Part 8 (1/2)
It was rather in form and colour than in size that these ice islets were remarkable; anything approaching to a real iceberg we neither saw, nor are we likely to see.
In fact, the lofty ice mountains that wander like vagrant islands along the coast of America, seldom or never come to the eastward or northward of Cape Farewell. They consist of land ice, and are all generated among bays and straits within Baffin's Bay, and first enter the Atlantic a good deal to the southward of Iceland; whereas the Polar ice, among which we have been knocking about, is field ice, and--except when packed one ledge above the other, by great pressure--is comparatively flat. I do not think I saw any pieces that were piled up higher than thirty or thirty-five feet above the sea-level, although at a little distance through the mist they may have loomed much loftier.
In quaintness of form, and in brilliancy of colours, these wonderful ma.s.ses surpa.s.sed everything I had imagined; and we found endless amus.e.m.e.nt in watching their fantastic procession.
At one time it was a knight on horseback, clad in sapphire mail, a white plume above his casque. Or a cathedral window with shafts of chrysophras, new powdered by a snow-storm. Or a smooth sheer cliff of lapis lazuli; or a Banyan tree, with roots descending from its branches, and a foliage as delicate as the efflorescence of molten metal; or a fairy dragon, that breasted the water in scales of emerald; or anything else that your fancy chose to conjure up. After a little time, the mist again descended on the scene, and dulled each glittering form to a shapeless ma.s.s of white; while in spite of all our endeavours to keep upon our northerly course, we were constantly compelled to turn and wind about in every direction--sometimes standing on for several hours at a stretch to the southward and eastward. These perpetual embarra.s.sments became at length very wearying, and in order to relieve the tedium of our progress I requested the Doctor to remove one of my teeth. This he did with the greatest ability--a wrench to starboard,--another to port, and up it flew through the cabin sky-light.
During the whole of that afternoon and the following night we made but little Northing at all, and the next day the ice seemed more pertinaciously in our way than ever; neither could we relieve the monotony of the hours by conversing with each other on the black boards, as the mist was too thick for us too distinguish from on board one s.h.i.+p anything that was pa.s.sing on the deck of the other. Notwithstanding the great care and skill with which the steamer threaded her way among the loose floes, it was impossible sometimes to prevent fragments of ice striking us with considerable violence on the bows; and as we lay in bed at night, I confess that until we got accustomed to the noise, it was by no means a pleasant thing to hear the pieces angrily sc.r.a.ping along the s.h.i.+p's sides--within two inches of our ears. On the evening of the fourth day it came on to blow pretty hard, and at midnight it had freshened to half a gale; but by dint of standing well away to the eastward we had succeeded in reaching comparatively open water, and I had gone to bed in great hopes that at all events the breeze would brush off the fog, and enable us to see our way a little more clearly the next morning.
At five o'clock A.M. the officer of the watch jumped down into my cabin, and awoke me with the news--”That the Frenchman was a-saying summat on his black board!” Feeling by the motion that a very heavy sea must have been knocked up during the night, I began to be afraid that something must have gone wrong with the towing-gear, or that a hawser might have become entangled in the corvette's screw--which was the catastrophe of which I had always been most apprehensive; so slipping on a pair of fur boots, which I carefully kept by the bedside in case of an emergency, and throwing a cloak over--
”Le simple appareil D'une beaute qu'on vient d'arracher au sommeil,”
I caught hold of a telescope, and tumbled up on deck.
Anything more bitter and disagreeable than the icy blast, which caught me round the waist as I emerged from the companion I never remember. With both hands occupied in levelling the telescope, I could not keep the wind from blowing the loose wrap quite off my shoulders, and except for the name of the thing, I might just as well have been standing in my s.h.i.+rt. Indeed, I was so irresistibly struck with my own resemblance to a coloured print I remember in youthful days,--representing that celebrated character ”Puss in Boots,” with a purple robe of honour streaming far behind him on the wind, to express the velocity of his magical progress--that I laughed aloud while I s.h.i.+vered in the blast. What with the spray and mist, moreover, it was a good ten minutes before I could make out the writing, and when at last I did spell out the letters, their meaning was not very inspiriting: ”Nous retournons a Reykjavik!” So evidently they had given it up as a bad job, and had come to the conclusion that the island was inaccessible. Yet it seemed very hard to have to turn back, after coming so far! We had already made upwards of three hundred miles since leaving Iceland: it could not be much above one hundred and twenty or one hundred and thirty more to Jan Mayen; and although things looked unpromising, there still seemed such a chance of success, that I could not find it in my heart to give in; so, having run up a jack at the fore--all writing on our board was out of the question, we were so deluged with spray--I jumped down to wake Fitzgerald and Sigurdr, and tell them we were going to cast off, in case they had any letters to send home. In the meantime, I scribbled a line of thanks and good wishes to M. de la Ronciere, and another to you, and guyed it with our mails on board the corvette--in a milk can.
In the meantime all was bustle on board our decks, and I think every one was heartily pleased at the thoughts of getting the little schooner again under canvas. A couple of reefs were hauled down in the mainsail and staysail, and everything got ready for making sail.
”Is all clear for'ard for slipping, Mr. Wyse?”
”Ay, ay, Sir; all clear!”
”Let go the tow-ropes!”
”All gone, Sir!”
And down went the heavy hawsers into the sea, up fluttered the staysail,--then--poising for a moment on the waves with the startled hesitation of a bird suddenly set free,--the little creature spread her wings, thrice dipped her ensign in token of adieu--receiving in return a hearty cheer from the French crew--and glided like a phantom into the North, while the ”Reine Hortense” puffed back to Iceland. [Footnote: It subsequently appeared that the ”Saxon,” on the second day after leaving Onunder Fiord, had unfortunately knocked a hole in her bottom against the ice, and was obliged to run ash.o.r.e in a sinking state. In consequence of never having been rejoined by her tender, the ”Reine Hortense” found herself short of coals; and as the enc.u.mbered state of the sea rendered it already very unlikely that any access would be found open to the island, M. de la Ronciere very properly judged it advisable to turn back. He re-entered the Reykjavik harbour without so much as a shovelful of coals left on board.]
Ten minutes more, and we were the only denizens of that misty sea. I confess I felt excessively sorry to have lost the society of such joyous companions; they had received us always with such merry good nature; the Prince had shown himself so gracious and considerate, and he was surrounded by a staff of such clever, well-informed persons, that it was with the deepest regret I watched the fog close round the magnificent corvette, and bury her--and all whom she contained--within its bosom. Our own situation, too, was not altogether without causing me a little anxiety. We had not seen the sun for two days; it was very thick, with a heavy sea, and dodging about as we had been among the ice, at the heels of the steamer, our dead reckoning was not very much to be depended upon. The best plan I thought would be to stretch away at once clear of the ice, then run up into the lat.i.tude of Jan Mayen, and--as soon as we should have reached the parallel of its northern extremity--bear down on the land. If there was any access at all to the island, it was very evident it would be on its northern or eastern side; and now that we were alone, to keep on knocking up through a hundred miles or so of ice in a thick fog, in our fragile schooner, would have been out of the question.
The s.h.i.+p's course, therefore, having been shaped in accordance with this view, I stole back into bed and resumed my violated slumbers. Towards mid-day the weather began to moderate, and by four o'clock we were skimming along on a smooth sea, with all sails set. This state of prosperity continued for the next twenty-four hours; we had made about eighty knots since parting company with the Frenchman, and it was now time to run down West and pick up the land. Luckily the sky was pretty clear, and as we sailed on through open water I really began to think our prospects very brilliant. But about three o'clock on the second day, specks of ice began to flicker here and there on the horizon, then larger bulks came floating by in forms as picturesque as ever--(one, I particularly remember, a human hand thrust up out of the water with outstretched forefinger, as if to warn us against proceeding farther), until at last the whole sea became clouded with hummocks that seemed to gather on our path in magical multiplicity.
Up to this time we had seen nothing of the island, yet I knew we must be within a very few miles of it; and now, to make things quite pleasant, there descended upon us a thicker fog than I should have thought the atmosphere capable of sustaining; it seemed to hang in solid festoons from the masts and spars. To say that you could not see your hand, ceased almost to be any longer figurative; even the ice was hid--except those fragments immediately adjacent, whose ghastly brilliancy the mist itself could not quite extinguish, as they glimmered round the vessel like a circle of luminous phantoms. The perfect stillness of the sea and sky added very much to the solemnity of the scene; almost every breath of wind had fallen, scarcely a ripple tinkled against the copper sheathing, as the solitary little schooner glided along at the rate of half a knot or so an hour, and the only sound we heard was the distant wash of waters, but whether on a great sh.o.r.e, or along a belt of solid ice, it was impossible to say.
In such weather, as the original discoverers of Jan Mayen said under similar circ.u.mstances,--”it was easier to hear land than to see it.” Thus, hour after hour pa.s.sed by and brought no change. Fitz and Sigurdr--who had begun quite to disbelieve in the existence of the island--went to bed, while I remained pacing up and down the deck, anxiously questioning each quarter of the grey canopy that enveloped us. At last, about four in the morning, I fancied some change was going to take place; the heavy wreaths of vapour seemed to be imperceptibly separating, and in a few minutes more the solid roof of grey suddenly split asunder, and I beheld through the gap--thousands of feet over--head, as if suspended in the crystal sky--a cone of illuminated snow.
[Figure: fig-p121.gif]
You can imagine my delight. It was really that of an anchorite catching a glimpse of the seventh heaven. There at last was the long-sought-for mountain actually tumbling down upon our heads. Columbus could not have been more pleased when, after nights of watching, he saw the first fires of a new hemisphere dance upon the water; nor, indeed, scarcely less disappointed at their sudden disappearance than I was, when, after having gone below to wake Sigurdr, and tell him we had seen bona fide terra-firma, I found, on returning upon deck, that the roof of mist had closed again, and shut out all trace of the transient vision. However, I had got a clutch of the island, and no slight matter should make me let go my hold. In the meantime there was nothing for it but to wait patiently until the curtain lifted; and no child ever stared more eagerly at a green drop-scene in expectation of ”the realm of dazzling splendour” promised in the bill, than I did at the motionless grey folds that hung round us. At last the hour of liberation came: a purer light seemed gradually to penetrate the atmosphere, brown turned to grey, and grey to white, and white to transparent blue, until the lost horizon entirely reappeared, except where in one direction an impenetrable veil of haze still hung suspended from the zenith to the sea. Behind that veil I knew must lie Jan Mayen.
A few minutes more, and slowly, silently, in a manner you could take no count of, its dusky hem first deepened to a violet tinge, then gradually lifting, displayed a long line of coast--in reality but the roots of Beerenberg--dyed of the darkest purple; while, obedient to a common impulse, the clouds that wrapped its summit gently disengaged themselves, and left the mountain standing in all the magnificence of his 6,870 feet, girdled by a single zone of pearly vapour, from underneath whose floating folds seven enormous glaciers rolled down into the sea! Nature seemed to have turned scene-s.h.i.+fter, so artfully were the phases of this glorious spectacle successively developed.
Although--by reason of our having hit upon its side instead of its narrow end--the outline of Mount Beerenberg appeared to us more like a sugar-loaf than a spire--broader at the base and rounder at the top than I had imagined,-- in size, colour, and effect, it far surpa.s.sed anything I had antic.i.p.ated. The glaciers were quite an unexpected element of beauty. Imagine a mighty river of as great a volume as the Thames--started down the side of a mountain,-- bursting over every impediment,--whirled into a thousand eddies,--tumbling and raging on from ledge to ledge in quivering cataracts of foam,--then suddenly struck rigid by a power so instantaneous in its action, that even the froth and fleeting wreaths of spray have stiffened into the immutability of sculpture. Unless you had seen it, it would be almost impossible to conceive the strangeness of the contrast between the actual tranquillity of these silent crystal rivers and the violent descending energy impressed upon their exterior. You must remember, too, all this is upon a scale of such prodigious magnitude, that when we succeeded subsequently in approaching the spot--where with a leap like that of Niagara one of these glaciers plunges down into the sea--the eye, no longer able to take in its fluvial character, was content to rest in simple astonishment at what then appeared a lucent precipice of grey-green ice, rising to the height of several hundred feet above the masts of the vessel.
As soon as we had got a little over our first feelings of astonishment at the panorama thus suddenly revealed to us by the lifting of the fog, I began to consider what would be the best way of getting to the anchorage on the west--or Greenland side of the island. We were still seven or eight miles from the sh.o.r.e, and the northern extremity of the island, round which we should have to pa.s.s, lay about five leagues off, bearing West by North, while between us and the land stretched a continuous breadth of floating ice. The hummocks, however, seemed to be pretty loose with openings here and there, so that with careful sailing I thought we might pa.s.s through, and perhaps on the farther side of the island come into a freer sea. Alas! after having with some difficulty wound along until we were almost abreast of the cape, we were stopped dead short by a solid rampart of fixed ice, which in one direction leant upon the land, and in the other ran away as far as the eye could reach into the dusky North. Thus hopelessly cut off from all access to the western and better anchorage, it only remained to put about, and--running down along the land--attempt to reach a kind of open roadstead on the eastern side, a little to the south of the volcano described by Dr.
Scoresby but in this endeavour also we were doomed to be disappointed; for after sailing some considerable distance through a field of ice, which kept getting more closely packed as we pushed further into it, we came upon another barrier equally impenetrable, that stretched away from the island toward the Southward and Eastward. Under these circ.u.mstances, the only thing to be done was to get back to where the ice was looser, and attempt a landing wherever a favourable opening presented itself. But even to extricate ourselves from our present position, was now no longer of such easy performance. Within the last hour the wind had s.h.i.+fted into the North-West; that is to say, it was now blowing right down the path along which we had picked our way; in order to return, therefore, it would be necessary to work the s.h.i.+p to windward through a sea as thickly crammed with ice as a lady's boudoir is with furniture. Moreover, it had become evident, from the obvious closing of the open s.p.a.ces, that some considerable pressure was acting upon the outside of the field; but whether originating in a current or the change of wind, or another field being driven down upon it, I could not tell: Be that as it might, out we must get,--unless we wanted to be cracked like a walnut-sh.e.l.l between the drifting ice and trio solid belt to leeward; so sending a steady hand to the helm,--for these unusual phenomena had begun to make some of my people lose their heads a little, no one on board having ever seen a bit of ice before,--I stationed myself in the bows, while Mr. Wyse conned the vessel from the square yard. Then there began one of the prettiest and most exciting pieces of nautical manoeuvring that can be imagined. Every single soul on board was summoned upon deck; to all, their several stations and duties were a.s.signed--always excepting the cook, who was merely directed to make himself generally useful. As soon as everybody was ready, down went the helm,--about came the s.h.i.+p,--and the critical part of the business commenced. Of course, in order to wind and twist the schooner in and out among the devious channels left between the hummocks, it was necessary she should have considerable way on her; at the same time so narrow were some of the pa.s.sages, and so sharp their turnings, that unless she had been the most handy vessel in the world, she would have had a very narrow squeak for it.
I never saw anything so beautiful as her behaviour. Had she been a living creature, she could not have dodged, and wound, and doubled, with more conscious cunning and dexterity; and it was quite amusing to hear the endearing way in which the people spoke to her, each time the nimble creature contrived to elude some more than usually threatening tongue of ice. Once or twice, in spite of all our exertions, it was impossible to save her from a collision; all that remained to be done, as soon as it became evident she could not clear some particular floe, or go about in time to avoid it, was to haul the staysail sheet a-weather in order to deaden her way as much as possible, and--putting the helm down--let her go right at it, so that she should receive the blow on her stem, and not on the bluff of the bow; while all hands, armed with spars and fenders, rushed forward to ease off the shock. And here I feel it just to pay a tribute of admiration to the cook, who on these occasions never failed to exhibit an immense amount of misdirected energy, breaking--I remember--at the same moment, both the cabin sky-light, and an oar, in single combat with a large berg that was doing no particular harm to us, but against which he seemed suddenly to have conceived a violent spite. Luckily a considerable quant.i.ty of snow overlaid the ice, which, acting as a buffer, in some measure mitigated the violence of the concussion; while the very fragility of her build diminis.h.i.+ng the momentum, proved in the end the little schooner's greatest security.
Nevertheless, I must confess that more than once, while leaning forward in expectation of the scrunch I knew must come, I have caught myself half murmuring to the fair face that seemed to gaze so serenely at the cold white ma.s.s we were approaching: ”O Lady, is it not now fit thou shouldest befriend the good s.h.i.+p of which thou art the pride?”
At last, after having received two or three pretty severe b.u.mps,--though the loss of a little copper was the only damage they entailed,--we made our way back to the northern end of the island, where the pack was looser, and we had at all events a little more breathing room.
It had become very cold--so cold, indeed, that Mr. Wyse --no longer able to keep a clutch of the rigging--had a severe tumble from the yard on which he was standing.