{"id":"01KG8AKRYSNMDF0J8888PSJ9CV","cid":"bafkreiarmh7dwwtyxz2g2xhayefrwn4x5vrposg6koxjznqynqcdgqi6oq","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":181,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:15.149Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J1H7Y803CZ7X80F0QFHZ","start_line":108,"text":"CHAPTER I.\r\nMY RECEPTION ABOARD\r\n\r\n\r\nIt was the middle of a bright tropical afternoon that we made good our\r\nescape from the bay. The vessel we sought lay with her main-topsail\r\naback about a league from the land, and was the only object that broke\r\nthe broad expanse of the ocean.\r\n\r\nOn approaching, she turned out to be a small, slatternly-looking craft,\r\nher hull and spars a dingy black, rigging all slack and bleached nearly\r\nwhite, and everything denoting an ill state of affairs aboard. The four\r\nboats hanging from her sides proclaimed her a whaler. Leaning\r\ncarelessly over the bulwarks were the sailors, wild, haggard-looking\r\nfellows in Scotch caps and faded blue frocks; some of them with cheeks\r\nof a mottled bronze, to which sickness soon changes the rich\r\nberry-brown of a seaman’s complexion in the tropics.\r\n\r\nOn the quarter-deck was one whom I took for the chief mate. He wore a\r\nbroad-brimmed Panama hat, and his spy-glass was levelled as we\r\nadvanced.\r\n\r\nWhen we came alongside, a low cry ran fore and aft the deck, and\r\neverybody gazed at us with inquiring eyes. And well they might. To say\r\nnothing of the savage boat’s crew, panting with excitement, all gesture\r\nand vociferation, my own appearance was calculated to excite curiosity.\r\nA robe of the native cloth was thrown over my shoulders, my hair and\r\nbeard were uncut, and I betrayed other evidences of my recent\r\nadventure. Immediately on gaining the deck, they beset me on all sides\r\nwith questions, the half of which I could not answer, so incessantly\r\nwere they put.\r\n\r\nAs an instance of the curious coincidences which often befall the\r\nsailor, I must here mention that two countenances before me were\r\nfamiliar. One was that of an old man-of-war’s-man, whose acquaintance I\r\nhad made in Rio de Janeiro, at which place touched the ship in which I\r\nsailed from home. The other was a young man whom, four years previous,\r\nI had frequently met in a sailor boarding-house in Liverpool. I\r\nremembered parting with him at Prince’s Dock Gates, in the midst of a\r\nswarm of police-officers, trackmen, stevedores, beggars, and the like.\r\nAnd here we were again:—years had rolled by, many a league of ocean had\r\nbeen traversed, and we were thrown together under circumstances which\r\nalmost made me doubt my own existence.\r\n\r\nBut a few moments passed ere I was sent for into the cabin by the\r\ncaptain.\r\n\r\nHe was quite a young man, pale and slender, more like a sickly\r\ncounting-house clerk than a bluff sea-captain. Bidding me be seated, he\r\nordered the steward to hand me a glass of Pisco. In the state I was,\r\nthis stimulus almost made me delirious; so that of all I then went on\r\nto relate concerning my residence on the island I can scarcely remember\r\na word. After this I was asked whether I desired to “ship”; of course I\r\nsaid yes; that is, if he would allow me to enter for one cruise,\r\nengaging to discharge me, if I so desired, at the next port. In this\r\nway men are frequently shipped on board whalemen in the South Seas. My\r\nstipulation was acceded to, and the ship’s articles handed me to sign.\r\n\r\nThe mate was now called below, and charged to make a “well man” of me;\r\nnot, let it be borne in mind, that the captain felt any great\r\ncompassion for me, he only desired to have the benefit of my services\r\nas soon as possible.\r\n\r\nHelping me on deck, the mate stretched me out on the windlass and\r\ncommenced examining my limb; and then doctoring it after a fashion with\r\nsomething from the medicine-chest, rolled it up in a piece of an old\r\nsail, making so big a bundle that, with my feet resting on the\r\nwindlass, I might have been taken for a sailor with the gout. While\r\nthis was going on, someone removing my tappa cloak slipped on a blue\r\nfrock in its place, and another, actuated by the same desire to make a\r\ncivilized mortal of me, flourished about my head a great pair lie\r\nimminent jeopardy of both ears, and the certain destruction of hair and\r\nbeard.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJG6SJ2W83098CMV4TKP0","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1H7Y803CZ7X80F0QFHZ","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKRZ0TEYEQZK5S7GC4VB7","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:15.321Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:22.718Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}