In Chapter 13, Ishmael finally boards a watercraft, a little ferry (the Moss) that will take him and Queequeg to Nantucket. It’s interesting that this is the first direct contact with the water that he’s had since the story started, given that he’s spent so much time thinking about it. Another example of this novel refusing to begin. The moment finally comes on page 66, when they start sailing down the Acushnet river. Ishmael muses, “Gaining the more open water, the bracing breeze waxed fresh; the little Moss tossed the quick foam from her bows, as a young colt his snortings. How I snuffed that Tartar air!–how I spurned that turnpike earth!–that common highway all over dented with the marks of slavish heels and hoofs; and turned me to admire the magnanimity of the sea which will permit no records” (66). Just as he said at the beginning of the story, the ocean makes him feel better; it’s his way to cope with life. He looks back at land and he compares it to a hell of sorts, a highway pockmarked with “slavish heels and hoofs.” He relishes the openness and the fluidity of the water, “which will permit no records.” He feels free, untethered. But at what cost? Melville juxtaposes the earth with the sea and gives that idea to us through Ishmael’s perspective–a white male in 19th century America. Melville intentionally uses the phrase “slavish heels and hoofs” to refer to the marks Ishmael sees on the side of the river. The word “slavish” could simply refer to the monotonous and restraining lives of most people on land, people who prefer stability over adventure; but further, I see this is a clear reference to the reality that was slavery in America, which was coming to its boiling point at the time, and was something that Ishmael would not have been negatively affected by. In fact, he would have benefitted from it, even if indirectly. For Ishmael, it is easy to scorn the Earth and prefer the ocean over it because he has that luxury. He feels the wind in his hair and mighty freedom surges in his heart as he sails through the water, but the earth does not forget. Ishmael hates to feel tied town and chained to his unfulfilling life, but he fails to recognize there are others who are legally considered subhuman and have no choice but to live in chains. The magnanimous sea “will permit no records,” and for someone like Ishmael it is easier and more convenient to turn away from the marks of injustice that lie upon the earth.