{"id":"01KG8AKSV4AY7BJN8AVN60D21K","cid":"bafkreieyu2afmuanhsyenjcctv6cdjmtykk7yoemetlkxkiqdurkpxzxli","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":1693,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:14.838Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 3","source_file":"01KG89J1GP71YDJ60P8SRH97MF","start_line":1634,"text":"enraged me not a little, that a man whom I had heard swear so terribly,\r\nshould dare to take such a holy name into his mouth. It seemed a sort\r\nof blasphemy, and it seemed like dragging out the best and most\r\ncherished secrets of my soul, for at that time the name of mother was\r\nthe center of all my heart’s finest feelings, which ere that, I had\r\nlearned to keep secret, deep down in my being.\r\n\r\nBut I did not outwardly resent the sailor’s words, for that would have\r\nonly made the matter worse.\r\n\r\nNow this man was a Greenlander by birth, with a very white skin where\r\nthe sun had not burnt it, and handsome blue eyes placed wide apart in\r\nhis head, and a broad good-humored face, and plenty of curly flaxen\r\nhair. He was not very tall, but exceedingly stout-built, though active;\r\nand his back was as broad as a shield, and it was a great way between\r\nhis shoulders. He seemed to be a sort of lady’s sailor, for in his\r\nbroken English he was always talking about the nice ladies of his\r\nacquaintance in Stockholm and Copenhagen and a place he called the\r\nHook, which at first I fancied must be the place where lived the\r\nhook-nosed men that caught fowling-pieces and every other article that\r\ncame along. He was dressed very tastefully, too, as if he knew he was a\r\ngood-looking fellow. He had on a new blue woolen Havre frock, with a\r\nnew silk handkerchief round his neck, passed through one of the\r\nvertebral bones of a shark, highly polished and carved. His trowsers\r\nwere of clear white duck, and he sported a handsome pair of pumps, and\r\na tarpaulin hat bright as a looking-glass, with a long black ribbon\r\nstreaming behind, and getting entangled every now and then in the\r\nrigging; and he had gold anchors in his ears, and a silver ring on one\r\nof his fingers, which was very much worn and bent from pulling ropes\r\nand other work on board ship. I thought he might better have left his\r\njewelry at home.\r\n\r\nIt was a long time before I could believe that this man was really from\r\nGreenland, though he looked strange enough to me, then, to have come\r\nfrom the moon; and he was full of stories about that distant country;\r\nhow they passed the winters there; and how bitter cold it was; and how\r\nhe used to go to bed and sleep twelve hours, and get up again and run\r\nabout, and go to bed again, and get up again—there was no telling how\r\nmany times, and all in one night; for in the winter time in his\r\ncountry, he said, the nights were so many weeks long, that a Greenland\r\nbaby was sometimes three months old, before it could properly be said\r\nto be a day old.\r\n\r\nI had seen mention made of such things before, in books of voyages; but\r\nthat was only reading about them, just as you read the Arabian Nights,\r\nwhich no one ever believes; for somehow, when I read about these\r\nwonderful countries, I never used really to believe what I read, but\r\nonly thought it very strange, and a good deal too strange to be\r\naltogether true; though I never thought the men who wrote the book\r\nmeant to tell lies. But I don’t know exactly how to explain what I\r\nmean; but this much I will say, that I never believed in Greenland till\r\nI saw this Greenlander. And at first, hearing him talk about Greenland,\r\nonly made me still more incredulous. For what business had a man from\r\nGreenland to be in my company? Why was he not at home among the\r\nicebergs, and how could he stand a warm summer’s sun, and not be melted\r\naway? Besides, instead of icicles, there were ear-rings hanging from\r\nhis ears; and he did not wear bear-skins, and keep his hands in a huge\r\nmuff; things, which I could not help connecting with Greenland and all\r\nGreenlanders.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 3"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJNGWY1VPN4C4Z8PCB5TN","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1GP71YDJ60P8SRH97MF","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKSV4DP6B6AD7JJR3CH98","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AKSV4NAW4PM51EZJYQKMM","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:16.228Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:24.884Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}