How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
But he seemed alone, absolutely alone in the universe. A bit of wreck in the mid-Atlantic. (2.137)
Again, Melville uses nautical metaphors to describe loneliness. Bartleby is a little clerk in an office, but he's compared to one of Melville's seafaring adventurers, lost at sea. This doesn't so much ennoble Bartleby as it makes him more ridiculous or pathetic; this is not a hero who is going to be out slaying whales.
Quote #5
And as for solitariness…the special curse, as one may call if, of the Encantadas…is, that to them, change never comes; neither the change of seasons nor of sorrows. (5.5)
The Galapagos are at the equator, so there's no change of season. That means it feels like time isn't really passing. Being alone is lonely, but being alone forever is more lonely than that even. Though maybe the turtles will keep you company.
Quote #6
Another feature in these isles is their emphatic uinhabitableness. It is deemed a fit type of all-forsaken overthrow, that the jackal should den in the wastes of weedy Babylon; but the Encantadas refuse to harbor even the outcasts of the beasts. (5.7)
For Melville, the Galapagos have no jackals, and are therefore uninhabitable. But today the islands are most famous because Darwin studied them—and what he studied there was diverse forms of life. Melville actually describes lots of different kinds of animal life; turtles, penguins, fish. "Uninhabitable" is a relative term; lots of things live on the Galapagos, if you're willing to see them.