{"id":"01KJNXJR0D57PSKEPTHJ6VCC6J","cid":"bafkreignng3cdq5xe6nh422mrd4ukohy7an3xqc6kbff2h5rxrxoqyd2gm","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":619484,"char_start":611511,"chunk_index":86,"chunk_total":178,"estimated_tokens":1994,"source_file_key":"moby-dick","text":"weather-cocks; but they are so elevated, and besides that are to all\r\nintents and purposes so labelled with “_Hands off!_” you cannot examine\r\nthem closely enough to decide upon their merit.\r\n\r\nIn bony, ribby regions of the earth, where at the base of high broken\r\ncliffs masses of rock lie strewn in fantastic groupings upon the plain,\r\nyou will often discover images as of the petrified forms of the\r\nLeviathan partly merged in grass, which of a windy day breaks against\r\nthem in a surf of green surges.\r\n\r\nThen, again, in mountainous countries where the traveller is\r\ncontinually girdled by amphitheatrical heights; here and there from\r\nsome lucky point of view you will catch passing glimpses of the\r\nprofiles of whales defined along the undulating ridges. But you must be\r\na thorough whaleman, to see these sights; and not only that, but if you\r\nwish 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\nBut though, to landsmen in general, the native inhabitants of the seas\r\nhave ever been regarded with emotions unspeakably unsocial and\r\nrepelling; though we know the sea to be an everlasting terra incognita,\r\nso that Columbus sailed over numberless unknown worlds to discover his\r\none superficial western one; though, by vast odds, the most terrific of\r\nall mortal disasters have immemorially and indiscriminately befallen\r\ntens and hundreds of thousands of those who have gone upon the waters;\r\nthough but a moment’s consideration will teach, that however baby man\r\nmay brag of his science and skill, and however much, in a flattering\r\nfuture, that science and skill may augment; yet for ever and for ever,\r\nto the crack of doom, the sea will insult and murder him, and pulverize\r\nthe stateliest, stiffest frigate he can make; nevertheless, by the\r\ncontinual repetition of these very impressions, man has lost that sense\r\nof the full awfulness of the sea which aboriginally belongs to it.\r\n\r\nThe first boat we read of, floated on an ocean, that with Portuguese\r\nvengeance had whelmed a whole world without leaving so much as a widow.\r\nThat same ocean rolls now; that same ocean destroyed the wrecked ships\r\nof last year. Yea, foolish mortals, Noah’s flood is not yet subsided;\r\ntwo thirds of the fair world it yet covers.\r\n\r\nWherein differ the sea and the land, that a miracle upon one is not a\r\nmiracle upon the other? Preternatural terrors rested upon the Hebrews,\r\nwhen under the feet of Korah and his company the live ground opened and\r\nswallowed them up for ever; yet not a modern sun ever sets, but in\r\nprecisely the same manner the live sea swallows up ships and crews.\r\n\r\nBut not only is the sea such a foe to man who is an alien to it, but it\r\nis also a fiend to its own off-spring; worse than the Persian host who\r\nmurdered his own guests; sparing not the creatures which itself hath\r\nspawned. Like a savage tigress that tossing in the jungle overlays her\r\nown cubs, so the sea dashes even the mightiest whales against the\r\nrocks, and leaves them there side by side with the split wrecks of\r\nships. No mercy, no power but its own controls it. Panting and snorting\r\nlike a mad battle steed that has lost its rider, the masterless ocean\r\noverruns the globe.\r\n\r\nConsider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures\r\nglide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously\r\nhidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure. Consider also the devilish\r\nbrilliance and beauty of many of its most remorseless tribes, as the\r\ndainty embellished shape of many species of sharks. Consider, once\r\nmore, the universal cannibalism of the sea; all whose creatures prey\r\nupon each other, carrying on eternal war since the world began.\r\n\r\nConsider all this; and then turn to this green, gentle, and most docile\r\nearth; consider them both, the sea and the land; and do you not find a\r\nstrange analogy to something in yourself? For as this appalling ocean\r\nsurrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one\r\ninsular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the\r\nhorrors of the half known life. God keep thee! Push not off from that\r\nisle, thou canst never return!\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 59."},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KJNXEDHZCC8DR4EPSQD0QP4P","peer_label":"moby-dick","peer_type":"text","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KJNXECF9R1EZKS5Z7J8A8ZSB","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"}],"ver":1,"created_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:15.789Z","ts":"2026-03-02T00:01:15.789Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KJ6WPT018SDDANE6N7Q8E428"}}