{"id":"01KG8AKW9WZTJMM7SD6W5E103X","cid":"bafkreigwqnoltv3izbg4tskys4bjvpmrqgzuwkm6azptzli3ouxnyg35le","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":286,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:18.534Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 2","source_file":"01KG89J1HYC04JWXEK48P07WPK","start_line":221,"text":"that we felt the ship strike every time her keel crossed that imaginary\r\nlocality.\r\n\r\nAt length, dead before the equatorial breeze, we threaded our way\r\nstraight along the very Line itself. Westward sailing; peering right,\r\nand peering left, but seeing naught.\r\n\r\nIt was during this weary time, that I experienced the first symptoms of\r\nthat bitter impatience of our monotonous craft, which ultimately led to\r\nthe adventures herein recounted.\r\n\r\nBut hold you! Not a word against that rare old ship, nor its crew. The\r\nsailors were good fellows all, the half, score of pagans we had shipped\r\nat the islands included. Nevertheless, they were not precisely to my\r\nmind. There was no soul a magnet to mine; none with whom to mingle\r\nsympathies; save in deploring the calms with which we were now and then\r\novertaken; or in hailing the breeze when it came. Under other and\r\nlivelier auspices the tarry knaves might have developed qualities more\r\nattractive. Had we sprung a leak, been “stove” by a whale, or been\r\nblessed with some despot of a captain against whom to stir up some\r\nspirited revolt, these shipmates of mine might have proved limber lads,\r\nand men of mettle. But as it was, there was naught to strike fire from\r\ntheir steel.\r\n\r\nThere were other things, also, tending to make my lot on ship-board\r\nvery hard to be borne. True, the skipper himself was a trump; stood\r\nupon no quarter-deck dignity; and had a tongue for a sailor. Let me do\r\nhim justice, furthermore: he took a sort of fancy for me in particular;\r\nwas sociable, nay, loquacious, when I happened to stand at the helm.\r\nBut what of that? Could he talk sentiment or philosophy? Not a bit. His\r\nlibrary was eight inches by four: Bowditch, and Hamilton Moore.\r\n\r\nAnd what to me, thus pining for some one who could page me a quotation\r\nfrom Burton on Blue Devils; what to me, indeed, were flat repetitions\r\nof long-drawn yarns, and the everlasting stanzas of Black-eyed Susan\r\nsung by our full forecastle choir? Staler than stale ale.\r\n\r\nAy, ay, Arcturion! I say it in no malice, but thou wast exceedingly\r\ndull. Not only at sailing: hard though it was, that I could have borne;\r\nbut in every other respect. The days went slowly round and round,\r\nendless and uneventful as cycles in space. Time, and time- pieces; How\r\nmany centuries did my hammock tell, as pendulum-like it swung to the\r\nship’s dull roll, and ticked the hours and ages. Sacred forever be the\r\nArcturion’s fore-hatch—alas! sea-moss is over it now—and rusty forever\r\nthe bolts that held together that old sea hearth-stone, about which we\r\nso often lounged. Nevertheless, ye lost and leaden hours, I will rail\r\nat ye while life lasts.\r\n\r\nWell: weeks, chronologically speaking, went by. Bill Marvel’s stories\r\nwere told over and over again, till the beginning and end dovetailed\r\ninto each other, and were united for aye. Ned Ballad’s songs were sung\r\ntill the echoes lurked in the very tops, and nested in the bunts of the\r\nsails. My poor patience was clean gone.\r\n\r\nBut, at last after some time sailing due westward we quitted the Line\r\nin high disgust; having seen there, no sign of a whale.\r\n\r\nBut whither now? To the broiling coast of Papua? That region of\r\nsun-strokes, typhoons, and bitter pulls after whales unattainable. Far\r\nworse. We were going, it seemed, to illustrate the Whistonian theory\r\nconcerning the damned and the comets;—hurried from equinoctial heats to\r\narctic frosts. To be short, with the true fickleness of his tribe, our\r\nskipper had abandoned all thought of the Cachalot. In desperation, he\r\nwas bent upon bobbing for the Right whale on the Nor’-West Coast and in\r\nthe Bay of Kamschatska.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 2"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJP4C9JM2SWKWNSK1T0D6","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1HYC04JWXEK48P07WPK","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKW9Z2J6RV83WZGE6EXGN","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AKWA0ZQVT6MYB8Z38X0K1","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:18.748Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:25.601Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}