Up from the sands ye codlings peep,
And wag your tails about.”
It must be understood that I’m fond of quotations, particularly poetry; and all must admit that this is a very appropriate one. Why couldn’t good old Cotton Mather, or some of his compeers, have given us some more of this sort? Perhaps he did, but if so, my memory has not recorded them.
The noise of a whale spouting can be heard from one to two miles. He throws the water from thirty to fifty feet high. The whale rises clear to the surface of the water, gives one “blow” and instantly goes under. He generally rises again in one or two minutes, but is sometimes under five minutes. Once as I sat on the bowsprit watching two or three that were playing about, one swam nearly under me, rose up, blew a blast with his water-trumpet, giving me quite a sprinkling, and then sank. I had a good opportunity to see him, and got a fair view of his breathing pipe. It was a round hole in the top of his head, had a slight rim round it, and I should think was about two inches and a half in diameter. This animal, as near as I could judge, was between sixty and seventy feet in length. The top of his head and shoulders was broad and flat, and near or quite twelve feet across. His back, instead of appearing round, was nearly level, and showed room enough for a quartette of Highlanders to have danced a reel thereon. ’Twould have been a rather slippery floor though, and I think a dancer would have needed nails in his shoes.
Loud sung out the captain one day, and looking over the side, close to the ship, deep under the clear water, we saw a shark. O! it makes me feel savage to see one of these monsters, I want to cut out his heart’s blood. Many a good Christian do these villains swallow. The captain told us that one Christmas day when he was in the Pacific, a shark came near, and a large hook baited with a piece of pork was thrown into the water; he instantly seized it, and they hauled the monster up the ship’s side, and an officer on board drew his sword and cut him nearly in two, before he was allowed on deck. Each passenger took some part of him as a trophy of their Christmas-day fishing.
I had a few books on board, and did the best I could to make the time pass agreeably. But with all our resources, literary, ornithological, piscatorial, and miscellaneous, there were many dull hours. One calm day I got out my writing materials, and thought I would write a letter, or a chapter of these wanderings. After getting fairly engaged, a sudden shower seemed to dash over me; and looking up, a sailor “high on the giddy mast,” while painting the yard had upset his paint pot, and down the white shower came on my hat, coat, paper and every thing around. We must take things coolly on shipboard, as well as elsewhere, I suppose; for there is no use in getting vexed, whatever may chance. As for the letter, I sent that to its destination, with all its imperfections on its head. I scraped the paint off my hat, and the mate and I set to work to clean my coat. After scrubbing it an hour or two, we fastened a rope to it, and throwing it overboard, let it drag in the sea a few hours. The soapsuds and old Neptune together took nearly all the paint out, but it never entirely recovered from the effects of the shower from the mainmast. As for books, I left England with the very smallest amount of luggage possible, restricting myself in the reading line, to my small Bible, Sir George Mackenzie’s Travels in Iceland, and one or two more. At Copenhagen, I purchased six or eight volumes of Leipsic reprints of English works—what the publisher calls “Tauchnitz’s edition of standard English authors;” some of them are English works, but by what rule of nationality he reckons among his English authors the works of COOPER and IRVING, I do not know. Among the volumes I purchased, were some from Shakspeare, Byron, Scott, Dickens, and Bulwer. I found my reading, as I knew I should, quite too scanty. I would have given something for Diodorus Siculus, and good old Froissart; two books that it would take a pretty long sea-voyage to get through.
Among our passengers were two or three of the dignitaries of Iceland; one Sysselman, and the landfoged or treasurer of the island, William Finsen, Esq. On leaving London I took two or three late American papers with me; and in one of them, the “Literary World,” there was by chance, a notice of a late meeting of the Society of Northern Antiquaries at Copenhagen. Among the names of distinguished persons present, there were mentioned some Danes, some Englishmen, and “some Americans,” and among the latter, William Finsen Esq. of Iceland! I showed this to Mr. Treasurer Finsen, and he was greatly amused to learn that he was a Yankee. We had among our passengers several ladies—one, a Miss Johnson, a very pretty, intelligent, modest-appearing Iceland lassie, who had finished her education at Copenhagen, and was returning to her native land to establish a female school. The domestic animals on board, were one large, curly-haired, black dog, who rejoiced in the name of “Neeger,” and four rather youthful swine, who were confined, or rather were pretended to be confined, in a box. The first day out they leaped the barriers of their stye, and made a dinner on the slender contents of several flower pots that the lady passengers were taking out to cheer the windows of their parlors in their Iceland homes. The discovery of the depredation was any thing but pleasant, and I believe had the “prices of stock” been taken at that time, live pork would have been quoted as falling, and if not clear down, would have been decided to be, on that ship, a thorough bore. Though they went the “whole hog”—the entire animal in the floral line—that day, they did not sleep or feast on roses all the voyage. They did not like their quarters overmuch, and would usually manage at least once a day, to get out and go on an exploring expedition round the deck.
Our living on board was, I believe, as it usually is on Danish merchant vessels. It consisted principally of a thin, watery compound called “soup,” of black potatoes, black beef, and yet blacker bread. At the evening meal we had for drink, hot water frightened into a faint color by a gentle infusion of China’s favorite plant. This drink our captain called “tea.” Believing that good order on shipboard is much promoted by subordination and submission to the commanding officer, I never used to tell him it wasn’t “tea.” If strength, however, is a sign of life, I must say that this showed very little sign of vitality. It probably contained at least half a teaspoonful of tea, to a gallon of water; but Oh! that black bread! it was not so bad an article, though, after all. We had one blacker thing on board, and that was our dog “Nigger.” The good boys and girls in America, who eat “Indian bread,” “wheat bread,” “short cake” and “johnny cake,” have all read of the peasants of Europe living on “black bread,” and wonder what it is. It is made of rye, ground, but not bolted much, if any; and the bread is very dark, a good deal darker than corn bread. At first I did not like it very well, and at Elsinore I purchased a couple of large wheaten loaves. This bread is very dear: I paid half a dollar a loaf; these lasted me about ten days, but before that time, the mould had struck clear through them. Not so the black bread. That keeps much better than wheaten bread. The mould walks into it gradually however, but thoroughly. At first there appeared a green coat, on the side that stood next to another loaf in baking. This coat of mould kept growing deeper and deeper, getting first the eighth of an inch, then a quarter of an inch, and before the end of the voyage, over half an inch deep of solid green. Inside of this the loaf was moist and fresh; and certainly, after getting used to it, it is very good bread. It was the “staff of life” with us; and considerably like a staff the loaves were, being in size and appearance about like a couple of feet of scantling cut out of the heart of an oak. So much for living on shipboard. If we did not fare like princes, we had the consolation of knowing that the fares we paid were very light. So bad fare and light fares went together; and that made it all fair. On the fifteenth day out, we first saw the coast of Iceland. It was an irregular, rocky promontory, ending in Cape Reykianess, the southwestern extremity of the island. In two days we saw and passed the “Meal sack,”—(Danish Meel sakken)—a singular rock island about eight miles southwest of Cape Reykianess. While passing I took a drawing of it, and certainly very much like a bag of meal it looks. It is near 200 feet high, and about that in diameter, apparently perpendicular all round; on the north a little more so! All over its craggy sides, we could see thousands of sea-birds. As sunset approached we saw great numbers of gannets flying towards it, going to rest for the night. This bird, known as the solan goose, is larger than a goose, and while flying, from its peculiar color has a most singular appearance. They are white, except the outer half of the wing, the feet, and the bill, which are jet black, and the head a sort of brownish yellow. A word more about these birds, and some others, hereafter. Southwest of the Meal sack a few miles, is another singular island called “the Grenadier.” It is a most striking looking object, standing up out of the ocean several hundred feet high, like some tall giant or lofty pillar. What a constant screaming of sea fowl there is at all times about these lonely islands! But where is the night in this northern latitude, in the summer season? Ask the lovely twilight that continues for the two or three hours that the sun is below the horizon. At midnight I read a chapter in the Bible, in fine print, with perfect ease. At a distance of several miles I could tell the dividing line between the rocks and the vegetation on the mountains. And what a splendid panorama of mountain scenery this singular country presents! Unlike any thing that I have ever seen on the face of the globe. Finally on the nineteenth day of our voyage, our little bark dropped anchor in the harbor of Reykjavik, and our cannon announced to the Icelanders the arrival of the “Post ship” with letters and friends from Denmark. Then with expectation about to be gratified, I stepped ashore on the rocky coast of Iceland.
CHAPTER II
There is not one atom of yon earth,