{"id":"01KFNR86YQ1GNY8065SHYGJCY5","cid":"bafkreigtorituh24pwehmok3glrxktbxfih7db2f5orydu5c5snlhio5iy","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":1611,"extracted_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:01.896Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 7","source_file":"01KFNR0Z394A878Y5AQ63MQEM2","start_line":1551,"text":"streets of any Christian town in that sort of guise? I put it on, to\r\ntry it, and it weighed me down like a hamper, being uncommonly shaggy\r\nand thick, and I thought a little damp, as though this mysterious\r\nharpooneer had been wearing it of a rainy day. I went up in it to a bit\r\nof glass stuck against the wall, and I never saw such a sight in my\r\nlife. I tore myself out of it in such a hurry that I gave myself a kink\r\nin the neck.\r\n\r\nI sat down on the side of the bed, and commenced thinking about this\r\nhead-peddling harpooneer, and his door mat. After thinking some time on\r\nthe bed-side, I got up and took off my monkey jacket, and then stood in\r\nthe middle of the room thinking. I then took off my coat, and thought a\r\nlittle more in my shirt sleeves. But beginning to feel very cold now,\r\nhalf undressed as I was, and remembering what the landlord said about\r\nthe harpooneer’s not coming home at all that night, it being so very\r\nlate, I made no more ado, but jumped out of my pantaloons and boots,\r\nand then blowing out the light tumbled into bed, and commended myself\r\nto the care of heaven.\r\n\r\nWhether that mattress was stuffed with corn-cobs or broken crockery,\r\nthere is no telling, but I rolled about a good deal, and could not\r\nsleep for a long time. At last I slid off into a light doze, and had\r\npretty nearly made a good offing towards the land of Nod, when I heard\r\na heavy footfall in the passage, and saw a glimmer of light come into\r\nthe room from under the door.\r\n\r\nLord save me, thinks I, that must be the harpooneer, the infernal\r\nhead-peddler. But I lay perfectly still, and resolved not to say a word\r\ntill spoken to. Holding a light in one hand, and that identical New\r\nZealand head in the other, the stranger entered the room, and without\r\nlooking towards the bed, placed his candle a good way off from me on\r\nthe floor in one corner, and then began working away at the knotted\r\ncords of the large bag I before spoke of as being in the room. I was\r\nall eagerness to see his face, but he kept it averted for some time\r\nwhile employed in unlacing the bag’s mouth. This accomplished, however,\r\nhe turned round—when, good heavens! what a sight! Such a face! It was\r\nof a dark, purplish, yellow colour, here and there stuck over with\r\nlarge blackish looking squares. Yes, it’s just as I thought, he’s a\r\nterrible bedfellow; he’s been in a fight, got dreadfully cut, and here\r\nhe is, just from the surgeon. But at that moment he chanced to turn his\r\nface so towards the light, that I plainly saw they could not be\r\nsticking-plasters at all, those black squares on his cheeks. They were\r\nstains of some sort or other. At first I knew not what to make of this;\r\nbut soon an inkling of the truth occurred to me. I remembered a story\r\nof a white man—a whaleman too—who, falling among the cannibals, had\r\nbeen tattooed by them. I concluded that this harpooneer, in the course\r\nof his distant voyages, must have met with a similar adventure. And\r\nwhat is it, thought I, after all! It’s only his outside; a man can be\r\nhonest in any sort of skin. But then, what to make of his unearthly\r\ncomplexion, that part of it, I mean, lying round about, and completely\r\nindependent of the squares of tattooing. To be sure, it might be\r\nnothing but a good coat of tropical tanning; but I never heard of a hot\r\nsun’s tanning a white man into a purplish yellow one. However, I had\r\nnever been in the South Seas; and perhaps the sun there produced these\r\nextraordinary effects upon the skin. Now, while all these ideas were\r\npassing through me like lightning, this harpooneer never noticed me at\r\nall. But, after some difficulty having opened his bag, he commenced\r\nfumbling in it, and presently pulled out a sort of tomahawk, and a\r\nseal-skin wallet with the hair on. Placing these on the old chest in\r\nthe middle of the room, he then took the New Zealand head—a ghastly\r\nthing enough—and crammed it down into the bag. He now took off his\r","title":"Chunk 7"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KFNR849MRV3B92141XN8VT71","peer_label":"Chapter 3. The Spouter-Inn","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KFNR849MRV3B92141XN8VT71","peer_label":"Chapter 3. The Spouter-Inn","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":"01KFNR86ZH7JYXAGQ7WRG7D0MH","peer_label":"Chunk 8","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"},{"peer":"01KFNR86YE3S4FBKVTQW1CSK3Q","peer_label":"Chunk 6","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:02.767Z","ts":"2026-01-23T15:41:14.966Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}