FREE FROM DANGER.
I was a passenger on board the _Panther_, and shared with my
companions the emotions which the Land of Desolation first inspired.
Under ordinary circumstances, there can be no more comfortable
situation on board a ship than that of passenger. You are not
expected to know any thing, and, if wise, you will not want to
know any thing. You are content to trust to the captain, who is
presumed to be quite competent to look to the safety of his ship,
and therefore to your own. So far as human ingenuity can possibly
be exercised to escape danger, his, you are sure, will be, and you
trust to him as to a superior being—at least you know he has all the
interest at stake that you have, and something more; for the handling
of a ship in a storm is like the manœuvring of troops on the field of
battle; success brings glory to the commander, and the acquisition of
it is perhaps all the more precious that it is not shared with any
body.
In our case there was a still further motive to confidence.
Our captain owned one-half the ship, which was a Newfoundland
screw-steamer, and was built unusually strong. Besides this, we
had confidence in his judgment, which was the next best thing
to confidence in his caution; and then, to crown all, he was a
thoroughly good fellow. To quote the gentleman who devoted himself
to the duties of sagaman for the cruise, “A roaring, tearing, jolly
tar was he, as ever boxed the compass on the sea.” During the eight
days occupied in coming over from St. John’s, we had all conceived
a high opinion of his qualities. He might be sometimes a little
rash and venturesome, but rashness, as every body knows, is a safer
quality than timidity; and we bore in recollection the old saying,
“Nothing venture, nothing have.” We might, perhaps, have found a
little fault with him at first for having run us in so close to the
Land of Desolation without halting for daylight and better weather;
but then we all knew that to “heave to” was something which the
captain had a great horror of and he spoke of heaving to with such
constant disrespect that the people generally had conceived the idea
that it was a peculiarly terrible thing to indulge in. It seemed,
therefore, that we were all right, and must necessarily escape
shipwreck, even when the peril appeared greatest—when, for instance,
we found ourselves threatened with an island rock on the one side and
an island of ice on the other, in a sea white with foam, and breaking
everywhere so wildly that the captain’s trumpet-voice could scarce be
heard above the tumult.
The worst of it was, we did not know within fifty miles of where we
were. “There,” said the captain, triumphantly, with his outspread
hand upon the chart of Baffin’s Bay, covering at least ten thousand
square miles of land and sea, “There’s where we are!” It was certain,
at all events, that we had drifted within a line of skerries, for the
waves broke on all sides, and where the rocks did not keep us from
going, the ice did.
We had made the land with the intention of seeking a modern
fishing-station of Danes and Esquimaux, which we knew to lie
somewhere on that part of the coast; but where we could not even
guess. As well seek charity in a bigot as hunt for a harbor in such
weather, on a coast where there are neither light-houses nor pilots.
Yet we knew that human beings might be started somewhere if we only
_could_ free ourselves from our uncomfortable predicament, and the
storm only _would_ hold up. But it would not and did not until after
we had, without exactly knowing how it came about, at length found
ourselves in the open sea, and had given the Land of Desolation a
wide berth.
The weather clearing finally, the _Panther_ was pointed for a
promising opening in the belt of ice which beset the shore; and now,
without much risk or difficulty, we got behind a cluster of islands
not far from the main-land and a good way to the south of where we
had been so much troubled.
Here there was no ice at all, and we began to look up the
fishing-town. First of all the signal-gun was fired, and the
_Panther_ whistled her loudest. This woke the echoes, and startled
some sea-gulls, but nothing more. Then we crept cautiously along,
passing island after island, the _Panther_ whistling constantly and
the guns firing occasionally.
Presently we saw something dark moving upon the water, which appeared
to have the body of a beast, and the head and shoulders of a man.
It might be a marine centaur! who could tell? In fact, we rather
expected to see some such monsters long before; and if the sea had
been alive with them, we would not have been, I think, much surprised.
“Hi! hi!” was the first greeting of this strange-looking creature,
with a voice that sounded very human “Hi! hi!” and afterwards he
shouted, “Me Julianashaab pilot!” an announcement which greatly
delighted us, even if the pilot did come in such very questionable
shape.
He was not long in arriving alongside, and then, after getting the
bight of a rope under each end of him, we hauled him in on deck,
whereupon the head and shoulders speedily shook themselves out
from the body, and our marine centaur stood forth with the proper
complement of legs to show his affinity to man.
To see a pilot shed himself thus is not to increase one’s confidence
in him. And then his looks were by no means prepossessing. A broad
face that was all cheeks, except what was mouth, with the least speck
of a nose, and nothing to mention in the way of eyes, might be a
curious study for a naturalist, but was hardly the sort of thing one
seems to stand in need of when he seeks a harbor along a very ugly
coast. And then his body was all covered with hair, and was all wet,
as if he had just risen from the bottom of the sea. Besides, he smelt
fishy. Yet this was clearly the best we could do if we ever meant to
get into port, and, disregarding his unprepossessing appearance, the
captain called him aft and ordered him to point out Julianashaab.
“Eh, tyma!” he answered; and off he started for the bridge, and off
soon started the _Panther_ under his direction.
Julianashaab we found to be no easy port to make, even with a marine
centaur for a pilot. The _Panther_ was twisted and turned about so
much among the islands, and our pilot spoke so strangely, and made
so many strange gestures, that he fairly turned the captain’s head.
The captain would indeed hardly believe that we were going anywhere
at all, but were, on the contrary, whirling about for the temporary
amusement of this creature whom we had fished up out of salt water.
The fact is, Julianashaab is some twenty miles from the sea, on the
bank of a very long and tortuous frith or fiord, which is studded
with islands. Difficult of access at all times, it is peculiarly so
in July, for then the ice from the Spitzbergen side of Greenland
comes drifting down with the great polar current, a branch of which
sweeps around Cape Farewell into Davis’s Strait and Baffin’s Bay, and
proceeds north for a while before it is deflected to the westward to
join the ice-incumbered stream that chills the region of Labrador,
and bathes the coast of America even to the Floridas. Cape Farewell
is in latitude 59° 49´, and Julianashaab lies some eighty miles to
the north and west of it; that is to say, in latitude 60° 44´, or 5°
48´ south of the Arctic circle. It is not, therefore, much nearer the
North Pole than St. Petersburg, Russia, though in a very different
climate.
It was fortunate that we secured even this strange pilot when we
did, else we should have lain outside all the night; for there was a
night, even although it was scarce deserving the name. When one can
plainly see to read by the light of the sun as late as ten o’clock
P.M., there is not much of a night to boast of. There was a faint
twilight even at midnight, and to this was added the light of the
moon, which threw its brightness on the summits of the snow-clad
mountains, and trailed its silvery splendors away over the rippled
waters of the fiord.
The scene as we passed on was most impressive. There is indeed in
a still arctic night, whether in the winter or summer, a sublimity
which one does not feel in a night elsewhere. We passed through many
groups of icebergs, and in the moonlight their shapes, at all times
full of strange suggestions, were converted into objects of the most
fantastic description. The faces and forms of men and beasts were
fashioned there in the light and shadow of the night, occasionally
with wonderful distinctness. As we passed on, we were sometimes in
the cold shelter of a cliff, while the icebergs before us glittered
in a full blaze of light, as if they were mammoth gems; again we
would pass so near a berg that it seemed but awaiting an opportunity
to topple over upon and overwhelm us; and all the while no sounds
disturbed the air but the monotonous pulsations of the steamer and
the hollow gurgle of the waves of her making as they broke within the
icy caves.
At length our pilot told us we were approaching our destination,
and as the light of day began to replace the brightness of the
moon, he whirled the _Panther_ into a little bight, and a few rude
habitations, a flag-staff, and the belfry of a little mission church,
appeared before us on a dark rocky hill-side.
“Julianashaab!” said our pilot, pointing to it with as much pride
and satisfaction as if he were overlooking the finest city of the
world. Poor man, he knew no better! He little dreamed how miserable
was his lot to be only a Julianashaaber, and dwell in peace! For this
was indeed his home. He had gone down the fiord hunting seals and to
gather the eggs of wild fowl upon the islands, and when he saw the
_Panther_ he had just begun his work.
Down went the anchor with its usual rush and rattle, and immediately
the rocks were alive with people, who, aroused from their peaceful
slumbers by the strange noise, sallied forth as suddenly as the
witches from Kirk Alloway. Looking forward to a closer scrutiny of
them when the day had fully come, we sought our bunks, and, exhausted
with the excitement of the night and the constant exposure of the
past few days, we turned in to sleep the sleep of weariness.