EVENING WALK TO TEMPLE BAY MOUNTAIN.—THE LITTLE
ICEBERG.—TROUBLES OF THE NIGHT AND PLEASURES OF THE
MORNING.—UP THE STRAITS.—THE PINNACLE OF THE LAST
ICEBERG.—THE GULF OF ST. LAWRENCE.
AFTER dinner and a pleasant conversation on deck, we found time to slip
ashore, and thread our way through thickets of sweet-scented spruce to
the mountain-top for a prospect. Once in my life, on the borders of a
forest pond, in the lower St. Lawrence country, I experienced the plague
of black flies to an extent that was quite frightful. I turned from the
margin where, head and face covered with handkerchiefs, I was fishing,
and ran to a woodman’s hut. The same flies swarmed about us on the
mountain of Temple Bay, and drove us down through its evergreens with
all the speed it was prudent to make.
In the edge of the twilight, the Captain went across the bay to a little
mouse of a berg, that had been all day creeping in from sea, to get a
few cakes of ice; and asked our company. Our mouse, as might be
expected, turned out to be a lion. We rowed alongside, notwithstanding,
and sprung upon his white, glassy back melted all over into a roughness
that resembled the rippled surface of a pond. In attempting to walk to a
fairy-like bowl, full of that lovely blue water, the painter slipped up,
and came near sliding off altogether. But for the Captain, at whose legs
he caught as he was going by, he would have had a fine plunge and a
ducking. Our chick of a berg, only ten or twelve feet across with a few
minute pieces of sculpture in the shape of vases and recumbent animals,
lay in its pale green bath like a burr or star, its white points visible
at quite a depth—a fact which served to corroborate some experiments we
had been making with respect to the parts of an iceberg under water.
Here was a mass, with the exception of a few trifling spurs, only a
little above the surface, but with a bulk, the extreme points of which
were too far below to be discovered. To conclude several amusing
liberties we were taking with it, the Captain proceeded to split off a
kind of figure-head attached to the main body by a sort of horse-neck,
which no sooner fell into the water than our bantling began to imitate
the motions of the tallest giant of the icebergs. In making the grand
swing, however, it rolled completely over, and came within an ace of
catching us upon one of its horns. Anticipating the chance of danger
from below, I looked over the side of the boat, when, sure enough, a
prong was coming up in a way to give us a toss that would be no sport. A
lucky push off saved us. Like the spoke of a big wheel it rolled up,
giving us a blow in the ribs as it passed, and a good rocking on the
swash. One would scarcely think that there was any excitement in so
trifling an incident, but there was, and enough of it to make me resolve
to meddle no more with a thing of the kind larger than a lamb. When it
settled to rest, it was exactly upside down, and presented a curious
specimen of the honey-comb work of the waters. It may occur to some that
we were sporting upon the Lord’s Day. Upon reflection I confess that we
were, although we might plead the privilege of voyagers, and the long
day which touches hard upon our midnight.
Upon our return we found the musquitoes, a peculiarly hungry and
poisonous species, coming down from the woods in numbers. We determined
to crush that mischief in the bud, and did it most effectually, by
filling the cabin with the dense smoke of spruce boughs, and then, upon
its escape, covering the entrance with a sheet. One only came feebly and
timidly singing about my face before I got to sleep. About one o’clock,
there were sounds above: shaking of blocks and cordage, now and then a
thump with a creak of booms, and jerking of the rudder. I went up; there
was no watch; all were soundly sleeping. The ship’s cat was out on the
rail, running from place to place, and mewing mournfully. The sky looked
ominous, and there was the roar of wind outside. The waters and the
woods of the bay, so prettily named, were gloomy as the crypt of a
temple. I crept to my dreams, out of which in no long time I was
startled by the painter. He was getting up to have his look. He reported
breezes, but in the wrong direction, and without comment felt his way
back to bed. At two, the voice of the Captain put an end to slumbers,
fore and aft. He was calling all hands to the deck, where presently all
was noise and bustle, hoisting sail, and heaving at the anchor. The old
motion was soon perceptible, and we knew that we were taking leave of
Temple Bay—a fact of which we were assured by the Captain, who peeped
in upon us, by lifting a corner of the musquito-sheet, and announced the
good tidings that the wind, northeast, was blowing briskly, and that the
straits would give us no further trouble.
No sooner were we clear of the “tickle,” or narrows, than “Iceberg
ahead!”—“Ice on the lee bow!” was cried by the man forward. It was no
more to our purpose to go up and look at ices. It was a comfortable
reflection that we were now bidding them farewell. By way of a parting
salute, one of the bergs burst asunder with a great noise, before that
we were out of the reach of its shells. But its thunder fell but faintly
on our practised ears, and rather encouraged than disturbed our
disposition to sleep. When daylight was broad upon the straits, we were
over the worst, and the last iceberg, like the top of some solitary
mausoleum of the desert, was sinking below the horizon. The high wind
and sea were after us, and we ran with speed and comparative stillness.
By noon we were fairly through; with Forteau, the last of Labrador, on
the north—to the south, the coast of Newfoundland, and the broad gulf
of St. Lawrence expanding before us. We felt that we might then breathe
freely. The breeze most surely did, and we sped on our way southward
toward Cape Breton.