{"id":"01KG8AP37YK7GYYHH1SZA4475M","cid":"bafkreicjnsqnlrkd7r7zligns53y5fr47xdvblxt7ndmerowvs3eog4gsm","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":1043,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:49:30.764Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J198KE6FY8WPVJQQRCZ6","start_line":976,"text":"constant surveillance of me, and secretly dogs me, and influences me in\r\nsome unaccountable way—he can better answer than any one else. And,\r\ndoubtless, my going on this whaling voyage, formed part of the grand\r\nprogramme of Providence that was drawn up a long time ago. It came in\r\nas a sort of brief interlude and solo between more extensive\r\nperformances. I take it that this part of the bill must have run\r\nsomething like this:\r\n\r\n“_Grand Contested Election for the Presidency of the United States._\r\n“WHALING VOYAGE BY ONE ISHMAEL. “BLOODY BATTLE IN AFFGHANISTAN.”\r\n\r\nThough I cannot tell why it was exactly that those stage managers, the\r\nFates, put me down for this shabby part of a whaling voyage, when\r\nothers were set down for magnificent parts in high tragedies, and short\r\nand easy parts in genteel comedies, and jolly parts in farces—though I\r\ncannot tell why this was exactly; yet, now that I recall all the\r\ncircumstances, I think I can see a little into the springs and motives\r\nwhich being cunningly presented to me under various disguises, induced\r\nme to set about performing the part I did, besides cajoling me into the\r\ndelusion that it was a choice resulting from my own unbiased freewill\r\nand discriminating judgment.\r\n\r\nChief among these motives was the overwhelming idea of the great whale\r\nhimself. Such a portentous and mysterious monster roused all my\r\ncuriosity. Then the wild and distant seas where he rolled his island\r\nbulk; the undeliverable, nameless perils of the whale; these, with all\r\nthe attending marvels of a thousand Patagonian sights and sounds,\r\nhelped to sway me to my wish. With other men, perhaps, such things\r\nwould not have been inducements; but as for me, I am tormented with an\r\neverlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and\r\nland on barbarous coasts. Not ignoring what is good, I am quick to\r\nperceive a horror, and could still be social with it—would they let\r\nme—since it is but well to be on friendly terms with all the inmates of\r\nthe place one lodges in.\r\n\r\nBy reason of these things, then, the whaling voyage was welcome; the\r\ngreat flood-gates of the wonder-world swung open, and in the wild\r\nconceits that swayed me to my purpose, two and two there floated into\r\nmy inmost soul, endless processions of the whale, and, mid most of them\r\nall, one grand hooded phantom, like a snow hill in the air.\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 2. The Carpet-Bag.\r\n\r\nI stuffed a shirt or two into my old carpet-bag, tucked it under my\r\narm, and started for Cape Horn and the Pacific. Quitting the good city\r\nof old Manhatto, I duly arrived in New Bedford. It was a Saturday night\r\nin December. Much was I disappointed upon learning that the little\r\npacket for Nantucket had already sailed, and that no way of reaching\r\nthat place would offer, till the following Monday.\r\n\r\nAs most young candidates for the pains and penalties of whaling stop at\r\nthis same New Bedford, thence to embark on their voyage, it may as well\r\nbe related that I, for one, had no idea of so doing. For my mind was\r\nmade up to sail in no other than a Nantucket craft, because there was a\r\nfine, boisterous something about everything connected with that famous\r\nold island, which amazingly pleased me. Besides though New Bedford has\r\nof late been gradually monopolising the business of whaling, and though\r\nin this matter poor old Nantucket is now much behind her, yet Nantucket\r\nwas her great original—the Tyre of this Carthage;—the place where the\r\nfirst dead American whale was stranded. Where else but from Nantucket\r\ndid those aboriginal whalemen, the Red-Men, first sally out in canoes\r\nto give chase to the Leviathan? And where but from Nantucket, too, did\r\nthat first adventurous little sloop put forth, partly laden with\r\nimported cobblestones—so goes the story—to throw at the whales, in\r\norder to discover when they were nigh enough to risk a harpoon from the\r\nbowsprit?\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AK7FP6P1V67V3ATJHHZ83","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J198KE6FY8WPVJQQRCZ6","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AP37YBWSWAYM052EJDXJX","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:49:31.390Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:49:39.049Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}