{"id":"01KG8AKRZ09W15NDM9P0CCKQDD","cid":"bafkreidygrdds4pk7e4bpfguai4ldocmqiknkbpa4vdjzor7zr3btxfp5a","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":309,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:15.149Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J1H7Y803CZ7X80F0QFHZ","start_line":256,"text":" CHAPTER II.\r\nSOME ACCOUNT OF THE SHIP\r\n\r\n\r\nFirst and foremost, I must give some account of the Julia herself; or\r\n“Little Jule,” as the sailors familiarly styled her.\r\n\r\nShe was a small barque of a beautiful model, something more than two\r\nhundred tons, Yankee-built and very old. Fitted for a privateer out of\r\na New England port during the war of 1812, she had been captured at sea\r\nby a British cruiser, and, after seeing all sorts of service, was at\r\nlast employed as a government packet in the Australian seas. Being\r\ncondemned, however, about two years previous, she was purchased at\r\nauction by a house in Sydney, who, after some slight repairs,\r\ndispatched her on the present voyage.\r\n\r\nNotwithstanding the repairs, she was still in a miserable plight. The\r\nlower masts were said to be unsound; the standing rigging was much\r\nworn; and, in some places, even the bulwarks were quite rotten. Still,\r\nshe was tolerably tight, and but little more than the ordinary pumping\r\nof a morning served to keep her free.\r\n\r\nBut all this had nothing to do with her sailing; at that, brave Little\r\nJule, plump Little Jule, was a witch. Blow high, or blow low, she was\r\nalways ready for the breeze; and when she dashed the waves from her\r\nprow, and pranced, and pawed the sea, you never thought of her patched\r\nsails and blistered hull. How the fleet creature would fly before the\r\nwind! rolling, now and then, to be sure, but in very playfulness.\r\nSailing to windward, no gale could bow her over: with spars erect, she\r\nlooked right up into the wind’s eye, and so she went.\r\n\r\nBut after all, Little Jule was not to be confided in. Lively enough,\r\nand playful she was, but on that very account the more to be\r\ndistrusted. Who knew, but that like some vivacious old mortal all at\r\nonce sinking into a decline, she might, some dark night, spring a leak\r\nand carry us all to the bottom. However, she played us no such ugly\r\ntrick, and therefore, I wrong Little Jule in supposing it.\r\n\r\nShe had a free roving commission. According to her papers she might go\r\nwhither she pleased—whaling, sealing, or anything else. Sperm whaling,\r\nhowever, was what she relied upon; though, as yet, only two fish had\r\nbeen brought alongside.\r\n\r\nThe day they sailed out of Sydney Heads, the ship’s company, all told,\r\nnumbered some thirty-two souls; now, they mustered about twenty; the\r\nrest had deserted. Even the three junior mates who had headed the\r\nwhaleboats were gone: and of the four harpooners, only one was left, a\r\nwild New Zealander, or “Mowree” as his countrymen are more commonly\r\ncalled in the Pacific. But this was not all. More than half the seamen\r\nremaining were more or less unwell from a long sojourn in a dissipated\r\nport; some of them wholly unfit for duty, one or two dangerously ill,\r\nand the rest managing to stand their watch though they could do but\r\nlittle.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJG6SBV49G2YWKB4GCDW2","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1H7Y803CZ7X80F0QFHZ","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKRZ0GYB6NAPVZE2WA8DT","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:15.328Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:22.641Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}