{"id":"01KG8AKRZ0MJZQFF0HBMTVKQMX","cid":"bafkreigkgsjr5ylbsem2dkeka3k54svhthcfp5cdpri33z4e56sszrbuja","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":487,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:15.149Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J1H7Y803CZ7X80F0QFHZ","start_line":418,"text":"CHAPTER III.\r\nFURTHER ACCOUNT OF THE JULIA\r\n\r\n\r\nOwing to the absence of anything like regular discipline, the vessel\r\nwas in a state of the greatest uproar. The captain, having for some\r\ntime past been more or less confined to the cabin from sickness, was\r\nseldom seen. The mate, however, was as hearty as a young lion, and ran\r\nabout the decks making himself heard at all hours. Bembo, the New\r\nZealand harpooner, held little intercourse with anybody but the mate,\r\nwho could talk to him freely in his own lingo. Part of his time he\r\nspent out on the bowsprit, fishing for albicores with a bone hook; and\r\noccasionally he waked all hands up of a dark night dancing some\r\ncannibal fandango all by himself on the forecastle. But, upon the\r\nwhole, he was remarkably quiet, though something in his eye showed he\r\nwas far from being harmless.\r\n\r\nDoctor Long Ghost, having sent in a written resignation as the ship’s\r\ndoctor, gave himself out as a passenger for Sydney, and took the world\r\nquite easy. As for the crew, those who were sick seemed marvellously\r\ncontented for men in their condition; and the rest, not displeased with\r\nthe general licence, gave themselves little thought of the morrow.\r\n\r\nThe Julia’s provisions were very poor. When opened, the barrels of pork\r\nlooked as if preserved in iron rust, and diffused an odour like a stale\r\nragout. The beef was worse yet; a mahogany-coloured fibrous substance,\r\nso tough and tasteless, that I almost believed the cook’s story of a\r\nhorse’s hoof with the shoe on having been fished up out of the pickle\r\nof one of the casks. Nor was the biscuit much better; nearly all of it\r\nwas broken into hard, little gunflints, honeycombed through and\r\nthrough, as if the worms usually infesting this article in long\r\ntropical voyages had, in boring after nutriment, come out at the\r\nantipodes without finding anything.\r\n\r\nOf what sailors call “small stores,” we had but little. “Tea,” however,\r\nwe had in abundance; though, I dare say, the Hong merchants never had\r\nthe shipping of it. Beside this, every other day we had what English\r\nseamen call “shot soup”—great round peas, polishing themselves like\r\npebbles by rolling about in tepid water.\r\n\r\nIt was afterward told me, that all our provisions had been purchased by\r\nthe owners at an auction sale of condemned navy stores in Sydney.\r\n\r\nBut notwithstanding the wateriness of the first course of soup, and the\r\nsaline flavour of the beef and pork, a sailor might have made a\r\nsatisfactory meal aboard of the Julia had there been any side dishes—a\r\npotato or two, a yam, or a plantain. But there was nothing of the kind.\r\nStill, there was something else, which, in the estimation of the men,\r\nmade up for all deficiencies; and that was the regular allowance of\r\nPisco.\r\n\r\nIt may seem strange that in such a state of affairs the captain should\r\nbe willing to keep the sea with his ship. But the truth was, that by\r\nlying in harbour, he ran the risk of losing the remainder of his men by\r\ndesertion; and as it was, he still feared that, in some outlandish bay\r\nor other, he might one day find his anchor down, and no crew to weigh\r\nit.\r\n\r\nWith judicious officers the most unruly seamen can at sea be kept in\r\nsome sort of subjection; but once get them within a cable’s length of\r\nthe land, and it is hard restraining them. It is for this reason that\r\nmany South Sea whalemen do not come to anchor for eighteen or twenty\r\nmonths on a stretch. When fresh provisions are needed, they run for the\r\nnearest land—heave to eight or ten miles off, and send a boat ashore to\r\ntrade. The crews manning vessels like these are for the most part\r\nvillains of all nations and dyes; picked up in the lawless ports of the\r\nSpanish Main, and among the savages of the islands. Like galley-slaves,\r\nthey are only to be governed by scourges and chains. Their officers go\r\namong them with dirk and pistol—concealed, but ready at a grasp.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJG70G7MDG5S0RB85902A","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1H7Y803CZ7X80F0QFHZ","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKRZ0E629ZDBHC31DQMNR","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:15.328Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:22.729Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}