{"id":"01KFNR88DP3YVEVMFH76S9993X","cid":"bafkreib7wi2vm2hxqvdsywk5caz7gktn6262sd6jididxq7sg5gw257euq","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":7354,"extracted_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:03.421Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KFNR0Z394A878Y5AQ63MQEM2","start_line":7298,"text":"other whale of that species. But at length, such calamities did ensue\r\nin these assaults—not restricted to sprained wrists and ankles, broken\r\nlimbs, or devouring amputations—but fatal to the last degree of\r\nfatality; those repeated disastrous repulses, all accumulating and\r\npiling their terrors upon Moby Dick; those things had gone far to shake\r\nthe fortitude of many brave hunters, to whom the story of the White\r\nWhale had eventually come.\r\n\r\nNor did wild rumors of all sorts fail to exaggerate, and still the more\r\nhorrify the true histories of these deadly encounters. For not only do\r\nfabulous rumors naturally grow out of the very body of all surprising\r\nterrible events,—as the smitten tree gives birth to its fungi; but, in\r\nmaritime life, far more than in that of terra firma, wild rumors\r\nabound, wherever there is any adequate reality for them to cling to.\r\nAnd as the sea surpasses the land in this matter, so the whale fishery\r\nsurpasses every other sort of maritime life, in the wonderfulness and\r\nfearfulness of the rumors which sometimes circulate there. For not only\r\nare whalemen as a body unexempt from that ignorance and\r\nsuperstitiousness hereditary to all sailors; but of all sailors, they\r\nare by all odds the most directly brought into contact with whatever is\r\nappallingly astonishing in the sea; face to face they not only eye its\r\ngreatest marvels, but, hand to jaw, give battle to them. Alone, in such\r\nremotest waters, that though you sailed a thousand miles, and passed a\r\nthousand shores, you would not come to any chiseled hearth-stone, or\r\naught hospitable beneath that part of the sun; in such latitudes and\r\nlongitudes, pursuing too such a calling as he does, the whaleman is\r\nwrapped by influences all tending to make his fancy pregnant with many\r\na mighty birth.\r\n\r\nNo wonder, then, that ever gathering volume from the mere transit over\r\nthe widest watery spaces, the outblown rumors of the White Whale did in\r\nthe end incorporate with themselves all manner of morbid hints, and\r\nhalf-formed fœtal suggestions of supernatural agencies, which\r\neventually invested Moby Dick with new terrors unborrowed from anything\r\nthat visibly appears. So that in many cases such a panic did he finally\r\nstrike, that few who by those rumors, at least, had heard of the White\r\nWhale, few of those hunters were willing to encounter the perils of his\r\njaw.\r\n\r\nBut there were still other and more vital practical influences at work.\r\nNot even at the present day has the original prestige of the Sperm\r\nWhale, as fearfully distinguished from all other species of the\r\nleviathan, died out of the minds of the whalemen as a body. There are\r\nthose this day among them, who, though intelligent and courageous\r\nenough in offering battle to the Greenland or Right whale, would\r\nperhaps—either from professional inexperience, or incompetency, or\r\ntimidity, decline a contest with the Sperm Whale; at any rate, there\r\nare plenty of whalemen, especially among those whaling nations not\r\nsailing under the American flag, who have never hostilely encountered\r\nthe Sperm Whale, but whose sole knowledge of the leviathan is\r\nrestricted to the ignoble monster primitively pursued in the North;\r\nseated on their hatches, these men will hearken with a childish\r\nfireside interest and awe, to the wild, strange tales of Southern\r\nwhaling. Nor is the pre-eminent tremendousness of the great Sperm Whale\r\nanywhere more feelingly comprehended, than on board of those prows\r\nwhich stem him.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KFNR84DQHQD30H34NJMFZQMH","peer_label":"41","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KFNR84DQHQD30H34NJMFZQMH","peer_label":"41","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":"01KFNR88AMXF0G2TPQ4C8849JX","peer_label":"Chunk 2","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"},{"peer":"01KFNR88EE9ZGGH6115HPTNY4T","peer_label":"Chunk 0","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:03.908Z","ts":"2026-01-23T15:41:16.658Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}