Ahab's secret crew explained. The owners of the Pequod would have considered that as captain, and with half a leg missing, Ahab would not be permitted to personally hunt whales. So he arranged it in secret.
He snuck his Filipino crew aboard at Nantucket unbeknownst to all except the mad prophet Elijah. His plan is to personally kill Moby Dick, for which this surreptitious strategy is necessary.
in a whaler wonders soon wane. Besides, now and then such unaccountable odds and ends of strange nations come up from the unknown nooks and ash-holes of the earth to man these floating outlaws
