{"id":"01KFNR86RNWK5JWR9BXMJPRFE4","cid":"bafkreie52qxyd7yptecwnqnzb7uc76vmkrnu24fapkjhiwy7vqekhin7bm","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":3069,"extracted_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:01.906Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 0","source_file":"01KFNR0Z394A878Y5AQ63MQEM2","start_line":3025,"text":"CHAPTER 14. Nantucket.\r\n\r\nNothing more happened on the passage worthy the mentioning; so, after a\r\nfine run, we safely arrived in Nantucket.\r\n\r\nNantucket! Take out your map and look at it. See what a real corner of\r\nthe world it occupies; how it stands there, away off shore, more lonely\r\nthan the Eddystone lighthouse. Look at it—a mere hillock, and elbow of\r\nsand; all beach, without a background. There is more sand there than\r\nyou would use in twenty years as a substitute for blotting paper. Some\r\ngamesome wights will tell you that they have to plant weeds there, they\r\ndon’t grow naturally; that they import Canada thistles; that they have\r\nto send beyond seas for a spile to stop a leak in an oil cask; that\r\npieces of wood in Nantucket are carried about like bits of the true\r\ncross in Rome; that people there plant toadstools before their houses,\r\nto get under the shade in summer time; that one blade of grass makes an\r\noasis, three blades in a day’s walk a prairie; that they wear quicksand\r\nshoes, something like Laplander snow-shoes; that they are so shut up,\r\nbelted about, every way inclosed, surrounded, and made an utter island\r\nof by the ocean, that to their very chairs and tables small clams will\r\nsometimes be found adhering, as to the backs of sea turtles. But these\r\nextravaganzas only show that Nantucket is no Illinois.\r\n\r\nLook now at the wondrous traditional story of how this island was\r\nsettled by the red-men. Thus goes the legend. In olden times an eagle\r\nswooped down upon the New England coast, and carried off an infant\r\nIndian in his talons. With loud lament the parents saw their child\r\nborne out of sight over the wide waters. They resolved to follow in the\r\nsame direction. Setting out in their canoes, after a perilous passage\r\nthey discovered the island, and there they found an empty ivory\r\ncasket,—the poor little Indian’s skeleton.\r\n\r\nWhat wonder, then, that these Nantucketers, born on a beach, should\r\ntake to the sea for a livelihood! They first caught crabs and quohogs\r\nin the sand; grown bolder, they waded out with nets for mackerel; more\r\nexperienced, they pushed off in boats and captured cod; and at last,\r\nlaunching a navy of great ships on the sea, explored this watery world;\r\nput an incessant belt of circumnavigations round it; peeped in at\r\nBehring’s Straits; and in all seasons and all oceans declared\r\neverlasting war with the mightiest animated mass that has survived the\r\nflood; most monstrous and most mountainous! That Himmalehan, salt-sea\r\nMastodon, clothed with such portentousness of unconscious power, that\r\nhis very panics are more to be dreaded than his most fearless and\r\nmalicious assaults!\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 0"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KFNR84DR8FRZ82K80WAC95XM","peer_label":"14","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KFNR84DR8FRZ82K80WAC95XM","peer_label":"14","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"partOf"},{"peer":"01KFNR81RMVAX2BBMMBW51V97D","peer_label":"Moby Dick; Or, The Whale","peer_type":"novel","predicate":"partOf"},{"peer":"01KFNR0H0Q791Y1SMZWEQ09FGV","peer_label":"Moby Dick","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KFNR86T3EV07FE5T3Y7TMJMH","peer_label":"Chunk 1","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:02.374Z","ts":"2026-01-23T15:41:14.905Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}