{"id":"01KG8AKWWN0NEYR577R84EN7XJ","cid":"bafkreiayrjov42i2znai4rz5s7yus4zk7amwe4dckq5vaqweag4ohh3ph4","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":777,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:18.534Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 2","source_file":"01KG89J1HYC04JWXEK48P07WPK","start_line":734,"text":"My Viking secured, I felt more at ease; and thoughtfully considered how\r\nthe enterprise might best be accomplished.\r\n\r\nThere was no time to be lost. Every hour was carrying us farther and\r\nfarther from the parallel most desirable for us to follow in our route\r\nto the westward. So, with all possible dispatch, I matured my plans,\r\nand communicated them to Jarl, who gave several old hints—having\r\nulterior probabilities in view—which were not neglected.\r\n\r\nStrange to relate, it was not till my Viking, with a rueful face,\r\nreminded me of the fact, that I bethought me of a circumstance somewhat\r\nalarming at the first blush. We must push off without chart or\r\nquadrant; though, as will shortly be seen, a compass was by no means\r\nout of the question. The chart, to be sure, I did not so much lay to\r\nheart; but a quadrant was more than desirable. Still, it was by no\r\nmeans indispensable. For this reason. When we started, our latitude\r\nwould be exactly known; and whether, on our voyage westward, we drifted\r\nnorth or south therefrom, we could not, by any possibility, get so far\r\nout of our reckoning, as to fail in striking some one of a long chain\r\nof islands, which, for many degrees, on both sides of the equator,\r\nstretched right across our track.\r\n\r\nFor much the same reason, it mattered little, whether on our passage we\r\ndaily knew our longitude; for no known land lay between us and the\r\nplace we desired to reach. So what could be plainer than this: that if\r\nwestward we patiently held on our way, we must eventually achieve our\r\ndestination?\r\n\r\nAs for intervening shoals or reefs, if any there were, they intimidated\r\nus not. In a boat that drew but a few inches of water, but an\r\nindifferent look-out would preclude all danger on that score. At all\r\nevents, the thing seemed feasible enough, notwithstanding old Jarl’s\r\nsuperstitious reverence for nautical instruments, and the philosophical\r\nobjections which might have been urged by a pedantic disciple of\r\nMercator.\r\n\r\nVery often, as the old maxim goes, the simplest things are the most\r\nstartling, and that, too, from their very simplicity. So cherish no\r\nalarms, if thus we addressed the setting sun—“Be thou, old pilot, our\r\nguide!”\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 2"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJP4HZWA8VMNFE6TNVVGJ","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1HYC04JWXEK48P07WPK","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKWWNGNQBFSW7JT9VAZWZ","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:19.349Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:25.556Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}