But the difficulties of the enterprise were serious, and of such a nature that no one but a sailor experienced in navigation is capable of appreciating. The "Reine Hortense"
is a charming pleasure-boat, but she offers very few of the requisites for a long voyage, and she was dest.i.tute of all the special equipment indispensable for a long sojourn in the ice. There was room but for six days"
coals, and for three weeks" water: As to the sails, one may say the masts of the corvette are merely for show, and that without steam it would be impossible to reckon on her making any way regularly and uninterruptedly. Add to this, that she is built of iron,--that is to say, an iron sheet of about two centimbtres thick const.i.tutes all her planking,--and that her deck--divided into twelve great panels, is so weak that it has been thought incapable of carrying guns proportioned to her tonnage. Those who have seen the ma.s.sive vessels of the fishermen of Peterhead, their enormous outside planking, their bracings and fastenings in wood and in iron, and their internal knees and stancheons, may form an idea from such precautions--imposed by long experience of the nature of the dangers that the shock--or even the pressure of the ice--may cause to a ship in the lat.i.tudes that we were going to explore.
The "Cocyte" had also been placed at the disposal of H.I.H. Prince Napoleon. This vessel which arrived at Reykjavik the same day that we did, the 30th of June--is a steam schooner, with paddles, standing the sea well, carying coals for twelve days, but with a deplorably slow rate of speed.
We found besides at Reykjavik the war transport "La Perdrix" and two English merchant steamers, the "Tasmania and the "Saxon," freighted by the Admiralty to take to Iceland coals necessary for our voyage to Greenland.
These five vessels, with the frigate "Artemise," which performed he duties of guardship, formed the largest squadron which had ever a.s.sembled in the harbour of the capital of Iceland.
Unfortunately, these varied and numerous elements had nothing in common, and Commodore de la Ronciere soon saw that extraneous help would afford us no additional security; and, in short, that the "Refine Bortense"-- obliged to go fast--as her short supplies would not allow long voyages, had to reckon on herself alone. However, the [English] captain of the "Saxon" expressing a great desire to visit these northern parts, and displaying on this subject a sort of national vanity, besides promising an average speed of seven knots an hour, it was decided that--at all events, that vessel should start alone with the "Refine Hortense," whose supply of coals it would be able to replenish, in the event--a doubtful one, it is true--of our making the coast of Jan Mayen"s Island, and finding a good anchorage. The "Reine Hortense" had--by the help of a supplementary load on deck--a supply of coals for eight days; and immediately on starting, the crew as well as the pa.s.sengers, were to be put on a measured allowance of water.
A few hours before getting under way, the expedition was completed by the junction of a new companion, quite unexpected. We found in Reykjavik harbour a yacht belonging to Lord Dufferin. The Prince, seeing his great desire to visit the neighbourhood of Jan Mayen, offered to take his schooner in tow of the "Reine Hortense." It was a fortunate accident for a seeker of maritime adventures; and an hour afterwards, the proposition having been eagerly accepted, the Englishman was attached by two long cables to the stern of our corvette.
On the 7th of July, 1856, at two o"clock in the morning, after a ball given by Commander de Mas on board the "Artemise,"--the "Reine Hortense," with the English schooner in tow, left Reykjavik harbour, directing her course along the west coast of Iceland, towards Onundarfiord, where we were to join the "Saxon" which had left a few hours before us. At nine o"clock, the three vessels, steering east-north-east, doubled the point of Cape North. At noon our observation of the lat.i.tude placed us about 67 degrees. We had just crossed the Arctic circle. The temperature was that of a fine spring day, 10 degrees centigrade (50 degrees Farenh.).
The "Reine Hortense" diminished her speed. A rope thrown across one of the towing-ropes enabled Lord Dufferin to haul one of his boats to our corvette. He himself came to dine with us, and to be present at the ceremony of crossing the polar circle. As to the "Saxon," M. de la Ronciere perceived by this time that the worthy Englishman had presumed too much on his power. The "Saxon" was evidently incapable of following us. The captain, therefore, made her a signal that she was to take her own course, to try and reach Jan Mayen; and if she could not succeed, to direct her course on Onundarfiord, and there to wait for us. The English vessel fell rapidly astern, her hull disappeared, then her sails, and in the evening every trace of her smoke had faded from the horizon.
In the evening, the temperature grew gradually colder; that of the water underwent a more rapid and significant change. At twelve at night it was only three degrees centig. (about 37 degrees Fahr.). At that moment the vessel plunged into a bank of fog, the intensity of which we were enabled to ascertain, from the continuance of daylight in these lat.i.tudes at this time of the year.
There are tokens that leave no room to doubt that we are approaching the solid ice. True enough:--at two o"clock in the morning the officer on watch sees close to the ship a herd of seals, inhabitants of the field ice. A few minutes later the fog clears up suddenly; a ray of sunshine gilds the surface of the sea; lighting up millions of patches of sparkling white, extending to the farthest limit of the horizon. These are the detached hummocks which precede and announce the field ice; they increase in size and in number as we proceed. At three o"clock in the afternoon we find ourselves in front of a large pack which blocks up the sea before us. We are obliged to change our course to extricate ourselves from the ice that surrounds us. This is an evolution requiring on the part of the commander the greatest precision of eye, and a perfect knowledge of his ship. The "Reine Hortense,"
going half speed, with all the officers and the crew on deck, glides along between the blocks of ice, some of which she seems almost to touch, and the smallest of which would sink her instantly if a collision took place.
Another danger, which it is almost impossible to guard against, threatens a vessel in those trying moments. If a piece of ice gets under the screw, it will be inevitably smashed like gla.s.s, and the consequences of such an accident might be fatal.
The little English schooner follows us bravely; bounding in our track, and avoiding only by a constant watchfulness and incessant attention to the helm the icebergs that we have cleared.
But the difficulties of this navigation are nothing in clear weather, as compared to what they are in a fog.
Then, notwithstanding the slowness of the speed, it requires as much luck as skill to avoid collisions. Thus it happened that after having escaped the ice a first time, and having steered E.N.E., we found ourselves suddenly, towards two o"clock of that same day (the 9th), not further than a quarter of a mile from the field ice which the fog had hidden from us. Generally speaking, the Banquise that we coasted along for three days, and that we traced with the greatest care for nearly a hundred leagues, presented to us an irregular line of margin, running from W.S.W. to E.N.E., and thrusting forward toward the south-capes and promontories of various sizes, and serrated like the teeth of a saw. Every time that we bore up for E.N.E., we soon found ourselves in one of the gulfs of ice formed by the indentations of the Banquise. It was only by steering to the S.W. that we got free from the floating icebergs, to resume our former course as soon as the sea was clear.
The further we advanced to the northward, the thicker became the fog and more intense the cold (two degrees centig, below zero); and snow whirled round in squalls of wind, and fell in large flakes on the deck. The ice began to present a new aspect, and to a.s.sume those fantastic and terrible forms and colours, which painters have made familiar to us. At one time it a.s.sumed the appearance of mountain-peaks covered with snow, furrowed with valleys of green and blue; more frequently they appeared like a wide flat plateau, as high as the ship"s deck, against which the sea rolled with fury, hollowing its edges into gulfs, or breaking them into perpendicular cliffs or caverns, into which the sea rushed in clouds of foam.
We often pa.s.sed close by a herd of seals, which-stretched on these floating islands, followed the ship with a stupid and puzzled look. We were forcibly struck with the contrast between the fict.i.tious world in which we lived on board the ship, and the terrible realities of nature that surrounded us. Lounging in an elegant saloon, at the corner of a clear and sparkling fire, amidst a thousand objects of the arts and luxuries of home, we might have believed that we had not changed our residence, or our habits, or our enjoyments. One of Strauss"s waltzes, or Schubert"s melodies--played on the piano by the band-master--completed the illusion; and yet we had only to rub off the thin incrustation of frozen vapour that covered the panes of the windows, to look out upon the gigantic and terrible forms of the icebergs dashed against each other by a black and broken sea, and the whole panorama of Polar nature, its awful risks, and its sinister splendours.
Meanwhile, we progressed but very slowly. On the 10th of July we were still far from the meridian of Jan Mayen, when we suddenly found ourselves surrounded by a fog, and at the bottom of one of the bays formed by the field ice. We tacked immediately, and put the ship about, but the wind had acc.u.mulated the ice behind us. At a distance the circle that enclosed us seemed compact and without egress. We considered this as the most critical moment of our expedition. Having tried this icy barrier at several points, we found a narrow and tortuous channel, into which we ventured; and it was not till after an hour of anxieties that we got a view of the open sea, and of a pa.s.sage into it. From this moment we were able to coast along the Banquise without interruption.
On the 11th of July at 6 A.M. we reached, at last, the meridian of Jan Mayen, at about eighteen leagues" distance [Footnote: I think there must be some mistake here; when we parted company with the "Reine Hortense," we were still upwards of 100 miles distant from the southern extremity of Jan Mayen.] from the southern part of that island, but we saw the ice-field stretching out before us as far as the eye could reach; hence it became evident that Jan Mayen was blocked up by the ice, at least along its south coast. To ascertain whether it might still be accessible from the north, it would have been necessary to have attempted a circuit to the eastward, the possible extent of which could not be estimated; moreover, we had consumed half our coals, and had lost all hope of being rejoined by the "Saxon." Thus forced to give up any further attempts in that direction, Commodore de la Ronciere, having got the ship clear of the floating ice, took a W.S.W. course, in the direction of Reykjavik.
The instant the "Reine Hortense" a.s.sumed this new course, a telegraphic signal--as had been previously arranged-- acquainted Lord Dufferin with our determinations. Almost immediately, the young Lord sent on board us a tin box, with two letters, one for his mother, and one for our commander. In the latter he stated that--finding himself clear of the ice, and master of his own movements--he preferred continuing his voyage alone, uncertain whether he should at once push for Norway, or return to Scotland.
[Footnote: I was purposely vague as to my plans, lest you might learn we still intended to go on.] The two ropes that united the vessels were then cast off, a farewell hurrah was given, and in a moment the English schooner was lost in the fog.
Our return to Reykjavik afforded no incident worth notice; the "Reine Hortense," keeping her course outside the ice, encountered no impediment, except from the intense fogs, which forced her--from the impossibility of ascertaining her position--to lie to, and anchor off the cape during part of the day and night of the 13th.
On the morning of the 14th, as we were getting out at the Dyre Fiord, where we had anch.o.r.ed, we met--to our great astonishment--the "Cocyte" proceeding northward.
Her commander, Sonnart, informed us that on the evening of the 12th, the "Saxon"--in consequence of the injuries she had received, had been forced back to Reykjavik. She had hardly reached the ice on the 9th, when she came into collision with it; five of her timbers had been stove in, and an enormous leak had followed. Becoming water-logged, she was run ash.o.r.e, the first tine at Onundarfiord, and again in Reykjavik roads, whither she had been brought with the greatest difficulty."
LETTER X.
BUCOLICS--THE GOAT--MAID MARIAN--A LAPP LADY--LAPP LOVE- MAKING--THE SEA-HORSEMAN--THE GULF STREAM--ARCTIC CURRENTS--A DINGY EXPEDITION--A SCHOOL OF PERIPATETIC FISHES--ALTEN--THE CHATELAINE OF KAAFIORD--STILL NORTHWARD HO!
July 27th, Alten.
This letter ought to be an Eclogue, so pastoral a life have we been leading lately among these pleasant Nordland valleys. Perhaps it is only the unusual sight of meadows, trees and flowers, after the barren sea, and still more barren lands we have been accustomed to, that invests this neighbourhood with such a smiling character. Be that as it may, the change has been too grateful not to have made us seriously reflect on our condition; and we have at last determined that not even the envious ocean shall for the future cut us off from the pleasures of a shepherd life. Henceforth, the boatswain is no longer to be the only swain on board! We have purchased an ancient goat--a nanny-goat--so we may be able to go a-milking upon occasion. Mr. Webster, late of her Majesty"s Foot-guards, carpenter, etc., takes brevet-rank as dairy-maid; and our venerable pa.s.senger is at this moment being inducted into a sumptuous barrel [Footnote: The cask in question was bought in order to be rigged up eventually into a crow"s-nest, as soon as we should again find ourselves among the ice.] which I have had fitted up for her reception abaft the binnacle. A s.p.a.cious meadow of sweet-scented hay has been laid down in a neighbouring corner for her further accommodation; and the Doctor is tuning up his flageolet, in order to complete the bucolic character of the scene. The only personage amongst us at all disconcerted by these arrangements is the little white fox which has come with us from Iceland. Whether he considers the admission on board of so domestic an animal to be a reflection on his own wild Viking habits, I cannot say; but there is no impertinence--even to the nibbling of her beard when she is asleep--of which he is not guilty towards the poor old thing, who pa.s.ses the greater part of her mornings in gravely b.u.t.ting at her irreverent tormentor.
[Figure: fig-p142.gif]
But I must relate our last week"s proceedings in a more orderly manner.
As soon as the anchor was let go in Hammerfest harbour, we went ash.o.r.e; and having first ascertained that the existence of a post does not necessarily imply letters, we turned away, a little disappointed, to examine the metropolis of Finmark. A nearer inspection did not improve the impression its first appearance had made upon us; and the odour of rancid cod-liver oil, which seemed indiscriminately to proceed from every building in the town, including the church, has irretrievably confirmed us in our prejudices. Nevertheless, henceforth the place will have one redeeming a.s.sociation connected with it, which I am bound to mention. It was in the streets of Hammerfest that I first set eyes on a Laplander. Turning round the corner of one of the ill-built houses, we suddenly ran over a diminutive little personage in a white woollen tunic, bordered with red and yellow stripes, green trousers, fastened round the ankles, and reindeer boots, curving up at the toes like Turkish slippers. On her head--for notwithstanding the trousers, she turned out to be a lady--was perched a gay parti-coloured cap, fitting close round the face, and running up at the back into an overarching peak of red cloth. Within this peak was crammed--as I afterwards learnt--a piece of hollow wood, weighing about a quarter of a pound, into which is fitted the wearer"s back hair; so that perhaps, after all, there does exist a more in, convenient coiffure than a Paris bonnet.
Hardly had we taken off our hats, and bowed a thousand apologies for our unintentional rudeness to the fair inhabitant of the green trousers, before a couple of Lapp gentlemen hove in sight. They were dressed pretty much like their companion, except that an ordinary red night-cap replaced the queer helmet worn by the lady; and the knife and sporran fastened to their belts, instead of being suspended in front as hers were, hung down against their hips. Their tunics, too, may have been a trifle shorter.
None of the three were beautiful. High cheek-bones, short noses, oblique Mongol eyes, no eyelashes, and enormous mouths, composed a cast of features which their burnt-sienna complexion, and hair like ill-got-in hay did not much enhance. The expression of their countenances was not unintelligent; and there was a merry, half-timid, half-cunning twinkle in their eyes, which reminded me a little of faces I had met with in the more neglected districts of Ireland. Some ethnologists, indeed, are inclined to reckon the Laplanders as a branch of the Celtic family. Others, again, maintain them to be Ugrians; while a few pretend to discover a relationship between the Lapp language and the dialects of the Australian savages, and similar outsiders of the human family; alleging that as successive stocks bubbled up from the central birthplace of mankind in Asia, the earlier and inferior races were gradually driven outwards in concentric circles, like the rings produced by the throwing of a stone into a pond; and that consequently, those who dwell in the uttermost ends of the earth are, ipso facto, first cousins.
This relationship with the Polynesian n.i.g.g.e.rs, the native genealogists would probably scout with indignation, being perfectly persuaded of the extreme gentility of their descent. Their only knowledge of the patriarch Noah is as a personage who derives his princ.i.p.al claim to notoriety from having been the first Lapp. Their acquaintance with any sacred history--nay, with Christianity at all--is very limited. It was not until after the thirteenth century that an attempt was made to convert them; and although Charles the Fourth and Gustavus ordered portions of Scripture to be translated in Lappish, to this very day a great proportion of the race are pagans; and even the most illuminated amongst them remain slaves to the grossest superst.i.tion. When a couple is to be married, if a priest happens to be in the way, they will send for him perhaps out of complaisance; but otherwise, the young lady"s papa merely strikes a flint and steel together, and the ceremony is not less irrevocably completed. When they die, a hatchet and a flint and steel are invariably buried with the defunct, in case he should find himself chilly on his long journey--an unnecessary precaution, many of the orthodox would consider, on the part of such lax religionists. When they go boar-hunting--the most important business in their lives--it is a sorcerer, with no other defence than his incantations, who marches at the head of the procession. In the internal arrangements of their tents, it is not a room to themselves, but a door to themselves, that they a.s.sign to their womankind; for woe betide the hunter if a woman has crossed the threshold over which he sallies to the chase; and for three days after the slaughter of his prey he must live apart from the female portion of his family in order to appease the evil deity whose familiar he is supposed to have destroyed. It would be endless to recount the innumerable occasions upon which the ancient rites of Jumala are still interpolated among the Christian observances they profess to have adopted.
Their manner of life I had scarcely any opportunities of observing. Our Consul kindly undertook to take us to one of their encampments; but they flit so often from place to place, it is very difficult to light upon them. Here and there, as we cruised about among the fiords, blue wreaths of smoke rising from some little green nook among the rocks would betray their temporary place of abode; but I never got a near view of a regular settlement.
In the summer-time they live in canvas tents: during winter, when the snow is on the ground, the forest Lapps build huts in the branches of trees, and so roost like birds. The princ.i.p.al tent is of an hexagonal form, with a fire in the centre, whose smoke rises through a hole in the roof. The gentlemen and ladies occupy different sides of the same apartment; but a long pole laid along the ground midway between them symbolizes an ideal part.i.tion, which I dare say is in the end as effectual a defence as lath and plaster prove in more civilized countries. At all events, the ladies have a doorway quite to themselves, which, doubtless, they consider a far greater privilege than the seclusion of a separate boudoir.
Hunting and fishing are the princ.i.p.al employments of the Lapp tribes; and to slay a bear is the most honourable exploit a Lapp hero can achieve. The flesh of the slaughtered beast becomes the property--not of the man who killed him, but of him who discovered his trail, and the skin is hung up on a pole, for the wives of all who took part in the expedition to shoot at with their eyes bandaged. Fortunate is she whose arrow pierces the trophy,--not only does it become her prize, but, in the eyes of the whole settlement, her husband is looked upon thence forth as the most fortunate of men. As long as the chase is going on, the women are not allowed to stir abroad; but as soon as the party have safely brought home their booty, the whole female population issue from the tents, and having deliberately chewed some bark of a species of alder, they spit the red juice into their husband"s faces, typifying thereby the bear"s blood which has been shed in the honourable encounter.
Although the forests, the rivers, and the sea supply them in a great measure with their food, it is upon the reindeer that the Laplander is dependent for every other comfort in life. The reindeer is his estate, his horse, his cow, his companion, and friend. He has twenty-two different names for him. His coat, trousers, and shoes are made of reindeer"s skin, st.i.tched with thread manufactured from the nerves and sinews of the reindeer. Reindeer milk is the most important item in his diet. Out of reindeer horns are made almost all the utensils used in his domestic economy; and it is the reindeer that carries his baggage, and drags his sledge. But the beauty of this animal is by no means on a par with his various moral and physical endowments. His antlers, indeed, are magnificent, branching back to the length of three or four feet; but his body is poor, and his limbs thick and ungainly; neither is his pace quite so rapid as is generally supposed. The Laplanders count distances by the number of horizons they have traversed; and if a reindeer changes the horizon three times during the twenty-four hours, it is thought a good day"s work. Moreover, so just an appreciation has the creature of what is due to his own great merit, that if his owner seeks to tax him beyond his strength, he not only becomes restive, but sometimes actually turns upon the inconsiderate Jehu who has over-driven him.
When, therefore, a Lapp is in a great hurry, instead of taking to his sledge, he puts on a pair of skates exactly twice as long as his own body, and so flies on the wings of the wind.
Every Laplander, however poor, has his dozen or two dozen deer; and the flocks of a Lapp Croesus amount sometimes to two thousand head. As soon as a young lady is born--after having been duly rolled in the snow--she is dowered by her father with a certain number of deer, which are immediately branded with her initials, and thenceforth kept apart as her especial property. In proportion as they increase and multiply does her chance improve of making a good match. Lapp courtships are conducted pretty much in the same fashion as in other parts of the world.
The aspirant, as soon as he discovers that he has lost his heart, goes off in search of a friend and a bottle of brandy. The friend enters the tent, and opens simultaneously--the brandy--and his business; while the lover remains outside, engaged in hewing wood, or some other menial employment. If, after the brandy and the proposal have been duly discussed, the eloquence of his friend prevails, he is himself called into the conclave, and the young people are allowed to rub noses. The bride then accepts from her suitor a present of a reindeer"s tongue, and the espousals are considered concluded. The marriage does not take place for two or three years afterwards; and during the interval the intended is obliged to labour in the service of his father-in-law, as diligently as Jacob served Laban for the sake of his long-loved Rachel.
I cannot better conclude this summary of what I have been able to learn about the honest Lapps, than by sending you the tourist"s stock specimen of a Lapp love-ditty.
The author is supposed to be hastening in his sledge towards the home of his adored one:--
"Hasten, Kulnasatz! my little reindeer! long is the way, and boundless are the marshes. Swift are we, and light of foot, and soon we shall have come to whither we are speeding. There shall I behold my fair one pacing.
Kulnasatz, my reindeer, look forth! look around! Dost thou not see her somewhere--BATHING?"
As soon as we had thoroughly looked over the Lapp lady and her companions, a process to which they submitted with the greatest complacency, we proceeded to inspect the other lions of the town; the church, the lazar-house,-- princ.i.p.ally occupied by Lapps,--the stock fish establishment, and the hotel. But a very few hours were sufficient to exhaust the pleasures of Hammerfest; so having bought an extra suit of jerseys for my people, and laid in a supply of other necessaries, likely to be useful in our cruise to Spitzbergen, we exchanged dinners with the Consul, a transaction by which, I fear, he got the worst of the bargain, and then got under way for this place,--Alten.
The very day we left Hammerfest our hopes of being able to get to Spitzbergen at all--received a tremendous shock.
We had just sat down to dinner, and I was helping the Consul to fish, when in comes Wilson, his face, as usual, upside down, and hisses something into the Doctor"s ear.
Ever since the famous dialogue which had taken place between them on the subject of sea-sickness, Wilson had got to look upon Fitz as in some sort his legitimate prey; and whenever the burden of his own misgivings became greater than he could bear, it was to the Doctor that he unbosomed himself. On this occasion, I guessed, by the look of gloomy triumph in his eyes, that some great calamity had occurred, and it turned out that the following was the agreeable announcement he had been in such haste to make: "Do you know, Sir?"--This was always the preface to tidings unusually doleful. "No--what?" said the Doctor, breathless. "Oh nothing, Sir; only two sloops have just arrived, Sir, from Spitzbergen, Sir--where they couldn"t get, Sir;--such a precious lot of ice--two hundred miles from the land-and, oh, Sir--they"ve come back with all their bows stove in!" Now, immediately on arriving at Hammerfest, my first care had been to inquire how the ice was lying this year to the northward, and I had certainly been told that the season was a very bad one, and that most of the sloops that go every summer to kill sea-horses (i.e., walrus) at Spitzbergen, being unable to reach the land., had returned empty-handed; but as three weeks of better weather had intervened since their discomfiture, I had quite rea.s.sured myself with the hope, that in the meantime the advance of the season might have opened for us a pa.s.sage to the island.
This news of Wilson"s quite threw me on my back again.
The only consolation was, that probably it was not true; so immediately after dinner we boarded the honest Sea-horseman who was reported to have brought the dismal intelligence. He turned out to be a very cheery intelligent fellow of about five-and-thirty, six feet high, with a dashing "devil-may-care" manner that completely imposed upon me. Charts were got out, and the whole state of the case laid before me in the clearest manner. Nothing could be more unpromising. The sloop had quitted the ice but eight-and-forty hours before making the Norway coast; she had not been able even to reach Bear Island. Two hundred miles of ice lay off the southern and western coast of Spitzbergen--(the eastern side is always blocked up with ice)--and then bent round in a continuous semicircle towards Jan Mayen. That they had not failed for want of exertion--the bows of his ships sufficiently testified.
As to OUR getting there it was out of the question. So spake the Sea-horseman. On returning on board the "Foam"
I gave myself up to the most gloomy reflections. This, then, was to be the result of all my preparations and long-meditated schemes. What likelihood was there of success, after so unfavourable a verdict? Ipse dixit, equus marinus. It is true the horse-marines have hitherto been considered a mythic corps, but my friend was too substantial-looking for me to doubt his existence: and unless I was to ride off on the proverbial credulity of the other branch of that amphibious profession, I had no reason to question his veracity. Nevertheless, I felt it would not become a gentleman to turn back at the first blush of discouragement. If it were possible to reach Spitzbergen, I was determined to do so. I reflected that every day that pa.s.sed was telling in our favour. It was not yet the end of July; even in these lat.i.tudes winter does not commence much before September, and in the meantime the tail of the Gulf Stream would still be wearing a channel in the ice towards the pole; so, however unpromising might be the prospect, I determined, at all events, that we should go and see for ourselves how matters really stood.
But I must explain to you why I so counted upon the a.s.sistance of the Gulf Stream to help us through.
The entire configuration of the Arctic ice is determined by the action of that mysterious current on its edges.
Several theories have been advanced to account for its influence in so remote a region. I give you one which appears to me reasonable. It is supposed, that in obedience to that great law of Nature which seeks to establish equilibrium in the temperature of fluids,--a vast body of gelid water is continually mounting from the Antarctic, to displace and regenerate the over-heated oceans of the torrid zone. Bounding up against the west side of South America, the ascending stream skirts the coasts of Chili and Peru, and is then deflected in a westerly direction across the Pacific Ocean, where it takes the name of the Equatorial Current. Having completely encircled Australia, it enters the Indian Sea, sweeps up round the Cape of Good Hope, and, crossing the Atlantic, twists into the Gulf of Mexico. Here its flagging energies are suddenly accelerated in consequence of the narrow limits within which it finds itself compressed. So marvellous does the velocity of the current now become, so complete its isolation from the deep sea bed it traverses, that by the time it issues again into the Atlantic, its. .h.i.therto diffused and loitering waters are suddenly concentrated into what Lieutenant Maury has happily called--"a river in the ocean," swifter and of greater volume than either the Mississippi or the Amazon. Surging forth between the interstices of the Bahamas, that stretch like a weir across its mouth, it cleaves asunder the Atlantic. So distinct is its individuality, that one side of a vessel will be scoured by its warm indigo-coloured water, while the other is floating in the pale, stagnant, weed-enc.u.mbered brine of the Mar de Sarga.s.so of the Spaniards. It is not only by colour, by its temperature, by its motion, that this (Greek) "ron Okeanuio" is distinguished; its very surface is arched upwards some way above the ordinary sea-level toward the centre, by the lateral pressure of the elastic liquid banks between which it flows. Impregnated with the warmth of tropic climes, the Gulf Stream-as it has now come to be called,--then pours its genial floods across the North Atlantic, laving the western coasts of Britain, Ireland, and Norway, and investing each sh.o.r.e it strikes upon, with a climate far milder than that enjoyed by other lands situated in the same lat.i.tudes.
Arrived abreast of the North Cape, the impetus of the current is in a great measure exhausted.
From causes similar (though of less efficacy, in consequence of the smaller area occupied by water) to those which originally gave birth to the ascending energy of the Antarctic waters, a gelid current is also generated in the Arctic Ocean, which, descending in a south-westerly direction, encounters the already faltering Gulf Stream in the s.p.a.ce between Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla. A contest for the mastery ensues, which is eventually terminated by a compromise. The warmer stream, no longer quite able to hold its own, splits into two branches, the one squeezing itself round the North Cape, as far as that Varangar Fiord which Russia is supposed so much to covet, while the other is pushed up in a more northerly direction along the west coast of Spitzbergen. But although it has power to split up the Gulf Stream for a certain distance, the Arctic current is ultimately unable to cut across it, and the result is an acc.u.mulation of ice to the south of Spitzbergen in the angle formed by the bifurcation, as Mr. Grote would call it, of the warmer current.
It is quite possible, therefore, that the north-west extremity of Spitzbergen may be comparatively clear, while the whole of its southern coasts are enveloped in belts of ice of enormous extent. It was on this contingency that we built our hopes, and determined to prosecute our voyage, in spite of the discouraging report of the Norse skipper.