Nantucket Island
In Which I Discover … “Land” Whales
(Ager Balaena)
Our tour of the Atlantic Seaboard continues. Gibear has acted most peculiarly from the moment we arrived on this tiny island, once the whaling capital of the whole world.42 Whenever we are outside, he practically glues his nose to the ground, and has spent hours wandering around sniffing and pawing at the dirt.
“I simply do not understand it,” I said to Mrs. Starbuck, my elderly landlady; I had rented a room in her boardinghouse, which stood atop the old wharf and overlooked the sea.
Mrs. Starbuck plunked down a tea set on the table and looked at my bright red pet.
“Maybe he knows something about this place that you do not,” she said. “That is so often the case with animals.”
How true! And what a strange place Nantucket is—everyone here says that it is filled with ghosts. Mrs. Starbuck’s house itself would certainly appeal to the superstitious mind: every time I walk into the boardinghouse library, a rocking chair in the corner appears to be rocking on its own. I hear the sound of someone getting up and walking toward the bookcase—and then the room goes silent. Locals say that Mrs. Starbuck’s husband, Herman, who died in the house thirty years earlier, has not vacated the premises yet.
The moment we had settled in, Gibear and I set out to inspect different parts of the island. At first, I uncovered relics left by the more modern native tribes who lived here a few hundred years ago, but nothing that could be called ancient. Gibear barely paid any attention to them at all; he was far more concerned with interrogating the ground. One evening, after a particularly boring day, I sat in an armchair in Mrs. Starbuck’s library and sulked. Heavy rain spattered the window.
“It is all over,” I told her morbidly. “I have lost my touch. Gibear and I have not turned up a single impressive discovery since landing here.”
Mrs. Starbuck crossed her arms. “What a whiner you are,” she said. (Goodness, was she related to Mother Wiggins? Why is it my fate to be chided by robust women of advanced years?) “It takes longer than a few weeks to discover the secrets of a place,” she continued. “I ought to know a thing or two about that.”
And before I could ask her what she meant, she clomped out of the room.
Suddenly the empty rocking chair creaked and swayed as though someone had just gotten up. The sound of footsteps led to the bookshelf and stopped there. I stood and cautiously inspected the books lining the wall. One jutted out beyond the others, as though it wanted to be noticed: an old leather-bound journal, apparently authored by Mr. Herman Starbuck himself many years ago. I opened to the first page:
Today I begin my search for a fascinating mythical beast. Indian legend says that a great whale species, many times the size of today’s blue whale, once swam in the New England waters.43 Furthermore, these whales allegedly were able to come right out of the water and walk on the land: each of them sported one hundred legs, like a centipede. The last of these whales disappeared long ago, and their remains supposedly lie somewhere on this island—yet no one knows where.
Very interesting—most interesting indeed! Suddenly my Nantucket mission didn’t look so shabby after all. I spent the rest of the night reading Mr. Starbuck’s journal, which came to a most unsatisfactory end: after spending his entire life poking around the beaches of Nantucket for clues, the poor man never found evidence of this elusive creature. In the last entry, just before he died, he wrote:
Everyone tells me that I have been on a fool’s errand all these years: a wasted life, in search of a chimera.44
Well, Mr. Herman Starbuck, I thought, if there is a grand walking whale to be found in these parts, I shall find it.
I began to excavate Nantucket’s beaches with renewed vigor. I worked all the way around the island, until I got back to where I started. And this is what turned up: a great deal of nothing. Just a few more ancient lobsters along the eastern shore, and that is all. This failure left me most depressed. And then, one evening, for the first time in years, I dreamed of Oxford. And in this dream, one of my old paleozoology professors, Dr. Snood, towered over me and scowled.
“Young Master Wiggins, how can you be so dull-witted? After everything we have taught you!”
“I am doing everything I can, sir,” I protested, feeling very small. “Maybe everyone was right that Herman Starbuck was a fool, and that the walking whale really is a chimera.”
“You are the fool,” thundered Dr. Snood from behind his bushy white beard. “Exactly where are you looking for this creature?”
“On the beaches, sir.”
“But it was a whale that allegedly walked on land. What does that tell you?”
I sat straight up in bed, suddenly wide awake. “It means that I should be looking in the middle of the island,” I yelled.
Nighttime black still filled the room, and the town clock gave out three woeful middle-of-the-night chimes, but I ran out of the house anyway and marched right up into the sandy hills in the island’s center. Feeling quite proud of myself, I began to dig in the moonlight. I whistled as I worked; soon the morning sun shone down on me.
Something was having a very strange effect on Gibear, who had, of course, followed me there. He ran in circles around the top of the hole, and then—when my shovel hit something hard deep down in the earth—he leaped right into the pit and pawed at the bottom. I got on my hands and knees and brushed the sandy dirt away to see what was exciting him. At first, the bedrock below felt like plain old rock to me. And then I noticed that it had the strangest texture—like hard, puckered leather.
In fact, the only thing that feels this way is fossilized skin. A rather ludicrous theory gurgled up in my mind. What if—I started to think. No, that is impossible, I answered myself. Nothing is impossible, I retorted. This is Nature.
Over the next few days, I dug ten more holes in ten different parts of the island’s center and made my inspections, and soon my theory turned into fact—an extraordinary, overwhelmingly exciting fact, no less. I have done it again—my, what a grand reputation I shall enjoy when I publish my findings!
Old Herman Starbuck had been wrong—and he had been right. This is where he was right: great whales did circle the seawaters around Nantucket, larger than anyone would ever dared to have imagined—five hundred times as big as a contemporary blue whale. In other words, preposterously huge.
Where Mr. Starbuck had been wrong: these whales hadn’t walked on land. They were the land.
A fossilized body of a giant, ancient whale formed the entire bedrock of Nantucket Island. Have a look at any map: the landmass is distinctly whale-shaped. Once I located the spine of the great creature in the sandy dunes, running along the south shore of the island, I knew that I was correct. Gibear, of course, had known all along.
I cannot help but be a little bit disappointed: I had so wanted it to be a walking whale. But I suppose I have to be content with discovering the world’s first animal-landmass. That is the thing about legends and myths: the exact details get confused over the years, but they still often contain an element of the truth. In this case, the legend truly was larger than life.
I rushed home to tell Mrs. Starbuck about this important discovery, and to assure her that Mr. Starbuck had not spent his life on a fool’s errand after all. I found her stirring a pot of chowder in the kitchen, and blurted out my news.
“So,” she said after a minute, not taking her eyes off the pot. “You found Herman’s whale. Good for you. Would you like some chowder?”
As for the rocking chair: it now rocks away contentedly, as though its ghostly inhabitant were at peace with the world at last.
42. A tiny island off the coast of Massachusetts, Nantucket was the center of the whaling industry from the early 1700s onward. Whales were harvested for their oil, which was used to light lamps. But petroleum eventually replaced whale oil in popular use, and Nantucket turned for a while into a virtual ghost island.
43. Blue whales
weigh an estimated four hundred thousand pounds—roughly the same as two hundred cars piled together; until now, they were thought to be the largest creatures ever known to have lived.
44. “Chimera” means “an unreal creature of the imagination.”
Journal No. 3
Europe
September 1860
Cornwall, England
In Which I Discover … the Brittle Bones
(Futilis Ossis)
It is rather strange to be back in England after all this time—but with America on the brink of war,45 I thought it prudent to begin the European leg of my worldwide exploration. I hastily booked Gibear and myself passage on HMS Conquest from New York to England.
The first thing I did upon arriving: restock my supply of precious, fine English mustache wax. (Oh, what a glorious reunion it was!) The second thing: a brief visit with Mother Wiggins. (This was a less glorious reunion: “You are still so fat, Wendell! And what is that fetid red creature you’ve brought back with you? When are you going to give up this ridiculous journey and come home? I could use more help with the laundry, you know.”)
Gibear and I then gratefully escaped to a quiet seaside cottage in Cornwall—a part of the country that juts out into the sea like the hind leg of a sleeping dog. Many of England’s great legends have their roots in this area: for example, King Arthur is supposed to have been born here, in Tintagel Castle, in the sixth century AD; its ruins lie on a nearby cliff.
Yet I am concerned with far more ancient history than that.
I had read that locals had recently discovered a very old graveyard not far from the beach. Archaeologists ferried away most of the cemetery’s remains and artifacts to museums, but left deep dug-out pits open in the ground. In my experience, graveyards often tend to be built on top of other, older graveyards. So Gibear and I had a little dig. The results were extraordinary.
Deep inside the earth lay a vast array of the most complex skeletons I have ever encountered—in books or in person. At first, it appeared that I had uncovered an ancient race of people with a dozen legs and arms each, not unlike a gaggle of human spiders! But then, upon closer examination, I realized that I was actually examining the bones of a variety of creatures—assembled by a faintly human tribe whom I shall refer to as the Brittle Bones.
I can tell by the composition of their skeletons that the species was not indigenous to Cornwall; rather, they seem to have originated inland a bit. Hollow and practically as thin as paper, their bones were nearly too fragile to support their own bodies; seaside humidity would have wilted them.
One would think this fragility would instantly doom the species to extinction, but the tall, slender Brittle Bones took a rather fashionable approach to their survival. They hunted a variety of creatures, cut out their bones, and created extravagant corsets for themselves. Then they created legs from the bones and affixed them to the corsets. These bone crutches propped up the Brittle Bones and allowed them to scuttle around with great speed and agility (and not a little creepiness).
The bones made fine costumes, too: ladies wore enormous bone headpieces and towering high-heeled bone shoes; men wore tall bone hats. Brittle Bones of both sexes sported carved walking sticks. Baby Brittle Bones scooted around in bone-wrought carriages and sucked on bone pacifiers. All of these fossilized remains would have served as splendid works of sculpture!
Luckily for the local creatures whose bones were being harvested in the name of style, a vicious drought swept over the country, forcing the Brittle Bones to migrate in search of water. They reached the coast of Cornwall, and it appears that they scuttled right down to the ocean’s edge. Cupping their hands in the water, the Brittle Bones took great gulps, trying to quench their thirst.
A most unfortunate decision.
The creatures’ stomachs expanded so much with the seawater that their corsets burst and shattered. And then, without the support of those corsets, the Brittle Bones simply snapped and splintered, one after another, right there on the pretty Cornish beaches and cliffs.
Just then, Mother Wiggins popped into my mind. “That’s what you get for being a slave to fashion,” she said, patting down her own rough dress and looking very superior.
Once again, when the old girl is right, she is right.
45. America descended into civil war in 1860.
May 1862
Basque Country, Spain46
In Which I Discover … the Hundred-Horned Bulls
(Centumgeminus Bucerus Bovis)
One of the loveliest things about traveling alone to some of the world’s remote places: not having to make polite conversation with people all the time. How I hate small talk! But on the other side of the coin, one thing I do miss hearing while on my travels: the sound of music.47 So imagine my delight when I came across the most delightful Spanish creature, which once created the most interesting sort of music.
Bulls play a very important role in the culture of Spain, and bullfights are an ancient ritual. While some people find this ritual cruel, I personally think it is one of the few instances in which an animal can still defeat a man. Thanks to guns, modern men can just trot along and shoot a lion or an elephant, and the poor animal never even gets a chance to defend itself. But in bullfights, the mighty bull still often wins—a good reminder of how powerful Nature’s creatures can be.
Gibear and I arrived at a small town called Pamplona many weeks ago. Nobody there knew what to make of my strange pet (still red!)—especially not the bulls. Indeed, Gibear had quite an interesting effect on them: like poor old Davy Crockett, the bear back in the great American West, most of the bulls beheld Gibear and simply lay down at his feet. My little pet could get away with anything! At one point, I glanced over and saw Gibear lazily gnawing one of the bulls’ horns, like a dog chews a bone.
Just then, a very large, scarred, grumpy old bull lifted his head. He spotted Gibear and rose to his feet, snorting and pawing at the ground. Gibear stopped chewing on the bull horn and tensed his body. The old bull leaped forward: a great chase through the streets of Pamplona was on! The townspeople cheered and threw their hats into the air; I lumbered along after them as fast as I could and caught up just in time to see Gibear jump to safety through the open window of a tavern.
At that point, I thought it best to ferry Gibear off to the countryside; he was beginning to attract a bit too much attention. That evening, we hitched a ride on a hay cart into the hills of the Basque Country, and set up camp in a lush, grassy field.
The full yellow Spanish moon hung low in the sky; I lay down my bedroll and settled down to sleep. Gibear, on the other hand—still jumpy from his chase—began to dig. For hours, I heard that annoying scrape, scrape, scrape as Gibear dug deeper and deeper into the ground. Soon I could not even see the tips of his enormous ears anymore. And then, just before dawn, the scrape scrape scrape noise was replaced by one that sounded like this: grriiiiiind—grriiiiiind—crrrrrunch—gnash.
What was that creature doing? I threw off my little blanket and stomped over to the edge of the hole. Gibear lay at the very bottom, gnawing on a horn protruding from the dirt. Several other horns jutted up from the bottom of the pit, as though a small herd of bulls stood below and were poking their heads up through the soil.
After grabbing my shovel and oil lamp, I lowered myself into the pit and soon uncovered nearly a hundred horns, most of them broken, all pointing up toward the sky. And each of these horns was affixed to the back of a single ancient skeleton: another incredible, long-lost beast. My wondrous fluffy red sidekick had struck gold again!
The Hundred-Horned Bull: what a strange, evocative creature. While not exceedingly ancient, it is still old enough to be worthy of my attention: around twenty-five million years, according to the layers of rock and dirt in which the F.O.I. was discovered. As young bulls, these creatures must have been a terror to behold: after all, a regular modern bull with its mere two sharp horns glinting in the high-noon sunshine is quite a terrible sight. But then, imagine
a huge bull with a hundred sharp horns running the full length of its body, from its crown to its rump—a very lethal, magnificent creature indeed!
Yet as these bulls aged, their horns became brittle and worn, and the tops often broke off, leaving an array of blunt, hollow horn stubs on their backs. Each night, the great breezes tendriled down from the hills and blew across the broken horns. I recalled the lonely, melancholy sound made when one blows across the top of an empty ale bottle. The Pamplona winds must have had the same effect on the bulls’ horns: when several old Hundred-Horned Bulls stood together in this breeze, the sound of music played on a ghostly, gasping organ would have echoed across the valley.
This situation, of course, made the old Hundred-Horned Bulls into easy prey; after all, they would never be able to hide themselves, thanks to that sound. This explains their eventual extinction. But before they disappeared from the earth, I imagine, they played a lovely, unlikely role in the lives of the valley’s gentler creatures. In my mind’s eye, I see other ancient animals and birds slinking out of their hiding places each night and standing still and listening, soothed by the bulls’ strange, melancholy lullaby.
Gibear is no exception. Whenever the wind picks up and blows through the horns of our discovered bull skeleton, my pet lies down and places his head on his paws, his great ears pivoting to catch every sound.
After being forgotten for millions of years, the ancient, melancholy song of the Hundred-Horned Bull is taming beasts once again.
46. The northeastern region of the country. There is much evidence of ancient activity in this area: some of the cave art there dates back tens of thousands of years.
47. During Dr. Wiggins’s lifetime, the only way to hear music was to witness it being played live or play it oneself. Inventor Thomas Edison did not present his revolutionary phonograph player to the world until 1877—fifteen years after this journal entry was written.
The Wondrous Journals of Dr. Wendell Wellington Wiggins Page 7