{"id":"01KG8AKRNK1ZNKV9ZG52Y4TM2S","cid":"bafkreibvladuuphd3tc4n7cuya47nzggqmsfrkmw66pqsakez35dok4osy","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":213,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:14.838Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 2","source_file":"01KG89J1GP71YDJ60P8SRH97MF","start_line":153,"text":"roofs; and old anchors and chain-cable piled on the walk. Old-fashioned\r\ncoffeehouses, also, much abound in that neighborhood, with sunburnt\r\nsea-captains going in and out, smoking cigars, and talking about\r\nHavanna, London, and Calcutta.\r\n\r\nAll these my imaginations were wonderfully assisted by certain shadowy\r\nreminiscences of wharves, and warehouses, and shipping, with which a\r\nresidence in a seaport during early childhood had supplied me.\r\n\r\nParticularly, I remembered standing with my father on the wharf when a\r\nlarge ship was getting under way, and rounding the head of the pier. I\r\nremembered the _yo heave ho!_ of the sailors, as they just showed their\r\nwoolen caps above the high bulwarks. I remembered how I thought of\r\ntheir crossing the great ocean; and that that very ship, and those very\r\nsailors, so near to me then, would after a time be actually in Europe.\r\n\r\nAdded to these reminiscences my father, now dead, had several times\r\ncrossed the Atlantic on business affairs, for he had been an importer\r\nin Broad-street. And of winter evenings in New York, by the\r\nwell-remembered sea-coal fire in old Greenwich-street, he used to tell\r\nmy brother and me of the monstrous waves at sea, mountain high; of the\r\nmasts bending like twigs; and all about Havre, and Liverpool, and about\r\ngoing up into the ball of St. Paul’s in London. Indeed, during my early\r\nlife, most of my thoughts of the sea were connected with the land; but\r\nwith fine old lands, full of mossy cathedrals and churches, and long,\r\nnarrow, crooked streets without sidewalks, and lined with strange\r\nhouses. And especially I tried hard to think how such places must look\r\nof rainy days and Saturday afternoons; and whether indeed they did have\r\nrainy days and Saturdays there, just as we did here; and whether the\r\nboys went to school there, and studied geography, and wore their shirt\r\ncollars turned over, and tied with a black ribbon; and whether their\r\npapas allowed them to wear boots, instead of shoes, which I so much\r\ndisliked, for boots looked so manly.\r\n\r\nAs I grew older my thoughts took a larger flight, and I frequently fell\r\ninto long reveries about distant voyages and travels, and thought how\r\nfine it would be, to be able to talk about remote and barbarous\r\ncountries; with what reverence and wonder people would regard me, if I\r\nhad just returned from the coast of Africa or New Zealand; how dark and\r\nromantic my sunburnt cheeks would look; how I would bring home with me\r\nforeign clothes of a rich fabric and princely make, and wear them up\r\nand down the streets, and how grocers’ boys would turn back their heads\r\nto look at me, as I went by. For I very well remembered staring at a\r\nman myself, who was pointed out to me by my aunt one Sunday in Church,\r\nas the person who had been in Stony Arabia, and passed through strange\r\nadventures there, all of which with my own eyes I had read in the book\r\nwhich he wrote, an arid-looking book in a pale yellow cover.\r\n\r\n“See what big eyes he has,” whispered my aunt, “they got so big,\r\nbecause when he was almost dead with famishing in the desert, he all at\r\nonce caught sight of a date tree, with the ripe fruit hanging on it.”\r\n\r\nUpon this, I stared at him till I thought his eyes were really of an\r\nuncommon size, and stuck out from his head like those of a lobster. I\r\nam sure my own eyes must have magnified as I stared. When church was\r\nout, I wanted my aunt to take me along and follow the traveler home.\r\nBut she said the constables would take us up, if we did; and so I never\r\nsaw this wonderful Arabian traveler again. But he long haunted me; and\r\nseveral times I dreamt of him, and thought his great eyes were grown\r\nstill larger and rounder; and once I had a vision of the date tree.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 2"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJNGCKYBSPHFM2K2S5VD3","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1GP71YDJ60P8SRH97MF","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKRNMYPA08M276PAY7SVW","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AKRNTGZAPN7MF14JS0QNE","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:15.027Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:24.448Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}