{"id":"01KG6YH8ZFJ2GAC5BSHGJR437M","cid":"bafkreiddb7eadlh6srio3v4swajqlasjlr5yw3aieqjnrgdb2sgx5d3yf4","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":6341,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T07:57:55.413Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 3","source_file":"01KG6YDDF6PTWG4P7JTS5THSTD","start_line":6272,"text":"pouches suspended thereto, give them the most lugubrious expression. A\r\npensive race, they stand for hours together without motion. Their dull,\r\nashy plumage imparts an aspect as if they had been powdered over with\r\ncinders. A penitential bird, indeed, fitly haunting the shores of the\r\nclinkered Encantadas, whereon tormented Job himself might have well sat\r\ndown and scraped himself with potsherds.\r\n\r\nHigher up now we mark the gony, or gray albatross, anomalously so\r\ncalled, an unsightly unpoetic bird, unlike its storied kinsman, which\r\nis the snow-white ghost of the haunted Capes of Hope and Horn.\r\n\r\nAs we still ascend from shelf to shelf, we find the tenants of the\r\ntower serially disposed in order of their magnitude:—gannets, black and\r\nspeckled haglets, jays, sea-hens, sperm-whale-birds, gulls of all\r\nvarieties:—thrones, princedoms, powers, dominating one above another in\r\nsenatorial array; while, sprinkled over all, like an ever-repeated fly\r\nin a great piece of broidery, the stormy petrel or Mother Cary’s\r\nchicken sounds his continual challenge and alarm. That this mysterious\r\nhummingbird of ocean—which, had it but brilliancy of hue, might, from\r\nits evanescent liveliness, be almost called its butterfly, yet whose\r\nchirrup under the stern is ominous to mariners as to the peasant the\r\ndeath-tick sounding from behind the chimney jamb—should have its\r\nspecial haunt at the Encantadas, contributes, in the seaman’s mind, not\r\na little to their dreary spell.\r\n\r\nAs day advances the dissonant din augments. With ear-splitting cries\r\nthe wild birds celebrate their matins. Each moment, flights push from\r\nthe tower, and join the aerial choir hovering overhead, while their\r\nplaces below are supplied by darting myriads. But down through all this\r\ndiscord of commotion, I hear clear, silver, bugle-like notes unbrokenly\r\nfalling, like oblique lines of swift-slanting rain in a cascading\r\nshower. I gaze far up, and behold a snow-white angelic thing, with one\r\nlong, lance-like feather thrust out behind. It is the bright,\r\ninspiriting chanticleer of ocean, the beauteous bird, from its\r\nbestirring whistle of musical invocation, fitly styled the “Boatswain’s\r\nMate.”\r\n\r\nThe winged, life-clouding Rodondo had its full counterpart in the finny\r\nhosts which peopled the waters at its base. Below the water-line, the\r\nrock seemed one honey-comb of grottoes, affording labyrinthine\r\nlurking-places for swarms of fairy fish. All were strange; many\r\nexceedingly beautiful; and would have well graced the costliest glass\r\nglobes in which gold-fish are kept for a show. Nothing was more\r\nstriking than the complete novelty of many individuals of this\r\nmultitude. Here hues were seen as yet unpainted, and figures which are\r\nunengraved.\r\n\r\nTo show the multitude, avidity, and nameless fearlessness and tameness\r\nof these fish, let me say, that often, marking through clear spaces of\r\nwater—temporarily made so by the concentric dartings of the fish above\r\nthe surface—certain larger and less unwary wights, which swam slow and\r\ndeep; our anglers would cautiously essay to drop their lines down to\r\nthese last. But in vain; there was no passing the uppermost zone. No\r\nsooner did the hook touch the sea, than a hundred infatuates contended\r\nfor the honor of capture. Poor fish of Rodondo! in your victimized\r\nconfidence, you are of the number of those who inconsiderately trust,\r\nwhile they do not understand, human nature.\r\n\r\nBut the dawn is now fairly day. Band after band, the sea-fowl sail away\r\nto forage the deep for their food. The tower is left solitary save the\r\nfish-caves at its base. Its birdlime gleams in the golden rays like the\r\nwhitewash of a tall light-house, or the lofty sails of a cruiser. This\r\nmoment, doubtless, while we know it to be a dead desert rock other\r\nvoyagers are taking oaths it is a glad populous ship.\r\n\r\nBut ropes now, and let us ascend. Yet soft, this is not so easy.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 3"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6YGBW6GAC082J1TCC47K17","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6YDDF6PTWG4P7JTS5THSTD","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG6YCG626JN4FCG8QK17CQCF","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6YH8FGYPFKXEYPRD1K6H3X","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T07:57:56.079Z","ts":"2026-01-30T07:58:06.463Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}