But northern streamers flare the long night through Over the cliffs stupendous, fraught with peril, Of icebergs, tinted with a ghostly hue Of amethyst and beryl. No human tears upon their graves are shed- Yet history shrines them with her mighty dead, T. HOOD. BESET BY ICE. As I was standing in the main rigging peering out over the smooth blue surface of the sea, a white twinkling point of light suddenly caught my eye about a couple of miles off on the port bow, which a telescope soon resolved into a solitary isle of ice, dancing and dipping in the sunlight. As you may suppose, the news brought everybody upon deck; and when almost immediately afterwards a string of other pieces-glittering like a diamond necklace-hove in sight, the excitement was extreme. Here at all events was honest blue salt water frozen solid, and when- as we proceeded the scattered fragments thickened, and passed like silver argosies on either hand, until at last we found ourselves enveloped in an innumerable fleet of bergs-it seemed as if we could never be weary of admiring a sight so strange and beautiful. It was rather in form and colour than in size that these ice islets were remarkable; anything approaching to a real iceberg we neither saw, nor are we likely to see. In fact, the lofty ice mountains that wander like vagrant islands along the coast of America, seldom or never come to the eastward or northward of Cape Farewell. They consist of land ice, and are all generated among bays and straits within Baffin's Bay, and first enter the Atlantic a good deal to the southward of Iceland; whereas the Polar ice in the midst of which we have been knocking about, is field ice, and—except when packed one ledge above the other, by great pressure—is comparatively flat. In quaintness of form, and in brilliancy of colours, these wonderful masses surpassed everything I had imagined; and we found endless amusement in watching their fantastic shapes. At one time it was a knight on horseback, clad in sapphire mail, a white plume above his casque; or a cathedral window with shafts of chrysoprase, new powdered by a snow-storm. Or a smooth sheer cliff of lapis lazuli; or a Banyan tree, with roots descending from its branches, and a foliage as delicate as the efflorescence of molten metal; or a fairy dragon, that breasted the water in scales of emerald; or anything else that your fancy chose to conjure up. After a little time, the mist again descended on the scene and dulled each glittering form to a shapeless mass of white; whilst, in spite of all our endeavours to keep upon our northerly course, we were constantly compelled to turn and wind about in every direction -sometimes standing on for several hours at a stretch to the southward and eastward. After sailing some considerable distance through a field of ice, which kept getting more closely packed as we pushed farther into it, we came upon another barrier equally impenetrable that stretched away from the island toward the southward and eastward. Under these circumstances, the only thing to be done was to get back to where the ice was looser. But even to extricate ourselves from our present position was now no longer of such easy performance. Within the last hour the wind had shifted into the north-west,-that is to say, it was blowing right down the path along which we had picked our way; in order to return, therefore, it would be necessary to work the ship to windward through a sea thickly crammed with ice. Moreover it had become evident from the obvious closing of the open spaces, that some considerable pressure was acting upon the outside of the field; but whether originating in a current or the change of wind, or another field being driven down upon it, I could not tell. Be that as it might, out we must get,-unless we wanted to be cracked like a walnut-shell between the drifting ice and the solid belt to leeward; so sending a steady hand to the helm, -for these unusual phenomena had begun to make some of my people lose their heads a little, no one on board having ever seen a bit of ice before,—I stationed myself in the bows, while Mr. Wyse conned the vessel from the square yard. Then there began one of the prettiest and most exciting pieces of nautical manoeuvring that can be imagined. Every single soul on board was summoned upon deck; to all, their several stations and duties were assigned-always excepting the cook, who was merely directed to make himself generally useful. As soon as everybody was ready, down went the helm, -about came the ship,—and the critical part of the business commenced. Of course, in order to wind and twist the schooner in and out among the devious channels left among the hummocks, it was necessary she should have considerable way on her; at the same time so narrow were some of the passages, and so sharp their turnings, that unless she had been the most hardy vessel in the world, she would have had a very narrow squeak for it. I never saw anything so beautiful as her behaviour. Had she been a living creature, she could not have dodged, and wound, and doubled, with more conscious cunning and dexterity; and it was quite amusing to hear the endearing way in which the people spoke to her, each time the nimble creature contrived to elude some more than usually threatening tongue of ice. Once or twice, in spite of all our exertions, it was impossible to save her from a collision; all that remained to be done, as soon as it became evident she could not clear some particular floe, or go about in time to avoid it, was to haul the staysail sheet to weather in order to deaden her way as much as possible, and-putting the helm down -let her go right at it, so that she should receive the blow on her stern, and not on the bluff of her bow; while all hands, armed with spars and fenders, rushed forward to ease off the shock. And here I feel it just to pay a tribute of admiration to the cook, who on these occasions never failed to exhibit an immense amount of misdirected energy, breaking— I remember at the same moment both the cabin sky-light and an oar, in single combat with a large berg that was doing no particular harm to us, but against which he seemed suddenly to have conceived a violent spite. Luckily a con siderable quantity of snow overlay the ice, and this, acting as a buffer, in some measure mitigated the violence of the concussion; while the very fragility of her build diminishing the momentum, proved in the end the little schooner's greatest security. At last, after having received two or three pretty severe bumps,—though the loss of a little copper was the only damage they entailed,—we made our way back to the northern end of the island, where the pack was looser, and we had at all events a little more breathing room. LORD DUFFERIN. A SEA-BOAT. Of all things, living or lifeless, upon this strange earth, there is but one which, having reached the mid-term of appointed human endurance on it, I still regard with unmitigated amazement. I know, indeed, that all around me is wonderful; but I cannot answer it with wonder: a dark veil, with the foolish words 'Nature of Things' upon it, casts its deadening folds between me and their dazzling strangeness. Flowers open, and stars rise, and it seems to me they could have done no less. The mystery of distant mountain-blue only makes me reflect that the earth is of necessity mountainous; the sea wave breaks at my feet, and I do not see how it should have remained unbroken. But one object there is still, which I never pass without the renewed wonder of childhood, and that is the bow of a boat. wherry, or revenue cutter, or clipper-yacht, but the blunt head of a common, bluff, undecked sea-boat, lying aside in its furrow of beach sand. The sum of navigation is in that. You may magnify it or decorate it as you will; you do not add to the wonder of it. Lengthen it into hatchet-like edge of iron, strengthen it with complex tracery of ribs of oak, carve it and gild it till a column of light moves beneath it on the sea, you have made no more of it than it was at first. Not of a racing |