Huzza?

If one were to liken Moby Dick to the Bible, then chapter 32 ("Cetology") would be the book of Numbers. All listing and cataloguing ... though, granted, with more interesting information (whales rather than begats) and snarkier attitude ("You think I made up the events in Typee? Fine. You probably don't believe in whales, either. Let me prove whales to you, then. Jackasses.").

I should take a moment to say that while I'm usually pretty good about putting aside my contemporary/cultural mindset when engaging with older literature -- I once shared a philosophy class with another student who could not discuss Plato's Meno because she couldn't get past how wrong it was for Plato to use a slave (the aforementioned Meno) to prove his point in the first place -- it's still tough going to read such lively and exquisite language about whales and, well, the killing of them.

I was already starting to notice this about myself when I got to Ishmael's description of what he classed as "Duodecimoes," that is, various dolphins and porpoises. In writing about what can only be the exuberant bottle-nosed dolphin, Ishmael playfully renames it the "Huzza Porpoise," and goes on to opine:

" ... he always swims in hilarious shoals, which upon the broad sea keep tossing themselves like caps in a Fourth-of-July crowd. Their appearance is generally hailed with delight by the mariner. Full of fine spirits, they invariably come from the breezy billows to the windward. They are the lads that always live before the wind. They are accounted a lucky omen. If you yourself can withstand three cheers at beholding these vivacious fish, then heaven help ye; the spirit of godly gamesomeness is not in ye."

Grinning broadly at this fantastic description of the frolicsome animal, I painfully barked my intellectual shins against the sentence that immediately follows:

"A well-fed, plump Huzza Porpoise will yield you one good gallon of good oil. But the fine and delicate fluid extracted from his jaws is exceedingly valuable."

Extracted from his jaws? Well that's ... just depressing.

P.S. Thanks, Jeff, for the I'll-just-prove-whales-to-you insight into Melville. Stay tuned, kiddies, for the oh-wait-can-one-really-understand-something-as-awesome-as-a-whale? portion of that insight.