{"id":"01KG8AKRVMEEC0EKNQKV0B0WTJ","cid":"bafkreigamlgy4vssx557zlstybsndcfrvtltr7lrwrswl3r46dvpjml4ea","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":6111,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:15.027Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 2","source_file":"01KG89J1F4D8P9BBX9AMGZ7TX7","start_line":6058,"text":"Some months before my first stepping ashore upon the group, my ship was\r\ncruising in its close vicinity. One noon we found ourselves off the\r\nSouth Head of Albemarle, and not very far from the land. Partly by way\r\nof freak, and partly by way of spying out so strange a country, a\r\nboat’s crew was sent ashore, with orders to see all they could, and\r\nbesides, bring back whatever tortoises they could conveniently\r\ntransport.\r\n\r\nIt was after sunset, when the adventurers returned. I looked down over\r\nthe ship’s high side as if looking down over the curb of a well, and\r\ndimly saw the damp boat, deep in the sea with some unwonted weight.\r\nRopes were dropt over, and presently three huge antediluvian-looking\r\ntortoises, after much straining, were landed on deck. They seemed\r\nhardly of the seed of earth. We had been broad upon the waters for five\r\nlong months, a period amply sufficient to make all things of the land\r\nwear a fabulous hue to the dreamy mind. Had three Spanish custom-house\r\nofficers boarded us then, it is not unlikely that I should have\r\ncuriously stared at them, felt of them, and stroked them much as\r\nsavages serve civilized guests. But instead of three custom-house\r\nofficers, behold these really wondrous tortoises—none of your schoolboy\r\nmud-turtles—but black as widower’s weeds, heavy as chests of plate,\r\nwith vast shells medallioned and orbed like shields, and dented and\r\nblistered like shields that have breasted a battle, shaggy, too, here\r\nand there, with dark green moss, and slimy with the spray of the sea.\r\nThese mystic creatures, suddenly translated by night from unutterable\r\nsolitudes to our peopled deck, affected me in a manner not easy to\r\nunfold. They seemed newly crawled forth from beneath the foundations of\r\nthe world. Yea, they seemed the identical tortoises whereon the Hindoo\r\nplants this total sphere. With a lantern I inspected them more closely.\r\nSuch worshipful venerableness of aspect! Such furry greenness mantling\r\nthe rude peelings and healing the fissures of their shattered shells. I\r\nno more saw three tortoises. They expanded—became transfigured. I\r\nseemed to see three Roman Coliseums in magnificent decay.\r\n\r\nYe oldest inhabitants of this, or any other isle, said I, pray, give me\r\nthe freedom of your three-walled towns.\r\n\r\nThe great feeling inspired by these creatures was that of\r\nage:—dateless, indefinite endurance. And in fact that any other\r\ncreature can live and breathe as long as the tortoise of the\r\nEncantadas, I will not readily believe. Not to hint of their known\r\ncapacity of sustaining life, while going without food for an entire\r\nyear, consider that impregnable armor of their living mail. What other\r\nbodily being possesses such a citadel wherein to resist the assaults of\r\nTime?\r\n\r\nAs, lantern in hand, I scraped among the moss and beheld the ancient\r\nscars of bruises received in many a sullen fall among the marly\r\nmountains of the isle—scars strangely widened, swollen, half\r\nobliterate, and yet distorted like those sometimes found in the bark of\r\nvery hoary trees, I seemed an antiquary of a geologist, studying the\r\nbird-tracks and ciphers upon the exhumed slates trod by incredible\r\ncreatures whose very ghosts are now defunct.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 2"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AK2X9D53WGEEHY47W8DP7","peer_type":"section","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1F4D8P9BBX9AMGZ7TX7","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKYJMJEBTQCM0ZSDT27G1","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:15.220Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:28.543Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}