"Mocha Dick," the White Whale of the Pacific

Summary

In 1839 Jeremiah N. Reynolds, an American newspaper editor, lecturer, explorer, and writer, published a curious tale of a famously fierce bull whale. The article, published in The Knickerbocker; or, New-York Monthly Magazine, claimed this cetacean had foiled the murderous attacks of many whalers over the years and was notable not only for his size and pugnacity but also for his coloration: “He was white as wool!”Article continues after advertisement Initially sighted off the coast of the Chilean island of Mocha in the Pacific, the powerful whale was dubbed Mocha Dick. (Dick was a generic name used at the time like Joe is today—Herman Melville follows this convention by naming his literary whale Moby Dick.) Reynolds claimed to have met the first mate of a whale ship who battled the great one with a darting harpoon and hundreds of feet of 3/4-inch line flying from the rope tub. In his Knickerbocker piece, Reynolds retold the story of the fateful encounter: At that instant, a whale “breached” at the distance of about a mile from us, on the starboard quarter. The glimpse I caught of the animal in his descent, convinced me that I once more beheld my old acquaintance, Mocha Dick. That falling mass was white as a snow-drift!… “Here, harpooner, steer the boat, and let me dart” I exclaimed, as I leaped into the bows….I raised the harpoon above my head, took a rapid but no less certain aim, and sent it, hissing, deep into his thick white side!….Article continues after advertisement He now started to run. For a short time, the line rasped, smoking, through the chocks. A few turns round the loggerhead then secured it; and with oars a-peak, and bows tilted to the sea, we went leaping onward in the wake of the tethered monster…. By this time two hundred fathoms of line had been carried spinning through the chocks, with an impetus that gave back in steam the water cast upon it. Still the gigantic creature bored his way downward, with undiminished speed. Coil after coil went over, ...