{"id":"01KG8AKZXVGX8P2T0PTQHGR53F","cid":"bafkreie3coboaevrgzkktqjju5st5x32igb42gykrh7tr6kpzbzcaw6ivm","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":3883,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:18.535Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J1HYC04JWXEK48P07WPK","start_line":3819,"text":"CHAPTER XXXIV.\r\nHow They Steered On Their Way\r\n\r\n\r\nWhen we quitted the Chamois for the brigantine, we must have been at\r\nleast two hundred leagues to the westward of the spot, where we had\r\nabandoned the Arcturion. Though how far we might then have been, North\r\nor South of the Equator, I could not with any certainty divine.\r\n\r\nBut that we were not removed any considerable distance from the Line,\r\nseemed obvious. For in the starriest night no sign of the extreme Polar\r\nconstellations was visible; though often we scanned the northern and\r\nsouthern horizon in search of them. So far as regards the aspect of the\r\nskies near the ocean’s rim, the difference of several degrees in one’s\r\nlatitude at sea, is readily perceived by a person long accustomed to\r\nsurveying the heavens.\r\n\r\nIf correct in my supposition, concerning our longitude at the time here\r\nalluded to, and allowing for what little progress we had been making in\r\nthe Parki, there now remained some one hundred leagues to sail, ere the\r\ncountry we sought would be found. But for obvious reasons, how long\r\nprecisely we might continue to float out of sight of land, it was\r\nimpossible to say. Calms, light breezes, and currents made every thing\r\nuncertain. Nor had we any method of estimating our due westward\r\nprogress, except by what is called Dead Reckoning,—the computation of\r\nthe knots run hourly; allowances’ being made for the supposed\r\ndeviations from our course, by reason of the ocean streams; which at\r\ntimes in this quarter of the Pacific run with very great velocity.\r\n\r\nNow, in many respects we could not but feel safer aboard the Parki than\r\nin the Chamois. The sense of danger is less vivid, the greater the\r\nnumber of lives involved. He who is ready to despair in solitary peril,\r\nplucks up a heart in the presence of another. In a plurality of\r\ncomrades is much countenance and consolation.\r\n\r\nStill, in the brigantine there were many sources of uneasiness and\r\nanxiety unknown to me in the whale-boat. True, we had now between us\r\nand the deep, five hundred good planks to one lath in our buoyant\r\nlittle chip. But the Parki required more care and attention; especially\r\nby night, when a vigilant look-out was indispensable. With impunity, in\r\nour whale-boat, we might have run close to shoal or reef; whereas,\r\nsimilar carelessness or temerity now, might prove fatal to all\r\nconcerned.\r\n\r\nThough in the joyous sunlight, sailing through the sparkling sea, I was\r\nlittle troubled with serious misgivings; in the hours of darkness it\r\nwas quite another thing. And the apprehensions, nay terrors I felt,\r\nwere much augmented by the remissness of both Jarl and Samoa, in\r\nkeeping their night-watches. Several times I was seized with a deadly\r\npanic, and earnestly scanned the murky horizon, when rising from\r\nslumber I found the steersman, in whose hands for the time being were\r\nlife and death, sleeping upright against the tiller, as much of a\r\nfixture there, as the open-mouthed dragon rudely carved on our prow.\r\n\r\nWere it not, that on board of other vessels, I myself had many a time\r\ndozed at the helm, spite of all struggles, I would have been almost at\r\na loss to account for this heedlessness in my comrades. But it seemed\r\nas if the mere sense of our situation, should have been sufficient to\r\nprevent the like conduct in all on board our craft.\r\n\r\nSamoa’s aspect, sleeping at the tiller, was almost appalling. His large\r\nopal eyes were half open; and turned toward the light of the binnacle,\r\ngleamed between the lids like bars of flame. And added to all, was his\r\ngiant stature and savage lineaments.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJRHKHMM1K48G2HCW0FB6","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1HYC04JWXEK48P07WPK","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKZXMSBSZRRH7P1FFEBXP","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:22.459Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:29.044Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}