It Would Be Worth While To Go Ashore Upon An Islet There,
Near Vogel Sang, To Pay A Visit To The Eider-Ducks.
Their nests are
so abundant that one cannot avoid treading on them.
When the duck
is driven by a hungry fox to leave her eggs, she covers them with
down, in order that they may not cool during her absence, and,
moreover, glues the down into a case with a secretion supplied to
her by Nature for that purpose. The deserted eggs are safe, for
that secretion has an odour very disagreeable to the intruder's
nose.
We still sail northward, among sheets of ice, whose boundaries are
not beyond our vision from the masthead - these are "floes;" between
them we find easy way, it is fair "sailing ice." In the clear sky
to the north a streak of lucid white light is the reflection from an
icy surface; that is, "ice-blink," in the language of these seas.
The glare from snow is yellow, while open water gives a dark
reflection.
Northward still; but now we are in fog the ice is troublesome; a
gale is rising. Now, if our ship had timbers they would crack, and
if she had a bell it would be tolling; if we were shouting to each
other we should not hear, the sea is in a fury. With wild force its
breakers dash against a heaped-up wall of broken ice, that grinds
and strains and battles fiercely with the water. This is "the
pack," the edge of a great ice-field broken by the swell. It is a
perilous and an exciting thing to push through pack ice in a gale.
Now there is ice as far as eye can see, that is "an ice-field."
Masses are forced up like colossal tombstones on all sides; our
sailors call them "hummocks;" here and there the broken ice displays
large "holes of water." Shall we go on? Upon this field, in 1827,
Parry adventured with his men to reach the North Pole, if that
should be possible. With sledges and portable boats they laboured
on through snow and over hummocks, launching their boats over the
larger holes of water. With stout hearts, undaunted by toil or
danger, they went boldly on, though by degrees it became clear to
the leaders of the expedition that they were almost like mice upon a
treadmill cage, making a great expenditure of leg for little gain.
The ice was floating to the south with them, as they were walking to
the north; still they went on. Sleeping by day to avoid the glare,
and to get greater warmth during the time of rest, and travelling by
night - watch-makers' days and nights, for it was all one polar day -
the men soon were unable to distinguish noon from midnight. The
great event of one day on this dreary waste was the discovery of two
flies upon an ice hummock; these, says Parry, became at once a topic
of ridiculous importance.
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