- description
- # First:
## Overview
This subsection, titled "First:", is an excerpt from a larger work, likely a book or manuscript. It is part of Chapter 45, "The Affidavit," and was extracted from the file `moby_dick.txt` as part of the "Melville Complete Works" collection. The text details personal accounts of whale hunts, specifically focusing on instances where whales escaped after being harpooned, only to be recaptured later.
## Context
This text is situated within Chapter 45, "The Affidavit.", of a larger work. It follows an "Introduction" and precedes a section titled "Secondly:". The content suggests it is part of a narrative that discusses whaling practices and the experiences of whalers. The file `moby_dick.txt` indicates that this excerpt is from Herman Melville's famous novel, *Moby Dick*.
## Contents
The "First:" subsection recounts three specific instances known to the narrator where a whale, after being struck by a harpoon and escaping, was later successfully hunted and killed. In one notable case, three years elapsed between the initial harpooning and the final capture. The narrator emphasizes his personal knowledge of these events, even recalling a distinctive mole under a whale's eye that helped him identify it across the three-year interval. He also mentions hearing of other similar occurrences from reliable sources, underscoring the challenges and unpredictability of whaling.
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- First:
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- First: I have personally known three instances where a whale, after
receiving a harpoon, has effected a complete escape; and, after an
interval (in one instance of three years), has been again struck by the
same hand, and slain; when the two irons, both marked by the same
private cypher, have been taken from the body. In the instance where
three years intervened between the flinging of the two harpoons; and I
think it may have been something more than that; the man who darted
them happening, in the interval, to go in a trading ship on a voyage to
Africa, went ashore there, joined a discovery party, and penetrated far
into the interior, where he travelled for a period of nearly two years,
often endangered by serpents, savages, tigers, poisonous miasmas, with
all the other common perils incident to wandering in the heart of
unknown regions. Meanwhile, the whale he had struck must also have been
on its travels; no doubt it had thrice circumnavigated the globe,
brushing with its flanks all the coasts of Africa; but to no purpose.
This man and this whale again came together, and the one vanquished the
other. I say I, myself, have known three instances similar to this;
that is in two of them I saw the whales struck; and, upon the second
attack, saw the two irons with the respective marks cut in them,
afterwards taken from the dead fish. In the three-year instance, it so
fell out that I was in the boat both times, first and last, and the
last time distinctly recognised a peculiar sort of huge mole under the
whale’s eye, which I had observed there three years previous. I say
three years, but I am pretty sure it was more than that. Here are three
instances, then, which I personally know the truth of; but I have heard
of many other instances from persons whose veracity in the matter there
is no good ground to impeach.
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- First: