{"id":"01KG8AKFNHAZF9EKV88SHM1BHE","cid":"bafkreie5obousgqp7kj5f7mrjvh4ggtpvugg4cbsou3ci7mt72eolgyjz4","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":445,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:05.590Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 3","source_file":"01KG89J1DKC9HHJRKY25JZBEXW","start_line":388,"text":"This Canadian trip proved highly successful. Selling his glittering\r\ngoods at a great advance, he received in exchange valuable peltries and\r\nfurs at a corresponding reduction. Returning to Charlestown, he\r\ndisposed of his return cargo again at a very fine profit. And now, with\r\na light heart and a heavy purse, he resolved to visit his sweetheart\r\nand parents, of whom, for three years, he had had no tidings.\r\n\r\nThey were not less astonished than delighted at his reappearance; he\r\nhad been numbered with the dead. But his love still seemed strangely\r\ncoy; willing, but yet somehow mysteriously withheld. The old intrigues\r\nwere still on foot. Israel soon discovered, that though rejoiced to\r\nwelcome the return of the prodigal son—so some called him—his father\r\nstill remained inflexibly determined against the match, and still\r\ninexplicably countermined his wooing. With a dolorous heart he mildly\r\nyielded to what seemed his fatality; and more intrepid in facing peril\r\nfor himself, than in endangering others by maintaining his rights (for\r\nhe was now one-and-twenty), resolved once more to retreat, and quit his\r\nblue hills for the bluer billows.\r\n\r\nA hermitage in the forest is the refuge of the narrow-minded\r\nmisanthrope; a hammock on the ocean is the asylum for the generous\r\ndistressed. The ocean brims with natural griefs and tragedies; and into\r\nthat watery immensity of terror, man’s private grief is lost like a\r\ndrop.\r\n\r\nTravelling on foot to Providence, Rhode Island, Israel shipped on board\r\na sloop, bound with lime to the West Indies. On the tenth day out, the\r\nvessel caught fire, from water communicating with the lime. It was\r\nimpossible to extinguish the flames. The boat was hoisted out, but\r\nowing to long exposure to the sun, it needed continual bailing to keep\r\nit afloat. They had only time to put in a firkin of butter and a\r\nten-gallon keg of water. Eight in number, the crew entrusted themselves\r\nto the waves, in a leaky tub, many leagues from land. As the boat swept\r\nunder the burning bowsprit, Israel caught at a fragment of the\r\nflying-jib, which sail had fallen down the stay, owing to the charring,\r\nnigh the deck, of the rope which hoisted it. Tanned with the smoke, and\r\nits edge blackened with the fire, this bit of canvass helped them\r\nbravely on their way. Thanks to kind Providence, on the second day they\r\nwere picked up by a Dutch ship, bound from Eustatia to Holland. The\r\ncastaways were humanely received, and supplied with every necessary. At\r\nthe end of a week, while unsophisticated Israel was sitting in the\r\nmaintop, thinking what should befall him in Holland, and wondering what\r\nsort of unsettled, wild country it was, and whether there was any\r\ndeer-shooting or beaver-trapping there, lo! an American brig, bound\r\nfrom Piscataqua to Antigua, comes in sight. The American took them\r\naboard, and conveyed them safely to her port. There Israel shipped for\r\nPorto Rico; from thence, sailed to Eustatia.\r\n\r\nOther rovings ensued; until at last, entering on board a Nantucket\r\nship, he hunted the leviathan off the Western Islands and on the coast\r\nof Africa, for sixteen months; returning at length to Nantucket with a\r\nbrimming hold. From that island he sailed again on another whaling\r\nvoyage, extending, this time, into the great South Sea. There, promoted\r\nto be harpooner, Israel, whose eye and arm had been so improved by\r\npractice with his gun in the wilderness, now further intensified his\r\naim, by darting the whale-lance; still, unwittingly, preparing himself\r\nfor the Bunker Hill rifle.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 3"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJHFM4S3HHFVTHGZ033WY","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1DKC9HHJRKY25JZBEXW","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKFNGZTDCVDF0SRWAFSKA","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AKFNNM6YPED9VFJ1EJDAH","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:05.809Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:13.085Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}