第51章 LETTER VIII.(14)

Numbers of whale vessels have thus been destroyed;some have been thrown upon the ice;some have had their hulls completely torn open,or divided in two,and others have been overrun by the ice,and buried beneath its heaped fragments.]and the first nip would settle the poor little schooner's business for ever.At the same time,it was quite possible that any progress we succeeded in making,instead of tending towards her liberation,might perhaps be only getting her deeper into the scrape.One thing was very certain,--Northing or Southing might be an even chance,but whatever EASTING we could make must be to the good;so I determined to choose whichever vein seemed to have most Easterly direction in it.Two or three openings of this sort from time to time presented themselves;but in every case,after following them a certain distance,they proved to be but CUL-DE-SACS,and we had to return discomfited.My great hope was in a change of wind.It was already blowing very fresh from the northward and eastward;and if it would but shift a few points,in all probability the ice would loosen as rapidly as it had collected.In the meantime,the only thing to do was to keep a sharp look-out,sail the vessel carefully,and take advantage of every chance of getting to the eastward.

It now grew colder than ever,--the distant land was almost hid with fog,--tattered dingy clouds came crowding over the heavens,--while Wilson moved uneasily about the deck,with the air of Cassandra at the conflagration of Troy.

It was Sunday,the 14th of July,and I had a momentary fancy that I could hear the sweet church bells in England pealing across the cold white flats which surrounded us.

At last,about five o'clock P.M.,the wind shifted a point or two,then flew round into the south-east.Not long after,just as I had expected,the ice evidently began to loosen,--a promising opening was reported from the mast-head a mile or so away on the port-bow,and by nine o'clock we were spanking along,at the rate of eight knots an hour,under a double-reefed mainsail and staysail--down a continually widening channel,between two wave-lashed ridges of drift ice.Before midnight,we had regained the open sea,and were standing away "to Norroway,To Norroway,over the faem."In the forenoon I had been too busy to have our usual Sunday church;but as soon as we were pretty clear of the ice I managed to have a short service in the cabin.

Of our run to Hammerfest I have nothing particular to say.The distance is eight hundred miles,and we did it in eight days.On the whole,the weather was pretty fair,though cold,and often foggy.One day indeed was perfectly lovely,--the one before we made the coast of Lapland,--without a cloud to be seen for the space of twenty-four hours;giving me an opportunity of watching the sun performing his complete circle overhead,and taking a meridian altitude at midnight.We were then in 70degrees 25'North latitude;i.e.,almost as far north as the North Cape;yet the thermometer had been up to 80degrees during the afternoon.

Shortly afterwards the fog came on again,and next morning it was blowing very hard from the eastward.This was the more disagreeable,as it is always very difficult,under the most favourable circumstances,to find one's way into any harbour along this coast,fenced off,as it is,from the ocean by a complicated outwork of lofty islands,which,in their turn,are hemmed in by nests of sunken rock,sown as thick as peas,for miles to seaward.There are no pilots until you are within the islands,and no longer want them,--no lighthouses or beacons of any sort;and all that you have to go by is the shape of the hill-tops;but as,on the clearest day,the outlines of the mountains have about as much variety as the teeth of a saw,and as on a cloudy day,which happens about seven times a week,you see nothing but the line of their dark roots,--the unfortunate mariner,who goes poking about for the narrow passage which is to lead him between the islands,--at the BACK of one of which a pilot is waiting for him,--will,in all probability,have already placed his vessel in a position to render that functionary's further attendance a work of supererogation.At least,I know it was as much surprise as pleasure that Iexperienced,when,after having with many misgivings ventured to slip through an opening in the monotonous barricade of mountains,we found it was the right channel to our port.If the king of all the Goths would only stick up a lighthouse here and there along the edge of his Arctic seaboard,he would save many an honest fellow a heart-ache.

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I must now finish this long letter.

Hammerfest is scarcely worthy of my wasting paper on it.

When I tell you that it is the most northerly town in Europe,I think I have mentioned its only remarkable characteristic.It stands on the edge of an enormous sheet of water,completely landlocked by three islands,and consists of a congregation of wooden houses,plastered up against a steep mountain;some of which being built on piles,give the notion of the place having slipped down off the hill half-way into the sea.Its population is so and so,--its chief exports this and that;for all which,see Mr.Murray's "Handbook,"where you will find all such matters much more clearly and correctly set down than I am likely to state them.At all events,it produces milk,cream--NOT butter--salad,and bad potatoes;which is what we are most interested in at present.To think that you should be all revelling this very moment in green-peas and cauliflowers!I hope you don't forget your grace before dinner.I will write to you again before setting sail for Spitzbergen.