OFF.

Good bye, Boston! Good bye to State-House and Common, to the "Atlantic

Monthly" and Governor Andrew, memorable institutions all,--to you also,

true Heart of the Commonwealth, and to republican and Saxon America, the

land where a man's a man even in the most inconvenient paucity of pounds

sterling. Still yours, I am weary of work and of war, weary of spinning

out ten yards of strength-fibre to twenty yards' length. And so when an

angel in moustache comes to me out of unknown space, with a card from

the "Atlantic Monthly," on a corner of which is written a mysterious

"Go, if you can," and says, "Come with me to Labrador," what can I do

but accept the omen? Therefore, after due delay, and due warning from

dear friends, and due consultations of the connubial Delphi, not

forgetting to advise with Dr. Oramel, the discreet lip obeys the instant

indiscreet wish, and says, "I go."

_June 5, 1864._ Provincetown. Came in here to get cheated in buying a

boat, and succeeded admirably! It was taken on board, not quite breaking

beneath its own weight; the anchor soon followed; we were away. Past the

long spit of sand on the north and west; past the new batteries, over

which floated the flag that for months would not again gladden our eyes,

save at the mast-head of some wandering ship; then, with change of

course, past the long curving neck of the desert cape; and so out upon

the open ocean we sped, with a free wind, a crested wave, and a white

wake. The land grew a low, blue cloud in the west, then melted into the

horizon. But before it faded, the heart of one man clung to it,

regretful, penitent, saying, "It was not well to go; it were better to

have stayed and suffered, as you, O Land, must suffer."

But when it was gone; then the Before built to itself also a cloudland

and drew me on. The mystic North reached forth the wand by which it had

fascinated me so often, and renewed its spell. Who has not felt it?

Thoreau wrote of "The Wild" as he alone could write; but only in the

North do you find it,--unless you make it, as he did, by your

imagination. And even he could in this but partially succeed. Talk of

finding it in a ten-acre swamp! Why, man, you are just from a cornfield,

the echoes of your sister's piano are still in your ears, and you called

at the post-office for a letter as you came! Verdure and a mild heaven

are above; _clunking_ frogs and plants that keep company with man are

beneath. But in the North Nature herself is wild. Of man she has never

so much as heard. She has seen, perchance, a biped atomy creeping

through her snows; but he is not Man, lording it in power of thought and

performance; he is a muffled imbecility, that can do nothing but hug and

hide its existence, lest some careless breath of hers should blow it

out; his pin-head taper must be kept under a bushel, or cease to be even

the covert pettiness it is. The wildness of the North is not scenic and

pictorial merely, but goes to the very heart of things, immeasurable,

immitigable, infinite; deaf and blind to all but itself and its own, it

prevails, it is, and it is all.

The desert and the sea are indeed untamable, but the North is more. They

hold their own, and Civilization is but a Mrs. Partington, trying to

sweep _in_ at their doors. But Commerce, though it cannot subdue,

stretches its arms across them; while Culture and Travel go and come,

still wearing their plumes, still redolent with odors of civilized

lands. The North reigns more absolutely. Commerce is but a surf on its

shores. Travel creeps guardedly, fearfully in, only to turn and creep

still more fearfully out.

We, indeed, are feeble even in our purposes of travel. Not Kanes,

Parrys, Franklins, not intrepid to brave the presence of the Arctic

Czar, and look on his very face, with its half-year lights and

shades,--we go only to see the skirts of his robe, blown southward by

summer-seeking winds. But even the hope of this fills the Before with

enchantment, and lures us like a charm.

Lures the ship, too, one would think: for how she flies! Fair wind and

fog we had, where clear skies were looked for,--fair wind and clear

skies, where we had expected to plough fog; Cape Sable forbears for once

to hide itself; the shores of Nova Scotia are seen through an atmosphere

of crystal and under an azure without stain, and on the third day the

Gut of Canso is reached, and anchor cast in the little harbor of a

little, dirty, bluenose villagette, ycleped "Port Mulgrave."

Port Mulgrave? Port Filth, Port Rum, Port Dirk-Knife, Port Prostitution,

Port Fish-Gurry, Port everything unsavory and unconscionable!

"What news from the war?" asks Bradford of the first man, on landing.

Answer prompt. "Good news! Grant has been beaten, lost seventeen

thousand men, and is making for Washington as fast as he can run!"

Respondent's visage questionable, however,--too dirty, and too happy.

Hence further researches; and at last a man is found who (under

prospects of trade) can contrive to tell the truth; and he acknowledges

that even the Canadian telegraph has told no such story.

In the evening, as some of us go on shore, there is a drunken fight.

Knives are drawn, great gashes given, blood runs like rain; the

combatants tumble together into a shallow dock, stab in the mud and

water, creep out and clench and roll over and over in the ooze, stabbing

still, with beast-like, unintelligible yells, and half-intelligible

curses. A great, nasty mob huddles round,--doing what, think you?

Roaring with laughter, and hooting their fish-gurry happiness up to the

welkin! Suddenly there is a surging among them; then Smith, our young

parson, ploughs through, springs upon the fighters, who owe to nothing

but extreme drunkenness their escape from the crime of murder. He

clutches them,--jerks one this way, the other that, heedless of the

still plunging knives,--fastens upon the worst hurt of the two, and

drags him off. Are the lookers-on abashed? Never think it! They

remonstrate! Smith jets at them fine sentences of fiery, rebuking

eloquence. "Bah!" they say, "this is nothing; we are used to it!" It was

their customary theatricals, their Spanish bull-fight; and they were

little inclined to be robbed of their show.

"Smith, you ran great risk of your life," said one, as the intrepid man

stepped on board, with a great gout of blood on his sleeve; "and your

life is surely worth more by many times than that of the creatures you

rescued."

"I know nothing about that; I only know that they have immortal souls,

and are not fit to die."

"Nor to live either, unhappily," said another.

There was cod- and cunner-fishing while here. Trout, also, were caught

in a pond a little inland,--good trout, too, though nothing, of course,

to what we shall find in Labrador! Enjoy, while ye may, short pleasures,

O trouters! for long tramps--and faces--are to succeed!

_June 11._ After prolonged northeast rain a bright day, and with it the

setting of sail, a many-handed seesaw at the windlass, and departure.

"Well rid of that vile hole!" says one and another.

"Oh, but you'll be glad enough to see it three months hence," answers

the experienced Bradford.

And we were!

The wind blew briskly down the Gut; the tide also, which, especially on

the ebb, runs with force, helping to carry off the waters of the St.

Lawrence, was against us; and the deer-footed schooner made haste slowly

toward the west. Slower vessels failed, and were swept down by the tide;

we crept on, crept past the noble Porcupine Head, which rises abruptly

six hundred and forty feet from the sea, and at last, ceasing to tack,

made a straight line out into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, beautiful, most

beautiful, this day, if never before. It was a sweet sail we had across

that gulf, well-named and ill-reputed. The sun shone like southern

summer; the summer breeze blew mild; the rising shores and rich red soil

of Cape-Breton Isle, patched here and there with dark evergreen-forests,

and elsewhere by the lighter green of deciduous woods, lay on the

starboard side, warm-looking and welcome to the eyes. This shore, as

then seen, reminded me more than any other ever did of the Spanish coast

on the approach to Gibraltar,--the spruce woods answering in hue to

olive-groves, the other to the green of vines. Meanwhile, the

palpitating sheen on the land, the star-sprinkled blueness of the sea,

together with the softness of the delicious day, brought vividly to mind

those days in the Aegean when not even the disabilities of an invalid

could prevent his leaping over and swimming along by the ship's side.

It was a great surprise, this climate and scene. I had expected chill

skies and bleak shores: I found the perfect pleasantness of summer in

the air, and a coast-scenery with which that of New England in general

cannot vie.

Cape-Breton Isle is worthy of respect. With a population, if I remember

rightly, of some thirty thousand, and an area of more than three

thousand square miles, embracing an inland sea, or salt lake, deep

enough for ships-of-the-line, it has, in addition to its great mineral

wealth, a soil capable of large crops. Wheat and corn do not thrive, but

barley, oats, potatoes, and many root-crops grow abundantly. And I may

add, in passing, that Nova Scotia, over which I travelled on my return,

is worthy of a better repute. On the ocean side there is, indeed, a

strip from twenty to forty miles wide which is barren as the "Secesh"

heart of Halifax. The rock here is metamorphic, the soil worthless, the

scenery rugged, yet mean. Gold is found,--in such quantities that the

labor of each man yields a _gross_ result of two hundred and fifty-six

dollars a year! Deduct the cost of crushing the quartz, (for it is found

only in quartz,) and there is left--how much? But the Gulf-coast, and

the side of the province next the Bay of Fundy, have a carboniferous and

red-sandstone formation, with a soil often deep and rich, faultless

meads and river-intervals, and a tender shore-scenery, relieved by ruddy

cliffs, and high, broken, burnt-umber islands.

But we are sailing up the Gulf. And while the day shines and wanes, and

the shades of evening, suffused with tender color, fall gently, and the

Gulf to the west is deeply touched with veiled, but glowing crimson,

when the sun is down, and on the other hand Cape-Breton Isle puts forth,

close to our course, two small representative islands, red sandstone,

charmingly ruddy under the sunset light,--while a mild wind, sinking,

but not ceasing, bears us on through daylight, twilight, starlight, each

perfect of its kind,--let me introduce our voyagers severally to the

reader.

First, the ship, surely a voyager as much as any of us!

"Benjamin S. Wright," fore-and-aft schooner, one hundred and thirty-six

tons, built by McKay, and worthy of him,--deep, sharp, broad of beam, a

fine seaboat, swift as the wind, a little long-masted for regular

sea-voyaging, but, with this partial exception, faultless.

Next will naturally come the responsible originator and operator of the

expedition.

William Bradford, artist,--slight in stature, delicate, though marked,

in feature,--sensitive, pious, ardent, absorbed,--not of distinguished

mental power, though of active mind, aside from his profusion, but

within it a proper man of genius, with no superior, so far as I know,

but Turner, and no equal but Stanfield, in his power to render the sea

in action.

The passengers were twelve in number; but with them I include two

others, who have a claim to that company. Here they are.

A----, "the Colonel,"--a lieutenant in the regular army, retired on

account of illness,--brave, intelligent, cultivated, a Churchman

undeveloped in spiritual sense, rough in his sports, proud as a Roman,

his whole being, indeed, built up on manly, Roman pride,--a Greenland

voyager, and better read than any man I have met in the literature of

Northern travel.

H----, "the Judge,"--cool-headed, warm-hearted, compassionate,

irascible, liberal, witty, easy speaker and fine conversationist, with

an inexhaustible fund of sense, anecdote, candor, and good heart.

L----, navy-surgeon,--also retired on account of extreme illness,--a

sensible, quiet, good man and gentleman.

A. S. Packard, Jr., _Magister Artium_, scientist,--devoting his

attention chiefly to Insecta, Mollusca, and Radiata, but giving

penetrating glances at geology and physical geography,--attracted to the

North, where he had been before,--imperturbable, equal in humor and

good-humor, companionable, a boon to the party, and richly meriting the

thanks I here offer him.

M----, ornithologist,--young, unripe, inattentive to his person, but

very intelligent, and bound to be a man of mark.

S----, "the Parson,"--Episcopal, twenty-five years old, active in mind,

naturally eloquent, pious, social, genial, generous, and frank as the

day.

P----, graduate of college and law-school,--handsome, companionable,

fluent in writing or talk, and excellent at trolling a stave.

L----, quietest mouse in the world, but seen at once to be a gentleman,

and found afterwards to be a man of thought and culture.

C----, with the gravest, maturest, most thoughtful and balanced mind,

and one of the happiest appetites I ever found in a boy of fourteen,

singularly ingenuous and high-minded, a rare spirit.

P----, photographer, skilful, and a good fellow.

W----, whose wife is enviable among women.

Captain H----, employed by Bradford, not as master, but as general

ally,--old whaler, one of Nature's noblemen, to whom experience has been

a university and the world a book, strong as the strongest of men,

tender as the tenderest of women.

Ph----, fine Greek and Latin scholar, rich as Croesus and simple in

his habits as Ochiltree,--passionately fond of travel,--as well read, I

will undertake to say, in the literature of travel in Egypt, Arabia,

Syria, and Turkey, as any other man twenty-five years old in Europe or

America,--full of facts, strong in mind, deep In heart, religious,

candid, sincere, courageous, at once frank and reticent,--a thoroughly

large and profound nature, whom it was worth going to Labrador to meet.

Finally, your humble servant, "the Elder," who trusts that the reader

remembers meeting him before, and has somewhat, at least, of his own

pleasure in renewing the acquaintance.

* * * * *

The morning of June twelfth, our second Sunday on board, was one to

remain memorable among mornings for beauty,--for these were halcyon

days, and Nature could not change for a moment from her mood. It was

nowise odd or strange, no Nubian of Thibetan beauty, no three-faced

Hindoo divinity, but a regular Grecian-featured Apollo, amber in

forehead, fitly arrayed, coming to a world worthy of him. Cape-Breton

Isle was a strip of denser sky on the southeast horizon; on the west,

far away, rose Entry Island, one of the Magdalen group, deliciously

ruddy and Mediterranean-looking, seen through the lovely, ethereal,

purple haze; while others of the group appeared farther away, one of

them, long and low, an island of absolute gold, polished gold, splendid

as gold under sunshine can be. The light wind bore us on so serenely as

to give the sense of calm more than calm itself; while the music of our

motion through the water, that incomparable barytone, rendered this calm

into sound.

It was the very Sabbath and Sunday of Nature,--her Sabbath of rest, and

her Sunday of joy. I was surprised to find myself not surprised by this

wonderful morning. It seemed not new nor foreign, but suggested some

divine old-time familiarity and fellowship. It looked me in the eyes out

of its immortal hilarity and peace, took me by the hand, and said,

"Forever!" And in that "Forever" spoke to me an infinite remembrance and

an infinite hope.

At eleven A. M. we drew near to Gannet Rocks. These are three in number,

all high, one quite small and conical, a second somewhat larger, the

third, which is the home of gannets, several acres in extent. They were

all ruddy, being of red sandstone; and the smallest, in that warm light,

was actual carmine. The largest rises with precipitous sides, which in

parts beetle far over the sea, to a height of four hundred feet, having

above a surface nearly level, but sloping gently to the south. By zigzag

scrambling one may at a particular point climb to this surface; but it

is a hard climb, and a landing can be effected only in extreme calm.

At the distance of two miles or more, on our approach, the surface was

visible, owing to its slight southward slope. It had precisely the

appearance of being deeply covered with snow, save in one part, about a

fourth of its area, where it was bright green. We knew that this snow

was no other than the female gannets, crowded together in the act of

sitting on their eggs; but by no inspection with powerful glasses could

we discern a single point where the rock appeared between them. They

were literally _packed_ together, every inch of room being used. Six or

eight acres of them!

But where are the males? There is no apparent room for them on the rock.

Just as this question occurred to me, some one cried out, "Look in the

air! look in the air above the rock!" I lifted my glass, and there they

were, a veritable _cloud_. They reminded me, saving the color, of a

cloud of midges which astonished me one summer evening when I was a

boy,--so thick that you could not see through them. Whether these ever

alight I cannot say. One thing is certain: they cannot all, nor any

considerable portion of them, alight on this rock together,--unless,

indeed, one should roost on another's back.

But the gannet is not particular about alighting. It is just as cheap

flying, he thinks. His true home, like that of the frigate-bird and one

or two others, is the air. This is indicated in his structure. The skin

is not, as in most animals, strictly connected with the flesh, but is

attached by separate elastic fibres; and, like the frigate-bird, it can

force in under the skin, and into various cellular passages in the body,

air which is rarefied by its animal heat, and contributes greatly to its

buoyancy.

The gannet is a handsome bird, larger by measurement, though not

heavier, than the largest gulls,--snow-white, save the outer third of

the wing, which is jet-black,--his wings long and sharp,--his motion in

the air not rapid, but singularly home-like and easy. He is unable to

rise from level ground, but must launch himself from a height, probably

owing to his shortness and inelasticity of leg and length of wing; nor,

indeed, can he rise from the water, unless somewhat assisted by its

motion. And this suggests a beautiful provision of Nature: the wings of

all true swimmers and divers are short and-round, to facilitate their

ascent from the water.

If surprised on land, the gannet neither attempts to fly nor offers

resistance, conscious of helplessness; but when attacked in the water,

where he is more at home, he will fight fiercely. Nuttall, with grange

contradiction, says, that, though web-footed, they do not swim,--yet

elsewhere speaks of looking down from a cliff and seeing them "swimming

and chasing their prey." I cannot testify.

After lingering an hour or two, "breaking the Sabbath," the schooner

proceeded,--the wind freshening during the afternoon, and the Gulf

growing choppy, as if it could not quite suffer us to pass without

exhibiting somewhat of that peevish quality for which it has an evil

renown. It was but a passing wrinkle of ill-humor, however,--a feeble

hint of what it could do, if it chose.

And when we recrossed it, two and a half months later, it chose!

* * * * *

_June 14._ "Land ho! Labrador!"

"Where? Where is it?" cry a chorus of voices.

"There, a little on the larboard bow."

A long, silent, rather disconcerted gaze.

"I don't see it," says one.

"Nor I."

"There,--there,"--pointing,--"close down to the sea."

"You don't mean that cloud?"

"I mean that land."

"Humph!"

There is something occult about this art of seeing land. The landsman's

eyesight is good; he prides himself a little upon it. He looks; and for

him the land isn't there. The seaman's eyesight is no better; he looks,

and for him the land is so plainly in view that he cannot understand

your failure to see it. He is secretly pleased, though,--and may pretend

impatience in order to conceal his pleasure. I have sailed in all,

perhaps, a distance equal to that around the earth, a good proportion of

it along-shore; and I see as far as most men. But once on this very

voyage, during a storm, I had occasion to be convinced that nautical

optics will assert their advantage. Land was pointed out; it had been

some time seen, and we were avoiding it, the weather being thick and our

position uncertain. I did my best to descry it, ready to quarrel with my

eyes for not doing so, and a little annoyed to find myself but a

landsman after all. But see it I couldn't. I did indeed, after a while,

make out to fancy that I perceived an infinitesimal densening of the

mist there; but the illusion was one difficult to sustain.

At four o'clock in the afternoon we cast anchor in Sleupe Harbor, named

for one Admiral Sleupe, of whom I know just this, that a harbor in

Labrador, Lat. 51 deg., is named for him. This region, however, is named

generally from Little Mecatina Island, which lies about six miles to the

southwest, considerable in size, and a most wild-looking land, tossed,

tumbled, twisted, and contorted in every conceivable and inconceivable

way. The harbor, too, a snug little hole between islands, was worthy of

Labrador. Its shores were all of gray, unbroken rock, not rising in

cliffs, but sloping to the sea, and dipping under it in regular decline,

like a shore of sand; while not a tree, not a shrub, not a grass-blade,

was to be seen. I never beheld a scene so bleak, bare, and hard. Nor did

I ever see a shore that seemed so completely "master of the situation."

The mightiest cliff confesses the power which it resists. Grand,

enduring, awful, it may be; but many a scar on its face and many a

fragment at its feet tells of what it endures. But this scarless gray

rock, thrusting its hand in a matter-of-course way under the sea, and

seeming to hold it as in a cup, suggested a quality so comfortably

immitigable that one's eyes grew cold in looking at it.

Suddenly, "I see an inhabitant!" cries one.

Yes, there he was, moving over the rock. Can you imagine how far away

and foreign he looked? The gray granite beneath him, the gray cloud

above him, seemed nearer akin. Instinctively, one thought of hastening

to a book of natural history for some description of the creature. Then

came the counter-thought, "This is a man!" And the attempt to realize

that fact put him yet farther, put him infinitely away. It was like

rebounding from a wall. No form is so foreign as the human, if a bar be

placed to the sympathy of him who regards it; and for the time this waif

of humanity walked in the circle of an unconquerable strangeness.

He came on board,--another with him; for their hut was near by.

Canadian French they proved to be; could tatter English a little; and

with the passage of speech the flow of sympathy began, and we felt them

to be human. Through the Word the worlds were made!

A wilderness of desert islands lies at this point along the coast,

extending out, I judged, not less than fifteen miles. Excepting Little

Mecatina, which is a number of miles in length, and must be some fifteen

hundred feet high, they are not very considerable either in area or

elevation,--from five to five hundred acres in extent, and from thirty

to two hundred feet in height. They are swardless and treeless, though

in two places I found a few blades of coarse, tawny-green grass; and

patches of sombre shrubbery, two and a half feet high, were not wanting.

Little lichen grows on the rock, though in the depressions and on many

of the slopes grows, or at least exists, a boggy greenish-gray moss,

over which it breaks your knees--if, indeed, your spine do not choose to

monopolize that enjoyment--to travel long. The rock is pale granite,

disposed in layers, which vary from two to ten or twelve feet in

thickness. These incline at an angle of from ten to twenty degrees,

giving to the islands, as a predominant characteristic, a regular slope

on one side and a cliff-like aspect on the other; though not a few are

bent up in the middle, perhaps exhibiting there some sharp ridge or

vertical wall, while from this they decline to either side.

As beheld on the day of our arrival, this scenery was of an incomparable

desolation. Above was the coldest gray sky I remember to have seen; the

sea lay all in pallid, deathly gray beneath; islands in all shades of

grimmer and grimmest gray checkered it; vast drifts of gray old snow

filled the deeper hollows; and a heartless atmosphere pushed in the

sense of this grayness to the very marrow. It was as if all the ruddy

and verdurous juices had died in the veins of the world, and from core

to surface only gray remained. To credit fully the impression of the

scene, one would say that Existence was dead, and that we stood looking

on its corpse, which even in death could never decay. Eternal

Desolation,--Labrador!

But extremes meet.