Moby Dick Chapter 7 "The Chapel" There was a Whaleman's Chapel in New Bedford. Ishmael went there after his stroll, to find many solitary worshippers mourning and reading at the marble tablets that were masoned into the wall. Looking around, Ishmael noticed to his surprise Queequeg, with "a wondering gaze of incredulous curiosity in his countenance." He was the only one to notice Ishmael's arrival, as he couldn't read, and so was not reading the tablets. It struck Ishmael how desolated the survivors of the dead listed there would be, without being able to say is some philosophy I do not understand; I must look up the references therein He stated how he found the memorials somewhat depressing, but he cheered up after; "and come a stove boat and stove body when they will, for stave my soul, Jove himself cannot." ---- References: Geographical: "Near the Isle of Desolation, off Patagonia": I. Desolation is at the western end of the Strait of Magellan "As well might those tablets stand in Elephanta as here": Elephanta is a island west of India in the Bombay harbor. "more secrets than the Goodwin Sands" The latter are shoals in the Strait of Dover, off of the SE coast of England.