Pirates of the Pacific?

Thinking about Americans in the world . . . look at the passage on 197 (ch. 53, "The Gam") that discusses the question of how ships from all over the world can communicate with each other at sea, and the custom of the gam. A little swagger, on Ishmael's part, about how many whales Yankees conquer compared to Englishmen, and then a run-down about how the kind of ship determines the kind of conversation one can have. Whalers, he says, are very sociable; slave ships run away from each other; and pirates ask each other, "How many skulls?"

See, pirates were already funny. But the jibe at slave-ships was pointed. Abolitionists liked to borrow the epithet, "pirates of men," to describe slave traders.

What if cars on the highway had gams?