{"id":"01KG8AP6HT7X40HW6RW4QZ60KY","cid":"bafkreih664t55gxulxr5hi6pexmi2vxveas73cl6o7bm5plnrd4vcvme2y","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":3333,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:49:30.764Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 45","source_file":"01KG89J198KE6FY8WPVJQQRCZ6","start_line":3263,"text":"trophies. A cannibal of a craft, tricking herself forth in the chased\r\nbones of her enemies. All round, her unpanelled, open bulwarks were\r\ngarnished like one continuous jaw, with the long sharp teeth of the\r\nsperm whale, inserted there for pins, to fasten her old hempen thews\r\nand tendons to. Those thews ran not through base blocks of land wood,\r\nbut deftly travelled over sheaves of sea-ivory. Scorning a turnstile\r\nwheel at her reverend helm, she sported there a tiller; and that tiller\r\nwas in one mass, curiously carved from the long narrow lower jaw of her\r\nhereditary foe. The helmsman who steered by that tiller in a tempest,\r\nfelt like the Tartar, when he holds back his fiery steed by clutching\r\nits jaw. A noble craft, but somehow a most melancholy! All noble things\r\nare touched with that.\r\n\r\nNow when I looked about the quarter-deck, for some one having\r\nauthority, in order to propose myself as a candidate for the voyage, at\r\nfirst I saw nobody; but I could not well overlook a strange sort of\r\ntent, or rather wigwam, pitched a little behind the main-mast. It\r\nseemed only a temporary erection used in port. It was of a conical\r\nshape, some ten feet high; consisting of the long, huge slabs of limber\r\nblack bone taken from the middle and highest part of the jaws of the\r\nright-whale. Planted with their broad ends on the deck, a circle of\r\nthese slabs laced together, mutually sloped towards each other, and at\r\nthe apex united in a tufted point, where the loose hairy fibres waved\r\nto and fro like the top-knot on some old Pottowottamie Sachem’s head. A\r\ntriangular opening faced towards the bows of the ship, so that the\r\ninsider commanded a complete view forward.\r\n\r\nAnd half concealed in this queer tenement, I at length found one who by\r\nhis aspect seemed to have authority; and who, it being noon, and the\r\nship’s work suspended, was now enjoying respite from the burden of\r\ncommand. He was seated on an old-fashioned oaken chair, wriggling all\r\nover with curious carving; and the bottom of which was formed of a\r\nstout interlacing of the same elastic stuff of which the wigwam was\r\nconstructed.\r\n\r\nThere was nothing so very particular, perhaps, about the appearance of\r\nthe elderly man I saw; he was brown and brawny, like most old seamen,\r\nand heavily rolled up in blue pilot-cloth, cut in the Quaker style;\r\nonly there was a fine and almost microscopic net-work of the minutest\r\nwrinkles interlacing round his eyes, which must have arisen from his\r\ncontinual sailings in many hard gales, and always looking to\r\nwindward;—for this causes the muscles about the eyes to become pursed\r\ntogether. Such eye-wrinkles are very effectual in a scowl.\r\n\r\n“Is this the Captain of the Pequod?” said I, advancing to the door of\r\nthe tent.\r\n\r\n“Supposing it be the captain of the Pequod, what dost thou want of\r\nhim?” he demanded.\r\n\r\n“I was thinking of shipping.”\r\n\r\n“Thou wast, wast thou? I see thou art no Nantucketer—ever been in a\r\nstove boat?”\r\n\r\n“No, Sir, I never have.”\r\n\r\n“Dost know nothing at all about whaling, I dare say—eh?\r\n\r\n“Nothing, Sir; but I have no doubt I shall soon learn. I’ve been\r\nseveral voyages in the merchant service, and I think that—”\r\n\r\n“Merchant service be damned. Talk not that lingo to me. Dost see that\r\nleg?—I’ll take that leg away from thy stern, if ever thou talkest of\r\nthe marchant service to me again. Marchant service indeed! I suppose\r\nnow ye feel considerable proud of having served in those marchant\r\nships. But flukes! man, what makes thee want to go a whaling, eh?—it\r\nlooks a little suspicious, don’t it, eh?—Hast not been a pirate, hast\r\nthou?—Didst not rob thy last Captain, didst thou?—Dost not think of\r\nmurdering the officers when thou gettest to sea?”\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 45"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AK7FP6P1V67V3ATJHHZ83","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J198KE6FY8WPVJQQRCZ6","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AP6HT7KQ27XNGT3P2PPJY","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AP6HQVYNDM1ZNGNF2HBRZ","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:49:34.778Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:49:41.356Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}