These rickety woods form a contrast with the great forests of Newfoundland, whose fir-trees bear a silver lichen (alectoria trichodes): the polar bears seem to have torn their fur against the branches of those trees, of which they are the strange creepers. The swamps of Jacques Cartier's[462] island contain roads beaten by these bears: it is as though one saw rustic footpaths in the neighbourhood of a sheep-fold. The whole night reechoes with the cries of these famished beasts; the traveller is comforted only by the no less mournful sound of the sea: those waves, so unsociable and so rude, become friends and companions.
The northernmost point of Newfoundland touches the latitude of Cape Charles I. in Labrador; a few degrees higher, the polar landscape commences. If we are to believe the travellers, a charm lies upon those regions: in the evening the sun, touching the earth, seems to stay motionless, and subsequently reascends the sky instead of sinking beneath the horizon. The snow-clad mountains, the valleys carpeted with white moss upon which the reindeer browse, the seas covered with whales and strewn with ice-bergs, this whole scene glitters, lighted as it were at one time by the gleam of the setting sun and the light of dawn: one knows not whether he is assisting at the creation or the end of the world. A little bird, similar to that which sings in our woods at night, utters a plaintive warbling. Then love leads the Esquimaux to the icy rock where his mate awaits him: those human nuptials at the extreme boundaries of the earth lack neither dignity nor happiness.
*
We leave Saint-Pierre.
When we had shipped stores and replaced the anchor which we had lost at Graciosa, we left Saint-Pierre. Sailing south before the wind, we reached the latitude of 38°. The calm delayed us at a short distance from the coasts of Maryland and Virginia. The misty sky of the northerly regions had been succeeded by the clearest weather; the land was not in sight, but the odour of the pine-forests was wafted to our nostrils. The dawn and the early morning, the rising and setting sun, the twilight and the night were alike admirable. I was never satisfied with gazing at Venus, whose rays seemed to envelop me like the tresses of my sylph of former days.
One day I was reading in the captain's room; the bell struck for prayers; I went and mingled my prayers with those of my companions. The officers and passengers filled the quarter-deck; the chaplain, book in hand, stood a little before them, near the helm; the sailors were crowded promiscuously on deck; we stood with our faces turned towards the ship's bows. All sails were furled. The disk of the sun, preparing to plunge into the sea, appeared through the rigging of the vessel in the midst of the boundless space: it was as though, with the rocking of the poop, the radiant luminary at each moment changed its horizon. When I drew this picture, which you can see in its entirety in the Génie du Christianisme[463], my religious sentiments were in harmony with the scene; but alas, when I was present at it in person, I had not yet put off the old man: it was not God alone that I contemplated in the waves, in all the magnificence of His works. I beheld an unknown woman and the miracles worked by her smile; the beauties of the heavens seemed to open out at her breath; I would have bartered Eternity for one of her caresses. I pictured her to myself throbbing behind the veil of the universe which hid her from my gaze. Ah, why was it not in my power to tear aside that curtain to press the idealized woman to my heart, to be consumed upon her breast with that love which was the source of my inspirations, of my despair, and of my life! While I abandoned myself to these impulses so well suited to my future career as a coureur des bois, an accident occurred which very nearly put an end to my plans and to my dreams.
The heat was overpowering; the vessel, lying in a dead calm, with furled sails and overweighted by the masts, rolled heavily: burning upon deck and wearied by the motion, I longed to bathe, and although we had no boat out, I dived into the sea from the bowsprit. All went well at first, and several passengers followed my example. I swam without looking at the ship; but when I came to turn my head, I saw that the current had dragged her some distance. The sailors, alarmed, had slipped a rope to the other swimmers. Sharks appeared in the ship's waters, and the men fired at them to drive them away. The swell was so heavy that it delayed my return by exhausting my strength. I had an eddy below me, and at any moment the sharks might carry off one of my arms or legs. On board, the boatswain was trying to lower a boat, but it was necessary to fix the tackling, and all this took time.
By the greatest good fortune, an almost imperceptible breeze sprang up; the vessel answered her helm a little and approached me; I was just able to catch hold of the rope, but my companions in rashness were clinging to it; when we were pulled to the ship's side, I was at the extremity of the line, and they bore upon me with all their weight. We were thus fished up one by one, which took long. The rolling continued; at each roll, we were either plunged six or seven feet into the water, or hung up as many feet in the air, like fish at the end of a line: at the last immersion, I felt ready to faint away; one roll more and it would have been over. I was hoisted on deck half dead: had I been drowned, what a good riddance for me and the rest!
Two days after this accident, we came in sight of land. My heart beat fast when the captain pointed it out to me: America! It was barely indicated by the crowns of a few maple-trees standing above the water. The palms at the mouth of the Nile have since indicated the coast of Egypt for me in the same manner. A pilot came on board; we entered Chesapeake Bay. In the evening a boat was sent on shore to fetch fresh provisions.
I joined the party, and soon trod American soil.