15.Hobbes of Malmsbury: Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), seventeenth-century English natural philosopher.

  16.Hudibras: Seventeenth-century satiric poem by Samuel Butler (1612–1680).

  17.Palermo: Sicilian city.

  18.Caffres: Bantu-speaking people of southern Africa; often spelled “Kaffir” or “Kafir.”

  19.Muscat: City in present-day Oman.

  CHAPTER 3

  1.New Zealand: Bembo is a Maori from New Zealand, off the coast of Australia. Maoris are Polynesians who migrated to New Zealand from the central Pacific and decimated the original aboriginal people on the islands.

  2.worms: In this case, weevils, which often infested dry foods such as hardtack, flour, and oatmeal.

  3.antipodes: Opposite side; usually the parts of the earth diametrically opposite each other.

  4.Hong merchants: Chinese merchants designated to trade with foreigners. All other Chinese were forbidden from interacting with foreigners.

  5.navy stores: Naval supplies. These are different from naval stores, which refers specifically to products such as turpentine, pitch, and rosin obtained especially from pine and used in the construction and maintenance of wooden sailing vessels.

  6.cable’s length: Measurement of about one hundred fathoms, or one-tenth of a sea mile.

  7.Spanish Main: Central America and the contiguous sea.

  8.galley-slaves: Those condemned to row the oars of a galley, or large oar-powered vessel used primarily for trade.

  9.Hytyhoo: More properly Vaitahu, a village on the western side of Tahuata.

  10.St. Christina: Santa Christina, the older name for Tahuata in the southern Marquesas Islands.

  11.Mendanna: Álvaro de Mendaña de Nehra (1542–1595) was the first European to visit the Marquesas Islands, in 1595. He named the islands Las Marquesas de Mendoza for his patron, Don García Hurtado de Mendoza, Marquis de Cañete, viceroy of Peru. He saw only four islands: Fatuiva, which he named La Magdalena; Motane (SanPedro); Hiva Oa (La Dominica); and Tahuata (Santa Christina).

  12.Trades: Steady winds blowing in a constant direction, usually from the northeast between the northern horse latitudes and the doldrums and from the southeast between the southern horse latitudes and the doldrums.

  13.bonettas: Medium-size tuna; usually spelled “bonito.”

  CHAPTER 4

  1.scuttle: Hatchway.

  2.steward: Officer in charge of keeping stores and arranging meals, especially for the captain.

  CHAPTER 5

  1.corvette: Fast naval vessel.

  2.mizzen: Mast farthest aft, or farthest toward the back of the vessel.

  3.mystic symbol of the ban: The strip of white tapa indicates that the vessel is tapu, and therefore the girls are banned from coming aboard.

  4.starboard quarter: The farthest aft section of the vessel on the starboard, or right, side.

  5.tackles: Ropes used to secure the boat.

  6.trumpet: Speaking trumpet used to project the voice so it could be heard at a greater distance.

  7.boatswain’s pipe: Whistle used for signaling crew.

  8.turned up like tortoises: When tortoises are turned on their back, they cannot right themselves.

  9.tumbler full of powder: Essentially one cup of powder for each man caught.

  10.raising the game in their coverts: Finding the hunted in their hiding places. Like hunting dogs, the natives only find the deserters; the deserters are captured by the French.

  CHAPTER 6

  1.La Dominica, or Hivarhoo: La Dominica, the older name for Hiva Oa (called by Melville “Hivarhoo”).

  2.“Hands by the weather-main-brace!”: Command for sailors to stand by the main brace, which controls the movement of the yards on the mainmast, on the weather side: the side from which the wind is coming.

  3.Pomotu group: The islands now known as the Tuamotusm, which cover a vast stretch of the Pacific between the Marquesas and the Tahitian, or Society, islands. The seventy-seven atolls of the Tuamotus cover an area stretching 930 miles northwest to southeast and 310 miles east to west. The land area of the Tuamotus is only about 270 square miles, but the narrow chains of low-lying islands that make up the group surround more than 2,300 square miles of sheltered lagoon.

  CHAPTER 7

  1.Hannamanoo: More properly Hanamenu, a bay on the northwest corner of Hiva Oa.

  2.we got our…for an offing: The vessel approaches the island in the evening, when it is too dark and too dangerous to be close to shore. Therefore, the vessel must tack, or turn, away from the land and sail until it is far enough offshore to be safe.

  3.wore, and ran in: To tack is to turn the vessel’s bow, or front end, through the wind; to ware is to turn its stern, or back end, through the wind. The Julia has been tacking upwind away from the island during the night; she now turns her stern into the wind and sails downwind (to run is to sail downwind) back to the island.

  4.safe anchorage: It is notoriously difficult to anchor near the island of Hiva Oa. Vessels often anchored at the neighboring island of Tahuata and rowed to Hiva Oa to conduct business there.

  5.mast-head: Men were stationed at the mastheads near the tops of the masts in one-or two-hour shifts to look out for whales. On entering port, men were also stationed at the mastheads to help con the vessel.

  6.vessel to strike: Vessel to go aground.

  7.renegado: Renegade: a deserter from one faith, cause, or allegiance to another.

  8.Cain’s: In the book of Genesis, God put a mark upon Cain after he killed his brother Abel (Genesis 4: 15).

  9.Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus: From II Kings 5: 12: “Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel?”

  10.Lem Hardy: Charles Roberts Anderson, in Melville in the South Seas (1939), suggests that the fictional Lem Hardy may be based on Jean Baptiste Cabri, a renegade on Nuku Hiva, about whom Georg H. von Langsdorff writes in his Voyages and Travels in Various Parts of the World (1813).

  11.Napoleon’s: Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821) campaigned against Austrian forces in Italy in 1796 and won, often defeating enemies with superior numbers. This was the beginning of his military ascendancy. However, Melville most likely refers here to Napoleon’s leading a French army across the Alps in 1800 to defeat the Austrians.

  12.domestic fortunes…the Corsican’s: Napoleon was born in Corsica and therefore known as the Corsican. He was named “consul for life” of France in 1799 and in 1804 crowned himself emperor and his wife, Josephine, empress.

  13.fathoms: A fathom is a measurement of six feet.

  14.genealogy of Odin: The Prose Edda (c. 1220) identifies the Norse god Odin as the son of Borr, and he is occasionally referred to as Borr’s son in poetry. But Borr is not mentioned elsewhere, and little is known of him.

  15.parish workhouse: A workhouse where the poor and indigent were given meager food and board in exchange for work.

  16.bellied royals: The royal sails are the highest sails on the mast. Here the sails are filled with wind and pulling the vessel along swiftly.

  CHAPTER 8

  1.Urim and Thummim: Sacred lots used in early times by the Hebrews.

  CHAPTER 9

  1.watches: When seamen were on “watch,” they were on duty and responsible for the handling of the ship. Watches were generally four hours in length at sea and six hours in length when trying out a whale.

  2.Guy Fawkes’s…Parliament House: On November 5, 1605, Guy Fawkes was seized for attempting to blow up the Houses of Parliament in London with gunpowder hidden in underground vaults.

  3.“Luff”: To luff is to turn the vessel into the wind, thus causing the sails to flutter and the wind pressure on the sails to be reduced.

  4.the captain…became quite ill: Captain Henry Ventom, captain of the whaleship Lucy Ann, on which Melville served in 1842, was taken ill en route to Tahiti with a deep-seated abscess in his perineum. The first mate, German, realizing how ill the captain had become, headed the vessel toward Tahiti and medical aid.

  5.albatros: Large seabird. This is also a possible reference to Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798), which Melville knew well.

  6.“boatswain”: Tropic birds were known as boatswain or bo’sun birds because of their long tail feather, which sailors likened to the marlinspike carried by a boatswain, or bo’sun.

  7.leeward: In the direction away from the wind.

  8.“butt”: A cask of 126 gallons.

  9.“trick” at the helm: Period of time during which one steers the vessel; the helm, which is generally a wheel, is the mechanism by which the vessel is turned.

  10.Robins the Londoner: George Henry Robins (1778–1847), a very successful London auctioneer famous for writing his own excessively favorable advertisements for property.

  CHAPTER 10

  1.bulkhead: Wall between compartments on a ship.

  2.carline: Usually spelled “carling”; a timber used to support the deck.

  3.cleets: Here, pieces of wood nailed across the plank to keep people entering the forecastle from slipping and falling.

  4.Trenck’s mouse: Baron Frederick Trenck (1726–1794) secretly married Princess Anna Amalia, the sister of Frederick the Great, king of Prussia. When the king discovered the marriage, Trenck was imprisoned but escaped. He was later recaptured and held in a specially built cell. During his ten years’ imprisonment, he tamed an intelligent mouse.

  5.Clarence’s in the butt of Malmsey: George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence (1449–1478), younger brother of King Edward IV of England. He plotted against his older brother and later was imprisoned in the Tower of London, convicted of treason, and executed. The tradition has grown that he was drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine.

  CHAPTER 11

  1.coppers: Copper kettles.

  2.rove the lines: Running the line through blocks, or pulleys.

  3.blocks: Pulleys used aboard ship to increase the mechanical advantage and therefore make it easier to pull on lines.

  4.tops: A mast on board a ship was not just one tall piece of wood, but rather was formed from several separate mast sections, each called a mast, that overlapped for several feet to allow each higher section to be solidly affixed to the lower section from which it extended vertically. The forward masts of a whaleship, for example, were often composed of three separate masts: the lower mast, the topmast, and the topgallant mast. Near the top of the lower mast, a platform was constructed to spread out the shrouds coming from the upper masts. This platform was called the “top”; the highest point of the mast was called the “truck.”

  5.lower yard-arms: Sails were lashed to yards, which hung horizontally from the masts and square, or perpendicular, to the vessel (hence the term “square-rigger”). Yardarms were the tips, or outermost sections, of the yards. The lower yardarms were the tips of the lowest yards.

  6.Triton: A demigod of the sea, the son of Poseidon and Amphitrite, with the lower part of his body shaped like a fish. Here, an old and experienced sailor.

  7.braced: To brace a yard is to pull it one way or the other in order to better catch the wind.

  8.sounding: Measuring; usually measuring the depth of water.

  CHAPTER 12

  1.“kentlege”: Iron ballast.

  2.“Brace forward!”: Braces are used to control the movements of the yards; to brace forward is to pull the yard forward on one side in order to catch the wind, fill the sails, and thus have the vessel move forward more briskly.

  3.Cape-de-Verd Islands: A group of islands off the coast of Africa that were governed by Portugal until 1975. Outward-bound whaleships often sailed short-handed, then stopped at the islands to hire enough men to fill out the crew.

  4.reefed: To reef is to reduce the size of a sail by folding and tying off either the top or bottom of the sail.

  5.main-top-gallant-sail: Second-highest sail on the mainmast. The sails for the mainmast are called, in ascending order, the mainsail, the topsail, the topgallant sail, and the royal.

  6.Finlanders, or Finns: A sailor superstition persisted that Finns could conjure up storms and that they were the source of bad weather and evil at sea. Jack London refers to this superstition in chapter 40 of The Mutiny of the Elsinore (1914); he calls the superstition “brutal” and the sailors who believed it “imbeciles,” just as Melville calls them “ignorant.”

  7.cooper: Maker of casks (see chapter 13, note 1); a cooper was very important on a whaleship because he assembled and maintained the casks that carried the whale oil back to port. If the casks should leak, whale oil—and therefore profits—would be lost.

  8.Bungs: The common nickname for the cooper comes from the stopper used to seal casks that hold liquids.

  CHAPTER 13

  1.cask: A barrel-shaped wooden container. “Cask” is the generic term; a barrel was a specific unit of measurement, which in the case of whale oil held 311–2 gallons.

  2.atrip: Raised perpendicular from the ground; when an anchor was atrip, it was in the last stages of being lifted from the ground. A sailor whose anchor was aweigh, or lifted off the ground, was one who no longer had contact with the earth and was therefore dead.

  3.consul’s: A consul is an official appointed by a government (in this case the government of England) to reside in a foreign country to represent the commercial interests of its citizens.

  4.larboard tack: With the wind coming from the larboard, or port, side of the vessel. Port is the left side of the vessel; larboard was an archaic term for port that continued to be used on whaleships long after it was discontinued elsewhere.

  CHAPTER 14

  1.Rope Yarn: Rope is made by twisting fibers together. Fibers were twisted to form yarns, then yarns were twisted to form strands, and finally strands were twisted to form rope. The young sailor’sname, Rope Yarn, signifies insignificance, since a yarn is but a small part of a rope. 2. quadrant: A tool, in the shape of a quarter of a circle, used to measure the angle between a celestial body and the horizon in order to determine location. 3. oakum: Hemp fibers, often from picked-apart old rope, used to caulk a ship. 4. beef-kid: Container in which the sailors’ food is brought from the galley, or ship’s kitchen. 5. lee-scuppers: Scuppers are holes along the side of the deck to allow water to run out. The lee-scuppers are the ones on the leeward side of the ship. The wind pushes against the vessel on the windward side; therefore, the opposite side, called the leeward or lee side, is usually lower, closer to the water. 6. Holborn: Section of London, England. 7. ’ob: Hob: a part of a fireplace. 8. noggin: Mug or cup. 9. Cheshire: A cheese from Cheshire County in England.

  CHAPTER 15

  1.forehold: The hold or storage area deep in the belly of the ship; the forehold is the hold in the forward part of the ship. 2. bilge: The belly of a cask. 3. bung-hole: The hole on the side of a cask into which the bung, or stopper, is placed. 4. Lord Nelson: Horatio Nelson (1758–1805), British naval hero.

  CHAPTER 16

  1.chafed cord: Lines of running rigging used to move the sails that have become rubbed and worn with long use.

  2.fore-chains: The forechains at the forward end of the vessel attach the standing rigging, which holds the masts upright, to the hull of the ship.

  3.main-t’-gallant-mast: The mainmast is actually composed of three separate masts; the highest of these is the topgallant mast.

  4.cap: Thick blocks of wood where two sections of mast are joined.

  5.hamper: Nautical term describing equipment that is necessary but in the way.

  6.cross-trees: The cross-trees are spreaders to which standing rigging is attached at the point where two sections of mast are joined together.

  7.Sou’-Wester: Waterproof hat.

  8.ring-bolt: Iron ring bolted into the deck of a vessel used for lashing.

  9.head-bulwarks: Sides of the vessel above the deck; the head-bulwarks are at the forward end.

  10.taffrail: Rail around the back end, or stern, of a vessel.

  11.after-hatch: Cover over the hatchway or opening at the back, or after, part of a ship.

  12.flying-jib-boom: The bowsprit, or long pole that extended forward from the ship, was composed of several pieces. The bowsprit itself stuck out from the deck, the jibboom was placed on top of the bowsprit and stretched beyond it, and the flying-jib-boom was placed on top of the jibboom and extended the farthest. Headsails were attached to the bowsprit, jibboom, and flying-jib-boom; on a whaleship, these sails were generally the fore staysail, fore topmast staysail, jib, and flying jib.

  13.spanker-gaff: The spanker was a four-sided sail that stretched aft from the mizzen mast at the back of the ship. The upper edge of the sail was kept stretched out with a wooden spar called a gaff(sometimes gaff-boom).

  CHAPTER 17

  1.reckoning: Estimation of a ship’s position.

  2.Rule of Three: Method of using proportions to find a fourth number from three known numbers.

  3.chronometer: Instrument for measuring accurate time, which is needed to calculate longitude.

  4.Greenwich time: The prime meridian, from which longitude is measured, runs through Greenwich, England. The exact time at the prime meridian—formerly known as “Greenwich time” or “Greenwich mean time” but now referred to as “Coordinated Universal Time”—can be obtained from a very accurate timepiece called a chronometer and is used to calculate longitude.

  5.“Dead Reckoning”: Determination of a ship’s position from the record of the course steered and the distance traveled; the term evidently is a shortening of “deduced reckoning.” A position obtained from dead reckoning is not as accurate as one determined by celestial observation using a sextant, quadrant, or octant.

  6.meridian distance: Degrees of longitude.

  7.Bow Bells: The bells of Bow Church in London, England.

  8.lunar observation: Lunar observation was a method of determining longitude that was difficult to master. The calculations involved were very time-consuming. Lunar observation was developed in the mid-eighteenth century, just about the same time as the first accurate maritime clock; both could be used to determine longitude.