{"id":"01KG6YH8FGK9Y4AJFVJC052GEG","cid":"bafkreibe3tmyqjgru4f3gct3nyyn5ywgkv73zobidvuej5x3gpgcr7rche","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":5998,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T07:57:55.413Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 3","source_file":"01KG6YDDF6PTWG4P7JTS5THSTD","start_line":5932,"text":"of whalemen cruised for spermaceti upon what some seamen call the\r\nEnchanted Ground. But this, as in due place will be described, was off\r\nthe great outer isle of Albemarle, away from the intricacies of the\r\nsmaller isles, where there is plenty of sea-room; and hence, to that\r\nvicinity, the above remarks do not altogether apply; though even there\r\nthe current runs at times with singular force, shifting, too, with as\r\nsingular a caprice.\r\n\r\nIndeed, there are seasons when currents quite unaccountable prevail for\r\na great distance round about the total group, and are so strong and\r\nirregular as to change a vessel’s course against the helm, though\r\nsailing at the rate of four or five miles the hour. The difference in\r\nthe reckonings of navigators, produced by these causes, along with the\r\nlight and variable winds, long nourished a persuasion, that there\r\nexisted two distinct clusters of isles in the parallel of the\r\nEncantadas, about a hundred leagues apart. Such was the idea of their\r\nearlier visitors, the Buccaneers; and as late as 1750, the charts of\r\nthat part of the Pacific accorded with the strange delusion. And this\r\napparent fleetingness and unreality of the locality of the isles was\r\nmost probably one reason for the Spaniards calling them the Encantada,\r\nor Enchanted Group.\r\n\r\nBut not uninfluenced by their character, as they now confessedly exist,\r\nthe modern voyager will be inclined to fancy that the bestowal of this\r\nname might have in part originated in that air of spell-bound\r\ndesertness which so significantly invests the isles. Nothing can better\r\nsuggest the aspect of once living things malignly crumbled from\r\nruddiness into ashes. Apples of Sodom, after touching, seem these\r\nisles.\r\n\r\nHowever wavering their place may seem by reason of the currents, they\r\nthemselves, at least to one upon the shore, appear invariably the same:\r\nfixed, cast, glued into the very body of cadaverous death.\r\n\r\nNor would the appellation, enchanted, seem misapplied in still another\r\nsense. For concerning the peculiar reptile inhabitant of these\r\nwilds—whose presence gives the group its second Spanish name,\r\nGallipagos—concerning the tortoises found here, most mariners have long\r\ncherished a superstition, not more frightful than grotesque. They\r\nearnestly believe that all wicked sea-officers, more especially\r\ncommodores and captains, are at death (and, in some cases, before\r\ndeath) transformed into tortoises; thenceforth dwelling upon these hot\r\naridities, sole solitary lords of Asphaltum.\r\n\r\nDoubtless, so quaintly dolorous a thought was originally inspired by\r\nthe woe-begone landscape itself; but more particularly, perhaps, by the\r\ntortoises. For, apart from their strictly physical features, there is\r\nsomething strangely self-condemned in the appearance of these\r\ncreatures. Lasting sorrow and penal hopelessness are in no animal form\r\nso suppliantly expressed as in theirs; while the thought of their\r\nwonderful longevity does not fail to enhance the impression.\r\n\r\nNor even at the risk of meriting the charge of absurdly believing in\r\nenchantments, can I restrain the admission that sometimes, even now,\r\nwhen leaving the crowded city to wander out July and August among the\r\nAdirondack Mountains, far from the influences of towns and\r\nproportionally nigh to the mysterious ones of nature; when at such\r\ntimes I sit me down in the mossy head of some deep-wooded gorge,\r\nsurrounded by prostrate trunks of blasted pines and recall, as in a\r\ndream, my other and far-distant rovings in the baked heart of the\r\ncharmed isles; and remember the sudden glimpses of dusky shells, and\r\nlong languid necks protruded from the leafless thickets; and again have\r\nbeheld the vitreous inland rocks worn down and grooved into deep ruts\r\nby ages and ages of the slow draggings of tortoises in quest of pools\r\nof scanty water; I can hardly resist the feeling that in my time I have\r\nindeed slept upon evilly enchanted ground.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 3"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6YGRZVQF3MKPKE0S9RKGRX","peer_type":"section","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6YDDF6PTWG4P7JTS5THSTD","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG6YCG626JN4FCG8QK17CQCF","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6YH8FE9ZJE4FJEMRYB0YNJ","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG6YH8FDE75A96TH8AFKQYQ8","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T07:57:55.568Z","ts":"2026-01-30T07:58:06.486Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}