aground in a passage between the two islands by which it is formed. And
now came the blue of pure floe-ice! There is nothing else like it on
this earth, but the sapphire gem in its perfection; and this is removed
from the comparison by its inferiority in magnitude. This incomparable
hue appears wherever deep shadow is interposed between the eye and any
intense, shining white. The floe in question contained two caverns
excavated by the sea, both of which were partially open toward the ship.
And out of these shone, shone on us, the cerulean and sapphire glory!
Beyond this were the deep blue waters of York Bay; farther away, grouped
and pushing down, headland behind headland, into the bay, rose the
purple gneiss hills, broad and rounded, and flecked with party-colored
moss; while nearer glowed this immortal blue eye, like the bliss of
eternity looking into time!
Next day we rowed close to this: I hardly know how we dared! Heavens!
such blue! It grew, as we looked into the ice-cavern, deeper, intenser,
more luminous, more awful in beauty, the farther inward, till in the
depths it became not only a shrine to worship at, but a presence to bow
and be silent before! It is said that angels sing and move in joy before
the Eternal; but there I learned that silence is their only voice, and
stillness their ecstatic motion!
Meanwhile the portals of this sapphire sanctuary were of a warm rose
hue, rich and delicate,--looking like the blush of mortal beauty at its
nearness to the heavenly.
Bradford is all right in painting the intensest blue possible,--due
care, of course, being taken not to extend it uniformly over large
surfaces. If he can secure any suggestion of the subtilty and
luminousness,--if he can! As I come back, and utter a word, he says that
the only way will be to glaze over a white ground. It had already struck
me, that, as this is the method by which Nature obtains such effects, it
must be the method for Art also. He is on the right track. And how the
gentle soul works!
But while outward Nature here assumed aspects of beauty so surpassing,
man, as if to lend her the emphasis of contrast, appeared in the
sorriest shape. I name him here, that I may vindicate his claim to
remembrance, even when he is a blot upon the beauty around him. I will
not forget him, even though I can think of him only with shame. To
remember, however, is here enough. We will go back to Nature,--though
she, too, can suckle "killers."
On the evening before our departure,--for we remained several days, and
had a snow-storm meanwhile,--there was a glorious going down of the sun
over the hills beyond York Bay, with a tender golden mist filling all
the western heavens, and tinting air and water between. So Nature
renewed her charm. And with that sun setting on Henley Harbor, we leave
for the present the miserable, magnificent place.
_June 30._--Iceberg! An iceberg! The real thing at last! We left Henley
at ten A. M., and were soon coming up with a noble berg. Its aspect, on
our near approach, was that of a vast roof rising at one end, beside
which, and about half its height, was the upper third of an enormous
cylinder. Passing to the west, along one side of this roof, we beheld a
vast cavernous depression, making a concave line in its ridge, and then
dipping deep, beyond view, into the berg. The sharp upper rim of this
depression came between us and the sky, with the bright shine of the
forenoon sun beyond, and showed a skirt or fringe of infinitely delicate
luminous green, whose contrast with the rich marble-white of the general
structure was beautiful exceedingly. With the exception of this, and of
a narrow blue seam, looking like lapis-lazuli, which ran diagonally from
summit to base, the broad surface of this side had the look of
snow-white marble lace or fretwork. Passing thence to the north face, we
came apparently upon the part at which the berg separated from its
parent glacier. Here was a new effect, and one of great beauty. In
material it resembled the finest statuary marble,--but rather the
crystalline marbles of Vermont, with their brilliant half-sparkle, than
the dead polish of the Parian; while the form and character of this
facade suggested some fascinating, supernatural consent of chance and
art, of fracture with sculpturesque and architectural design.
"He works in rings, in magic rings, of chance,"--
the subtlest thing ever said of Turner,--might have been spoken even
more truly of the workman who wrought this. The apparent fineness of
material cannot be overstated, so soft and powerful. "A porcelain
fracture," said Ph----,--well. Yet such porcelain! It were the despair
of China. On the eastern, or cylinder side, there was next the water a
strip of intensely polished surface, surmounted by an elaborate level
cornice, and above this the marble lace again.
The schooner soon tacked, and returned. As again we pass the cathedral
cliff on the north, and join the western side with this in one view, we
are somewhat prepared by familiarity to mingle its majesty and beauty,
and take from them a single impression. The long Cyclopean wall and vast
Gothic roof of the side, including many an arched, rounded, and waving
line, emphasized by straight lines of blue seam, are set off against the
strange shining traceries of the facade; while the union of flower-like
softness and eternal strength, the fretted silver of surface, the
combination of peak and cave, the fringe of blazing emerald on the
ridge, the glancing, flashing lights contrasting with twilight blues and
purples of deep shadow, and over all the stainless azure, and beneath
and around all a sea of beryl strown with sun-dust,--these associate to
engrave on the soul an impression which even death and the tomb, I would
fain believe, will be powerless to efface. And if Art study hard and
labor long and vehemently aspire to publish the truth of this, she does
well. Her task is worthy, but is not easy: I think a greater, of the
kind, has never been attempted. The height of this berg was determined
by instruments--but with a conjecture only of the distance--to be one
hundred and eighteen feet. Captain Brown, however, who went aloft, and
thence formed a judgment, pronounced it not less than one hundred and
fifty feet. One naturally inclines to the more moderate computation.
But, as subsequent experience showed me that judgments of distance in
such cases are almost always below the mark, I am of opinion that here,
as sometimes in politics and religion, seeming moderation may be less
accurate than seeming excess.
And, by the way, Noble's descriptions of icebergs, which, in the absence
of personal observation, might seem excessive, are of real value.
Finding a copy of his book on board, I read it with pleasure, having
first fully made my own notes,--and refer to him any reader who may have
appetite for more after concluding this chapter.
Early this evening we entered between bold cliffs into Square Island
Harbor, latitude about 53 deg.. It is a deep and deeply sheltered dog's
hole,--dogs and dirt could make it such,--but overhung by purple hills,
which proved, on subsequent inspection, to be largely composed of an
impure labradorite. Labradorite, the reader may know, is a crystallized
feldspar, with traces of other minerals. In its pure state it is
opalescent, exhibiting vivid gleams of blue, green, gold, and
copper-color, and, more rarely, of rose,--and is then, and deservedly,
reckoned a precious stone. The general character of the rock here is
sienitic; but, besides this peculiar quality of feldspar, the hornblende
appears as actinolite, (ray-stone,) so called from the form of its
crystallization; while the quartz element is faintly present, or appears
in separate masses. The purple of the hills is due not only to the
labradorite, which has that as a stable color, but also to a purple
lichen, which clothes much of the rock on this coast. I found also fine
masses of mica imbedded in quartz, edge upwards, and so compact that
its lamination was not perceptible. Indeed, I did not, with my novice
eyes, immediately recognize it, for it appeared a handsome
copper-colored rock, projecting slightly from the quartz, as if more
enduring.
Next day there was trouting, with a little, and but a little, better
than the usual minnow result.
And on the next, the floe-ice poured in and packed the harbor like a box
of sardines. The scene became utterly Arctic,--rock above, and ice
below. Rock, ice, and three imprisoned ships; which last, in their
helpless isolation, gave less the sense of companionship than of a
triple solitude. And when next day, Sunday, the third day of July, I
walked ashore on the ice with a hundred feet of water beneath, summer
seemed a worn-out tradition, and one felt that the frozen North had gone
out over the world as to a lawful inheritance.
But the new Czar reigned in beauty, if also in terror. Yard-wide spaces
of emerald, amethyst, sapphire, yellow-green beryl, and rose-tinted
crystal, grew as familiar to the eye as paving-blocks to the dwellers in
cities. The shadows of the ice were also of a violet purple, so ethereal
that it required a painter's eye at once to see it, though it was
unmistakably there; and to represent it will task the finest painter's
hand. Then the spaces of water between the floes, if not too large,
appeared uniformly in deep wine-color,--an effect for which one must
have more science than I to account. It is attributed to contrast; but
if thus illusive, it is at least an illusion not to be looked out of
countenance. No local color could assert itself more firmly. One
marvellous morning, too, a dense, but translucent, mist hovered closely,
beneath strong sunshine, over the ice, lending to its innumerable
fantastic forms a new, weird, witching, indescribable, real-unreal
strangeness, as if the ice and the ships it inclosed and we ourselves
were all but embodied dreams, half come to consciousness, and rubbing
our surprised moon-eyes to gaze upon each other. The power of this mist
to multiply distance was not the least part of its witchery. A schooner
ten rods off looked as far away as Cadmus and Abraham.
P---- was made happy by finding here a grasshopper, which subsequently
proved, however, a prize indeed,--but not quite so much of a prize as he
hoped, being probably the young of a species previously known as Alpine,
rather than an adult identical with one found on the summit of Mount
Washington.
During the latter part of our duress here we were driven below by raw,
incessant rain, and the confinement became irksome. At length, during
the day and night of July 14th, the ice finally made off with itself,
and the next morning the schooner followed suit. The ice, however, had
not done with us. It lingered near the land, while farther out it was
seen in solid mass, making witch-work, as usual, on the northern and
eastern sky; and we were soon dodging through the more open portion,
still dense enough, close to the coast. It was dangerous business. A
pretty breeze blew; and with anything of a wind our antelope of a
schooner took to her heels with speed. Lightly built,--not, like vessels
designed for this coast, double-planked and perhaps iron-prowed,--she
would easily have been staved by a shock upon this adamantine ice. The
mate stood at the bow, shouting, "Luff! Bear away! Hard up! Hard down!"
And his voice wanting strength and his articulation distinctness, I was
fain, at the pinch of the game, to come to his aid, and trumpet his
orders after him with my best stentorship. The old pilot had taken the
helm; but his nerves were unequal to his work; and a younger man was
sent to take his place. Once or twice the ship struck smaller masses of
ice, but at so sharp an angle as to push them and herself mutually
aside, and slide past without a crash. But a wind from the land was
steadily urging the floe-field away, and at length the sea before us lay
clear.
At ten A. M., we drew up to a majestic berg, and "came to,"--that is,
brought the schooner close by the wind. The berg was one of the noblest.
Picture to yourself two most immense Gothic churches without transepts,
each with a tower in front. Place these side by side, but at a remove
equal to about half their length. Build up now the space between the two
towers, extending this connection back so that it shall embrace the
front third or half of the churches, leaving an open _green_ court in
the rear, and you have a general conception of this piece of Northern
architecture. The rear of each church, however, instead of ascending
vertically, sloped at an angle of about ten degrees, and, instead of
having sharp corners, was exquisitely rounded. Elsewhere also were many
rounded and waving lines, where the image of a church would suggest
straightness. Nevertheless, you are to cling with force to that image in
shaping to your mind's eye a picture of this astonishing cathedral.
Since seeing the former berg, we had heard many tales of the danger of
approaching them. The Newfoundlanders and natives have of them a mortal
terror,--never going, if it can be avoided, nearer than half a mile, and
then always on the leeward side. "They kill the wind," said these
people, so that one in passing to windward is liable to be becalmed, and
to drift down upon them,--to drift upon them, because there is always a
tide setting in toward them. They chill the water, it descends, and
other flows in to assume its place. These fears were not wholly
groundless. Icebergs sometimes burst their hearts suddenly, with an
awful explosion, going into a thousand pieces. After they begin to
disintegrate, moreover, immense masses from time to time crush down from
above or surge up from beneath; and on all such occasions, proximity to
them is obviously not without its perils. "The Colonel," brave, and a
Greenland voyager, was more nervous about them than anybody else. He
declared, apparently on good authority, that the vibration imparted to
the sea by a ship's motion, or even that communicated to the air by the
human voice, would not unfrequently give these irritable monsters the
hint required for a burst of ill-temper,--and averred also that our
schooner, at the distance of three hundred yards, would be rolled over,
like a child's play-boat, by the wave which an exploding or over-setting
iceberg would cause. And it might, indeed, be supposed, that, did one of
those prodigious creations take a notion to disport its billions of tons
in a somersault, it would raise no trivial commotion.
At a distance, these considerations weighed with me. I heard them
respectfully, was convinced, and silently resolved not to urge, indeed,
so far as I properly might, to discourage, nearness of approach. But
here all these convictions vanished away. I knew that some icebergs were
treacherous, but they were others, not this! There it stood in such
majesty and magnificence of marble strength, that all question of its
soundness was shamed out of me,--or rather, would have been shamed, had
it arisen. This was not sentiment,--it was judgment,--_my_
judgment,--perhaps erroneous, yet a judgment formed from the facts as I
saw them. Therefore I determined to launch the light skiff which Ph----
and I had bought at Sleupe Harbor, and row up to the berg, perhaps lay
my hand upon it.
As the skiff went over the gunwale, the Parson cried,--
"Shall I go with you?"
"Yes, indeed, if you wish."
He seated himself in the stern; I assumed the oars, (I row cross-handed,
with long oars, and among amateur oarsmen am a little vain of my skill)
and pulled away. It was a longer pull than I had thought,--suggesting
that our judgment of distances had been insufficient, and that the
previous berg was higher than our measurement had made it.
Our approach was to rear of the berg,--that is, to the court or little
bay before mentioned. The temptation to enter was great, but I dared
not; for the long, deep ocean-swell over which the skiff skimmed like a
duck, not only without danger, but without the smallest perturbation,
broke in and out here with such force that I knew the boat would
instantly be swept out of my possession. The Parson, however, always
reckless of peril in his enthusiasm, and less experienced, cried,--
"In! in! Push the boat in!"
"No, the swell is too heavy; it will not do."
"Fie upon the swell! Never mind what will do! In!"
I sympathized too much with him to answer otherwise than by laying my
weight upon the oars, and pushing silently past. The water in this bit
of bay was some six or eight feet deep, and the ice beneath it--for the
berg was all solid below--showed in perfection that crystalline tawny
green which belongs to it under such circumstances. I pulled around the
curving rear of the eastern church, with its surface of marble lace,
such as we had seen before, gazing upward and upward at the towering
awfulness and magnificence of edifice, myself frozen in admiration. The
Parson, under high excitement, rained his hortative oratory upon me.
"Nearer! Nearer! Let's touch it! Let's lay our hands upon it! Don't be
faint-hearted now. It's now or never!"
I heard him as one under the influence of chloroform hears his
attendants. He exhorted a stone. His words only seemed to beat and
flutter faintly against me, like storm-driven birds against a cliff at
night. My brain was only in my eyeballs; and the arms that worked
mechanically at the oars belonged rather to the boat than to me.
Saturated at last, if not satiated, with seeing, I glanced at the
water-level, and said,--
"But see how the surge is heaving against it!"
But now it was I that spoke to stone, though not to a silent one.
"Hang the surge! I'm here for an iceberg, not to be balked by a bit of
surf! It's not enough to see; I must have my hand on it! I wish to touch
the veritable North Pole!"
It was pleasant to see the ever-genial Parson so peremptory; and I
lingered half wilfully, not unwilling to mingle the relieving flavor of
this pleasure with the more awful delight of other impressions: said,
however, at length,--
"I intend to go up to it, when I have found a suitable place."
"Place! What better place do you desire than this?"
I could but smile and pull on.
Caution was not unnecessary. The sea rose and fell a number of feet
beside the berg, beating heavily against it with boom and hiss; and I
knew well, that, if our boat struck fairly, especially if it struck
sidewise, it would be whirled over and over in two seconds. Besides,
where we then were, there was a cut of a foot or more into the berg at
the water-level,--or rather, it was excavated below, with this
projection above; and had the skiff caught under that, we would drown. I
had come there not to drown, nor to run any risk, but to get some more
intimate acquaintance with an iceberg. Rowing along, therefore, despite
the Parson's moving hortatives, I at length found a spot where this
projection did not appear. Turning now the skiff head on, I drove it
swiftly toward the berg; then, when its headway was sufficient, shipped
the oars quickly, slipped into the bow, and, reaching forth my hand and
striking the berg, sent the boat in the same instant back with all my
force, not suffering it to touch.
"Now me! Now me!" shouted the Parson, brow hot, and eyes blazing.
"You're going to give me a chance, too? I would not miss it for a
kingdom!"
"Yes; wait, wait."
I took the oars, got sea-room, then turned its stern, where the Parson
sat, toward the iceberg, and backed gently in.
"Put your hand behind you; reach out as far as you can; sit in the
middle; keep cool, cool; don't turn your body."
"Cool, oh, yes! I'm cool as November," he said, with a face misty as a
hot July morning with evaporating dew. As his hand struck the ice, I
bent the oars, and we shot safely away.
"Hurrah! hurrah!" he shouted, making the little boat rock and
tremble,--"hurrah! This, now, is the 'adventurous travel' we were
promised. Now I am content, if we get no more."
"Cool; you'll have us over."
"Pooh! Who's cooler?"
We went leisurely around this glacial cathedral. The current set with
force about it, running against us on the eastern side. At the front we
found the "cornice" again, about twenty feet up, sloping to the water,
and dipping beneath it on either side; below it, a crystal surface;
above, marble fretwork. This cornice indicates a former sea-level,
showing that the berg has risen or changed position. This must have
taken place, probably, by the detachment of masses; so an occurrence of
this kind was not wholly out of question, after all. There is always,
however,--so I suspect,--some preliminary warning, some audible crack or
visible vibration. I had kept in mind the possibility of such changes,
and at the slightest intimation should have darted away,--a movement
favored by the lightness of the skiff, and the extreme ease with which,
under the advantage of a beautiful model, she was rowed.
A sense of awe, almost of fear, crept over me now that the adventure was
over, and I looked up to the mighty towers of the facade with a somewhat
humbled eye; and so, pulling slowly and respectfully along the western
side, made away, solemn and satisfied, to the ship.
I expected a storm of criticism on our return, but found calm. The boat
was hoisted in silently, and I hurried below, to lie down and enjoy the
very peculiar entertainment which vigorous rowing was sure to afford me.
Released after a half-hour's toasting on the gridiron, I went on deck
and found the Parson surrounded by a cloud of censure. The words "boyish
foolhardiness," catching my ear, flushed me with some anger,--to which
emotion I am not, perhaps, of all men least liable. So I stumped a
little stiffly to the group, and said,--
"I don't feel myself altogether a boy, and foolhardiness is not my
forte."
"Well, success is wisdom," said the Colonel, placably. "You have
succeeded, and now have criticism at a disadvantage, I own."
Another, however,--not a braver man on board,--stood to his guns.
"Experienced men say that it is dangerous; I hear to them till I have
experience myself."
"Right, if so it stands in your mind. You judge thus: you follow your
judgment. I judge partly so, and partly otherwise, and I follow my
judgment. Mere experience is but a purblind wisdom, after all. When I do
not at all see my own way, I follow that, still aware of its
imperfections; where eyes are of service, I use them, learning from
experience caution, not submission. The real danger in this case was
that of being dashed against the berg; with coolness and some skill"
(was there a little emphasis on this word _skill_?) "that danger could
be disarmed. For any other danger I was ready, but did not fear it.
'Boyish?' The boyish thing, I take it, is always to be a pendant upon
other people's alarms. I prefer rather to be kite than its tail only."
"Well, each of us _does_ follow his own judgment," replied Candor; "you
act as you think; I think you are wrong. If it were shooting a Polar
bear now,--there's pleasure in that, and it were worth the while to run
some risk."
We had tried for a bear together. I seized my advantage.
"It is a pleasure to you to shoot a bear. So to me also. But I would
rather get into intimacy with an iceberg than freight the ship with
bears."
He smiled an end to the colloquy. As I went below, Captain Handy, the
Arctic whaler, met me with,--
"I would as lief as not spend a week on that berg! I have made fast to
such, and lain for days. All depends on the character of the berg. If
it's rotting, look out! If it's sound as that one, you may go to sleep
on it."
I hastened up to proclaim my new ally. "You heed experience; hear
Captain Handy." And I launched his bolt at the head of Censure, and saw
it duck, if no more.