Notwithstanding the danger which I incurred from my former expedition to the Northern Ocean, I was persuaded to take the command of a whaler about to proceed to those latitudes: we sailed from Marseilles early in the year that we might arrive at the northward in good time, and be able to quit the Frozen Ocean before the winter had set in. We were very fortunate on our arrival at Baffin’s Bay, and very soon had eighteen fish on board. The autumn was hardly commenced before I proposed to return, and we were steering in a southerly direction, when we encountered two or three large icebergs, upon the edges of which the walruses or sea-horses were lying in herds. As we had some casks still empty, I determined to fill them with the oil to be obtained from these animals, and hoisted out my boats to attack them. We killed a large number, which we sent on board, and continued our fishery with great success, having only lost one boat, the bottom plank of which had been bitten out by the tusks of one of these unwieldy animals. Of a sudden the wind changed to the southward, and the small icebergs which were then to windward rapidly closed with the large one upon which we were fishing. The harpooners observed it, and recommended me to return to the ship, but I was so amused with the sport that I did not heed their advice. A sea-horse was lying in a small cave accidentally formed on the upright edge of the iceberg, and wishing to attack him, I directed my boat to pull towards it. At this time there was not more than twenty yards of water between the two icebergs, and a sudden squall coming on, they closed with great rapidity. The men in the other boats immediately pulled away, and, as I afterwards learnt, when I arrived at Marseilles, they escaped, and returned home in the ship; but those in mine, who were intent upon watching me, as I stood in the bow of the boat with the harpoon to strike the animal, did not perceive the danger until the stern of the boat was touched by the other iceberg. The two now coming within the attraction of cohesion of floating bodies, were dashed like lightning one against the other, jamming the men, as well as the boat, into atoms.
Being in the bow of the boat, and hearing the crash, I had just time, in a moment of desperation, to throw myself into the cave upon the back of the sea-horse, when the two enormous bodies of ice came in contact—the noise I have no doubt was tremendous, but I did not hear it, as I was immediately enclosed in the ice. Although at first there were interstices, yet, as the southerly gale blew the icebergs before it into the northern region, all was quickly cemented together by the frost, and I found myself pent up in an apartment not eight feet square, in company with a sea-horse.
I shall not detain your highness by describing my sensations: my ideas were, that I was to exist a certain time, and then die for want of fresh air; but they were incorrect. At first, indeed, the cave was intolerably hot from the accumulation of breath, and I thought I should soon be suffocated. I recollected all my past sins, I implored for mercy, and lay down to die; but I found that the ice melted away with the heat, and that, in so doing, a considerable portion of the air was liberated, so that in a few minutes my respiration became more free. The animal in the meantime, apparently frightened at his unusual situation, was perfectly quiet; and, as the slightest straw will be caught at by the drowning man, so did the idea of my preservation come into my head. I considered how much air so enormous an animal must consume, and determined upon despatching him, that I might have more for my own immediate wants. I took out my knife, and inserting it between the vertebral bones that joined his head to his neck, divided the spinal marrow, and he immediately expired.
When I found that he was quite dead, I crawled from his shoulders, and took up a more convenient berth in that part of the cave which was before his head, to which I had been afraid to venture while the animal was alive, lest he should attack me with his enormous tusks. The air soon became more pure, and I breathed freely. Your highness may be surprised at the assertion; but, whether I obtained air from the ice itself, or whether the ice was sufficiently porous to admit of it, I know not; but from that time I had no difficulty of respiration. In our country we have had instances of women and children, who have been buried in the snow for two months, and yet have been taken out alive, and have recovered, although they had little or no nourishment during their inhumation. I recollected this, and aware that the carcase of the animal would supply me for years, I began to indulge a hope that I might yet be saved, if driven sufficiently to the southward to admit of my being thawed out. I was convinced that the ice about me could not be more than six or eight feet thick, as I had sufficient light to distinguish the day from the night. Afterwards my eye-sight became so much more acute, that I could see very well to every corner of the cave in which I was embedded.
During the first month the calls of hunger obliged me to make frequent attacks upon the carcase of the sea-horse; after that, my appetite decreased, until at length I would not touch a mouthful of food in a week,—I presume from the want of fresh air and exercise, neither of which I could be said to enjoy. I had been about two months in this hole, when a violent shock like that of an earthquake took place, and I fell from the top of the cave to the bottom, and for a minute was knocked about like a pea in a rattle. I had almost lost my senses before it was over, and I found myself lying upon what was before the top of the cave. From these circumstances I inferred that the iceberg in which I was inclosed had come in contact with another, and that I had been broken off from it, and was floating on the sea with other pieces, which, when collected in large quantities, are termed a floe of ice. Whether my situation was changed for the better I knew not, but the change inspired me with fresh hopes. I now calculated that five months had elapsed, and that it was the depth of winter, therefore I had no chance of being released until the ensuing spring.
“Allah wakbar, God is every where!” interrupted the pacha. “But I wish to know, Huckaback, how you were so exactly aware of the time which had passed away.”
“Min bashi, and head of thousands!” replied Huckaback, “I will explain to your highness. I once jammed my nail at the bottom, and I expected to lose it. It did not however come off but grew up as before, and I had the curiosity to know how often people changed their nails in the course of a year. It was exactly two months, and from this I grounded my calculations. I observed specks on my nails, and as they grew up, so did I calculate time.”
“Mashallah, how wonderful is God! Wallah thaib! Well said, by Allah! I never should have thought of that,” observed the pacha. “Proceed with your story.”