{"id":"01KG8AP5XZCH9G4MTVEQR4SZPM","cid":"bafkreidlxiyaigpzago3etnagh6ravwumw2edrsltu4cqgzlufcucnwpla","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":14201,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:49:30.771Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J198KE6FY8WPVJQQRCZ6","start_line":14156,"text":"CHAPTER 82. The Honor and Glory of Whaling.\r\n\r\nThere are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is the\r\ntrue method.\r\n\r\nThe more I dive into this matter of whaling, and push my researches up\r\nto the very spring-head of it so much the more am I impressed with its\r\ngreat honorableness and antiquity; and especially when I find so many\r\ngreat demi-gods and heroes, prophets of all sorts, who one way or other\r\nhave shed distinction upon it, I am transported with the reflection\r\nthat I myself belong, though but subordinately, to so emblazoned a\r\nfraternity.\r\n\r\nThe gallant Perseus, a son of Jupiter, was the first whaleman; and to\r\nthe eternal honor of our calling be it said, that the first whale\r\nattacked by our brotherhood was not killed with any sordid intent.\r\nThose were the knightly days of our profession, when we only bore arms\r\nto succor the distressed, and not to fill men’s lamp-feeders. Every one\r\nknows the fine story of Perseus and Andromeda; how the lovely\r\nAndromeda, the daughter of a king, was tied to a rock on the sea-coast,\r\nand as Leviathan was in the very act of carrying her off, Perseus, the\r\nprince of whalemen, intrepidly advancing, harpooned the monster, and\r\ndelivered and married the maid. It was an admirable artistic exploit,\r\nrarely achieved by the best harpooneers of the present day; inasmuch as\r\nthis Leviathan was slain at the very first dart. And let no man doubt\r\nthis Arkite story; for in the ancient Joppa, now Jaffa, on the Syrian\r\ncoast, in one of the Pagan temples, there stood for many ages the vast\r\nskeleton of a whale, which the city’s legends and all the inhabitants\r\nasserted to be the identical bones of the monster that Perseus slew.\r\nWhen the Romans took Joppa, the same skeleton was carried to Italy in\r\ntriumph. What seems most singular and suggestively important in this\r\nstory, is this: it was from Joppa that Jonah set sail.\r\n\r\nAkin to the adventure of Perseus and Andromeda—indeed, by some supposed\r\nto be indirectly derived from it—is that famous story of St. George and\r\nthe Dragon; which dragon I maintain to have been a whale; for in many\r\nold chronicles whales and dragons are strangely jumbled together, and\r\noften stand for each other. “Thou art as a lion of the waters, and as a\r\ndragon of the sea,” saith Ezekiel; hereby, plainly meaning a whale; in\r\ntruth, some versions of the Bible use that word itself. Besides, it\r\nwould much subtract from the glory of the exploit had St. George but\r\nencountered a crawling reptile of the land, instead of doing battle\r\nwith the great monster of the deep. Any man may kill a snake, but only\r\na Perseus, a St. George, a Coffin, have the heart in them to march\r\nboldly up to a whale.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AM93V5BB7ZQYM05YBKHQ8","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J198KE6FY8WPVJQQRCZ6","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AP5XZN5CH2HN1Q9647T36","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:49:34.143Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:49:51.455Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}