Let our position be pictured for an instant. The fierce waves dashing wildly and irregularly about us; the storm raging fiercely; the ship driving onwards through pitchy darkness; wide, massive fields of ice extending on every side; huge icebergs floating around we knew not where; no lighthouse, no chart to guide us; our eyes and ears stretched to the utmost, giving but short warning of approaching danger. Such are the scenes which wear out a commander’s strength, and make his hair turn quickly grey. We knew full well that dangers still thickly surrounded us, and heartily did we wish for the return of day to see them. Newman and I were again forward. I was telling him that I had heard of a ship striking a berg, and of several of her people being saved on it, while she went down, when he startled me by singing out with a voice of thunder, “Ice ahead!” At the same moment old Knowles cried out, “Ice on the weather-bow!” and immediately I had to echo the shout with “Ice on the lee-bow!” and another cried, “Ice abeam!”
To tack would have been instant destruction; to wear, there was no room. Every moment we expected to feel the awful crash as the stout ship encountered the hard ice. Captain Carr rushed forward. We must dash onward. Though no opening could be seen, there might be one! Onward we careered. Every man held his breath; and pale, I doubt not, turned the faces of the bravest. Suddenly, high above us, on the weather-side, appeared another iceberg. The sea became almost calm; but it was a calmness fraught with danger rather than safety. The sails, caught by the eddy-wind, were taken aback. In another moment we might have been driven, without power of saving ourselves, under that frowning cliff of ice. The storm raged above us—before us—behind us—on every side but there we lay, as if exhausted. Still the ship had way on her, and we continued our course. The channel was too narrow to allow the helm to be put up.
Just as she was losing her way, and would inevitably, through the force of the eddy-wind, have got stern-way on her, her headsails again felt the force of the gale, and, like a hound loosed from the leash, she started forward on her course. Again we were plunging madly through the wildly breaking seas; but the wind blew steadily, and the ice-fields widened away on either side till they were lost to view. Once again we were saved by a merciful Providence from an almost inevitable destruction. Still, we had some hours of darkness before us, and an unknown sea full of ice-islands through which we must pass. Not an eye was closed that night. Again we were close to one, but we were now better able to distinguish them than at first. This time we had to keep away, and run to the northward; but before long, there arose ahead of us a fourth iceberg. Again we sprung to the braces, the helm was put down, and, once more close-hauled, we weathered the danger.
Thus we hurried on—narrowly escaping danger after danger till daylight approached. Before, however, the sun arose, the gale fell; the clouds cleared away; and a bright gleam appeared in the eastern sky. Up shot the glorious sun, and never shall I forget the scene of gorgeous magnificence his bright rays lighted. Both sky and sea became of a deep blue—the water calm and clear as crystal—while all around us floated mountains of brilliant whiteness, like masses of the purest alabaster, of every varied form and size. Many were 200 feet high, and nearly a third of a mile in length. Some had perpendicular sides, with level summits—fit foundations, it might seem, for building cities of marble palaces, or fortresses for the kings of the East. Some, again, were broken into every fantastic form conceivable—towers and turrets, spires and minarets, domes and cupolas; here, the edifices found most commonly under the symbol of the crescent; there, those of the cross: Norman castles, Gothic cathedrals, Turkish mosques, Grecian temples, Chinese pagodas, were all here fully represented, and repeated in a thousand different ways. Others had been broken or melted into the forms of jagged cliffs, gigantic arches, lofty caverns, penetrating far away into the interior. Scarcely a shape which is to be found among the butting crags, sea-beat headlands, or mountain summits, in every part of the world, was not there represented in the most brilliant and purest of materials. Whole cities, too, were there to be seen pictured; squares and streets, and winding lanes, running up from the water’s edge, like a ruined Genoa, with marble palaces, and churches, and alabaster fountains, and huge piles of buildings of every possible form standing proudly up amid the ocean, the whole appearing like some scene of enchantment rather than a palpable reality. Here was seen a lofty mountain rent in two by some fierce convulsion of nature; there, a city overturned: here, rocks upheaved and scattered around in wild confusion; there, deep gorges, impenetrable ravines, and terrific precipices;—indeed, here Nature, in her wildest and most romantic forms, was fully represented. The beauty of the wondrous spectacle was heightened when the sun arose, from the varied gorgeous tints which flashed from mountain-top and beetling cliff, from tower, turret, and pinnacle, where its bright rays fell on them as they slowly moved round in their eccentric courses. No words, however, can describe the dazzling whiteness and brilliancy of the floating masses. From some of the most lofty, fountains might be seen gushing down, as from a mountain’s top when the fierce rays of the sun melt the long-hardened snow; while in and out of the deep caverns the sea-birds flew and screamed, peopling those dreary solitudes with joyous life.
The sun soon melted the ice from off our decks and rigging, and as we sailed onward the air became warm and genial. The most insensible of us could not but admire the scene; but Newman could scarcely repress his exclamations of delight and surprise. His sketch-book was brought out, and rapidly he committed to paper some of the most remarkable portions of the beautiful scene. Still, no pencil, no colours could represent the glorious, the magnificent tints in which the sea and sky, and the majestic varied-shaped icebergs, were bathed, as the sun, bursting forth from his ocean-bed, glided upwards in the eastern heavens. Numbers of birds came circling round the ship in their rapid flight, or were seen perched on the pinnacles of the bergs, or flying among their caverned recesses—albatrosses, snow-white petrels, penguins, and ducks of various sorts.
The albatross—Diomedea, as Newman called it—is the most powerful and largest of all aquatic birds. Its long hard beak is very strong, and of a pale yellow colour. The feet are webbed. I have seen some, the wings of which, when extended, measured fifteen feet from tip to tip, while they weighed upwards of twenty pounds. It feeds while on the wing, and is very voracious, pouncing down on any object which its piercing eye can discover in the water; and many a poor fellow, when swimming for his life, having fallen overboard, has been struck by one, and sunk to rise no more.
The snow-white petrel is a beautiful bird, and in its colours offers a strong contrast to the stormy petrel, (Thalassidroma), the chief part of whose plumage is of a sooty black, and others dark brown. Instead of being dreaded by seamen, it ought to be looked upon as their friend, for it seems to know long before they do when a storm is approaching, and by its piercing cry and mode of flight warns them of the coming danger. Seamen, however, instead of being grateful, like the world of old, the world at present, and the world as it ever will be, look upon these little prophets with dread and hatred, and in their ignorance and stupidity consider them the cause of the evil portended.
Penguins are found only in the Antarctic Ocean. They derive their name from pinguis, “fat,” they being noted for that quality. Their legs are placed so far back that, when on shore, they stand almost upright. Though on land their movements are very awkward, yet when in the water—which, more than the air, must be considered their natural element, as their wings are too small to allow them to fly—they are bold birds, and will bravely defend themselves or their young when attacked, and will advance on a retreating enemy.
We had not been long in these icy regions before we reaped an ample reward for all the dangers we had encountered. As we looked over the side, we observed the water full of animalcules, while vast quantities of shrimps of various sorts were seen in the neighbourhood of the icebergs; but what still more raised our hopes of finding whales, were the numbers of large squid, or cuttle-fish, on which, as I have said, they chiefly feed. We were watching a huge fellow floating near the ship, with outstretched tentaculae, of arms, extending an immense distance from his head, and with which he was dragging up into his voracious mouth thousands of animalculae every moment—and from his size he seemed capable of encircling the body of any unfortunate person he might find swimming—when the cry was heard from aloft of “There she, spouts—there she spouts!”
In an instant Newman’s lecture of natural history, which he was giving us, was brought to a conclusion. All hands were on deck, and four boats were manned and lowered, and pulled away after no less than three fine bull whales, which appeared at the same instant round the ship. There is a danger in attacking a whale near an iceberg which is avoided in the open sea. When he is fast, he may sound under it, and come up on the other side; but instinct warns him not to come up so as to strike his head against it.