Here, editors floundered through a leader, exhibiting French ingenuity, in saying their say without bringing themselves within the grasp of the censors; here, rough contributors, whose hands, more accustomed to the tar-brush than the pen, turned flowing sentences by the aid of old miscellanies and well-thumbed dictionaries. There, on wooden stools, leaning over long tables, were a row of serious and anxious faces, which put one in mind of the days of cane and birch,—an Arctic school. Tough old marines curving "pot-hooks and hangers," as if their very lives depended on their performances, with an occasional burst of petulance, such as, "D—— the pen, it won't write! I beg pardon, sir; this 'ere pen will splutter!" which set the scholars in a roar. Then some big-whiskered top-man, with slate in hand, reciting his multiplication-table, and grinning at approval; whilst a "scholar," as the cleverest were termed, gave the instructor a hard task to preserve his learned superiority.
In an adjoining place, an observer might notice a tier of attentive, upturned faces, listening, like children to some nursery-tale. It was the first lieutenant of the "Resolute," my much-loved, faithful friend; he was telling them of the deeds of their forefathers in these regions. Parry's glorious pages open by his side, he told those stern men with tender hearts, of the sufferings, the enterprise, the courage, and the reward of imperishable renown exhibited and won by others. The glistening eye and compressed lip showed how the good seed had taken root in the listeners around, and every evening saw that sailor audience gather around him whom they knew to be the "gallant and true," to share in his feelings and borrow from his enthusiasm.
WINTER SCENERY.
For some time after the sun had ceased to visit our heavens, the southern side of the horizon, for a few hours at noon, was strongly illumined, the sky being shaded, from deep and rosy red through all the most delicate tints of pink and blue, until, in the north, a cold bluish-black scowled angrily over the pale mountains, who, in widowed loneliness, had drawn their cowls of snow around, and, uncheered by the roseate kiss of the bridegroom sun, seemed to mourn over the silence and darkness at their feet. Such was a fine day in November, and through the gray twilight the dark forms of our people, as they traversed the floe, or scaled the cliffs of Griffith's Island, or, maybe, occasionally hunted a bear, completed the scene.
Charmed as we were with the evanescent colouring of our sky on a fine day, it was in loveliness far surpassed by the exceeding beauty of Arctic moonlight. Daylight but served to show the bleakness of frozen sea and land; but a full, silvery moon, wheeling around the zenith for several days and nights, threw a poetry over every thing, which reached and glowed in the heart, in spite of intense frost and biting breeze. At such a time we were wont to pull on our warm jackets and seal-skin caps, and, striding out upon the floe, enjoy to the utmost the elasticity of health and spirits with which we were blest under so bracing a climate. There, with one's friend, the mutual recognition of Nature's beauties and congratulations, at being there to witness it, richly rewarded us for our isolation from the world of our fellow-men; and general enthusiasm had its full sway as, from the heights of Griffith's Island, we looked down on our squadron, whose masts alone pierced the broad white expanse over Barrow's Strait, and threw long shadows across the floe. The noble mission for which they had been sent into the north was ever present to us, and away instinctively flew our thoughts to our gallant friends in the "Erebus" and "Terror:" thus alternately elated and saddened, we enjoyed, with earnest feelings, the wondrous scene around us.
Imagine yourself, dear reader, on the edge of a lofty table-land, which, dipping suddenly at your feet, sloped again to the sea of ice, at a distance of some 500 feet below; fancy a vast plain of ice and snow, diversified by tiers of broken-up ice and snow-wreaths, which, glistening on the one side, reflected back the moonlight with an exceeding brilliancy, whilst the strong shadow on the farther side of the masses threw them out in strong relief; four lone barks, atoms in the extensive landscape,—the observers' home,—and beyond them, on the horizon, sweeping in many a bay, valley, and headland, the coast of Cornwallis Island, now bursting upon the eye in startling distinctness, then receding into shadow and gloom, and then anon diversified with flickering shades, like an autumnal landscape in our own dear land, as the fleecy clouds sailed slowly across the moon,—she the while riding through a heaven of deepest blue, richly illuminated by the constellations of the northern hemisphere, wheeling around the Polar Star like armies in review,—and say if the North has not its charms for him who can appreciate such novel aspects of Nature.
If you still doubt it, let us descend the adjacent ravine, formed as if some giant hand had rent the firm cliff from crown to basement; stand we now at its upper entrance, where it slopes away to the table-land behind,—didst ever see a sight more wildly beautiful? The grim and frowning buttresses on either hand, too steep for even the snow-flake to rest upon, whilst over its brow a pigmy glacier topples with graceful curve, or droops in many an icy wreath and spray, threatening us with destruction as we slide down the sharp declivity. Now, with many a graceful curve, the gorge winds down to the frozen sea, a glimpse of which forms the background to the lower entrance. Observe how the snow, which, by wintry gales, has been swept into the ravine, has hardened into masses, resembling naught so much as a fierce rapid suddenly congealed; and then look overhead, to a deep blue sky, spangled with a million spheres; if thou couldst have seen this, and much more than pen or tongues can tell, and not admire it, then I say,
"God help thee,
Thou hast reason to be sad."
OPEN WATERS IN BARROW'S STRAIT.