completed by the junction of a new companion, quite
unexpected. We found in Reykjavik harbour a yacht belonging
to Lord Dufferin. The Prince, seeing his great desire to
visit the neighbourhood of Jan Mayen, offered to take
his schooner in tow of the 'Reine Hortense.' It was a
fortunate accident for a seeker of maritime adventures;
and an hour afterwards, the proposition having been
eagerly accepted, the Englishman was attached by two long
cables to the stern of our corvette.
On the 7th of July, 1856, at two o'clock in the morning,
after a ball given by Commander de Mas on board the
'Artemise,'--the 'Reine Hortense,' with the English
schooner in tow, left Reykjavik harbour, directing her
course along the west coast of Iceland, towards
Onundarfiord, where we were to join the 'Saxon' which
had left a few hours before us. At nine o'clock, the
three vessels, steering east-north-east, doubled the
point of Cape North. At noon our observation of the
latitude placed us about 67 degrees. We had just crossed
the Arctic circle. The temperature was that of a fine
spring day, 10 degrees centigrade (50 degrees Farenh.).
The 'Reine Hortense' diminished her speed. A rope thrown
across one of the towing-ropes enabled Lord Dufferin to
haul one of his boats to our corvette. He himself came
to dine with us, and to be present at the ceremony of
crossing the polar circle. As to the 'Saxon,' M. de la
Ronciere perceived by this time that the worthy Englishman
had presumed too much on his power. The 'Saxon' was
evidently incapable of following us. The captain, therefore,
made her a signal that she was to take her own course,
to try and reach Jan Mayen; and if she could not succeed,
to direct her course on Onundarfiord, and there to wait
for us. The English vessel fell rapidly astern, her hull
disappeared, then her sails, and in the evening every
trace of her smoke had faded from the horizon.
In the evening, the temperature grew gradually colder;
that of the water underwent a more rapid and significant
change. At twelve at night it was only three degrees
centig. (about 37 degrees Fahr.). At that moment the
vessel plunged into a bank of fog, the intensity of which
we were enabled to ascertain, from the continuance of
daylight in these latitudes at this time of the year.
There are tokens that leave no room to doubt that we are
approaching the solid ice. True enough:--at two o'clock
in the morning the officer on watch sees close to the
ship a herd of seals, inhabitants of the field ice. A
few minutes later the fog clears up suddenly; a ray of
sunshine gilds the surface of the sea; lighting up millions
of patches of sparkling white, extending to the farthest
limit of the horizon. These are the detached hummocks
which precede and announce the field ice; they increase
in size and in number as we proceed. At three o'clock in
the afternoon we find ourselves in front of a large pack
which blocks up the sea before us. We are obliged to
change our course to extricate ourselves from the ice
that surrounds us. This is an evolution requiring on
the part of the commander the greatest precision of eye,
and a perfect knowledge of his ship. The 'Reine Hortense,'
going half speed, with all the officers and the crew on
deck, glides along between the blocks of ice, some of
which she seems almost to touch, and the smallest of
which would sink her instantly if a collision took place.
Another danger, which it is almost impossible to guard
against, threatens a vessel in those trying moments. If
a piece of ice gets under the screw, it will be inevitably
smashed like glass, and the consequences of such an
accident might be fatal.
The little English schooner follows us bravely; bounding
in our track, and avoiding only by a constant watchfulness
and incessant attention to the helm the icebergs that we
have cleared.
But the difficulties of this navigation are nothing in
clear weather, as compared to what they are in a fog.
Then, notwithstanding the slowness of the speed, it
requires as much luck as skill to avoid collisions. Thus
it happened that after having escaped the ice a first
time, and having steered E.N.E., we found ourselves
suddenly, towards two o'clock of that same day (the 9th),
not further than a quarter of a mile from the field ice
which the fog had hidden from us. Generally speaking,
the Banquise that we coasted along for three days, and
that we traced with the greatest care for nearly a hundred
leagues, presented to us an irregular line of margin,
running from W.S.W. to E.N.E., and thrusting forward
toward the south-capes and promontories of various sizes,
and serrated like the teeth of a saw. Every time that we
bore up for E.N.E., we soon found ourselves in one of
the gulfs of ice formed by the indentations of the
Banquise. It was only by steering to the S.W. that we
got free from the floating icebergs, to resume our former
course as soon as the sea was clear.
The further we advanced to the northward, the thicker
became the fog and more intense the cold (two degrees
centig, below zero); and snow whirled round in squalls
of wind, and fell in large flakes on the deck. The ice
began to present a new aspect, and to assume those
fantastic and terrible forms and colours, which painters
have made familiar to us. At one time it assumed the
appearance of mountain-peaks covered with snow, furrowed
with valleys of green and blue; more frequently they
appeared like a wide flat plateau, as high as the ship's
deck, against which the sea rolled with fury, hollowing
its edges into gulfs, or breaking them into perpendicular
cliffs or caverns, into which the sea rushed in clouds
of foam.
We often passed close by a herd of seals, which-stretched
on these floating islands, followed the ship with a stupid
and puzzled look. We were forcibly struck with the contrast
between the fictitious world in which we lived on board
the ship, and the terrible realities of nature that
surrounded us. Lounging in an elegant saloon, at the
corner of a clear and sparkling fire, amidst a thousand
objects of the arts and luxuries of home, we might have
believed that we had not changed our residence, or our
habits, or our enjoyments. One of Strauss's waltzes, or
Schubert's melodies--played on the piano by the
band-master--completed the illusion; and yet we had only
to rub off the thin incrustation of frozen vapour that
covered the panes of the windows, to look out upon the
gigantic and terrible forms of the icebergs dashed against
each other by a black and broken sea, and the whole
panorama of Polar nature, its awful risks, and its sinister
splendours.
Meanwhile, we progressed but very slowly. On the 10th of
July we were still far from the meridian of Jan Mayen,
when we suddenly found ourselves surrounded by a fog,
and at the bottom of one of the bays formed by the field
ice. We tacked immediately, and put the ship about, but
the wind had accumulated the ice behind us. At a distance
the circle that enclosed us seemed compact and without
egress. We considered this as the most critical moment
of our expedition. Having tried this icy barrier at
several points, we found a narrow and tortuous channel,
into which we ventured; and it was not till after an hour
of anxieties that we got a view of the open sea, and of
a passage into it. From this moment we were able to
coast along the Banquise without interruption.
On the 11th of July at 6 A.M. we reached, at last, the
meridian of Jan Mayen, at about eighteen leagues' distance
[Footnote: I think there must be some mistake here; when
we parted company with the "Reine Hortense," we were
still upwards of 100 miles distant from the southern
extremity of Jan Mayen.] from the southern part of that
island, but we saw the ice-field stretching out before
us as far as the eye could reach; hence it became evident
that Jan Mayen was blocked up by the ice, at least along
its south coast. To ascertain whether it might still be
accessible from the north, it would have been necessary
to have attempted a circuit to the eastward, the possible
extent of which could not be estimated; moreover, we had
consumed half our coals, and had lost all hope of being
rejoined by the 'Saxon.' Thus forced to give up any
further attempts in that direction, Commodore de la
Ronciere, having got the ship clear of the floating ice,
took a W.S.W. course, in the direction of Reykjavik.
The instant the 'Reine Hortense' assumed this new course,
a telegraphic signal--as had been previously arranged--
acquainted Lord Dufferin with our determinations. Almost
immediately, the young Lord sent on board us a tin box,
with two letters, one for his mother, and one for our
commander. In the latter he stated that--finding himself
clear of the ice, and master of his own movements--he
preferred continuing his voyage alone, uncertain whether
he should at once push for Norway, or return to Scotland.
[Footnote: I was purposely vague as to my plans, lest
you might learn we still intended to go on.] The two
ropes that united the vessels were then cast off, a
farewell hurrah was given, and in a moment the English
schooner was lost in the fog.
Our return to Reykjavik afforded no incident worth notice;
the 'Reine Hortense,' keeping her course outside the ice,
encountered no impediment, except from the intense fogs,
which forced her--from the impossibility of ascertaining
her position--to lie to, and anchor off the cape during
part of the day and night of the 13th.
On the morning of the 14th, as we were getting out at
the Dyre Fiord, where we had anchored, we met--to our
great astonishment--the 'Cocyte' proceeding northward.
Her commander, Sonnart, informed us that on the evening
of the 12th, the 'Saxon'--in consequence of the injuries
she had received, had been forced back to Reykjavik. She
had hardly reached the ice on the 9th, when she came into
collision with it; five of her timbers had been stove
in, and an enormous leak had followed. Becoming
water-logged, she was run ashore, the first tine at
Onundarfiord, and again in Reykjavik roads, whither she
had been brought with the greatest difficulty."
LETTER X.
BUCOLICS--THE GOAT--MAID MARIAN--A LAPP LADY--LAPP LOVE-
MAKING--THE SEA-HORSEMAN--THE GULF STREAM--ARCTIC
CURRENTS--A DINGY EXPEDITION--A SCHOOL OF PERIPATETIC
FISHES--ALTEN--THE CHATELAINE OF KAAFIORD--STILL NORTHWARD
HO!
July 27th, Alten.
This letter ought to be an Eclogue, so pastoral a life
have we been leading lately among these pleasant Nordland
valleys. Perhaps it is only the unusual sight of meadows,
trees and flowers, after the barren sea, and still more
barren lands we have been accustomed to, that invests
this neighbourhood with such a smiling character. Be that
as it may, the change has been too grateful not to have
made us seriously reflect on our condition; and we have
at last determined that not even the envious ocean shall
for the future cut us off from the pleasures of a shepherd
life. Henceforth, the boatswain is no longer to be the
only swain on board! We have purchased an ancient goat--a
nanny-goat--so we may be able to go a-milking upon
occasion. Mr. Webster, late of her Majesty's Foot-guards,
carpenter, etc., takes brevet-rank as dairy-maid; and
our venerable passenger is at this moment being inducted
into a sumptuous barrel [Footnote: The cask in question
was bought in order to be rigged up eventually into a
crow's-nest, as soon as we should again find ourselves
among the ice.] which I have had fitted up for her
reception abaft the binnacle. A spacious meadow of
sweet-scented hay has been laid down in a neighbouring
corner for her further accommodation; and the Doctor is
tuning up his flageolet, in order to complete the bucolic
character of the scene. The only personage amongst us at
all disconcerted by these arrangements is the little
white fox which has come with us from Iceland. Whether
he considers the admission on board of so domestic an
animal to be a reflection on his own wild Viking habits,
I cannot say; but there is no impertinence--even to the
nibbling of her beard when she is asleep--of which he is
not guilty towards the poor old thing, who passes the
greater part of her mornings in gravely butting at her
irreverent tormentor.
[Figure: fig-p142.gif]
But I must relate our last week's proceedings in a more
orderly manner.
As soon as the anchor was let go in Hammerfest harbour,
we went ashore; and having first ascertained that the
existence of a post does not necessarily imply letters,
we turned away, a little disappointed, to examine the
metropolis of Finmark. A nearer inspection did not improve
the impression its first appearance had made upon us;
and the odour of rancid cod-liver oil, which seemed
indiscriminately to proceed from every building in the
town, including the church, has irretrievably confirmed
us in our prejudices. Nevertheless, henceforth the place
will have one redeeming association connected with it,
which I am bound to mention. It was in the streets of
Hammerfest that I first set eyes on a Laplander. Turning
round the corner of one of the ill-built houses, we
suddenly ran over a diminutive little personage in a
white woollen tunic, bordered with red and yellow stripes,
green trousers, fastened round the ankles, and reindeer
boots, curving up at the toes like Turkish slippers. On
her head--for notwithstanding the trousers, she turned
out to be a lady--was perched a gay parti-coloured cap,
fitting close round the face, and running up at the back
into an overarching peak of red cloth. Within this peak
was crammed--as I afterwards learnt--a piece of hollow
wood, weighing about a quarter of a pound, into which is
fitted the wearer's back hair; so that perhaps, after
all, there does exist a more in, convenient coiffure than
a Paris bonnet.
Hardly had we taken off our hats, and bowed a thousand
apologies for our unintentional rudeness to the fair
inhabitant of the green trousers, before a couple of Lapp
gentlemen hove in sight. They were dressed pretty much
like their companion, except that an ordinary red night-cap
replaced the queer helmet worn by the lady; and the knife
and sporran fastened to their belts, instead of being
suspended in front as hers were, hung down against their
hips. Their tunics, too, may have been a trifle shorter.
None of the three were beautiful. High cheek-bones, short
noses, oblique Mongol eyes, no eyelashes, and enormous
mouths, composed a cast of features which their burnt-sienna
complexion, and hair like ill-got-in hay did not much
enhance. The expression of their countenances was not
unintelligent; and there was a merry, half-timid,
half-cunning twinkle in their eyes, which reminded me a
little of faces I had met with in the more neglected
districts of Ireland. Some ethnologists, indeed, are
inclined to reckon the Laplanders as a branch of the
Celtic family. Others, again, maintain them to be Ugrians;
while a few pretend to discover a relationship between
the Lapp language and the dialects of the Australian
savages, and similar outsiders of the human family;
alleging that as successive stocks bubbled up from the
central birthplace of mankind in Asia, the earlier and
inferior races were gradually driven outwards in concentric
circles, like the rings produced by the throwing of a
stone into a pond; and that consequently, those who dwell
in the uttermost ends of the earth are, ipso facto, first
cousins.
This relationship with the Polynesian Niggers, the native
genealogists would probably scout with indignation, being
perfectly persuaded of the extreme gentility of their
descent. Their only knowledge of the patriarch Noah is
as a personage who derives his principal claim to notoriety
from having been the first Lapp. Their acquaintance with
any sacred history--nay, with Christianity at all--is
very limited. It was not until after the thirteenth
century that an attempt was made to convert them; and
although Charles the Fourth and Gustavus ordered portions
of Scripture to be translated in Lappish, to this very
day a great proportion of the race are pagans; and even
the most illuminated amongst them remain slaves to the
grossest superstition. When a couple is to be married,
if a priest happens to be in the way, they will send for
him perhaps out of complaisance; but otherwise, the young
lady's papa merely strikes a flint and steel together,
and the ceremony is not less irrevocably completed. When
they die, a hatchet and a flint and steel are invariably
buried with the defunct, in case he should find himself
chilly on his long journey--an unnecessary precaution,
many of the orthodox would consider, on the part of such
lax religionists. When they go boar-hunting--the most
important business in their lives--it is a sorcerer, with
no other defence than his incantations, who marches at
the head of the procession. In the internal arrangements
of their tents, it is not a room to themselves, but a
door to themselves, that they assign to their womankind;
for woe betide the hunter if a woman has crossed the
threshold over which he sallies to the chase; and for
three days after the slaughter of his prey he must live
apart from the female portion of his family in order to
appease the evil deity whose familiar he is supposed to
have destroyed. It would be endless to recount the
innumerable occasions upon which the ancient rites of
Jumala are still interpolated among the Christian
observances they profess to have adopted.
Their manner of life I had scarcely any opportunities of
observing. Our Consul kindly undertook to take us to one
of their encampments; but they flit so often from place
to place, it is very difficult to light upon them. Here
and there, as we cruised about among the fiords, blue
wreaths of smoke rising from some little green nook among
the rocks would betray their temporary place of abode;
but I never got a near view of a regular settlement.
In the summer-time they live in canvas tents: during
winter, when the snow is on the ground, the forest Lapps
build huts in the branches of trees, and so roost like
birds. The principal tent is of an hexagonal form, with
a fire in the centre, whose smoke rises through a hole
in the roof. The gentlemen and ladies occupy different
sides of the same apartment; but a long pole laid along
the ground midway between them symbolizes an ideal
partition, which I dare say is in the end as effectual
a defence as lath and plaster prove in more civilized
countries. At all events, the ladies have a doorway quite
to themselves, which, doubtless, they consider a far
greater privilege than the seclusion of a separate boudoir.
Hunting and fishing are the principal employments of the
Lapp tribes; and to slay a bear is the most honourable
exploit a Lapp hero can achieve. The flesh of the
slaughtered beast becomes the property--not of the man
who killed him, but of him who discovered his trail, and
the skin is hung up on a pole, for the wives of all who
took part in the expedition to shoot at with their eyes
bandaged. Fortunate is she whose arrow pierces the
trophy,--not only does it become her prize, but, in the
eyes of the whole settlement, her husband is looked upon
thence forth as the most fortunate of men. As long as
the chase is going on, the women are not allowed to stir
abroad; but as soon as the party have safely brought home
their booty, the whole female population issue from the
tents, and having deliberately chewed some bark of a
species of alder, they spit the red juice into their
husband's faces, typifying thereby the bear's blood which
has been shed in the honourable encounter.
Although the forests, the rivers, and the sea supply them
in a great measure with their food, it is upon the reindeer
that the Laplander is dependent for every other comfort
in life. The reindeer is his estate, his horse, his cow,
his companion, and friend. He has twenty-two different
names for him. His coat, trousers, and shoes are made of
reindeer's skin, stitched with thread manufactured from
the nerves and sinews of the reindeer. Reindeer milk is
the most important item in his diet. Out of reindeer
horns are made almost all the utensils used in his domestic
economy; and it is the reindeer that carries his baggage,
and drags his sledge. But the beauty of this animal is
by no means on a par with his various moral and physical
endowments. His antlers, indeed, are magnificent, branching
back to the length of three or four feet; but his body
is poor, and his limbs thick and ungainly; neither is
his pace quite so rapid as is generally supposed. The
Laplanders count distances by the number of horizons they
have traversed; and if a reindeer changes the horizon
three times during the twenty-four hours, it is thought
a good day's work. Moreover, so just an appreciation has
the creature of what is due to his own great merit, that
if his owner seeks to tax him beyond his strength, he
not only becomes restive, but sometimes actually turns
upon the inconsiderate Jehu who has over-driven him.
When, therefore, a Lapp is in a great hurry, instead of
taking to his sledge, he puts on a pair of skates exactly
twice as long as his own body, and so flies on the wings
of the wind.
Every Laplander, however poor, has his dozen or two dozen
deer; and the flocks of a Lapp Croesus amount sometimes
to two thousand head. As soon as a young lady is born--after
having been duly rolled in the snow--she is dowered by
her father with a certain number of deer, which are
immediately branded with her initials, and thenceforth
kept apart as her especial property. In proportion as
they increase and multiply does her chance improve of
making a good match. Lapp courtships are conducted pretty
much in the same fashion as in other parts of the world.
The aspirant, as soon as he discovers that he has lost
his heart, goes off in search of a friend and a bottle
of brandy. The friend enters the tent, and opens
simultaneously--the brandy--and his business; while the
lover remains outside, engaged in hewing wood, or some
other menial employment. If, after the brandy and the
proposal have been duly discussed, the eloquence of his
friend prevails, he is himself called into the conclave,
and the young people are allowed to rub noses. The bride
then accepts from her suitor a present of a reindeer's
tongue, and the espousals are considered concluded. The
marriage does not take place for two or three years
afterwards; and during the interval the intended is
obliged to labour in the service of his father-in-law,
as diligently as Jacob served Laban for the sake of his
long-loved Rachel.
I cannot better conclude this summary of what I have been
able to learn about the honest Lapps, than by sending
you the tourist's stock specimen of a Lapp love-ditty.
The author is supposed to be hastening in his sledge
towards the home of his adored one:--
"Hasten, Kulnasatz! my little reindeer! long is the way,
and boundless are the marshes. Swift are we, and light
of foot, and soon we shall have come to whither we are
speeding. There shall I behold my fair one pacing.
Kulnasatz, my reindeer, look forth! look around! Dost
thou not see her somewhere--BATHING?"
As soon as we had thoroughly looked over the Lapp lady
and her companions, a process to which they submitted
with the greatest complacency, we proceeded to inspect
the other lions of the town; the church, the lazar-house,--
principally occupied by Lapps,--the stock fish
establishment, and the hotel. But a very few hours were
sufficient to exhaust the pleasures of Hammerfest; so
having bought an extra suit of jerseys for my people,
and laid in a supply of other necessaries, likely to be
useful in our cruise to Spitzbergen, we exchanged dinners
with the Consul, a transaction by which, I fear, he got
the worst of the bargain, and then got under way for this
place,--Alten.