{"id":"01KG8AMFZ3SEC107HGQ7ET38K7","cid":"bafkreidel7klmqmdbakmhfzjqtvjyzhwdozw5ecovh2yg5z2fvklkzb27i","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":14857,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:36.278Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 3","source_file":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","start_line":14789,"text":"In men-of-war, the Galley, or Cookery, on the gun-deck, is the grand\r\ncentre of gossip and news among the sailors. Here crowds assemble to\r\nchat away the half-hour elapsing after every meal. The reason why this\r\nplace and these hours are selected rather than others is this: in the\r\nneighbourhood of the galley alone, and only after meals, is the\r\nman-of-war’s-man permitted to regale himself with a smoke.\r\n\r\nA sumptuary edict, truly, that deprived White-Jacket, for one, of a\r\nluxury to which he had long been attached. For how can the mystical\r\nmotives, the capricious impulses of a luxurious smoker go and come at\r\nthe beck of a Commodore’s command? No! when I smoke, be it because of\r\nmy sovereign good pleasure I choose so to do, though at so unseasonable\r\nan hour that I send round the town for a brasier of coals. What! smoke\r\nby a sun-dial? Smoke on compulsion? Make a trade, a business, a vile\r\nrecurring calling of smoking? And, perhaps, when those sedative fumes\r\nhave steeped you in the grandest of reveries, and, circle over circle,\r\nsolemnly rises some immeasurable dome in your soul—far away, swelling\r\nand heaving into the vapour you raise—as if from one Mozart’s grandest\r\nmarches of a temple were rising, like Venus from the sea—at such a\r\ntime, to have your whole Parthenon tumbled about your ears by the knell\r\nof the ship’s bell announcing the expiration of the half-hour for\r\nsmoking! Whip me, ye Furies! toast me in saltpetre! smite me, some\r\nthunderbolt! charge upon me, endless squadrons of Mamalukes! devour me,\r\nFeejees! but preserve me from a tyranny like this!\r\n\r\nNo! though I smoked like an Indian summer ere I entered the Neversink,\r\nso abhorrent was this sumptuary law that I altogether abandoned the\r\nluxury rather than enslave it to a time and a place. Herein did I not\r\nright, Ancient and Honourable Old Guard of Smokers all round the world?\r\n\r\nBut there were others of the crew not so fastidious as myself. After\r\nevery meal, they hied to the galley and solaced their souls with a\r\nwhiff.\r\n\r\nNow a bunch of cigars, all banded together, is a type and a symbol of\r\nthe brotherly love between smokers. Likewise, for the time, in a\r\ncommunity of pipes is a community of hearts! Nor was it an ill thing\r\nfor the Indian Sachems to circulate their calumet tobacco-bowl—even as\r\nour own forefathers circulated their punch-bowl—in token of peace,\r\ncharity, and good-will, friendly feelings, and sympathising souls. And\r\nthis it was that made the gossipers of the galley so loving a club, so\r\nlong as the vapoury bond united them.\r\n\r\nIt was a pleasant sight to behold them. Grouped in the recesses between\r\nthe guns, they chatted and laughed like rows of convivialists in the\r\nboxes of some vast dining-saloon. Take a Flemish kitchen full of good\r\nfellows from Teniers; add a fireside group from Wilkie; throw in a\r\nnaval sketch from Cruickshank; and then stick a short pipe into every\r\nmother’s son’s mouth, and you have the smoking scene at the galley of\r\nthe Neversink.\r\n\r\nNot a few were politicians; and, as there were some thoughts of a war\r\nwith England at the time, their discussions waxed warm.\r\n\r\n“I tell you what it is, _shippies!_” cried the old captain of gun No. 1\r\non the forecastle, “if that ’ere President of ourn don’t luff up into\r\nthe wind, by the Battle of the Nile! he’ll be getting us into a grand\r\nfleet engagement afore the Yankee nation has rammed home her\r\ncartridges—let alone blowing the match!”\r\n\r\n“Who talks of luffing?” roared a roystering fore-top-man. “Keep our\r\nYankee nation large before the wind, say I, till you come plump on the\r\nenemy’s bows, and then board him in the smoke,” and with that, there\r\ncame forth a mighty blast from his pipe.\r\n\r\n“Who says the old man at the helm of the Yankee nation can’t steer his\r\n_trick_ as well as George Washington himself?” cried a\r\nsheet-anchor-man.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 3"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJWG1Q56K09ESP8DXKERA","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AMFZ3WHZD5DPZMTQQD93R","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AMFZ3F5T6XKNCGG6MMG39","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:38.883Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:56.705Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}