CHAPTER XXII.
NOTRE DAME BAY.—FOGO ISLAND AND THE THREE HUNDRED ISLES.—THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS.—THE ICEBERG OF THE SUNSET, AND THE FLIGHT INTO TWILLINGATE.
After noon, with the faintest breeze, and the sea like a flowing mirror. We have sailed by the most eastern promontories, Cape Bonavista and Cape Freels, and have now arrived at a point where the coast falls off far to the west, and gives place to Notre Dame Bay, the great Archipelago of Newfoundland, of which there is comparatively little known. Our true course is nearly north, and along the eastern or Atlantic side of Fogo, which is now before us, the first and largest of some three hundred islands. For the sake of the romantic scenery, we conclude to take the inside route.
From the shores of Fogo, which are broken, and exceedingly picturesque further on, as Captain Knight informs us, the land rises into moderate hills, thinly wooded with evergreens, with here and there a little farm and dwelling. Perhaps there are twenty rural smokes in sight and a spire or two. Under the full-blown summer all looks pleasant and inviting. What will not the glorious sunshine bless and beautify? A dark and dusty garret wakes up to life and brightness, give it an open window and the morning sun.
The western headlands of Fogo are exceedingly attractive, lofty, finely broken, of a red and purplish brown, tinted here and there with pale green. The painter is busy with his colors. As we pass the bold prominences and deep, narrow bays or fiords, they are continually changing and surprising us with a new scenery. And now the great sea-wall, on our right, opens and discloses the harbor and village of Fogo, the chief place of the island, gleaming in the setting sun as if there were flames shining through the windows. Looking to the left, all the western region is one fine Ægean, a sea filled with a multitude of isles, of manifold forms and sizes, and of every height, from mountain pyramids and crested ridges down to rounded knolls and tables, rocky ruins split and shattered, giant slabs sliding edgewise into the deep, columns and grotesque masses ruffled with curling surf—the Cyclades of the west. I climb the shrouds, and behold fields and lanes of water, an endless and beautiful network, a little Switzerland with her vales and gorges filled with the purple sea.
After dinner, and nearly sunset. We are breaking away from the isles into the open Atlantic, bearing northerly for Cape St. John, where Captain Knight promises the very finest coast scenery. Far away on the blue, floats a solitary pyramid of ice, while a few miles to the east of us there stands the image of some grand Capitol, in shining marble. Looking back upon the isles, as they retire in the south and west, with the hues of sunset upon their green and cloud-like blue, we behold, the painter tells me, a likeness to some West-Indian views.
Once again the breeze swells every sail, and we are speeding forward after the icebergs. All goes merrily. It sings and cracks aloft, and roars around the prow. We speed onward. The little ship, like a very falcon, flies down the wind after the game, and promises to reach it by the last of daylight. A long line of gilding tracks the violet sea, and expands in a lake of dazzling brightness under the sun. Beneath all this press of sail, we ride on fast and steadily, as a car over the prairies. We seem to be all alive. This is fine, inexpressibly fine! This is freedom! I lean forward and look over the bow, and, like a rider in a race, feel a new delight and excitement. Wonderful and beautiful! Like the Arab on his sands, I say, almost involuntarily, God is great! How soft is the feeling of this breeze, and how balmy is the smell, “like the smell of Lebanon,” and yet how powerful to bear us onward! We rise and bow gracefully to the passing swells, but keep right on. Fogo is sinking in the south, a line of roseate heights, and fresh ice sparkles like stars on the northern horizon.
We dart off a mile or more from our right path in order to bring a small berg between us and the sun, that we may look into his sunset beauties. A dull cloud, close down upon the waves, may defeat this manœuvre. We shall conquer yet. There, he rises from the sea, a sphinx of pure white against the glowing sky, and every man aboard is as full of fine excitement as if we were to grapple with, and chain him. We pass directly under the great face, the upper line of which overlooks our top-mast. Every curve, swell and depression have the finish of the most exquisite sculpture, and all drips with silvery water as if newly risen from the deep. In the pure, white mass there is the suspicion of green. Every wave, by contrast, and by some optical effect, nearly black as it approaches, is instantly changed into the loveliest green as it rolls up to the silvery bright ice. And all the adjacent deep is a luminous pea-green. The eye follows the ice into its awful depths, and is at once startled and delighted to find that the mighty crystal hangs suspended in a vast transparency, or floats in an abyss of liquid emerald.
We pass on the shadow side, soft and delicate as satin; and changeable as costliest silk; the white, the dove-color and the green playing into each other with the subtlety and fleetness of an Aurora-Borealis. As the light streams over and around from the illuminated side, the entire outline of the berg shines like newly-burnished silver in the blaze of noon. The painter is working with all possible rapidity; but we pass too quick to harvest all this beauty: he can only glean some golden straws. A few sharp words from the captain bring the vessel to, and we pause long enough for some finishing touches. He has them, and we are off again. An iceberg is an object most difficult to study, for which many facilities, much time, and some danger are indispensable. The voyager, passing at a safe distance, really knows little or nothing of one.
Ten o’clock, and only twilight. We are now about to put up note-book and painting-box, and join our English companions in a walk up and down our little deck. Notwithstanding their familiarity with icebergs, they appear to enjoy them with as keen a zest as we, now that they are brought into this familiar contact with them. After the walk, and by candle-light in the cabin. The wind is strengthening, and promises a gale. The black and jagged coast of Twillingate island, to the south, frowns upon us, and the great pyramid berg of sunset awaits us close at hand. For some time past, it has borne the appearance of the cathedral of Milan, shorn of all its pinnacles, but it now resumes its pyramidal form, and towers, in the dusk of evening, to a great height. After a brief consultation, we resolve to slip into the harbor of Twillingate, a safe retreat from the coming storm, and there pass our first Sunday out of St. Johns. To dare this precipitous coast, haunted with icebergs, and a gale blowing right on, in so light a craft as ours, would be rash. Much as I wish to make the most of our time, I am glad to find that we are making harbor, and intend to rest, according to the law.
I cannot take my mind’s eye from the brilliant spectacle of the waves in conflict with the iceberg. I still hear the surf in the blue chasms. But with all the power of its charge, it is the merest toy to the great arctic mass, a playful kitten on the paws of the lion.
After ten, and after prayer. We are rolling most uncomfortably while we are beating towards our anchorage between the headlands of the harbor. It is midnight nearly, and yet I am not in the least sleepy. The day is so lengthy, and we are so continually stimulated with the grandeur and novelty of these scenes that it is quite troublesome to sleep at all. A few hours of slumber, so thin that the sounds on deck easily break through and wake the mind, is about all I have. We are coming about, and roll down almost upon the vessel’s side. The sails are loose, and roar in the breeze. The anchor drops home to its bed. The chain rattles and runs its length. We repose in safe waters, and I turn in thankfully to my berth.