We made the land again to the northward of Cape York, and, when close in, were completely becalmed. The boats of each ship were ordered ahead to tow; and thus we slowly progressed along one of the most picturesque scenes it has ever been my fortune to witness in the arctic regions. The water was of glassy smoothness, the sky of brightest blue, and the atmosphere of perfect transparency; while around floated numberless icebergs of the most beautiful forms, and of dazzling hues, while all around was glancing and glittering beneath a bright and glowing sun.
One berg, I remember, was of enormous size. On the north side it was perpendicular, as if just severed from another; but, as we rounded it on the west, ledge above ledge appeared, each fringed with icicles reaching to the one below, thus forming lines of graceful columns, with a gallery within, appearing as if tinged with emerald-green. The summit was peaked and turreted, and broken into many fantastic forms. On the eastern side a clear arch was seen; and several small cascades fell from ledge to ledge with a trickling sound, and into the water with a gentle splash, which could distinctly be heard as we passed.
It must be remembered that in every direction arose bergs of equal beauty; while in the background were lofty hills covered with snow, tinted of a pinkish hue, and above them, of dazzling whiteness, ranges of eternal glaciers, towering to the sky. I could scarcely have believed that a scene of such enchanting beauty could have existed in the arctic regions, and was inclined to fancy, as I pulled at the oar, that they were rocks of Parian marble and alabaster, and that the galleries and caverns they contained were the abodes of fairies and the guardian spirits of those realms. But avast! what has Peter the Whaler to do with such poetical ideas?
On we worked our way northward. In clear weather, when a good look-out was to be had from the crow’s-nest, we were able to make our way among the streams of ice; but in thick weather, when our course could not be marked out, we were sadly delayed.
At last, after keeping a westerly course for a few hours, we broke through all intervening barriers, and once more felt our gallant ship lifting to the buoyant wave of the open sea, or rather what is called the “north water.”
The ice, by the warm weather, the currents, and the northerly winds, being driven out of Lancaster Sound and the head of Baffin’s Bay to the southward, leaves this part, for most of the summer, free from impediments. In five days after leaving the eastern land, having passed the north of Lancaster Sound, we came off the famous fishing-station of Pond’s Bay.
Chapter Twenty Eight.
The whole coast, in most places, was lined with a sheet of ice some ten or fifteen miles wide, to the edge of which, in perfectly smooth water, our ship, with many others at various distances, was made fast.