{"id":"01KG6YH8ZFWKHHSEK844HXHQF6","cid":"bafkreicvwwof2ifieyhhhycjztyfzkgow7us7ooiddmtujh6tslzbmjzhm","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":6406,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T07:57:55.413Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG6YDDF6PTWG4P7JTS5THSTD","start_line":6342,"text":"SKETCH FOURTH.\r\nA PISGAH VIEW FROM THE ROCK.\r\n\r\n—“That done, he leads him to the highest mount,\r\nFrom whence, far off he unto him did show:”—\r\n\r\n\r\nIf you seek to ascend Rock Rodondo, take the following prescription. Go\r\nthree voyages round the world as a main-royal-man of the tallest\r\nfrigate that floats; then serve a year or two apprenticeship to the\r\nguides who conduct strangers up the Peak of Teneriffe; and as many more\r\nrespectively to a rope-dancer, an Indian juggler, and a chamois. This\r\ndone, come and be rewarded by the view from our tower. How we get\r\nthere, we alone know. If we sought to tell others, what the wiser were\r\nthey? Suffice it, that here at the summit you and I stand. Does any\r\nballoonist, does the outlooking man in the moon, take a broader view of\r\nspace? Much thus, one fancies, looks the universe from Milton’s\r\ncelestial battlements. A boundless watery Kentucky. Here Daniel Boone\r\nwould have dwelt content.\r\n\r\nNever heed for the present yonder Burnt District of the Enchanted\r\nIsles. Look edgeways, as it were, past them, to the south. You see\r\nnothing; but permit me to point out the direction, if not the place, of\r\ncertain interesting objects in the vast sea, which, kissing this\r\ntower’s base, we behold unscrolling itself towards the Antarctic Pole.\r\n\r\nWe stand now ten miles from the Equator. Yonder, to the East, some six\r\nhundred miles, lies the continent; this Rock being just about on the\r\nparallel of Quito.\r\n\r\nObserve another thing here. We are at one of three uninhabited\r\nclusters, which, at pretty nearly uniform distances from the main,\r\nsentinel, at long intervals from each other, the entire coast of South\r\nAmerica. In a peculiar manner, also, they terminate the South American\r\ncharacter of country. Of the unnumbered Polynesian chains to the\r\nwestward, not one partakes of the qualities of the Encantadas or\r\nGallipagos, the isles of St. Felix and St. Ambrose, the isles\r\nJuan-Fernandez and Massafuero. Of the first, it needs not here to\r\nspeak. The second lie a little above the Southern Tropic; lofty,\r\ninhospitable, and uninhabitable rocks, one of which, presenting two\r\nround hummocks connected by a low reef, exactly resembles a huge\r\ndouble-headed shot. The last lie in the latitude of 33°; high, wild and\r\ncloven. Juan Fernandez is sufficiently famous without further\r\ndescription. Massafuero is a Spanish name, expressive of the fact, that\r\nthe isle so called lies _more without_, that is, further off the main\r\nthan its neighbor Juan. This isle Massafuero has a very imposing aspect\r\nat a distance of eight or ten miles. Approached in one direction, in\r\ncloudy weather, its great overhanging height and rugged contour, and\r\nmore especially a peculiar slope of its broad summits, give it much the\r\nair of a vast iceberg drifting in tremendous poise. Its sides are split\r\nwith dark cavernous recesses, as an old cathedral with its gloomy\r\nlateral chapels. Drawing nigh one of these gorges from sea, after a\r\nlong voyage, and beholding some tatterdemalion outlaw, staff in hand,\r\ndescending its steep rocks toward you, conveys a very queer emotion to\r\na lover of the picturesque.\r\n\r\nOn fishing parties from ships, at various times, I have chanced to\r\nvisit each of these groups. The impression they give to the stranger\r\npulling close up in his boat under their grim cliffs is, that surely he\r\nmust be their first discoverer, such, for the most part, is the\r\nunimpaired ... silence and solitude. And here, by the way, the mode in\r\nwhich these isles were really first lighted upon by Europeans is not\r\nunworthy of mention, especially as what is about to be said, likewise\r\napplies to the original discovery of our Encantadas.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6YGBW6TDDHGY5MJRJDQ5QF","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6YDDF6PTWG4P7JTS5THSTD","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG6YCG626JN4FCG8QK17CQCF","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6YH8ZFY54MBD38H4BKYSM3","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T07:57:56.079Z","ts":"2026-01-30T07:58:06.606Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}