{"id":"01KFNR88AA2Z1APG4AYMDW3PFZ","cid":"bafkreiapmeprstguas4wmykxlqmceedj2vbzkoo7yx7b2dmtnercwo6alq","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":8424,"extracted_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:03.428Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 3","source_file":"01KFNR0Z394A878Y5AQ63MQEM2","start_line":8359,"text":"unknown rocks and breakers; for the second time his ship was utterly\r\nlost, and forthwith forswearing the sea, he has never tempted it since.\r\nAt this day Captain Pollard is a resident of Nantucket. I have seen\r\nOwen Chace, who was chief mate of the Essex at the time of the tragedy;\r\nI have read his plain and faithful narrative; I have conversed with his\r\nson; and all this within a few miles of the scene of the catastrophe.*\r\n\r\n*The following are extracts from Chace’s narrative: “Every fact seemed\r\nto warrant me in concluding that it was anything but chance which\r\ndirected his operations; he made two several attacks upon the ship, at\r\na short interval between them, both of which, according to their\r\ndirection, were calculated to do us the most injury, by being made\r\nahead, and thereby combining the speed of the two objects for the\r\nshock; to effect which, the exact manœuvres which he made were\r\nnecessary. His aspect was most horrible, and such as indicated\r\nresentment and fury. He came directly from the shoal which we had just\r\nbefore entered, and in which we had struck three of his companions, as\r\nif fired with revenge for their sufferings.” Again: “At all events, the\r\nwhole circumstances taken together, all happening before my own eyes,\r\nand producing, at the time, impressions in my mind of decided,\r\ncalculating mischief, on the part of the whale (many of which\r\nimpressions I cannot now recall), induce me to be satisfied that I am\r\ncorrect in my opinion.”\r\n\r\nHere are his reflections some time after quitting the ship, during a\r\nblack night in an open boat, when almost despairing of reaching any\r\nhospitable shore. “The dark ocean and swelling waters were nothing; the\r\nfears of being swallowed up by some dreadful tempest, or dashed upon\r\nhidden rocks, with all the other ordinary subjects of fearful\r\ncontemplation, seemed scarcely entitled to a moment’s thought; the\r\ndismal looking wreck, and _the horrid aspect and revenge of the whale_,\r\nwholly engrossed my reflections, until day again made its appearance.”\r\n\r\nIn another place—p. 45,—he speaks of “_the mysterious and mortal attack\r\nof the animal_.”\r\n\r\nSecondly: The ship Union, also of Nantucket, was in the year 1807\r\ntotally lost off the Azores by a similar onset, but the authentic\r\nparticulars of this catastrophe I have never chanced to encounter,\r\nthough from the whale hunters I have now and then heard casual\r\nallusions to it.\r\n\r\nThirdly: Some eighteen or twenty years ago Commodore J——, then\r\ncommanding an American sloop-of-war of the first class, happened to be\r\ndining with a party of whaling captains, on board a Nantucket ship in\r\nthe harbor of Oahu, Sandwich Islands. Conversation turning upon whales,\r\nthe Commodore was pleased to be sceptical touching the amazing strength\r\nascribed to them by the professional gentlemen present. He peremptorily\r\ndenied for example, that any whale could so smite his stout\r\nsloop-of-war as to cause her to leak so much as a thimbleful. Very\r\ngood; but there is more coming. Some weeks after, the Commodore set\r\nsail in this impregnable craft for Valparaiso. But he was stopped on\r\nthe way by a portly sperm whale, that begged a few moments’\r\nconfidential business with him. That business consisted in fetching the\r\nCommodore’s craft such a thwack, that with all his pumps going he made\r\nstraight for the nearest port to heave down and repair. I am not\r\nsuperstitious, but I consider the Commodore’s interview with that whale\r\nas providential. Was not Saul of Tarsus converted from unbelief by a\r\nsimilar fright? I tell you, the sperm whale will stand no nonsense.\r\n\r\nI will now refer you to Langsdorff’s Voyages for a little circumstance\r\nin point, peculiarly interesting to the writer hereof. Langsdorff, you\r\nmust know by the way, was attached to the Russian Admiral Krusenstern’s\r\nfamous Discovery Expedition in the beginning of the present century.\r\nCaptain Langsdorff thus begins his seventeenth chapter:\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 3"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KFNR84CAYPVDAGJP9WFFMPME","peer_label":"45","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KFNR84CAYPVDAGJP9WFFMPME","peer_label":"45","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":"01KFNR887D51ADR152SBDEY1ZW","peer_label":"Chunk 4","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"},{"peer":"01KFNR88972DEE54A2FD6P7BT4","peer_label":"Chunk 2","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:03.994Z","ts":"2026-01-23T15:41:16.797Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}