At Last, After Having Come About 140 Miles Since Leaving
Bear Island, - The Long, White, Wave-Lashed Line Suddenly
Ran Down Into A Low Point, And Then Trended Back With A
Decided Inclination To The North.
Here, at all events,
was an improvement; instead of our continuing to steer
W. by S., or at most
W. by N., the schooner would often
lay as high up as N.W., and even N.W. by N. Evidently
the action of the Gulf Stream was beginning to tell, and
our spirits rose in proportion. In a few more hours,
however, this cheering prospect was interrupted by a
fresh line of ice being reported, not only ahead, but as
far as the eye could reach on the port bow; so again the
schooner's head was put to the westward, and the old
story recommenced. And now the flank of the second barrier
was turned, and we were able to edge up a few hours to
the northward; but only to be again confronted by another
line, more interminable, apparently, than the last. But
why should I weary you with the detail of our various
manoeuvres during the ensuing days? They were too tedious
and disheartening at the time, for me to look back upon
them with any pleasure. Suffice it to say, that by dint
of sailing north whenever the ice would permit us, and
sailing west when we could not sail north, we found
ourselves on the 2nd of August, in the latitude of the
southern extremity of Spitzbergen, though divided from
the land by about fifty miles of ice. All this while the
weather had been pretty good, foggy and cold enough, but
with a fine stiff breeze that rattled us along at a good
rate whenever we did get a chance of making any Northing.
But lately it had come on to blow very hard, the cold
became quite piercing, and what was worse - in every
direction round the whole circuit of the horizon, except
along its southern segment, - a blaze of iceblink illuminated
the sky. A more discouraging spectacle could not have
met our eyes. The iceblink is a luminous appearance,
reflected on the heavens from the fields of ice that
still lie sunk beneath the horizon; it was, therefore on
this occasion an unmistakable indication of the encumbered
state of the sea in front of us.
I had turned in for a few hours of rest, and release from
the monotonous sense of disappointment, and was already
lost in a dream of deep bewildering bays of ice, and
gulfs whose shifting shores offered to the eye every
possible combination of uncomfortable scenery, without
possible issue, - when "a voice in my dreaming ear"
shouted "LAND!" and I awoke to its reality. I need not
tell you in what double quick time I tumbled up the
companion, or with what greediness I feasted my eyes on
that longed-for view, - the only sight - as I then thought - we
were ever destined to enjoy of the mountains of Spitzbergen!
The whole heaven was overcast with a dark mantle of
tempestuous clouds, that stretched down in umbrella-like
points towards the horizon, leaving a clear space between
their edge and the sea, illuminated by the sinister
brilliancy of the iceblink. In an easterly direction,
this belt of unclouded atmosphere was etherealized to an
indescribable transparency, and up into it there gradually
grew - above the dingy line of starboard ice - a forest of
thin lilac peaks, so faint, so pale, that had it not been
for the gem-like distinctness of their outline, one could
have deemed them as unsubstantial as the spires of
fairy-land. The beautiful vision proved only too transient;
in one short half hour mist and cloud had blotted it all
out, while a fresh barrier of ice compelled us to turn
our backs on the very land we were striving to reach.
Although we were certainly upwards of sixty miles distant
from the land when the Spitzbergen hills were first
observed, the intervening space seemed infinitely less;
but in these high latitudes the eye is constantly liable
to be deceived in the estimate it forms of distances.
Often, from some change suddenly taking place in the
state of the atmosphere, the land you approach will appear
even to RECEDE; and on one occasion, an honest skipper - one
of the most valiant and enterprising mariners of his
day - actually turned back, because, after sailing for
several hours with a fair wind towards the land, and
finding himself no nearer to it than at first, he concluded
that some loadstone rock beneath the sea must have
attracted the keel of his ship, and kept her stationary.
The next five days were spent in a continual struggle
with the ice. On referring to our log, I see nothing but
a repetition of the same monotonous observations.
"July 31st. - Wind W. by S. - Courses sundry to clear ice."
"Ice very thick."
"These twenty-four hours picking our way through ice."
"August 1st. - Wind W. - courses variable - foggy - continually
among ice these twenty-four hours."
And in Fitz's diary, the discouraging state of the weather
is still more pithily expressed: -
"August 2nd. - Head wind - sailing westward - large hummocks
of ice ahead, and on port bow, i.e. to the westward - hope
we may be able to push through. In evening, ice gets
thicker; we still hold on - fog comes on - ice getting
thicker - wind freshens - we can get no farther - ice impass-
able, no room to tack - struck the ice several times -
obliged to sail S. and W. - things look very shady."
Sometimes we were on the point of despairing altogether,
then a plausible opening would show itself as if leading
towards the land, and we would be tempted to run down it
until we found the field become so closely packed, that
it was with great difficulty we could get the vessel
round, - and only then at the expense of collisions, which
made the little craft shiver from stem to stern.
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