Not P but Moby-Dick (26)

[Ian Livingston]

The whale ship. It’s mastheads are synecdoche of the ship itself. 

Sent from my iPhone

> On Oct 13, 2023, at 7:51 PM, Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> From Chapter 44:
> 
> Though, in these cases, the direction taken by any one whale be straight as
> a surveyor’s parallel, and though the line of advance be strictly confined
> to its own unavoidable, straight wake, yet the arbitrary vein in which at
> these times he is said to swim, generally embraces some few miles in width
> (more or less, as the vein is presumed to expand or contract); but never
> exceeds the visual sweep from the whale-ship’s mast-heads, when
> circumspectly gliding along this magic zone.
> 
> What's doing the gliding in "when circumspectly gliding along this magic
> zone"? i.e. Whats' the subject of the verb "gliding"?
> --
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