Loomings

ama dablam, Nepal

Chief among these motives was the overwhelming idea of the great whale himself. Such a portentous and mysterious monster roused all my curiosity. Then the wild and distant seas where he rolled his island bulk; the undeliverable , nameless perils of the whale; these, with all the attending marvels of a thousand Patagonian sights and sounds, helped to sway me to my wish.  With other men, perhaps such things would not have been inducements; but as for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote...By reason of these things, then the whaling voyage was welcome; the great flood-gates of the wonder-world swung open, and in the wild conceits that swayed my purpose, two and two there floated into my inmost soul, endless processions of the whale, and midmost of them all, on grand hooded phantom, like a snow hill in the air (Herman Melville).