NARWHALES.
A powerful sunlight obliged spectacles of every shade, size, and description to be brought into use; and, as we walked about from ship to ship, a great deal of joking and facetiousness arose out of the droll appearance of some individuals,—utility, and not beauty, was, however, generally voted the great essential in our bachelor community; and good looks, by general consent, put away for a future day. Great reflection, as well as refraction, existed for the time we remained beset in this position; and the refraction on one occasion enabled us to detect Captain Penny's brigs as well as the whalers, although they must have been nearly thirty miles distant.
The ice slackening a little formed what are called "holes of water," and in these we soon observed a shoal of narwhales, or unicorn fish, to be blowing and enjoying themselves. By extraordinary luck, one of the officers of the "Intrepid," in firing at them, happened to hit one in a vital part, and the brute was captured; his horn forming a handsome trophy for the sportsman. The result of this was, that the unfortunate narwhales got no peace; directly they showed themselves, a shower of balls was poured into them.
This fish is found throughout the fishing-ground of Baffin's Bay, but is not particularly sought for by our people. The Esquimaux kill it with ease, and its flesh and skin are eaten as luxuries; the latter especially, as an anti-scorbutic, even by the whalers, and some of our crews partook of the extremely greasy-looking substance,—one man vowing it was very like chestnuts! (?) I did not attempt to judge for myself; but I have no doubt it would form good food to a really hungry person. The narwhales vary in size, ranging sometimes, I am told, to fourteen feet; the horns, of which I saw a great many at Whale-Fish Isles, were from three feet to seven feet in length. The use of this horn is a matter of controversy amongst the fishermen: it is almost too blunt for offence, and its point, for about four inches, is always found well polished, whilst the remainder of it is usually covered with slime and greenish sea-weed. Some maintain that it roots up food from the bottom of the sea with this horn; others, that it probes the clefts and fissures of the floating ice with it, to drive out the small fish, which are said to be its prey, and which instinctively take shelter there from their pursuers. The body of the narwhale is covered with a layer of blubber, of about two inches in thickness. This was removed, and carefully boiled down to make oil; and the krang, or carcass, was left as a decoy to molliemauks and ivory-gulls,—these latter birds having for the first time been seen by me to-day. They are decidedly the most graceful of sea-birds; and, from the exquisite purity of their plumage when settled on a piece of ice or snow, it required a practised eye to detect them. Not so the voracious and impertinent mollies—the Procellaria of naturalists. Their very ugliness appeared to give them security, and they are, in the North, what the vulture and carrion crow are in more pleasant climes—Nature's scavengers.
The 14th and 15th of July found us still firmly beset, and sorely was our patience taxed. In-shore of us, a firm unbroken sheet of ice extended to the land, some fifteen miles distant. Across it, in various directions, like hedge-rows in an English landscape, ran long lines of piled-up hummocks, formed during the winter by some great pressure; and on the surface, pools of water and sludge[1 ] broke the general monotony of the aspect.
ANXIETY AND HOPE.
The striking mass of rock, known as Melville's Monument, was clear of snow, because it was too steep for ice to adhere; but every where else huge domes of white showed where Greenland lay, except where Cape Walker thrust its black cliff through the glacier to scowl upon us.
Tantalus never longed for water more than we did. Those who have been so beset can alone tell of the watchfulness and headaching for water. Now to the mast-head with straining eyes,—then arguing and inferring, from the direction of wind and tide, that water must come. Others strolling over to a hole, and with fragments of wood, or a measure, endeavouring to detect that movement in the floes by which liberation was to be brought about. Some sage in uniform, perhaps, tries to prove, by the experience of former voyages, that the lucky day is passed or close at hand; whilst wiser ones console themselves with exclaiming, "That, at any rate, we are, as yet, before Sir James Ross's expedition,—both in time and position."
The 16th of July showed more favourable symptoms, and Captain Penny was seen working for a lane of water, a long way in-shore of us. In the night, a general disruption of the fixed ice was taking place in the most marvellous manner; and, by the next morning, there was nearly as much water as there had before been ice. The two steamers, firmly imbedded in a mass of ice, many miles in circumference, were drifting rapidly to the southward, whilst the two ships, afloat in a large space of water and fastened to the floe, awaited our liberation.
The prospect of a separation from the ships, when unavoidable, in no wise depressed the spirits of my colleague of the "Intrepid," nor myself. Like the man who lost a scolding wife, we felt if it must be so, it was for the best, and we were resigned. But it was not to be; the "Intrepid" with her screw, and the "Pioneer" with gunpowder, which, for the first time, was now applied, shook the fragments apart in which we were beset, and again we laid hold of our mentors. A thick fog immediately enveloped us, and in it we got perfectly puzzled, took a wrong lead, and, tumbling into a perfect cul de sac, made fast, to await a break in the weather. The 18th of July, from the same cause, a dense fog, was a lost day, and next day Penny again caught us up. He reported the whalers to have given up all idea of a Northern fishery this season. Alas! for the many friends who will be disappointed in not receiving letters! and alas! for the desponding, who will croak and sigh at the whalers failing to get across the bay, believing, therefore, that we shall fail likewise.