Now, though this region may scarcely be said
to be wedded to science, being to all intents a virgin territory as
respects the enquirer into natural history, still it is greatly
destitute of the treasures of the vegetable kingdom. I should,
therefore, have tarried some hundreds of miles more to the eastward,
were it not for the inward propensity that I feel to have the beast in
question inspected and suitably described and classed. For that
matter," he continued, dropping his voice, like one who imparts an
important secret, "I am not without hopes of persuading Ishmael to let
me dissect it."
"You have seen the creature?"
"Not with the organs of sight; but with much more infallible
instruments of vision: the conclusions of reason, and the deductions
of scientific premises. I have watched the habits of the animal, young
man; and can fearlessly pronounce, by evidence that would be thrown
away on ordinary observers, that it is of vast dimensions, inactive,
possibly torpid, of voracious appetite, and, as it now appears by the
direct testimony of this venerable hunter, ferocious and carnivorous!"
"I should be better pleased, stranger," said Paul, on whom the
Doctor's description was making a very sensible impression, "to be
sure the creature was a beast at all.
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