CHAPTER II.

PASSAGE TO THE GREENLAND COAST.—DISCIPLINE.—THE DECKS AT SEA.—OUR QUARTERS.—THE FIRST ICEBERG.—CROSSING THE ARCTIC CIRCLE.—THE MIDNIGHT SUN.—THE ENDLESS DAY.—MAKING THE LAND.—A REMARKABLE SCENE AMONG THE BERGS.—AT ANCHOR IN PRÖVEN HARBOR.

I will not long detain the reader with the details of our passage to the Greenland coast. It was mainly devoid of interest.

My first concern was to regulate the domestic affairs of my little company; my second, to make the schooner as tidy and comfortable as possible. The former was much more easily managed than the latter. Calling the officers and crew together, I explained to them that, inasmuch as we would for a long time constitute our own little world, we must all recognize the obligations of a mutual dependence and the ties of mutual safety, interest, and ambition. Keeping this in view, we would find no hardship in making all selfish considerations subordinate to the necessities of a mutual accommodation. The response was highly gratifying to me, and I had afterward abundant reason to congratulate myself upon having at the outset established the relations of the crew with myself upon such a satisfactory footing. To say nothing of its advantages to our convenience, this course saved much trouble. From the beginning to the end of the cruise I had no occasion to record a breach of discipline; and I did not find it necessary to establishany other rules than those which are usual in all well disciplined ships.

THE DECKS.

To make the schooner comfortable was impracticable, and to make her tidy equally so. I found myself rocking about on the Atlantic with decks in a condition to have sorely tried the patience of the most practised sailor. Barrels, boxes, boards, boats, and other articles were spiked or lashed to the bulwarks and masts, until all available space was covered, and there was left only a narrow, winding pathway from the quarter to the forecastle deck, and no place whatever for exercise but the top of the trunk cabin, which was just twelve feet by ten; and even this was partly covered, and that too with articles which, if they have existence, should at least never be in sight on a well-regulated craft. But this was not to be helped,—there was no room for any thing more below hatches; every nook and cranny in the vessel was full, and we had no alternative but to allow the decks to be "lumbered up" until some friendly sea should come and wash the incumbrance overboard. (We were entirely too prudent to throw any thing away.) That such an event would happen seemed likely enough, for we were loaded down until the deck, in the waist, was only a foot and a half above the water; and, standing in the gangway, you could at any time lean over the monkey-rail and touch the sea with your fingers. The galley filled up the entire space between the fore hatch and the mainmast; and the water, coming in over the gangway, poured through it frequently without restraint. The cook and the fire were often put out together, and the regularity of our meals was a little disturbed in consequence.

THE CABIN.

My cabin occupied the after-half of the "trunk," (which extended two feet above the quarter-deck,) and was six feet by ten. Two "bull's-eyes" gave me a feeble light by day, and a kerosene lamp, which creaked uneasily in its gimbals, by night. Two berths let, one into either side, furnished commodious receptacles for ship's stores. The carpenter, however, fixed up a narrow bunk for me; and when I had covered this with a brilliant afghan, and enclosed it with a pair of crimson curtains, I was astonished at the amount of comfort which I had manufactured for myself.

The narrow space in front of my cabin contained the companion ladder, the steward's pantry, the stove-pipe, a barrel of flour, and a "room" for Mr. Sonntag. Forward of this, two steps down in the hold, was the officers' cabin, which was exactly twelve feet square by six feet high. It was oak-panelled, and had eight bunks, happily not all occupied. It was not a commodious apartment. The men's quarters were under the forecastle deck, close against the "dead-wood" of the "ship's eyes." They, too, were necessarily crowded for room.

Our course from Boston lay directly for the outer capes of Newfoundland, inside of Sable Island. Every one who has sailed down the coast of Nova Scotia knows the nature of the fogs which hang over the banks, especially during the warm season of the year; and we had our full measure of the embarrassing fortune which usually befalls the navigator of those waters.

We ran into a fog bank on the second day out from Boston, and for seven days thereafter were enveloped in an atmosphere so dense as completely to obscure the sun and horizon. We could, of course,obtain no "sights," and, during that period, were obliged in consequence to rely for our position upon the lead line and our dead reckoning. Uncertain currents made this last a method of doubtful dependence.

On the sixth day of this seemingly endless fog I grew rather more than usually uneasy; but the sailing-master assured me that he was certain of our position; and, with the map before us on the table, heprovedit by the soundings. We would clear Cape Race in the morning watch.

"BREAKERS AHEAD."

The morning watch found me on deck, and, as before, our position was shown by the record of the lead. The lead was a false prophet, for instead of running outside we were rushing squarely upon the cape. Satisfied, however, by the assurances which I had received, I went below to breakfast, and had scarcely been seated when that most disagreeable of all cries,—once heard, never to be forgotten,—"Breakers ahead!" startled us. Upon reaching the deck, I found the sails shivering in the wind, and almost within pistol-shot rose a great black wall, against which the sea was breaking in a most threatening manner. Fortunately the schooner came quickly to the wind and held in stays, otherwise we must have struck in a very few minutes. As it was, we settled close upon the rocks before the sails filled and we began to crawl slowly off. The spray, thrown back from the sullen cliff, actually fell upon the deck, and it seemed as if I could almost touch the rocks with my hand. We were soon relieved by seeing the dark fog-veil drawn between us and danger. But the danger was, apparently, not yet passed. In half an hour the wind died away almost to a calm, leaving us a heavy sea to fightwith, while out of the blackness came the wail of the angry surf bemoaning the loss of its prey.

The wind increased toward noon, and freed us from suspense. Resolved this time to give Cape Race a wide berth, we ran off E. S. E., and not until I was sure, by the color of the water, that Newfoundland was at a safe distance, did I let the schooner fill away on her course toward Cape Farewell. By this time a stiff breeze was blowing from the south, and as the night closed in we were running before the wind under a close-reefed topsail.

A succession of southerly gales now chased us northward, and we hauled in our latitude with gratifying rapidity. In a few days we were ploughing the waters which bathe the rock-bound coasts of Greenland.

ACROSS THE ARCTIC CIRCLE.

On the 30th of July I had the satisfaction of being once more within the Arctic Circle. That imaginary line was crossed at eight o'clock in the evening, and the event was celebrated by a salute from our signal-gun and a display of bunting.

We now felt that we had fairly entered upon our career.

We were twenty days out from Boston, and had made throughout an average run of a hundred miles a day. The schooner had proved herself an excellent sea-boat. The coast of Greenland was about ten leagues away, obscured by a cloud; we had Cape Walsingham on the port beam, and the lofty Suckertoppen would have been visible over the starboard quarter had the air been clear. We had not yet, however, sighted the land, but we had made our first iceberg, we had seen the "midnight sun," and we had come into the endless day. When the hour-handof the Yankee clock which ticked above my head pointed to XII., the sunlight still flooded the cabin. Accustomed to this strange life in former years, the change had to me little of novelty; but the officers complained of sleeplessness, and were lounging about as if waiting for the old-fashioned darkness which suggests bed-time.

THE FIRST ICEBERG.

The first iceberg was made the day before we passed the Arctic Circle. The dead white mass broke upon us out of a dense fog, and was mistaken by the lookout for land when he first caught the sound of breakers beating upon it. It was floating directly in our course, but we had time enough to clear it. Its form was that of an irregular pyramid, about three hundred feet at its base, and perhaps half as high. Its summit was at first obscured, but at length the mist broke away, disclosing the peak of a glittering spire, around which the white clouds were curling and dancing in the sunlight. There was something very impressive in the stern indifference with which it received the lashings of the sea. The waves threw their liquid arms about it caressingly, but it deigned not even a nod of recognition, and sent them reeling backward, moaning and lamenting.

We had some rough handling in Davis' Strait. Once I thought we had surely come ingloriously to grief. We were running before the wind and fighting a wretched cross-sea under reefed fore and mainsail and jib, when the fore fife-rail was carried away;—down came every thing to the deck, and there was left not a stitch of canvas on the schooner but the lumbering mainsail. It was a miracle that we did not broach to and go to the bottom. Nothing saved us but a steady hand at the helm.

The following entry in my journal, made at this period, will exhibit our condition and the temper of the crew:—

"Notwithstanding all this knocking about, every body seems to take it for granted that this sort of thing is very natural and proper, and a part of the engagement for the cruise. It is at least gratifying to see that they take kindly to discomfort, and receive every freak of fortune with manly good nature. I really believe that were affairs otherwise ordered they would be sadly disappointed. They are 'the small band of brave and spirited men' they read about in the newspapers, and they mean to show it. The sailors are sometimes literally drowned out of the forecastle. The cabin is flooded at least a dozen times a day. The skylight has been knocked to pieces by the head of a sea, and the table, standing directly under it, has been more than once cleared of crockery and eatables without the aid of the steward. My own cabin gets washed out at irregular intervals, and my books are half of them spoiled by tumbling from their shelves in spite of all I can do to the contrary. Once I caught the whole library tacking about the deck after an unusually ambitious dive of the schooner, and the advent of a more than ordinarily heavy rush of water through the 'companion-way.'"

It had been my intention to stop at Egedesmindie, or some other of the lower Danish stations, on the Greenland coast, to obtain a stock of furs, and at the upper settlements to procure the needful supply of dogs for sledge travelling; but, the wind being fair, I resolved to hold on and trust to obtaining every thing required at Pröven and Upernavik.

A LAND-FALL.

We made our first land-fall on the 31st. It provedto be the southern extremity of Disco Island. The lofty mountains broke suddenly through the thick mist, and exposed their hoary heads, not a little to our astonishment; but they vanished again as quickly as they had appeared. But we had got a clutch upon the land, and found that, befogged though we were, we had calculated our position to a nicety. From this moment the interest of our cruise was doubled.

The next day we were abreast the Nord Fiord of Disco, in latitude 70°, and, gliding on with a light wind, the Waigat and Oominak Fiord were soon behind us; and on the evening of August 2d we were approaching the bold promontory of Svarte Huk, which is only forty miles from Pröven, whither we were bound.

"A man's heart deviseth his way, but the Lord directeth his steps." Just as we were congratulating ourselves upon the prospect of getting an appetite for breakfast among the Greenland hills, the wind began to show decided symptoms of weakness; and, after a succession of spasmodic efforts to recover itself, prolonged through the next four and twenty hours, it at length died away completely, and left us lying on the still waters, impatient and ill at ease. We were sadly disappointed; but the sun scattered the vapors which had hung so long about us, and, in the scene which broke out of the dissolving mist, we buried our vexation.

VIEW OF GREENLAND.

Greenland had been for some time regarded by my companions as a sort of myth; for, although frequently only a few miles from its coast, so thick and constant had been the clouds and fogs, that, except for a few brief minutes, it had been wholly hidden from our view. Here, however, it was at last, shakingoff its cloud mantle, and standing squarely out before us in austere magnificence,—its broad valleys, its deep ravines, its noble mountains, its black, beetling cliffs, its frowning desolation.

AMONG THE ICEBERGS.

As the fog lifted and rolled itself up like a scroll over the sea to the westward, iceberg after iceberg burst into view, like castles in a fairy tale. It seemed, indeed, as if we had been drawn by some unseen hand into a land of enchantment, rather than that we had come of our own free will into a region of stern realities, in pursuit of stern purposes;—as if the elves of the North had, in sportive playfulness, thrown a veil about our eyes, and enticed us to the very "seat eternal of the gods." Here was the Valhalla of the sturdy Vikings; here the city of the sun-god Freyer,—Alfheim, with its elfin caves,—and Glitner, with its walls of gold and roofs of silver, and Gimle, more brilliant than the sun,—the home of the happy; and there, piercing the clouds, was Himinborg, the Celestial Mount, where the bridge of the gods touches Heaven.

It would be difficult to imagine a scene more solemnly impressive than that which was disclosed to us by the sudden change in the clouded atmosphere. From my diary I copy the following brief description of it:—

"Midnight.—I have just come below, lost in the wondrous beauty of the night. The sea is smooth as glass; not a ripple breaks its dead surface, not a breath of air stirring. The sun hangs close upon the northern horizon; the fog has broken up into light clouds; the icebergs lie thick about us; the dark headlands stand boldly out against the sky; and the clouds and sea and bergs and mountains are bathed inan atmosphere of crimson and gold and purple most singularly beautiful."

BEAUTY OF THE ICEBERGS.

In all my former experience in this region of startling novelties I had never seen any thing to equal what I witnessed that night. The air was warm almost as a summer's night at home, and yet there were the icebergs and the bleak mountains, with which the fancy, in this land of green hills and waving forests, can associate nothing but cold repulsiveness. The sky was bright and soft and strangely inspiring as the skies of Italy. The bergs had wholly lost their chilly aspect, and, glittering in the blaze of the brilliant heavens, seemed, in the distance, like masses of burnished metal or solid flame. Nearer at hand they were huge blocks of Parian marble, inlaid with mammoth gems of pearl and opal. One in particular exhibited the perfection of the grand. Its form was not unlike that of the Coliseum, and it lay so far away that half its height was buried beneath the line of blood-red waters. The sun, slowly rolling along the horizon, passed behind it, and it seemed as if the old Roman ruin had suddenly taken fire.

Nothing indeed but the pencil of the artist could depict the wonderful richness of this sparkling fragment of Nature. Church, in his great picture of "The Icebergs," has grandly exhibited a scene not unlike that which I would in vain describe.

In the shadows of the bergs the water was a rich green, and nothing could be more soft and tender than the gradations of color made by the sea shoaling on the sloping tongue of a berg close beside us. The tint increased in intensity where the ice overhung the water, and a deep cavern near by exhibited the solid color of the malachite mingled with the transparencyof the emerald; while, in strange contrast, a broad streak of cobalt blue ran diagonally through its body.

The bewitching character of the scene was heightened by a thousand little cascades which leaped into the sea from these floating masses,—the water being discharged from lakes of melted snow and ice which reposed in quietude far up in the valleys separating the high icy hills of their upper surface. From other bergs large pieces were now and then detached,—plunging down into the water with deafening noise, while the slow moving swell of the ocean resounded through their broken archways.

I had been watching this scene for hours, lost in reverie and forgetfulness, when I was brought suddenly to my senses by the master's mate, who came to report, "Ice close aboard, sir." We were drifting slowly upon a berg about the height of our topmasts. The boats were quickly lowered to pull us off, and, the schooner once more in safety, I went to bed.

I awoke after a few hours, shivering with the cold. The "bull's-eye" above my head was open, and a chilly fog was pouring in upon me. Hurrying on deck, I found the whole scene changed. A dense gray mist had settled over the waters and icebergs and mountains, blending them all in chaotic gloom.

Twenty-four days at sea had brought the water very low in our casks, and I took advantage of the delay to send off to a neighboring iceberg for a fresh supply. The water of these bergs is pure and clear as crystal.

NEARING HARBOR.

AT PRÖVEN.

Getting at last a slant of the wind, we ran in among the low islands which line the coast above Svarte Huk; and Sonntag, who had gone ahead in a boat toPröven, having sent off to us a swarthy-looking pilot, we wound our way slowly through the tortuous passage, and at a little after midnight of August 6th we dropped anchor in the snuggest of little harbors. The loud baying of dogs, and an odor, baffling description,—"a very ancient and fish-like smell,"—first warned us of our approach to a Greenland settlement.

Arched Iceberg

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