THE VOYAGE--THE DOLPHIN AND HER CREW--ICE AHEAD--POLAR SCENES--MASTHEAD
OBSERVATIONS--THE FIRST WHALE--GREAT EXCITEMENT.
And now we have fairly got into blue water--the sailor's delight, the
landsman's dread--
"The sea! the sea! the open sea;
The blue, the fresh, the ever free."
"It's my opinion," remarked Buzzby to Singleton one day, as they stood
at the weather gangway, watching the foam that spread from the vessel's
bow as she breasted the waves of the Atlantic gallantly,--"It's my
opinion that our skipper is made o' the right stuff. He's entered quite
into the spirit of the thing, and I hear'd him say to the first mate
yesterday, he'd made up his mind to run right up into Baffin's Bay, and
make enquiries for Captain Ellice first, before goin' to his usual
whalin'-ground. Now that's wot I call doin' the right thing; for, ye
see, he runs no small risk o' gettin' beset in the ice, and losing the
fishin' season altogether by so doin'."
"He's a fine fellow," said Singleton; "I like him better every day, and
I feel convinced he will do his utmost to discover the whereabouts of
our missing friend; but I fear much that our chances are small, for
although we know the spot which Captain Ellice intended to visit, we
cannot tell to what part of the frozen ocean, ice and currents may have
carried him."
"True," replied Buzzby, giving to his left eye and cheek just that
peculiar amount of screw which indicated intense sagacity and
penetration; "but I've a notion that, if they are to be found, Captain
Guy is the man to find 'em."
"I hope it may turn out as you say. Have you ever been in these seas
before, Buzzby?"
"No, sir--never; but I've got a half-brother wot has bin in the
Greenland whale-fishery, and I've bin in the south-sea line myself."
"What line was that, Buzzby?" enquired David Summers, a sturdy boy of
about fifteen, who acted as assistant steward, and was, in fact, a
nautical maid-of-all-work. "Was it a log-line, or a bow-line, or a
cod-line, or a bit of the equator?--eh!"
The old salt deigned no reply to this passing sally, but continued his
converse with Singleton.
"I could give ye many a long yarn about the South Seas," said Buzzby,
gazing abstractedly down into the deep. "One time, when I was about
fifty mile to the sou'west o' Cape Horn, I--"
"Dinner's ready, sir," said a thin, tall, active man, stepping smartly
up to Singleton, and touching his cap.
"We must talk over that some other time, Buzzby. The captain loves
punctuality." So saying, the young surgeon sprang down the companion
ladder, leaving the old salt to smoke his pipe in solitude.
And here we may pause a few seconds to describe our ship and her crew.
The _Dolphin_ was a tight, new, barque-rigged vessel of about three
hundred tons burden, built expressly for the northern whale-fishery, and
carried a crew of forty-five men. Ships that have to battle with the
ice require to be much more powerfully built, than those that sail in
unencumbered seas. The _Dolphin_ united strength with capacity and
buoyancy. The under part of her hull and sides were strengthened with
double timbers, and fortified externally with plates of iron; while,
internally, stanchions and cross-beams were so arranged as to cause
pressure on any part to be supported by the whole structure; and on her
bows, where shocks from the ice might be expected to be most frequent
and severe, extra planking, of immense strength and thickness, was
secured. In other respects the vessel was fitted up much in the same
manner as ordinary merchantmen. The only other peculiarity about her,
worthy of notice, was the crow's-nest, a sort of barrel-shaped structure
fastened to the fore-masthead, in which, when at the whaling-ground, a
man is stationed to look out for whales. The chief men in the ship were
Captain Guy, a vigorous, practical American; Mr Bolton, the first mate,
an earnest, stout, burly, off-hand Englishman; and Mr Saunders, the
second mate, a sedate, broad-shouldered, raw-boned Scot, whose opinion
of himself was unbounded, whose power of argument was extraordinary, not
to say exasperating, and who stood six feet three in his stockings.
Mivins, the steward, was, as we have already remarked, a tall, thin,
active young man, of a brisk, lively disposition, and was somewhat of a
butt among the men, but being in a position of power and trust he was
respected. The young surgeon, Tom Singleton, whom we have yet scarcely
introduced to the reader, was a tall, slim, but firmly-knit, youth, with
a kind, gentle disposition. He was always open, straightforward, and
polite. He never indulged in broad humour, though he enjoyed it much,
seldom ventured on a witticism, was rather shy in the company of his
companions, and spoke little; but for a quiet, pleasant _tete-a-tete_
there was not a man in the ship equal to Tom Singleton. His countenance
was Spanish-looking and handsome, his hair black, short, and curling,
and his budding moustache was soft and dark as the eyebrow of an
Andalusian belle.
It would be unpardonable, in this catalogue, to omit the cook, David
Mizzle. He was round, and fat, and oily, as one of his own "duff"
puddings. To look at him you could not help suspecting that he
purloined, and ate, at least half of the salt pork he cooked, and his
sly, dimpling laugh, in which every feature participated, from the point
of his broad chin to the top of his bald head, rather tended to favour
this supposition. Mizzle was prematurely bald--being quite a young
man,--and, when questioned on the subject, he usually attributed it to
the fact of his having been so long employed about the cooking-coppers,
that the excessive heat to which he was exposed, had stewed all the hair
off his head! The crew was made up of stout, active men in the prime of
life, nearly all of whom had been more or less accustomed to the
whale-fishing, and some of the harpooners were giants in muscular
development and breadth of shoulder, if not in height.
Chief among these harpooners was Amos Parr, a short, thick-set, powerful
man of about thirty-five, who had been at sea since he was a little boy,
and had served in the fisheries of both the northern and southern seas.
No one knew what country had the honour of producing him--indeed, he was
ignorant of that point himself; for, although he had vivid recollections
of his childhood having been spent among green hills, and trees, and
streamlets, he was sent to sea with a strange captain before he was old
enough to care about the name of his native land. Afterwards he ran
away from his ship, and so lost all chance of ever discovering who he
was; but, as he sometimes remarked, he didn't much care who he was, so
long as he was _himself_; so it didn't matter. From a slight
peculiarity in his accent, and other qualities, it was surmised that he
must be an Irishman--a supposition which he rather encouraged, being
partial to the sons, and particularly partial to the daughters, of the
Emerald Isle, one of which last he had married just six months before
setting out on this whaling expedition.
Such was the _Dolphin_ and her crew, and merrily they bowled along over
the broad Atlantic with favouring winds, and without meeting with
anything worthy of note until they neared the coast of Greenland.
One fine morning, just as the party in the cabin had finished breakfast,
and were dallying with the last few morsels of the repast, as men who
have more leisure than they desire, are wont to do, there was a sudden
shock felt, and a slight tremor passed through the ship, as if something
had struck her.
"Ha!" exclaimed Captain Guy, finishing his cup of chocolate, "there goes
the first bump."
"Ice ahead, sir!" said the first mate, looking down the skylight.
"Is there much?" asked the captain, rising and taking down a small
telescope, from the hook on which it usually hung.
"Not much, sir--only a stream; but there is an ice blink right ahead,
all along the horizon."
"How's her head, Mr Bolton?"
"Nor'-west and by north, sir."
Before this brief conversation came to a close, Fred Ellice and Tom
Singleton sprang up the companion, and stood on the deck gazing ahead
with feelings of the deepest interest. Both youths were well read in
the history of polar seas and regions; they were well acquainted, by
name at least, with floes, and bergs, and hummocks of ice, but neither
of them had seen such in reality. These objects were associated in
their young minds with all that was romantic and wild, hyperborean and
polar, brilliant and sparkling, and light and white--emphatically
_white_. To behold ice actually floating on the salt sea was an
incident of note in their existence; and certainly the impressions of
their first day in the ice remained sharp, vivid and prominent, long
after scenes of a much more striking nature had faded from the tablets
of their memories.
At first the prospect that met their ardent gaze was not calculated to
excite excessive admiration. There were only a few masses of low ice
floating about in various directions. The wind was steady, but light,
and seemed as if it would speedily fall altogether. Gradually the
_blink_ on the horizon (as the light haze always distinguishable above
ice, or snow-covered land, is called) resolved itself into a long white
line of ice, which seemed to grow larger as the ship neared it, and in
about two hours more they were fairly in the midst of the pack, which
was fortunately loose enough to admit of the vessel being navigated
through the channels of open water. Soon after, the sun broke out in
cloudless splendour, and the wind fell entirely, leaving the ocean in a
dead calm.
"Let's go to the fore-top, Tom," said Fred, seizing his friend by the
arm, and hastening to the shrouds.
In a few seconds they were seated alone on the little platform at the
top of the fore-mast, just where it is connected with the fore-top-mast,
and from this elevated position they gazed in silent delight upon the
fairy-like scene.
Those who have never stood at the mast-head of a ship at sea, in a dead
calm, cannot comprehend the feeling of intense solitude, that fills the
mind in such a position. There is nothing analogous to it on land. To
stand on the summit of a tower and look down on the busy multitude below
is not the same, for there the sounds are quite different in _tone_, and
signs of life are visible all over the distant country, while cries from
afar reach the ear, as well as those from below. But from the mast-head
you hear only the few subdued sounds under your feet--all beyond is
silence; you behold only the small oval-shaped platform that is your
world--beyond lies the calm, desolate ocean. On deck you cannot realise
this feeling, for there sails and yards tower above you, and masts, and
boats, and cordage, intercept your view; but from above you _take in_
the intense minuteness of your home at a single glance--you stand aside,
as it were, and, in some measure, comprehend the insignificance of the
_thing_ to which you have committed your life.
The scene witnessed by our friends at the mast-head of the _Dolphin_ on
this occasion was surpassingly beautiful. Far as the eye could stretch,
the sea was covered with islands and fields of ice of every conceivable
shape. Some rose in little peaks and pinnacles, some floated in the
form of arches and domes, some were broken and rugged, like the ruins of
old border strongholds, while others were flat and level, like fields of
white marble; and so calm was it that the ocean in which they floated
seemed like a groundwork of polished steel, in which the sun shone with
dazzling brilliancy. The tops of the icy islets were pure white, and
the sides of the higher ones of a delicate blue colour, which gave to
the scene a transparent lightness that rendered it pre-eminently
fairy-like.
"It far surpasses anything I ever conceived," ejaculated Singleton after
a long silence. "No wonder that authors speak of scenes being
indescribable. Does it not seem like a dream, Fred?"
"Tom," said Fred earnestly, "I've been trying to fancy myself in another
world, and I have almost succeeded. When I look long and intensely at
the ice, I get almost to believe that these are streets, and palaces,
and cathedrals. I never felt so strong a desire to have wings, that I
might fly from one island to another, and go floating in and out, and
round about, those blue caves and sparkling pinnacles."
"It's a curious fancy, Fred, but not unnatural."
"Tom," said Fred, after another long silence, "has not the thought
occurred to you that God made it all?"
"Some such thought did cross my mind, Fred, for a moment, but it soon
passed away. Is it not _very_ strange that the idea of the Creator is
so seldom, and so slightly, connected with his works in our minds?"
Again there was a long silence. Both youths had a desire to continue
the conversation, and yet each felt an unaccountable reluctance to renew
it. Neither of them distinctly understood that the natural heart is
enmity against God, and that, until he is converted by the Holy Spirit,
man neither loves to think of his Maker, nor to speak of him.
While they sat thus musing, a breeze dimmed the surface of the sea, and
the _Dolphin_, which had hitherto lain motionless in one of the numerous
canals, began slowly to advance between the islands of ice. The breeze
freshened, and rendered it impossible to avoid an occasional collision
with the floating masses; but the good ship was well armed for the
fight, and, although she quivered under the blows, and once or twice
recoiled, she pushed her way through the pack gallantly. In the course
of an hour or two they were once more in comparatively clear water.