While thus beset with dangers, there were occasions of some pleasant excitement. The birds were abundant and of many varieties, affording sport for the hunters and fresh food for the table; the seals sported in the clear water, and were shot for the larder of the dogs; and Dr. Hayes and Professor Sontag found employment with their scientific instruments.
Such had been the state of things for four days, when one morning the vessel was borne toward a large berg, of a kind the sailors called "touch-me-nots." It was an old voyager, whose jagged sides, high towers, deep valleys and swelling hills, showed that time, the sun, and the tides, had laid their hands upon it. Such bergs are about as good neighbors as an avalanche on a mountain side, just ready for a run into the valley below. Warps and tow-boats, instantly and vigorously used, failed to stop the schooner's headway. She touched the berg, and down dropped fragments of it larger than the vessel, followed by a shower of smaller pieces; but they went clear of the vessel. Now the berg began to revolve, turning toward the explorers, and as its towering sides settled slowly over them, fragments poured upon the deck—a fearful hail-storm. There was no safety for the men except in the forecastle, and there appeared to be no escape for the schooner. But just in time an immense section of the base of the berg, which seemed to be far below the water line, broke off, and rose to the surface with a sudden rush, which threw the sea into violent commotion. The balance of the berg was changed; it paused, and then began, slowly at first but with increasing rapidity, to turn in the opposite direction. If this was intended as a retreat of the bergy foe, it defended well its rear. At its base, from which the piece had just been broken, was an icy projection toward the vessel; as the berg revolved, this tongue came up and struck the keel. It seemed intent upon tossing the vessel into the air, or rolling her over and leaving her bottom side up upon the sea. The men seized their poles and pushed vigorously to launch the vessel from the perilous position, but in vain. Just in time again the unseen Hand interfered for their deliverance. Deafening reports, like a park of artillery, saluted their ears, and a misty smoke arose above the berg. Its opposite side was breaking up, and launching its towering peaks into the sea. The berg paused again and began to roll back, and thus for the moment released the vessel. The boat had in the meantime fastened an anchor in a grounded berg, and the welcome shout came, "Haul in!" Steadily and with a will the men drew upon the rope, and the vessel moved slowly from the scene of danger, not, however, before the returning top of the berg had launched upon her deck a shower of ice-fragments, in fearful assurance that its whole side would soon follow and bury them as the shepherd's hut is buried by a mountain slide. A few moments later and the side came down with a tremendous crash, sending its spray over the escaped vessel, and tossing it as the drift-wood is tossed in the eddies beneath a water-fall.
All that day the roar of the icy cannon was continued, as if a naval battle was in progress for the empire of the north, and berg after berg went down, strewing the sea with their shattered fragments, while misty clouds floated over the field of conflict.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
COLLIDING FLOES.
AFTER this ice encounter the expedition put into a little port called Tessuissak, to complete their outfit of dogs. An impatient tarry of two days enabled them to count, on the deck of the little vessel, thirty first-class, howling dogs, whose amiable tempers found expression in biting each other, and making both day and night hideous with their noise.
This port was left on the twenty-third of August, and, much to the joy of all, the dreaded Melville Bay was clear of the ice-pack; the icebergs, however, kept their watch over its storm-tossed waters. Through these waters driven before a fierce wind, and buried often in a fog so dense that the length of the vessel could not be seen, the "United States" sped. Its anxious commander was on deck night and day, not knowing the moment when an icy wall, as fatal to the vessel as one of granite, might arrest its course and send it instantly to the bottom of the sea. Once they passed so near a berg just crossing their track that the fore-yard grazed its side, and the spray from its surf-beaten wall was thrown upon the deck. A berg at one time hove in sight with an arch through it large enough for a passage-way for the schooner. The explorers declined, however, the novel adventure. The passage of Melville Bay was made, with sails only, in fifty-five hours. The pack which had invariably troubled explorers seemed to have been enjoying a summer vacation, and the bergs were off duty. The expedition had reached the North Water and lay off Cape York.
The ocean current which sweeps past this cape, and opens the way to the other side of Baffin Bay, is wonderful. It is the great Polar current which comes rushing down through Spitzbergen Sea, along the eastern coast of Greenland, laden with ice, and taking the waters of its rivers with their freight of drift-wood as it passes. Leaving most of the wood along its shore, a welcome gift to the people, it sweeps around Cape Farewell, courses near the western shore in its run north until it has passed Melville Bay. When it has crossed over to the American shore near Jones Strait, it joins the current from the Arctic Sea, turns south, and makes the long journey until it reaches our own coast, dropping its ice freight as it goes, and sending its cooling air through the heat-oppressed atmosphere of our summer.