{"id":"01KG6YGBW64SSAS79QA39H0635","cid":"bafkreid2qqrio57gv2zgoxhpqmfy65ohtgcycyugcsd7in6u7hzsv2iapq","type":"chapter","properties":{"description":"# SKETCH EIGHTH. NORFOLK ISLE AND THE CHOLA WIDOW.\n\n## Overview\nThis is the eighth chapter of Herman Melville's collection of sketches, \"The Piazza Tales.\" It was extracted from the file `the_piazza_tales.txt` and is part of the larger \"Melville\" collection. The chapter details a visit to Norfolk Isle, one of the Encantadas (Galapagos Islands), and recounts a peculiar encounter.\n\n## Context\nThis chapter is situated within \"The Piazza Tales,\" a collection of short stories by Herman Melville. It follows \"Sketch Seventh. Charles’s Isle and the Dog-King.\" and precedes a chapter titled \"The Encantadas.\" The narrative appears to be a personal account, with the author reflecting on the significance of Norfolk Isle as a place of \"strangest trials of humanity\" due to his own experiences there.\n\n## Contents\nThe chapter begins with the author and his shipmates preparing to leave Norfolk Isle after a two-day hunt for tortoises. As they are getting underway, a seaman notices a small, fluttering object on the shore that others on board miss. This observation leads to the unfolding of a story, the details of which are not fully contained within this excerpt but are hinted at by the seaman's elevated vantage point and keen observation. The text includes several poetic epigraphs that set a somber and melancholic tone, referencing themes of loss, sorrow, and remembrance.","description_generated_at":"2026-01-30T07:58:24.395Z","description_model":"gemini-2.5-flash-lite","description_title":"SKETCH EIGHTH. NORFOLK ISLE AND THE CHOLA WIDOW.","end_line":6992,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T07:57:25.492Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"SKETCH EIGHTH.\nNORFOLK ISLE AND THE CHOLA WIDOW.","source_file":"01KG6YDDF6PTWG4P7JTS5THSTD","start_line":6946,"text":"SKETCH EIGHTH.\r\nNORFOLK ISLE AND THE CHOLA WIDOW.\r\n\r\n“At last they in an island did espy\r\nA seemly woman sitting by the shore,\r\nThat with great sorrow and sad agony\r\nSeemed some great misfortune to deplore;\r\nAnd loud to them for succor called evermore.”\r\n\r\n“Black his eye as the midnight sky.\r\nWhite his neck as the driven snow,\r\nRed his cheek as the morning light;—\r\nCold he lies in the ground below.\r\nMy love is dead,\r\nGone to his death-bed, ys\r\nAll under the cactus tree.”\r\n\r\n“Each lonely scene shall thee restore,\r\nFor thee the tear be duly shed;\r\nBelov’d till life can charm no more,\r\nAnd mourned till Pity’s self be dead.”\r\n\r\n\r\nFar to the northeast of Charles’s Isle, sequestered from the rest, lies\r\nNorfolk Isle; and, however insignificant to most voyagers, to me,\r\nthrough sympathy, that lone island has become a spot made sacred by the\r\nstrangest trials of humanity.\r\n\r\nIt was my first visit to the Encantadas. Two days had been spent ashore\r\nin hunting tortoises. There was not time to capture many; so on the\r\nthird afternoon we loosed our sails. We were just in the act of getting\r\nunder way, the uprooted anchor yet suspended and invisibly swaying\r\nbeneath the wave, as the good ship gradually turned her heel to leave\r\nthe isle behind, when the seaman who heaved with me at the windlass\r\npaused suddenly, and directed my attention to something moving on the\r\nland, not along the beach, but somewhat back, fluttering from a height.\r\n\r\nIn view of the sequel of this little story, be it here narrated how it\r\ncame to pass, that an object which partly from its being so small was\r\nquite lost to every other man on board, still caught the eye of my\r\nhandspike companion. The rest of the crew, myself included, merely\r\nstood up to our spikes in heaving, whereas, unwontedly exhilarated, at\r\nevery turn of the ponderous windlass, my belted comrade leaped atop of\r\nit, with might and main giving a downward, thewey, perpendicular heave,\r\nhis raised eye bent in cheery animation upon the slowly receding shore.\r\nBeing high lifted above all others was the reason he perceived the\r\nobject, otherwise unperceivable; and this elevation of his eye was\r","title":"SKETCH EIGHTH.\nNORFOLK ISLE AND THE CHOLA WIDOW."},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6YFYZ22TKC7DNP0M5XSK81","peer_type":"short_story","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6YDDF6PTWG4P7JTS5THSTD","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG6YCG626JN4FCG8QK17CQCF","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6YGBW6KM24V82VYQXVPCED","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG6YGBWB5CFKRR9ZHSC2Z95T","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"next"}],"ver":3,"created_at":"2026-01-30T07:57:26.278Z","ts":"2026-01-30T07:58:24.566Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF5C36SQEVDHC9CBNZZJH9K"}}