They saw so many icebergs before they reached Cape Farewell that they ceased to fear them. Nothing very tremendous, though, but of all sizes, mostly covered with snow, and of shapes the most fantastic. Everything on earth seemed to be mimicked in shape by these bergs. Churches and houses, or halls with domes and minarets, were common objects. Furniture of all kinds came next in order of frequency; then came animals of all sorts, pigs, sheep, lions, bears, giraffes, geese, swans, horses, cattle, cocks, and hens. And the most amusing part of the business was this: as the ship sailed past them, or through the midst of them, they kept altering their shapes or forms with the greatest coolness, so to speak.
A giraffe, for instance, developed into a ginger-beer bottle, a cow turned into a cab, a church into a chair, a pig became a pigeon, and a hen a horse, while, perhaps, a monster lion or couchant bear became a daft-looking old wife with a flap-cap on. It was funny.
Some of the smaller of these icebergs were tenanted by seals.
What a delightfully easy life those lovely creatures seemed to lead! There goes one, for instance, basking on a bit of ice just like a sofa, pillow and all complete; and his snowy couch is floating quietly away through that blue and sunny summer sea, rising and falling gently on the waves in a way that must be quite delightful. He just raises his head as the ship sails past, and gazes after the Fairy Queen with a kind of dreamy interest, then lets it drop again, and recommences his study of the birds that go wheeling and screaming round in the sky.
Yonder a walrus pops a monster tusked head and goggle eyes out of the water, looking at the ship as fiercely as an angry bull.
“What are you?” he seems to ask, “or why are you disturbing the placid waters of my ocean home?”
Then he disappears, and presently is seen far away to the north.
Yonder, ploughing his lonely way through the silence of the dark sea, is a monster narwhal. He makes no remark. If a boat were to attack him, he might lose his temper, and try to stave her with his mighty ivory horn; but the Fairy Queen is nothing to him, so he looks not to right or to left, but goes on and on and away.
Here comes a shoal of dancing porpoises, all going south. How they dance, and how they plunge, and how they caper, to be sure! They take little heed of the ship, do not even go out of their way to avoid her. Perhaps they are going on a summer holiday, and are so full of their own happiness and joy that they have little time to think of anything else. Bless the innocent creatures! I’ve often and often felt pleasure in beholding their gambols; and thanked God from the bottom of my heart, because He has made them, made the earth and its fulness, the sea and all it contains, so full of life and love and beauty.