The ice closed on the ill-fated ship. She was probably as totally unprepared to resist its pressure as we were. At first I thought that it lifted her bodily up, but it was not so, I suspect. She was too deep in the water for that. Her sides were crushed in—her stout timbers were rent into a thousand fragments—her tall masts tottered and fell, though still attached to the hull. For an instant I concluded that the ice must have separated, or perhaps the edges broke with the force of the concussion; for, as I gazed, the wrecked mass of hull, and spars, and canvas, seemed drawn suddenly downward with irresistible force, and a few fragments which had been hurled by the force of the concussion to a distance, were all that remained of the hapless vessel. Not a soul of her crew could have had time to escape to the ice.
I looked anxiously; not a speck could be seen stirring near the spot. Such, thought I, may be the fate of the four hundred and forty human beings on board this ship, ere many minutes are over.
I believe that I was the only person on board who witnessed the catastrophe. Most of the emigrants were below, and the few who were on deck were with the crew watching our own progress.
Still narrower grew the passage. Some of the parts we had passed through were already closed. The wind, fortunately, held fair, and though it contributed to drive the ice faster in on us, it yet favored our escape. The ship flew through the water at a great rate, heeling over to her ports, but though at times it seemed as if the masts would go over the sides, still the captain held on. A minute's delay might prove our destruction.
Every one held their breaths, as the width of the passage decreased, though we had but a short distance more to make good before we should be free.
I must confess that all the time I did not myself feel any sense of fear. I thought it was a danger more to be apprehended for others than for myself. At length a shout from the deck reached my ears, and looking round, I saw that we were on the outside of the floe. We were just in time, for, the instant after, the ice met, and the passage through which we had come, was completely closed up. The order was now given, to keep the helm up, and to square away the yards, and with a flowing sheet we ran down the edge of the ice for upward of three miles, before we were clear of it.
Only then did people begin to inquire what had become of the ship we had lately seen. I gave my account, but few expressed any great commiseration for the fate of those who were lost. Our captain had had enough of ice, so he steered a course to get as fast as possible into more southern latitudes.
THE DOG AND DEER OF THE ARMY.
Many of the citizens of Edinburgh will remember a beautiful deer which, many years ago, accompanied the Forty-second Highlanders, and how thousands in Princes-street were wont to admire the stately step, the proud and haughty toss of the antlers, and the mild, and we may almost say benignant eye of this singularly-placed animal. Few persons, however, thought of inquiring into the history of this denizen of the hills, or how it came to pass that an animal naturally shy to an extraordinary degree, should have been so tamed as to take evident delight in military array, and the martial music of a Highland regiment. Still fewer, immersed in their city life, were acquainted with the amazing swiftness, the keen scent, and the daring bravery of the stag; whose qualities, indeed, might be taken as a type of those of the distinguished regiment to which it became attached. The French could abide the charge of British cavalry; they had some sort of understanding of such a mode of warfare; indeed, to do them justice, they were both skillful and brave in the use and knowledge of arms. But the deadly charge of the Highlanders was a puzzler both to their science and courage, and they could by no effort face the forests of cold steel—the bristling bayonets of the kilted clans. Among these regiments none suffered more—excepting, perhaps, the Ninety-Second—than the regiment which afterward adopted the deer as a living memorial of their mountain fastnesses; and a dog likewise, which became attached to, and for years accompanied the same regiment, may be supposed to symbol the fidelity so strikingly characteristic of the Highlanders.