> The shores of the Straits of Sunda are unsupplied with those

>I particularly enjoyed seeing the King’s room from where he would watch ships passing through the narrowest point of the Oresund. They had to lower their topsails as a mark of respect to the King

http://www.silversea.com/expeditions/voyage-journals/7112/2/

>>9406148
Top sails propelled ancient ships with wind power and made them the most powerful and agile vehicles of their day. I'm assuming that lowering your top sails was akin to prostrating yourself in defenseless humbleness before the ruler of the water way. This would have come from the strong naval warfare tradition of the Vikings, whose longboats with lowered sail were nothing more than large row boats.

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>>9406171

Thanks m8, that explains it.

>>9406187

Man I'm really not clued up on sailing terminology. I thought "lowering sail" meant unfurling it rather than the opposite.

>>9406204
Yeah raising a sail is a synonym for hoisting it. It means to unfurl it so as to catch the wind.

>>9406148
Melville is such a good stylist, holy shit, even when he's not being overly poetic.

>It was while gliding through these latter waters that one serene and moonlight night, when all the waves rolled by like scrolls of silver; and, by their soft, suffusing seethings, made what seemed a silvery silence, not a solitude; on such a silent night a silvery jet was seen far in advance of the white bubbles at the bow. Lit up by the moon, it looked celestial; seemed some plumed and glittering god uprising from the sea. Fedallah first descried this jet. For of these moonlight nights, it was his wont to mount to the main-mast head, and stand a look-out there, with the same precision as if it had been day. And yet, though herds of whales were seen by night, not one whaleman in a hundred would venture a lowering for them. You may think with what emotions, then, the seamen beheld this old Oriental perched aloft at such unusual hours; his turban and the moon, companions in one sky. But when, after spending his uniform interval there for several successive nights without uttering a single sound; when, after all this silence, his unearthly voice was heard announcing that silvery, moon-lit jet, every reclining mariner started to his feet as if some winged spirit had lighted in the rigging, and hailed the mortal crew. “There she blows!” Had the trump of judgment blown, they could not have quivered more; yet still they felt no terror; rather pleasure. For though it was a most unwonted hour, yet so impressive was the cry, and so deliriously exciting, that almost every soul on board instinctively desired a lowering.