ICE AND ESQUIMAUX.
CHAPTER II.
THE ICE IN ITS GLORY.
June 17.—On this anniversary of the Battle of Bunker's Hill we sailed from Sleupe Harbor. Little Mecatina, with its blue perspective and billowy surface, lifted itself up astern under flooding sunshine to tell us that this relentless coast could have a glory of its own; but we looked at it with dreamy, forgetful eyes, thinking of the dear land, now all tossed into wild surge and crimson spray of war, which, how far soever away, is ever present to the hearts of her true children.
Next day we dropped into the harbor of Caribou Island, a mission-station, and left again on the 20th, after a quiet Sunday,—Bradford having gone with others to church, and come back much moved by the bronze-faced earnestness, and rough-voiced, deep-chested hymning of the fisherman congregation. Far ahead we saw the strait full of ice. Not that the ice itself could be seen; but the peculiar, blue-white, vertical striæ, which stuccoed the sky far along the horizon, told experienced eyes that ice was there. Away to the right towered the long heights of Newfoundland, intensely blue, save where, over large spaces, they shone white with snow. They surprised us by their great elevation, and by the sharp and straight escarpments with which they descended. Here and there was a gorge cut through as with a saw. We then took all this in good faith, on the fair testimony of our eyes. But experience brought instruction,—as it will in superficial matters, whether in deeper ones or no. In truth, this appearance was chiefly a mirage caused by ice.
For, of all solemn prank-players, of all mystifiers and magicians, ice is the greatest. Coming out of its silent and sovereign dreamland in the North, it brings its wand, and goes wizard-working down the coast. A spell is about it; enchantment is upon it like a garment; weirdness and illusion are the breath of its nostrils. Above it, along the horizon, is a strange columned wall, an airy Giant's Causeway, pale blue, paling through ethereal gray into snow. Islands quit the sea, and become islands in the sky, sky-foam and spray seen along their bases. Hills shoot out from their summits airy capes and headlands, or assume upon their crowns a wide, smooth table, as if for the service of genii. Ships sail, bergs float, in the heavens. Here a vast obelisk of ice shoots aloft, half mountain high; you gaze at it amazed, ecstatic,—calculating the time it will take to come up with it,—whistling, if you are still capable of that levity, for a wind. But now it begins to waver, to dance slowly, to shoot up minarets and take them back, to put forth arms which change into wands, wave and disappear; and ere your wonder has found a voice, it rolls itself together like a scroll, drops nearly to the ocean-level, and is but a gigantic ice-floe after all!
The day fell calm; a calm evening came; the sea lay in soft, shining undulation, not urgent enough to exasperate the drooping sails. The ship rose and declined like a sleeper's pulse. We were all under a spell. Soon the moon, then at her full, came up, elongating herself laterally into an oval, whose breadth was not more than three fifths its length; her shine on the water likewise stretching along the horizon, sweet and fair like childhood, not a ray touching the shadowed water between. Presently, as if she discerned and did not disdain us,—wiser than "positive philosophers" in her estimate of man,—she gathered together her spreading shine, and threw it down toward us in a glade of scarcely more than her own breadth, of even width, and sharply defined at the sides. It was a regular roadway on the water, intensest gold verging upon orange, edged with an exquisite, delicate tint of scarlet, running straight and firm as a Roman road all the way from the meeting-place of sky and sea to the ship. Or rather, not quite to the ship; for, when near at hand, it broke off into golden globes, which, under the influence of the light swell, came towards us by softly sudden leaps, deepening and deepening as they came, till at the last leap they disappeared, more shining than ever, far down in the liquid, lucent heart of the sea. It was impossible to feel that these had faded, so triumphant was their close. Rather, one felt that they had been elected to a more glorious office,—had gone, perhaps, to light some hall of Thetis, or some divine, spotless revel of sea-nymphs.
I had gone below, when, at about ten o'clock, there was a hail from the deck.
"Come up and see a crack in the water!"
"A what?"
"A crack in the water!"
"Not joking?"
"No, indeed; come and see."
Up quickly! this is the day of wonders! It was a line of brilliant phosphorescence, exceedingly brilliant, about two inches wide, perfectly sharp at the edges, which extended along the side of the ship, and ahead and astern out of sight. "Crack in the water" is the seaman's name for it. I have been a full year on the water, but never saw it save this once, and had never heard of it before.
At half past eleven, the Parson and I went on deck, and read ordinary print as rapidly as by daylight. It took some ten seconds to get accustomed to the light, being fresh from the glare of the kerosene lamp; but afterwards we read aloud to each other with entire ease and fluency.
At a quarter past two, Captain Handy, a man made of fine material, with an eye for the beautiful as well as for right-whales, broke my sleep with a gentle touch, and whispered, "Come on deck, and see what a morning it is." What a morning, indeed! Thanks, old comrade! Call me next time, when there is such to see; and if I am too weak to get out of my berth, take me up in those strong arms, across that broad, billow-like chest of yours, and bear me to the deck!
It was dead calm,—no, live calm, rather; for never was calm so vivid. The swell had fallen; but the sea breathes and lives even in its sleep. Dawn was already blushing, "celestial rosy red, love's proper hue," in the—east, I was about to say, but north would be truer. The centre of its roseate arch was not more than a point (by compass) east of north. The lofty shore rose clear, dark, and sharp against the morning red; the sea was white,—white as purity, and still as peace; the moon hung opposite, clothed and half hidden in a glorified mist; a schooner lay moveless, dark-sailed, transformed into a symbol of solitude and silence, beneath. I thought of the world's myriad sleepers, and would fain have played Captain Handy to them all. But Nature is infinitely rich, and can afford to draw costly curtains about the slumber of her darling. For, without man, she were a mother ever in anguish of travail, and ever wanting a child to nurse with entire joy at her breast. Sleep on, man, while, with shadows and stars, with dying and dawning of day, not forgetting sombreness of cloud and passion of storm, the eternal mother dignifies your slumber, and waits till her two suns arise and shine together!
Morning,—ice, worlds of it, the wide straits all full! A light wind had been fanning us for the last two or three hours; and now the ice lay fair in view, just ahead. We had not calculated upon meeting it here. At Port Mulgrave they told us that the last of it had passed through with a rush about a week before. Bradford was delighted, and quickly got out his photographic sickle to reap this unexpected harvest: for the wise man had brought along with him a fine apparatus and a skilful photographer. In an hour or two the schooner was up with it, and finding it tolerably open, while the wind was a zephyr, and the sea smooth as a pond, we entered into its midst. Water-fowl—puffins, murres, duck, and the like—hung about it, furnishing preliminary employment to those of our number who sought sport or specimens. It was a delightsome day, the whole of it: atmosphere rare, pure, perfect; sun-splendor in deluge; land, a cloud of blue and snow on one side, and a tossed and lofty paradise of glowing gray, purple, or brown, on the other. The day would have been hot but for being tempered by the ice. This seasoned its shining warmth with a crisp, exhilarating quality, making the sunshine and summer mildness like iced sherry or Madeira. It is unlike anything known in more southern climates. There are days in March that would resemble it, could you take out of them the damp, the laxness of nerve, and the spring melancholy. There are days in October that come nearer; but these differ by their delicious half-languors, while, by their gorgeousness of autumn foliage, and their relation to the oldening year, they are made quite unlike in spirit. This day warmed like summer and braced like winter.
Once fairly taken into the bosom of the ice-field, we had eyes for little else. Its forms were a surprise, so varied and so beautiful. I had supposed that field-ice was made up of flat cakes,—and cake of all kinds is among the flattest things I know! But here if was, simulating all shapes, even those of animated creatures, with the art of a mocking bird,—and simulating all in a material pure as amber, though more varied in color. One saw about him cliffs, basaltic columns, frozen down, arabesques, fretted traceries, sculptured urns, arches supporting broad tables or sloping roofs, lifted pinnacles, boulders, honey-combs, slanting strata of rock, gigantic birds, mastodons, maned lions, couching or rampant,—a fantasy of forms, and, between all, the shining, shining sea. In sunshine, these shapes were of a glistening white flecked with stars, where at points the white was lost in the glisten; in half shadow the color was gray, in full shadow aërial purple; while, wherever the upper portions projected over the sea, and took its reflection, they often did, the color was an infinite, emerald intensity of green; beneath all which, under water, was a base or shore of dead emerald, a green paled with chalk. Blue was not this day seen, perhaps because this was shore-ice rather than floe,—made, not like the floes, of frozen sea, but of compacted and saturated snow.
Just before evening came, when the courteous breeze folded its light fans fell asleep, we left this field behind, and, seeing all clear ahead, supposed the whole had been passed. In truth, as had soon to learn, this twenty-mile strip of shore-ice was but the advance-guard of an immeasurable field or army of floe. For there came down the northern coast, in this summer of 1864, more than a thousand miles' length, with a breadth of about a hundred miles, of floe-ice in a field almost unbroken! More than a thousand miles, by accurate computation! The courtesy of the Westerner—who, having told of seeing a flock of pigeons nine miles long, so dense as to darken the sun at noonday, and meeting objections from a skeptical Yankee, magnanimously offered, as a personal favor, to "take out a quarter of a mile from the thinnest part"—cannot be imitated here. I must still say more than a thousand miles,—and this, too, the second run of ice!
Captain Linklater, master of the Moravian supply-ship, a man of acute observation and some science, had, as he afterwards told me at Hopedale, measured the rate of travel of the ice, and found it to be twenty-seven miles a day. Our passengers were sure they saw it going at the rate of three or four miles an hour. Captain Handy, looking with experienced eye, pronounced this estimate excessive, and said it went from one to one and a half miles an hour,—twenty-four to thirty-six miles a day. Captain Linklater, however, had not trusted the question to his judgment, but established the rate by accurate scientific observation. Now we were headed off by the ice and driven into as harbor on the 22d of June; we left Hopedale and began our return on the 4th of August; and between these two periods the ice never ceased running. The Moravian ship, which entered the harbor of Hopedale half a mile ahead of us, on the 31st of July, pushed through it, and found it eighty-five miles wide. Toward the last it was more scattered, and at times could not be seen from the coast. But it was there; and on the day before our departure from Hopedale, August 3, this cheering intelligence arrived:—"The ice is pressing in upon the islands outside, and an easterly wind would block us in!"
What becomes of this ice? Had one lain in wait for it two hundred miles farther south, it is doubtful if he would have seen of it even a vestige. It cannot melt away so quickly: a day amidst it satisfies any one of so much. Whither does it go?
Put that question to a sealer or fisherman, and he will answer, "It sinks."
"But," replies that cheerful and confident gentleman, Mr. Current Impression, "ice doesn't sink; ice floats." Grave Science, too, says the same.
I believe that Ignorance is right for once. You are becalmed in the midst of floating ice. The current bears you and it together; but next morning the ice has vanished! You rub your eyes, but the fact is one not to be rubbed out; the ice was, and isn't, there! No evidence exists that it can fly, like riches; therefore I think it sinks. I have seen it, too, not indeed in the very act of sinking, but so water-logged as barely to keep its nose out. A block four cubic feet in dimension lay at a subsequent time beside the ship, and there was not a portion bigger than a child's fist above water. Watching it, again, when it has been tolerably well sweltered, you will see air-bubbles incessantly escaping. Evidently, the air which it contains is giving place to water. Now it is this air, I judge, which keeps it afloat; and when the process of displacement has sufficiently gone on, what can it do but drown, as men do under the circumstances? This reasoning may be wrong; but the fact remains. The reasoning is chiefly a guess; yet, till otherwise informed, I shall say, the ice-lungs get full of water, and it goes down.
But we have wandered while the light waned, and now return. It was a gentle evening. That "day, so cool, so calm, so bright," died sweetly, as such a day should. The moon rose, not a globe, but a tall cone of silver,—silver that blushed; ice-magic again. But she recovered herself, and reigned in her true shape, queen of the slumber-courts; and the world slept, and we with it; and in our cabin the sleep-talk was quieted to ripples of murmur.
June 22.—Rush! Rush! The water was racing past the ship's side, close to my ear, as I awoke early. On deck: the strait ahead was packed from shore to shore with ice, like a boy's brain with fancies; and before a jolly gale we were skimming into the harbor of Belles Amours. Five days here: tedious. The main matters here were a sand-beach, a girl who read and loved Wordsworth, a wood-thrush, a seal-race, a "killer's" head, and a cascade.
Item, sand-beach, with green grass, looking like a meadow, beyond. Not intrinsically much of an affair. The beach, on close inspection, proved soft and dirty, the grass sedge, the meadow a bog. In the distance, however, and as a variety in this unswarded cliff-coast, it was sweet, I laugh now to think how sweet, to the eyes.
Item, girl. There was one house in the harbor; not another within three miles. Here dwelt a family who spoke English,—not a patois, but English,—rare in Labrador as politicians in heaven. The French Canadians found in Southern Labrador speak a kind of skim-milk French, with a little sour-milk English; the Newfoundland Labradorians say "Him's good for he," and in general use a very "scaly" lingo, learned from cod-fish, one would think. Here was a mother, acceptable to Lindley Murray, who had instructed her children. One of these—S——, our best social explorer, found her out—owned and read a volume of Plato, and had sent to L'anse du Loup, twenty-four miles, to borrow a copy of Wordsworth. This was her delight. She had copied considerable portions of it with her own hand, and could repeat from memory many and many a page.
"Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear;
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air."
But Heaven has its own economies; and perhaps floral "sweetness" is quite as little wasted upon the desert as upon Beacon Street or Fifth Avenue.
Item, a bird. We were seeking trout,—only to obtain a minnow tricked in trout-marks. The boat crept slowly up a deep, solemn cove, over which, on either side, hung craggy and precipitous hills; while at its head was a slope covered with Liliputian forest, through which came down a broad brook in a series of snowy terraces. It was a superb day, bright and bracing,—just bracing enough to set the nerves without urging them, and exalt one to a sense of vigorous repose. The oars lingered, yet not lazily, on the way; there seemed time enough for anything. At length we came, calm, wealthy in leisure, silently cheerful, to a bit of pleasant yellow beach between rocks. And just as our feet were touching the tawny sands,—
"The sweetest throat of Solitude
Unbarred her silver gates, and slowly hymned
To the great heart of Silence, till it beat
Response with all its echoes: for from out
That far, immortal orient, wherein
His soul abides 'mid morning skies and dews,
A wood-thrush, angel of the tree-top heaven,
Poured clear his pure soprano through the place,
Deepening the stillness with diviner calm,
That gave to Silence all her inmost heart
In melody."
It was a regal welcome. What is like the note of the wood-thrush?—so full of royalty and psalm and sabbath! Regal in reserve, however, no less than utterance, the sovereign songster gave a welcome only, and then was silent; while a fine piping warbler caught up the theme, and discoursed upon it with liberal eloquence. The place to hear the song of the wood-thrush is wherever you can attain to that enjoyment by walking five or ten miles; the place so to hear it that the hearing shall be, by sober estimation, among the memorable events of your life, is at the head of a solemn, sunny cove, on three yards of tawny beach, in the harbor of Belles Amours, Labrador.
Item, seal-race. The male seals fight with fury in the season of their rude loves. Two of these had had a battle; the vanquished was fleeing, the victor after him. They were bounding from the water like dolphins. For some time I thought them such, though I have seen dolphins by thousands. It was a surprise to see these leisurely and luxurious animals spattering the water in such an ecstasy of amative rage.
Item, "killer." This is a savage cetacean, probably the same with the "thrasher," about fifteen feet in length, blunt-nosed, strong of jaw, with cruel teeth. On its back is a fin beginning about two thirds the way from tip to tail, running close to the latter, and then sloping away to a point, like the jib of a ship. In the largest this is some five feet long on the back, and eight or ten feet in height,—so large, that, when the creature is swimming on the surface, a strong side-wind will sometimes blow it over. It is a blue-fish on a big scale, or a Semmes in the sea, hungry as famine, fierce as plague, dainty as a Roman epicure, yet omnivorous as time. The seal is its South-Down mutton, the tongue of the whale its venison; for whenever its numbers are sufficient, it will attack this huge cetacean, and torture him till he submits and gives a horrible feast to their greed. Captain Handy had seen thirty or forty of them at this business. They fly with inconceivable fury at their victim, aiming chiefly at the lip, tearing great mouthfuls away, which they instantly reject while darting for another. The bleeding and bellowing monster goes down like a boulder from a cliff, shoots up like a shell from a mortar, beats the sea about him all into crimsoned spray with his tail; but plunge, leap, foam as he may, the finny pirates flesh their teeth in him still, still are fresh in pursuit, until at length, to end one torment by submitting to another, the helpless giant opens his mouth, and permits these sea-devils to devour the quivering morsel they covet. A big morsel; for the tongue of the full-sized right-whale weighs a ton and a half, and yields a ton of oil. The killer is sometimes confounded with the grampus. The latter is considerably larger, has a longer and slenderer jaw, less round at the muzzle, smaller teeth, and "isn't so clean a made fish"; for, in nautical parlance, cetaceans are still fish. Killers frequently try to rob whalers of their prize, and sometimes actually succeed in carrying it down, despite the lances and other weapons with which their attack is so strenuously resisted.
Item, cascade. A snowy, broken stripe down a mountain-side; taken to be snow till the ear better informed the eye. Fine; but you need not go there to see.
June 26.—Off to Henley Harbor, sixty-five miles, at the head of the Strait of Belle Isle. Belle Isle itself—sandstone, rich, the Professor said, in ancient fossils—lay in view. The anchor went down in deep water, close beside the notable Castle Island.
There were some considerable floes in the harbor, the largest one aground in a passage between the two islands by which it is formed. And now came the blue of pure floe-ice! There is nothing else like it on this earth, but the sapphire gem in its perfection; and this is removed from the comparison by its inferiority in magnitude. This incomparable hue appears wherever deep shadow is interposed between the eye and any intense, shining white. The floe in question contained two caverns excavated by the sea, both of which were partially open toward the ship. And out of these shone, shone on us, the cerulean and sapphire glory! Beyond this were the deep blue waters of York Bay; farther away, grouped and pushing down, headland behind headland, into the bay, rose the purple gneiss hills, broad and rounded, and flecked with party-colored moss; while nearer glowed this immortal blue eye, like the bliss of eternity looking into time!
Next day we rowed close to this: I hardly know how we dared! Heavens! such blue! It grew, as we looked into the ice-cavern, deeper, intenser, more luminous, more awful in beauty, the farther inward, till in the depths it became not only a shrine to worship at, but a presence to bow and be silent before! It is said that angels sing and move in joy before the Eternal; but there I learned that silence is their only voice, and stillness their ecstatic motion!
Meanwhile the portals of this sapphire sanctuary were of a warm rose hue, rich and delicate,—looking like the blush of mortal beauty at its nearness to the heavenly.
Bradford is all right in painting the intensest blue possible,—due care, of course, being taken not to extend it uniformly over large surfaces. If he can secure any suggestion of the subtilty and luminousness,—if he can! As I come back, and utter a word, he says that the only way will be to glaze over a white ground. It had already struck me, that, as this is the method by which Nature obtains such effects, it must be the method for Art also. He is on the right track. And how the gentle soul works!
But while outward Nature here assumed aspects of beauty so surpassing, man, as if to lend her the emphasis of contrast, appeared in the sorriest shape. I name him here, that I may vindicate his claim to remembrance, even when he is a blot upon the beauty around him. I will not forget him, even though I can think of him only with shame. To remember, however, is here enough. We will go back to Nature,—though she, too, can suckle "killers."
On the evening before our departure,—for we remained several days, and had a snow-storm meanwhile,—there was a glorious going down of the sun over the hills beyond York Bay, with a tender golden mist filling all the western heavens, and tinting air and water between. So Nature renewed her charm. And with that sun setting on Henley Harbor, we leave for the present the miserable, magnificent place.
June 30.—Iceberg! An iceberg! The real thing at last! We left Henley at ten a. m., and were soon coming up with a noble berg. Its aspect, on our near approach, was that of a vast roof rising at one end, beside which, and about half its height, was the upper third of an enormous cylinder. Passing to the west, along one side of this roof, we beheld a vast cavernous depression, making a concave line in its ridge, and then dipping deep, beyond view, into the berg. The sharp upper rim of this depression came between us and the sky, with the bright shine of the forenoon sun beyond, and showed a skirt or fringe of infinitely delicate luminous green, whose contrast with the rich marble-white of the general structure was beautiful exceedingly. With the exception of this, and of a narrow blue seam, looking like lapis-lazuli, which ran diagonally from summit to base, the broad surface of this side had the look of snow-white marble lace or fretwork. Passing thence to the north face, we came apparently upon the part at which the berg separated from its parent glacier. Here was a new effect, and one of great beauty. In material it resembled the finest statuary marble,—but rather the crystalline marbles of Vermont, with their brilliant half-sparkle, than the dead polish of the Parian; while the form and character of this façade suggested some fascinating, supernatural consent of chance and art, of fracture with sculpturesque and architectural design.
"He works in rings, in magic rings, of chance,"—
the subtlest thing ever said of Turner,—might have been spoken even more truly of the workman who wrought this. The apparent fineness of material cannot be overstated, so soft and powerful. "A porcelain fracture," said Ph——,—well. Yet such porcelain! It were the despair of China. On the eastern, or cylinder side, there was next the water a strip of intensely polished surface, surmounted by an elaborate level cornice, and above this the marble lace again.
The schooner soon tacked, and returned. As again we pass the cathedral cliff on the north, and join the western side with this in one view, we are somewhat prepared by familiarity to mingle its majesty and beauty, and take from them a single impression. The long Cyclopean wall and vast Gothic roof of the side, including many an arched, rounded, and waving line, emphasized by straight lines of blue seam, are set off against the strange shining traceries of the façade; while the union of flower-like softness and eternal strength, the fretted silver of surface, the combination of peak and cave, the fringe of blazing emerald on the ridge, the glancing, flashing lights contrasting with twilight blues and purples of deep shadow, and over all the stainless azure, and beneath and around all a sea of beryl strown with sun-dust,—these associate to engrave on the soul an impression which even death and the tomb, I would fain believe, will be powerless to efface. And if Art study hard and labor long and vehemently aspire to publish the truth of this, she does well. Her task is worthy, but is not easy: I think a greater, of the kind, has never been attempted. The height of this berg was determined by instruments—but with a conjecture only of the distance—to be one hundred and eighteen feet. Captain Brown, however, who went aloft, and thence formed a judgment, pronounced it not less than one hundred and fifty feet. One naturally inclines to the more moderate computation. But, as subsequent experience showed me that judgments of distance in such cases are almost always below the mark, I am of opinion that here, as sometimes in politics and religion, seeming moderation may be less accurate than seeming excess.
And, by the way, Noble's descriptions of icebergs, which, in the absence of personal observation, might seem excessive, are of real value. Finding a copy of his book on board, I read it with pleasure, having first fully made my own notes,—and refer to him any reader who may have appetite for more after concluding this chapter.
Early this evening we entered between bold cliffs into Square Island Harbor, latitude about 53°. It is a deep and deeply sheltered dog's hole,—dogs and dirt could make it such,—but overhung by purple hills, which proved, on subsequent inspection, to be largely composed of an impure labradorite. Labradorite, the reader may know, is a crystallized feldspar, with traces of other minerals. In its pure state it is opalescent, exhibiting vivid gleams of blue, green, gold, and copper-color, and, more rarely, of rose,—and is then, and deservedly, reckoned a precious stone. The general character of the rock here is sienitic; but, besides this peculiar quality of feldspar, the hornblende appears as actinolite, (ray-stone,) so called from the form of its crystallization; while the quartz element is faintly present, or appears in separate masses. The purple of the hills is due not only to the labradorite, which has that as a stable color, but also to a purple lichen, which clothes much of the rock on this coast. I found also fine masses of mica imbedded in quartz, edge upwards, and so compact that its lamination was not perceptible. Indeed, I did not, with my novice eyes, immediately recognize it, for it appeared a handsome copper-colored rock, projecting slightly from the quartz, as if more enduring.
Next day there was trouting, with a little, and but a little, better than the usual minnow result.
And on the next, the floe-ice poured in and packed the harbor like a box of sardines. The scene became utterly Arctic,—rock above, and ice below. Rock, ice, and three imprisoned ships; which last, in their helpless isolation, gave less the sense of companionship than of a triple solitude. And when next day, Sunday, the third day of July, I walked ashore on the ice with a hundred feet of water beneath, summer seemed a worn-out tradition, and one felt that the frozen North had gone out over the world as to a lawful inheritance.
But the new Czar reigned in beauty, if also in terror. Yard-wide spaces of emerald, amethyst, sapphire, yellow-green beryl, and rose-tinted crystal, grew as familiar to the eye as paving-blocks to the dwellers in cities. The shadows of the ice were also of a violet purple, so ethereal that it required a painter's eye at once to see it, though it was unmistakably there; and to represent it will task the finest painter's hand. Then the spaces of water between the floes, if not too large, appeared uniformly in deep wine-color,—an effect for which one must have more science than I to account. It is attributed to contrast; but if thus illusive, it is at least an illusion not to be looked out of countenance. No local color could assert itself more firmly. One marvellous morning, too, a dense, but translucent, mist hovered closely, beneath strong sunshine, over the ice, lending to its innumerable fantastic forms a new, weird, witching, indescribable, real-unreal strangeness, as if the ice and the ships it inclosed and we ourselves were all but embodied dreams, half come to consciousness, and rubbing our surprised moon-eyes to gaze upon each other. The power of this mist to multiply distance was not the least part of its witchery. A schooner ten rods off looked as far away as Cadmus and Abraham.
P—— was made happy by finding here a grasshopper, which subsequently proved, however, a prize indeed,—but not quite so much of a prize as he hoped, being probably the young of a species previously known as Alpine, rather than an adult identical with one found on the summit of Mount Washington.
During the latter part of our duress here we were driven below by raw, incessant rain, and the confinement became irksome. At length, during the day and night of July 14th, the ice finally made off with itself, and the next morning the schooner followed suit. The ice, however, had not done with us. It lingered near the land, while farther out it was seen in solid mass, making witch-work, as usual, on the northern and eastern sky; and we were soon dodging through the more open portion, still dense enough, close to the coast. It was dangerous business. A pretty breeze blew; and with anything of a wind our antelope of a schooner took to her heels with speed. Lightly built,—not, like vessels designed for this coast, double-planked and perhaps iron-prowed,—she would easily have been staved by a shock upon this adamantine ice. The mate stood at the bow, shouting, "Luff! Bear away! Hard up! Hard down!" And his voice wanting strength and his articulation distinctness, I was fain, at the pinch of the game, to come to his aid, and trumpet his orders after him with my best stentorship. The old pilot had taken the helm; but his nerves were unequal to his work; and a younger man was sent to take his place. Once or twice the ship struck smaller masses of ice, but at so sharp an angle as to push them and herself mutually aside, and slide past without a crash. But a wind from the land was steadily urging the floe-field away, and at length the sea before us lay clear.
At ten a. m., we drew up to a majestic berg, and "came to,"—that is, brought the schooner close by the wind. The berg was one of the noblest. Picture to yourself two most immense Gothic churches without transepts, each with a tower in front. Place these side by side, but at a remove equal to about half their length. Build up now the space between the two towers, extending this connection back so that it shall embrace the front third or half of the churches, leaving an open green court in the rear, and you have a general conception of this piece of Northern architecture. The rear of each church, however, instead of ascending vertically, sloped at an angle of about ten degrees, and, instead of having sharp corners, was exquisitely rounded. Elsewhere also were many rounded and waving lines, where the image of a church would suggest straightness. Nevertheless, you are to cling with force to that image in shaping to your mind's eye a picture of this astonishing cathedral.
Since seeing the former berg, we had heard many tales of the danger of approaching them. The Newfoundlanders and natives have of them a mortal terror,—never going, if it can be avoided, nearer than half a mile, and then always on the leeward side. "They kill the wind," said these people, so that one in passing to windward is liable to be becalmed, and to drift down upon them,—to drift upon them, because there is always a tide setting in toward them. They chill the water, it descends, and other flows in to assume its place. These fears were not wholly groundless. Icebergs sometimes burst their hearts suddenly, with an awful explosion, going into a thousand pieces. After they begin to disintegrate, moreover, immense masses from time to time crush down from above or surge up from beneath; and on all such occasions, proximity to them is obviously not without its perils. "The Colonel," brave, and a Greenland voyager, was more nervous about them than anybody else. He declared, apparently on good authority, that the vibration imparted to the sea by a ship's motion, or even that communicated to the air by the human voice, would not unfrequently give these irritable monsters the hint required for a burst of ill-temper,—and averred also that our schooner, at the distance of three hundred yards, would be rolled over, like a child's play-boat, by the wave which an exploding or over-setting iceberg would cause. And it might, indeed, be supposed, that, did one of those prodigious creations take a notion to disport its billions of tons in a somersault, it would raise no trivial commotion.
At a distance, these considerations weighed with me. I heard them respectfully, was convinced, and silently resolved not to urge, indeed, so far as I properly might, to discourage, nearness of approach. But here all these convictions vanished away. I knew that some icebergs were treacherous, but they were others, not this! There it stood in such majesty and magnificence of marble strength, that all question of its soundness was shamed out of me,—or rather, would have been shamed, had it arisen. This was not sentiment,—it was judgment,—my judgment,—perhaps erroneous, yet a judgment formed from the facts as I saw them. Therefore I determined to launch the light skiff which Ph—— and I had bought at Sleupe Harbor, and row up to the berg, perhaps lay my hand upon it.
As the skiff went over the gunwale, the Parson cried,—
"Shall I go with you?"
"Yes, indeed, if you wish."
He seated himself in the stern; I assumed the oars, (I row cross-handed, with long oars, and among amateur oarsmen am a little vain of my skill) and pulled away. It was a longer pull than I had thought,—suggesting that our judgment of distances had been insufficient, and that the previous berg was higher than our measurement had made it.
Our approach was to rear of the berg,—that is, to the court or little bay before mentioned. The temptation to enter was great, but I dared not; for the long, deep ocean-swell over which the skiff skimmed like a duck, not only without danger, but without the smallest perturbation, broke in and out here with such force that I knew the boat would instantly be swept out of my possession. The Parson, however, always reckless of peril in his enthusiasm, and less experienced, cried,—
"In! in! Push the boat in!"
"No, the swell is too heavy; it will not do."
"Fie upon the swell! Never mind what will do! In!"
I sympathized too much with him to answer otherwise than by laying my weight upon the oars, and pushing silently past. The water in this bit of bay was some six or eight feet deep, and the ice beneath it—for the berg was all solid below—showed in perfection that crystalline tawny green which belongs to it under such circumstances. I pulled around the curving rear of the eastern church, with its surface of marble lace, such as we had seen before, gazing upward and upward at the towering awfulness and magnificence of edifice, myself frozen in admiration. The Parson, under high excitement, rained his hortative oratory upon me.
"Nearer! Nearer! Let's touch it! Let's lay our hands upon it! Don't be faint-hearted now. It's now or never!"
I heard him as one under the influence of chloroform hears his attendants. He exhorted a stone. His words only seemed to beat and flutter faintly against me, like storm-driven birds against a cliff at night. My brain was only in my eyeballs; and the arms that worked mechanically at the oars belonged rather to the boat than to me.
Saturated at last, if not satiated, with seeing, I glanced at the water-level, and said,—
"But see how the surge is heaving against it!"
But now it was I that spoke to stone, though not to a silent one.
"Hang the surge! I'm here for an iceberg, not to be balked by a bit of surf! It's not enough to see; I must have my hand on it! I wish to touch the veritable North Pole!"
It was pleasant to see the ever-genial Parson so peremptory; and I lingered half wilfully, not unwilling to mingle the relieving flavor of this pleasure with the more awful delight of other impressions: said, however, at length,—
"I intend to go up to it, when I have found a suitable place."
"Place! What better place do you desire than this?"
I could but smile and pull on.
Caution was not unnecessary. The sea rose and fell a number of feet beside the berg, beating heavily against it with boom and hiss; and I knew well, that, if our boat struck fairly, especially if it struck sidewise, it would be whirled over and over in two seconds. Besides, where we then were, there was a cut of a foot or more into the berg at the water-level,—or rather, it was excavated below, with this projection above; and had the skiff caught under that, we would drown. I had come there not to drown, nor to run any risk, but to get some more intimate acquaintance with an iceberg. Rowing along, therefore, despite the Parson's moving hortatives, I at length found a spot where this projection did not appear. Turning now the skiff head on, I drove it swiftly toward the berg; then, when its headway was sufficient, shipped the oars quickly, slipped into the bow, and, reaching forth my hand and striking the berg, sent the boat in the same instant back with all my force, not suffering it to touch.
"Now me! Now me!" shouted the Parson, brow hot, and eyes blazing. "You're going to give me a chance, too? I would not miss it for a kingdom!"
"Yes; wait, wait."
I took the oars, got sea-room, then turned its stern, where the Parson sat, toward the iceberg, and backed gently in.
"Put your hand behind you; reach out as far as you can; sit in the middle; keep cool, cool; don't turn your body."
"Cool, oh, yes! I'm cool as November," he said, with a face misty as a hot July morning with evaporating dew. As his hand struck the ice, I bent the oars, and we shot safely away.
"Hurrah! hurrah!" he shouted, making the little boat rock and tremble,—"hurrah! This, now, is the 'adventurous travel' we were promised. Now I am content, if we get no more."
"Cool; you'll have us over."
"Pooh! Who's cooler?"
We went leisurely around this glacial cathedral. The current set with force about it, running against us on the eastern side. At the front we found the "cornice" again, about twenty feet up, sloping to the water, and dipping beneath it on either side; below it, a crystal surface; above, marble fretwork. This cornice indicates a former sea-level, showing that the berg has risen or changed position. This must have taken place, probably, by the detachment of masses; so an occurrence of this kind was not wholly out of question, after all. There is always, however,—so I suspect,—some preliminary warning, some audible crack or visible vibration. I had kept in mind the possibility of such changes, and at the slightest intimation should have darted away,—a movement favored by the lightness of the skiff, and the extreme ease with which, under the advantage of a beautiful model, she was rowed.
A sense of awe, almost of fear, crept over me now that the adventure was over, and I looked up to the mighty towers of the façade with a somewhat humbled eye; and so, pulling slowly and respectfully along the western side, made away, solemn and satisfied, to the ship.
I expected a storm of criticism on our return, but found calm. The boat was hoisted in silently, and I hurried below, to lie down and enjoy the very peculiar entertainment which vigorous rowing was sure to afford me.
Released after a half-hour's toasting on the gridiron, I went on deck and found the Parson surrounded by a cloud of censure. The words "boyish foolhardiness," catching my ear, flushed me with some anger,—to which emotion I am not, perhaps, of all men least liable. So I stumped a little stiffly to the group, and said,—
"I don't feel myself altogether a boy, and foolhardiness is not my forte."
"Well, success is wisdom," said the Colonel, placably. "You have succeeded, and now have criticism at a disadvantage, I own."
Another, however,—not a braver man on board,—stood to his guns.
"Experienced men say that it is dangerous; I hear to them till I have experience myself."
"Right, if so it stands in your mind. You judge thus: you follow your judgment. I judge partly so, and partly otherwise, and I follow my judgment. Mere experience is but a purblind wisdom, after all. When I do not at all see my own way, I follow that, still aware of its imperfections; where eyes are of service, I use them, learning from experience caution, not submission. The real danger in this case was that of being dashed against the berg; with coolness and some skill" (was there a little emphasis on this word skill?) "that danger could be disarmed. For any other danger I was ready, but did not fear it. 'Boyish?' The boyish thing, I take it, is always to be a pendant upon other people's alarms. I prefer rather to be kite than its tail only."
"Well, each of us does follow his own judgment," replied Candor; "you act as you think; I think you are wrong. If it were shooting a Polar bear now,—there's pleasure in that, and it were worth the while to run some risk."
We had tried for a bear together. I seized my advantage.
"It is a pleasure to you to shoot a bear. So to me also. But I would rather get into intimacy with an iceberg than freight the ship with bears."
He smiled an end to the colloquy. As I went below, Captain Handy, the Arctic whaler, met me with,—
"I would as lief as not spend a week on that berg! I have made fast to such, and lain for days. All depends on the character of the berg. If it's rotting, look out! If it's sound as that one, you may go to sleep on it."
I hastened up to proclaim my new ally. "You heed experience; hear Captain Handy." And I launched his bolt at the head of Censure, and saw it duck, if no more.
We saw after this, going and returning, many bergs, hundreds in all. With one of the finest, a little more broken and varied than those previously described, we came up at a little past noon, and the schooner stood off and on while Bradford went in the boat to sketch it in color,—Captain Handy's steady and skilful hand upon the sculling-oar. Bradford worked at it like a beaver all the afternoon, and then directed the schooner to lie to through the night, that he might resume his task in the morning,—coveting especially the effects of early light The ardent man was off before three o'clock. Nature was kind to him; he sketched the berg under a dawn of amber and scarlet, followed by floods on floods of morning gold; and returned to breakfast, after five hours' work, half in rapture and half in despair. The colors, above all, the purples, were inconceivable, he said, and there was no use trying to render them. I reminded him of Ruskin's brave words:—"He that is not appalled by his tasks will do nothing great." But his was an April despair, after all, with rifted clouds and spring sunshine pouring through.
Another memorable one was seen outside while we were in harbor, storm-bound. A vast arch went through the very heart of it, while each end rose to a pinnacle,—the arch blue, blue! We were going out to it; but, during the second night of storm, its strength broke, and beneath blinding snow there remained only a mad dance of waves over the wreck of its majesty.
There was another, curiously striped with diagonal dirt-bands, whose fellowship, however, the greens and purples did not disdain.
Another had the shape of three immense towers, seeming to stand on the water, more than a hundred feet of sea rolling between. The tallest tower could not be much less than two hundred feet in height; the others slightly, just perceptibly, lower. This was seen in rain, and the purples here were more crystalline and shining than any others which I observed.
These towers were seen on our last day among the bergs. In my memory they are monumental. They stand there, a purple trinity, to commemorate the terrors and glories that I shall behold no more.