In New Bedford the Spouter Inn was full, and the landlord told me I must share a bed with a harpooneer. The harpooneer came in late, carrying a shrunken head he had been trying to sell in the streets. He was tattooed all over in dark squares, his head was bald except for one knot of hair, and he lit a tomahawk that was also a pipe. When he found me in his bed he nearly killed me before the landlord came running. Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian, I thought, and I lay down again. In the morning I woke with his heavy tattooed arm thrown over me in the most loving manner. His name was Queequeg, a prince from an island far to the south that is not down in any map. By the end of the week we were bosom friends, and he told me that he would die for me if need be.