We will not speak of all Queequeg's peculiarities here;
how he eschewed coffee and hot rolls, and applied his undivided
attention to beefsteaks, done rare. Enough, that when breakfast
was over he withdrew like the rest into the public room,
lighted his tomahawk-pipe, and was sitting there quietly
digesting and smoking with his inseparable hat on, when I
sallied out for a stroll.



CHAPTER 6

The Street


If I had been astonished at first catching a glimpse of so outlandish
an individual as Queequeg circulating among the polite society
of a civilized town, that astonishment soon departed upon taking
my first daylight stroll through the streets of New Bedford.

In thoroughfares nigh the docks, any considerable seaport will frequently
offer to view the queerest looking nondescripts from foreign parts.
Even in Broadway and Chestnut streets, Mediterranean mariners will
sometimes jostle the affrighted ladies. Regent Street is not unknown
to Lascars and Malays; and at Bombay, in the Apollo Green, live Yankees
have often scared the natives. But New Bedford beats all Water Street
and Wapping. In these last-mentioned haunts you see only sailors;
but in New Bedford, actual cannibals stand chatting at street corners;
savages outright; many of whom yet carry on their bones unholy flesh.
It makes a stranger stare.