impetus impressed on the surface of the Jan Mayen ice
rivers; but in this case so unaccountable did it seem
that the over-hanging mass of ice should not continue to
thunder down upon its course, that one's natural impulse
was to shrink from crossing the path along which a
breath--a sound--might precipitate the suspended avalanche
into the valley. Though, perhaps, pretty exact in outline
and general effect, the sketch I have made of this
wonderful scene, will never convey to you a correct notion
of the enormous scale of the distances, and size of its
various features. These glaciers are the principal
characteristic of the scenery in Spitzbergen; the bottom
of every valley in every part of the island, is occupied
and generally completely filled by them, enabling one in
some measure to realize the look of England during her
glacial period, when Snowdon was still being slowly lifted
towards the clouds, and every valley in Wales was brimful
of ice. But the glaciers in English Bay are by no means
the largest in the island. We ourselves got a view--though
a very distant one--of ice rivers which must have been
more extensive; and Dr. Scoresby mentions several which
actually measured forty or fifty miles in length, and
nine or ten in breadth; while the precipice formed by
their fall into the sea, was sometimes upwards of 400 or
500 feet high. Nothing is more dangerous than to approach
these cliffs of ice. Every now and then huge masses detach
themselves from the face of the crystal steep, and topple
over into the water; and woe be to the unfortunate ship
which might happen to be passing below. Scoresby himself
actually witnessed a mass of ice, the size of a cathedral,
thunder down into the sea from a height of 400 feet;
frequently during our stay at Spitzbergen we ourselves
observed specimens of these ice avalanches; and scarcely
an hour passed without the solemn silence of the bay
being disturbed by the thunderous boom resulting from
similar catastrophes occurring in adjacent valleys.
As soon as we had thoroughly taken in the strange features
of the scene around us, we all turned in for a night's
rest. I was dog tired, as much with anxiety as want of
sleep; for in continuing to push on to the northward in
spite of the ice, I naturally could not help feeling that
if any accident occurred, the responsibility would rest
with me; and although I do not believe that we were at
any time in any real danger, yet from our inexperience
in the peculiarities of arctic navigation, I think the
coolest judgment would have been liable to occasional
misgivings as to what might arise from possible
contingencies. Now, however, all was right; the result
had justified our anticipations; we had reached the so
longed-for goal; and as I stowed myself snugly away in
the hollow of my cot, I could not help heartily
congratulating myself that--for that night at all events--
there was no danger of the ship knocking a hole in her
bottom against some hummock which the lookout had been
too sleepy to observe; and that Wilson could not come in
the next morning and announce "ice all round, a-all
ro-ound!" In a quarter of an hour afterwards, all was
still on board the "Foam;" and the lonely little ship
lay floating on the glassy bosom of the sea, apparently
as inanimate as the landscape.
My feelings on awakening next morning were very pleasant;
something like what one used to feel the first morning
after one's return from school, on seeing pink curtains
glistening round one's head, instead of the dirty-white
boards of a turned-up bedstead. When Wilson came in with
my hot water, I could not help triumphantly remarking to
him,--"Well, Wilson, you see we've got to Spitzbergen,
after all!" But Wilson was not a man to be driven from
his convictions by facts; he only smiled grimly, with a
look which meant--"Would we were safe back again!" Poor
Wilson! he would have gone only half way with Bacon in
his famous Apothegm; he would willingly "commit the
Beginnings of all actions to Argus with his hundred eyes,
and the Ends"--to Centipede, with his hundred legs.
"First to watch, and then to speed"--away! would have
been his pithy emendation.
Immediately after breakfast we pulled to the shore,
carrying in the gig with us the photographic apparatus,
tents, guns, ammunition, and the goat. Poor old thing!
she had suffered dreadfully from sea-sickness, and I
thought a run ashore might do her good. On the left-hand
side of the bay, between the foot of the mountain and
the sea, there ran a low flat belt of black moss, about
half a mile broad; and as this appeared the only point
in the neighbourhood likely to offer any attraction to
reindeer, it was on this side that I determined to land.
My chief reason for having run into English Bay rather
than Magdalena Bay was because we had been told at
Hammerfest that it was the more likely place of the two
for deer; and as we were sadly in want of fresh meat this
advantage quite decided us in our choice. As soon,
therefore, as we had superintended the erection of the
tent, and set Wilson hard at work cleaning the glasses
for the photographs, we slung our rifles on our backs,
and set off in search of deer. But in vain did I peer
through my telescope across the dingy flat in front; not
a vestige of a horn was to be seen, although in several
places we came upon impressions of their track. At last
our confidence in the reports of their great plenty became
considerably diminished. Still the walk was very refreshing
after our confinement on board; and although the thermometer
was below freezing, the cold only made the exercise more
pleasant. A little to the northward I observed, lying on
the sea-shore, innumerable logs of driftwood. This wood
is floated all the way from America by the Gulf Stream,
and as I walked from one huge bole to another, I could
not help wondering in what primeval forest each had grown,
what chance had originally cast them on the waters, and
piloted them to this desert shore. Mingled with this
fringe of unhewn timber that lined the beach lay waifs
and strays of a more sinister kind; pieces of broken
spars, an oar, a boat's flagstaff, and a few shattered
fragments of some long-lost vessel's planking. Here and
there, too, we would come upon skulls of walrus, ribs
and shoulder-blades of bears, brought possibly by the
ice in winter. Turning again from the sea, we resumed
our search for deer; but two or three hours' more very
stiff walking produced no better luck. Suddenly a cry
from Fitz, who had wandered a little to the right, brought
us helter-skelter to the spot where was standing. But it
was not a stag he had called us to come and look upon.
Half imbedded in the black moss at his feet, there lay
a grey deal coffin falling almost to pieces with age;
the lid was gone--blown off probably by the wind--and
within were stretched the bleaching bones of a human
skeleton. A rude cross at the head of the grave still
stood partially upright, and a half obliterated Dutch
inscription preserved a record of the dead man's name
and age.
.....VANDER SCHELLING....
COMMAN....JACOB MOOR....
OB 2 JUNE 1758 AET 44.
[Figure: fig-p174.gif]
It was evidently some poor whaler of the last century to
whom his companions had given the only burial possible
in this frost-hardened earth, which even the summer sun
has no force to penetrate beyond a couple of inches, and
which will not afford to man the shallowest grave. A
bleak resting-place for that hundred years' slumber, I
thought, as I gazed on the dead mariner's remains!--
"I was snowed over with snow,
And beaten with rains,
And drenched with the dews;
Dead have I long been,"--
--murmured the Vala to Odin in Nifelheim,--and whispers
of a similar import seemed to rise up from the lidless
coffin before us. It was no brother mortal that lay at
our feet, softly folded in the embraces of "Mother Earth,"
but a poor scarecrow, gibbeted for ages on this bare
rock, like a dead Prometheus; the vulture, frost, gnawing
for ever on his bleaching relics, and yet eternally
preserving them!
On another part of the coast we found two other corpses
yet more scantily sepulchred, without so much as a cross
to mark their resting-place. Even in the palmy days of
the whale-fisheries, it was the practice of the Dutch
and English sailors to leave the wooden coffins in which
they had placed their comrades' remains, exposed upon
the shore; and I have been told by an eye-witness, that
in Magdalena Bay there are to be seen, even to this day,
the bodies of men who died upwards of 250 years ago, in
such complete preservation that, when you pour hot water
on the icy coating which encases them, you can actually
see the unchanged features of the dead, through the
transparent incrustation.
As soon as Fitz had gathered a few of the little flowering
mosses that grew inside the coffin, we proceeded on our
way, leaving poor Jacob Moor--like his great namesake--alone
in his glory.
Turning to the right, we scrambled up the spur of one of
the mountains on the eastern side of the plain, and thence
dived down among the lateral valleys that run up between
them. Although by this means we opened up quite a new
system of hills, and basins, and gullies, the general
scenery did not change its characteristics. All
vegetation--if the black moss deserves such a name--ceases
when you ascend twenty feet above the level of the sea,
and the sides of the mountains become nothing but steep
slopes of schist, split and crumbled into an even surface
by the frost. Every step we took unfolded a fresh succession
of these jagged spikes and break-neck acclivities, in an
unending variety of quaint configuration. Mountain climbing
has never been a hobby of mine, so I was not tempted to
play the part of Excelsior on any of these hill sides;
but for those who love such exercise a fairer or a more
dangerous opportunity of distinguishing themselves could
not be imagined. The supercargo or owner of the very
first Dutch ship that ever came to Spitzbergen, broke
his neck in attempting to climb a hill in Prince Charles's
Foreland. Barentz very nearly lost several of his men
under similar circumstances; and when Scoresby succeeded
in making the ascent of another hill near Horn Sound, it
was owing to his having taken the precaution of marking
each upward step in chalk, that he was ever able to get
down again. The prospect from the summit, the approach
to which was by a ridge so narrow that he sat astride
upon its edge, seems amply to have repaid the exertion;
and I do not think I can give you a better idea of the
general effect of Spitzbergen scenery, than by quoting
his striking description of the panorama he beheld:--
"The prospect was most extensive and grand. A fine
sheltered bay was seen to the east of us, an arm of the
same on the north-east, and the sea, whose glassy surface
was unruffled by a breeze, formed an immense expanse on
the west; the icebergs rearing their proud crests almost
to the tops of mountains between which they were lodged,
and defying the power of the solar beams, were scattered
in various directions about the sea-coast and in the
adjoining bays. Beds of snow and ice filling extensive
hollows, and giving an enamelled coat to adjoining valleys,
one of which commencing at the foot of the mountain where
we stood extended in a continued line towards the north,
as far as the eye could reach--mountain rising above
mountain, until by distance they dwindled into
insignificancy--the whole contrasted by a cloudless canopy
of deepest azure, and enlightened by the rays of a blazing
sun, and the effect aided by a feeling of danger, seated
as we were on the pinnacle of a rock almost surrounded
by tremendous precipices,--all united to constitute a
picture singularly sublime.
"Our descent we found really a very hazardous, and in
some instances a painful undertaking. Every movement
was a work of deliberation. Having by much care, and
with some anxiety, made good our descent to the top of
the secondary hills, we took our way down one of the
steepest banks, and slid forward with great facility in a
sitting posture. Towards the foot of the hill, an expanse
of snow stretched across the line of descent. This being
loose and soft, we entered upon it without fear; but on
reaching the middle of it, we came to a surface of solid
ice, perhaps a hundred yards across, over which we launched
with astonishing velocity, but happily escaped without
injury. The men whom we left below, viewed this latter
movement with astonishment and fear."
So universally does this strange land bristle with peaks
and needles of stone, that the views we ourselves obtained
--though perhaps from a lower elevation, and certainly
without the risk--scarcely yielded either in extent or
picturesque grandeur to the scene described by Dr.
Scoresby.
Having pretty well overrun the country to the northward,
without coming on any more satisfactory signs of deer
than their hoof-prints in the moss, we returned on board.
The next day--but I need not weary you with a journal of
our daily proceedings, for, however interesting each
moment of our stay in Spitzbergen was to ourselves--as
much perhaps from a vague expectation of what we might
see, as from anything we actually did see--a minute
account of every walk we took, and every bone we picked
up, or every human skeleton we came upon, would probably
only make you wonder why on earth we should have wished
to come so far to see so little. Suffice it to say that
we explored the neighbourhood in the three directions
left open to us by the mountains, that we climbed the
two most accessible of the adjacent hills, wandered along
the margin of the glaciers, rowed across to the opposite
side of the bay, descended a certain distance along the
sea-coast, and in fact exhausted all the lions of the
vicinity.
During the whole period of our stay in Spitzbergen, we
had enjoyed unclouded sunshine. The nights were even
brighter than the days, and afforded Fitz an opportunity
of taking some photographic views by the light of a
MIDNIGHT sun. The cold was never very intense, though
the thermometer remained below freezing, but about four
o'clock every evening, the salt-water bay in which the
schooner lay was veneered over with a pellicle of ice
one-eighth of an inch in thickness, and so elastic, that
even when the sea beneath was considerably agitated, its
surface remained unbroken, the smooth, round waves taking
the appearance of billows of oil. If such is the effect
produced by the slightest modification of the sun's power,
in the month of August,--you can imagine what must be
the result of his total disappearance beneath the horizon.
The winter is, in fact, unendurable. Even in the height
of summer, the moisture inherent in the atmosphere is
often frozen into innumerable particles, so minute as to
assume the appearance of an impalpable mist. Occasionally
persons have wintered on the island, but unless the
greatest precautions have been taken for their preservation,
the consequences have been almost invariably fatal. About
the same period as when the party of Dutch sailors were
left at Jan Mayen, a similar experiment was tried in
Spitzbergen. At the former place it was scurvy, rather
than cold, which destroyed the poor wretches left there
to fight it out with winter; at Spitzbergen, as well as
could be gathered from their journal, it appeared that
they had perished from the intolerable severity of the
climate,--and the contorted attitudes in which their
bodies were found lying, too plainly indicated the amount
of agony they had suffered. No description can give an
adequate idea of the intense rigour of the six months'
winter in this part of the world. Stones crack with the
noise of thunder; in a crowded hut the breath of its
occupants will fall in flakes of snow; wine and spirits
turn to ice; the snow burns like caustic; if iron touches
the flesh, it brings the skin away with it; the soles of
your stockings may be burnt off your feet, before you
feel the slightest warmth from the fire; linen taken out
of boiling water, instantly stiffens to the consistency
of a wooden board; and heated stones will not prevent
the sheets of the bed from freezing. If these are the
effects of the climate within an air-tight, fire-warmed,
crowded hut--what must they be among the dark, storm-lashed
mountain-peaks outside?
It was now time to think of going south again; we had
spent many more days on the voyage to Spitzbergen than
I had expected, and I was continually haunted by the
dread of your becoming anxious at not hearing from us.
It was a great disappointment to be obliged to return
without having got any deer; but your peace of mind was
of more consequence to me than a ship-load of horns, and
accordingly we decided on not remaining more than another
day in our present berth leaving it still an open question
whether we should not run up to Magdalena Bay, if the
weather proved very inviting, the last thing before
quitting for ever the Spitzbergen shores.
We had killed nothing as yet, except a few eider ducks,
and one or two ice-birds--the most graceful winged
creatures I have ever seen, with immensely long pinions,
and plumage of spotless white. Although enormous seals
from time to time used to lift their wise, grave faces
above the water, with the dignity of sea-gods, none of
us had any very great inclination to slay such rational
human-looking creatures, and--with the exception of
these and a white fish, a species of whale--no other
living thing had been visible. On the very morning,
however, of the day settled for our departure, Fitz came
down from a solitary expedition up a hill with the news
of his having seen some ptarmigan. Having taken a rifle
with him instead of a gun, he had not been able to shoot
more than one, which he had brought back in triumph as
proof of the authenticity of his report, but the extreme
juvenility of his victim hardly permitted us to identify
the species; the hole made by the bullet being about the
same size as the bird. Nevertheless, the slightest prospect
of obtaining a supply of fresh meat was enough to reconcile
us to any amount of exertion; therefore, on the strength
of the pinch of feathers which Fitz kept gravely assuring
us was the game he had bagged, we seized our guns--I took
a rifle in case of a possible bear--and set our faces
toward the hill. After a good hour's pull we reached
the shoulder which Fitz had indicated as the scene of
his exploit, but a patch of snow was the only thing
visible. Suddenly I saw Sigurdr, who was remarkably
sharp-sighted, run rapidly in the direction of the snow,
and bringing his gun up to his shoulder, point it--as
well as I could distinguish--at his own toes. When the
smoke of the shot had cleared away, I fully expected to
see the Icelander prostrate; but he was already reloading
with the greatest expedition. Determined to prevent the
repetition of so dreadful an attempt at self-destruction,
I rushed to the spot. Guess then my relief when the bloody
body of a ptarmigan--driven by so point blank a discharge
a couple of feet into the snow--was triumphantly dragged
forth by instalments from the sepulchre which it had
received contemporaneously with its death wound, and thus
happily accounted for Sigurdr's extraordinary proceeding.
At the same moment I perceived two or three dozen other
birds, brothers and sisters of the defunct, calmly
strutting about under our very noses. By this time Sigurdr
had reloaded, Fitz had also come up, and a regular massacre
began. Retiring to a distance--for it was the case of
Mahomet and the mountain reversed--the two sportsmen
opened fire upon the innocent community, and in a few
seconds sixteen corpses strewed the ground.
Scarcely had they finished off the last survivor of this
Niobean family, when we were startled by the distant
report of a volley of musketry, fired in the direction
of the schooner. I could not conceive what had happened.
Had a mutiny taken place? Was Mr. Wyse re-enacting, with
a less docile ship's company, the pistol scene on board
the Glasgow steamer? Again resounded the rattle of the
firing. At all events, there was no time to be lost in
getting back, so, tying up the birds in three bundles,
we flung ourselves down into the gully by which we had
ascended, and leaping on from stone to stone, to the
infinite danger of our limbs and necks, rolled rather
than ran down the hill. On rounding the lower wall of
the curve which hitherto had hid what was passing from
our eyes, the first I observed was Wilson breasting up
the hill, evidently in a state of the greatest agitation.
As soon as he thought himself within earshot, he stopped
dead short, and, making a speaking-trumpet with his
hands, shrieked, rather than shouted, "If you please, my
Lord!"--(as I have already said, Wilson never forgot les
convenances)--"If you please, my Lord, there's a
b-e-a-a-a-a-r!" prolonging the last word into a polysyllable
of fearful import. Concluding by the enthusiasm he was
exhibiting, that the animal in question was at his
heels,--hidden from us probably by the inequality of the
ground,--I cocked my rifle, and prepared to roll him over
the moment he should appear in sight. But what was my
disappointment, when, on looking towards the schooner,
my eye caught sight of our three boats fastened in a row,
and towing behind them a white floating object, which my
glass only too surely resolved the next minute into the
dead bear!
On descending to the shore, I learned the whole story.
As Mr. Wyse was pacing the deck, his attention was suddenly
attracted by a white speck in the water, swimming across
from Prince Charles's Foreland,--the long island which
lies over against English Bay. When first observed, the
creature, whatever it might be, was about a mile and a
half off,--the width of the channel between the island
and the main being about five miles. Some said it was a
bird, others a whale, and the cook suggested a mermaid.
When the fact was ascertained that it was a BONA FIDE
bear, a gun was fired as a signal for us to return; but
it was evident that unless at once intercepted, Bruin
would get ashore. Mr. Wyse, therefore, very properly
determined to make sure of him. This was a matter of no
difficulty: the poor beast showed very little fight. His
first impulse was to swim away from the boat; and even
after he had been wounded, he only turned round once or
twice upon his pursuers. The honour of having given him
his death wound rests between the steward and Mr. Wyse;
both contend for it. The evidence is conflicting, as at
least half-a-dozen mortal wounds were found in the animal's
body; each maybe considered to have had a share in his
death. Mr. Grant rests his claim principally upon the
fact of his having put two bullets in my new rifle--
which must have greatly improved the bore of that
instrument. On the strength of this precaution, he now
wears as an ornament about his person one of the bullets
extracted from the gizzard of our prize.
All this time, Wilson was at the tent, busily occupied
in taking photographs. As soon as the bear was observed,
a signal was made to him from the ship, to warn him of
the visitor he might shortly expect on shore. Naturally
concluding that the bear would in all probability make
for the tent as soon as he reached land, it became a
subject of consideration with him what course he should
pursue. Weapons he had none, unless the chemicals he was
using might be so regarded. Should he try the influence
of chloroform on his enemy; or launch the whole photographic
apparatus at his grisly head, and take to his heels?
Thought is rapid, but the bear's progress seemed equally
expeditious; it was necessary to arrive at some speedy
conclusion. To fly--was to desert his post and leave
the camp in possession of the spoiler; life and honour
were equally dear to him. Suddenly a bright idea struck
him.