and thus have these naked nantucketers, these sea hermits, issuing from their ant-hill in the sea, overrun and conquered the watery world like so many alexanders; parcelling out among them the atlantic, pacific, and indian oceans, as the three pirate powers did poland. let america add mexico to texas, and pile cuba upon canada; let the english overswarm all india, and hang out their blazing banner from the sun; two thirds of this terraqueous globe are the nantucketer’s. for the sea is his; he owns it, as emperors own empires; other seamen having but a right of way through it. merchant ships are but extension bridges; armed ones but floating forts; even pirates and privateers, though following the sea as highwaymen the road, they but plunder other ships, other fragments of the land like themselves, without seeking to draw their living from the bottomless deep itself. the nantucketer, he alone resides and riots on the sea; he alone, in bible language, goes down to it in ships; to and fro ploughing it as his own special plantation.