The Bagging Of The Bear Had So Gloriously Crowned Our Visit To Spitzbergen, That Our Disappointment About The Deer Was No Longer Thought Of; It Was Therefore With Light Hearts, And Most Complete Satisfaction, That We Prepared For Departure.

Maid Marian had already carved on a flat stone an inscription, in Roman letters, recording the visit of the "Foam" to English Bay, and a cairn having been erected to receive it, the tablet was solemnly lifted to its resting-place.

Underneath I placed a tin box, containing a memorandum similar to that left at Jan Mayen, as well as a printed dinner invitation from Lady - , which I happened to have on board. Having planted a boat's flag beside the rude monument, and brought on board with us a load of driftwood, to serve hereafter as Christmas yule-logs, we bade an eternal adieu to the silent hills around us; and weighing anchor, stood out to sea. For some hours a lack of wind still left us hanging about the shore, in the midst of a grave society of seals; but soon after, a gentle breeze sprang up in the south, and about three o'clock on Friday, the 11th of August, we again found ourselves spanking along before a six-knot breeze, over the pale green sea.

In considering the course on which I should take the vessel home, it appeared to me that in all probability we should have been much less pestered by the ice on our way to Spitzbergen, if, instead of hugging the easterly ice, we had kept more away to the westward; I determined therefore - as soon as we got clear of the land - to stand right over to the Greenland shore, on a due west course, and not to attempt to make any southing, until we should have struck the Greenland ice. The length of our tether in that direction being ascertained, we could then judge of the width of the channel down which we were to beat, for it was still blowing pretty fresh from the southward.

Up to the evening of the day on which we quitted English Bay, the weather had been most beautiful; calm, sunshiny, dry, and pleasant. Within a few hours of our getting under weigh, a great change had taken place, and by midnight it had become as foggy and disagreeable as ever. The sea was pretty clear. During the few days we had been on shore, the northerly current had brushed away the great angular field of ice which had lain off the shore, in a northwest direction; so that instead of being obliged to run up very nearly to the 80th parallel, in order to round it, we were enabled to sail to the westward at once. During the course of the night, we came upon one or two wandering patches of drift ice, but so loosely packed that we had no difficulty in pushing through them. About four o'clock in the morning, a long line of close ice was reported right a-head, stretching south as far as the eye could reach. We had come about eighty miles since leaving Spitzbergen. The usual boundary of the Greenland ice in summer runs, according to Scoresby, along the second parallel of west longitude. This we had already crossed, so that it was to be presumed the barricade we saw before us was a frontier of the fixed ice. In accordance, therefore, with my predetermined plan, we now began working to the southward, and the result fully justified my expectations.

The sea became comparatively clear, as far as could be seen from the deck of the vessel, although small vagrant patches of ice that we came up with occasionally - as well as the temperature of the air and the sea - continued to indicate the proximity of larger bodies on either side of us.

It was a curious sensation with which we had gradually learnt to contemplate this inseparable companion: it had become a part of our daily existence, an element, a thing without which the general aspect of the universe would be irregular and incomplete. It was the first thing we thought of in the morning, the last thing we spoke of at night. It glittered and grinned maliciously at us in the sunshine; it winked mysteriously through the stifling fog; it stretched itself like a prostrate giant, with huge, portentous shoulders and shadowy limbs, right across our course; or danced gleefully in broken groups in the little schooner's wake. There was no getting rid of it, or forgetting it, and if at night we sometimes returned in dreams to the green summer world - to the fervent harvest fields of England, and heard "the murmurs of innumerous bees," or the song of larks on thymy uplands - thump! bump! splash! gra-a-ate! - came the sudden reminder of our friend on the starboard bow; and then sometimes a scurry on deck, and a general "scrimmage" of the whole society, in endeavours to prevent more serious collisions. Moreover, I could not say, with your old French friend, that "Familiar'ty breeds despise." The more we saw of it, the less we liked it; its cold presence sent a chilly sense of discouragement to the heart, and I had daily to struggle with an ardent desire to throw a boot at Wilson's head, every time his sepulchral voice announced the "Ice ALL ROUND!"

It was not until the 14th of August, five days after quitting Spitzbergen, that we lost sight of it altogether. From that moment the temperature of the sea steadily rose, and we felt that we were sailing back again into the pleasant summer.

A sad event which occurred soon after, in some measure marred our enjoyment of the change. Ever since she had left Hammerfest, it had become too evident that a sea-going life did not agree with the goat. Even the run on shore at Spitzbergen had not sufficed to repair her shattered constitution, and the bad weather we had had ever since completed its ruin.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 64 of 78
Words from 64918 to 65925 of 79667