1 But afterwards, when the old stalwarts were pumphandling everybody at the door and calling 'em 'Brother' and 'Sister,' they let me sail right by with nary a clinch.'
2 I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts.
3 For my mind was made up to sail in no other than a Nantucket craft, because there was a fine, boisterous something about everything connected with that famous old island, which amazingly pleased me.
4 He was trying his hand at a ship under full sail, but he didn't make much headway, I thought.
5 'We sail with the next coming tide,' at last he slowly answered, still intently eyeing him.
6 For it is particularly written, shipmates, as if it were a thing not to be overlooked in this history, 'that he paid the fare thereof' ere the craft did sail.
7 For the nonce, however, he proposed to sail about, and sow his wild oats in all four oceans.
8 Upon this, I told him that whaling was my own design, and informed him of my intention to sail out of Nantucket, as being the most promising port for an adventurous whaleman to embark from.
9 Hoisting sail, it glided down the Acushnet river.
10 And once for all, let me tell thee and assure thee, young man, it's better to sail with a moody good captain than a laughing bad one.
11 But it seems they always give very long notice in these cases, and the ship did not sail for several days.
12 At last it was given out that some time next day the ship would certainly sail.
13 In most American whalemen the mast-heads are manned almost simultaneously with the vessel's leaving her port; even though she may have fifteen thousand miles, and more, to sail ere reaching her proper cruising ground.
14 I leave a white and turbid wake; pale waters, paler cheeks, where'er I sail.
15 From hand to hand, the buckets went in the deepest silence, only broken by the occasional flap of a sail, and the steady hum of the unceasingly advancing keel.