FOOTNOTES:[7]Sandoval says he left on the 4th November; Cabrera, that he left on the 1st; and Siguenca gives the end of October as the time of his departure.
[7]Sandoval says he left on the 4th November; Cabrera, that he left on the 1st; and Siguenca gives the end of October as the time of his departure.
[7]Sandoval says he left on the 4th November; Cabrera, that he left on the 1st; and Siguenca gives the end of October as the time of his departure.
Yonder is the coast of Norway; we shall soon be at Spitzbergen. The "Phantom" is fitted out for Arctic exploration, with instructions to find her way, by the north-west, to Behring Straits, and take the South Pole on her passage home. Just now, we steer due north, and yonder is the coast of Norway. From that coast parted Hugh Willoughby, three hundred years ago; the first of our countrymen who wrought an ice-bound highway to Cathay. Two years afterwards his ships were found, in the haven of Arzina, in Lapland, by some Russian fishermen; near and about them Willoughby and his companions—seventy dead men. The ships were freighted with their frozen crews, and sailed for England; but, "being unstaunch, as it is supposed by their two years' wintering in Lapland, sunk, by the way, with their dead, and them also that brought them."
Ice floats about us now, and here is a whale blowing; a whale, too, very near Spitzbergen. When first Spitzbergen was discovered, in the good old times, there were whales here in abundance; then a hundred Dutch ships in a crowd, might go to work, and boats might jostle with each other, and the only thing deficient would be stowage room for all the produce of the fishery. Now one ship may have the whole field to itself, and travel home with an imperfect cargo. It was fine fun in the good old times; there was no need to cruise. Coppers and boilers were fitted on the island, and little colonies about them, in the fishing season, had nothing to do but tow the whales in, with a boat, as fast as they were wanted by the copper. No wonder that so enviable a Tom Tidler's ground was claimed by all who had a love for gold and silver. The English called it theirs, for they first fished; the Dutch said, nay, but the island was of their discovery; Danes, Hamburghers, Biscayans, Spaniards, and French put in their claims; and at length, it was agreed to make partitions. The numerous bays and harbors which indent the coast were divided among the rival nations; and to this day, many of them bear, accordingly, such names as English Bay, Danes Bay, and so forth. One bay there is, with graves in it, named Sorrow. For it seemed to the fishers most desirable, if possible, to plant upon this island permanent establishments, and condemned convicts were offered, by the Russians, life and pardon, if they would winter in Spitzbergen. They agreed; but, when they saw the icy mountains and the stormy sea, repented, and went back, to meet a death exempt from torture. The Dutch tempted free men, by high rewards, to try the dangerous experiment. One of their victims left a journal, which describes his sufferings and that of his companions. Their mouths, he says, became so sore that, if they had food, they could not eat; their limbs were swollen and disabled with excruciating pain; they died of scurvy. Those who died first were coffined by their dying friends; a row of coffins was found, in the spring, each with a man in it; two men uncoffined, side by side, were dead upon the floor. The journal told, how once the traces of a bear excited their hope of fresh meat and amended health; how, with a lantern, two or three had limped upon the track, until the light became extinguished, and they came back in despair to die. We might speak, also, of eight English sailors, left, by accident, upon Spitzbergen, who lived to return and tell their winter's tale; but a long journey is before us, and we must not linger on the way. As for our whalers, it need scarcely be related that the multitude of whales diminished as the slaughtering went on, until it was no longer possible to keep the coppers full. The whales had to be searched for by the vessels, and thereafter it was not worth while to take the blubber to Spitzbergen to be boiled; and the different nations, having carried home their coppers, left the apparatus of those fishing stations to decay.
Take heed. There is a noise like thunder, and a mountain snaps in two. The upper half comes, crashing, grinding, down into the sea, and loosened streams of water follow it. The sea is displaced before the mighty heap; it boils and scatters up a cloud of spray; it rushes back, and violently beats upon the shore. The mountain rises from its bath, sways to and fro, while water pours along its mighty sides; now it is tolerably quiet, letting crackers off as air escapes out of its cavities. That is an iceberg, and in that way are all icebergs formed. Mountains of ice formed by rain and snow—grand Arctic glaciers, undermined by the sea or by accumulation overbalanced—topple down upon the slightest provocation (moved by a shout, perhaps) and where they float, as this black looking fellow does, they need deep water. This berg in height is about ninety feet, and a due balance requires that a mass nine times as large as the part visible should be submerged. Icebergs are seen about us now which rise two hundred feet above the water's level.
There are above head plenty of aquatic birds; ashore, or on the ice, are bears, foxes, reindeer; and in the sea there are innumerable animals. We shall not see so much life near the North Pole, that is certain. It would be worth while to go ashore upon an islet there, near Vogel Sang, to pay a visit to theeider-ducks. Their nests are so abundant that one cannot avoid treading on them. When the duck is driven by a hungry fox to leave her eggs, she covers them with down, in order that they may not cool during her absence, and, moreover, glues the down into a case with a secretion supplied to her by Nature for that purpose. The deserted eggs are safe, for that secretion has an odor very disagreeable to the intruder's nose.
We still sail northward, among sheets of ice, whose boundaries are not beyond our vision from the mast-head—these are "floes;" between them we find easy way, it is fair "sailing ice." In the clear sky to the north, a streak of lucid white light is the reflection from an icy surface; that is "ice-blink," in the language of these seas. The glare from snow is yellow, while open water gives a dark reflection.
Northward still; but now we are in fog the ice is troublesome; a gale is rising. Now, if our ship had timbers, they would crack, and if she had a bell it would be tolling; if we were shouting to each other we should not hear, the sea is in a fury. With wild force its breakers dash against a heaped-up wall of broken ice, that grinds and strains and battles fiercely with the water. This is "the pack," the edge of a great ice-field broken by the swell. It is a perilous and exciting thing to push through pack ice in a gale.
Now there is ice as far as eye can see, that is "an ice-field." Masses are forced up like colossal tombstones on all sides; our sailors call them "hummocks;" here and there the broken ice displays large "holes of water." Shall we go on? Upon this field, in 1827, Parry adventured with his men, to reach the North Pole, if that should be possible. With sledges and portable boats they labored on, through snow, and over hummocks; launching their boats over the larger holes of water. With stout hearts, undaunted by toil or danger, they went boldly on, though by degrees it became clear to the leaders of the expedition, that they were almost like mice upon a treadmill cage, making a great expenditure of leg for little gain. The ice was floating to the south with them, as they were walking to the north; still they went on. Sleeping by day to avoid the glare, and to get greater warmth during the time of rest, and travelling by night,—watch-makers' days and nights, for it was all one polar day,—the men soon were unable to distinguish noon from midnight. The great event of one day on this dreary waste was the discovery of two flies upon an ice hummock; these, says Parry, became at once a topic of ridiculous importance. Presently, after twenty-three miles walking, they only had gone one mile forward, the ice having industriously floated twenty-two miles in an opposite direction; and then, after walking forward eleven miles, they found themselves to be three miles behind the place from which they started. The party accordingly returned, not having reached the Pole, not having reached the eighty-third parallel, for the attainment of which there was a reward of a thousand pounds held out by government. They reached the parallel of eighty-two degrees, forty-five minutes, which was, and still is, the most northerly point trodden by the foot of man. From that point they returned. In those high latitudes they met with a phenomenon, common in alpine regions, as well as at the Pole, red snow. The red color being caused by the abundance of a minute plant, of low development, the last dweller on the borders of the vegetable kingdom. More interesting to the sailors was a fat she bear which they killed and devoured with a zeal to be repented of; for on reaching navigable sea, and pushing in their boats to Table Island, where some stones were left, they found that the bears had eaten all their bread, whereon the men agreed that "Bruin was now square with them." An islet next to Table Island—they are both mere rocks—is the most northern land discovered. Therefore, Parry applied to it the name of lieutenant—now Sir James—Ross. This compliment Sir James Ross has acknowledged in the most emphatic manner, by discovering on his part, at the other Pole, the most southern land yet seen, and giving to it the name of Parry: "Parry Mountains."
It very probably would not be difficult under such circumstances as Sir W. Parry has since recommended, to reach the North Pole along this route. Then (especially if it be true, as many believe, that there is a region of open sea about the Pole itself) we might find it as easy to reach Behring Straits, by travelling in a straight line over the North Pole, as by threading the straits and bays north of America.
We turn our course until we have in sight a portion of the ice-barred eastern coast of Greenland, Shannon Island. Somewhere about this spot in the seventy-fifth parallel is the most northern part of that coast known to us. Colonel—then Captain—Sabine in the "Griper," was landed there to make magnetic and other observations; for the same purpose he had previously visited Sierra Leone. That is where we differ from our forefathers. They commissioned hardy seamen to encounter peril for the search of gold ore, or for a near road to Cathay, but our peril is encountered for the gain of knowledge, for the highest kind of service that can now be rendered to the human race.
Before we leave the northern sea, we must not omit to mention the voyage by Spitzbergen northward, in 1818, of Captain Buchan in the "Dorothea," accompanied by Lieutenant Franklin, in the "Trent." It was Sir John Franklin's first voyage to the Arctic regions. This trip forms the subject of a delightful book by Captain Beechey.
On our way to the south point of Greenland we pass near Cape North, a point ofIceland. Iceland, we know, is the centre of a volcanic region, whereof Norway and Greenland are at opposite points of the circumference. In connection with this district there is a remarkable fact; that by the agency of subterranean forces a large portion of Norway and Sweden is being slowly upheaved. While Greenland, on the west coast, as gradually sinks into the sea, Norway rises at the rate of about four feet in a century. In Greenland the sinking is so well known that the natives never build close to the water's edge, and the Moravian missionaries more than once have had to move farther inland the poles on which their boats are rested.
Our Phantom Ship stands fairly now along the western coast of Greenland into Davis Straits. We observe that upon this western coast there is, by a great deal, less ice than on the eastern. That is a rule generally. Not only the configuration of the straits and bays, but also the earth's rotation from west to east, causes the currents here to set towards the west, and wash the western coasts, while they act very little on the eastern. We steer across Davis Strait, among "an infinite number of great countreys and islands of yee;" there, near the entrance, we find Hudson Strait, which does not now concern us. Islands probably separate this well-known channel from Frobisher Strait to the north of it, yet unexplored. Here let us recall to mind the fleet of fifteen sail, under Sir Martin Frobisher, in 1578, tossing about and parting company among the ice. Let us remember how the crew of the "Anne Frances," in that expedition, built a pinnace when their vessel struck upon a rock, although they wanted main timber and nails. How they made a mimic forge, and "for the easier making of nails, were forced to break their tongs, gridiron, and fire-shovel, in pieces." How Master Captain Best, in this frail bark, with its imperfect timbers held together by the metamorphosed gridiron and fire-shovel, continued in his duty, and did "depart up the straights as before was pretended." How a terrific storm arose, and the fleet parted, and the intrepid captain was towed "in his small pinnace, at the stern of the 'Michael,' thorow the raging seas; for the bark was not able to receive or relieve half its company." The "tongs, gridyron, and fire-shovell," performed their work only for as many minutes as were absolutely necessary, for "the pinesse came no sooner aboord the ship, and the men entred, but she presently shivered and fell in pieces, and sunke at the ship's stern with all the poor men's furniture."
Now, too, as we sail up the strait, explored a few years after these events by Master John Davis, how proudly we remember him as a right worthy forerunner of those countrymen of his and ours who since have sailed over his track. Nor ought we to pass without calling to mind the melancholy fate, in 1606, of Master John Knight, driven, in the "Hopwell," among huge masses of ice, with a tremendous surf, his rudder knocked away, his ship half full of water, at the entrance to these straits. Hoping to find a harbor, he set forth to explore a large island, and landed, leaving two men to watch the boat, while he, with three men and the mate, set forth and disappeared over a hill. For thirteen hours the watchers kept their post; one had his trumpet with him, for he was a trumpeter, the other had a gun. They trumpeted often and loudly, they fired, but no answer came. They watched ashore all night for the return of their captain and his party, "but they came not at all."
The season is advanced. As we sail on, the sea steams like a lime-kiln, "frost-smoke" covers it. The water, cooled less rapidly, is warmer now than the surrounding air, and yields this vapor in consequence. By the time our vessel has reached Baffin's Bay, still coasting along Greenland, in addition to old floes and bergs, the water is beset with "pancake ice." That is the young ice when it first begins to cake upon the surface. Innocent enough it seems, but it is sadly clogging to the ships. It sticks about their sides like treacle on a fly's wing; collecting unequally, it destroys all equilibrium, and impedes the efforts of the steersman. Rocks split on the Greenland coast with loud explosions, and more icebergs fall. Icebergs we soon shall take our leave of; they are only found where there is a coast on which glaciers can form; they are good for nothing but to yield fresh water to the vessels; it will be all field, pack, and salt-water ice presently.
Now we are in Baffin's Bay, explored in the voyages of Bylot and Baffin, 1615-16. When, in 1817, a great movement in the Greenland ice caused many to believe that the northern passages would be found comparatively clear; and when, in consequence of this impression, Sir John Barrow succeeded in setting a-foot that course of modern Arctic exploration, which has been continued to the present day, Sir John Ross was the first man sent to find the north-west passage. Buchan and Parry were commissioned at the same time to attempt the North Sea route. Sir John Ross did little more on that occasion than effect a survey of Baffin's Bay, and prove the accuracy of the ancient pilot. In the extreme north of the bay there is an inlet or a channel, called by Baffin Smith's Sound; this Sir John saw, but did not enter. It never has been explored. It may be an inlet only; but it is also very possible that by this channel ships might get into the Polar Sea, and sail by the north shore of Greenland to Spitzbergen. Turning that corner, and descending along the western coast of Baffin's Bay, there is another inlet called Jones's Sound by Baffin, also unexplored. These two inlets, with their very British titles, Smith and Jones, are of exceeding interest. Jones's Sound may lead by a back way to Melville Island. Southof Jones's Sound there is a wide break in the shore, a great sound, named by Baffin, Lancaster's, which Sir John Ross, in that first expedition, failed also to explore. Like our transatlantic friends at the South Pole, he laid down a range of clouds as mountains, and considered the way impervious; so he came home.
Parry went out next year, as a lieutenant, in command of his first and most successful expedition. He sailed up Lancaster Sound, which was in that year (1819) unusually clear of ice: and he is the discoverer whose track we now follow in our Phantom Ship. The whole ground being new, he had to name the points of country right and left of him. The way was broad and open, due west, a most prosperous beginning for a north-west passage. If this continued, he would soon reach Behring Strait. A broad channel to the right, directed, that is to say, southward, he entered on the Prince of Wales's birthday, and so called it the "Prince Regent's Inlet." After exploring this for some miles, he turned back to resume his western course, for still there was a broad strait leading westward. This second part of Lancaster Sound, he called after the Secretary of the Admiralty who had so indefatigably labored to promote the expeditions, Barrow's Strait. Then he came to a channel, turning to the right or northward, and he named that Wellington Channel. Then he had on his right hand ice, islands large and small, and intervening channels; on the left, ice, and a cape visible, Cape Walker. At an island, named after the First Lord of the Admiralty Melville Island, the great frozen wilderness barred further progress. There he wintered. On the coast of Melville Island they had passed the latitude of one hundred and ten degrees, and the men had become entitled to a royal bounty of five thousand pounds. This group of islands Parry called North Georgian, but they are usually called by his own name, Parry Islands. This was the first European winter party in the Arctic circle. Its details are familiar enough. How the men cut in three days through ice seven inches thick, a canal two miles and a half long, and so brought the ships into safe harbor. How the genius of Parry equalled the occasion; how there was established a theatre and aNorth Georgian Gazette, to cheer the tediousness of a night which continued for two thousand hours. The dreary dazzling waste in which there was that little patch of life, the stars, the fog, the moonlight, the glittering wonder of the northern lights, in which, as Greenlanders believe, souls of the wicked dance tormented, are familiar to us. The she-bear stays at home; but the he-bear hungers, and looks in vain for a stray seal or walrus—woe to the unarmed man who meets him in his hungry mood! Wolves are abroad, and pretty white arctic foxes. The reindeer have sought other pasture-ground. The thermometer runs down to more than sixty degrees below freezing, a temperature tolerable in calm weather, but distressing in a wind. The eye-piece of the telescope must be protected now with leather, for the skin is destroyed that comes in contact with cold metal. The voice at a mile's distance can be heard distinctly. Happy the day when first the sun is seen to graze the edge of the horizon; but summer must come, and the heat of a constant day must accumulate, and summer wane, before the ice is melted. Then the ice cracks, like cannons over-charged, and moves with a loud grinding noise. But not yet is escape to be made with safety. After a detention of ten months, Parry got free; but, in escaping, narrowly missed the destruction of both ships, by their being "nipped" between the mighty mass and the unyielding shore. What animals are found on Melville Island, we may judge from the results of sport during ten months' detention. The Island exceeds five thousand miles square, and yielded to the gun, three musk oxen, twenty-four deer, sixty-eight bears, fifty-three geese, fifty-nine ducks, and one hundred and forty-four patarmigans, weighing together three thousand seven hundred and sixty-six pounds—not quite two ounces of meat per day to every man. Lichens, stunted grass, saxifrage, and a feeble willow, are the plants of Melville Island, but in sheltered nooks there are found sorrel, poppy, and a yellow butter-cup. Halos and double suns are very common consequences of refraction in this quarter of the world. Franklin returned from his first and most famous voyage with his men all safe and sound, except the loss of a few fingers, frost-bitten. We sail back only as far as Regent's Inlet, being bound for Behring Strait. The reputation of Sir John Ross being clouded by the discontent expressed against his first expedition, Mr. Felix Booth, a rich distiller, provided seventeen thousand pounds to enable his friend to redeem his credit. Sir John accordingly, in 1829, went out in the "Victory," provided with steam-machinery that did not answer well. He was accompanied by Sir James Ross, his nephew. He it was who, on this occasion, first surveyed Regent's Inlet, down which we are now sailing with our Phantom Ship. The coast on our right hand, westward, which Parry saw, is called North Somerset, but farther south, where the inlet widens, the land is named Boothia Felix. Five years before this, Parry, in his third voyage, had attempted to pass down Regent's Inlet, where among ice and storm, one of his ships, the "Hecla," had been driven violently ashore, and of necessity, abandoned. The stores had been removed, and Sir John was able now to replenish his own vessel from them. Rounding a point at the bottom of Prince Regent's Inlet, we find Felix Harbor, where Sir John Ross wintered. His nephew made from this point scientific explorations; discovered a strait, called after him the Strait of James Ross, and on the northern shore of this strait, on the main land of Boothia, planted the British flag on the Northern Magnetic Pole. The ice broke up, so did the"Victory;" after a hairbreadth escape, the party found a searching vessel, and arrived home after an absence of four years and five months, Sir John Ross having lost his ship, and won his reputation. The friend in need was made a baronet for his munificence; Sir John was reimbursed for all his losses, and the crew liberally taken care of. Sir James Ross had a rod and flag signifying "Magnetic Pole," given to him for a new crest, by the Heralds' College, for which he was no doubt greatly the better.
We have sailed northward to get into Hudson Strait, the high road into Hudson Bay. Along the shore are Exquimaux in boats, extremely active, but these filthy creatures we pass by; the Exquimaux in Hudson Strait are like the negroes of the coast, demoralized by intercourse with European traders. These are not true pictures of the loving children of the north. Our "Phantom" floats on the wide waters of Hudson Bay—the grave of its discoverer. Familiar as the story is of Henry Hudson's fate, for John King's sake how gladly we repeat it. While sailing on the waters he discovered, in 1611, his men mutinied; the mutiny was aided by Henry Green, a prodigal, whom Hudson had generously shielded from ruin. Hudson, the master, and his son, with six sick or disabled members of the crew, were driven from their cabins, forced into a little shallop, and committed helpless to the water and the ice. But there was one stout man, John King, the carpenter, who stepped into the boat, abjuring his companions, and chose rather to die than even passively be partaker in so foul a crime. John King, we who live after, will remember you.
Here on an island, Charlton Island, near our entrance to the bay, in 1631, wintered poor Captain James with his wrecked crew. This is a point outside the Arctic circle, but quite cold enough. Of nights, with a good fire in the house they built, hoar frost covered their beds, and the cook's water in a metal pan before the fire, was warm on one side, and froze on the other. Here "it snowed and froze extremely, at which time we, looking from the shore towards the ship, she appeared a piece of ice in the fashion of a ship, or a ship resembling a piece of ice." Here the gunner, who had lost his leg, besought that, "for the little time he had to live, he might drink sack altogether." He died and was buried in the ice far from the vessel, but when afterwards two more were dead of scurvy, and the others, in a miserable state, were working with faint hope about their shattered vessel, the gunner was found to have returned home to the old vessel; his leg had penetrated through a porthole. They "digged him clear out, and he was as free from noisomness," the record says, "as when we first committed him to the sea. This alteration had the ice, and water, and time, only wrought on him, that his flesh would slip up and down upon his bones, like a glove on a man's hand. In the evening we buried him by the others." These worthy souls, laid up with the agonies of scurvy, knew that in action was their only hope; they forced their limbs to labor, among ice and water, every day. They set about the building of a boat, but the hard frozen wood had broken all their axes, so they made shift with the pieces. To fell a tree, it was first requisite to light a fire around it, and the carpenter could only labor with his wood over a fire, or else it was like stone under his tools. Before the boat was made they buried the carpenter. The captain exhorted them to put their trust in God; "His will be done. If it be our fortune to end our days here, we are as near Heaven as in England. They all protested to work to the utmost of their strength, and that they would refuse nothing that I should order them to do to the utmost hazard of their lives. I thanked them all." Truly the North Pole has its triumphs. If we took no account of the fields of trade opened by our Arctic explorers, if we thought nothing of the wants of science in comparison with the lives lost in supplying them, is not the loss of life a gain, which proves and tests the fortitude of noble hearts, and teaches us respect for human nature? All the lives that have been lost among these Polar regions, are less in number than the dead upon a battle-field. The battle-field inflicted shame upon our race—is it with shame that our hearts throb in following these Arctic heroes? March 31st, says Captain James, "was very cold, with snow and hail, which pinched our sick men more than any time this year. This evening, being May eve, we returned late from our work to our house, and made a good fire, and chose ladies, and ceremoniously wore their names in our caps, endeavoring to revive ourselves by any means. On the 15th, I manured a little patch of ground that was bare of snow, and sowed it with pease, hoping to have some shortly to eat, for as yet we could see no green thing to comfort us." Those pease saved the party; as they came up the young shoots were boiled and eaten, so their health began to mend, and they recovered from their scurvy. Eventually, after other perils, they succeeded making their escape.
A strait, called Sir Thomas Rowe's Welcome, leads due north out of Hudson Bay, being parted by Southampton Island from the strait through which we entered. Its name is quaint, for so was its discoverer, Luke Fox, a worthy man, addicted much to euphuism. Fox sailed from London in the same year in which James sailed from Bristol. They were rivals. Meeting in Davis Straits, Fox dined on board his friendly rival's vessel, which was very unfit for the service upon which it went. The sea washed over them and came into the cabin, so says Fox, "sauce would not have been wanted if there had been roast mutton." Luke Fox being ice-bound and in peril, writes, "God thinks upon our imprisonment with asupersedeas;" but he was a good and honorable man as well as euphuist. His "Sir ThomasRowe's Welcome," leads into Fox Channel; our "Phantom Ship" is pushing through the welcome passes on the left-hand Repulse Bay. This portion of the Arctic regions, with Fox Channel, is extremely perilous. Here Captain Lyon, in the "Griper," was thrown anchorless upon the mercy of a stormy sea, ice crashing around him. One island in Fox Channel is called Mill Island, from the incessant grinding of great masses of ice collected there. In the northern part of Fox Channel, on the western shore, is Melville Peninsula, where Parry wintered on his second voyage. Here let us go ashore and see a little colony of Esquimaux.
Their huts are built of blocks of snow, and arched, having an ice pane for a window. They construct their arched entrance and their hemispherical roof, on the true principles of architecture. Those wise men, the Egyptians, made their arch by hewing the stones out of shape, the Esquimaux have the true secret. Here they are, with little food in winter and great appetites; devouring a whole walrus when they get it, and taking the chance of hunger for the next eight days—hungry or full, for ever happy in their lot—here are the Esquimaux. They are warmly clothed, each in a double suit of skins sewn neatly together. Some are singing, with good voices, too. Please them, and they straightway dance; activity is good in a cold climate. Play to them on the flute, or if you can sing well, sing, or turn a barrel-organ, they are mute, eager with wonder and delight; their love of music is intense. Give them a pencil, and, like children, they will draw. Teach them, and they will learn, oblige them, and they will be grateful. "Gentle and loving savages," one of our old worthies called them, and the Portuguese were so much impressed with their teachable and gentle conduct, that a Venetian ambassador writes, "His serene majesty contemplates deriving great advantage from the country, not only on account of the timber, of which he has occasion, but of the inhabitants, who are admirably calculated for labor, and are the best I have ever seen." The Esquimaux, of course, will learn vice, and in the region visited by whale ships, vice enough has certainly been taught him. Here are the dogs, who will eat old coats, or any thing; and, near the dwellings, here is a snow-bunting,—robin redbreast of the Arctic lands. A party of our sailors once, on landing, took some sticks from a large heap, and uncovered the nest of a snow-bunting with young, the bird flew to a little distance, but seeing that the men sat down and harmed her not, continued to seek food and supply her little ones, with full faith in the good intentions of the party. Captain Lyon found a child's grave partly uncovered, and a snow-bunting had built its nest upon the infant's bosom.
Sailing round Melville Peninsula, we come into the gulf of Akkolee, through Fury and Hecla Straits, discovered by Parry. So we get back to the bottom of Regent's Inlet, which we quitted a short time ago, and sailing in the neighborhood of the magnetic pole, we reach the estuary of Black's River, on the north-east coast of America. We pass then through a straight, discovered in 1839, by Dean and Simpson, still coasting along the northern shore of America, on the Great Stinking Lake, as Indians call this ocean. Boats, ice permitting, and our "Phantom Ship," of course, can coast all the way to Behring Strait. The whole coast has been explored by Sir John Franklin, Sir John Richardson, and Sir George Back, who have earned their knighthoods through great peril. As we pass Coronation Gulf—the scene of Franklin, Richardson, and Back's first exploration from the Coppermine River—we revert to the romantic story of their journey back, over a land of snow and frost, subsisting upon lichens, with companions starved to death; where they plucked wild leaves for tea, and ate their shoes for supper; the tragedy by the river; the murder of poor Hood, with a book of prayers in his hand; Franklin at Fort Enterprise, with two companions at the point of death, himself gaunt, hollow-eyed, feeding on pounded bones, raked from the dunghill; the arrival of Dr. Richardson and the brave sailor; their awful story of the cannibal Michel;—we revert to these things with a shudder. But we must continue on our route. The current still flows westward, bearing now large quantities of drift-wood, out of the Mackenzie River. At the name of Sir Alexander Mackenzie, also, we might pause, and talk over the bold achievements of another arctic hero; but we pass on, by a rugged and inhospitable coast, unfit for vessels of large draught,—pass the broad mouth of the Youcon, pass Point Barrow, Icy Cape, and are in Behring Strait. Had we passed on, we should have found the Russian Arctic coast line, traced out by a series of Russian explorers; of whom the most illustrious—Baron Von Wrangell—states, that beyond a certain distance to the northward, there is always found what he calls thePolynja(open water.) This is the fact adduced by those who adhere to the old fancy that there is a sea about the pole itself quite free from ice.
We pass through Behring Straits. Behring, a Dane by birth, but in the Russian service, died here in 1741, upon the scene of his discovery. He and his crew, victims of scurvy, were unable to manage their vessel in a storm; and it was at length wrecked on a barren island, there, where "want, nakedness, cold, sickness, impatience, and despair were their daily guests." Behring, his lieutenant, and the master died.
Now we must put a girdle round the world, and do it with the speed of Ariel. Here we are already in the heats of the equator. We can do no more than remark, that if air and water are heated at the equator, and frozen at the poles, there will be equilibrium destroyed,and constant currents caused. And so it happens, so we get the prevailing winds, and all the currents of the ocean. Of these, some of the uses, but by no means all, are obvious. We urge our "Phantom" fleetly to the southern pole. Here, over the other hemisphere of the earth, there shines another hemisphere of heaven. The stars are changed; the southern cross, the Magellanic clouds, the "coal-sack" in the milky way, attract our notice. Now we are in the southern latitude that corresponds to England in the north; nay, at a greater distance, from the pole, we find Kerguelen's Land, emphatically called "The Isle of Desolation." Icebergs float much further into the warm sea on this side of the equator, before they dissolve. The South Pole is evidently a more thorough refrigerator than the North. Why is this? We shall soon see. We push through pack-ice, and through floes and fields, by lofty bergs, by an island or two covered with penguins, until there lies before us a long range of mountains, nine or ten thousand feet in height, and all clad in eternal snow. That is a portion of the Southern Continent. Lieutenant Wilkes, in the American exploring expedition, first discovered this, and mapped out some part of the coast, putting a few clouds in likewise,—a mistake easily made by those who omit to verify every foot of land. Sir James Ross, in his most successful South Pole Expedition, during the years 1839-43, sailed over some of this land, and confirmed the rest. The Antarctic, as well as the Arctic honors he secured for England, by turning a corner of the land, and sailing far southward, along an impenetrable icy barrier, to the latitude of seventy-eight degrees, nine minutes. It is an elevated continent, with many lofty ranges. In the extreme southern point reached by the ships, a magnificent volcano was seen spouting fire and smoke out of the everlasting snow. This volcano, twelve thousand four hundred feet high, was named Mount Erebus; for the "Erebus" and "Terror," now sought anxiously among the bays, and sounds, and creeks of the North Pole, then coasted by the solid ice-walls of the south. Only as "Phantoms" can we cross this land and live. These lofty mountain-ranges, cold to the marrow, these vast glaciers, and elevated plains of ice, no wonder that they cast a chill about their neighborhood. Our very ghosts are cold, and the volcanoes only make the frost colder by contrast. We descend upon the other side, take ship again, and float up the Atlantic, through the tropics. We have been round the world now, and among the ice, and have not grown much older since we started.
Other "Phantoms" are to be added to those thus described. Besides the expeditions now in the ice regions, from England and America, one, and perhaps two more, have in the last two months started in the search for Franklin.
This curious piece has recently appeared in theGazette de France, and has excited much remark. It is given out to be the production of Charles X., when Monsieur, and was communicated to M. Neychens by the Marquis de la Roche Jacqueleine.
"Before the Revolution, I was but very slightly acquainted with Mme. de Genlis, her conduct during that disastrous period having not a little contributed to sink her in my estimation; and the publication of her novel, 'The Knights of the Swan' (thefirstedition), completed my dislike to a person who had so cruelly aspersed the character of the queen, my sister-in-law.
"On my return to France, I received a letter full of the most passionate expressions of loyalty from beginning to end; the missive being signed Comtesse de Genlis; but imagining this could be but aplaisanterieof some intimate friend of my own, I paid no attention whatever to it. However, in two or three days it was followed by a second epistle, complaining of my silence, and appealing to the great sacrifices the writer had made in the interest of my cause, as giving her arightto my favorable attention. Talleyrand being present, I asked him if he could explain this enigma.
"'Nothing is easier,' replied he; 'Mme. de Genlis is unique. She has lost her own memory, and fancies others have experienced a similar bereavement.'
"'She speaks,' pursued I, 'of her virtues, her misfortunes, and Napoleon's persecutions.'
"'Hem! In 1789 her husband was quite ruined, so the events of that period took nothing fromhim; and as to the tyranny of Bonaparte, it consisted, in the first place, of giving her a magnificent suite of apartments in the Arsenal; and in the second place, granting her a pension of six thousand francs a year, upon the sole condition of her keeping him every monthau courantof the literature of the day.'
"'What shocking ferocity!' replied I, laughing; 'a case of infamous despotism indeed. And this martyr to our cause asks to see me.'
"'Yes; and pray let your royal highness grant her an audience, were it only for once: I assure you she is most amusing.'
"I followed the advice of M. de Talleyrand, and accorded to the lady the permission she so pathetically demanded. The evening before she was to present herself, however, came a third missive, recommending a certain Casimir, thephénixof theépoque, and several other persons besides; all, according to Mme. de Genlis, particularly celebrated people; and the postscript to this effusion prepared me also beforehand for the request she intended to make, of being appointed governess to the children of my son, the Duc de Berry, who was at that time not even married.
"Just at this period it so happened that I was besieged by more than a dozen persons of every rank in regard to Mme. de Staël, formerlyexiled by Bonaparte, and who had rushed to Paris without taking breath, fully persuaded every one there, and throughout all France, was impatient to see her again. Mme. de Staël had a double view in thus introducing herself to me; namely, to direct my proceedings entirely, and to obtain payment of the two million francs deposited in the treasury by her father during his ministry. I confess I was not prepossessed in favor of Mme. de Staël, for she also, in 1789, had manifested so much hatred towards the Bourbons, that I thought all she could possibly look to from us, was the liberty of living in Paris unmolested: but I little knew her. She, on her side, imagined we ought to be grateful to her for having quarrelled with Bonaparte—her own pride being, in fact, the sole cause of the rupture.
"M. de Fontanes and M. de Chàteaubriand were the first who mentioned her to me; and to the importance with which they treated the matter, I answered, laughing, 'So, Mme. la Baronne de Staël is then a supreme power?'
"'Indeed she is, and it might have very unfavorable effects did your royal highness overlook her: for what she asserts, every one believes, and then—she has sufferedsomuch!'
"'Very likely; but what did she make my poor sister-in-law, the queen, suffer? Do you think I can forget the abominable things she said, the falsehoods she told? and was it not in consequence of them, and the public's belief of them, that she owed the possibility of the ambassadress of Sweden's being able to dare insult that unfortunate princess in her very palace?'
"Mme. de Staël's envoys, who manifested some confusion at the fidelity of my memory, implored me to forget the past, think only of the future, and remember that the genius of Mme. de Staël, whose reputation was European, might be of the utmost advantage, or the reverse. Tired of disputing I yielded; consented to receive thisfemme célèbre, as they all called her, and fixed for her reception the same day I had notified to Mme. de Genlis.
"My brother has said, 'Punctuality is the politeness of kings'—words as true and just as they are happily expressed; and the princes of my family have never been found wanting in good manners; so I was in my study waiting when Mme. de Genlis was announced. I was astonished at the sight of a long, dry woman, with a swarthy complexion, dressed in a printed cotton gown, any thing but clean, and a shawl covered with dust, her habit-shirt, her hair even bearing marks of great negligence. I had read her works, and remembering all she said about neatness, and cleanliness, and proper attention to one's dress, I thought she added another to the many who fail to add example to their precepts. While making these reflections, Mme. de Genlis was firing off a volley of curtsies; and upon finishing what she deemed the requisite number, she pulled out of a great huge bag four manuscripts of enormous dimensions.
"'I bring,' commenced the lady, 'to your royal highness what will amply repay any kindness you may show to me—No. 1 is a plan of conduct, and the project of a constitution; No. 2 contains a collection of speeches in answer to those likely to be addressed to Monsieur; No. 3, addresses and letters proper to send to foreign powers, the provinces, &c., and in No. 4, Monsieur will find a plan of education, the only one proper to be persued by royalty, in reading which, your royal highness will feel as convinced of the extent of my acquirements as of the purity of my loyalty.'
"Many in my place might have been angry; but, on the contrary, I thanked her with an air of polite sincerity for the treasures she was so obliging as to confide to me, and then condoled with her upon the misfortunes she had endured under the tyranny of Bonaparte.
"'Alas! Monsieur, this abominable despot dared to make a mere plaything ofme! and yet I strove, by wise advice, to guide him right, and teach him to regulate his conduct properly: but he would not be led. I even offered to mediate between him and the pope, but he did not even so much as answer me upon this subject; although (being a most profound theologian) I could have smoothed almost all difficulties when the Concordat was in question.'
"This last piece of pretension was almost too much for my gravity. However, I applauded the zeal of this new mother of the church, and was going to put an end to the interview, when it came into my head to ask her if she was well acquainted with Mme. de Staël.
"'God forbid!' cried she, making a sign of the cross: 'I have no acquaintance withsuch people; and I but do my duty in warning those who have not perused the works of that lady, to bear in mind that they are written in the worst possible taste, and are also extremely immoral. Let your royal highness turn your thoughts from such books; you will find inmineall that is necessary to know. I suppose Monsieur has not yet seenLittle Necker?'
"'Mme. la Baronne de Staël Holstein has asked for an audience, and I even suspect she may be already arrived at the Tuileries.'
"'Let your royal highness beware of this woman! See in her the implacable enemy of the Bourbons, and in me their most devoted slave.'
"This new proof of the want of memory in Madame de Genlis amused me as much as the other absurdities she had favored me with; and I was in the act of making her the ordinary salutations of adieu, when I observed her blush purple, and her proud rival entered.
"The two ladies exchanged a haughty bow, and the comedy, which had just finished with the departure of Mme. de Genlis, recommencedunder a different form when Mme. de Staël appeared on the stage. The baroness was dressed, not certainly dirty, like the countess, but quite as absurdly. She wore a red satin gown, embroidered with flowers of gold and silk; a profusion of diamonds; rings enough to stock a pawnbroker's shop; and, I must add, that I never before saw so low a cut corsage display less inviting charms. Upon her head was a huge turban, constructed on the pattern of that worn by the Cumean sybil, which put a finishing stroke to a costume so little in harmony with her style of face. I scarcely understand how a woman of geniuscanhave such a false, vulgar taste. Mme. de Staël began by apologizing for occupying a few moments which she doubted not I should have preferred giving to Mme. de Genlis. 'She is one of the illustrations of the day,' observed she, with a sneering smile—'a colossus of religious faith, and represents in her person, she fancies, all the literature of the age. Ah! ah! Monsieur, in the hands ofsuch peoplethe world would soon retrograde; while it should, on the contrary, be impelled forward, and your royal highness be the first to put yourself at the head of this great movement. To you should belong the glory of giving the impulse, guided bymy experience.'
"'Come,' thought I, 'here is another going to plague me with plans of conduct, and constitutions, and reforms, which I am to persuade the king my brother to adopt. It seems to be an insanity in France this composing of new constitutions.' While I was making these reflections, madame had time to give utterance to a thousand fine phrases, every one more sublime than the preceding. However, to put an end to them, I asked her if there was any thing she wished to demand.
"'Ah, dear!—oh yes, prince!' replied the lady in an indifferent tone. 'A mere trifle—less than nothing—two millions, without counting the interest at five per cent. But these are matters I leave entirely to my men of business, being for my own part much more absorbed in politics and the science of government.'
"'Alas! madame, the king has arrived in France with his mind made up upon most subjects, the fruit of twenty-five years' meditation; and I fear he is not likely to profit by your good intentions.'
"'Then so much the worse for him and for France! All the world knows what it cost Bonaparte his refusing to follow my advice, and pay me my two millions. I have studied the Revolution profoundly, followed it through all its phases, and I flatter myself I am the only pilot who can hold with one hand the rudder of the state, if at least I have Benjamin for steersman.'
"'Benjamin! Benjamin—who?' asked I in surprise.
"'It would give me the deepest distress,' replied she, 'to think that the name of M. le Baron de Rebecque Benjamin de Constant has never reached the ears of your royal highness. One of his ancestors saved the life of Henry Quatre. Devoted to the descendants of this good king, he is ready to serve them; and among severalconstitutionshe has in his portfolio, you will probably find one with annotations and reflections by myself, which will suit you. Adopt it, and choose Benjamin Constant to carry the idea out.'
"It seemed like a thing resolved—an event decided upon—this proposal of inventing a constitution for us. I kept as long as I could upon the defensive, but Mme. de Staël, carried away by her zeal and her enthusiasm, instead of speaking of what personally concerned herself, knocked me about with arguments, and crushed me under threats and menaces; so, tired to death of entertaining, instead of a clever, humble woman, a roaring politician in petticoats, I finished the audience, leaving her as little satisfied as myself with the interview. Mme. de Genlis was ten times less disagreeable, and twenty times more amusing.
"That same evening I had M. le Prince de Talleyrand with me, and I was confounded by hearing him say, 'So, your royal highness has made Mme. de Staël completely quarrel with me now?'
"'Me! I never so much as pronounced your name.'
"'Notwithstanding that, she is convinced that I am the person who prevents your royal highness from employing her in your political relations, and that I am jealous of Benjamin Constant. She is resolved on revenge.'
"'Ha, ha!—and what can she do?'
"'A very great deal of mischief, Monseigneur. She has numerous partisans; and if she declares herself Bonapartiste, we must look to ourselves.'
"'Thatwouldbe curious.'
"'Oh, I shall take upon myself to prevent her going so far; but she will be Royalist no longer, and we shall suffer from that.'
"At this time I had not the remotest idea of what a mere man, still less a mere woman, could do in France: but now I understand it perfectly, and if Mme. de Staël was living—Heaven pardon me!—I would strike up a flirtation with her."
There is perhaps no more singular anomaly in the history of the human mind than the very different light in which a fraud is viewed according to the circumstances in which it is practised. The singular revelations made to the Chancellor of the Exchequer by a late deputation will probably be fresh in the remembrance of most of our readers. Even the learned gentleman himself could hardly maintain his professional gravity when informed of the ingenious contrivances adopted for defrauding the revenue. Advertisements floating through the air attached to balloons, French gloves making their way into the kingdomin separate detachments of right and left hands, mutilated clocks travelling without their wheels—such were some of the divers modes by which the law was declared to be evaded, and the custom-house officers baffled. We are by no means disposed either to think or speak with levity of this system of things. However much a man may succeed in reconciling any fraud to his own conscience, or however leniently it may be viewed by his fellow-men, it will yet assuredly help to degrade his moral nature, and its repetition will slowly, but surely, deaden the silent monitor within his breast. All we affirm is the well-known fact, that laws are in most cases ineffective, except in so far as they harmonize with the innate moral convictions of mankind; and that many a man who would not for worlds cheat his next door neighbor of a penny, will own without a blush, and perhaps even with a smile of triumph, that he has cheated the government of thousands! It is not often, however, that so daring and successful a stroke of this nature is effected as that which we find related of a celebrated Swiss jeweller, who actually succeeded in making the French director-general of the customs act the part of a smuggler!
Geneva, as must be well known to all our readers, supplies half Europe with her watches and her jewelry. Three thousand workmen are kept in continual employment by her master goldsmiths; while seventy-five thousand ounces of gold, and fifty thousand marks of silver, annually change their form, and multiply their value beneath their skilful hands! The most fashionable jeweller's shop in Geneva is unquestionably that of Beautte; his trinkets are those which beyond all others excite the longing of the Parisian ladies. A high duty is charged upon these in crossing the French frontier; but, in consideration of a brokerage of five per cent., M. Beautte undertakes to forward them safely to their destination through contraband channels; and the bargain between the buyer and seller is concluded with this condition as openly appended and avowed as if there were no such personages as custom-house officers in the world.
All this went on smoothly for some years with M. Beautte; but at length it so happened that M. le Comte de Saint-Cricq, a gentleman of much ability and vigilance was appointed director-general of the customs. He heard so much of the skill evinced by M. Beautte in eluding the vigilance of his agents, that he resolved personally to investigate the matter, and prove for himself the truth of the reports. He consequently repaired to Geneva, presented himself at M. Beautte's shop, and purchased thirty thousand francs' worth of jewelry, on the express condition that they should be transmitted to him free of duty on his return to Paris. M. Beautte accepted the proposed condition with the air of a man who was perfectly accustomed to arrangements of this description. He, however, presented for signature to M. de Saint-Cricq a private deed, by which the purchaser pledged himself to pay the customary five per cent.smuggling dues, in addition to the thirty thousand francs' purchase-money.
M. de Saint-Cricq smiled, and taking the pen from the jeweller's hand, affixed to the deed the following signature—"L. de Saint-Cricq, Director-General of the Customs in France." He then handed the document back to M. Beautte, who merely glanced at the signature, and replied with a courteous bow—
"Monsieur le Directeur des Douanes, I shall take care that the articles which you have done me the honor of purchasing shall be handed to you in Paris directly after your arrival." M. de Saint-Cricq, piqued by the man's cool daring and apparent defiance of his authority and professional skill, immediately ordered post-horses, and without the delay of a single hour set out with all speed on the road to Paris.
On reaching the frontier, the Director-General made himself known to theemployéswho came forward to examine his carriage—informed the chief officer of the incident which had just occurred, and begged of him to keep up the strictest surveillance along the whole of the frontier line, as he felt it to be a matter of the utmost importance to place some check upon the wholesale system of fraud which had for some years past been practised upon the revenue by the Geneva jewellers. He also promised a gratuity of fifty louis-d'ors to whichever of theemployésshould be so fortunate as to seize the prohibited jewels—a promise which had the effect of keeping every officer on the line wide awake, and in a state of full activity, during the three succeeding days.
In the meanwhile M. de Saint-Cricq reached Paris, alighted at his own residence, and after having embraced his wife and children, and passed a few moments in their society, retired to his dressing-room, for the purpose of laying aside his travelling costume. The first thing which arrested his attention when he entered the apartment was a very elegant looking casket, which stood upon the mantelpiece, and which he did not remember to have ever before seen. He approached to examine it; his name was on the lid; it was addressed in full to "M. le Comte de Saint-Cricq, Director-General of Customs." He accordingly opened it without hesitation, and his surprise and dismay may be conceived when, on examining the contents, he recognized at once the beautiful trinkets he had so recently purchased in Geneva!
The count rung for his valet, and inquired from him whether he could throw any light upon this mysterious occurrence. The valet looked surprised, and replied, that on opening his master's portmanteau, the casket in question was one of the first articles which presented itself to his sight, and its elegant form and elaborate workmanship having led him to suppose it contained articles of value, he had carefully laid it aside upon the mantelpiece. Thecount, who had full confidence in his valet, and felt assured that he was in no way concerned in the matter, derived but little satisfaction from this account, which only served to throw a fresh veil of mystery over the transaction; and it was only some time afterwards, and after long investigation, that he succeeded in discovering the real facts of the case.
Beautte, the jeweller, had a secret understanding with one of the servants of the hotel at which the Comte de Saint-Cricq lodged in Geneva. This man, taking advantage of the hurried preparations for the count's departure, contrived to slip the casket unperceived into one of his portmanteaus, and the ingenious jeweller had thus succeeded in making the Director-General of Customs one of the most successfulsmugglersin the kingdom!
Agnes Sorel was born in 1409, at the village of Fromenteau, in Touraine. Her father was the Seigneur de St. Gérand, a gentleman attached to the house of the Count de Clermont. At the age of fifteen, she was placed as maid of honor to Isabel of Lorraine, duchess of Anjou, and accompanied this princess when she went to Paris, in 1431.
At this period, Agnes Sorel was considered to be the most beautiful woman of her day. Her conversation and wit were equal to her beauty. In the "Histoire des Favorites" she is said to have been noble-minded, full of generosity, with sweetness of manners, and sincerity of heart. The same writer adds that every body fell in love with her, from the king to the humblest officers. Charles VII. became passionately attached to her; and in order to insure her constant presence at court, he placed her as maid of honor to the queen. The amour was conducted with secrecy; but the fact became manifest by the favors which the king lavished upon the relations of Agnes, while she herself lived in great magnificence amidst a very poor court. She was fond of splendor, and has been quaintly described by Monstrelet as "having enjoyed all the pleasures of life, in wearing rich clothes, furred robes, and golden chains of precious stones, and whatever else she desired." When she visited Paris, in attendance upon the queen, the splendor and expense of Agnes were so excessive that the people murmured greatly; whereupon the proud beauty exclaimed against the Parisians as churls.
During the time that the English were actually in possession of a great part of France, it was in vain that the queen (Mary of Anjou) endeavored to rouse her husband from his lethargy. That the king was not deficient in energy and physical courage, is evident from the manner in which he signalized himself on various occasions. At the siege of Montereau in 1437, (according to the Chronicle de Charles VII. par M. Alain Chartier, Nevers, 1594,) he rushed to the assault, now thrusting with the lance, now assisting the artillery, now superintending the various military engines for heaving masses of stone or wood; but during the period above-mentioned he was lost to all sense of royal glory, and had given himself up entirely to hunting and all sorts of pleasures.
He was recalled by Agnes to a sense of what was due to his kingdom. She told him, one day, says Brantoine, that when she was a girl, an astrologer had predicted that she would be loved by one of the most valiant kings of Christendom; that when His Majesty Charles VII. had done her this honor, she thought, of course, he was the valiant king who had been predicted; but now, finding he was so weak, and had so little care as to what became of himself and his affairs, she saw that she had made a mistake, and that this valiant prince could not be Charles, but the King of England. Saying these words, Agnes rose, and bowing reverentially to the king, asked leave to retire to the court of the English king, since the prophecy pointed at him. "Charles," she said, "was about to lose his crown, and Henry to unite it to his." By this rebuke the king was much affected. He gave up his hunting, left his gardens for the field of battle, and succeeded in driving the English out of France. This circumstance occasioned Francis I. to make the following verses, which, it is said, he wrote under a portrait of Agnes:—