{"id":"01KG8AP8GD28ZAAJ8E46HBJ69Z","cid":"bafkreibmthrcfeigmova3unto2ml6wq3yp4ifmsyz5d67mrg7a5uo6y7sy","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":10942,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:49:30.768Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 5","source_file":"01KG89J198KE6FY8WPVJQQRCZ6","start_line":10873,"text":"wish to return to such a sight again, you must be sure and take the\r\nexact intersecting latitude and longitude of your first stand-point,\r\nelse so chance-like are such observations of the hills, that your\r\nprecise, previous stand-point would require a laborious re-discovery;\r\nlike the Soloma Islands, which still remain incognita, though once\r\nhigh-ruffed Mendanna trod them and old Figuera chronicled them.\r\n\r\nNor when expandingly lifted by your subject, can you fail to trace out\r\ngreat whales in the starry heavens, and boats in pursuit of them; as\r\nwhen long filled with thoughts of war the Eastern nations saw armies\r\nlocked in battle among the clouds. Thus at the North have I chased\r\nLeviathan round and round the Pole with the revolutions of the bright\r\npoints that first defined him to me. And beneath the effulgent\r\nAntarctic skies I have boarded the Argo-Navis, and joined the chase\r\nagainst the starry Cetus far beyond the utmost stretch of Hydrus and\r\nthe Flying Fish.\r\n\r\nWith a frigate’s anchors for my bridle-bitts and fasces of harpoons for\r\nspurs, would I could mount that whale and leap the topmost skies, to\r\nsee whether the fabled heavens with all their countless tents really\r\nlie encamped beyond my mortal sight!\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 58. Brit.\r\n\r\nSteering north-eastward from the Crozetts, we fell in with vast meadows\r\nof brit, the minute, yellow substance, upon which the Right Whale\r\nlargely feeds. For leagues and leagues it undulated round us, so that\r\nwe seemed to be sailing through boundless fields of ripe and golden\r\nwheat.\r\n\r\nOn the second day, numbers of Right Whales were seen, who, secure from\r\nthe attack of a Sperm Whaler like the Pequod, with open jaws sluggishly\r\nswam through the brit, which, adhering to the fringing fibres of that\r\nwondrous Venetian blind in their mouths, was in that manner separated\r\nfrom the water that escaped at the lip.\r\n\r\nAs morning mowers, who side by side slowly and seethingly advance their\r\nscythes through the long wet grass of marshy meads; even so these\r\nmonsters swam, making a strange, grassy, cutting sound; and leaving\r\nbehind them endless swaths of blue upon the yellow sea.*\r\n\r\n*That part of the sea known among whalemen as the “Brazil Banks” does\r\nnot bear that name as the Banks of Newfoundland do, because of there\r\nbeing shallows and soundings there, but because of this remarkable\r\nmeadow-like appearance, caused by the vast drifts of brit continually\r\nfloating in those latitudes, where the Right Whale is often chased.\r\n\r\nBut it was only the sound they made as they parted the brit which at\r\nall reminded one of mowers. Seen from the mast-heads, especially when\r\nthey paused and were stationary for a while, their vast black forms\r\nlooked more like lifeless masses of rock than anything else. And as in\r\nthe great hunting countries of India, the stranger at a distance will\r\nsometimes pass on the plains recumbent elephants without knowing them\r\nto be such, taking them for bare, blackened elevations of the soil;\r\neven so, often, with him, who for the first time beholds this species\r\nof the leviathans of the sea. And even when recognised at last, their\r\nimmense magnitude renders it very hard really to believe that such\r\nbulky masses of overgrowth can possibly be instinct, in all parts, with\r\nthe same sort of life that lives in a dog or a horse.\r\n\r\nIndeed, in other respects, you can hardly regard any creatures of the\r\ndeep with the same feelings that you do those of the shore. For though\r\nsome old naturalists have maintained that all creatures of the land are\r\nof their kind in the sea; and though taking a broad general view of the\r\nthing, this may very well be; yet coming to specialties, where, for\r\nexample, does the ocean furnish any fish that in disposition answers to\r\nthe sagacious kindness of the dog? The accursed shark alone can in any\r\ngeneric respect be said to bear comparative analogy to him.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 5"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AM7XEJTHWA7R3YZ7TZ3Y3","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J198KE6FY8WPVJQQRCZ6","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AP8GDSVZ09EWY1539WZ4E","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AP8GDRP8HXEAREZV46R20","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:49:36.781Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:49:48.557Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}