MRS. WILTON. "I have been considering whether it would not be better to finish with these northern latitudes before we proceed on our voyage. In that case we will test the hospitality of the people of Spitzbergen, Iceland, Nova Zembla, Ferroe Isles, and sundry others in this part of the Atlantic and Frozen Ocean, and then descend to warmer climates."
MR. WILTON. "A very good plan, if we do not get blocked up by the ice in these dreadful seas. By-the-by, there is an account of such a calamity happening to a vessel some years ago.—In the year 1775, Captain Warrens, master of the 'Greenland,' a whale-ship, was cruising about in the Frozen Ocean, when at a little distance he observed a vessel. Captain Warrens was struck with the strange manner in which her sails were disposed, and with the dismantled aspect of her rigging. He leaped into his boat with several seamen, and rowed towards her. On approaching, he observed that her hull was miserably weather-beaten, and not a soul appeared on deck, which was covered with snow to a considerable depth. He then hailed her crew, but no answer was returned. Previous to stepping on board, an open port-hole near the main-chains caught his eye; and, on looking into it, he perceived a man reclining back in a chair, with writing materials on a table before him; but the feebleness of the light made everything very indistinct. The party went upon deck, and, having removed the hatchway, descended to the cabin. They first came to the apartment which Captain Warrens viewed through the port-hole. A terror seized him as he entered it: its inmate retained his former position, and seemed to be insensible to strangers. He was found to be a corpse! and a green damp mould had covered his cheeks and forehead, and veiled his open eyeballs. He had a pen in his hand, and a log-book lay before him. The last sentence in its unfinished page ran thus:—
"'Nov. 14th, 1762.
"'We have now been enclosed in the ice seventeen days. The fire went out yesterday, and our master has been trying ever since to kindle it again without success. His wife died this morning. There is no relief!'
"Captain Warrens and his seamen hurried from the spot without uttering a word. On entering the principal cabin, the first object that attracted their attention was the dead body of a female, reclining on a bed in an attitude of deep interest and attention. Her countenance retained the freshness of life: but a contraction of the limbs showed that her form was inanimate. Seated on the floor was the corpse of an apparently young man, holding a steel in one hand and a flint in the other, as if in the act of striking fire upon some tinder which lay beside him. In the fore-part of the vessel several sailors were found lying dead in their berths, and the body of a boy crouched at the bottom of the gangway stairs. Neither provisions nor fuel could be discovered anywhere; but Captain Warrens was prevented by the superstitious prejudices of his seamen from examining the vessel as minutely as he wished to have done. He, therefore, carried away the log-book, and immediately steered to the southward, impressed with the awful example he had just witnessed of the danger of navigating the Polar Seas in high northern latitudes. On returning to England, and inquiring and comparing accounts, he found that this vessel had been blocked up by the ice for upwards of thirteen years!!! Yes!—
"'There lay the vessel in a realm of frost,
Not wrecked, nor stranded, yet forever lost;
Her keel embedded in the solid mass;
Her glistening sails appear'd expanded glass.'"
GRANDY. "A most awful situation to be placed in, surrounded on all sides by impenetrable ice, which closeth up the water as with a breast-plate."
MRS. WILTON. "Iceland is first in point of distance. It is situated south east of Greenland, in the North Atlantic Ocean, and considered an appendage to America; although it was known seven centuries before the time of Columbus. It is truly, a land of prodigies: where the subterranean fires of the abyss burst through a frozen soil; where boiling springs shoot up their fountains, amidst eternal snows; and where the powerful genius of liberty and the no less powerful genius of poetry have given brilliant proofs of the energies of the human mind at the farthest confines of animated nature."
CHARLES. "There are twelve volcanoes in Iceland; the most celebrated of which is Mount Hecla, situated in the southern part of the island: its elevation is about 4800 feet above the level of the sea."