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his ordinary round jacket on. For some time, do all I would, I could
not get into the faintest doze. I had blown out the candle; and the
mere thought of Queequeg--not four feet off--sitting there in that
uneasy position, stark alone in the cold and dark; this made me
really wretched. Think of it; sleeping all night in the same room
with a wide awake pagan on his hams in this dreary, unaccountable
Ramadan!

But somehow I dropped off at last, and knew nothing more till break
of day; when, looking over the bedside, there squatted Queequeg, as
if he had been screwed down to the floor. But as soon as the first
glimpse of sun entered the window, up he got, with stiff and grating
joints, but with a cheerful look; limped towards me where I lay;
pressed his forehead again against mine; and said his Ramadan was
over.

Now, as I before hinted, I have no objection to any person's
religion, be it what it may, so long as that person does not kill or
insult any other person, because that other person don't believe it
also. But when a man's religion becomes really frantic; when it is a
positive torment to him; and, in fine, makes this earth of ours an
uncomfortable inn to lodge in; then I think it high time to take that
individual aside and argue the point with him.

And just so I now did with Queequeg. "Queequeg," said I, "get into
bed now, and lie and listen to me." I then went on, beginning with
the rise and progress of the primitive religions, and coming down to
the various religions of the present time, during which time I
labored to show Queequeg that all these Lents, Ramadans, and
prolonged ham-squattings in cold, cheerless rooms were stark
nonsense; bad for the health; useless for the soul; opposed, in
short, to the obvious laws of Hygiene and common sense. I told him,
too, that he being in other things such an extremely sensible and
sagacious savage, it pained me, very badly pained me, to see him now
so deplorably foolish about this ridiculous Ramadan of his. Besides,
argued I, fasting makes the body cave in; hence the spirit caves in;
and all thoughts born of a fast must necessarily be half-starved.
This is the reason why most dyspeptic religionists cherish such
melancholy notions about their hereafters. In one word, Queequeg,
said I, rather digressively; hell is an idea first born on an
undigested apple-dumpling; and since then perpetuated through the
hereditary dyspepsias nurtured by Ramadans.

I then asked Queequeg whether he himself was ever troubled with
dyspepsia; expressing the idea very plainly, so that he could take it
in. He said no; only upon one memorable occasion. It was after a
great feast given by his father the king, on the gaining of a great
battle wherein fifty of the enemy had been killed by about two
o'clock in the afternoon, and all cooked and eaten that very evening.

"No more, Queequeg," said I, shuddering; "that will do;" for I knew
the inferences without his further hinting them. I had seen a sailor
who had visited that very island, and he told me that it was the
custom, when a great battle had been gained there, to barbecue all

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