{"id":"01KF7FPPZPMQKVRW4VQDM79CCA","cid":"bafkreibqvtkxs4ybmu2f6zaruik7muq7mcphs6cupo3yxxbrzfpb3qrcfq","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":2633,"extracted_at":"2026-01-18T02:42:17.950Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 16","source_file":"01KESYVB66H8YEVTN88DWE9W8D","start_line":2582,"text":"page—as I fancied—stopping a moment, looking vacantly around him, and\r\ngiving utterance to a long-drawn gurgling whistle of astonishment. He\r\nwould then begin again at the next fifty; seeming to commence at number\r\none each time, as though he could not count more than fifty, and it was\r\nonly by such a large number of fifties being found together, that his\r\nastonishment at the multitude of pages was excited.\r\n\r\nWith much interest I sat watching him. Savage though he was, and\r\nhideously marred about the face—at least to my taste—his countenance\r\nyet had a something in it which was by no means disagreeable. You\r\ncannot hide the soul. Through all his unearthly tattooings, I thought I\r\nsaw the traces of a simple honest heart; and in his large, deep eyes,\r\nfiery black and bold, there seemed tokens of a spirit that would dare a\r\nthousand devils. And besides all this, there was a certain lofty\r\nbearing about the Pagan, which even his uncouthness could not\r\naltogether maim. He looked like a man who had never cringed and never\r\nhad had a creditor. Whether it was, too, that his head being shaved,\r\nhis forehead was drawn out in freer and brighter relief, and looked\r\nmore expansive than it otherwise would, this I will not venture to\r\ndecide; but certain it was his head was phrenologically an excellent\r\none. It may seem ridiculous, but it reminded me of General Washington’s\r\nhead, as seen in the popular busts of him. It had the same long\r\nregularly graded retreating slope from above the brows, which were\r\nlikewise very projecting, like two long promontories thickly wooded on\r\ntop. Queequeg was George Washington cannibalistically developed.\r\n\r\nWhilst I was thus closely scanning him, half-pretending meanwhile to be\r\nlooking out at the storm from the casement, he never heeded my\r\npresence, never troubled himself with so much as a single glance; but\r\nappeared wholly occupied with counting the pages of the marvellous\r\nbook. Considering how sociably we had been sleeping together the night\r\nprevious, and especially considering the affectionate arm I had found\r\nthrown over me upon waking in the morning, I thought this indifference\r\nof his very strange. But savages are strange beings; at times you do\r\nnot know exactly how to take them. At first they are overawing; their\r\ncalm self-collectedness of simplicity seems a Socratic wisdom. I had\r\nnoticed also that Queequeg never consorted at all, or but very little,\r\nwith the other seamen in the inn. He made no advances whatever;\r\nappeared to have no desire to enlarge the circle of his acquaintances.\r\nAll this struck me as mighty singular; yet, upon second thoughts, there\r\nwas something almost sublime in it. Here was a man some twenty thousand\r\nmiles from home, by the way of Cape Horn, that is—which was the only\r\nway he could get there—thrown among people as strange to him as though\r\nhe were in the planet Jupiter; and yet he seemed entirely at his ease;\r\npreserving the utmost serenity; content with his own companionship;\r\nalways equal to himself. Surely this was a touch of fine philosophy;\r\nthough no doubt he had never heard there was such a thing as that. But,\r\nperhaps, to be true philosophers, we mortals should not be conscious of\r\nso living or so striving. So soon as I hear that such or such a man\r\ngives himself out for a philosopher, I conclude that, like the\r\ndyspeptic old woman, he must have “broken his digester.”\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 16"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KF7FPMMNM5YQGSAV1J5A319H","peer_label":"Wheelbarrow","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KF7FPMMNM5YQGSAV1J5A319H","peer_label":"Wheelbarrow","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"partOf"},{"peer":"01KF7FPKDT5SHSH1ZQV6ABHQCA","peer_label":"Moby Dick; Or, The Whale","peer_type":"book","predicate":"partOf"},{"peer":"01KESYJX0Z6XE0HWTS5N3SDG0B","peer_label":"The Classics","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KF7FPQ1NNYGQR3G9ASEYDKKG","peer_label":"Chunk 17","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"},{"peer":"01KF7FPQ6MSYX0Y84G0Q6FB9X2","peer_label":"Chunk 15","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-18T02:42:18.364Z","ts":"2026-01-18T02:42:26.522Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KF7FCDA7SCSJ6A30TDPDSJQV"}}