{"id":"01KFNR8B8NKXCSME1E221APQHG","cid":"bafkreiccmxp7mbjv3dnhkkx5xc4suvlld3ealrhh2pckfrkh227gn75t7y","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":2042,"extracted_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:06.408Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 0","source_file":"01KFNR0Z394A878Y5AQ63MQEM2","start_line":1978,"text":"unknown to Lascars and Malays; and at Bombay, in the Apollo Green, live\r\nYankees have often scared the natives. But New Bedford beats all Water\r\nStreet and Wapping. In these last-mentioned haunts you see only\r\nsailors; but in New Bedford, actual cannibals stand chatting at street\r\ncorners; savages outright; many of whom yet carry on their bones unholy\r\nflesh. It makes a stranger stare.\r\n\r\nBut, besides the Feegeeans, Tongatobooarrs, Erromanggoans, Pannangians,\r\nand Brighggians, and, besides the wild specimens of the whaling-craft\r\nwhich unheeded reel about the streets, you will see other sights still\r\nmore curious, certainly more comical. There weekly arrive in this town\r\nscores of green Vermonters and New Hampshire men, all athirst for gain\r\nand glory in the fishery. They are mostly young, of stalwart frames;\r\nfellows who have felled forests, and now seek to drop the axe and\r\nsnatch the whale-lance. Many are as green as the Green Mountains whence\r\nthey came. In some things you would think them but a few hours old.\r\nLook there! that chap strutting round the corner. He wears a beaver hat\r\nand swallow-tailed coat, girdled with a sailor-belt and sheath-knife.\r\nHere comes another with a sou’-wester and a bombazine cloak.\r\n\r\nNo town-bred dandy will compare with a country-bred one—I mean a\r\ndownright bumpkin dandy—a fellow that, in the dog-days, will mow his\r\ntwo acres in buckskin gloves for fear of tanning his hands. Now when a\r\ncountry dandy like this takes it into his head to make a distinguished\r\nreputation, and joins the great whale-fishery, you should see the\r\ncomical things he does upon reaching the seaport. In bespeaking his\r\nsea-outfit, he orders bell-buttons to his waistcoats; straps to his\r\ncanvas trowsers. Ah, poor Hay-Seed! how bitterly will burst those\r\nstraps in the first howling gale, when thou art driven, straps,\r\nbuttons, and all, down the throat of the tempest.\r\n\r\nBut think not that this famous town has only harpooneers, cannibals,\r\nand bumpkins to show her visitors. Not at all. Still New Bedford is a\r\nqueer place. Had it not been for us whalemen, that tract of land would\r\nthis day perhaps have been in as howling condition as the coast of\r\nLabrador. As it is, parts of her back country are enough to frighten\r\none, they look so bony. The town itself is perhaps the dearest place to\r\nlive in, in all New England. It is a land of oil, true enough: but not\r\nlike Canaan; a land, also, of corn and wine. The streets do not run\r\nwith milk; nor in the spring-time do they pave them with fresh eggs.\r\nYet, in spite of this, nowhere in all America will you find more\r\npatrician-like houses; parks and gardens more opulent, than in New\r\nBedford. Whence came they? how planted upon this once scraggy scoria of\r\na country?\r\n\r\nGo and gaze upon the iron emblematical harpoons round yonder lofty\r\nmansion, and your question will be answered. Yes; all these brave\r\nhouses and flowery gardens came from the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian\r\noceans. One and all, they were harpooned and dragged up hither from the\r\nbottom of the sea. Can Herr Alexander perform a feat like that?\r\n\r\nIn New Bedford, fathers, they say, give whales for dowers to their\r\ndaughters, and portion off their nieces with a few porpoises a-piece.\r\nYou must go to New Bedford to see a brilliant wedding; for, they say,\r\nthey have reservoirs of oil in every house, and every night recklessly\r\nburn their lengths in spermaceti candles.\r\n\r\nIn summer time, the town is sweet to see; full of fine maples—long\r\navenues of green and gold. And in August, high in air, the beautiful\r\nand bountiful horse-chestnuts, candelabra-wise, proffer the passer-by\r\ntheir tapering upright cones of congregated blossoms. So omnipotent is\r\nart; which in many a district of New Bedford has superinduced bright\r\nterraces of flowers upon the barren refuse rocks thrown aside at\r\ncreation’s final day.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 0"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KFNR85GSKVV744WR9FXJ00XN","peer_label":"116","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KFNR85GSKVV744WR9FXJ00XN","peer_label":"116","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":"01KFNR8B8VRPNXX6290VKBWDVW","peer_label":"Chunk 1","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:07.022Z","ts":"2026-01-23T15:41:19.059Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}