How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #10
How we get there, we alone know. If we sought to tell others, what the wiser were they? (5.72)
Melville is talking about climbing to the top of Rodondo rock…which he suggests is actually impossible. "The Encantadas" is a piece of travel writing—but it's a fanciful kind of travel writing, where you can see things (like death tortoises) and go places (like the top of the rock) that are impossible. So it ends up being, not a real, you-are-there tour of the Galapagos, but a fantasy, dream Galapagos; an enchanted version of the Enchanted Isles.