"Savage though he was, and hideously marred about the face — at least to my taste — his countenance yet had a something in it which was by no means disagreeable. You cannot hide the soul. (...) It may seem ridiculous, but it reminded me of General Washington's head, as seen in the popular busts of him. It had the same long regularly graded retreating slope from above the brows, which were likewise very projecting, like two long promontories thickly wooded on top. Queequeg was George Washington cannibalistically developed." - Moby Dick, Chapter 10
In Herman Melville's Moby Dick, Queequeg is the harpooner aboard the Pequod. He is a pagan, a savage, but displays behavior that at times rivals his Christian shipmates in terms of being civilized and virtuous. He is the son of a king on Rokovoko, a small island, but he left in favor of seeing more of the Christian world. Ishmael (the novel's narrator) meets Queequeg in New Bedford, where the two must share a bed before beginning their voyage on the Pequod. Ishmael is somewhat stunned at Queequeg's behavior; the man who was assumed to be a barbarian is almost refined.
Ishmael and Queequeg's relationship borders on homoerotic. The two men share a bed many times, and Ishmael himself compares the couple to man and wife:
"How it is I know not; but there is no place like a bed for confidential disclosures between friends. Man and wife, they say, there open the very bottom of their souls to each other; and some old couples often lie and chat over old times till nearly morning. Thus, then, in our hearts' honeymoon, lay I and Queequeg — a cosy, loving pair." - Moby Dick, Chapter 10