{"id":"01KG8AMET94P4CTRTY1BF234WZ","cid":"bafkreigwuec76vb5wqzrczjxizb4tlsu7qpmvie7bgwdfmjfxerj3wjhmy","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":13534,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:36.278Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 3","source_file":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","start_line":13473,"text":"would certainly be deemed forfeited should the president of the company\r\nchance to lounge by and behold him in that imminent peril. For myself,\r\nI accounted it an excellent preparation for going into a sea-fight,\r\nwhere fortitude in standing up to your gun and running the risk of all\r\nsplinters, comprise part of the practical qualities that make up an\r\nefficient man-of-war’s man.\r\n\r\nIt remains to be related, that these barbers of ours had their labours\r\nconsiderably abridged by a fashion prevailing among many of the crew,\r\nof wearing very large whiskers; so that, in most cases, the only parts\r\nneeding a shave were the upper lip and suburbs of the chin. This had\r\nbeen more or less the custom during the whole three years’ cruise; but\r\nfor some time previous to our weathering Cape Horn, very many of the\r\nseamen had redoubled their assiduity in cultivating their beards\r\npreparatory to their return to America. There they anticipated creating\r\nno small impression by their immense and magnificent\r\n_homeward-bounders_—so they called the long fly-brushes at their chins.\r\nIn particular, the more aged sailors, embracing the Old Guard of sea\r\ngrenadiers on the forecastle, and the begrimed gunner’s mates and\r\nquarter-gunners, sported most venerable beards of an exceeding length\r\nand hoariness, like long, trailing moss hanging from the bough of some\r\naged oak. Above all, the Captain of the Forecastle, old Ushant—a fine\r\nspecimen of a sea sexagenarian—wore a wide, spreading beard, gizzled\r\nand grey, that flowed over his breast and often became tangled and\r\nknotted with tar. This Ushant, in all weathers, was ever alert at his\r\nduty; intrepidly mounting the fore-yard in a gale, his long beard\r\nstreaming like Neptune’s. Off Cape Horn it looked like a miller’s,\r\nbeing all over powdered with frost; sometimes it glittered with minute\r\nicicles in the pale, cold, moonlit Patagonian nights. But though he was\r\nso active in time of tempest, yet when his duty did not call for\r\nexertion, he was a remarkably staid, reserved, silent, and majestic old\r\nman, holding himself aloof from noisy revelry, and never participating\r\nin the boisterous sports of the crew. He resolutely set his beard\r\nagainst their boyish frolickings, and often held forth like an oracle\r\nconcerning the vanity thereof. Indeed, at times he was wont to talk\r\nphilosophy to his ancient companions—the old sheet-anchor-men around\r\nhim—as well as to the hare-brained tenants of the fore-top, and the\r\ngiddy lads in the mizzen.\r\n\r\nNor was his philosophy to be despised; it abounded in wisdom. For this\r\nUshant was an old man, of strong natural sense, who had seen nearly the\r\nwhole terraqueous globe, and could reason of civilized and savage, of\r\nGentile and Jew, of Christian and Moslem. The long night-watches of the\r\nsailor are eminently adapted to draw out the reflective faculties of\r\nany serious-minded man, however humble or uneducated. Judge, then, what\r\nhalf a century of battling out watches on the ocean must have done for\r\nthis fine old tar. He was a sort of a sea-Socrates, in his old age\r\n“pouring out his last philosophy and life,” as sweet Spenser has it;\r\nand I never could look at him, and survey his right reverend beard,\r\nwithout bestowing upon him that title which, in one of his satires,\r\nPersius gives to the immortal quaffer of the hemlock—_Magister\r\nBarbatus_—the bearded master.\r\n\r\nNot a few of the ship’s company had also bestowed great pains upon\r\ntheir hair, which some of them—especially the genteel young sailor\r\nbucks of the After-guard—wore over their shoulders like the ringleted\r\nCavaliers. Many sailors, with naturally tendril locks, prided\r\nthemselves upon what they call _love curls_, worn at the side of the\r\nhead, just before the ear—a custom peculiar to tars, and which seems to\r\nhave filled the vacated place of the old-fashioned Lord Rodney cue,\r\nwhich they used to wear some fifty years ago.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 3"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJVX0Y5ACYRJ3VWH0EVJM","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AMET990P6664V268K9WC9","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AMET9Z3KVW9027ZBPSRSG","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:37.705Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:54.668Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}