After Icebergs

WITH A

PAINTER

ICEBERG AT SUNSET

D. APPLETON & C^o. 443 & 445 BROADWAY

Lith. of Sarony Major & Knapp 449 Broadway NY.

AFTER ICEBERGS

WITH A PAINTER:

A

SUMMER VOYAGE TO LABRADOR AND AROUND

NEWFOUNDLAND.

BY

REV. LOUIS L. NOBLE,

AUTHOR OF THE “LIFE OF COLE,” “POEMS,” ETC.

NEW YORK:

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,

443 & 445 BROADWAY.

LONDON: 16 LITTLE BRITAIN.

M.DCCC.LXI.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1861,

By D. APPLETON & CO.,

In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern

District of New York.

TO

E. D. PALMER,

THE SCULPTOR,

THIS VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY

Dedicated.

PREFACE.

The title-page alone would serve for a preface to the present volume. It is the record of a voyage, during the summer of 1859, in company with a distinguished landscape painter, along the north-eastern coast of British America, for the purpose of studying and sketching icebergs.

It was thought, at first, that the shores in the neighborhood of St. Johns, Newfoundland, upon which many bergs are often floated in, would afford all facilities. It was found, however, upon experiment, that they did not. Icebergs were too few for the requisite variety; too scattered to be reached conveniently; and too distant to be minutely examined from land. One needed to be in the midst of them, where he could command views, near or remote, of all sides of them, at all hours of the day and evening.

For that purpose a small vessel was hired to take us to Labrador. Favoring circumstances directed us to Battle Harbor, near Cape St. Louis, in the waters of which icebergs, and all facilities for sketching them, abounded.

To diversify the journey, we returned through the Gulf of St. Lawrence, coasting the west of Newfoundland, and the shores of Cape Breton, and concluding with a ride across the island, and through Nova Scotia to the Bay of Fundy.

If the writer has succeeded in picturing to his reader, with some freshness, what he saw and felt, then will the purpose of the book, made from notes pencilled rapidly, have been accomplished.

L. L. N.

Hudson, New Jersey,

March, 1861.

CONTENTS.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

AFTER ICEBERGS WITH A PAINTER.

CHAPTER I.

COOL AND NOVEL.

“After icebergs!” exclaims a prudent, but imaginary person, as I pencil the title on the front leaf of my note-book.

“Why, after deer and trout among the Adirondack Mountains with John Cheeney, the Leather-stocking of those wilds, who kills his moose and panther with a pistol; or after salmon on the Jaques Cartier and Saguenay, is thought to be quite enough for your summer tourist.

“After buffalo is almost too much for any not at home in the great unfenced, Uncle Sam’s continental parks, where he pastures his herds, and waters them in the Platte and Colorado, and walls out the Pacific with the Rocky Mountains. He is rather a fast hunter who indulges in the chase in those fair fields. It is no boy’s play to commit yourself to mule and horse, the yawls of the prairie, riding yourself sore and thirsty over the gracefully rolling, never-breaking swells, the green seas sparkling with dewy flowers, but never coming ashore. The ocean done up in solid land is weary voyaging to one whose youthful footsteps were over the fields, to the sound of sabbath bells.

“After ostriches, with the ship of the desert, although rather a hot chase for John and Jonathan over broad sands, yellow with the sunshine of centuries, and the bird speeding on legs swift as the spokes of the rapid wheels, is, nevertheless, a pleasure enjoyed now and then.

“But after icebergs is certainly a cool, if not a novel and perilous adventure. A few climb to the ices of the Andes; but after the ices of Greenland, except by leave of government or your merchant prince, is entirely another thing.

“You will do well to recollect, that nature works in other ways in the high north than in the high Cordilleras and Alps, and especially in the latter, where she carefully slides her mer-de-glace into the warm valley, and gently melts it off, letting it run merrily and freely to the sea, every crystal fetter broken into silvery foam. But in Greenland she heaves her mile-wide glacier, in all its flinty hardness, into the great deep bodily, and sends it, both a glory and a terror, to flourish or perish as the currents of the solemn main move it to wintry or to summer climes. After icebergs! Weigh well the perils and the pleasures of this new summer hunting.”

“We have weighed them, I confess, not very carefully; only ‘hefting’ them a little, just enough to help us to a guess that both are somewhat heavier than the ordinary delights and dangers of sporting nearer home. But, Prudens, my good friend, consider the ancient saw, ‘Nothing venture nothing have.’ Not in the least weary of the old, we would yet have something new, altogether new. You shall seek the beauties of scales and of plumage, and the graces of motion and the wild music of voices, among the creatures of the brooks and woodlands. Our game, for once, is the wandering alp of the waves; our wilderness, the ocean; our steed, the winged vessel; our arms, the pencil and the pen; our game-bags, the portfolio, painting-box, and note-book, all harmless instruments, you perceive, with mild report. It is seldom that they are heard at any distance, although, at intervals, the sound has gone out as far as the guns of the battle-field.

“Should we have the sport we anticipate, you may see the rarest specimen of our luck preserved in oil and colors, a method peculiar to those few, who intend their articles less for the market than for immortality, as men call the dim glimmering of things in the dusky reaches of the past.

“But you shall hear from us, from time to time, if possible, how we speed in our grand hunt, and how the pleasures and the risks make the scale of our experience vibrate. Within a few minutes, we shall be on our way to Boston, darting across grassy New England, regardless as the riders of the steeple-chase of cliff and gulf, fence, wall and river, with a velocity of wheels that would set the coach on fire, did not ingenuity stand over the axles putting out the flame with oil.

“This evening, we meet a choice few in one of those bowery spots of Brookline, where intelligence dwells with taste and virtue, and talk of our excursion.

“To-morrow, amid leave-takings, smiles and tears, and the waving of handkerchiefs, of which we shall be only quiet spectators, with the odor of our first sea-dinner seasoning the brief excitement of the scene, and all handsomely rounded off with the quick thunder of the parting gun, we sail, at noon, in the America.”

CHAPTER II.

ON THE EDGE OF THE GULF-STREAM.

Friday Morning, June 17, 1859. Here we are on the edge of the Gulf-Stream, loitering in a fog that would seem to drape the whole Atlantic in its chilly, dismal shroud. We are as impatient as children before the drop-curtain of a country show, and in momentary expectation that this unlucky mist will rise and exhibit Halifax, where we leave the steamer, and take a small coasting-vessel for Cape Breton and Newfoundland.

As we anticipated, both of us have been sea-sick continually. I had hoped that we should have the pleasure of one dinner at least, with that good appetite so common upon coming off into the salt air. But before the soup was fairly off there came over me the old qualm, the herald of those dreadful impulses that drive the unhappy victim either to the side of the vessel, or down into its interior, where he lays himself out, pale and trembling, on his appointed shelf, and awaits in gloomy silence the final issue. It is needless to record, that, with that unlucky attempt to enjoy the luxuries of the table, perished, not only the power, but the wish to eat.

Yesterday, when I came on deck, I found C⁠—— conversing with Agassiz. Although so familiar with the Alpine glaciers, and all that appertains to them, he had never seen an iceberg, and almost envied us the delight and excitement of hunting them. But not even the presence and the fine talk of the great naturalist could lay the spirit of sea-sickness. Like a very adder lurking under the doorstone of appetite, it refused to hear the voice of the charmer. Out it glided, repulsive reptile! and away we stole, creeping down into our state-room, there to burrow in damp sheets, taciturn and melancholy “wretches, with thoughts concentred all in self.” An occasional remark, either sad or laughable, broke the sameness of the literally rolling hours. By what particular process of mind, I shall not trouble myself to explain, the Painter, who occupied the lower berth, all at once gave signs that he had come upon the borders of a capital story, and with the spirit to carry even a dull listener to the further side of it, and keep him thoroughly amused. It was a traveller’s tale, a story of his own first ride over the mountains of New Granada, accompanied by a friend, on his way to the Andes.

CHAPTER III.

THE PAINTER’S STORY.

Twenty days, and most of them days of intense heat and sea-sickness, were spent on a brig from New York to the mouth of the Magdalena. In twenty minutes all that tedious voyage was sailed over again, and he was in the best humor possible for the next nine days in a steamboat up the river, a mighty stream, whose forests appear like hills of verdure ranging along its almost endless banks.

After the steamboat, came a tiresome time in a canoe, followed by a dark and fireless night in the great woods, where they were stung by the ants, and startled by the hootings and howlings, and all the strange voices and noises of a tropical forest.

Then the tale kept pace with the mules all day, jogging on slowly, an all-day story that pictured to the listener’s mind all the passing scenery and incidents, the people and the travellers themselves, even the ears of the self-willed, ever-curious mules. Towards sunset, the wayfarers found themselves journeying along the slope of a mountain, willing to turn in for the night at almost any dwelling that appeared at the road-side. The guide and the baggage were behind, and suggested the propriety of an early halt. But each place, to which they looked forward, seemed sufficiently repulsive, upon coming up, to make them venture on to the next. They ventured, without knowing it, beyond the very last, and got benighted where it was difficult enough in the broad day. After a weary ride up and up, until it did appear that they would never go down again in that direction, they stopped and consulted, but finally concluded to continue on, although the darkness was almost total, trusting to the mules to keep the path. At length it was evident that they were at the top of the mountain, and passing over upon its opposite side. Very soon, the road, a mere bridle-path, became steep and rugged, leading along the edges of precipices, and down rocky, zigzag steps, that nothing but the bold, sure-footed mule would or could descend. The fact was, they were going down a fearfully dangerous mountain-road, on one of the darkest nights. And, wonderful to tell, they went down safely, coming out of the forest into a level vale beset with thickets and vine-covered trees, a horrible perplexity, in which they became heated, scratched, and vexed beyond all endurance. At last, they lost the way and came to a dead halt. Here C⁠—— got off, and leaving the mule with F⁠——, plunged into the bushes to feel for the path, pausing occasionally to shout and to wait for an answer. No path, however, could be found. In his discouragement, he climbed a tree with the hope of seeing a light. He climbed it to the very top, and gazed around in all directions into the wide, unbroken night. There was a star or two in the black vault, but no gleam of human dwelling to be seen below.

Extremes do indeed meet, even the dreadful and the ridiculous. And so it was with C⁠—— in the tree-top. From almost desperation, he passed into a frolicsome mood, and began to talk and shout, at the top of his voice, in about the only Spanish he could then speak, that he would give cinco pesos, cinco pesos,—five dollars, five dollars, to any one that would come and help them. From five he rose to ten. But being scant of Spanish, he could express the ten in no other way than by doubling the cinco—cinco cinco pesos, cinco cinco pesos. Fruitless effort! A thousand pounds would have evoked no friendly voice from the inhospitable solitude.

The airing, though, was refreshing, and he clambered down and attempted his way back, shouting as usual, but now, to his surprise, getting no reply. What could it mean? Where was F⁠——? Had he got tired of waiting, and gone off? With redoubled energy C⁠—— pushed on through the interminable brush to see. He was in a perfect blaze of heat, and dripping with perspiration. A thousand vines tripped him, a thousand branches whipped him in the face. When he stopped to listen, his ears rung with the beating of his own heart, and he made the night ring too with his loud hallooing. But no one answered, and no mules could be found. Nothing was left but to push forward, and he did it, with a still increasing energy. Instantly, with a crack and crash he pitched headlong down quite a high bank into a broad brook. For a moment he was frightened, but finding himself sound, and safely seated on the soft bottom of the brook, he concluded to enjoy himself, moving up and down, with the warm water nearly to his neck, till he had enough of it; when he got up, and felt his way to the opposite bank, which, unfortunately for him, was some seven or eight feet of steep, wet clay. Again and again did he crawl nearly to the top, and slip back into the water—a treadmill operation that was no joke. A successful attempt at scaling this muddy barrier was made, at length, through the kindly intervention of some vines.

But how was all that? Where was he? He never crossed a stream in going to the tree. He must be lost. He must have become turned at the tree, and gone in a wrong direction. And yet he could not relinquish the notion that all was right. He decided to continue forward, pausing more frequently to halloo. To his exceeding joy, he presently heard a faint, and no very distant reply. He quickly heard it again—close at hand—“C⁠——, come here!—come here!” He hastened forward. F⁠—— was sitting on the mule. He said, in a low tone of voice, “Come here, and help me off. I am very sick.” He was alarmingly sick. C⁠—— helped him down, and laid him on the ground. The only thing to be done was to make a rough bed of the saddles and blankets, secure the mules, and wait for daylight. While engaged in this, one of the mules suddenly broke away, and with a perilous flourish of heels about C⁠——’s head, dashed off through the thickets, and was seen no more. To crown their troubles, a ferocious kind of ant attacked them at all points, and kept up their assault during the remainder of the miserable night. They had made their bed upon a large ant-hill. In the morning, there they were, they knew not where, with but one mule, trappings for two, and F⁠—— too indisposed to proceed. C⁠—— mounted the mule and set off for relief. A short ride brought him out upon the path, which soon led down to the border of a wide marsh. The crossing of the marsh was terrible. The poor animal sank into the mire to the girth, reared, plunged and rolled, plastering himself and rider all over and over again with the foulest mud. When they reached the solid ground, and trotted along towards some natives coming abroad to their labor, the appearance of our traveller, in quest of the sublime and beautiful, was certainly not imposing. He told his story to the staring Indians in the best way his ingenuity could invent, none of which they could be made to comprehend. He inquired the way to the town, the very name of which they seemed never to have heard. He asked the distance to any place,—the nearest,—no matter what. It was just as far as he was pleased to make it.

“Was it two leagues?”

“Si, Señor.”

“Was it five leagues?”

“Si, Señor.”

“Was it eight, nine, ten leagues?”

“Si, Señor.”

“For how much money would they guide him to the town?”

Ah! that was a different thing; they had more intelligence on that subject. They would guide him for a great deal. In fact, they would do it for about ten times its value. He spurred his muddy mule, galloped out of sight and hearing, more amused than vexed, and went ahead at a venture. The venture was lucky. In the course of the morning he made his entrance into the city, succeeded in finding out the residence of the person to whom he had letters of introduction, presented himself to the gentleman of the house, an American, and had both a welcome and a breakfast. Before the day was past, F⁠—— and himself were comfortably settled, and, with their kind host, were making merry over their first ride on the mountains of South America. I am sure I was made merry at the quiet recital. Lying as I was in my berth, rolled in cloak and blanket, and looking neither at the face nor motions of the speaker, but only at the blank beams and boards close above, I laughed till the tears ran copiously, and I forgot that I was miserable and sea-sick.

CHAPTER IV.

HALIFAX.

We have now been lying for hours off Halifax. The fog appears to be in a profound slumber. Whistle, bell and big guns have no power to wake it up. The waves themselves have gone to sleep under the fleecy covering. Old Ocean lazily breathes and dreams. The top-mast, lofty and slim, marks and flourishes on the misty sky, as an idler marks the sand with his cane. Pricked on by our impatience, back and forth we step the deck, about as purposeless as leopards step their cage. They are letting off the steam. It is flowing up from the great fountains, a deep and solemn voice, a grand ventriloquism, that muffles in its breadth and fulness all the smaller sounds, as the mighty roar dampens the noisy dashings of the cataract. What a sublime translation of human skill and genius is an engine, this stupendous creature of iron! How splendid are its polished limbs! What power in all those easy motions! What execution in those still and oily manœuvres!

Among the ladies there is one of more than ordinary beauty. Luxuriant, dark hair, a fair complexion with the bloom of health, a head and neck that would attract a sculptor, and surpassingly fine, black eyes. There is a power in beauty. Why has not God given it to us all? You shall answer me that in heaven. There is indeed a power in beauty. It goes forth from this young woman on all sides, like rays from some central light. I have called her a New England girl, but she turns out to be Welsh.

How like magic is the work of this fog! Instantly almost it is pulled apart like a fleece of wool, and lo! the heavens, the ocean, and the rugged shores. A pilot comes aboard from a fishing-boat, looking as rough and craggy as if he had been, toad-like, blasted out of the rocks of his flinty country, so brown and warty is his skin, so shaggy are his beard and hair, so sail-like and tarry is his raiment. The ancient mariner for all the world! His skinny hand touches no common mortal. His glittering eye looks right on, as he moves with silent importance to the place where shine the gilded buttons of the captain.

This is a wild northern scene. Hills, bony with rock and bristling with pointed firs, slope down to the sea. But yet how beautiful is any land looking off upon the barren deeps of ocean. Distant is the city on a hill-side, glittering at a thousand points, while on either hand, as we move in at the entrance of the harbor, are the pleasant woods and the white dwellings, country steeples and cultivated grounds. As the comfortless mist rolls away, and the golden light follows after, warming the wet and chilly landscape, I feel that there are bliss and beauty in Nova Scotia.

Grandly as we parade ourselves, in the presence of the country and the town, I prefer the more modest, back-street entrance of the railroad. The fact is, I am afraid of your great steamer on the main, and for the reason given by a friend of mine: if you have a smash-up on the land, why, there you are; if, on the sea, where are you?

I have been talking with the fair lady of Wales. She was all spirit. “There was much,” she said, “that was fine, in America; but Wales was most beautiful of all. Had I ever been in Wales?” One could well have felt sorry he was not then on his way to Wales. We parted where we met, probably to meet no more, and I went forward to gaze upon the crowded wharf, which we were then approaching. A few hasty adieus to some newly-formed acquaintances, and we passed ashore to seek the steamer for Cape Breton. It was waiting for us just behind the storehouse where we landed, and soon followed the America with a speed not exactly in proportion to the noise and effort.

CHAPTER V.

THE MERLIN.

Be it known that the Merlin, the name in which our vessel delights, is a small propeller, with a screw wheel, and a crazy mess of machinery in the middle, which go far towards making one deaf and dumb by day, but very wakeful and talkative by night; so thoroughly are the rumbling, thumping and clanking disseminated through all those parts appointed for the passengers. The Merlin has not only her peculiar noises, but her own peculiar ways and motions; motions half wallowing and half progressive; a compound motion very difficult to describe, at the time, mainly on account of a disagreeable confusion in the brain and stomach.

The arrangements in the Merlin for going to repose are better than those for quitting it. No chestnut lies more snugly in the burr than your passenger in his berth. If he happen to be short and slender, it is sure to fit him all the better. But when he gets out of it, he is pushed forward into company immediately, and washes in the one bowl, and looks at the one glass. On board the Merlin, one feels disposed to give the harshest words of his vocabulary a frequent airing. He sees how it is, and he says to himself: I have the secret of this Merlin; she is intended to put a stop to travel; to hinder people from leaving Halifax for Sydney and St. Johns. Wait you eight and forty hours after this ungenerous soliloquy, and speak out then. What do you say? The Merlin is the thing!

Away in this dusky corner of the world Peril spins her web. High and wide and deep she stretches her subtle lines: cliffs, reefs and banks, ice, currents, mists and winds. But the Merlin is no moth, no feeble insect to get entangled in this terrible snare. Dark-winged dragonfly of the sea, she cuts right through them all. Your grand ocean steamer, with commander of repute, plays the tragic actress quite too frequently in the presence of these dread capes. But the Merlin, with Captain Sampson’s tread upon the deck, in the night and in the light, with his look ahead and his eye aloft, and his plummet in the deep sea, trips along her billowy path as lightly as a lady trips among her flowers. A blessing upon Captain Sampson who sails the little Merlin from Nova Scotia to Newfoundland. He deserves to sail an Adriatic.

Here we are again in that same bad fog, that smothered much of our pleasure, and some of our good luck, in the America. It is gloomy midnight, and the sea is up. A pale, blue flame crowns the smoke-stack, and sheds a dreary light upon the sooty, brown sails. The breeze plays its wild music in the tight rigging, while the swells beat the bass on the hollow bow. To a landsman, how frightfully the Merlin rolls! But we are dashing along through this awful wilderness, right steadily. Every hour carries us ten miles nearer port. Ye wandering barks, on this dark, uncertain highway, do hear the mournful clang of our bell, and turn out in time as the law of nature directs! Ye patient, watchful mariners that keep the look-out forward, pierce the black mist with your keen sight, and spy the iceberg, that white sepulchre of the careless sailor. Just here there is a mountain in the deep, and we are crossing its summit, which accounts for the sharp, rough sea, the captain tells me. The vessel now turns into the wind, the loose sails roar and crack, and bound in their strong harness, like frightened horses; loud voices cut through the uproar, rapid footsteps thump, and rattling ropes lash the deck. Then there is a momentary lull: they heave the lead. The mountain top is under us, say, five hundred feet. All is right. Captain Sampson puts off into wider waters, and I, chilly and damp, creep into my berth, full of hope and sleep.

CHAPTER VI.

SYDNEY.—CAPE BRETON.—THE OCEAN.

Monday, June 19, 1859. We are still rising and sinking on the misty ocean, and somewhere on those great currents flowing from the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Yesterday, at an early hour, we were entering Sydney Harbor, Cape Breton, with a tide from sea, and a flood of brightness from the sun. The lively waters, the grassy fields dotted with white dwellings, and the dark green woodlands were bathed in splendor. A few clouds, that might have floated away from the cotton-fields of Alabama, kept Sunday in the quiet heavens. We went ashore with some thought of attending church, but found the time would not permit. A short walk to some Indian huts, with the smoke curling up from their peaks like the pictures of volcanoes, a cup of tea of our own making, some toast and fresh eggs in the village tavern, with the comfort of sitting to enjoy them at a steady table on firm land, gave an agreeable seasoning to the hour we lingered in Sydney, and braced us for the long stretch across to Newfoundland.

As you enter Sydney Bay, you see northward some remarkable cliffs, fan-like in shape as they rise from the sea. In the clear and brilliant morning air, they had a roseate and almost flame-like hue, which made them appear very beautiful. I thought of them as some gigantic sea-shells placed upon the brim of the blue main. When they set in the waves, along in the afternoon, the picturesque coast of Cape Breton was lost to view, and we became, to all appearance, a fixture in the centre of the circle made by the sky and the sea. How wearisome it grew! Always moving forward,—yet never getting further from the line behind,—never getting nearer to the line before,—ever in the centre of the circle. The azure dome was over us, its pearl-colored eaves all around us. Oh! that some power would lift its edge, all dripping with the brine of centuries, out of the ocean, and let the eye peep under! But all is changeless. We were under the centre of the dome, and on the hub of the great wheel, run out upon its long spokes as rapidly and persistently as we would. Our stiff ship was dashing, breast-deep, through the green and purple banks that old Neptune heaved up across our path. Bank after bank he rolled up before us, and our strong bows burst them all, striking foam, snowy foam, out of them by day, and liquid jewelry out of them by night. The circle was still around us, the tip of the dome above. We were leaving half a world of things, and approaching half a world of things, and yet we were that same fixture. Our brave motions, after all, turned out to be a kind of writhing on a point, in the middle of the mighty ring, under the key-stone of the marvellous vault. The comfort of the weary time was, that we sailed away from the morning, passed under the noon, and came up with, and cut through the evening.

When we caught up with the evening yesterday, and saw the sun set fire to, and burn off that everlasting ring, we were sitting quietly on deck, touched with the sweet solemnities of the hallowed hour. The night, with all that it would bring us, was coming out of the east, moving up its stupendous shadow over the ocean; the day, with all it had been to us, was leaving us, going off into the west over the great continent. We were crossing the twilight, that narrow, lonesome, neutral ground, where gloom and splendor interlock and wrestle. The little petrel piped his feeble notes, and flew close up, following under the very feathers of the ship, now skimming the glassy hollow of the swells, and then tiptoe on the crest. The wind was strengthening, tuning every cord and straining every sail, winnowing the fiery chaff, and sowing the sparkling grain forward on the furrowed waters. We had a vessel full of wind; and so vessel, wind and sparks together, went away across the sea as if they were seeking some grand rendezvous. Far and wide the waves all hastened in the same direction, rolling, leaping, crumbling into foam, bristling the snowy feathers on neck and breast as they skipped and flew upon each other in their play and passion. And so we all sped forward with one will, and with one step, keeping time to the music of the mighty band: clouds, winds and billows, seabirds, sails and sparkling smoke, and Merlin with her men; all moving forward, as some grand army moves onward to a battle-field. When there is really nothing to describe, why should not one record the conceits and fancies born of an evening at sea? So I thought, last evening, when I was a little sea-sick, and sick of the monotony of the scene, and a little home-sick, and felt that this was pleasure rather dearly bought. Still if one would see the planet upon which he has taken his passage round the sun, and through the spaces of the universe, he must be brave and patient, hopeful and good-tempered. Be this, or turn back, at the first view of salt-water, and go home to toil, to contentment and self-possession.

CHAPTER VII.

THE FIRST ICEBERGS.

Newfoundland seems to be wreathed with fogs forever. As a dwelling-place, this world certainly appears far from complete,—an argument for a better country. But yonder is the blue sky peeping through the mist, an intimation of that better country. A solitary bird sits upon a stick floating by, looking back curiously as it grows less and less. Now it merely dots the gleaming wave, and now it is quite wiped away. Thus float off into the past the winged pleasures of the hour.

Again we are at blindman’s-buff in the fog. The whistle and the bell remind us of the perils of this play. The gloom of evening deepens, and we go below with the hope of rounding Cape Race, and of wheeling down the northern sea direct for port, before daylight. Down the northern sea!—This calling north down instead of up, appears to me to be reversing the right order of things. It is against the stream, which, inshore, sets from Baffin’s Bay south; and, in respect of latitude, it is up-hill: the nearer the pole, the higher the latitude. And besides, it is up on the map, and was up all through my boyhood, when geography was a favorite study. But as down seems to be the direction settled upon in common parlance, down it shall be in all these pages.

Icebergs! Icebergs!—The cry brought us upon deck at sunrise. There they were, two of them, a large one and a smaller: the latter pitched upon the dark and misty desert of the sea like an Arab’s tent; and the larger like a domed mosque in marble of a greenish white. The vaporous atmosphere veiled its sharp outlines, and gave it a softened, dreamy and mysterious character. Distant and dim, it was yet very grand and impressive. Enthroned on the deep in lonely majesty, the dread of mariners, and the wonder of the traveller, it was one of those imperial creations of nature that awaken powerful emotions, and illumine the imagination. Wonderful structure! Fashioned by those fingers that wrought the glittering fabrics of the upper deep, and launched upon those adamantine ways into Arctic seas, how beautiful, how strong and terrible! A glacier slipped into the ocean, and henceforth a wandering cape, a restless headland, a revolving island, to compromise the security of the world’s broad highway. No chart, no sounding, no knowledge of latitude avails to fix thy whereabout, thou roving Ishmael of the sea. No look-out, and no friendly hail or authoritative warning can cope with thy secrecy or thy silence. Mist and darkness are thy work-day raiment. Though the watchman lay his ear to the water, he may not hear thy coming footsteps.

We gazed at the great ark of nature’s building with steady, silent eyes. Motionless and solemn as a tomb, it seemed to look back over the waves as we sped forward into its grand presence. The captain changed the course of the steamer a few points so as to pass it as closely as possible. C⁠—— was quietly making preparation to sketch it. The interest was momentarily increasing. We were on our way to hunt icebergs, and had unexpectedly come up with the game. We fancied it was growing colder, and felt delighted at the chilly air, as if it had been so much breath fresh from the living ice. To our regret, I may say, to our grief, the fog suddenly closed the view. No drop-curtain could have shut out the spectacle more quickly and more completely. The steamer was at once put on her true course, and the icebergs were left to pursue their solitary way along the misty Atlantic.

CHAPTER VIII.

NEWFOUNDLAND.—St. JOHNS.

When the mist dispersed, the rocky shores of Newfoundland were close upon our left,—lofty cliffs, red and gray, terribly beaten by the waves of the broad ocean. We amused ourselves, as we passed abreast the bays and headlands and rugged islands, with gazing at the wild scene, and searching out the beauty timidly reposing among the bleak and desolate. On the whole, Newfoundland, to the voyager from the States, is a lean and bony land, in thin, ragged clothes, with the smallest amount of ornament. Along the sides of the dull, brown mountains there is a suspicion of verdure, spotted and striped here and there with meagre woods of birch and fir. The glory of this hard region is its coast: a wonderful perplexity of fiords, bays and creeks, islands, peninsulas and capes, endlessly picturesque, and very often magnificently grand. Nothing can well exceed the headlands and precipices, honey-combed, shattered, and hollowed out into vast caverns, and given up to the thunders and the fury of the deep-sea billows. Read the Pirate of Scott again, and Sumburg Head will picture for you numbers of heads, of which it is not important to mention the name. The brooks that flow from the highlands, and fall over cliffs of great elevation into the very surf, and that would be counted features of grandeur in some countries, are here the merest trifles, a kind of jewelry on the hem of the landscape.

The harbor of St. Johns is certainly one of the most remarkable for bold and effective scenery on the Atlantic shore. The pictures of it, which of late abound, and are quite truthful as miniature portraits, fail entirely to suggest the grand expression and strong character of the coast. We were moving spiritedly forward over a bright and lively sea, watching the stern headlands receding in the south, and starting out to view in the north, when we passed Cape Spear, a lofty promontory, crowned with a light-house and a signal-shaft, upon which was floating the meteor-flag of England, and at once found ourselves abreast the bay in front of St. Johns. Not a vestige, though, of any thing like a city was in sight, except another flag flitting on a distant pinnacle of rock. Like a mighty Coliseum, the sea-wall half encircled the deep water of this outer bay, into which the full power of the ocean let itself under every wind except the westerly. Right towards the coast where it gathered itself up into the greatest massiveness, and tied itself into a very Gordian knot, we cut across, curious to behold when and where the rugged adamant was going to split and let us through. At length it opened, and we looked through, and presently glided through a kind of mountain-pass, with all the lonely grandeur of the Franconia Notch. Above us, and close above, the rugged, brown cliffs rose to a fine height, armed at certain points with cannon, and before us, to all appearance, opened out a most beautiful mountain lake, with a little city looking down from the mountain side, and a swamp of shipping along its shores. We were in the harbor, and before St. Johns. As we bade adieu to the sea, and hailed the land with our plucky little gun, the echoes rolled among the hills, and rattled along the rocky galleries of the mountains in the finest style. We were quite delighted. So fresh and novel was the prospect, so unexpected were the peculiar sentiment and character of the scene, one could hardly realize that it was old to the experience of tens of thousands. I could scarcely help feeling, there was stupidity somewhere, that more had not been said about what had been seen by so many for so long a time.

CHAPTER IX.

AN ENGLISH INN.—GOVERNOR AND BISHOP.—SIGNAL HILL.

Wednesday, June 22, 1859.—We are at Warrington’s, a genuine English inn, with nice rooms and a home-like quiet, where the finest salmon, with other luxuries, can be had at moderate prices. Every thing is English but ourselves. I feel that the Yankee in me is about as prominent as the bowsprit of the Great Republic, the queen ship of the metropolis of yankeedom, the renowned port from which we sailed, and through the scholarly air of which my thoughts wing their flight home.

Among other qualities foremost at this moment, (and for which I discover the Bull family is certainly pre-eminent,) is appetite, the measure of which, at table, is time, not quantity. My chief solicitude at breakfast, dinner, tea and supper, is not so much about what I am to eat, as about how I shall eat, so as not to distinguish myself. C⁠——, who is looked upon as one of the immortals, and I, in his wake, perhaps as his private chaplain, may be regarded as representative people from the States. We would, therefore, avoid signalizing ourselves at the trencher. The method adopted on these frequent occasions, is to be on hand early, to expend small energy in useless conversation, and to retire modestly, though late, from the entertainment. It is surprising how well we acquit ourselves without exciting admiration. I am hopeful that the impression in the house is, that we are small eaters and talkers, persons slightly diffident, who eat chiefly in order to live, and prosper on our voyage. Under this cover, it is wonderful what an amount of spoil we bear away, over which merriment applauds in the privacy of our rooms.

When the gray morning light stole at the same time into my chamber and my dreams, it was raining heavily, a seasonable hindrance to early excursions, affording ample time to arrange those plans which we are now carrying out. In company with Mr. Newman, our consul, to whom we are indebted for unremitting attentions and hospitalities, we first called on the Bishop of Newfoundland.

The visitation of his large diocese, which embraces both the island and Labrador, together with the distant isle of Bermuda, has given him a thorough knowledge of the shores and ices of these northern seas. An hour’s conversation, illustrated with maps and drawings, seems to have put us in possession of nearly all the facts necessary in order to a pleasant and successful expedition. At the close of our interview, during which the Bishop informed us that he was just setting off upon an extensive coast visitation, he very kindly invited us to join his party for the summer, and take our passage in the Hawk, his “Church Ship.” It was a most tempting offer, and would have been accepted with delight had the voyage been shorter. There was no certainty of the vessel’s return before September, a time too long for my purposes. To be left in any port, in those out-of-the-way waters, with the expectation of a chance return, was not to be thought of. We declined the generous offer of the Bishop, but with real regret. To have made the tour of Newfoundland and Labrador, with a Christian gentleman and scholar so accomplished, would have been a privilege indeed. From the house of the Bishop, a neat residence near his cathedral, we climbed the hill upon which stands the palace of the Governor, Sir Alexander Bannerman, commanding a fine prospect of the town and harbor, the ocean and adjacent country. As we passed up the broad avenue, shaded by the poplar, birch and fir, instead of those patricians of the wood, the maple, oak and elm; the flag, waving in the cool sea-breeze, and the brown-coated soldier, pacing to and fro, reminded one of the presence of English power. His Excellency, a stately and venerable man, to whom we had come purposely to pay our respects, received us in a spacious room with antique furniture. During the conversation, he expressed much pleasure that a painter of distinction had come to visit the scenery of Newfoundland, and kindly offered such assistance as would facilitate sketching in the neighborhood. A soldier should watch for icebergs, on Signal Hill, a lofty peak that overlooks the sea; a boat should be at his command, the moment one was needed. Upon leaving, he gave us for perusal Sir Richard Bonnycastle’s Newfoundland. From the western front of the house, we overlooked a broad vale, dotted with farmhouses, and, in its June dress of grass and dandelions, quite New-England-like. We continued our walk to Quidy Viddy, a pretty lake, and returned in time to call upon Mr. Ambrose Shea, Speaker of the Assembly, to whom C⁠—— had letters of introduction.

After dinner we set off for Signal Hill, the grand observatory of the country, both by nature and art. Before we were half-way up, we found that June was June, even in Newfoundland. But there is something in a mountain ramble that pays for all warmth and fatigue. Little rills rattled by, paths wound among rocky notches and grassy chasms, and led out to dizzy “over-looks” and “short-offs.” The town with its thousand smokes sat in a kind of amphitheatre, and seemed to enjoy the spectacle of sails and colors in the harbor. Below us were the fishing-flakes, a kind of thousand-legged shelves, made of poles, and covered with spruce boughs, for drying fish, the local term for cod, and placed like terraces or large steps one above another on the rocky slopes. We struck into a fine military road, and passed spacious stone barracks, soldiers and soldiers’ families, goats and little gardens.

From the observatory, situated on the craggy pinnacle, both the rugged interior and the expanse of ocean were before us. Far off at sea a cloud of canvas was shining in the afternoon sun, a kind of golden white, while down the northern coast, distant several miles, was an iceberg. It was glittering in the sunshine like a mighty crystal. The work and play of to-morrow were resolved upon immediately, and we descended at our leisure, plucking the wild flowers among the moss and herbage, and gazing quietly at the hues and features of the extended prospect.

CHAPTER X.

THE RIDE TO TORBAY.—THE LOST SAILOR.—THE NEWFOUNDLAND DOG.

Thursday, June 23. We were stirring betimes, making preparations for our first venture after an iceberg. Unluckily, it was a Romish holiday, and every vehicle in town seemed to be busy carrying people about, by the time we thought it necessary to engage one for ourselves. We succeeded at length in securing a hard-riding wagon, driven by a young Englishman, and were soon on our way, trundling along at a good pace over the smooth road leading from St. Johns to Torbay, the nearest water to our berg, and distant some eight or nine miles. The morning was fine, the sunshine cheering, the air cool and bracing, and all went promisingly. The adjacent country is an elevated kind of barren, clothed with brushwood, spruce and birch, crossed by numerous little trout brooks, and spotted with ponds and wet meadows, with here and there a lonely-looking hut. But there were the songs of birds, the tinkling of cow-bells, and the odor of evergreens and flowers. A characteristic of the coast is its elevation above the country lying behind. Instead of descending, the lands rise, as you approach the ocean, into craggy domes, walls and towers, breaking off precipitously, and affording from the eminences of our road prospects of sparkling sea. Our hearts were full of music, and our minds and conversation were a kind of reflection of the solitary scene. For months, our young man tells us, the snow lies so deeply along this fine road as to render it impassable for sleighs, except when sufficiently hard to bear a horse. The snow-shoe is then in general use. One of the pests of early summer is the black fly, as we have already experienced. A few years ago, a sailor ran away from his vessel, at St. Johns, and took to these bushy wilds, in which, at length, he got lost, and finally perished from the bites of this pestilent fly. He was found accidentally, and in a state of insensibility, being covered with them, and so nearly devoured that he died within a few hours after his discovery.

Speaking of the Newfoundland dog, he told us that one of pure, original blood, was scarcely to be found. I had supposed, and had good reason for it, from what I had read in the papers, about the time of the visit to St. Johns, upon the laying of the Atlantic Cable, that any person could for a small sum purchase numbers of the finest dogs. I think a certain correspondent of some New York daily, told us that several gentlemen supplied themselves with these animals upon their departure. If such was the case, then they took away with them about the last of the real breed, and must have paid for them such prices as they would not like to own. Scarcely a splendid dog is now to be seen, and five, ten, and even twenty pounds sterling might be refused for him. We have not seen the first animal that compares with those which trot up and down Broadway nearly every week; and they are not the pure-blooded creature, either, by a good deal. It is to be regretted, that dogs of such strength, beauty and sagacity should have been permitted to become almost extinct in their native country.

CHAPTER XI.

TORBAY.—FLAKES AND FISH-HOUSES.—THE FISHING BARGE.—THE CLIFFS.—THE RETREAT TO FLAT ROCK HARBOR.—WILLIAM WATERMAN, THE FISHERMAN.

Torbay, finely described in a recent novel by the Rev. R. T. S. Lowell, is an arm of the sea, a short, strong arm with a slim hand and finger, reaching into the rocky land, and touching the waterfalls and rapids of a pretty brook. Here is a little village, with Romish and Protestant steeples, and the dwellings of fishermen, with the universal appendages of fishing-houses, boats and flakes. One seldom looks upon a hamlet so picturesque and wild. The rocks slope steeply down to the wonderfully clear water. Thousands of poles support half-acres of the spruce-bough shelf, beneath which is a dark, cool region, crossed with footpaths, and not unfrequently sprinkled and washed by the surf,—a most kindly office on the part of the sea, you will allow, when once you have scented the fish-offal perpetually dropping from the evergreen fish-house above. These little buildings on the flakes are conspicuous features, and look as fresh and wild as if they had just wandered away from the woodlands.

There they stand, on the edge of the lofty pole-shelf, or upon the extreme end of that part of it which runs off frequently over the water like a wharf, an assemblage of huts and halls, bowers and arbors, a curious huddle made of poles and sweet-smelling branches and sheets of birch-bark. A kind of evening haunts these rooms of spruce, at noonday, while at night a hanging lamp, like those we see in old pictures of crypts and dungeons, is to the stranger only a kind of buoy by which he is to steer his way through the darkness. To come off then without pitching headlong, and soiling your hands and coat, is the merest chance. Strange! one is continually allured into these piscatory bowers whenever he comes near them. In spite of the chilly, salt air, and the repulsive smells about the tables where they dress the fish, I have a fancy for these queer structures. Their front door opens upon the sea, and their steps are a mammoth ladder, leading down to the swells and the boats. There is a charm also about fine fishes, fresh from the net and the hook,—the salmon, for example, whose pink and yellow flesh has given a name to one of the most delicate hues of Art or Nature.

But where was the iceberg? We were not a little disappointed when all Torbay was before us, and nothing but dark water to be seen. To our surprise, no one had ever seen or heard of it. It must lie off Flat Bock Harbor, a little bay below, to the north. We agreed with the supposition that the berg must lie below, and made speedy preparations to pursue, by securing the only boat to be had in the village,—a substantial fishing-barge, laden rather heavily in the stern with at least a cord of cod-seine, but manned by six stalwart men, a motive power, as it turned out, none too large for the occasion. We embarked at the foot of a fish-house ladder, being carefully handed down by the kind-hearted men, and took our seats forward on the little bow-deck. All ready, they pulled away at their long, ponderous oars, with the skill and deliberation of life-long practice, and we moved out upon the broad, glassy swells of the bay towards the open sea, not indeed with the rapidity of a Yankee club-boat, but with a most agreeable steadiness, and a speed happily fitted for a review of the shores, which, under the afternoon sun, were made brilliant with lights and shadows.

We were presently met by a breeze, which increased the swell, and made it easier to fall in close under the northern shore, a line of stupendous precipices, to which the ocean goes deep home. The ride beneath these mighty cliffs was by far the finest boat-ride of my life. While they do not equal the rocks of the Saguenay, yet, with all their appendages of extent, structure, complexion and adjacent sea, they are sufficiently lofty to produce an almost appalling sense of sublimity. The surges lave them at a great height, sliding from angle to angle, and fretting into foam as they slip obliquely along the face of the vast walls. They descend as deeply as two hundred feet, and rise perpendicularly two, three, and four hundred feet from the water. Their stratifications are up and down, and of different shades of light and dark, a ribbed and striped appearance that increases the effect of height, and gives variety and spirit to the surface.

At one point, where the rocks advance from the main front, and form a kind of headland, the strata, six and eight feet thick, assume the form of a pyramid, from a broad base of a hundred yards or more running up to meet in a point. The heart of this vast cone has partly fallen out, and left the resemblance of an enormous tent with cavernous recesses and halls, in which the shades of evening were already lurking, and the surf was sounding mournfully. Occasionally it was musical, pealing forth like the low tones of a great organ with awful solemnity. Now and then, the gloomy silence of a minute was broken by the crash of a billow far within, when the reverberations were like the slamming of great doors.

After passing this grand specimen of the architecture of the sea, there appeared long rocky reaches, like Egyptian temples, old dead cliffs of yellowish gray, checked off by lines and seams into squares, and having the resemblance, where they have fallen out into the ocean, of doors and windows opening in upon the fresher stone. Presently we came to a break, where there were grassy slopes and crags intermingled, and a flock of goats skipping about, or ruminating in the warm sunshine. A knot of kids—the reckless little creatures!—were sporting along the edge of the precipice in a manner almost painful to witness. The pleasure of leaping from point to point, where a single mis-step would have dropped them hundreds of feet, seemed to be in proportion to the danger. The sight of some women, who were after the goats, reminded the boatmen of an accident which occurred here only a few days before: a lad playing about the steep, fell into the sea, and was drowned.

We were now close upon the point just behind which we expected to behold the iceberg. The surf was sweeping the black reef, that flanked the small cape, in the finest style,—a beautiful dance of breakers of dazzling white and green. As every stroke of the oars shot us forward, and enlarged our view of the field in which the ice was reposing, our hearts fairly throbbed with an excitement of expectation. “There it is!” one exclaimed. An instant revealed the mistake. It was only the next headland in a fog, which unwelcome mist was now coming down upon us from the broad waters, and covering the very tract where the berg was expected to be seen. Further and further out the long, strong sweep of the great oars carried us, until the depth of the bay between us and the next headland was in full view. It may appear almost too trifling a matter over which to have had any feeling worth mentioning or remembering, but I shall not soon forget the disappointment, when from the deck of our barge, as it rose and sank on the large swells, we stood up and looked around, and saw that if the iceberg, over which our very hearts had been beating with delight for twenty-four hours, was anywhere, it was somewhere in the depths of that untoward fog. It might as well have been in the depths of the ocean.

While the pale cloud slept there, there was nothing left for us but to wait patiently where we were, or retreat. We chose the latter. C⁠—— gave the word to pull for the settlement, at the head of the little bay just mentioned, and so they rounded the breakers on the reef, and we turned away for the second time, when the game, as we had thought, was fairly ours. Even the hardy fishermen, no lovers of “islands-of-ice,” as they call the bergs, felt for us, as they read in our looks the disappointment, not to say a little vexation. While on our passage in, we filled a half-hour with questions and discussions about that iceberg.

“We certainly saw it yesterday evening; and a soldier of Signal Hill told us that it had been close in at Torbay for several days. And you, my man there, say that you had a glimpse of it last evening. How happens it to be away just now? Where do you think it is?”

“Indeed, sir, he must be out in the fog, a mile or over. De’il a bit can a man look after a thing in a fog more nor into a snow-bank. Maybe, sir, he’s foundered; or he might be gone off to sea altogether, as they sometimes does.”

“Well, this is rather remarkable. Huge as these bergs are, they escape very easily under their old cover. No sooner do we think we have them, than they are gone. No jackal was ever more faithful to his lion, no pilot-fish to his shark, than the fog to its berg. We will run in yonder and inquire about it. We may get the exact bearing, and reach it yet, even in the fog.”

The wind and sea being in our favor, we soon reached a fishery-ladder, which we now knew very well how to climb, and wound our “dim and perilous way” through the evergreen labyrinth of fish-bowers, emerging on the solid rock, and taking the path to the fisherman’s house. Here lives and works and wears himself out, William Waterman, a deep-voiced, broad-chested, round-shouldered wight, dressed, not in cloth of gold, but of oil, with the foxy remnant of a last winter’s fur cap clinging to his large, bony head, a little in the style of a piece of turf to a stone. You seldom look into a more kindly, patient face, or into an eye that more directly lets up the light out of a large, warm heart. His countenance is one sober shadow of honest brown, occasionally lighted by a true and guileless smile. William Waterman has seen the “island-of-ice.” “It lies off there, two miles or more, grounded on a bank, in forty fathoms water.”

It was nearly six o’clock; and yet, as there were signs of the fog clearing away, we thought it prudent to wait. A dull, long hour passed by, and still the sun was high in the north-west. That heavy cod-seine, a hundred fathoms long, sank the stern of our barge rather deeply, and made it row heavily. For all that, there was time enough yet, if we could only use it. The fog still came in masses from the sea, sweeping across the promontory between us and Torbay, and fading into air nearly as soon as it was over the land. In the mean time, we sat upon the rocks—upon the wood-pile—stood around and talked—looked out into the endless mist—looked at the fishermen’s houses—their children—their fowls and dogs. A couple of young women, that might have been teachers of the village school, had there been a school, belles of the place, rather neatly dressed, and with hair nicely combed, tripped shyly by, each with an arm about the other’s waist, and very merry until abreast of us, when they were as silent and downcast as if they had been passing by their sovereign queen, or the Great Mogul. Their curiosity and timidity combined were quite amusing. We speculated upon the astonishment that would have seized upon their simple, innocent hearts, had they beheld, instead of us, a bevy of our city fashionables in full bloom.

At length we accepted an invitation to walk into the house, and sat, not under the good-man’s roof, but under his chimney, a species of large funnel, into which nearly one end of the house resolved itself. Here we sat upon some box-like benches before a wood fire, and warmed ourselves, chatting with the family. While we were making ourselves comfortable and agreeable, we made the novel, and rather funny discovery of a hen sitting on her nest just under the bench, with her red comb at our fingers’ ends. A large griddle hung suspended in the more smoky regions of the chimney, ready to be lowered for the baking of cakes or frying fish. Having tarred my hand, the fisherman’s wife, kind woman, insisted upon washing it herself. After rubbing it with a little grease, she first scratched it with her finger-nail, and then finished with soap and water and a good wiping with a coarse towel. I begged that she would spare herself the trouble, and allow me to help myself. But it was no trouble at all for her, and the greatest pleasure. And what should I know about washing off tar?

They were members of the Church of England, and seemed pleased when they found that I was a clergyman of the Episcopal Church. They had a pastor, who visited them and others in the village occasionally, and held divine service on Sunday at Torbay, where they attended, going in boats in summer, and over the hills on snow-shoes in the winter. The woman told me, in an undertone, that the family relations were not all agreed in their religious faith, and that they could not stop there any longer, but had gone to “America,” which they liked much better. It was a hard country, any way, no matter whether one were Protestant or Papist. Three months were all their summer, and nearly all their time for getting ready for the long, cold winter. To be sure, they had codfish and potatoes, flour and butter, tea and sugar; but then it took a deal of hard work to make ends meet. The winter was not as cold as we thought, perhaps; but then it was so long and snowy! The snow lay five, six, and seven feet deep. Wood was a great trouble. There was a plenty of it, but they could not keep cattle or horses to draw it home. Dogs were their only teams, and they could fetch but small loads at a time. In the mean while, a chubby little boy, with cheeks like a red apple, had ventured from behind his young mother, where he had kept dodging as she moved about the house, and edged himself up near enough to be patted on the head, and rewarded for his little liberties with a half-dime.

CHAPTER XII.

THE WHALES.—THE ICEBERG.—THE RETURN, AND THE RIDE TO St. JOHNS BY STARLIGHT.

The sunshine was now streaming in at a bit of a window, and I went out to see what prospect of success. C⁠——, who had left some little time before, was nowhere to be seen. The fog seemed to be in sufficient motion to disclose the berg down some of the avenues of clear air that were opened occasionally. They all ended, however, with fog instead of ice. I made it convenient to walk to the boat, and pocket a few cakes, brought along as a kind of scattering lunch. C⁠—— was descried, at length, climbing the broad, rocky ridge the eastern point of which we had doubled on our passage from Torbay. Making haste up the crags by a short cut, I joined him on the verge of the promontory, pretty well heated and out of breath.

The effort was richly rewarded. The mist was dispersing in the sunny air around us; the ocean was clearing off; the surge was breaking with a pleasant sound below. At the foot of the precipice were four or five whales, from thirty to fifty feet in length, apparently. We could have tossed a pebble upon them. At times abreast, and then in single file, round and round they went, now rising with a puff followed by a wisp of vapor, then plunging into the deep again. There was something in their large movements very imposing, and yet very graceless. There seemed to be no muscular effort, no exertion of any force from within, and no more flexibility in their motions than if they had been built of timber. They appeared to move very much as a wooden whale might be supposed to move down a mighty rapid, rolling and plunging and borne along irresistibly by the current. As they rose, we could see their mouths occasionally, and the lighter colors of the skin below. As they went under, their huge, black tails, great winged things not unlike the screw-wheel of a propeller, tipped up above the waves. Now and then one would give the water a good round slap, the noise of which smote sharply upon the ear, like the crack of a pistol in an alley. It was a novel sight to watch them in their play, or labor rather; for they were feeding upon the capelin, pretty little fishes that swarm along these shores at this particular season. We could track them beneath the surface about as well as upon it. In the sunshine, and in contrast with the fog, the sea was a very dark blue or deep purple. Above the whales the water was green, a darker green as they descended, a lighter green as they came up. Large oval spots of changeable green water, moving silently and shadow-like along, in strong contrast with the surrounding dark, marked the places where the monsters were gliding below. When their broad, blackish backs were above the waves, there was frequently a ring or ruffle of snowy surf, formed by the breaking of the swell, around the edges of the fish. The review of whales, the only review we had witnessed in Her Majesty’s dominions, was, on the whole, an imposing spectacle. We turned from it to witness another, of a more brilliant character.

To the north and east, the ocean, dark and sparkling, was, by the magic action of the wind, entirely clear of fog; and there, about two miles distant, stood revealed the iceberg in all its cold and solitary glory. It was of a greenish white, and of the Greek-temple form, seeming to be over a hundred feet high. We gazed some minutes with silent delight on the splendid and impressive object, and then hastened down to the boat, and pulled away with all speed to reach it, if possible, before the fog should cover it again, and in time for C⁠—— to paint it. The moderation of the oarsmen and the slowness of our progress were quite provoking. I watched the sun, the distant fog, the wind and waves, the increasing motion of the boat, and the seemingly retreating berg. A good half-hour’s toil had carried us into broad waters, and yet, to all appearance, very little nearer. The wind was freshening from the south, the sea was rising, thin mists—a species of scout from the main body of fog lying off in the east—were scudding across our track. James Goss, our captain, threw out a hint of a little difficulty in getting back. But Yankee energy was indomitable: C⁠—— quietly arranged his painting-apparatus; and I, wrapped in my cloak more snugly, crept out forward on the little deck,—a sort of look-out. To be honest, I began to wish ourselves on our way back, as the black, angry-looking swells chased us up, and flung the foam upon the bow and stern. All at once, huge squadrons of fog swept in, and swamped the whole of us, boat and berg, in their thin, white obscurity. For a moment we thought ourselves foiled again. But still the word was On! And on they pulled, the hard-handed fishermen, now flushed and moist with rowing. Again the ice was visible, but dimly, in his misty drapery. There was no time to be lost. Now, or not at all. And so C⁠—— began. For half an hour, pausing occasionally for passing flocks of fog, he plied the brush with a rapidity not usual, and under disadvantages that would have mastered a less experienced hand.

We were getting close down upon the berg, and in fearfully rough water. In their curiosity to catch glimpses of the advancing sketch, the men pulled with little regularity, and trimmed the boat very badly. We were rolling frightfully to a landsman. C⁠—— begged of them to keep their seats, and hold the barge just there as near as possible. To amuse them, I passed an opera-glass around among them, with which they examined the iceberg and the coast. They turned out to be excellent good fellows, and entered into the spirit of the thing in a way that pleased us. I am sure they would have held on willingly till dark, if C⁠—— had only said the word, so much interest did they feel in the attempt to paint the “island-of-ice.” The hope was to linger about it until sunset, for its colors, lights and shadows. That, however, was suddenly extinguished. Heavy fog came on, and we retreated, not with the satisfaction of a conquest, nor with the disappointment of a defeat, but cheered with the hope of complete success, perhaps the next day, when C⁠—— thought that we could return upon our game in a little steamer, and so secure it beyond the possibility of escape.

The seine was now hauled from the stern to the centre of the barge; and the men pulled away for Torbay, a long six miles, rough and chilly. For my part, I was trembling with cold, and found it necessary to lend a hand at the oars, an exercise which soon made the weather feel several degrees warmer, and rendered me quite comfortable. After a little, the wind lulled, the fog dispersed again, and the iceberg seemed to contemplate our slow departure with complacent serenity. We regretted that the hour forbade a return. It would have been pleasant to play around that Parthenon of the sea in the twilight. The best that was left us, was to look back and watch the effects of light, which were wonderfully fine, and had the charm of entire novelty. The last view was the very finest. All the east front was a most tender blue; the fissures on the southern face, from which we were rowing directly away, were glittering green; the western front glowed in the yellow sunlight; around were the dark waters, and above, one of the most beautiful of skies.

We fell under the land presently, and passed near the northern cape of Flat-Rock Bay, a grand headland of red sandstone, a vast and dome-like pile, fleeced at the summit with green turf and shrubs of fir. The sun, at last, was really setting. There was the old magnificence of the king of day,—airy deeps of ineffable blue and pearl, stained with scarlets and crimsons, and striped with living gold. A blaze of white light, deepening into the richest orange, crowned the distant ridge behind which the sun was vanishing. A vapory splendor, rose-color and purple, was dissolving in the atmosphere; and every wave of the ocean, a dark violet, nearly black, was “a flash of golden fire.” Bathed with this almost supernatural glory, the headland, in itself richly complexioned with red, brown and green, was at once a spectacle of singular grandeur and solemnity. I have no remembrance of more brilliant effects of light and color. The view filled us with emotions of delight. We shot from beneath the great cliff into Flat-Rock Bay, rounding, at length, the breakers and the cape into the smoother waters of Torbay. As the oars dipped regularly into the polished swells, reflecting the heavens and the wonderful shores, all lapsed into silence. In the gloom of evening the rocks assumed an unusual height and sublimity. Gliding quietly below them, we were saluted, every now and then, by the billows thundering in some adjacent cavern. The song of the sea in its old halls rung out in a style quite unearthly. The slamming of the mighty doors seemed far off in the chambers of the cliff, and the echoes trembled themselves away, muffled into stillness by the stupendous masses.

Thus ended our first real hunting of an iceberg. When we landed, we were thoroughly chilled. Our man was waiting with his wagon, and so was a little supper in a house near by, which we enjoyed with an appetite that assumed several phases of keenness as we proceeded. There was a tower of cold roast beef, flanked by bread and butter and bowls of hot tea. The whole was carried silently, without remark, at the point of knife and fork. We were a forlorn-hope of two, and fell to, winning the victory in the very breach. We drove back over the fine gravel road at a round trot, watching the last edge of day in the north-west and north, where it no sooner fades than it buds again to bloom into morning. We lived the new iceberg experience all over again, and planned for the morrow. The stars gradually came out of the cool, clear heavens, until they filled them with their sparkling multitudes. For every star we seemed to have a lively and pleasurable thought, which came out and ran among our talk, a thread of light. When we looked at the hour, as we sat fresh and wakeful, warming at our English inn, in St. Johns, it was after midnight.

CHAPTER XIII.

ST. MARY’S CHURCH.—THE RIDE TO PETTY HARBOR.

Friday, June 24. Daylight, with the street noises, surprised me in the very midst of the sweetest slumbers. I had already learned that the summer daybreak, in these more northern latitudes, was far enough ahead of breakfast, and so I flattered myself back into one of those light and dreamy sleeps that last, or seem to last, for several long and pleasant hours. When the bell aroused me, the day appeared old and glittering enough for noon. But it was only in good time for us, a little worn with the excitement and toils of the day before, and in trim to enjoy a good solid breakfast. All thought of revisiting the iceberg of Torbay was postponed, at least for the present, and the day given up to previous invitations.

At eleven o’clock, I attended the consecration of St. Mary’s, a fine new church on the South Side, as the street on the opposite shore of the harbor is called. As I walked across the bridge, conducting to that side, the sacred edifice, together with other buildings in the neighborhood, adorned with numerous English flags, presented, in contrast with the craggy mountain above, a lively and picturesque appearance. I may mention, by the way, that St. Johns might well be denominated the city of flags. They are flying everywhere thick as butterflies and poppies in a Yankee garden.

I was made acquainted with a number of clergymen, some of them Cambridge and Oxford men, and invited to take a part in the services. The sermon, preached by Archdeacon Lower, was remarkable for its plainness, simplicity and earnestness, a characteristic of all the sermons I have heard from the clergy of Bishop Field, himself a preacher of singular simplicity and earnestness. I could not avoid drawing the contrast between the simple, practical character of this gospel preaching by accomplished scholars, and the florid, pompous style of many half-educated men in my own country. While the latter may, at times, stir a popular audience more sensibly with the fire that crackles among their brushwood of words, the former are infinitely superior as sound, healthy, evangelical teachers.

On my return to the inn, I found C⁠—— in his room, busily painting a duplicate of the berg of Torbay. Soon after dinner we set off, in company with Mr. Shea, for Petty Harbor, a small fishing port, nine or ten miles to the south. The road—one of the finest I ever saw, an old-fashioned English gravel road, smooth and hard almost as iron, a very luxury for the wheels of a springless wagon—keeps up the bank of a small river, a good-sized trout stream, flowing from the inland valley into the harbor of St. Johns. Contrasted with the bold regions that front the ocean, these valleys are soft and fertile. We passed smooth meadows, and sloping plough-lands, and green pastures, and houses peeping out of pretty groves. One might have called it a Canadian or New Hampshire vale. At no great distance from the town, we crossed the stream over such a bridge as one would be glad to find more frequently upon the streams at home, and gradually ascended to a shrubby, sterile country, with broad views inland.

From the long, low hills of the western horizon, at no great distance, Mr. Shea informed us that there were prospects of Trinity Bay, of great beauty. Our road, at length, carried us up among the bleak coast hills, winding among them in a most agreeable manner, and bringing to view numbers of small lakes, liquid gems set in black and craggy banks, and which are all to be united by cuttings through the rocks, and then conducted to St. Johns, thus forming one of the completest reservoirs.

The flowers by the wayside, mostly small and pale, touched the air with delicate perfume. I looked for the bees, but there were none abroad; neither was there to be heard the hum of insects nor warbling of birds. Now and then a lonely bird piped a feeble strain. We continued winding among the thinly-wooded hills, our wheels ringing along the narrow gravel road for an hour. At last we reached the height of land, and overlooked the ocean. Here we rested a few moments, rose from the seats, and looked around upon the majestic scene. Far out upon the blue were many sails, white in the bright sunshine as the wings of doves. The fishing boats, little schooners with raking masts, which swarm in these seas, were scudding under their tan-colored canvas, in all directions, looking like so many winged flies far down upon the spangled plain, a most lively and agreeable contrast to the desolate highlands, where you behold no dwelling, or field, or sign of human work, except the road, which, I cannot help repeating, lies among the rough hills, and rocky masses, as cleanly cut, and smooth as a road in a gentleman’s park. What a token of greatness and refinement is the perfect road! No nation makes such roads as these, in a land bristling with rugged difficulties, that has not wound its way up to the summit of power and cultivation. The savage contents himself with a path that is engineered and beaten by the wild beast.

The praise which an American, used to the rough roads of home, is continually disposed to lavish upon these admirable English roads of rugged Newfoundland, must by no manner of means be shared by the carriages that travel them, things at least one hundred years behind the time. Such vehicles, on such roads, fit about as well as a horseman on one of our city avenues dressed in the iron clothes of a crusader. No Yankee rides in them who does not have his laugh at their absurd strength and clumsiness. They are evidently intended to descend from father to son; and they are just as certain to do it as they are to descend the hills, from which no common horse and harness can prevent them, when tolerably loaded. If the intelligence which designs, and executes, and orders these wagons about, was not British intelligence, one would not have a word to say. As it is, a little ridicule is at least an innocent pastime. Take off the box, the pleasure-box, and put upon the stalwart machine anything you choose, stones, saw-logs, fire-engine, cannon, and all will go safely. When you return, put on your pleasure-box, again, and you are ready for an airing, wife and daughters.

CHAPTER XIV.

PETTY HARBOR.—THE MOUNTAIN RIVER.—COD-LIVER OIL.—THE EVENING RIDE BACK TO St. JOHNS.

To venture a geological remark: All these coast highlands correspond with the summits of the Alleghenies, and with those regions of the Cordilleras, C⁠—— tells me, which are just below the snow-line. From the sea-line up to the peak, they correspond with our mountains above the upper belt of woods. Their icy pinnacles and eternal snows are floating below in the form of icebergs. Imagine all the mid-mountain region in the deep, and you have the Andes here.

We descended in a zigzag way into a deep gorge, one of those cuts through the shore mountains from inland regions to the sea, which occasionally become fiords or narrow bays. Along the rocky steps, resembling galleries, were patches of grass and beds of flowering mosses, with springs bubbling up in the spongy turf, and spinning themselves out into snowy threads from the points and edges of the crags. At the bottom is the little village of Petty Harbor, where the river, a roaring torrent, meets the salt tide. We alighted at a cottage, Swiss-like among the rocks, before we were quite down, and were pleased to hear Mr. Shea, whose guests we were, making arrangements with a nice-looking woman for an abundant supper, on our return. Mr. S., in company with several persons who now joined us from St. Johns, then proceeded to show us the lions of the place, or lion rather, for every thing and everybody are run up into, and knit into one body, the fishery.

In the first place, we were struck with the general appearance of things. The fishing flakes completely floor the river, and ascend in terraces for a short distance up the sides of the vale. Beneath these wide, evergreen floors, upon which was fish in all states, fresh from the knife, and dry enough for packing, ran the river, a brawling stream at low tide, and deeper, silent water when the tide was in. We could look up the dark stream, and see it dancing in the mountain sunshine, and down through the dim forest of slender props, and catch glances of the glittering sea. Boats were gliding up out of the daylight into the half-darkness, slowly sculled by brown fishermen, and freighted with the browner cod, laced occasionally with a salmon. In this wide and noiseless shade, these cool, Lethean realms, sitting upon some well-washed boulder, one might easily forget the heat and uproar of all cities, and become absorbed in the contemplation of merely present and momentary things. If one doubts it, let him immerse himself for half an hour, in those still and gloomy shadows, strongly seasoned with “ancient and fish-like smells.” Should he be able to reflect upon the absent, or engage his thoughts upon any thing except that which most immediately affects his senses, he will possess a power of abstraction which a philosopher and a Brahmin might envy.

In the course of our walk we visited a cod-liver oil manufactory. The process of making this article is quite simple. The livers, fresh from the fish, and nearly white, are cleanly washed, and thrown into a cauldron heated by steam instead of fire, where they gradually dissolve into oil, which is dipped out hot and strained, first through conical felt bags, and then through those made of white moleskin, from which it runs pure and sweet as table-oil. Wine-glasses were at hand, from which we tasted it, and found it entirely agreeable. In this state it is barrelled for market, and sold at an average price of one dollar and fifty cents per gallon. By what process it is transmuted into that horrid stuff which is sold at a high price, in small bottles, perhaps the druggist can inform us. When I mentioned the character of cod-liver oil in New York, a gentleman present, qualified to decide, did not hesitate to say that it was adulterated with some cheap, base oil. Near by a fish-house, there is ordinarily seen a row of hogsheads open to the sun, and breathing smells that none but a fisherman can abide. A near approach discovers these casks to be filled with cod livers in a state of fermentation. After a few days in the sun, these corpulent and sweaty vessels yield a rancid, nauseous fluid, of a nut-brown hue, at a much less cost than the refined oil of the manufactory, and which, I imagine, must have a flavor not unlike that which the invalid finds lurking in those genteel flasks on the apothecary’s shelves. After all, our common whale-oil, I suspect, after some cleansing and bleaching, and slight seasoning with the pure, is bad enough for sick people.

The catch, as the fisher terms the number of fish taken, was small that day, and we encountered, here and there, knots of idle men, smoking, chewing, whittling and talking. For the most part, they were a russet, tangle-haired and shaggy-bearded set, shy and grum at first, but presently talkative enough, and intelligent upon all matters in their own little world. Fish were so glutted with capelin that they would not bite well. The seines did better. Among the dwellings that we passed or entered, was one of a young English woman, of such exceeding neatness, that the painter could not forget it. That fine-looking, healthy, young English woman, with her bit of a house just as neat as wax, was often spoken of.

Upon our return to the cottage on the hill-side, where we at first alighted, we sat down, with sharp appetite, to a supper of fried capelin and cods’ tongues, garnished with cups of excellent tea. We ate and drank with the relish of travellers, and talked of the continent from Greenland to Cape Horn. After supper, we climbed out of the valley, in advance of the wagons and our company, to an eminence from which C⁠—— sketched the surrounding scenery, more for the sake of comparison with some of his Andean pencillings than for any thing really new. He remarked that the wild and rocky prospect bore a strong resemblance to the high regions of the Cordilleras.

While he was engaged with the pencil, I scrambled to a high place, and looked at the Atlantic, touched with long shafts of the light and shade of sunset. All arrived at length, and we were fairly on our way back to St. Johns. I buttoned my coat tightly, and wound my cloak around me with a pleasing sense of comfort in the clear and almost wintry air. All talked somewhat loudly, and in the best possible good humor, our three wagons keeping close company, and making a pleasant sound of wheels, as we ran down our serpentine way among the hills and lakes, now darkening in the dusk, and reflecting the colored skies. Although there was not a water-fowl in sight, the words came to memory spontaneously, and I recited them to myself:

“Whither, midst falling dew,

While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,

Far through their rosy depths dost thou pursue

Thy solitary way?”

As we approached the town, we were much amused with some boyish sports of a new kind. We saw what appeared through the darkness to be balls of fire, chasing each other down the craggy hill-side, but which turned out to be a company of frolicsome boys with lighted torches, bounding down the zigzag mountain road.

CHAPTER XV.

THE CHURCH SHIP.—THE HERO OF KARS.—THE MISSIONARY OF LABRADOR.

Saturday, June 25. This has been a quiet day, mostly spent in making calls and social visits. At an early hour, in company with Mr. Newman, the consul, we visited the Church Ship, a pretty vessel of not more than sixty tons, called the Hawk, a name suggested by that line in the Odyssey, where the poet says, “the auspicious bird flew under the guidance of God.” By an ingenious arrangement, the cabin, which is a large part of the vessel, can be changed, in a few minutes, from state-rooms into a saloon, which, again, by a slight alteration, becomes a chapel. In this, at once home and church, the Bishop visits not only the harbors and islands of Newfoundland and Labrador, but the island of Bermuda. It was the gift of the Rev. Robert Eden, a clergyman of England, some twelve years ago, and has been employed in that benevolent and sacred service ever since, with the promise of the same for years to come. There are now more than forty settled clergymen and missionaries along those cold and rugged shores, who are visited from time to time by their Bishop in this bold little ship, which I shall dismiss for the present, for the reason that there will be occasion to speak of it again.

From the Bishop’s ship we went to his house, where we had the honor of an introduction to General Williams, the hero of Kars, and to Colonel Law, one of the few now living who distinguished themselves at the battle of Waterloo. In the presence of one who had mingled in the grand scenes of Napoleon and the Duke of Wellington, emotions of admiration were spontaneous. The hero of Kars stands foremost among what are called fine-looking military men,—a tall, commanding person, with a most pleasing address.

We closed the day with the consul, who invited to join us the Rev. George Hutchinson, a nephew of the poet Wordsworth, and accustomed, in his youthful days, to see at his uncle’s such literary worthies as Lamb and Southey. He talked much of Hartley Coleridge, of whose abilities he had a high opinion. Southey, of all, seemed to be his admiration. He was, all in all, indeed a wonderful man; a perfect Hercules in literary labors. A few years ago, Mr. Hutchinson, moved by a religious spirit, was induced to give up a pleasant living in Dorsetshire, under the Malvern Hills, and devote himself to the toils and privations of a missionary in Labrador. Upon the death of his mother he went home, over a year ago, and became possessed of a small property. He has returned recently, and is now waiting for an opportunity to get back to Labrador. This meeting and conversation with the Rev. George Hutchinson, has turned out to be of more than ordinary interest. C⁠—— has determined to hire a vessel for a month, and set the missionary down in the midst of his people, without further trouble. We retired, pleasantly excited with visions of icebergs and northern coast scenery, and with thoughts of preparation for the voyage.

CHAPTER XVI.

SUNDAY EVENING AT THE BISHOP’S.—THE REV. MR. WOOD’S TALK ABOUT ICEBERGS.

Monday, June 27. We attended church, yesterday, at the cathedral, where we heard practical sermons and fine congregational singing. The evening was passed at the Bishop’s, when the conversation was about Oxford, and Keble, English parsonages, and Christian art. A few poems were read from Keble’s Christian Year, and commented upon by the Bishop, who is a personal friend and admirer of the poet. Before the company separated, all moved into a very beautiful private chapel, and closed the evening with devotions.

This has been a bright day, and favorable for our preparations. We took tea with the Consul, and had the pleasure of meeting the Rev. Mr. Wood, the Rector of St. Thomas’, one of the city churches; who has true feeling, and a thorough appreciation of fine scenery, and whose descriptive abilities are rare. He says that an iceberg is to him the most impressive of all objects. Most beautiful in its life and changes, it is, next to an earthquake, most terrible and appalling, in the moment of its destruction, to those who may happen to be near it. Upon the falling of its peaks and precipices, waves and thunders carry the intelligence across the waters. Lofty as it frequently is, the head only, helmeted and plumed with dazzling beauty, is above the sea. In its solemn march along the blue main, how it steps upon the high places of the deep, is all unseen. Around its mighty form, far down its alabaster cliffs and caverns, no eye plays but that of the imagination. When it pauses in its last repose, and perishes, at times; as quickly as if it were smitten by the lightning, you may stand in the distance and gaze with awe, but never draw near to witness the motions and sounds of its dissolution. After tea, we sat by the windows, which face the east and command the harbor, with its grand entrance from the Atlantic, and enjoyed the scene, one of unusual splendor, every cliff glowing with hues of reddish orange.

CHAPTER XVII.

OUR VESSEL FOR LABRADOR.—WRECK OF THE ARGO.—THE FISHERMAN’S FUNERAL.

Wednesday, June 29. We are far advanced in our preparations for the voyage. Yesterday and to-day, we have been busily engaged, and now see the way clear for leaving to-morrow morning. Bishop Field, who, with many others, is pleased that C⁠—— has volunteered to take Mr. Hutchinson and Mr. Botwood, his associate, to Labrador, sailed on the visitation of his extended diocese to-day. The Church Ship, which we visited in the morning, looked, in her perfect order and neatness, with her signal guns and her colors flying, quite like a little man-of-war. We shall follow for awhile in her track, but with no expectation of seeing her again.

Allow me now to take you to the wharf, and show you the craft which C⁠—— has selected for his novel, and somewhat perilous expedition. Here she lies, the Integrity, of Sydney, Cape Breton, a pink-sterned schooner, of only sixty-five tons, but reputed safe and a good sailer. Her forecastle contains the skipper and mate, a young man of twenty-two, the owner of the vessel, and three men, the youngest an overgrown Scotch lad, who has been serving, and will continue to serve us, in the capacity of cook. Her cabin is for Captain Knight, the commander, pro tem., with whom you will be made much better acquainted. Just forward of the cabin, in the hold, there has been a temporary cabin partitioned off, and furnished with beds, bedding, chairs and table; in short, with every necessary article for the comfort and convenience of five individuals. In this snug little room, and in the hold, laden only with a light stone ballast, are stores and provisions, of the very best quality, for two full months, wood and water to be taken along shore as need shall require.

At C⁠——’s sole expense, and under his control, this vessel is to cruise for a few weeks in the region of the icebergs, setting down the missionaries by the way. The sheet anchor and mainstay (I begin to speak the language of the mariner) of our hopes of a pleasant and successful trip, humanly speaking, is Captain Knight, a respected citizen of St. Johns, and an accomplished sailor, whom C⁠—— has had the good fortune to secure as master, pilot, and companion.

We have been startled by the intelligence, that the Argo, of the Galway line of steamers, from New York to Scotland, is ashore at St. Shotts, near Cape Race. As usual, a variety of reports have agitated the community, and made people look with eagerness for the return of the two small harbor steamers, which Mr. Shea, the agent for that line, dispatched yesterday to the scene of distress. One of the tugs, the Blue Jacket, has at length arrived with a part of the passengers in sad plight. It is the old story of shipwreck on these rocky coasts. Wrapped in fogs, and borne forward by a powerful current, the ill-fated ship struck the shore, a few moments after it was discovered. Providentially, it was calm weather, and the sea unusually quiet, or all had perished. As it was, all went safely to land, and encamped in the woods. Numbers of the passengers, saddened by the loss of trunks containing clothing and other valuables, excited and fatigued, tell bitter stories of carelessness and inefficiency.

While, with a crowd of people, we were at the pier, awaiting the arrival of the Blue Jacket, a funeral procession of boats with little white flags, half-pole, came slowly rowing in from sea, and across the harbor, and landed with the coffin near where we were standing. Not only the relatives were dressed in mourning, but the bearers. There were long flowing weeds of black crape upon all their hats, and wide white cambric cuffs upon the sleeves of their coats. They were of the fishing class, from some village up or down the coast, and conducted matters apparently with more dispatch than mournfulness. A hearse or black carriage, of very substantial make, with a high top, and white fringe or valance depending from its eaves instead of curtains, was waiting on the wharf, attended by a man with a flag of white linen attached to his hat.

Among our last calls to-day, was one of ceremony upon Sir Alexander and Lady Bannerman, from whom we had received an invitation to dine. Her ladyship, a fine-looking person, of graceful and dignified manners and pleasing conversation, talked with interest of C⁠——’s excursion, and particularly of that part of it relating to his carrying Mr. Hutchinson to Labrador. After taking our leave, we went with Mr. Newman to look after some fireworks, which his Excellency has been pleased to order for our amusement at night among the icebergs.

CHAPTER XVIII.

OUR FIRST EVENING AT SEA.

Thursday evening, June 30. At sea. I am now writing, for the first time to-day, by the candles on our table in the main cabin of the Integrity. We are sailing northward with a fair wind, but with fog and rather rough water. But let me go back, and take the day from the beginning, passing lightly over its labors and vexations.

The morning opened upon us brilliantly, and all were employed about those many little things which only can be done at the last moment. Noon came and an early dinner, before that all were in readiness and aboard. And then, as if in retaliation for our delay during so many lovely hours, the wind was not ready, and so we were obliged to be towed by the Blue Jacket quite out into broad water, where she left us with our colors quivering in the sunshine, and all our canvas swelling in a mild southerly breeze. The coast scenery, and the iceberg of Torbay, and the last gleams of sunset upon land and ocean, were the lions of the afternoon.

We have taken our first tea, counting, with a lad in the charge of Mr. Hutchinson, six around the table, and making, with the crew, eleven souls, quite a little congregation, could all be spared to attend the short morning and evening services. We are just beginning to feel the effects of a small vessel with no lading beyond a light ballast. She rolls excessively, rises with every swell, and pitches into the succeeding hollow. This has already begun to disperse our company to their berths, as the more comfortable place for the random conversation which will close the day.

CHAPTER XIX.

ICEBERGS OF THE OPEN SEA.—THE OCEAN CHASE.—THE RETREAT TO CAT HARBOR.

Friday, July 1. The fog is so dense that the rigging drips as if it rained. In fact, if it be not the finest of all rain, then it is the thickest of all mists. C⁠—— and I are sea-sick, almost as a matter of course, and look upon all preparations for breakfast with no peculiar satisfaction. Our consolation is, that we are sailing forward, although with only very moderate speed.

Delightful change! It is clearing up. The noonday sun is showering the dark ocean, here and there, with the whitest light. And lo! an iceberg on our left. Lo! an iceberg on our right. An iceberg ahead! Yes, two of them!—four!—five—six!—and there, a white pinnacle just pricking above the horizon. Wonderful to behold, there are no less than thirteen icebergs in fair view. We run forward, and then we run aft, and then to this side, and that. We lean towards them over the railing, and spring up into the shrouds, as if these boyish efforts brought us nearer, and made them plainer to our delighted eyes. With a quiet energy, C⁠—— betakes himself to painting, and I to my note-book. But can you tell me why I pause, almost put up the pencil, and pocket the book? I am only a little sea-sick. The cold sweat starts upon the forehead, and I feel pale. We bear away now, such is the order, for the largest berg in sight. I freshen again with the growing excitement of this novel chase, and feel a pleasurable sense of freedom that I can never describe. I could bound like a deer, and shout like the wild Indian, for very joy. The vessel seems to sympathize, and spring forward with new spirit. The words leap out of the memory, and I give them a good strong voice:

“O’er the glad waters of the dark blue sea,

Our thoughts as boundless, and our souls as free.”

Indeed, there is a hearty pleasure in this freedom of the ocean, when, as now with us, it is “all before you where to choose.” Tied to no task, fettered to no line of voyage, to no scant time allowanced, the ship, the ocean and the day, are ours. Like the poet’s river, that “windeth at its own sweet will,” our wishes flow down the meandering channel of circumstances, and we go with the current.

And how lovely the prospect as we go! That this is all God’s own world, which he holdeth in the hollow of his hand, is manifest from the impartial bestowal of beauty. No apple, peach or rose is more within one network of sweet, living grace, than the round world. How wonderful and precious a thing must this beauty be, that it is thus all-pervading, and universal! Here on these bleak and barren shores, so rocky, rough and savage, is a rich and delicate splendor that amazes. The pure azure of the skies, and the deeply blue waters, one would think were sufficient for rude and fruitless regions such as these. But look, how they shine and scintillate! The iron cheeks of yonder headland blush with glory, and the west is all magnificent. Gaze below into the everlasting evening of the deep. Glassy, glittering things, like chandeliers dispersed, twinkle in the fluid darkness. The very fishes, clad in purple and satin, silvery tissues and cloth-of-gold, seem to move with colored lights. God hath apparelled all his creatures, and we call it beauty.

As we approach the bergs, they assume a great variety of forms. Indeed, their changes are quite wonderful. In passing around a single one, we see as good as ten, so protean is its character. I know of no object in all nature so marvelously sensitive to a steady gaze. Sit motionless, and look at one, and, fixture as it appears, it has its changes then. It marks with unerring faithfulness every condition of atmosphere, and every amount of light and shadow. Thus manifold complexions tremble over it, for which the careless observer may see no reason, and many shapes, heights and distances swell and shrink it, move it to and from, of which the mind may not readily assign a cause.

The large iceberg, for which we bore away this morning, resembled, at one moment, a cluster of Chinese buildings, then a Gothic cathedral, early style. It was curious to see how all that mimicry of a grand religious pile was soon transmuted into something like the Coliseum, its vast interior now a delicate blue, and then a greenish white. It was only necessary to run on half a mile to find this icy theatre split asunder. An age of ruin appeared to have passed over it, leaving only the two extremes, the inner cliffs of one a glistening white, of the other, a blue, soft and airy as the July heavens.

In the neighborhood, were numbers of block-like bergs, which, when thrown together by our perpetual change of position, resembled the ruins of a marble city. The play of the light and shadows among its inequalities was charming in the extreme. In the outskirts of this Palmyra of the waves, lay a berg closely resembling a huge ship of war, with the stern submerged, over which the surf was breaking finely, while the stem, sixty or seventy feet aloft, with what the fancy easily shaped into a majestic figure-head, looked with fixed serenity over the distant waters. As we ran athwart the bow, it changed instantly into the appearance of some gigantic sculpture, with broad surfaces as smooth as polished ivory, and with salient points cut with wonderful perfection. The dashing of the waves sounded like the dashing at the foot of rocky cliffs, indicative of the mass of ice below the surface.

As the afternoon advances the breeze strengthens, blowing sharply off to sea. We have the most brilliant sunshine, with a clear, cold, exhilarating air. It very nearly dispels all the nausea caused by this excessive rolling. We are now beating up from the east toward the land, and passing several of the bergs, in the chase of which we have spent so many joyous hours. Every few minutes we have new forms and new effects, new thoughts and fresh emotions. The grand ruins of the Oriental deserts, hunted on the fleetest coursers, would awaken, I fancy, kindred feelings. Full of shadowy sublimities are these great broken masses, as we sweep around them, fall away, tack and return again.

I never could have felt, and so must not think of making others feel through the medium of language, the possibility of being so deceived in respect of the bulk of these islands-of-ice, as our sailors always call them. What seems, in the distance, a mere piece of ice, of good snow-bank size only, is really a mass of such dimensions as to require you to look up to it, as you sail around it, and feel, as you gaze, a sense of grandeur. What you might suppose could be run down as easily as a pile of light cotton, would wreck the proudest clipper as effectually as the immovable adamant.

Between the great northern current, and the breeze which plumes the innumerable waves with sparkling white, our course has become rather more tortuous and rough than is agreeable to landsmen who have only come abroad upon the deep for pleasure and instruction. The painter has cleaned his pallet, wiped his brushes, shut his painting-box, and gone below. I am sitting here, near the helm, close upon the deck, screened from the spray that occasionally flies over, heavily coated, and cold at that, making some almost illegible notes. Life, it is often said, is a stormy ocean. It is on the ocean, certainly, that one feels the whole force of the comparison.

The wind, which is blowing strongly, is getting into the north, dead ahead, and sweeping us away upon our back track. We are too lightly ballasted to tack with success, and hold our own. The bergs are retiring, and appear like ruins and broken columns. We are now fairly on the retreat, and flying under reefed sails to a little bay, called Cat Harbor. All aloft has the tightness and the ring of drums, and the whistling of a hundred fifes. The voice of the master is quick, and to the point, and the motions and the footsteps of the men, rapid. On our bows are the explosion and the shock of swells, the resounding knocks and calls of old Neptune, and upon the deck such showers of his most brilliant flowers and bouquets as I feel in no haste to gather. The sea-fowl whirl in the gale like loose plumes and papers, pouring out their wild complaints as they pass.

CHAPTER XX.

CAT HARBOR.—EVENING SERVICE IN CHURCH.—THE FISHERMAN’S FIRE.—THE RETURN AT MIDNIGHT.

At eight o’clock, our brave little pink-stern was lying at anchor in her haven, as quietly as a babe in its cradle, with the wind piping a pleasant lullaby in the rigging, and the roar of the ocean nearly lost in the distance. A few rude erections along the rocky shore, with a small church, a store and warehouse, compose the town of Cat Harbor, the life of which seems to be the water-craft busy in the one common employment, some returning with the catch of the day, others going for the catch of the night. While C⁠—— was painting a sketch of the scene, the sun vanished behind the purple inland hills, with unusual splendor, and left the distant icebergs in such a white “as no fuller on earth can white them.”

After dinner, notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, Mr. Hutchinson, who knew that the clergyman in charge was absent, resolved to go ashore, and invite the people to attend divine service. As soon as we were landed, he left us to make our way to the church, at our leisure, while he ran from house to house to announce himself, and to give notice of the intended services. Our path, as usual in these coast hamlets, went in zigzag, serpentine ways, among evergreen fishing-bowers, and many-legged flakes and huts, and oddly-fenced potato-patches. In the marshy field around the church, we had some time to amuse ourselves with gathering slender bulrushes tipped with plumes of whitest down. They were sprinkled all abroad like snow-flakes over the dusky green ground, and we ran about with the eagerness of boys, selecting the prettiest as specimens for home.

Twilight was already close upon the darkness. We turned from the chase of our thistle-down toys, and gazed upon the solemn magnificence around us—the dark and lonesome land—the bay, reflecting the colored heavens—the warm orange fading out into the cool pearl, and the pearl finally lost in the broad blue above.

It was fully candle-light when the congregation, about forty, assembled, and the service began. The missionary preached extempore a practical sermon adapted to his hearers, and we sang, to the tune of Old Hundred, the One Hundredth Psalm, making the dimly-lighted sanctuary ring again. After church, our party were invited to warm at one of the houses, which we did most effectually before a broad and roaring fire, while mine host recounted the toil and the pleasure of getting winter wood over the deep snows with his team of dogs, and the more perilous and exciting labors of the fish-harvest, upon which life and all depend. At the mention of the puff-pig, the local name for the common porpoise, we indulged ourselves in a childish laugh. A more ludicrous, and at the same time a more descriptive name could not be hit upon.

During the half-hour around the exhilarating July fire, there dropped in, one by one, a room-full, curious to see and hear the strangers from St. Johns and America, as the United States are often called. We parted with a general shaking of hands, and plenty of good wishes, among which was one, “that we might have many igh hicebergs.” Some half dozen attended us to the shore, and brought us off in handsome style over the calm and phosphorescent waters. At every dip of the oars it was like unraking the sparkling embers, so brilliant was that beautiful light of the sea. The boatmen called it the burning of the water. “When the water burnt,” they said, “it was a sure sign of south wind and a plenty of fish.”

It was one of those still and starry nights which require only an incident or so to make them too beautiful ever to be forgotten. Those incidents were now present, in a peculiarly plaintive murmur of the ocean, the kindling waves, and a delicate play of the Aurora Borealis. When we reached our vessel it was almost midnight, and still there was sweet daylight in the far north-west, moving along the circle of the northern horizon to brighten into morning before we were half through our light and dreamy slumbers. Weary and drowsy, all have crept to their berths; and I will creep into mine when I have put the period to the notes of this long and delightful day. I hear the footfalls of the watch on deck. May God keep us through the short, but most solitary night, and speed us early on our northern voyage!

CHAPTER XXI.

AFTER ICEBERGS AGAIN.—AMONG THE SEA-FOWL.

Saturday, July 2. It is five o’clock, and the morning has kindled in the clouds its brightest fires. We are moving off to sea gracefully before a fair, light wind. The heart delights in this golden promise of a fine summer day, and the blue Atlantic all before us. As the rising sun looks over it, the glittering waves seem to participate in these joyful emotions. How marvelously beautiful is this vast scene! Give me the sea, I say, now that I am on the sea. Give me the mountains, I say, when I am on the mountains! Henceforth, when I am weary with the task of life, I will cry, Give me the mountains and the sea.

The rugged islands, landward, have only an olive, not the living green, and seem never to have rejoiced in the blessing of a tree, or felt the delicious mercy of a leafy shade. There blow the whales, and here is the edge of an innumerable multitude of sea-birds feeding upon the capelin, and flying to the right and left, thick as grasshoppers, as we advance among them. Poor things, they are so glutted that they are obliged to disgorge before they can gain the wing, and many of them merely scramble aside a few yards, and become the mark of the roguish sailors, especially of Sandy, our young Scotch cook, who is in a perfect frolic, pelting them with stones. They sprinkle the sea by the million, and present, with their white breasts and perpetually arching wings, a lively and novel appearance. On the roll of the swells, as the sunlight glances on them, they flash out white like water-lilies.

How the pages of a book fail to carry these scenes into the heart! I have been reading of them for years, and, as I have thought, reading understandingly and feelingly; but I can now say that I have never known, certainly never felt them until now. The living presence of them has an originality, a taste and odor for the imagination, which can never be expressed even by the vivid and sensuous language of the painter, much less by the more subtle, intellectual medium of written records. It is so new and fresh to me, that I feel as if none had ever seen this prospect before. Old and familiar as these waters are, I am thrilled with emotions, kindred to those of a discoverer, and remember and repeat the rhyme of the Ancient Mariner:

We were the first that ever burst

Into that silent sea.

Silent sea! This is any thing but that. The surf, which leaps up with the lightness and rapidity of flames, for many and many a white mile, roars among the sharp, bleak crags of the islands and the coast like mighty cataracts. Words of the Psalmist fall naturally upon the tongue, and I speak them in low tones to myself:

Voices are heard among them.

Their sound is gone out into all lands.

“And so sail we,” this glorious morning, after the icebergs, several of which stand sentinel along our eastern horizon; but we do not turn aside for them, for the reason that we confidently look for others more closely on our proper track.

CHAPTER XXII.

NOTRE DAME BAY.—FOGO ISLAND AND THE THREE HUNDRED ISLES.—THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS.—THE ICEBERG OF THE SUNSET, AND THE FLIGHT INTO TWILLINGATE.

After noon, with the faintest breeze, and the sea like a flowing mirror. We have sailed by the most eastern promontories, Cape Bonavista and Cape Freels, and have now arrived at a point where the coast falls off far to the west, and gives place to Notre Dame Bay, the great Archipelago of Newfoundland, of which there is comparatively little known. Our true course is nearly north, and along the eastern or Atlantic side of Fogo, which is now before us, the first and largest of some three hundred islands. For the sake of the romantic scenery, we conclude to take the inside route.

From the shores of Fogo, which are broken, and exceedingly picturesque further on, as Captain Knight informs us, the land rises into moderate hills, thinly wooded with evergreens, with here and there a little farm and dwelling. Perhaps there are twenty rural smokes in sight and a spire or two. Under the full-blown summer all looks pleasant and inviting. What will not the glorious sunshine bless and beautify? A dark and dusty garret wakes up to life and brightness, give it an open window and the morning sun.

The western headlands of Fogo are exceedingly attractive, lofty, finely broken, of a red and purplish brown, tinted here and there with pale green. The painter is busy with his colors. As we pass the bold prominences and deep, narrow bays or fiords, they are continually changing and surprising us with a new scenery. And now the great sea-wall, on our right, opens and discloses the harbor and village of Fogo, the chief place of the island, gleaming in the setting sun as if there were flames shining through the windows. Looking to the left, all the western region is one fine Ægean, a sea filled with a multitude of isles, of manifold forms and sizes, and of every height, from mountain pyramids and crested ridges down to rounded knolls and tables, rocky ruins split and shattered, giant slabs sliding edgewise into the deep, columns and grotesque masses ruffled with curling surf—the Cyclades of the west. I climb the shrouds, and behold fields and lanes of water, an endless and beautiful network, a little Switzerland with her vales and gorges filled with the purple sea.

After dinner, and nearly sunset. We are breaking away from the isles into the open Atlantic, bearing northerly for Cape St. John, where Captain Knight promises the very finest coast scenery. Far away on the blue, floats a solitary pyramid of ice, while a few miles to the east of us there stands the image of some grand Capitol, in shining marble. Looking back upon the isles, as they retire in the south and west, with the hues of sunset upon their green and cloud-like blue, we behold, the painter tells me, a likeness to some West-Indian views.

Once again the breeze swells every sail, and we are speeding forward after the icebergs. All goes merrily. It sings and cracks aloft, and roars around the prow. We speed onward. The little ship, like a very falcon, flies down the wind after the game, and promises to reach it by the last of daylight. A long line of gilding tracks the violet sea, and expands in a lake of dazzling brightness under the sun. Beneath all this press of sail, we ride on fast and steadily, as a car over the prairies. We seem to be all alive. This is fine, inexpressibly fine! This is freedom! I lean forward and look over the bow, and, like a rider in a race, feel a new delight and excitement. Wonderful and beautiful! Like the Arab on his sands, I say, almost involuntarily, God is great! How soft is the feeling of this breeze, and how balmy is the smell, “like the smell of Lebanon,” and yet how powerful to bear us onward! We rise and bow gracefully to the passing swells, but keep right on. Fogo is sinking in the south, a line of roseate heights, and fresh ice sparkles like stars on the northern horizon.

We dart off a mile or more from our right path in order to bring a small berg between us and the sun, that we may look into his sunset beauties. A dull cloud, close down upon the waves, may defeat this manœuvre. We shall conquer yet. There, he rises from the sea, a sphinx of pure white against the glowing sky, and every man aboard is as full of fine excitement as if we were to grapple with, and chain him. We pass directly under the great face, the upper line of which overlooks our top-mast. Every curve, swell and depression have the finish of the most exquisite sculpture, and all drips with silvery water as if newly risen from the deep. In the pure, white mass there is the suspicion of green. Every wave, by contrast, and by some optical effect, nearly black as it approaches, is instantly changed into the loveliest green as it rolls up to the silvery bright ice. And all the adjacent deep is a luminous pea-green. The eye follows the ice into its awful depths, and is at once startled and delighted to find that the mighty crystal hangs suspended in a vast transparency, or floats in an abyss of liquid emerald.

We pass on the shadow side, soft and delicate as satin; and changeable as costliest silk; the white, the dove-color and the green playing into each other with the subtlety and fleetness of an Aurora-Borealis. As the light streams over and around from the illuminated side, the entire outline of the berg shines like newly-burnished silver in the blaze of noon. The painter is working with all possible rapidity; but we pass too quick to harvest all this beauty: he can only glean some golden straws. A few sharp words from the captain bring the vessel to, and we pause long enough for some finishing touches. He has them, and we are off again. An iceberg is an object most difficult to study, for which many facilities, much time, and some danger are indispensable. The voyager, passing at a safe distance, really knows little or nothing of one.

Ten o’clock, and only twilight. We are now about to put up note-book and painting-box, and join our English companions in a walk up and down our little deck. Notwithstanding their familiarity with icebergs, they appear to enjoy them with as keen a zest as we, now that they are brought into this familiar contact with them. After the walk, and by candle-light in the cabin. The wind is strengthening, and promises a gale. The black and jagged coast of Twillingate island, to the south, frowns upon us, and the great pyramid berg of sunset awaits us close at hand. For some time past, it has borne the appearance of the cathedral of Milan, shorn of all its pinnacles, but it now resumes its pyramidal form, and towers, in the dusk of evening, to a great height. After a brief consultation, we resolve to slip into the harbor of Twillingate, a safe retreat from the coming storm, and there pass our first Sunday out of St. Johns. To dare this precipitous coast, haunted with icebergs, and a gale blowing right on, in so light a craft as ours, would be rash. Much as I wish to make the most of our time, I am glad to find that we are making harbor, and intend to rest, according to the law.

I cannot take my mind’s eye from the brilliant spectacle of the waves in conflict with the iceberg. I still hear the surf in the blue chasms. But with all the power of its charge, it is the merest toy to the great arctic mass, a playful kitten on the paws of the lion.

After ten, and after prayer. We are rolling most uncomfortably while we are beating towards our anchorage between the headlands of the harbor. It is midnight nearly, and yet I am not in the least sleepy. The day is so lengthy, and we are so continually stimulated with the grandeur and novelty of these scenes that it is quite troublesome to sleep at all. A few hours of slumber, so thin that the sounds on deck easily break through and wake the mind, is about all I have. We are coming about, and roll down almost upon the vessel’s side. The sails are loose, and roar in the breeze. The anchor drops home to its bed. The chain rattles and runs its length. We repose in safe waters, and I turn in thankfully to my berth.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE SUNDAY IN TWILLINGATE.—THE MORNING OF THE FOURTH.

Monday Morning, July 4, 1859. We were roused from our slumbers very suddenly, yesterday morning, by Mr. Hutchinson, in a loud and cheerful voice, telling us the pleasing news that the Church Ship was at anchor near by, and that he had exchanged salutations with the Bishop. His vessel had lost a spar in the same squall that drove us into Cat Harbor. To that accident we owed the pleasure of meeting him in Twillingate, and of passing a profitable and happy Lord’s day. The wind was blowing a perfect gale, and roared among the evergreen woods on the surrounding hills. At half-past ten, the Bishop’s boat glided alongside, and bore us ashore, from which we walked past the church, through the assembling congregation, to the house of the Rector, the Rev. Thomas Boone, where we joined the Bishop and two or three of the leading persons of the island. There were the regular morning and evening services, and a third service at night, completed though by good strong daylight. The house was filled, and the sermons plain and practical, their burden being repentance, faith in Christ, and obedience to his law. After supper, and a social hour with the Rector and his family, we returned to our vessels respectively, the north-western sky still white with daylight, and the thunder of the ocean breaking with impressive grandeur upon the solemn repose, into which all nature seemed gladly to have fallen after the tempest.

I was up this morning at an early hour, and away upon the hills with Mr. Hutchinson and Master William Boone, a fine youth of fifteen, for our guide and companion. The main object was to get a view of the iceberg of Saturday evening. To my surprise and disappointment, the ocean was one spotless blue. The berg had foundered, or gone off to sea. It was barely possible that it lay behind a lofty headland, beneath which we passed in making the harbor. To settle a question, which in some measure involved the pleasure of the day, we climbed a rocky peak beset with brushwood, and descried the berg close in upon the headland apparently, and, as I supposed, rapidly diminishing, a lengthy procession of fragments moving up the coast. Looking south, there was unrolled to view, spread out from east to west, the splendid island scenery of Notre Dame Bay, already described. A single reach of water, with islets and mountainous shores, had a striking resemblance to Lake George.

At eight o’clock, we were again on board and ready for the boat, which, by appointment, was to take our party to the Hawk for a farewell breakfast with the Bishop. It is needless to say that we were most kindly and pleasantly entertained. The Bishop was pleased to accompany us back to our vessel, and to give us his parting blessing, on our own more humble deck. Just before sailing, Master Boone came off to us in a boat with a gift of milk and eggs, and a nice, fat lamb. By ten o’clock, both the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes were waving on high in a south-west breeze, and we glided through the narrows toward the open sea, the chasms of the precipices heavily charged with the last winter’s snow.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE ICEBERG OF TWILLINGATE.

Twelve o’clock. The day we celebrate. Three cheers! How we are after the iceberg. Upon getting near, we find it grounded in fifty fathoms of water, apparently storm-worn, and much the worse for the terrible buffeting of the recent gale. Masses of the huge, glassy precipices seem to have been blasted off within the last hour, and gone away in a lengthy line of white fragments upon the mighty stream. We are now bearing down upon it, under full sail, intending to pass close under it. Our good angels bear us company as we pass.

What an exquisite specimen of nature’s handiwork it looks to be, in the blaze of noon! It shines like polished silver dripping with dews. The painter is all ready with his colors, having sketched the outlines with lead. The water streams down in all directions in little rills and falls, glistening in the light like molten glass. Veins of gem-like transparency, blue as sapphire, obliquely cross the opaque white of the prodigious mass, the precious beauty of which no language can picture. Fragments lie upon the slopes, like bowlders, ready to be dislodged at any moment, and launched into the waves. Now we dash across his cool shadow, and take his breath. There looks to be the permanency of adamant, while in reality all is perishable as a cloud, and charged with awful peril. Imagine the impressive grandeur and terrific character of cliffs, broad and lofty cliffs, at once so solid, and yet so liable at any moment to burst asunder into countless pieces. We all know the danger, and I confess that I feel it painfully, and wish ourselves at a safe distance.

The wind increases, and all is alive on deck. To my relief, we have fallen off to leeward beyond all harm. But we are on the back track, and mean to take him again, and take the risques also of his terrible, but very beautiful presence. Now we run. If he were a hostile castle, he would open upon us his big guns, at this instant. Bravely and busily the waves beat under the hollow of the long, straight water-line, rushing through the low archways with a variety of noises,—roaring, hissing, slapping, cracking, lashing the icy vaults, and polishing and mining away with a wild, joyous energy. Poor Ishmael of the sea! every hand and every force is against him. If he move, he dashes a foot against the deep down stones. While he reposes, the sun pierces his gleaming helmet, and strikes through the joints of his glassy armor.

In the seams and fissures the shadows are the softest blue of the skies, and as plain and palpable as smoke. It melts at every pore, and streams as if a perpetually overflowing fountain were upon the summit, and flashes and scintillates like one vast brilliant. Prongs and reefs of ice jutting from the body of the berg below, and over which we pass, give the water that emerald clearness so lovely to the eye, and open to the view something like the fanciful sea-green caves. We now lie to, under the lee side, fearfully close, it seems to me, when I recollect the warning of the Bishop, never, on any account, to venture near an iceberg. Its water-line, under which the waves disappear in a lengthy, piazza-like cavern, with explosive sounds, is certainly a remarkable feature. Occasional glimpses unfold the polish, the colors, and the graceful winding of sea-shells. A strong current in connection with the wind forces us, I am glad to say, to a more safe and comfortable distance. The last ten minutes has given us a startling illustration of the dangers of which we have been forewarned: a crack like a field-piece was followed by the falling of ice, on the opposite side of the berg, attended with a sullen roar.

We round to, and take the breeze in our faces. The ice is up the wind, square before us, and we must after it by a tack or two. The stars and stripes yet float aloft, and seem to tremble with delight as we sport through these splendid hours of Freedom’s holiday. The berg with its dazzling white, and dove-colored shadows,—the electric breeze,—the dark sea with its draperies of sparkling foam, north, east, south, out to the pure azure of the encircling sky,—the sunshine, that bright spirit and ceaseless miracle of the firmament,—the white-winged vessel boxing the billow, now rolling on black and cloud-like, now falling off with the spotless purity of a snow-drift,—the battle of the surges and the solid cliffs, all conspire to enliven and excite.

While the painter is busy, overlooked by Mr. Hutchinson, and I lean over the bow and scribble in my note-book, a sailor comes forward and gazes upon the iceberg as if he, too, was looking at something new. He has passed them by, time out of mind, either idly or with dislike, as things to be shunned, and not to be looked back at when safely weathered. Now that his attention is called, he finds that this useless mass, tumbling about in the path of mariners, is truly a most wonderful creation. Like all the larger structures of nature, these crystalline vessels are freighted with God’s power and glory, and must be reverently and thoughtfully studied, to “see into the life of them.” The common clouds, which unnoticed drop their shadows upon our dwellings, and spot the landscape, are found to be wonderful by those alone who watch them patiently and thoughtfully. “The witchery of the soft blue sky did never melt into the poet’s heart; he never felt the witchery of the soft blue sky” but from silent, loving study.

Captain Knight backs the sails, and we hold on near enough to the ice to see the zone of emerald water, a fearfully close proximity. Look up to those massy folds and wreaths of icy drapery, all flashing in the sun! See that gigantic wing, not unlike the pictured wings of angels, unfolded from one of the vast shoulders, and spread upon the high air. As the wind sweeps over and falls upon us, we feel an icy chilliness. Beyond a very short distance, however, we are unable to perceive the smallest influence.

We are now to the leeward, half a mile or so, and are watching the Captain, who has gone with the boat and a couple of men to gather ice out of the drift, which stretches from the berg in a broken line for two miles or more. Portions of this have fallen within the last hour, keeping up a kind of artillery discharge, very agreeable to hear at this distance, and quite in harmony with the day at home. They have struck the ice, a mile off, and the chips sparkle in the sunshine as they ply the axe. As they return, we drop down the wind to meet them. Here they come with a cart-load of the real arctic alabaster, the very same, I have no question, that hung an hour ago as one of the shining crags of the lofty ice-cliff. And now, with all sail spread, and a spirited breeze, away to the north-west for Cape St. John.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS ONCE MORE.—A BUMPER TO THE QUEEN AND PRESIDENT.

The waves are crisp with a snowy mane, and the rocky shores of Twillingate are draped with splendid lights and shadows. While the seams and surfaces of the cliffs are strikingly plain in the sunlight, they are dark as caverns in the shade. This gives the coast a wonderfully broken, wild, and picturesque look.

Once more the sea “is all before us where to choose.” The joy of this freedom is utterly inexpressible, although, in consideration of the day, we—we Yankees—occasionally hurra right heartily. But no words can do justice to the delightful emotions of moments such as these. “Messmates, hear a brother sailor sing the dangers of the sea,” runs the old song. None that I have ever heard or read express at all the real pleasure of its freedom. The freedom of the seas! If any great city council would do a man of feeling a noble pleasure, let them vote him that.

A lonely isle of crystalline brightness, all the way from Melville Bay, most likely, gleams in the north-east. Pale and solitary, like some marble mausoleum, the iceberg of Twillingate stands off in the southern waters. After all, how feeble is man in the presence of these arctic wonders! With all his skill, intelligence and power, he passes, either on the sunny or the shady side, closely at his peril, only in safety at a distance too great to satisfy his curiosity, and gazes at their greatness and their splendor, and thinks and feels, records his thoughts and feelings, draws their figure and paints their complexion, but may no more lay his hand upon them than the Jew of old might lay his hand upon the ark of the covenant. He may do it and live, do it twice or thrice, and then he may perish for his temerity. There now reposes, amid the currents and billows of the ocean, the huge, polar structure, which has been to us an object of the liveliest interest and wonder; its bright foundations fifty fathoms in the deep; an erection suggestive of the skill and strength of the Creator; with a mystery enveloping its story, its conception, birth and growth, its native land, the hour of its departure, its strange and labyrinthine voyage. While the body of this building-of-the-elements sleeps below, and only its gables and towers glow and melt in the brightness of these summer days, yet is it as dissolvable as the clouds from which it originally fell. It is but the clouds condensed and crystallized. A column of vapor, mainly invisible, perpetually ascends into its native heavens, while the atmosphere, and the warm, briny currents melt and wear, at every imaginable point of the vast surface. Pass a few sunny weeks, and all will be melted, and, like a snow-flake, lost in the immensity of waters.

Still the flags wave above. We fill our glasses with iceberg-water, and drink with cheers to the Queen and President. As the breeze dies away in the long, long afternoon, and we roll lazily on the glassy swells, the painter and I, the poorest of sailors, lapse into sea-sickness, and go below.

CHAPTER XXVI.

GULL ISLAND.—THE ICEBERGS OF CAPE ST. JOHN.

Tuesday, July 5. Off Cape St. John, with fog and head winds. We are weary of this fruitless beating about, and resolve to put into smooth water for the sake of relief from sea-sickness. While our English guests seem to enjoy the breakfast, we have gone no further than to sip a little tea, take a few turns on deck in the chilly morning air, and return to the cabin, where I pencil these notes.

There is a dome-shaped berg before us in the mist, but not of sufficient beauty in the dull gray atmosphere to attract attention. Exclamations of our friends on deck have brought me up to look at the ice as we pass it, distant, it may be, five hundred yards. It bears a strange resemblance to a balloon lying on its side in a collapsed condition. It has recently undergone some heavy disruptions, and rolled so far over as to bring its late water-line, a deep and polished fissure, nearly across the top of it.

There is a promise of clear weather. The clouds, to our delight, are breaking, and giving us peeps of the sunny azure far above. The Cape is in full view, a promontory of shaggy precipices, suggestive of all the fiends of Pandemonium, rather than the lovely Apostle, whose name has been gibbeted on the black and dismal crags. The salt of that saintly name cannot save it. Nay, it is better fitted to spoil the saint. Cape St. John! Better, Cape “Moloch, Horrid King,” or some other demon of those that figure in the dark Miltonic scenes. It is terribly awful and impressive. Our lamb, poor innocent, seems to feel lonely under the frown of a coast so inhospitable and savage, and comes bleating around us as if for sympathy. The wind is cold and bracing, sweeping alike the sea and the sky of all fog and clouds, and driving us to heavy winter clothing.

As we bear down toward the Cape, we pass Gull Isle, a mere pile of naked rocks delicately wreathed with lace-like mists. Imagine the last hundred feet of Corway Peak, the very finest of the New Hampshire mountain tops, pricking above the waves, and you will see this little outpost and breakwater of Cape St. John. All things have their uses. Even this bone of the earth, picked of all vegetable growth and beauty, and flung into the deep, has the marrow of goodness in it to a degree that invites a multitude of God’s fair creatures to make it their estate and dwelling-place. Gulls with cimetar-like pinions, cut and slash the air in all directions. Pretty little sea-pigeons fly to and fro, flying off with whistling wings in straight lines, and flying back, full of news, and full of alarm.

A grand iceberg is before us, remarkable, in this particular light, for its pure, white surface. A snow-drift, with its icy enamel, after a silver thaw, might be taken as a model of its complexion. This is a berg evidently of more varied fortunes than any we have yet seen. It is crossed and recrossed with old water-lines, every one of which is cut at right angles with its own system of lines, formed by the perpendicular dripping. It is ploughed and fluted and scratched deeply in all possible directions. At this very moment a new system of lines is rapidly forming by the copiously descending drip, over-streaming all those made when the berg had other perpendiculars. Any large fall of ice, for example, from the opposite side, would bow the berg toward us, sinking the present sea-line on this side, and lifting it on the other. In nearly every case the berg, when it rolls, loses its old horizontal position, and settles in a new one. Immediately a new horizon-line, if it may so be called, with its countless vertical ones, of course, instantly commences forming, to be followed by a similar process, at each successive roll of the berg, unto the end. There are draperies of white sea-shell-like ice, with streaks of shadow in their great folds, which rival the softest azure. Indicative of the projections of the submarine ice, the light-green water extends out in long, radiating points, a kind of emerald spangle, with its bright central diamond on the purple sea.

It is a wonderfully magnificent sight to see an almost black wave roll against an iceberg, and instantly change in its entire length, hundreds of feet, into that delicate green. Where the swell strikes obliquely, it reaches high, and runs along the face, sweeping like a satellite of loveliness in merry revolutions round its glittering orb. Like cumulous clouds, icebergs are perpetually mimicking the human face. This fine crystal creature, by a change in our position, becomes a gigantic bust of poet or philosopher, leaning back and gazing with a fixed placidity into the skies. In the brilliant noon, portions of it glisten like a glassy waterfall. The cold, dead white, the subtle greens, the blues, shadows of the softest slate, all contrast with the flashing brightness in a way most exquisite to behold. True to all the forms of nature that swell to the sublime, an iceberg grows upon the mind astonishingly. On the boundless plains of water, of course, it is the merest molehill: in itself, it has the lonely grandeur of a broad precipice in the mountains.

PLATE N^o. 2.
A LARGE ICEBERG IN THE FORENOON LIGHT NEAR THE INTEGRITY
Lith. of Sarony Major & Knapp, 449 Broadway NY.

Foremost of several bergs, now hovering about the Cape, is one of greater magnitude than any we have previously met. It is, on this front, a broad and lofty precipice, very nearly resembling the finest statue-marble, newly broken. It is losing its upper crags, every now and then, and vibrating very grandly. At short intervals, we hear sharp reports, like those of brass ordnance, followed by the rough, rumbling crash of the descending ice, and the dull roar of its final plunge into the ocean. After this awful burial of its dead, with such grand honors, a splendid regiment of waves retreats from the mournful scene, in a series of concentric circles, rivalling the finest surf that rolls in upon the sand. It is the very flower of the ocean cavalry. Under its fierce and brilliant charge, an ordinary ship’s boat would go down, almost to a certainty. It is what we have been most carefully warned to avoid. This fine iceberg presents, I fancy, much the same appearance it had in the Greenland waters. Its water-line, which is the only one visible, is not less than fifteen feet deep, and rises and falls, in its ponderous rockings back and forth, not more than twenty feet, so vast the bulk below. I have little doubt that the Alpine slopes and summits are its primitive surface.

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE SPLENDID ICEBERGS OF CAPE ST. JOHN.

We are making a round of calls on all the icebergs of Cape St. John, painting, sketching, and pencilling as we go. Our calls are cut short for the want of wind, and we lie becalmed on the low, broad swells, majestically rolling in upon the Cape, only a mile to the south-west. Captain Knight is evidently unquiet at this proximity. A powerful current is setting rapidly in, carrying us over depths too great for our cables, up to the very cliffs. If the adventurous mariner, who first sighted this bold and forward headland, was bent upon christening it by an apostolic name, why did he not call it Cape St. Peter? All in all, it is certainly the finest coast scenery I have ever seen; and Captain Knight assures us it is the very finest on the eastern shore of Newfoundland. It is a black, jagged wall, often four, and even five hundred feet in height, with a five-mile front, and the deep sea close in to the rock, without a beach, and almost without a foothold. This stupendous, natural wharf stretches back into the south-west toward the mainland, widening very little for twenty miles or more, dividing the large expanse of White Bay on the west from the larger expanse of Notre Dame Bay on the east and south, the fine Ægean, before mentioned, with its multitudinous islands, of which we get not the least notion from any of our popular maps.

Such is a kind of charcoal sketch of Cape St. John, toward which, in spite of all we can yet do, we are slowly drifting. Unless there be power in our boat, manned by all the crew pulling across the current, with the Captain on the bow cracking them up with his fine, firm voice, I do not see why we are not in the greatest danger of drifting ashore. It is possible that there is a breath of wind under the cliffs, by which we might escape round into still water. With all the quiet of the ocean, I see the white surf spring up against the precipices. In the strongest gales of the Atlantic, the surges here must be perfectly terrific, and equal to any thing of the kind on the globe. The great Baffin current, sweeping past with force and velocity, makes this a point of singular danger. To be wrecked here, with all gentleness, would be pretty sure destruction. In a storm, the chance of escape would be about the same, as in the rapids of Niagara. After all, there is a fine excitement in this rather perilous play with the sublime and desolate. Would any believe it? I am actually sea-sick, and that in the full enjoyment of this grandeur of adamant and ice. I find I am not alone. The painter with his live colors falls to the same level of suffering with the man of the dull lead-pencil and the note-book. A slight breeze has relieved us of all anxiety, and all necessity of further effort to row out of danger. We are moving perceptibly up the wide current, and propose to escape to the north as soon as the wind shall favor.

We have just passed a fragment of some one of the surrounding icebergs that has amused us. It bore the resemblance of a huge polar bear, reposing upon the base of an inverted cone with a twist of a sea-shell, and whirling slowly round and round. The ever-attending green water, with its aerial clearness, enabled us to see its spiral folds and horns as they hung suspended in the deep. The bear, a ten-foot mass in tolerable proportion, seemed to be regularly beset by a pack of hungry little swells. First, one would take him on the haunch, then whip back into the sea over his tail and between his legs. Presently a bolder swell would rise and pitch into his back with a ferocity that threatened instant destruction. It only washed his satin fleece the whiter. While Bruin was turning to look the daring assailant in the face, the rogue had pitched himself back into his cave. No sooner that, than a very bull-dog of a billow would attack him in the face. The serenity with which the impertinent assault was borne was complete. It was but a puff of silvery dust, powdering his mane with fresher brightness. Nothing would be left of bull but a little froth of all the foam displayed in the fierce onset. He too would turn and scud into his hiding-place. Persistent little waves! After a dash singly, all around, upon the common enemy, as if by some silent agreement under water, they would all rush on, at once, with their loudest roar and shaggiest foam, and overwhelm poor bear so completely, that nothing less might be expected than to behold him broken into his four quarters, and floating helplessly asunder. Mistaken spectators! Although, by his momentary rolling and plunging, he was evidently aroused, yet neither Bruin nor his burrow were at all the worse for all the wear and washing. The deep fluting, the wrinkled folds and cavities, over and through which the green and silvery water rushed back into the sea, rivalled the most exquisite sculpture. And nature not only gives her marbles, with the finest lines, the most perfect lights and shades, she colors them also. She is no monochromist, but polychroic, imparting such touches of dove-tints, emerald and azure, as she bestows upon her gems and her skies.

We are bearing up under the big berg as closely as we dare. To our delight, what we have been wishing, and watching for, is actually taking place: loud explosions with heavy falls of ice, followed by the cataract-like roar, and the high, thin seas, wheeling away beautifully crested with sparkling foam. If it is possible, imagine the effect upon the beholder: This precipice of ice, with tremendous cracking, is falling toward us with a majestic and awful motion. Down sinks the long water-line into the black deep; down go the porcelain crags, and galleries of glassy sculptures, a speechless and awful baptism. Now it pauses and returns: up rise sculptures and crags streaming with the shining, white brine; up comes the great, encircling line, followed by things new and strange, crags, niches, balconies and caves; up, up it rises, higher and higher still, crossing the very breast of the grand ice, and all bathed with rivulets of gleaming foam. Over goes the summit, ridge, pinnacles and all, standing off obliquely in the opposite air. Now it pauses in its upward roll: back it comes again, cracking, cracking, cracking, “groaning out harsh thunder” as it comes, and threatening to burst, like a mighty bomb, into millions of glittering fragments. The spectacle is terrific and magnificent. Emotion is irrepressible, and peals of wild hurra burst forth from all.

The effect of the sky-line of this berg is marvellously beautiful. An overhanging precipice on this side, and steep slopes on the other, give a thin and notched ridge, with an almost knife-like sharpness, and the transparency and tint of sapphire, a miracle of beauty along the heights of the dead white ice, over which the sight darts into the spotless ultramarine of the heavens. On the right and left shoulders of the berg, the slopes fall off steeply this way, having the folds and the strange purity peculiar to snow-drifts. One who has dwelt pleasantly upon draperies in marble,—upon those lovely swellings and depressions,—those sweet surfaces and lines of grace and beauty of the human form, perfected in the works of sculptors, will appreciate the sentiment of the ices to which I point.

At the risque of being thought over-sentimental and extravagant, I will say something more of the great iceberg of Cape St. John, now that we are retiring from it, and giving it our last look. Of all objects an iceberg is in the highest degree multiform in its effects. Changeable in its colors as the streamers of the northern sky, it will also pass from one shape to another with singular rapidity. As we recede, the upper portions of the solid ice have a light and aerial effect, a description of which is simply impossible. Peaks and spires rise out of the strong and apparently unchanging base with the light activity of flame. A mighty structure on fire, all in ice!

Cape St. John!—As we slowly glide away toward the north, and gaze back upon its everlasting cliffs, confronted by these wonderful icebergs, the glorious architecture of the polar night, I think of the apostle’s vision of permanent and shining walls, “the heavenly Jerusalem,” “the city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.”

“The good south wind” blows at last with strength, and we speed on our way over the great ocean, darkly shining in all its violet beauty. Pricking above the horizon, the peak of a berg sparkles in the glowing daylight of the west like a silvery star. C⁠—— has painted with great effect, notwithstanding the difficulty of lines and touches from the motion of the vessel. If one is curious about the troubles of painting on a little coaster, lightly ballasted, dashing forward frequently under a press of sail, with a short sea, I would recommend him to a good, stout swing. While in the enjoyment of his smooth and sickening vibrations, let him spread his pallet, arrange his canvas, and paint a pair of colts at their gambols in some adjacent field.

The novelty and grandeur of these Newfoundland seas and shores have busied the pencil so completely as to exclude much interesting matter, especially such as Captain Knight is continually contributing in his conversation. As we have been, for some time past, crossing the fields of the sealer, and as the Captain himself has a large experience in that adventurous business, seals and sealing have legitimately a small place, at least, in this recital.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE SEAL FIELDS.—SEALS AND SEALING.—CAPTAIN KNIGHT’S SHIPWRECK.

The sealers from St. Johns, for example, start upon their northern voyage, early in March, falling in with both ice and seals very frequently off the Capes of Conception and Trinity Bays. The ice, a snowy white, lies in vast fields upon the ocean, cracked in all ways, and broken into cakes or “pans” of all shapes and sizes. At one time, it resembles a boundless pavement dappled with dark water, into which vessels work their way, and upon which the seals travel: at another time, without the displacement of a block, this grand pavement of the sea rolls with its billows, rising and falling with such perfect order, that the men run along the ridges and down the hollows of the swells in safety. But this order goes into confusion in a storm, presenting in the succeeding calm a waste of ruins, masses of ice thrown into a thousand forms. In the long, starry nights, or the moonlight, or in the magic brilliancy of the aurora-borealis, the splendor of the scene,—dark avenues and parks of sleeping water, the silent glittering of mimic palaces and temples, sparkling minarets and towers, is almost supernatural. As will be seen at once, both the beauties and the perils incident to the ice, in calm and tempest, enter largely into the experience of the sealers. To-night, their vessel may repose in a fairy land or fairy sea, of which poets and painters may dream without the least suspicion that any mortal ever beholds the reality, and to-morrow night, it may encounter the double dangers of ice and storm.

Upon the fields just mentioned, the seals come from the ocean, in the depth of winter, and bring forth their young by thousands. There, while their parents come and go, the young things lie on the ice, fattening on their mothers’ milk with marvellous rapidity, helpless and white as lambs, with expressive eyes almost human, and with the piteous cries of little children. In March, about as soon as the voyagers can reach them, they are of suitable age and size for capture, which is effected by a blow on the head with a club, a much more compassionate way of killing these poor lambs of the sea than by the gun, which is much used in taking the old ones. Occasionally they are drawn bodily to the vessel, but usually skinned on the spot, the fat, two or three inches deep, coming off from the tough, red carcass with the hide, which, with several others is made into a bundle, dragged in by a rope, and thrown upon deck to cool. After a little, they are packed away as solidly as possible, to remain until discharged in port. Five, six, and seven thousand skins are frequently thus laid down, loading the vessel to the water’s edge. An accident to which the lucky sealer was formerly liable, was the melting of the fat into oil from the sliding of the skins, caused by the rolling of the ship in stormy weather. To such an extent was this dissolving process sometimes carried, as to reduce the cargo to skins and oil, half filling cabin and forecastle, driving the crew on deck, rendering the vessel unmanageable in rough weather, and requiring it to be abandoned. This is now securely guarded against by numbers of upright posts, which crib, and hold the cargo from shifting.

Several years ago, Captain Knight, while beset with the kind of ice, described as so beautiful in the bright nights, encountered, with many others, a terrific gale, to this day, a mournful remembrance to many people. If I am not mistaken, some eighty sail were wrecked, at the time, along these iron shores. In fact, very few that were out escaped. Several crews left their vessels and fled to land over the rolling ice-fields, the more prudent way. A forlorn hope was to put to sea, the course adopted by Captain Knight. By skill and coolness he slipped from the teeth of destruction, and in the face of the tempest escaped into the broad ocean. It was but an escape, just the next thing to a wreck. One single sea, the largest he ever experienced in numerous voyages along this dreadful coast, swept his deck, and nearly made a wreck of him in a moment, carrying overboard one man, nine boats, every sealing-boat on board, and every thing else that could be wrenched away. Another gigantic roller of the kind would have destroyed him. But he triumphed, and returned to St. Johns in time to refit, and start again.

Captain Knight was less fortunate, no later than last April, when he lost a fine brig with a costly outfit for a sealing voyage, under the following circumstances: Immersed in the densest fog, and driven by the gale, he was running down a narrow lane or opening in the ice, when the shout of breakers ahead, and the crash of the bows upon a reef, came in the same moment. Instantly, overboard they sprang, forty men of them, and saw their strong and beautiful vessel almost immediately buried in the ocean. There they stood, on the heaving field of ice, gazing in mournful silence upon the great, black billows as they rolled on, one after another, bursting in thunder on the sunken cliffs, a tremendous display of surf where the trembling spars of the brig had disappeared forever. To the west of them were the precipitous shores of Cape Bonavista, lashed by the surge, and the dizzy roost of wild sea-birds. For this, the nearest land, in single file, with Captain Knight at their head, they commenced at sunset their dreadful, and almost hopeless march. All night, without refreshment or rest, they went stumbling and plunging on their perilous way, now and then sinking into the slush between the pans or ice-cakes, and having to be drawn out by their companions. But for their leader and a few bold spirits, the party would have sunk down with fatigue and despair, and perished. At daybreak, they were still on the rolling ice-fields, beclouded with fog, and with nothing in prospect but the terrible Cape and its solitary chance of escape. Thirsty, famished, and worn down, they toiled on, all the morning, all the forenoon, all the afternoon, more and more slowly, and with increasing silence, bewildered and lost in the dreadful cloud travelling along parallel with the coast, and passing the Cape, but without knowing it at the time. But for some remarkable interposition of Divine Providence, the approaching sunset would be their last. Only the most determined would continue the march into the next night. The worn-out and hopeless ones would drop down singly, or gather into little groups on the cold ice, and die. As the Captain looked back on them, a drawn-out line of suffering men, now in the hollow of the waves, and then crossing the ridge, the last of them scarcely seen in the mist, he prayed that God would interpose, and save them. A man who prays in fair weather, may trust God in the storm. So thought Captain Knight, when he thought of home, and wife and children, and the wives and the children of his men, and made his supplication. They had shouted until they were hoarse, and looked into the endless, gray cloud until they had no heart for looking any longer. Wonderful to tell! Just before sundown they came to a vessel. A few rods to the right or to the left, and they must have missed it, and been lost. It was owing to this disaster that Captain Knight was at leisure in St. Johns upon our arrival, and found it agreeable to undertake, for a few weeks, our guidance after the icebergs.

CHAPTER XXIX.

BELLE ISLE AND THE COAST.—AFTER-DINNER DISCUSSION.—FIRST VIEW OF LABRADOR.—ICEBERGS.—THE OCEAN AND THE SUNSET.

Wednesday, July 6. After a quiet night, with a mild and favorable breeze, the morning opens with the promise of a bright day. Our little cloud of sail is all up in the early sunshine, and moving before the cool south wind steadily forward down the northern sea. Brilliantly as the summer sun looks abroad upon the mighty waters, I walk the clean, wet deck, in the heaviest winter clothing, and have that pleasant tingling in the veins which one feels in a brisk walk on a frosty autumnal morning. We are abreast of South Belle Isle, high lands fronting the ocean, with huge precipices, the fashion of most of the eastern coast of Newfoundland. With all their sameness, their rugged grandeur and the ceaseless battle of the waves below make them ever interesting. Imagine the Palisades of the Hudson, and the steeper parts of the Highlands exposed to the open Atlantic, and you will have no imperfect picture of these shores. They have no great bank of earth and loose rocks heaped up along their base, but step at once into the great deep; so deep that the icebergs, several of which are in sight, float close in, and seem to dare their very crags.

Afternoon. We have a pleasant custom of coming up, after dinner, and eating nuts and fruits on deck. It is one of the merry seasons of the day, when John Bull and Jonathan are apt to meet in those pleasant encounters which bring up the past, and draw rather largely upon the future, of their history. John is always the greatest, of course, and ever will be, secula seculorum. Jonathan, “considering,” is greater than John. To be sure he is thinner, and eats his dinner in a minute; but then he has every thing to do, and the longest roads on earth to travel, in the shortest time. In fact, he has many of the roads to make, and the least help and the shortest purse of any fellow in the world that undertakes and completes grand things. John’s first thousand years is behind him; Jonathan’s, before him. One’s work is done; the other’s begun. John’s fine roads were made by his forefathers; Jonathan is the forefather himself, and is making roads for his posterity. In fact, Jonathan is a youth only, and John an old man. When the lad gets his growth, he will be everywhere, and the old fogy, by that time, comparatively nowhere. Jonathan insists that he is up earlier in the morning than John, and smarter, faster, and more ingenious. He contends that he has seen his worst days, and John his very best. The longer the diverging lines of the dispute continue, the further they get from any end; and wind up finally with one general outburst of rhetoric, distinguished for its noise, in which each springs up entirely conscious of a perfect victory. In the complicated enjoyment of almonds, figs, and victory, we betake ourselves to reading, the pencil and the brush.

PLATE N^o. 3.
AN ARCHED ICEBERG IN THE AFTERNOON LIGHT
Lith. of Sarony Major & Knapp, 449 Broadway NY.