Fitz Swackhammer, entitled Dan Coopman. Melville's invented friend, Dr. Snod
head, a very learned man, professor of Low Dutch and High German in the college of Santa
Claus and St. Potts, explained to him that Dan Coopman does not mean the cooper, but the mer
chant in the Netherlands (p. 557).
It is true that Scoresby, on p. 151 of volume II, quotes the Amsterdam journal, »De Koop
man<<9, explained by him as the Merchant but the figures, referred to by Melville, are borrowed
by Scoresby, not from »De Koopman<<, but from the well-known Dutch reference work,
»Tegenwoordige Staat der Vereenigde Nederlanden« (The Present State of the United Pro
vinces).10 Scoresby attributes this work to the Amsterdam city councillor and historian, Jan
Wagenaar (Scoresby, volume II, pp. 151 152).

224
Melville tells jokingly how he spent three days drawing up supplementary tables and calcula
ting the consumption per Dutch harpooner of bread, cheese, fish, gin, and beer. On page 558 he
reckons the consumption of beer as two tuns per Durchman per voyage. He finds the Durch
consumption of cheese equally enormous, and their use of beer so much so that he thinks it
improbable that the often bemused Durch harpooners were able to hit the whales. Yet, they did
aim at them, and hit them too he admits on page 558. He puts the crew of a Dutch whalship at
thirty hands, or mouths, on the average, but this number dates from the seventeenth century; it
was forty to fifty mouths in the eighteenth century, so he underestimates their number and over
estimates the consumption of victuals per crew member considerably. He considers the old
whale fishery to be a thirsty profession and in this he is right.
The German Whalemen
The Germans are also derided by Melville. In the nineteenth century the Germans participated
in the South Sea whale fishery as the Americans, British, and French did. In chapter 55, On the
Monstrous Pictures of Whales, Melville criticizes old illustrations of whales, among them the
untruthful pictures in an alleged Durchjournal by Peter Peterson of Friesland, master, entitled
A Whaling Voyage to Spitzbergen in the Ship »]onah in the Whale«, dated 1671. This is a refe
rence to a book by Friedrich Martens, a ship's surgeon of Hamburg, who published in Harnburg
in 1675 »Spitzbergische oder Granlandische Reise Beschreibung, gethan im Jahre 1671«.11
Translations into English and Dutch appeared some years later. Melville consulted the English
translation and maintains in »Moby Dick<< that the old Harris collection of voyages12, borrowed
some inaccurate whale pictures from Peter Peterson's work.
The Germans are the target of Melville's humor in chapter 81, The Pequod Meets the Virgin.
A meeting is described between the PEQUOD and the ship JUNGFRAU, Capt. Derick de Deer,
master out of Bremen, as weil as a race between the two crews after an old, decrepit sperm whale.
The initially amicable meeting of the two crews changes into fierce rivalry. Of course the Ger
mans miss the whale because of their incompetence and the alertness of the Americans: At one
time the greastest whaling people in the world, the Dutch and Germans are now among the least,
but here and there ... you still occasionally meet their flag in the Pacific (pp. 457 458).
Like many Americans Melville does not always make a distinction between the Dutch and the
Germans, sometimes calling both nations Dutch. He depicts Derick de Deer and his crew as
inexperienced, clumsy but conceited suckers. The men of the PEQUOD outwir the Bremen cap
tain and appropriate the whale, but Melville draws the moral that dishonesty doesn't pay, when
the dead whale sinks and is lost.
Thereafter, the JUNGFRAU and her crew of Dutch butter boxes, as Melville calls them, ignor
antly pursue a finwhale, a species of whale that was too fast and too wild to kill and which sank
after death. Melville states on page 469 that The Fin Back's spout is so similar to the Sperm
Whale's that by unskilled fishermen it is often mistaken for it. Here he is mistaken, however, for
the spouts of these two species are clearly different: the spout of the baleen whale, among them
the finwhale, rises vertically, that of the spermwhale moves horizontally because the blow hole
is situated on the foreside of the head, not on the top. Melville concludes this chapter ironically:
Oh, many are the Fin Backs and many are the Dericks, my friend!
Melville's satire of the Bremen whalers also applies to the Durch efforts to restore their
whaling industry in the nineteenth century and to participate in the South Sea fishery. Dr. F.J.A.
Broeze published a paper on these efforts, entit!ed »The Durch Quest of Southern Whaling in
the Nineteenth Century<<.13 He is the first Dutchman to comment on chapter 81 in »Moby Dick<<
and he points out that Melville's satire is aimed at the Durch as weil as the Germans. It is possible
that Melville, while whaling, met Dutch as well as German whaleships.
In note 14 of his article, Broeze refers to the name of the first whaleship which sailed from
Bremen for the South Sea fishery in 1836 38. It was named VIRGINIA and the captain was a Ger

Captain Derick De Deer wants to borrow oil. From: Herman Melville: Moby Dick.
Der weiße Wal. Illustrationen von Herbert Pridöhl, (Berlin, Darmstadt: Deutsche
Buchgemeinschaft, 1954)
225
man, J.D. Krudop. By sheer coincidence, or perhaps not, Derick de Deer's ship in »Moby Dieb
is named THE VrRGlN, in German DIE JUNGFRAU. At the meeting with the PEQUOD, the
VtRGIN is indeed virginal, being empty and >>clean«, that is without any catch. The historical
V!RG! lA, however, did well on the first voyage. For this reason Broeze thinks Melville's satire
of the Germans partly unjustified.
Yet I have doubts regarding the ability of some German whalemen. I read in a book by the
German whaling historian, Miss Wanda Oesau, »Die Deutsche Südseefischerei auf Wale im
19. Jahrhundert<<14 a remark that makes me wonder. She writes on page 17: Im journalbuch des
Bremer Schiffes ·Alexander Barclay« ... 15. Okt. 1845 »8 Uhr Vormittags liesz sich ein Gebläse
sehen 2 Schaluppen wurden zur Verfolgung ausgeschickt, kehrten aber in 1 Std. zurück, indem
sie einen Finnfisch fanden.« (In the logbook of the Bremen whaleship »Alexander Barclay« . ..
15 October 1845, 8 o'clock a.m. a sperm was seen; two whaleboats were sent out to pursue it, but
they 1·eturned after an hour because they found a finwhale.) So the lookout-man and the captain
of this vessel made the same mistake as Derick de Deer when he went after a finwhale. It is true
that the old whalers also pursued the right whale, another baleen whale, but this animal can be
clearly distinguished from the finwhale by its double spout, whereas the finwhale shows a single
spout. Regarding Dutch South Sea whalers, Broeze confirms that they were generally unsuccess
ful, on account of their Iack of abi!ity and experience.
There is little humor to be found in whaling, which is a serious, cruel craft. But Melville's
genius insti!ls a spark of gay humor even in his grim story of a possessed whaling captain.15
Foornotes:
Pagination from the Penguin edition of >•Moby Dick.. , edited by Harold Beaver. (Harmondsworrh,
England: Penguin Books, 1972).
2 Howard Vincenr: The Trying Our of Moby Dick, (Boston: Houghron Mifflin, 1949), p. 133.
3 William Scoresby: My Father: Being Records of the Advenrurous Life of the Late William Scoresby,
Esq. of Whitby. (London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1851).
4 A.P. Grove: Twee Walvisgedigte van N.P. Van Wyk Louw, in: Standpunre, vol. 21, Nr. 5, I (Preroria,
S.A.,June 1968), pp. 18-21.
5 W.H.G. Palm: Walvisschen en Walvischvaart, (Amsterdam; Anrwerpen, 1947), pp. 33, 147.
6 J.R. McCulloch: Dictionary, Practical, Theoretical and Hisrorical, of Commerce and Commercial
Navigation, (London, 1854), p. 1403.
7 Cornelis Gijsberrus Zorgdrager: Bloeyende Opkomst der Aloude en Hedendaagsche Greenlandsehe
Visschery, (Amsterdam, 1720).
8 De Walvischvangst met Veele Byzonderheden Daarroe Betrekkelyk, (Amsterdam & Harlingen, 1784
J 786).

226
9 De Koopman, vol. IV (Amsterdam, 1773), pp. 204 208.
10 Tegenwoordige Staat der Vereenigde Nederlanden, (Amsterdam, 1739), vol. I, pp. 151 152.
II Friedrich Martens: Spitzbergische oder Granlandische Reise Beschreibung, gethan im Jahre 1671,
(Hamburg, 1675).
12 John Harris: Navigantium atque Itinerantium Bibliotheca: or, a Compleat Collection of Voyages and
Travels ... 2 vols. (London: Thomas Bennet, John Nicholson, and Daniel Midwinter, 1705).
13 F.J.A. Broeze: The Dutch Quest of Southern Whaling in the Nineteenth Century, in: Economisch en
Sociaal Historisch Jaarboek, vol. 40 (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1977), pp. 66 112.
14 Wanda Oesau: Die Deutsche Südseefischerei auf Wale im 19. Jahrhundert, (Glückstadt; Hamburg;
New York: J.G. Augustin, 1939), p. 17.
15 I thank Mr. Paul Cyr, curator of the Herman Melville Room in the New Bedfords Free Public Library,
USA, for assisting in the editing of this paper.