{"id":"01KG8AM3B85XWBHG8EZ1NFWZR4","cid":"bafkreihfemexyrn57bvcyoozobszftddyyowt6zw756pcvkyfa3jwei3lq","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":731,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:25.200Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J1JYRSHWXR7JM0HYS9D4","start_line":671,"text":"CHAPTER ONE\r\n\r\nTHE SEA--LONGINGS FOR SHORE--A LAND-SICK SHIP--DESTINATION OF THE\r\nVOYAGERS--THE MARQUESAS--ADVENTURE OF A MISSIONARY’S WIFE AMONG THE\r\nSAVAGES--CHARACTERISTIC ANECDOTE OF THE QUEEN OF NUKUHEVA\r\n\r\n\r\nSix months at sea! Yes, reader, as I live, six months out of sight of\r\nland; cruising after the sperm-whale beneath the scorching sun of the\r\nLine, and tossed on the billows of the wide-rolling Pacific--the sky\r\nabove, the sea around, and nothing else! Weeks and weeks ago our fresh\r\nprovisions were all exhausted. There is not a sweet potato left; not a\r\nsingle yam. Those glorious bunches of bananas, which once decorated\r\nour stern and quarter-deck, have, alas, disappeared! and the delicious\r\noranges which hung suspended from our tops and stays--they, too, are\r\ngone! Yes, they are all departed, and there is nothing left us but\r\nsalt-horse and sea-biscuit. Oh! ye state-room sailors, who make so\r\nmuch ado about a fourteen-days’ passage across the Atlantic; who so\r\npathetically relate the privations and hardships of the sea, where,\r\nafter a day of breakfasting, lunching, dining off five courses,\r\nchatting, playing whist, and drinking champagne-punch, it was your hard\r\nlot to be shut up in little cabinets of mahogany and maple, and sleep\r\nfor ten hours, with nothing to disturb you but ‘those good-for-nothing\r\ntars, shouting and tramping overhead’,--what would ye say to our six\r\nmonths out of sight of land?\r\n\r\nOh! for a refreshing glimpse of one blade of grass--for a snuff at the\r\nfragrance of a handful of the loamy earth! Is there nothing fresh around\r\nus? Is there no green thing to be seen? Yes, the inside of our bulwarks\r\nis painted green; but what a vile and sickly hue it is, as if nothing\r\nbearing even the semblance of verdure could flourish this weary way from\r\nland. Even the bark that once clung to the wood we use for fuel has been\r\ngnawed off and devoured by the captain’s pig; and so long ago, too, that\r\nthe pig himself has in turn been devoured.\r\n\r\nThere is but one solitary tenant in the chicken-coop, once a gay and\r\ndapper young cock, bearing him so bravely among the coy hens.\r\n\r\nBut look at him now; there he stands, moping all the day long on that\r\neverlasting one leg of his. He turns with disgust from the mouldy corn\r\nbefore him, and the brackish water in his little trough. He mourns no\r\ndoubt his lost companions, literally snatched from him one by one, and\r\nnever seen again. But his days of mourning will be few for Mungo, our\r\nblack cook, told me yesterday that the word had at last gone forth, and\r\npoor Pedro’s fate was sealed. His attenuated body will be laid out upon\r\nthe captain’s table next Sunday, and long before night will be buried\r\nwith all the usual ceremonies beneath that worthy individual’s vest. Who\r\nwould believe that there could be any one so cruel as to long for the\r\ndecapitation of the luckless Pedro; yet the sailors pray every minute,\r\nselfish fellows, that the miserable fowl may be brought to his end. They\r\nsay the captain will never point the ship for the land so long as he\r\nhas in anticipation a mess of fresh meat. This unhappy bird can alone\r\nfurnish it; and when he is once devoured, the captain will come to his\r\nsenses. I wish thee no harm, Pedro; but as thou art doomed, sooner or\r\nlater, to meet the fate of all thy race; and if putting a period to\r\nthy existence is to be the signal for our deliverance, why--truth to\r\nspeak--I wish thy throat cut this very moment; for, oh! how I wish to\r\nsee the living earth again! The old ship herself longs to look out upon\r\nthe land from her hawse-holes once more, and Jack Lewis said right the\r\nother day when the captain found fault with his steering.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJPE93M26D0Z4NV0CNQ80","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1JYRSHWXR7JM0HYS9D4","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AM3B883Z56XMKVFXENPJX","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:25.960Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:32.630Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}