"Life's like a ship in constant motion:
Sometimes smooth, and sometimes rough."--_Song._
"Oh! the pleasures of a summer trip across the Atlantic!" Thus sung and
chorused my good friends one and all; some from experience, most from
hearsay, but ever in unison.
"You'll have quite a party of pleasure," says one. "The only thing to be
dreaded will be the _ennui_ arising out of long calms, gentle breezes,
eternal sunshine by day and moonlight by night," says another.
One would have fancied, according to their account, that sun and moon
alternated like buckets in a well, one up, the other down, with the
exception that both were to be always at full.
So constant, however, were these remarks about heat, and sun, and summer
air, that I packed up every article of clothing heavier than duck or
cachmere; nay, had not some worthy matter-of-fact soul let slip a stray
hint about ice and sleighing parties in December, I verily believe,
hating as I do all superfluous baggage, I should have left my greatcoats
to the moth and fog of Old England.
But whew! from such _airs_ the Lord preserve me!--whilst at the tail of
our honest, grimy, grumbling steamer, cutting through the Mersey or
along the coast of Wales, we were, I admit, tolerably sunned and warm
enough, though not even here bedazzled or over-heated; but on the second
morning out, what a change!
I came on deck just before six A.M. to take my shower-bath; the wind was
about west by south, blowing a brisk gale, the ship under double-reefed
topsails, with top-gallant sails set over them, making all smoke
again--on one hand lay the Isle of Rathlin, with the north coast of
Ireland, bleak and bare; on the other, the Mull of Kyntyre, with a tide
of its own rushing by like a mill-race, and over it the cloudy crest of
Isla, looming through the flitting vapours, cold, dark, and
hard-visaged, as though no drop of whisky had ever been brewed therein.
One could not recognise the misty monster, thus grimly shadowed forth,
to be the parent of that glorious sunny spirit.
We had full time afforded to become well acquainted with the changing
aspects of these and the other localities hereabouts, for we had to
battle it with their ally the wind, and with their waters, for full
sixty hours; and although we at length fought our course seaward, it was
to feel that such another victory would be anything but serviceable to
the gallant ship.
Oh that infernal Rathlin! I shall not soon forget it; it is a spot I
always held in ill odour ever since Miss Porter's "Scottish Chiefs"
taught my unsophisticated youth to weep over the wrongs of Wallace
wight. Now, although I abominate the place more, I have learned to
compassionate her ill-starred hero less, since to have been carried
southward through "merrie England" from such a place of exile, albeit
the journey ended in hanging, was yet a deliverance especially to be
rejoiced in.
We had a near view of the natives too, one day, trying to catch us in a
whale-boat, whilst we were hugging the land sculking from the strength
of the tide of flood: but, thank Heaven! they missed taking us as we
went about on the opposite tack, the which I shall ever consider a
providential escape, although at the time, a heedless confidence in our
numbers led Captain Maxwell to throw them the end of a rope. They failed
to lay hold on it, however, and away we dashed by them like a whirlwind;
whilst the disappointed men gesticulating fiercely, with their red
"fell o' hair" blowing to the four corners of the earth, and their wild
eyes and ogre mouths agape, yelled forth a volley of strange sounds,
soon drowned by the louder roar of these summer waves. This was happily
the only danger we incurred from the natives; we saw no more of them,[2]
and right glad were all-hands when the last glimpse of the Hebrides, or
Western Isles, as they are called in their charts, faded away in their
mist.
After this date one heavy blow succeeded another until the first of
August, with seldom sun enough to afford an observation: yet it mattered
not; like sea-birds we "rode and slept," for the excellence of the boat,
and the way in which she was handled, was evident enough to inspire even
the nervousness of inexperience with confidence; and the efficiency of
our domestic arrangements bade defiance to the anger of the
elements;--uninfluenced by their frowns as by their smiles, on went the
work, and meal succeeded meal with faultless regularity.
On the second of August we passed within the immediate atmosphere of a
huge iceberg. We had for some time previous been enveloped in fog, which
suddenly lifting, showed us this isle of ice, and two other smaller
ones.
The main island, by which we were most attracted, lay about a quarter of
a mile to leeward, of dazzling whiteness, and picturesque of form,
having at one end a lofty cone-shaped mountain, and at the other an
angular bold mound, crowned by what we decided to be an extensive Gothic
fortalice or castle, not unworthy the Ice-king himself if bent on a
summer trip round the gulf stream: between these promontories lay a deep
valley thickly tenanted by tribes of the white gull.
Three sides of Castle-hill were regularly scarped, the fourth
communicated by a neatly kept slope with the valley, and along this
radiated a number of well-trodden paths, all uniting at the castle gate,
at once giving evidence of considerable population, and great
hospitality on the part of the worthy castellan.
The position of these islands was unusual, and their appearance
occasioned a little surprise, although the fall of the thermometer, and
the change in the temperature of the water, had led Captain Maxwell,
some hours before we met them, to decide upon their vicinity.
On the banks of Newfoundland they are common at this season of the year,
and form, indeed, the danger most to be dreaded of the voyage; since, if
the weather should prove thick, and the ice swim deep, scarce showing
above the surface, as is commonly the case, a ship going quickly through
the water may strike before any measures can be taken to avoid the
encounter.
A fine packet, the Liverpool, but nine days out, on her first trip was
totally lost on one of these in the summer of 1822; and this very year
our captain coasted to the southward for seventy miles along the edge of
a field of ice, in which he had previously been locked-up for fifty
hours, till released by a lucky shift of wind. On this occasion he had
one on board whose experience among ice had been well tested, and was
about to be yet again tried; for Lieutenant Back was here on his
perilous adventure in quest of the long lost Captain Ross and his crew.
For the succeeding sixteen or seventeen days of our voyage the weather
was generally fine. Upon the western edge of the Banks we had a few
days' calm, which taking advantage of, I turned my morning shower-bath
into a plunge from the bowsprit, and had a delicious swim round the
ship. The passengers, however, got wind of my fun, and in obedience to
the kindly meant remonstrances of one or two of them, I forbore a
pleasure which never occurred to me to be perilous, for I have practised
it in many parts of the ocean, always taking care that there was no way
upon the ship.
We had no casualties except amongst the pigs, sheep, and poultry; and as
yet no great loss of spars, indeed in all our blows, we only sprung a
main-topsail yard, carried away a fore-topmast, and made a few
stu'n-sail booms,--for the latter, we had very little use, not having
the wind abaft the beam over five days, all counted, out of a passage of
thirty-five; and how it was accomplished in the time under the
circumstances, is yet to me a matter of some wonderment.