- description
- # CHAPTER II. HOMEWARD BOUND.
## Overview - What this is (type, form, dates, scope)
This is a chapter from the novel "[White-Jacket](arke:01KG8AJ89Z18FKVJV5H0488ZAZ)" by Herman Melville, extracted from the text file [white_jacket.txt](arke:01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY). The chapter was extracted on January 30, 2026, as part of the "Melville Complete Works" collection ([arke:01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW]). It spans lines 250-325 of the source text.
## Context - Background and provenance from related entities
This chapter follows "[CHAPTER I. THE JACKET.](arke:01KG8AJPBD2Q94XN872F7H5S7A)" and precedes "[CHAPTER III. A GLANCE AT THE PRINCIPAL DIVISIONS, INTO WHICH A MAN-OF-WAR’S CREW IS DIVIDED.](arke:01KG8AJPBDD8KW998HV70PRFQT)" within the novel. The text was extracted by the "structure-extraction-lambda" tool.
## Contents - What it contains, key subjects and details
The chapter opens with the sailors preparing to return home, filled with excitement and anticipation. It describes the scene on the ship, including the activities of the officers, midshipmen, and captain. The chapter then details the process of raising anchor and setting sail, with the crew working together. The chapter concludes with a reference to "White-Jacket," the protagonist, and his role in the events.
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- 2026-01-30T20:49:47.917Z
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- gemini-2.5-flash-lite
- description_title
- CHAPTER II. HOMEWARD BOUND.
- end_line
- 325
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- 2026-01-30T20:47:39.667Z
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- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 250
- text
- CHAPTER II.
HOMEWARD BOUND.
“All hands up anchor! Man the capstan!”
“High die! my lads, we’re homeward bound!”
Homeward bound!—harmonious sound! Were you _ever_ homeward
bound?—No?—Quick! take the wings of the morning, or the sails of a
ship, and fly to the uttermost parts of the earth. There, tarry a year
or two; and then let the gruffest of boatswains, his lungs all
goose-skin, shout forth those magical words, and you’ll swear “the harp
of Orpheus were not more enchanting.”
All was ready; boats hoisted in, stun’ sail gear rove, messenger
passed, capstan-bars in their places, accommodation-ladder below; and
in glorious spirits, we sat down to dinner. In the ward-room, the
lieutenants were passing round their oldest port, and pledging their
friends; in the steerage, the _middies_ were busy raising loans to
liquidate the demands of their laundress, or else—in the navy
phrase—preparing to pay their creditors _with a flying fore-topsail_.
On the poop, the captain was looking to windward; and in his grand,
inaccessible cabin, the high and mighty commodore sat silent and
stately, as the statue of Jupiter in Dodona.
We were all arrayed in our best, and our bravest; like strips of blue
sky, lay the pure blue collars of our frocks upon our shoulders; and
our pumps were so springy and playful, that we danced up and down as we
dined.
It was on the gun-deck that our dinners were spread; all along between
the guns; and there, as we cross-legged sat, you would have thought a
hundred farm-yards and meadows were nigh. Such a cackling of ducks,
chickens, and ganders; such a lowing of oxen, and bleating of lambkins,
penned up here and there along the deck, to provide sea repasts for the
officers. More rural than naval were the sounds; continually reminding
each mother’s son of the old paternal homestead in the green old clime;
the old arching elms; the hill where we gambolled; and down by the
barley banks of the stream where we bathed.
“All hands up anchor!”
When that order was given, how we sprang to the bars, and heaved round
that capstan; every man a Goliath, every tendon a hawser!—round and
round—round, round it spun like a sphere, keeping time with our feet to
the time of the fifer, till the cable was straight up and down, and the
ship with her nose in the water.
“Heave and pall! unship your bars, and make sail!”
It was done: barmen, nipper-men, tierers, veerers, idlers and all,
scrambled up the ladder to the braces and halyards; while like monkeys
in Palm-trees, the sail-loosers ran out on those broad boughs, our
yards; and down fell the sails like white clouds from the
ether—topsails, top-gallants, and royals; and away we ran with the
halyards, till every sheet was distended.
“Once more to the bars!”
“Heave, my hearties, heave hard!”
With a jerk and a yerk, we broke ground; and up to our bows came
several thousand pounds of old iron, in the shape of our ponderous
anchor.
Where was White-Jacket then?
White-Jacket was where he belonged. It was White-Jacket that loosed
that main-royal, so far up aloft there, it looks like a white
albatross’ wing. It was White-Jacket that was taken for an albatross
himself, as he flew out on the giddy yard-arm!
- title
- CHAPTER II. HOMEWARD BOUND.