{"id":"01KG8AJQ5SKNKHHHFSG39BT7CE","cid":"bafkreiegbvjcuib7gvzfswelmgnmu2i3twvtrabm5gyzldrmddockycuky","type":"chapter","properties":{"description":"# CHAPTER XII. More About Being In An Open Boat\n## Overview\nThis is a chapter from the novel [Mardi: And a Voyage Thither](arke:01KG8AJA6157W2830190N652KA) by Herman Melville. The chapter, titled \"CHAPTER XII. More About Being In An Open Boat,\" describes the narrator's experience of being in an open boat at sea. It was extracted from the source file [mardi_vol1.txt](arke:01KG89J1HYC04JWXEK48P07WPK) and is part of the [Melville Complete Works](arke:01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW) collection.\n\n## Context\nThe chapter is positioned between [CHAPTER XI. Jarl Afflicted With The Lockjaw](arke:01KG8AJQ5Q80S7YSVV6NX67Z7A) and [CHAPTER XIII. Of The Chondropterygii, And Other Uncouth Hordes Infesting The South Seas](arke:01KG8AJQ6BYF8663QGPBCA5NS8) within the novel.\n\n## Contents\nThe chapter reflects on the feeling of being in an open boat at sea, contrasting it with the sense of security felt on a ship. The narrator describes the limited visibility and the feeling of loneliness, emphasizing the vastness of the ocean and the isolation of the travelers. The text explores the psychological impact of being adrift, including disquieting thoughts and forebodings about missing their destination and being lost at sea.\n","description_generated_at":"2026-01-30T20:49:09.479Z","description_model":"gemini-2.5-flash-lite","description_title":"CHAPTER XII. More About Being In An Open Boat","end_line":1405,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:39.468Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"CHAPTER XII. More About Being In An Open Boat","source_file":"01KG89J1HYC04JWXEK48P07WPK","start_line":1356,"text":"CHAPTER XII.\r\nMore About Being In An Open Boat\r\n\r\n\r\nOn the third morning, at break of day, I sat at the steering oar, an\r\nhour or two previous having relieved Jarl, now fast asleep. Somehow,\r\nand suddenly, a sense of peril so intense, came over me, that it could\r\nhardly have been aggravated by the completest solitude.\r\n\r\nOn a ship’s deck, the mere feeling of elevation above the water, and\r\nthe reach of prospect you command, impart a degree of confidence which\r\ndisposes you to exult in your fancied security. But in an open boat,\r\nbrought down to the very plane of the sea, this feeling almost wholly\r\ndeserts you. Unless the waves, in their gambols, toss you and your chip\r\nupon one of their lordly crests, your sphere of vision is little larger\r\nthan it would be at the bottom of a well. At best, your most extended\r\nview in any one direction, at least, is in a high, slow-rolling sea;\r\nwhen you descend into the dark, misty spaces, between long and uniform\r\nswells. Then, for the moment, it is like looking up and down in a\r\ntwilight glade, interminable; where two dawns, one on each hand, seem\r\nstruggling through the semi-transparent tops of the fluid mountains.\r\n\r\nBut, lingering not long in those silent vales, from watery cliff to\r\ncliff, a sea-chamois, sprang our solitary craft,—a goat among the Alps!\r\n\r\nHow undulated the horizon; like a vast serpent with ten thousand folds\r\ncoiled all round the globe; yet so nigh, apparently, that it seemed as\r\nif one’s hand might touch it.\r\n\r\nWhat loneliness; when the sun rose, and spurred up the heavens, we\r\nhailed him as a wayfarer in Sahara the sight of a distant horseman.\r\nSave ourselves, the sun and the Chamois seemed all that was left of\r\nlife in the universe. We yearned toward its jocund disk, as in strange\r\nlands the traveler joyfully greets a face from home, which there had\r\npassed unheeded. And was not the sun a fellow-voyager? were we not both\r\nwending westward? But how soon he daily overtook and passed us;\r\nhurrying to his journey’s end.\r\n\r\nWhen a week had gone by, sailing steadily on, by day and by night, and\r\nnothing in sight but this self-same sea, what wonder if disquieting\r\nthoughts at last entered our hearts? If unknowingly we should pass the\r\nspot where, according to our reckoning, our islands lay, upon what\r\nshoreless sea would we launch? At times, these forebodings bewildered\r\nmy idea of the positions of the groups beyond. All became vague and\r\nconfused; so that westward of the Kingsmil isles and the Radack chain,\r\nI fancied there could be naught but an endless sea.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r","title":"CHAPTER XII. More About Being In An Open Boat"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJA6157W2830190N652KA","peer_type":"novel","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1HYC04JWXEK48P07WPK","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AJQ5Q80S7YSVV6NX67Z7A","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AJQ6BYF8663QGPBCA5NS8","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"next"}],"ver":3,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:40.729Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:49:11.018Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF5C36SQEVDHC9CBNZZJH9K"}}