THE WHITE WHALE.
With the "Resolute" fast astern, the "Pioneer" slipped round an extensive field of ice; as it ran aground off Cape Spencer, shutting off in our rear Captain Penny's brigs and the "Felix," another mass of ice at the same time caught on Point Innis, and, unable to get past it, we again made fast, sending a boat to watch the moment the ice should float, and leave us a passage to the westward. Whilst thus secured, we had abundant amusement and occupation in observing the movements of shoals of white whales. They were what the fishermen on board called "running" south, a term used to express the steady and rapid passage of the fish from one feeding-ground to the other. From the mast-head, the water about us appeared filled with them, whilst they constantly rose and blew, and hurried on, like the birds we had lately seen, to better regions in the south. That they had been north to breed was undoubted, by the number of young "calves" in every shoal. The affection between mother and young was very evident; for occasionally some stately white whale would loiter on her course, as if to scrutinize the new and strange objects now floating in these unploughed waters, whilst the calf, all gambols, rubbed against the mother's side, or played about her. The proverbial shyness of these fish was proved by our fishermen and sportsmen to be an undoubted fact, for neither with harpoon nor rifle-ball could they succeed in capturing any of them.
It was a subject of deep interest and wonder to see this migration of animal life, and I determined, directly leisure would enable me, to search the numerous books with which we were well stored, to endeavour to satisfy my mind with some reasonable theory, founded upon the movements of bird and fish, as to the existence of a Polar ocean or a Polar continent.
A sudden turn of tide, which floated the ice that had for some hours been aground on Point Innis and Cape Spencer, and carried it out of Wellington Channel, which favourable tide I therefore conjectured to be the flood, enabled the "Pioneer" and "Resolute" to start across Wellington Channel, towards Barlow Inlet.
Northward of us, ran, almost in a straight line, east and west, the southern edge of a body of ice, which we then imagined, in our ignorance, to be fixed, extending northward,—aye, to the very pole; for in the rumour of it being a mere fiord, or gulf, I had no belief, nor any one else who crossed it in our ships. The day was beautifully clear, and a cold, hard sky enabled us to see the land of North Somerset most distinctly, though thirty to forty miles distant; and yet nothing appeared resembling land in the northern part of Wellington Channel. More than one of us regretted the prospect of this yet unsearched route remaining so, and the racing mania for Melville Island and Cape Walker bore for all of us this day its fruit—unavailing regret.
A fresh and favourable gale from the northward raised our spirits and hopes, late as it now was in the season, and already, with the adventurous feelings of seamen, we began to calculate what distance might yet be achieved, should the breeze but last for two or three days. The space to be traversed, even to Behring's Straits, was a mere nothing; and all our disappointments, all our foiled anticipations, were forgotten, in the light-heartedness brought about by a day of open water and a few hours of a fair wind. As we rattled along the lane of blue water which wound gracefully ahead to the westward, the shores of Cornwallis Island rapidly revealed themselves, and offered little that was striking or picturesque. One uniform tint of russet-brown clothed the land, as the sun at eight in the evening sunk behind the ice-bound horizon of Wellington Channel.
Novel and striking as were the colours thrown athwart the cold, hard sky by the setting orb, I thought with a sigh of those gay and flickering shades which beautify the heavens in the tropics, when the fierce sun sinks to his western rest. No gleams of purple and gold lit up the hill-tops; no fiery streaks of sunlight streamed across the water, or glittered on the wave. No! all was cold and silent as the grave. In heaven alone there appeared sunshine and vitality:—it was rightly so. Frost was fast claiming its dominion, for, with declining sunlight, the space of water between the pack and the floe became a sheet of young ice, about the one-eighth of an inch in thickness.
CROSSING WELLINGTON CHANNEL.
The "Assistance" and "Intrepid" were gone, it was very evident; but the American squadron was observed in Barlow Inlet. As we approached them, at two o'clock in the morning, they were to be seen firing muskets. We therefore put our helms down, and performed, by the help of the screw, figures of eight in the young ice, until a boat had communicated with Commander De Haven, from whom we learned that one of his vessels was aground in the inlet, and that it was no place for us to go into, unless we wanted to remain there. The passage to the westward, round Cape Hotham, was likewise blocked up, and no alternative remained but to make fast to the floe to the north of us. This was done, and just in time; for a smart breeze from the S.E. brought up a great deal of ice, and progress in any direction was impossible.
I had now time to observe that the floe of Wellington Channel, instead of consisting of a mass of ice (as was currently reported) about eight feet in thickness, did not in average depth exceed that of the floes of Melville Bay, although a great deal of old ice was mixed up with it, as if a pack had been re-cemented by a winter's frost; in which case, of course, there would be ice of various ages mixed up in the body; and much of the ice was lying crosswise and edgeways, so that a person desirous of looking at the Wellington Channel floe, as the accumulation of many years of continued frost, might have some grounds upon which to base his supposition. A year's observation, however, has shown me the fallacy of supposing that in deep-water channels floes continue to increase in thickness from year to year; and to that subject I will return in a future chapter, when treating of Wellington Channel.