Cape Resolution.—The Entrance into Hudson's Straits.—The Sun in the North-east.—The Resolution Cliffs.—Sweating among Icebergs.—A Shower and a Fog.—An Anxious Night.—A Strange Rumbling.—Singular Noises and Explosions.—Running into an Iceberg.—In Tow.—A Big Hailstone drops on Deck.—Boarding an Iceberg.—Solution of the Explosions.—A Lucky Escape.
Cape Resolution.—The Entrance into Hudson's Straits.—The Sun in the North-east.—The Resolution Cliffs.—Sweating among Icebergs.—A Shower and a Fog.—An Anxious Night.—A Strange Rumbling.—Singular Noises and Explosions.—Running into an Iceberg.—In Tow.—A Big Hailstone drops on Deck.—Boarding an Iceberg.—Solution of the Explosions.—A Lucky Escape.
"Land and ice, land and ice, ho!" sang out our old sea-dog from his lookout in the bow.
'Twas the morning of the 7th of July. We had expected to make Cape Resolution the evening before. Kit and I had been on deck till one o'clock, watching in the gleaming twilight. Never shall I forget those twilights. The sun was not out of sight more than three hours and a half, and the whole northern semicircle glowed continuously. It shone on the sails; it shone on the sea. The great glassy faces of the swells cast it back in phosphorescent flashes. The patches of ice showed white as chalk. The ocean took a pale French gray tint. Overhead the clouds drifted in ghostly troops, and far up in the sky an unnatural sort of glare eclipsed the sparkle of stars. Properly speaking, there was no night. One could read easily at one o'clock. Twilight and dawn joined hands. The sun rose far up in the north-east. Queer nights these! Untilwe got used to it, or rather until fatigue conquered us, we had no little difficulty in going to sleep. We were not accustomed to naps in the daytime. As a sort of compromise, I recollect that we used to spread an old sail over the skylight, and hang up blankets over the bull's-eyes in the stern, to keep out this everlasting daylight. We needed night. Born far down toward the equinoxes, we sighed for our intervals of darkness and shadows. But we got used to it after a fortnight of gaping. One gets used to any thing, every thing. "Use is second nature," says an old proverb. It is more than that: it isNatureherself.
Land and ice, ho!
"Tumble out!" shouted Raed.
It was half-past three. We went on deck. The sun was shining brightly. Scarcely any wind; sea like glass in the sunlight; ice in small patches all about.
"Where's your land?" asked Wade.
"Off there," replied young Hobbs, pointing to the north-west.
Ah, yes! there it was,—a line of dark gray cliffs, low in the water. Between us and them a dozen white icebergs glittered in the sun.
"Is that the cape, captain?" queried Kit.
"Must be," was the reply. "Same latitude. Can't be any thing else. Answers to the chart exactly."
"Oh! that's Cape Resolution fast enough," said Raed. "Those cliffs correspond with the descriptions, I should say."
"How far off?" asked Wade.
"Well, seven or eight leagues," replied the captain.
"The Button Islands, on the south side of the entrance, ought to be in sight, to the south-west," remarked Raed, looking off in that direction; "but I don't see them," he added.
The captain got his glass, and climbed up to the gaff of the foresail.
"Yes, there 'tis!" he shouted. "Low down; low land. No cliffs."
"Why are they called 'Button Isles' on the chart?" he asked, sliding down the shrouds. "Is it because they resemble buttons?"
"No," said Raed. "They were named for Capt. Button, who sailed through here more than a century ago. He was one of those navigators who tried so hard to find the 'north-west passage' by sailing through Hudson's Straits. During the first half of the eighteenth century, the London merchants sent out expeditions nearly every year in the hope of finding a passage through here to China and India. This Button was one of their captains."
"Then this low land to the south-west of us is Cape Chidleigh, is it not?" said Wade.
"No," said Raed. "Cape Chidleigh is the main land of Labrador down to the south-east of the Button Isles. You couldn't see that, could you, captain?"
"Saw some high peaks to the south, far down on the horizon. Those are on Labrador, I presume. Couldn't say whether they are the cape proper or not. They are in about the direction of the cape as indicated on the chart."
As the sun rose higher a breeze sprang up, and the sails filled. The schooner was headed W.N.W. to run under the cape; Bonney being set to watch sharp for the floating ice.
"Coffee, sar!" cried Palmleaf from the companion-way.
We went down to breakfast and talk over matters with the captain. It was decided to work up under the cape, and so, hugging the land on the north side as closely as possible, get into the strait as far as we could that day. We all felt anxious; for though the sea was now smooth, sky clear, and the wind fair, yet we knew that it was rather the exception than the average. The idea of being caught here among these cliffs and icebergs in a three-days' fog or a north-east gale, with the whole fury of the Atlantic at our backs, was anything but encouraging. The advice of the elder navigators, "to seize a favorable day and get as far up the straits as possible," keptrecurring to our minds. The words had an ominous sound. They were the utterances of many a sad experience.
"There never could be a better day nor a fairer wind," remarked the captain.
"Now's our chance; I'm convinced of it," said Kit.
The mainsail, which had been taken in the previous evening, and the topsail, were both set; and, the breeze freshening, "The Curlew" rapidly gathered way. Considerable care had to be used, however, to avoid the broad cakes of ice which were floating out all around us. Small bits, and pieces as large as a hogshead, we paid no attention to; let the cut-water knock them aside. But there were plenty of large, angular, ugly-looking masses, which, if struck would have endangered the schooner's side. These were sheered off from: so that our course was made up of a series of curves and windings in and out. It seemed odd to see so much ice, and feel the deadly chill of the water, with so hot a sun on deck that the pitch started on the deal planks. In our companion-way the thermometer rose to eighty-seven degrees, with icebergs glittering at every point of the compass.
By eight o'clock,A.M., we were abreast the cliffs of Resolution Island, at a distance of a couple of miles. With our glasses we examined themattentively. Hoary, gray, and bare, they were, as when first split out of the earth's flinty crust, and thrust above the waves. The sun poured a flood of warm light over them; but no green thing could be discerned. Either there was no soil, or else the bleak frost-winds effectually checked the outcrop of life. To the south the Button Islands showed like brown patches on the shimmering waves. The width of the straits at this point is given on the chart at twelve leagues,—thirty-six miles. We could see the land on either side.
By eleven,A.M., we were twenty miles inside the outer cape. The cliffs continued on the north side, and the schooner was headed up within a mile of them. There were no signs of reefs or sunken ledges, however; and, on heaving the lead, a hundred fathoms of line were run out without touching bottom. The cliffs seem thus to form the side of an immense chasm partially filled by the ocean. Raed estimated their height above the sea to be near four hundred feet. At the distance of a mile they appeared to tower and almost impend over us.
Toward noon the wind flawed for half an hour, then dropped altogether. The current, which was setting out to sea, began to drag us back with it slowly. There wasn't a breath of air stirring. Blazes! how the sun poured down! Guard got round in the thin shadow of themainsail, and actually lolled among icebergs. There we were stuck. That is one of the disadvantages of a sailing-vessel: you have to depend on the wind,—the most capricious thing in the universe. I suppose the air-current had veered about from north-east to north, so that the lofty cliffs intercepted them completely.
Dinner was eaten. One o'clock,—two o'clock. We were glad to take refuge with Guard in the shade of the sails. All around us was a stillness which passes words, broken loudly by our steps on the hot deck, and the occasional graze of ice-cakes against the sides. We felt uneasy enough. This calm was ominous.
"There's mischief brewing!" muttered Kit; "and here we are in the very jaws of the straits!"
Since the wind dropped, the ice had seemed to thicken ahead. To the southward, farther out from the shore, where the outward current was stronger, we could see it driving along in a glittering procession of white bergs. The wisdom of keeping on the north side of the strait was apparent from this; though it seemed likely to cost us dear in the consequent loss of the wind. On many of the larger cakes we could see dark objects, which the glass disclosed to be seals, sunning.
Presently a dense mass of blue-black clouds loomed suddenly over the brow of the cliffs.
"A shower!" cried Raed.
"A squall!" exclaimed old Trull.
"All hands take in sail!" shouted the captain.
Our Gloucester lads needed no further awakening. We all bore a hand, and had the mainsail down on the boom, short order; and, while Wade and I tried our hand at lashing it with the gaskets, the rest got down the foresail and the topsail. The jib was not furled, but got ready to "let go" in case of fierce gusts. Low, heavy peals of thunder began to rumble behind the cliffs. The dark cloud-mass heaved up, till a misty line of foamy, driving rain and hail showed over the flinty crags. Bright flashes gleamed out, followed shortly by heavy, hollow peals. The naked ledges added vastly, no doubt, to the tone of the reverberations. The rain-drift broke over the cliffs; but the shower passed mainly to the north-west. Only some scattered drops, with a few big straggling pellets of hail, hit on the deck. An eddy of cool air followed the gust. The jib puffed out on a sudden.
"Up with the foresail!" was the order.
It was at once set; and "The Curlew" started on in the wake of the shower. The cloud passed across the straits diagonally to the south-west. We could see it raining heavily on the ice-flecked water a few miles farther up; and immediatelythe whole surface began to steam. We watched it with considerable anxiety.
"It will be a fog, I'm afraid," groaned Raed.
"It's sure to be," said young Hobbs. "I never seed a scud on the 'Banks' but 'ut it was allus follered by a fog."
White-gray, cold-looking clouds began to drift along the sun from the seaward. A sudden change in the air was felt. Cool, damp gusts swept down from the crags. The thermometer was falling rapidly. It had stood at ninety-four degrees just previous to the shower. Kit now reported it at seventy-three degrees; and, in less than an hour, it had fallen twenty degrees more. This sudden change was probably due to the veering of the wind from east round to north. The cold blasts from "Greenland's icy mountains" speedily dissipated our miniature summer. There was a general rush for great-coats and thick jackets. Thin lines of vapor streamed up from the water as the cold gusts swept across it. The hot sunbeams falling on the sea had doubtless raised the temperature considerably, despite the ice; and this sudden change in the air could but raise a great mist. Yet I doubt whether Nature's wonderful and legitimate processes were ever regarded with greater disfavor and apprehension.
"The barometer's falling a good deal too,"remarked the captain, coming hastily up the companion-stairs. "Either a rain-storm, or a smart gale from the north'ard: both, perhaps. We're in a tight place."
"What's to be done?" Raed asked.
"Hadn't we better try to beat out of the straits into the open sea again, clear of the land and ice?" said Kit.
"Can't do it. It would take all night to do that, if there were no ice to hinder. The gale will come before morning, if it comes at all; and the entrance of the straits would be the worst possible place to weather it."
"But, captain, what can we do?" Wade demanded, looking a little pale.
"Well, not much. We must keep on,—get as far up the straits as we can; and then trust to good luck to escape being smashed or jammed. The farther we get up the channel, the less we shall feel the violence of a gale from the seaward."
It was a rather gloomy prospect. The sky was thickening, and darkening rapidly. The mist kept streaming up from the water. What wind there was continued fitfully. We kept the foresail and the jib set, and jogged on, doubling amid the ice. Meanwhile the fog grew so dense, that every thing was very dim at fifty yards. But for the mist, and the danger of striking against large fragments of ice, we should have set themainsail and the topsail to make the most of our wind ere it blew too hard; for it was plainly rising. Now and then a gust would sigh past the sheets. Supper was eaten in squads of two and three. The thermometer fell constantly. It grew so chilly, that we were glad to slip down into the galley occasionally to warm our fingers at Palmleaf's stove. Guard had already taken up his quarters there.
"Dis am berry suddin change," the darky would remark gravely to each of us as we successively made our appearance. "Berry suddin. The gerometum fallin' fast. Srink 'im all up, ser cold. Now, dis forenoon it am quite comf'ble; warm 'nuf ter take a nap in the sun: but now—oo-oo-ooo! awful cold!" And Palmleaf would move his sable cheek up close to the hot stove-pipe, Guard all the time regarding him soberly from the other side.
Bidding the negro keep coffee hot and ready for us, we would hurry on deck again, and resume our places in the bow; for it required vigilant eyes to look out for all the ugly ice-cakes among which the schooner was driving. The weather grew thicker, and the sky darker. By half-past ten,P.M., although the sun must have been still high above the horizon, it was dark as one often sees it on a stormy night when there is a moon in the heavens. In fact, it grew toodark to make out the ice-patches; for, despite our watchfulness, at about five minutes to eleven we struck against a large mass with a shock which made things rattle down stairs. Guard barked, and Palmleaf showed a very scared face in the companion-way.
"Where are your eyes there, forward?" shouted the captain. "Couldn't you see that?"
Just then we grazed pretty heavily against another cake.
"It is really getting too dark for us, captain," said Raed.
"Take in the foresail, then."
The sail was at once furled. The jib was kept on, however, to hold us steady. We were now merely breasting the current, and driving on a little with the gusts. Soon it began to rain,—rain and snow together. The dreariness and uncertainty of our situation can hardly be imagined. We did not even know how near we were to the foot of the cliffs, and could merely keep the schooner headed as she had been during the afternoon.
"The main thing for us now is to keep her as nearly stationary as we can," said the captain. "Between wind and water, I hope not to move half a knot all night."
It was now nearly twelve.
"We may as well go below," said Kit. "Nouse standing here in the rain when we can do no good."
We had been up nearly twenty-one hours since our last nap. Sleep will have its tribute, even in the face of danger. Hastily flinging off our wet coats, we lay down. The wind and rain wailed among the rigging above.Chuck-chock, chock-chuck, went the waves under the stern; while every few minutes a heavy jarringbump, followed by a long raspygrindalong the side, told of the icy processions floating past. Those were our lullabies that night. Truly it required a sharp summoning of our fortitude not to feel a little home-sick. But we went to sleep; at least I did, and slept a number of hours.
Voices roused me. The captain was standing beside our mattresses.
"Wake up!" he was saying. "Get up, and come on deck!"
At the same moment I heard, indistinctly, a strange, rumbling sound.
"What is it? what's the matter?" cried Kit, starting up.
"Oh! don't be scared; we've been hearing it for some time," replied the captain. "Put on your rubber coats."
We did so, and followed him up the stairway. The rain and snow still came fast and thick. The deck was soppy. Hobbs was at the wheel.Donovan and Weymouth were forward. I could just make them out, standing wrapped up against the bulwarks.
"Now hark!" said the captain.
We all listened. A heavy noise, like that of some huge flouring-mill in full operation, could be plainly heard above the swash of the waves and the drive and patter of the storm.
"Thunder?—no, it isn't thunder," muttered Raed.
"Breakers!" exclaimed Kit. "It's the sea on the rocks,—those cliffs,—isn't it?"
"Trull," said the captain to that old worthy, who was just poking his head up out of the forecastle,—"Trull, is that noise the surf?"
The veteran turned an experienced ear aport, listened a moment, and then replied,—
"No, sir," promptly.
"Well, what in the world is it, then?"
The old salt listened again attentively. The steady rumble continued without intermission.
"Don't know, sir," replied Trull, shaking his head. "Never heard any thing like it."
"Are you sure it's not breakers?" demanded Kit. "I'm afraid we're drifting on the rocks. It's dead ahead too!"
But neither the captain nor Trull nor Donovan could believe it was the surf.
"We began to hear it over an hour ago,"remarked the captain. "It sounded low then; we could just hear it: but it grows louder. It's either coming towards us, or else we are going towards it. I presume the storm drives us with it considerably."
"I tell you that it is some dangerous reef!" exclaimed Kit; "some hole or cavern which the water is playing through."
"It may be," muttered the captain. "Starboard the helm, Hobbs!"
At this instant a heavy, near explosion boomed out, followed momentarily by another and another.
"Good heavens!" exclaimed Raed.
"Cannon!" shouted Wade: "it's a vessel in distress!"
"Impossible!" cried the captain. "No ship would fire cannon here, even if wrecked. There wouldn't be one chance in ten thousand of its being heard by another vessel."
Boom!
"Hark! did you not hear that splashing noise that followed the explosion?" demanded Kit.
We had all heard it; for, by this time, the sailors who were below had come on deck. The heavy rumbling noise began afresh, and sounded louder than before. We were completely mystified, and stood peering off from the bulwarks into the stormy obscurity of the night.
"Are there volcanoes on these straits, suppose?" Wade asked.
No one had ever heard of any.
"There were none in my geography," said Raed. "But there may be oneforming."
Indeed, we were so much in doubt, that even this improbable suggestion was caught at for the moment.
"But where's the fire and smoke?" replied Kit. "Methinks it ought to be visible."
We could feel, rather than see, that the schooner was veering slowly to the left, in obedience to her helm,—a fact which left no doubt that we were, as the captain had surmised, drifting with the storm against the current; or perhaps, before this, the tide coming in had made a counter-current up the straits. The roaring noise was growing more distinct every minute; till all at once Bonney, who was looking attentively out from the bow, exclaimed,—
"What's that ahead, captain? Isn't there something?"
We all strained our eyes.
Dim amid the fog and rain something which seemed like a great pale shadow loomed before the schooner. For a moment we gazed, uncertain whether it were real, or an illusion of darkness; then Donovan shouted,—
"Ice!—it's an iceberg!"
"Hard a-starboard!" yelled Capt. Mazard.
It was not a hundred feet distant. Old Trull and Bonney caught up the pike-poles to fend off with. "The Curlew" drove on. The vast shadowy shape seemed to approach. A chill came with it. A few seconds more, and the bowsprit punched heavily against the ice-mountain. The shock sent the schooner staggering back like a pugilist with a "blimmer" between the eyes. Had we been sailing at our usual rate, it would have stove in the whole bow. The storm immediately forced us forward again; and the bowsprit, again striking, slid along the ice with a dull, crunching sound as the schooner fell off sidewise.
"Stand by those pike-poles!" shouted the captain; for so near was the iceberg, that we could easily reach it with a ten-foot pole from the bulwarks.
Striking the iron spikes into the ice, the men held the schooner off while she drifted past. The rumbling noise, louder than before, seemed now to come from out the solid berg.
"Let's get away from this before it splits or explodes again!" exclaimed Raed.
"Heavens! it sounds like a big grist-mill in full blast!" said Kit.
"More like a powder-mill, I should judge from the blasts we heard a few minutes ago," remarked Wade.
More poles were brought up, and we all lent a hand to push off from our dangerous neighbor. After fending along its massy side for several hundred yards, we got off clear from an angle.
"Farewell, old thunder-mill!" laughed Kit.
But we had not got clear of it so easily: for the vast lofty mass so broke off the wind and storm, that, immediately on passing it to the leeward, we hadn't a "breath of air;" and, as a consequence, the berg soon drifted down upon us. Again we pushed off from it, and set the fore-sail. The sail merely flapped occasionally, and hung idly; and again the iceberg came grinding against us. There were no means of getting off, save to let down the boat, and tow the schooner out into the wind,—rather a ticklish job among ice, and in so dim a light. "The Curlew" lay broadside against the berg, but did not seem to chafe or batter much: on the contrary, we were borne along by the ice with far less motion than if out in open water.
"Well, why not let her go so?" said Kit after we had lain thus a few minutes. "There doesn't seem to be any great danger in it. This side of the iceberg, so far as I can make it out, doesn't look very dangerous."
"Not a very seamanlike way of doing business," remarked the captain, looking dubiously around.
"Catching a ride on an iceberg," laughed Weymouth. "That sort of thing used to be strictly forbidden at school."
"But only listen to that fearful rumble and roar!" said Raed. "It seems to come from deep down in the berg. What is it?"
"Must be the sea rushing through some crack, or possibly the rain-water and the water from the melted ice on top streaming down through some hole into the sea," said the captain.
"But those explosions!—how would you account for those?" asked Wade.
"Well, I can't pretend to explain that. I have an idea, however, that they resulted from the splitting off of large fragments of ice."
On the whole, it was deemed most prudent to let the schooner lay where she was,—till daylight at least. Planks were got up from below, and thrust down between the side and the ice to keep her from chafing against the sharp angles.
By this time it was near six o'clock, morning, and had begun to grow tolerably light. The rain still continued, however, as did also the bellowings inside the iceberg. Old Trull and Weymouth were set to watch the ice, and the rest of us went down to breakfast. The schooner lay so still, that it seemed like being on shore again. We had got as far as our second cup of coffee, I recollect, when we were startled by another ofthe same heavy explosions we had heard a few hours previous. It was followed instantly by a second. Then we heard old Trull sing out,—
"Avast from under!"
And, a moment later, there was a tremendous crash on deck, accompanied by a hollow, rattling sound. Dropping our knives and forks, we sprang up the companionway.
"What was that, Trull?" demanded Capt. Mazard.
"A chunk of ice, sir, as big as my old sea-chest!"
"How came that aboard?"
"Rained down, sir. Went up from the top o' the barg, sir, at that thunder-clap, and came plumb down on deck."
The deck-planks were shattered and split where it had struck, and pieces of ice the size of a quart measure lay all about.
"Did you see it fly up from the top of the berg, Weymouth?" Raed asked.
"Yes, sir. It didn't go up till the second pop. I was looking then. It went up like as if it had been shot from a gun; went up thirty or forty feet, then turned in the air, and came down on us. Thought 'twould sink us, sir, sure. There were streams of water in the air at the same time; and water by the hogshead came sloshing over the side of the ice."
"I don't understand that at all," said the captain.
"We must investigate it," said Raed, "if we can. But let's make sure of our breakfast first. I suppose there will be no great danger in letting down the boat as soon as it gets fairly light, will there, captain? This iceberg seems to be a rather mysterious chap. I propose that we circumnavigate it in the boat. Perhaps we may find a chance to climb on to it."
It was already light; and, by the time breakfast was over, the rain had subsided to a drizzly mist: but the fog was still too thick to see far in any direction. The sea continued comparatively calm. A few minutes after seven, the boat was lowered. Raed and the rest of us boys, with the captain and Weymouth, got in, and pulled round to the windward of the berg. It was a vast, majestic mass, rising from forty to fifty feet above the water, and covering three or four acres. On the south, south-east, and east sides it rose almost perpendicularly from the sea. No chance to scale it here; and, even if there had been, the water was much too rough to the windward to bring the boat up to it. We continued around it, however, and, near the north-west corner, espied a large crevice leading up toward the top, and filled with broken ice.
"Might clamber up there," suggested the captain.
It looked a little pokerish.
"Let's try it," said Kit.
The boat was brought up within a yard or so of the ice. Watching his chance, Capt. Mazard leaped into the crack.
"Jump, and I'll catch you if you miss," said he.
Raed jumped, and got on all right; but Kit slipped. The captain caught him by the arm, and pulled him up, with no greater damage than a couple of wet trousers-legs. Wade and I followed dry-shod.
"Shove off a few yards, Weymouth, and be ready in case we slip down," directed the captain.
But we had no difficulty in climbing up.
The top of the berg was irregular and rough, with pinnacles and "knolls," between which were many deep puddles of water,—fresh water: we drank from one. For some time we saw nothing which tended to explain the explosions; though the dull, roaring noise still continued, seeming directly under our feet: but on crossing over to the south-west side, beneath which the schooner lay, Wade discovered a large, jagged hole something like a well. It was five or six feet across, and situated twenty or twenty-five yards from theside of the berg. Standing around this "well," the rumbling noises were more distinct than we had yet heard them, and were accompanied by a great splashing, and also by a hissing sound, as of escaping air or steam; and, on peering cautiously down into the hole, we could discern the water in motion. The iceberg heaved slightly with the swell: the gurgling and hissing appeared to follow the heaving motion.
"I think there must be great cavities down in the ice, which serve as chambers for compressed air," remarked Raed; "and somehow the heaving of the berg acts as an air-pump,—something like an hydraulic ram, you know."
As none of us could suggest any better explanation, we accepted this theory, though it was not very clear.
We were going back toward the crevice, when a loud gurgling roar, followed by a report like the discharge of a twenty-four-pounder, made the berg tremble; and, turning, we saw the water streaming from the well. Another gurgle and another report succeeded, almost in the same instant. Jets of water, and bits of ice, were spouted high into the air, and came down splashing and glancing about. We made off as expeditiously as we could. Fortunately none of the pieces of ice struck us; though Wade and Raed, who were a little behind, were well bespattered. We hurrieddown to the boat, greatly to the relief of Weymouth, who expected we had "got blown up."
[Raed begs me to add that he hopes the reader will be able to suggest a better explanation of this singular phenomenon than the one that has occurred to him.]
Jumping to the boat, we pulled round to "The Curlew." The sailors were watching for us, with a touch of anxiety on their rough, honest faces.
"Throw us a line!" shouted Capt. Mazard; "and bear a hand at those pike-poles to shove her off. We'll get clear of this iceberg as quick as we can. Something the matter with its insides: liable to bust, I'm afraid."
Catching the line, we bent to the oars, and, with the help of the men with the poles tugged the schooner off, and gradually towed her to a distance of three or four hundred yards from the berg. The boat was then taken in, sail made, and we were againbumpingon up the straits.
The Fog lifts.—A Whale in Sight.—Craggy Black Mountains capped with Snow.—A Novel Carriage for the Big Rifle.—Mounting the Howitzer.—A Doubtful Shot.—The Lower Savage Isles.—A Deep Inlet.—"Mazard's Bay."—A Desolate Island.—An Ice-Jam.—A Strange Blood-red Light.—Solution of the Mystery.—Going Ashore.—Barren Ledges. Beds of Moss.—A Bald Peak.—An Alarm.—The Schooner in Jeopardy.—The Crash and Thunder of the Ice.—Tremendous Tides.
The Fog lifts.—A Whale in Sight.—Craggy Black Mountains capped with Snow.—A Novel Carriage for the Big Rifle.—Mounting the Howitzer.—A Doubtful Shot.—The Lower Savage Isles.—A Deep Inlet.—"Mazard's Bay."—A Desolate Island.—An Ice-Jam.—A Strange Blood-red Light.—Solution of the Mystery.—Going Ashore.—Barren Ledges. Beds of Moss.—A Bald Peak.—An Alarm.—The Schooner in Jeopardy.—The Crash and Thunder of the Ice.—Tremendous Tides.
The rain had now pretty much ceased. Some sudden change took place in the air's density; for the fog, which had all along lain flat on the sea, now rapidly rose up like a curtain, twenty, thirty, fifty feet, leaving all clear below. We looked around us. The dark water was besprinkled with white patches, among which the seals were leaping and frisking about. Half a mile to the left we espied a lazy water-jet playing up at intervals.
"There she blows!" laughed Bonney. "Seems like old times, I declare!"
"What's that, sir?" asked Capt. Mazard, who had been below for the last ten minutes.
"A sperm-whale on the port quarter, sir!"
Two or three miles ahead, another large iceberg was driving grandly down. We could alsosee our lateconsorta mile astern,—see and hear it too. Higher and higher rose the fog. The sky brightened through transient rifts in the clouds. Glad enough were we to see it clearing up.
Either the land had fallen off to the north; or else, in our fear of running on the cliffs, we had declined a good deal from our course. The northern shore was now three or four leagues distant. Fog and darkness hung over it. The bases of the mountains were black; but their tops glistened with snow, the snow-line showing distinct two or three hundred feet above the shore. The sails were trimmed, and the helm put round to bear up nearer.
"What a country!" exclaimed Raed, sweeping it with his glass. "Is it possible that people live there? What can be the inducements?"
"Seals, probably," said Kit,—"seals and whales. That's the Esquimaux bill of fare, I've heard, varied with an occasional white bear or a sea-horse."
"A true 'Husky' (Esquimau) won't eat a mouthful of cooked victuals," said Capt. Mazard; "takes every thing raw."
"Should think so much raw meat would make them fierce and savage," remarked Wade: "makes dogs savage to give them raw meat."
"But the Esquimaux are a rather good-natured set, I've heard," replied Kit.
"Not always," said the captain. "The whalers have trouble with them very often; though these whalemen are doubtless anything but angels," he added. "In dealing with them, it is well to have a good show of muskets, or a big gun or two showing its muzzle: makes 'em more civil. Cases have been where they've boarded a scantily-manned vessel; to get the plunder, you see. Hungry for anything of the axe or iron kind."
"It would not be a bad plan to get up our howitzer, and rig a carriage for it," said Wade. "Let's do it."
"And Wash's cannon-rifle," said Kit. "We ought to get that up. I think it's about time to test that rather remarkablearm."
"The problem with me is how to mount it," said I.
"I was thinking of that the other day," remarked the captain. "I've got a big chest below,—an old thing I don't use now: we might make the gun fast to the top of it; then put some trucks on the bottom just high enough to point it out over the bulwarks. Here, Hobbs: come below, and help me fetch it on deck."
While they were getting up the chest, Raed and I brought up the cannon-rifle. It was about as much as we could get up the stairs with easily. It was, as the reader will probably remember, set in a light framework of wrought-iron, adjusted toa swivel, and arranged with a screw for raising or lowering the breech at will. The bed-pieces of the framework had been pierced for screws. It was, therefore, but a few minutes' work to bore holes in the top of the chest and drive the screws. Meanwhile the captain, who enjoyed the scheme as well as any of us, split open a couple of old tackle-blocks, and, getting out the trucks, proceeded to set them on the ends of two stout axles cut from an old ice-pole. These axles were then nailed fast to the bottom of the chest. The gun-carriage was then complete, and could be rolled anywhere on deck with ease.
"Decidedly neat!" exclaimed Capt. Mazard, surveying it with a grin of self-approbation.
"What say to that, Trull?" cried Raed.
The old man-of-war's-man had been watching the progress of the invention with an occasional tug at his waistband.
"Yes; how's that in your eye?" exclaimed the captain. "You're a military character. Give us an opinion on that."
"Wal, sur," cocking his eye at it, "I'm free to confass I naver saw anything like it;" and that was all we could get out of him.
"Bring some ammunition, and let's give it a trial," said Kit.
I brought up the powder-flask, caps, and a couple of bullets. The bullets we had run for itwere of lead, about an inch in diameter, and weighed not far from six ounces apiece. The breech was depressed. Raed poured in half a gill of the fine powder by measurement; a wad of paper was rammed down; then a bullet was driven home. There only remained to prime and cap it.
"Fire at one of these seals," suggested Wade, pointing to where a group of three or four lay basking on an ice-cake at a distance of eight or ten hundred yards.
"Who'll take the first shot?" said Kit.
Nobody seemed inclined to seize the honor.
"Come, now, that seal's getting impatient!" cried the captain.
Still no one volunteered to shoot off the big rifle.
"I think Wash had better fire the first shot," remarked Raed. "The honor clearly belongs to him."
Seeing they were a little disposed to rally me on it, I stepped up and cocked it. At that everybody hastily stood back. I took as good aim as the motion of the schooner would permit; though I think I should have done better had not Palmleaf just at that moment sang out, "Dinner, sar!" from behind. I pulled the trigger, however. There was a stunning crack; and so smart a recoil, that I was pushed half round sidewise with amazing spitefulness. The old chest rolledback, whirled round, and upset against the bulwarks on the other side. The reader can imagine what a rattle and racket it made.
"Golly!" exclaimed Palmleaf. "Am crazy!"
"Did it hit the seal?" recovering my equilibrium.
Wade was the only one who had watched the seal.
"I saw him flop off into the water," said he.
"Then of course it hit him," said I.
Nobody disputed it; though I detected an odious wink between the captain and Kit.
The prostrate gun was got up on its legs again; old Trull remarking that we had better trig it behind before we fired, in future: that duty attended to, he thought it might work very well.
We then went to dinner. How to mount the howitzer was the next question.
"We need a regular four-wheeled gun-carriage for that," said Raed.
"I think we can make one out of those planks," remarked Kit.
"The worst trouble will come with the wheels," said Wade.
But Capt. Mazard thought he could saw them out of sections of fifteen-inch plank with the wood-saw.
"I'll undertake that for my part," he added, and, as soon as dinner was over, went about it.
"Now we'll get old man Trull to help us on thebody," said Kit.
The planks, with axe, adz, auger, and hammer, were carried on deck. Our old man-of-war's man readily lent a hand; and with his advice, particularly in regard to the cheeks for the trunnions, we succeeded during the afternoon in getting up a rough imitation of the old-fashioned gun-carriage in use on our wooden war-vessels. The captain made the wheels and axles. The body was then spiked to them, and the howitzer lifted up and set on the carriage. By way of testing it, we then charged the piece with half a pint of powder, and fired it. The sharp, brassy report was reverberated from the dark mountains on the starboard side in a wonderfully distinct echo. Hundreds of seals dropped off the ice-cakes into the sea all about,—a fact I observed with some mortification. As the guns would have to remain on deck, exposed to fog and rain, we stopped the muzzles with plugs, and covered them with two of our rubber blankets. They were then lashed fast, and left for time of need.
During the day, we had gradually come up with what we at first had taken for a cape or a promontory from the mainland, but which, by five o'clock,P.M., was discovered to be a group of mountainous islands, the same known on the chart as the "Lower Savage Isles." The coursewas changed five points, to pass them to the southward. By seven o'clock we were off abreast one of the largest of them. It was our intention to stand on this course during the night. The day had at no time, however, been exactly fair. Foggy clouds had hung about the sun; and now a mist began to rise from the water, much as it had done the previous evening.
"If I thought there might be any tolerable safe anchorage among those islands," muttered the captain, with his glass to his eye, "I should rather beat in there than take the risk of running on to another iceberg in the fog."
This sentiment was unanimous.
"There seems to be a clear channel between this nearest island and the next," remarked Raed, who had been looking attentively for some moments. "We could but bear up there, and see what it looks like."
The helm was set a-port, and the sails swung round to take the wind, which, for the last hour, had been shifting to the south-east. In half an hour we were up in the mouth of the channel. It was a rather narrow opening, not more than thirty-five or forty rods in width, with considerable ice floating about. We were in some doubt as to its safety. The schooner was hove to, and the lead thrown.
"Forty-seven fathoms!"
"All right! Bring her round!"
The wind was light, or we should hardly have made into an unknown passage with so much sail on: as it was, we did but drift lazily in. On each side, the islands presented black, bare, flinty crags, distant scarcely a pistol shot from the deck. A quarter of a mile in, we sounded a second time, and had forty-three fathoms.
"Never saw a deeper gut for its width!" exclaimed Capt. Mazard. "What a chasm there would be here were the sea out of it!"
Half a mile farther up, a third and smaller island lay at the head of the channel, which was thus divided by it into two narrow arms,—one leading out to the north-east, the other to the north-west. This latter arm was clear of ice, showing a dark line of water crooking off among numerous small islets; but the arm opening up to the north-east was jammed with ice. "The Curlew" went in leisurely to three hundred yards of the foot of the island, where we found thirty-three fathoms, and hove to within a hundred yards of the ledges of the island on the east side. The anchor was now let go, and the sails furled.
"We're snug enough here from anything from the north-east or north," remarked Capt. Mazard; "and even a sou'-wester would hardly affect us much a mile up this narrow inlet."
It seemed a tolerably secure berth. Theschooner lay as still as if at her wharf at far-distant Portland. There was no perceptible swell in the channel. Despite the vast mass of ice "packed" into the arm above us, it was not disagreeably chilly. The thermometer stood at fifty-nine degrees in our cabin. Indeed, were it not for the great bodies of ice, these extreme northern summers, where the sun hardly sets for months, would get insufferably hot,—too hot to be endured by man.
The mist steamed silently up, up. Gradually the islands, the crags, and even objects at the schooner's length, grew indistinct, and dimmed out entirely by half-past ten. We heard the "honk, honk," of numerous wild-geese from the islands; and, high overhead, the melancholy screams of "boatswains." Otherwise all was quiet. The watch was arranged among the sailors, and we went to bed. For the last sixty hours we had had not over seven hours of sleep. Now was a good time to make up. Profound breathing soon resounded along the whole line of mattresses.
We had been asleep two or three hours, when a shake aroused me. A strange, reddish glare filled the cabin. Donovan was standing at my head.
"What's up?" I asked. "Fire? It isn't fire, is it?" jumping up.
"No, it's not fire," replied Donovan.
"Oh! morning, then," I said, greatly relieved.
"No; can't be. It's only one o'clock."
"Then what is it, for pity sake?" I demanded in fresh wonder.
"Don't know, sir. Thought I'd just speak to you. Perhaps you'll know what it is. Won't you go up. It's a queer sight on deck."
"Of course I will. Go ahead. No matter about waking the others just yet, though."
The cold mist struck in my face on emerging from the companion-way. It was still very foggy and damp. Such a scene! The sky was of a deep rose-color. The thick fog seemed like a sea of magenta. The deck, the bulwarks, the masts, and even Donovan, standing beside me, looked as if baptized in blood. It was as light as, even lighter than, when we had gone below. The cliffs on the island, drear and black by daylight, showed like mountains of red beef through the crimson fog.
"It was my watch," said Donovan. "I was all alone here. Thought I would just speak to you. Come on quite sudden. I didn't know just what to make of it."
"No wonder you didn't."
"I knew it couldn't be morning," he went on. "There must be a great fire somewhere round: don't you think so, sir?"
I was trying to think. Queer sensations came over me. I looked at my watch. It was four minutes past one. Donovan was right: it couldn't be morning. A sudden thought struck me.
"It's the northern lights, Donovan!" I exclaimed.
"So red as this?"
"Yes: it's the fog."
"Do you really think so?" with a relieved breath.
"There's no doubt of it."
"But it makes a funny noise."
"Noise?"
"Yes: I heard it several times before I called you. Hark! There!"
A soft, rushing sound, which was neither the wind (for there was none), nor the waves, nor the touch of ice, could be heard at brief intervals. It seemed far aloft. I am at a loss how to describe it best. It was not unlike the faint rustle of silk, and still more like the flapping of a large flag in a moderate gale of wind. Occasionally there would be a soft snap, which was much like the snapping of a flag. I take the more pains to state this fact explicitly, because I am aware that the statement that the auroral phenomena are accompanied by audible sounds has been disputed by many writers. I have only to add, that, if they could not have heard the "rustlings" fromthe deck of "The Curlew" that night, they must have been lamentably deaf.
The light wavered visibly, brightening and waning with marvellous swiftness.
"Shall we call the other young gentlemen?" Donovan asked.
"Yes; but don't tell them what it is. See what they will think of it."
In a few moments Kit and Wade and Raed were coming out of the companion-way, rubbing their eyes in great bewilderment. They were followed by the captain.
"Heavens!" he exclaimed. "Is the ship on fire?"
"Fire!" cried Wade excitedly, catching at the last word: "did you sayfire?"
"No, no!" exclaimed Kit. "It'snothing—nothing—but daybreak!"
"It's only one o'clock," said Donovan, willing to keep them in doubt.
Capt. Mazard was rushing about, looking over the bulwarks.
"There's no fire," said he, "unless it's up in the sky. But, by Jove! if you aren't a red-looking set!—redder than lobsters!"
"Not redder than yerself, cap'n," laughed Donovan, who greatly enjoyed their mystification.
"The sea is like blood!" exclaimed Wade. "You don't suppose the day of judgment hascome and caught us away up here in Hudson's Straits, do you?"
"Not quite so bad as that, I guess," said Raed. "I have it: it's the aurora borealis; nothing worse, nor more dangerous."
I had expected Raed would come to it as soon as he had got his eyes open.
"A red aurora!" said the captain. "Is that the way you explain it?"
"Not a red aurora exactly," returned Raed, "but an aurora shining down through the thick fog. The aurora itself is miles above the fog, up in the sky and probably of the same bright yellow as usual; but the dense mist gives it this red hue."
"I've heard that the northern lights were caused by electricity," said Weymouth. "Is that so?"
"It is thought to be electricity passing through the air high up from the earth," replied Raed. "That's what the scientific men tell us."
"They can tell us that, and we shall be just as wise as we were before," said Kit. "They can't tell us what electricity is."
"Why!" exclaimed the captain, "I thought electricity was"—
"Well, what?" said Kit, laughing.
"Why, the—the stuff they telegraph with," finished the captain a little confusedly.
"Well, what's that?" persisted Kit.
"Whatis it?" repeated the captain confidently. "Why, it is—well—Hang it! I don't know!"
We all burst out laughing: the captain himself laughed,—his case was so very nearly like everybody's who undertakes to talk about the wondrous, subtle element. By the by, his definition of it—viz., that it is "the stuff we telegraph with"—strikes me as being about the best one I ever heard. Kit and Raed, however, have got a theory,—which they expound very gravely,—to the effect that electricity and the luminiferous ether—that thin medium through which light is propagated from the sun, and which pervades all matter—are one and the same thing; which, of course, is all very fine as a theory, and will be finer when they can give the proof of it.
After watching the aurora for some minutes longer, during which it kept waxing and waning with alternate pale-crimson and blood-red flushes, we went back to our bunks; whence we were only aroused by Palmleaf calling us to breakfast.
If there was any wind that morning it must have been from the east, when the crags of the island under which we lay would have interrupted it. Not a breath reached the deck of "The Curlew;" and we were thus obliged to remain at our anchorage, which, in compliment to the captain, and after the custom of navigators, wenamedMazard's Bay. As the inlet bore no name, and was not even indicated on the charts we had with us, we felt at liberty to thus designate it, leaving to future explorers the privilege of rechristening it at their pleasure.
"We shall have a lazy morning of it," Kit remarked, as we stood loitering about the deck.
"I propose that we let down the boat, and go ashore on the island," said Wade. "'Twould seem good to set foot on something firm once more."
"Well, those ledges look firm enough," replied Raed. "See here, captain: here's a chap begging to get ashore. Is it safe to trust him off the ship?"
"Hardly," laughed Capt. Mazard. "He might desert."
"Then I move we all go with him," said Kit. "Let's take some of those muskets along too. May get a shot at those wild-geese we heard last evening."
The boat was lowered. We boys and the captain, with Donovan and Hobbs to row us, got over the rail, and paddled to where a broad jetting ledge formed a natural quay, on which we leaped. The rock was worn smooth by the waves of centuries. To let the sailors go ashore with us, we drew up the boat on the rock several feet, and made it fast with a line knotted into a crevicebetween two fragments of flinty sienite rock at the foot of the crags. We then, with considerable difficulty and mutual "boosting," clambered up to the top of the cliffs, thirty or forty feet above the boat, and thence made our way up to the summit of a bald peak half a mile from the shore, which promised a good prospect of the surrounding islands. It is hardly possible to give an idea of the desolate aspect of these ledgy islets. There was absolutely no soil, no earth, on them. More than half the surface was bare as black sienite could be. Huge leathery lichens hung to the rocks in patches; and so tough were they, that one might pull on them with his whole strength without tearing them. In the crevices and tiny ravines between the ledges, there were vast beds of damp moss. In crossing these we went knee-deep, and once waist-deep, into it. The only plant I saw was a trailing shrublet, sometimes seen on high mountains in New England, and known to botanists as Andromeda of the heathworts. It had pretty blue-purple flowers, and was growing quite plentifully in sheltered nooks. Not a bird nor an animal was to be seen. Half an hour's climbing took us to the brown, weather-beaten summit of the peak. From this point eleven small islands were in sight, none of them more than a few miles in extent; and, at a distance of seven or eight leagues, the high mountains of thenorthern main, their tops white with snow, with glittering glaciers extending down the valleys,—the source of icebergs. There was a strong current of air across the crest of the peak. Sweeping down from the wintry mountains, it made us shiver. The sea was shimmering in the sun, and lay in silvery threads amid the brown isles. Below us, and almost at our feet, was the schooner,—our sole connecting link with the world of men,—her cheery pine-colored deck just visible over the shore cliffs. Suddenly, as we gazed, she swung off, showing her bow; and we saw the sailors jumping about the windlass.
"What does that mean?" exclaimed Capt. Mazard. "Possible they've got such a breeze as that down there? Why, it doesn't blow enoughhereto swing the vessel round like that!"
"But only look down the inlet!" said Donovan. "How wild it seems! See those lines of foam! Hark!"
A rushing noise as of some great river foaming among bowlders began to be heard.
"It's the tide coming in!" shouted the captain, starting to run down the rocks.
The schooner had swung back and round the other way. What we had read of the high and violent tides in these straits flashed into my mind.
The captain was making a bee-line for the vessel: the rest of us followed as fast as we couldrun. Just what good we any of us expected to be able to do was not very clear. But "The Curlew" was our all: we couldn't see it endangered without rushing to the rescue. Panting, we arrived on the ledges overlooking the boat and the schooner. The tide had already risen ten or a dozen feet. The boat had floated up from the rock, and broken loose from the line. We could see it tossing and whirling half way out to the schooner. The whole inlet boiled like a pot, and roared like a mill-race. Huge eddies as large as a ten-pail kettle came whirling in under the cliffs. The whole bay was filling up. The waters crept rapidly up the rocks. But our eyes were riveted on the schooner. She rocked; she wriggled like a weather-cock; then swung clean round her anchor.
"If it will only hold her!" groaned Capt. Mazard. "But, if it drags, she'll strike!"
Old Trull, Weymouth, and Bonney were at the windlass, easing out the cable as the vessel rose on the tide. Corliss was at the wheel, tugging and turning,—to what purpose was not very evident. But they were doing their level best to save the vessel: that was plain. Capt. Mazard stood with clinched hands watching them, every muscle and nerve tense as wire.
I was hoping the most dangerous crisis had passed, when a tremendous noise, like athunder-peal low down to the earth, burst from the ice-jammed arm of the inlet to the north-east. We turned instantly in that direction. The whole pack of ice, filling the arm for near a half-mile, was in motion, grating and grinding together. From where we stood, the noise more resembled heavy, near thunder than anything else I can compare it with.
"It's the tide bursting round from the north-east side!" exclaimed Kit.
"Took it a little longer to come in among the islands on the north side," said Raed, gazing intently at the fearful spectacle.
The noise nearly deafened us. The whole vast mass of ice—millions of tons—was heaving and sliding, cake over cake. It had lain piled fifteen or twenty feet above the water; but the tide surging under it and through it caused it to mix and churn together. We could see the water gushing up through crevices, sometimes in fountains of forty or fifty feet, hurling up large fragments of ice. The phenomenon was gigantic in all its aspects. To us, who expected every moment to see it borne forward and crush the schooner, it was appalling. But the sea filling in on the south, added to the narrowness of the arm, prevented the jam from rushing through; though a great deal of ice did float out, and, caught in the swirling currents, bumped pretty hard against thevessel's sides. The schooner swayed about heavily; but the anchor held miraculously, as we thought. Once we fancied it had given way, and held our breath till the cable tightened sharply again. The grating and thundering of the jam gradually dulled, muffled by the water. Our thoughts reverted to our own situation. The sea had risen within five feet of the place where we were standing. To get up here in the morning we had been obliged to scale a precipice.
"It must have risen fully thirty feet," said Kit. "What a mighty tide!"
"Why should it rush in here with so much greater violence than it does down on the coast of Massachusetts or at Long Branch?" questioned Wade. "How do you explain it, captain?"
"It is because the coasts, both above and below the mouth of the straits, converge after the manner of a tunnel. The tidal wave from the Atlantic is thus accumulated, and pours into the straits with much more than ordinary violence. The same thing occurs in the Bay of Fundy, where they have very high tides. But I had no idea of such violence," he added, "or I shouldn't have risked the schooner so near the rocks. Why, that inlet ran like Niagara rapids!"
"What an evidence this gives one of the strength of the moon's attraction!" said Raed. "All this great mass of water—thirty feethigh—is drawn in here by the moon. What enormous force!"
"And this vast power is exerted over a distance of two hundred and thirty-eight thousand miles," remarked Kit.
"I can't understand this attraction of gravitation,—how it is exerted," said Wade.
"No more can anyone," replied Raed.
"It is said that this attraction of the moon, or at least the friction of the tides on the ocean-bed which it causes, is exerted in opposition to the revolution of the earth on its axis, and that it will thus at some future time stop that motion altogether," Kit remarked. "That's what Prof. Tyndall thinks."
"Then there would be an end of day and night," said I; "or rather it would be all day on one side of the earth, and all night on the other."
"That would be unpleasant," laughed Wade; "worse than they have it up at the north pole."
"It is some consolation," said Raed, "to know that such a state of things is not likely to come in our time. According to a careful calculation, the length of the day is not thus increased more than a second in a hundred and sixty-eight thousand years."
"But how are we to go aboard, sir?" inquired Hobbs, to whom our present fix was of more interest than the long days of far-distant posterity.
The boat had been tossed about here and there, and was now some twenty or thirty yards astern of the schooner.
"Have to swim for it," said Donovan.
"Not in this icy water, I hope," said Kit. "Can't we devise a plan to capture it?"
"They might tie a belaying-pin to the end of a line, and throw it into the boat," said the captain.
"Or, better still, one of those long cod-lines with the heavy sinker and hook on it," suggested Hobbs.
"Just the thing!" exclaimed Capt. Mazard. "Sing out to them!"
"Unless I'm mistaken, that is just what old Trull is up to now," said Wade. "He's throwing something! see that!"
As Wade said, old man Trull was throwing a line, with what turned out to be one of our small grapnels attached. The first throw fell short, and the line was drawn in; the second and third went aside; but the fourth landed the grapnel in the boat. It was hauled in. Weymouth and Corliss then got aboard, and came off to us.
"Well, boys, what sort of a dry storm have you been having here?" said the captain as they came up under where we stood.
"Never saw such a hole!" exclaimed Weymouth. "You don't know how we were slatabout! We wentright up on it! Had to pay out six fathoms of extra cable, anyway. D'ye mind what a thundering noise that ice made?"
We went off to the schooner. Trull stood awaiting us, grinning grimly.
"I don't gen'ly give advice to my betters," he began, with a hitch at his trousers; "but"—
"You'd be getting out of this?" finished Raed.
"I wud, sur."
There was a general laugh all round. But the wind had set dead in the south-east again. There was no room for tacking in the narrow inlet. To get out we should have to tow the schooner a mile against the wind,—among ice too. Clearly we must lay here till the wind favored. We concluded, however, to change our position for one a little lower down, and nearer the middle of the cove. The anchor was heaved up preparatory to towing the vessel along. The men had considerable difficulty in starting it off the bottom; and, on getting it up, one of the flukes was found to be chipped off,—bits as large as one's fist, probably from catching among jagged rocks at the bottom. We thought that this might also account for the tenacity with which the anchor held against the tide. Doubtless there were crevices and cracks, with great bowlders, scattered about on the bottom of the cove. Towing "The Curlew" back not far from a hundredyards from our first berth, the anchor was again let go in thirty-seven fathoms; and, for additional security, a second cable was bent to our extra anchor, which we dropped out of the stern. This matter, with arrangements for heaving the anchor up with tackle and fall (for we had no windlass in the stern), took up the time till considerably past noon.