{"id":"01KFNR88E0BHMBCFFXBDCJRBYJ","cid":"bafkreie6ku6opzrtaxrqynbga4otkygl3htb3shhtm2phtbhnpvmjo6hnm","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":10081,"extracted_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:03.441Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 6","source_file":"01KFNR0Z394A878Y5AQ63MQEM2","start_line":10017,"text":"distant Venice in your corrupt comparison. Oh! do not bow and look\r\nsurprised; you know the proverb all along this coast—“Corrupt as Lima.”\r\nIt but bears out your saying, too; churches more plentiful than\r\nbilliard-tables, and for ever open—and “Corrupt as Lima.” So, too,\r\nVenice; I have been there; the holy city of the blessed evangelist, St.\r\nMark!—St. Dominic, purge it! Your cup! Thanks: here I refill; now, you\r\npour out again.’\r\n\r\n“Freely depicted in his own vocation, gentlemen, the Canaller would\r\nmake a fine dramatic hero, so abundantly and picturesquely wicked is\r\nhe. Like Mark Antony, for days and days along his green-turfed, flowery\r\nNile, he indolently floats, openly toying with his red-cheeked\r\nCleopatra, ripening his apricot thigh upon the sunny deck. But ashore,\r\nall this effeminacy is dashed. The brigandish guise which the Canaller\r\nso proudly sports; his slouched and gaily-ribboned hat betoken his\r\ngrand features. A terror to the smiling innocence of the villages\r\nthrough which he floats; his swart visage and bold swagger are not\r\nunshunned in cities. Once a vagabond on his own canal, I have received\r\ngood turns from one of these Canallers; I thank him heartily; would\r\nfain be not ungrateful; but it is often one of the prime redeeming\r\nqualities of your man of violence, that at times he has as stiff an arm\r\nto back a poor stranger in a strait, as to plunder a wealthy one. In\r\nsum, gentlemen, what the wildness of this canal life is, is\r\nemphatically evinced by this; that our wild whale-fishery contains so\r\nmany of its most finished graduates, and that scarce any race of\r\nmankind, except Sydney men, are so much distrusted by our whaling\r\ncaptains. Nor does it at all diminish the curiousness of this matter,\r\nthat to many thousands of our rural boys and young men born along its\r\nline, the probationary life of the Grand Canal furnishes the sole\r\ntransition between quietly reaping in a Christian corn-field, and\r\nrecklessly ploughing the waters of the most barbaric seas.\r\n\r\n“‘I see! I see!’ impetuously exclaimed Don Pedro, spilling his chicha\r\nupon his silvery ruffles. ‘No need to travel! The world’s one Lima. I\r\nhad thought, now, that at your temperate North the generations were\r\ncold and holy as the hills.—But the story.’\r\n\r\n“I left off, gentlemen, where the Lakeman shook the backstay. Hardly\r\nhad he done so, when he was surrounded by the three junior mates and\r\nthe four harpooneers, who all crowded him to the deck. But sliding down\r\nthe ropes like baleful comets, the two Canallers rushed into the\r\nuproar, and sought to drag their man out of it towards the forecastle.\r\nOthers of the sailors joined with them in this attempt, and a twisted\r\nturmoil ensued; while standing out of harm’s way, the valiant captain\r\ndanced up and down with a whale-pike, calling upon his officers to\r\nmanhandle that atrocious scoundrel, and smoke him along to the\r\nquarter-deck. At intervals, he ran close up to the revolving border of\r\nthe confusion, and prying into the heart of it with his pike, sought to\r\nprick out the object of his resentment. But Steelkilt and his\r\ndesperadoes were too much for them all; they succeeded in gaining the\r\nforecastle deck, where, hastily slewing about three or four large casks\r\nin a line with the windlass, these sea-Parisians entrenched themselves\r\nbehind the barricade.\r\n\r\n“‘Come out of that, ye pirates!’ roared the captain, now menacing them\r\nwith a pistol in each hand, just brought to him by the steward. ‘Come\r\nout of that, ye cut-throats!’\r\n\r\n“Steelkilt leaped on the barricade, and striding up and down there,\r\ndefied the worst the pistols could do; but gave the captain to\r\nunderstand distinctly, that his (Steelkilt’s) death would be the signal\r\nfor a murderous mutiny on the part of all hands. Fearing in his heart\r\nlest this might prove but too true, the captain a little desisted, but\r\nstill commanded the insurgents instantly to return to their duty.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 6"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KFNR848CJHT30V0G0Y4QYWRF","peer_label":"54","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KFNR848CJHT30V0G0Y4QYWRF","peer_label":"54","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":"01KFNR88GA0AR6HQYSVBF4NMN8","peer_label":"Chunk 7","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"},{"peer":"01KFNR8896FCTSKVFYNZAEKWPJ","peer_label":"Chunk 5","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:04.021Z","ts":"2026-01-23T15:41:16.689Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}