About eight o"clock in the evening we got under way from Hammerfest; unfortunately the wind almost immediately after fell dead calm, and during the whole night we lay "like a painted ship upon a painted ocean." At six o"clock a little breeze sprang up, and when we came on deck at breakfast time, the schooner was skimming at the rate of five knots an hour over the level lanes of water, which lie between the silver-grey ridges of gneiss and mica slate that hem in the Nordland sh.o.r.e. The distance from Hammerfest to Alten is about forty miles, along a zigzag chain of fiords. It was six o"clock in the evening, and we had already sailed two-and-thirty miles, when it again fell almost calm. Impatient at the unexpected delay, and tempted by the beauty of the evening,--which was indeed most lovely, the moon hanging on one side right opposite to the sun on the other, as in the picture of Joshua"s miracle,--Sigurdr, in an evil hour, proposed that we should take a row in the dingy, until the midnight breeze should spring up, and bring the schooner along with it.
Away we went, and so occupied did we become with admiring the rocky precipices beneath which we were gliding, that it was not until the white sails of the motionless schooner had dwindled to a speck, that we became aware of the distance we had come.
Our attention had been further diverted by the spectacle of a tribe of fishes, whose habit it appeared to be--instead of swimming like Christian fishes in a horizontal position beneath the water--to walk upon their hind-legs along its surface. Perceiving a little boat floating on the loch not far from the spot where we had observed this phenomenon, we pulled towards it, and ascertained that the Lapp officer in charge was actually intent on stalking the peripatetic school--to use a technical expression--whose evolutions had so much astonished us. The great object of the sportsman is to judge by their last appearance what part of the water the fish are likely to select for the scene of their next promenade. Directly he has determined this in his own mind, he rows noiselessly to the spot, and, as soon as they show themselves, hooks them with a landing-net into his boat.
By this time it had become a doubtful point whether it would not be as little trouble to row on to Alten as to return to the schooner, so we determined to go on.
Unfortunately we turned down a wrong fiord, and after a long pull, about two o"clock in the morning had the satisfaction of finding ourselves in a cul-de-sac. To add to our discomfort, clouds of mosquitoes with the bodies of behemoths and the stings of dragons, had collected from all quarters of the heavens to make a prey of us. In vain we struggled--strove to knock them down with the oars,--plunged our heads under the water,--smacked our faces with frantic violence; on they came in myriads, until I thought our bleaching bones would alone remain to indicate our fate. At last Sigurdr espied a log but on the sh.o.r.e, where we might at least find some one to put us into the right road again; but on looking in at the open door, we only saw a Lapland gentleman fast asleep. Awaking at our approach he started to his feet, and though nothing could be more gracefully conciliatory than the bow with which I opened the conversation, I regret to say that after staring wildly round for a few minutes, the aboriginal bolted straight away in the most unpolite manner and left us to our fate. There was nothing for it but patiently to turn back, and try some other opening. This time we were more successful, and about three o"clock A.M. had the satisfaction of landing at one of the wharves attached to the copper mines of Kaafiord. We came upon a lovely scene. It was as light and warm as a summer"s noon in England; upon a broad plateau, carved by nature out of the side of the grey limestone, stood a bright shining house in the middle of a plot of rich English-looking garden. On one side lay the narrow fiord, on every other rose an amphitheatre of fir-clad mountains. The door of the house was open, so were many of the windows--even those on the ground-floor, and from the road where we stood we could see the books on the library shelves. A swing and some gymnastic appliances on the lawn told us that there were children.
Altogether, I thought I had never seen such a charming picture of silent comfort and security. Perhaps the barren prospects we had been accustomed to made the little oasis before us look more cheerful than we might otherwise have thought it.
The question now arose, what was to be done? My princ.i.p.al reason for coming to Alten was to buy some salt provisions and Lapland dresses; but dolls and junk were scarcely a sufficient pretext for knocking up a quiet family at three o"clock in the morning. It is true, I happened to have a letter for Mr. T--, written by a mutual friend, who had expressly told me that--arrive when I might at Alten,--the more unceremoniously I walked in and took possession of the first unoccupied bed I stumbled on, the better Mr. T-- would be pleased; but British punctilio would not allow me to act on the recommendation, though we were sorely tried. In the meantime the mosquitoes had become more intolerable than ever. At last, half mad with irritation, I set off straight up the side of the nearest mountain, in hopes of attaining a zone too high for them to inhabit; and, poising myself upon its topmost pinnacle, I drew my handkerchief over my head--I was already without coat and waistcoat--and remained the rest of the morning "mopping and mowing" at the world beneath my feet.
About six o"clock, like a phantom in a dream, the little schooner came stealing round the misty headland, and anch.o.r.ed at the foot of the rocks below. Returning immediately on board, we bathed, dressed, and found repose from all our troubles. Not long after, a message from Mr. T--, in answer to a card I had sent up to the house as soon as the household gave signs of being astir--invited us to breakfast; and about half-past nine we presented ourselves at his hospitable door. The reception I met with was exactly what the gentlemen who had given me the letter of introduction had led me to expect; and so eager did Mr. T-- seem to make us comfortable, that I did not dare to tell him how we had been prowling about his house the greater part of the previous night, lest he should knock me down on the spot for not having knocked him up. The appearance of the inside of the house quite corresponded with what we had antic.i.p.ated from the soigne air of everything about its exterior. Books, maps, pictures, a number of astronomical instruments, geological specimens, and a magnificent a.s.sortment of fishing-rods, betrayed the habits of the practical, well-educated, business-loving English gentlemen who inhabited it; and as he showed me the various articles of interest in his study, most heartily did I congratulate myself on the lucky chance which had brought me into contact with so desirable an acquaintance.
All this time we had seen nothing of the lady of the house; and I was just beginning to speculate as to whether that crowning ornament could be wanting to this pleasant home, when the door at the further end of the room suddenly opened, and there glided out into the sunshine--"The White Lady of Avenel." A fairer apparition I have seldom seen,--stately, pale, and fragile as a lily--blond hair, that rippled round a forehead of ivory--a cheek of waxen purity on which the fitful colour went and came--not with the flush of southern blood, or flower-bloom of English beauty,--but rather with a cool radiance, as of "northern streamers" on the snows of her native hills,-- eyes of a dusky blue, and lips of that rare tint which lines the conch-sh.e.l.l. Such was the Chatelaine of Kaafiord,--as perfect a type of Norse beauty as ever my Saga lore had conjured up! Frithiof"s Ingeborg herself seemed to stand before me. A few minutes afterwards, two little fair-haired maidens, like twin snowdrops, stole into the room; and the sweet home picture was complete.
The rest of the day has been a continued fete. In vain after having transacted my business, I pleaded the turning of the tide, and our anxiety to get away to sea; nothing would serve our kind entertainer but that we should stay to dinner; and his was one of those strong energetic wills it is difficult to resist.
In the afternoon, the Hammerfest steamer called in from the southward, and by her came two fair sisters of our hostess from their father"s home in one of the Loffodens which overlook the famous Maelstrom. The stories about the violence of the whirlpool Mr. T-- a.s.sures me are ridiculously exaggerated. On ordinary occasions the site of the supposed vortex is perfectly unruffled, and it is only when a strong weather tide is running that any unusual movements in the water can be observed; even then the disturbance does not amount to much more than a rather troublesome race. "Often and often, when she was a girl, had his wife and her sisters sailed over its fabulous crater in an open boat." But in this wild romantic country, with its spa.r.s.e population, rugged mountains, and gloomy fiords, very ordinary matters become invested with a character of awe and mystery quite foreign to the atmosphere of our own matter-of-fact world; and many of the Norwegians are as p.r.o.ne to superst.i.tion as the poor little Lapp pagans who dwell among them.
No later than a few years ago, in the very fiord we had pa.s.sed on our way to Alten, when an unfortunate boat got cast away during the night on some rocks at a little distance from the sh.o.r.e, the inhabitants, startled by the cries of distress which reached them in the morning twilight, hurried down in a body to the sea-side,--not to afford a.s.sistance,--but to open a volley of musketry on the drowning mariners; being fully persuaded that the stranded boat, with its torn sails, was no other than the Kracken or Great Sea-Serpent flapping its dusky wings: and when, at last, one of the crew succeeded in swimming ash.o.r.e in spite of waves and bullets,--the whole society turned and fled!
And now, again good-bye. We are just going up to dine with Mr. T--; and after dinner, or at least as soon as the tide turns, we get under way--Northward Ho! (as Mr.
Kingsley would say) in right good earnest this time!
LETTER XI.
WE SAIL FOR BEAR ISLAND, AND SPITZBERGEN--CHERIE ISLAND-- BARENTZ-SIR HUGH WILLOUGHBY--PARRY"S ATTEMPT TO REACH THE NORTH POLE--AGAIN AMONGST THE ICE--ICEBLINK--FIRST SIGHT OF SPITZBERGEN--WILSON--DECAY OF OUR HOPES--CONSTANT STRUGGLE WITH THE ICE--WE REACH THE 80 DEGREES N. LAT.--A FREER SEA--WE LAND IN SPITZBERGEN--ENGLISH BAY--LADY EDITH"S GLACIER--A MIDNIGHT PHOTOGRAPH--NO REINDEER TO BE SEEN--ET EGO IN ARCTIS--WINTER IN SPITZBERGEN-- PTARMIGAN--THE BEAR-SAGA--THE "FOAM" MONUMENT-- SOUTHWARDS--SIGHT THE GREENLAND ICE--A GALE--WILSON ON THE MAELSTROM--BREAKERS AHEAD--ROOST--TAKING A SIGHT-- THRONDHJEM.
Throndhjem, Aug. 22nd, 1856.
We have won our laurels, after all! We have landed in Spitzbergen--almost at its most northern extremity; and the little "Foam" has sailed to within 630 miles of the Pole; that is to say, within 100 miles as far north as any ship has ever succeeded in getting.
I think my last letter left us enjoying the pleasant hospitalities of Kaafiord.
The genial quiet of that last evening in Norway was certainly a strange preface to the scenes we have since witnessed. So warm was it, that when dinner was over, we all went out into the garden, and had tea in the open air; the ladies without either bonnets or shawls, merely plucking a little branch of willow to brush away the mosquitoes; and so the evening wore away in alternate intervals of chat and song. At midnight, seawards again began to swirl the tide, and we rose to go,--not without having first paid a visit to the room where the little daughters of the house lay folded in sleep. Then descending to the beach, laden with flowers and kind wishes waved to us by white handkerchiefs held in still whiter hands, we rowed on board; up went the napping sails, and dipping her ensign in token of adieu--the schooner glided swiftly on between the walls of rock, until an intervening crag shut out from our sight the friendly group that had come forth to bid us "Good speed." In another twenty-four hours we had threaded our way back through the intricate fiords; and leaving Hammerfest three or four miles on the starboard hand, on the evening of the 28th of July, we pa.s.sed out between the islands of Soroe and Bolsvoe into the open sea.
My intention was to go first to Bear Island, and ascertain for myself in what direction the ice was lying to the southward of Spitzbergen.
Bear--or Cherie Island, is a diamond-shaped island, about ten miles long, composed of secondary rocks--princ.i.p.ally sandstone and limestone-lying about 280 miles due north of the North Cape. It was originally discovered by Barentz, the 9th of June, 1596, on the occasion of his last and fatal voyage. Already had he commanded two expeditions sent forth by the United Provinces to discover a north-east pa.s.sage to that dream-land--Cathay; and each time, after penetrating to the eastward of Nova Zembla, he had been foiled by the impenetrable line of ice. On this occasion he adopted the bolder and more northerly courses which brought him to Bear Island. Thence, plunging into the mists of the frozen sea, he ultimately sighted the western mountains of Spitzbergen. Unable to proceed further in that direction, Barentz retraced his steps, and again pa.s.sing in sight of Bear Island, proceeded in a south-east direction to Nova Zembla, where his ships got entangled in the ice, and he subsequently perished.
Towards the close of the sixteenth century, in spite of repeated failures, one endeavour after another was made to penetrate to India across these fatal waters.
The first English vessel that sailed on the disastrous quest was the "Bona Esperanza." in the last year of King Edward VI. Her commander was Sir Hugh Willoughby, and we have still extant a copy of the instructions drawn up by Sebastian Cabot--the Grand Pilot of England, for his guidance. Nothing can be more pious than the spirit in which this ancient doc.u.ment is conceived; expressly enjoining that morning and evening prayers should be offered on board every ship attached to the expedition, and that neither dicing, carding, tabling, nor other devilish devices--were to be permitted. Here and there were clauses of a more questionable morality,--recommending that natives of strange lands be "enticed on board, and made drunk with your beer and wine; for then you shall know the secrets of their hearts." The whole concluding with an exhortation to all on board to take especial heed to the devices of "certain creatures, with men"s heads, and the tails of fishes, who swim with bows and arrows about the fiords and bays, and live on human flesh."
On the 11th of May the ill-starred expedition got under way from Deptford, and saluting the king, who was then lying sick at Greenwich, put to sea. By the 30th of July the little fleet--three vessels in all--had come up abreast of the Loffoden islands, but a gale coming on, the "Esperanza" was separated from the consorts.
Ward-huus--a little harbour to the east of the North Cape-had been appointed as the place of rendezvous in case of such an event, but unfortunately, Sir Hugh overshot the mark, and wasted all the precious autumn time in blundering amid the ice to the eastward. At last, winter set in, and they were obliged to run for a port in Lapland.
Here, removed from all human aid, they were frozen to death. A year afterwards, the ill-fated ships were discovered by some Russian sailors, and an unfinished journal proved that Sir Hugh and many of his companions were still alive in January, 1554.
The next voyage of discovery in a north-east direction was sent out by Sir Francis Cherie, alderman of London, in 1603. After proceeding as far east as Ward-huus and Kela, the "G.o.dspeed" pushed north into the ocean, and on the 16th of August fell in with Bear Island. Unaware of its previous discovery by Barentz, Stephen Bennet--who commanded the expedition--christened the island Cherie Island, in honour of his patron, and to this day the two names are used almost indiscriminately.
In 1607, Henry Hudson was despatched by the Muscovy Company, with orders to sail, if possible, right across the pole. Although perpetually baffled by the ice, Hudson at last succeeded in reaching the north-west extremity of Spitzbergen, but finding his further progress arrested by an impenetrable barrier of fixed ice, he was forced to return. A few years later, Jonas Poole--having been sent in the same direction, instead of prosecuting any discoveries, wisely set himself to killing the sea-horses that frequent the Arctic ice-fields, and in lieu of tidings of new lands--brought back a valuable cargo of walrus tusks. In 1615, Fotherby started with the intention of renewing the attempt to sail across the north pole, but after encountering many dangers he also was forced to return. It was during the course of his homeward voyage that he fell in with the island of Jan Mayen. Soon afterwards, the discovery by Hudson and Davis, of the seas and straits to which they have given their names, diverted the attention of the public from all thoughts of a north-east pa.s.sage, and the Spitzbergen waters were only frequented by ships engaged in the fisheries. The gradual disappearance of the whale, and the discovery of more profitable fishing stations on the west coast of Greenland, subsequently abolished the sole attraction for human being which this inhospitable region ever possessed, and of late years, I understand, the Spitzbergen seas have remained as lonely and unvisited as they were before the first adventurer invaded their solitude.
Twice only, since the time of Fotherby, has any attempt been made to reach the pole on a north-east course. In 1773, Captain Phipps, afterwards Lord Mulgrave, sailed in the "Carca.s.s" towards Spitzbergen, but he never reached a higher lat.i.tude than 81 degrees. It was in this expedition that Nelson made his first voyage, and had that famous encounter with the bear. The next and last endeavour was undertaken by Parry, in 1827. Unable to get his ship even as far north as Phipps had gone, he determined to leave her in a harbour in Spitzbergen, and push across the sea in boats and sledges. The uneven nature of the surface over which they had to travel, caused their progress northward to be very slow, and very laborious. The ice too, beneath their feet, was not itself immovable, and at last they perceived they were making the kind of progress a criminal makes upon the treadmill,--the floes over which they were journeying drifting to the southward faster than they walked north; so that at the end of a long day"s march of ten miles, they found themselves four miles further from their destination than at its commencement. Disgusted with so Irish a manoeuvre, Parry determined to return, though not until he had almost reached the 83rd parallel, a higher lat.i.tude than any to which man is known to have penetrated. Arctic authorities are still of opinion, that Parry"s plan for reaching the pole might prove successful, if the expedition were to set out earlier in the season, ere the intervening field of ice is cast adrift by the approach of summer.
Our own run to Bear Island was very rapid. On getting outside the islands, a fair fresh wind sprung up, and we went spinning along for two nights and two days as merrily as possible, under a double-reefed mainsail and staysail, on a due north course. On the third day we began to see some land birds, and a few hours afterwards, the loom of the island itself; but it had already begun to get fearfully cold, and our thermometer, which I consulted every two hours, plainly indicated that we were approaching ice. My only hope was that, at all events, the southern extremity of the island might be disengaged; for I was very anxious to land, in order to examine some coal-beds which are said to exist in the upper strata of the sandstone formation. This expectation was doomed to complete disappointment. Before we had got within six miles of the sh.o.r.e, it became evident that the report of the Hammerfest Sea-horseman was too true.
Between us and the land there extended an impenetrable barrier of packed ice, running due east and west, as far as the eye could reach.
[Figure: fig-p162.gif]
What was now to be done? If a continuous field of ice lay 150 miles off the southern coast of Spitzbergen, what would be the chance of getting to the land by going further north? Now that we had received ocular proof of the veracity of the Hammerfest skipper in this first particular, was it likely that we should have the luck to find the remainder of his story untrue? According to the track he had jotted down for me on the chart, the ice in front stretched right away west in an unbroken line, to the wall of ice which we had seen running to the north, from the upper end of Jan Mayen. Only a week had elapsed since he had actually ascertained the impracticability of reaching a higher lat.i.tude,--what likelihood could there be of a channel having been opened up to the northward during so short an interval? Such was the series of insoluble problems by which I posed myself, as we stood vainly smacking our lips at the island, which lay so tantalizingly beyond our reach.
Still, unpromising as the aspect of things might appear, it would not do to throw a chance away; so I determined to put the schooner round on the other tack, and run westwards along the edge of the ice, until we found ourselves again in the Greenland sea. Bidding, therefore, a last adieu to Mount Misery, as its first discoverers very appropriately christened one of the higher hills in Bear Island, we suffered it to melt back into a fog,--out of which, indeed, no part of the land had ever more than partially emerged,--and with no very sanguine expectations as to the result, sailed west away towards Greenland.
During the next four-and-twenty hours we ran along the edge of the ice, in nearly a due westerly direction, without observing the slightest indication of anything approaching to an opening towards the North. It was weary work, scanning that seemingly interminable barrier, and listening to the melancholy roar of waters on its icy sh.o.r.e.
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 lat.i.tude 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 enc.u.mbered 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 sh.o.r.es 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 s.p.a.ce 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 s.p.a.ce seemed infinitely less; but in these high lat.i.tudes 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 repet.i.tion 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 impa.s.s- 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. Then a fog would come on--so thick, you could almost cut it like a cheese, and thus render the sailing among the loose ice very critical indeed then it would fall dead calm, and leave us, hours together, m.u.f.fled in mist, with no other employment than chess or hopscotch. It was during one of those intervals of quiet that I executed the annexed work of art, which is intended to represent Sigurdr, in the act of meditating a complicated gambit for the Doctor"s benefit.
About this period Wilson culminated. Ever since leaving Bear Island he had been keeping a carnival of grief in the pantry, until the cook became almost half-witted by reason of his Jeremiads. Yet I must not give you the impression that the poor fellow was the least wanting in PLUCK--far from it. Surely it requires the highest order of courage to antic.i.p.ate every species of disaster every moment of the day, and yet to meet the impending fate like a man--as he did. Was it his fault that fate was not equally ready to meet him? HIS share of the business was always done: he was ever prepared for the worst; but the most critical circ.u.mstances never disturbed the gravity of his carriage, and the fact of our being destined to go to the bottom before tea-time would not have caused him to lay out the dinner-table a whit less symmetrically.
Still, I own, the style of his service was slightly depressing. He laid out my clean shirt of a morning as if it had been a shroud; and cleaned my boots as though for a man ON HIS LAST LEGS. The fact is, he was imaginative and atrabilious,--contemplating life through a medium of the colour of his own complexion.
This was the cheerful kind of report he used invariably to bring me of a morning. Coming to the side of my cot with the air of a man announcing the stroke of doomsday, he used to say, or rather, TOLL--
"Seven o"clock, my Lord!"