"Long swoln in drenching rains, seeds, germs, and buds
Start at the touch of vivifying beams.
Moved by their secret force, the vital lymph
Diffusive runs, and spreads o'er wood and field
A flood of verdure."Wilcox.
At length it came to be rumoured among the sealers that the fires must be
permitted to go out, or that the materials used for making the berths, and
various other fixtures of the house, must be taken to supply the stove. It
was when it got to be known that the party was reduced to this sad
dilemma, that Roswell broke through the bank of snow that almost covered
the house, and got so far into the open air as to be able to form some
estimate of the probable continuance of the present cold weather. The
thermometer, within the bank of snow, but outside of the building, then
stood at twenty below zero; but it was much colder in the unobstructed
currents of as keen and biting a south wind as ever came howling across
the vast fields of ice that covered the polar basin. The snow had long
ceased, but not until an immense quantity had fallen; nearly twice as
much, Roswell and Hazard thought, as they had seen on the rocks at any
time that winter.
"I see no signs of a change, Mr. Hazard," Roswell remarked, shivering with
the intensity of the cold. "We had better go back into the house before we
get chilled, for we have no fire now to go to, to warm ourselves. It is
much warmer within doors, than it is in the open air, fire or no fire."
"There are many reasons for that, Captain Gar'ner," answered the mate.
"So many bodies in so small a space, the shelter from the wind and outer
air, and the snow banks, all help us. I think we shall find the
thermometer indoors at a pretty comfortable figure this morning."
On examining it, it was found to stand at only fifteen below zero, making
a difference of five degrees in favour of the house, as compared with the
sort of covered gallery under the tent, and probably of five more, as
compared with the open air.
On a consultation, it was decided that all hands should eat a hearty meal,
remove most of their clothes, and get within the coverings of their
berths, to see if it would not be possible to wear out the cold spell, in
some tolerable comfort, beneath rugs and blankets. On the whole, it was
thought that the berths might be made more serviceable by this expedient,
than by putting their materials into the stoves. Accordingly, within an
hour after Roswell and his mate had returned from their brief out-door
excursion, the whole party was snugly bestowed under piles of rugs,
clothes, sails, and whatever else might be used to retain the animal heat
near the body, and exclude cold. In this manner, six-and-thirty hours were
passed, not a man of them all having the courage to rise from his lair,
and encounter the severity of the climate, now unrelieved by anything like
a fire.
Roswell had slept most of the time, during the last ten hours, and in this
he was much like all around him. A general feeling of drowsiness had come
over the men, and the legs and feet of many among them, notwithstanding
the quantity of bed-clothes that were, in particular, piled on that part
of their person, were sensitively alive to the cold. No one ever knew how
low the thermometer went that fearful night; but a sort of common
consciousness prevailed, that nothing the men had yet seen, or felt,
equalled its chill horrors. The cold had got into the house, converting
every article it contained into a mass of frost, The berths ceased to be
warm, and the smallest exposure of a shoulder, hand, or ears, soon
produced pain. The heads of very many of the party were affected, and
breathing became difficult and troubled. A numbness began to steal over
the lower limbs; and this was the last unpleasant sensation remembered by
Roswell, when he fell into another short and disturbed slumber. The
propensity to sleep was very general now, though many struggled against
it, knowing it was the usual precursor of death by freezing.
Our hero never knew how long he slept in the last nap he took on that
memorable occasion. When he awoke, he found a bright light blazing in the
hut, and heard some one moving about the camboose. Then his thoughts
reverted to himself, and to the condition of his limbs. On trying to rub
his feet together, he found them so nearly without sensation as to make
the consciousness of their touching each other almost out of the question.
Taking the alarm at once, he commenced a violent friction, until by slow
degrees he could feel that the nearly stagnant blood was getting again
into motion. So great had been Roswell's alarm, and so intent his
occupation, that he took no heed of the person who was busy at the
camboose, until the man appeared at the side of his berth, holding a tin
pot in his hand. It was Stimson, up and dressed, without his skins, and
seemingly in perfect preservation.
"Here's some hot coffee, Captain Gar'ner," said the provident
boat-steerer, "and then turn out. The wind has shifted, by the marcy of
God, and it has begun to rain. _Now_, I think we may have summer in
'arnest, as summer comes among these sealin' islands."
Roswell took six or eight swallows of the coffee, which was smoking hot,
and instantly felt the genial influence diffused over his whole frame.
Sending Stephen to the other berths with this timely beverage, he now sat
up in his berth, and rubbed his feet and legs with his hands. The
exercise, friction, and hot coffee, soon brought him round; and he sprang
out of his berth, and was quickly dressed. Stimson had lighted a fire in
the camboose, using the very last of the wood, and the warmth was
beginning to diffuse itself through the building. But the change in the
wind, and the consequent melioration of the temperature, probably alone
saved the whole of the Oyster Pond crew from experiencing the dire fate of
that of the Vineyard craft.
Stephen got man after man out of his berth, by doses of the steaming
coffee; and the blood being thus stimulated, by the aid of friction,
everybody was soon up and stirring. It was found, on inquiry, that all
three of the blacks had toes or ears frozen, and with them the usual
application of snow became necessary; but the temperature of the house
soon got to be so high as to render the place quite comfortable. Warm food
being deemed very essential, Stephen had put a supply of beans and pork
into his coppers; and the frost having been extracted from a quantity of
the bread by soaking it in cold water, a hearty meal of good, hot, and
most nourishing food, was made by all hands. This set our sealers up, no
more complaints of the frost being heard.
It was, indeed, no longer very cold. The thermometer was up to twenty-six
above zero in the house when Roswell turned out; and the cooking process,
together with Stephen's fires and the shift of wind, soon brought the
mercury up to forty. This was a cheering temperature for those who had
been breathing the polar air; and the influence of the north-east gale
continued to increase. The rain and thaw produced another deluge; and the
cliffs presented, for several hours, a sight that might have caused
Niagara to hide her head in mortification. These sublime scenes are of
frequent occurrence amid the solitudes of the earth; the occasional
phenomena of nature often surpassing in sublimity and beauty her rarest
continued efforts.
The succeeding day the rain ceased, and summer appeared to have come in
reality. It is true that at mid-day the thermometer in the shade stood at
only forty-eight; but in the sun it actually rose to seventy. Let those
who have ever experienced the extremes of heat and cold imagine the
delight with which our sealers moved about under such a sun! All excess of
clothing was thrown aside; and many of the men actually pursued their work
in their shirt-sleeves.
As the snow had vanished quite as suddenly as it came, everything and
everybody was now in active motion. Not a man of the crew was disposed to
run the risk of encountering any more cold on Sealer's Land. Roswell
himself was of opinion that the late severe weather was the dying effort
of the winter, and that no more cold was to be expected; and Stimson
agreed with him in this notion. The sails were taken down from around the
house, and those articles it was intended to carry away were transferred
to the schooner as fast as the difficulties of the road would allow. While
his mates were carrying on this duty, our young master took an early
occasion to examine the state of matters generally on the island. With
this view he ascended to the plain, and went half-way up the mountain,
desiring to get a good look into the offing.
It was soon ascertained that the recent deluge had swept all the ice and
every trace of the dead into the sea. The body of Daggett had disappeared,
with the snow-bank in which it had been buried; and all the carcases of
the seals had been washed away. In a word, the rocks were as naked and as
clean as if man's foot had never passed over them. From the facts that
skeletons of seals had been found strewed along the north shore, and the
present void, Roswell was led to infer that the late storm had been one of
unusual intensity, and most probably of a character to occur only at long
intervals.
But the state of the ice was the point of greatest interest. The schooner
could now be got ready for sea in a week, and that easily; but there she
lay, imbedded in a field of ice that still covered nearly the whole of the
waters within the group. As Roswell stood on the cliffs which overlooked
the cove, he calculated the distance it would be necessary to take the
schooner through the ice by sawing and cutting, and that through a field
known to be some four feet thick, at five good miles at least. So
Herculean did this task appear to be, that he even thought of abandoning
his vessel altogether, and of setting out in the boats, as soon as the
summer was fairly commenced. On reflection, however, this last plan was
reserved as a _dernier ressort_, the danger of encountering the tempests
of those seas in a whale-boat, without covering or fire, being much too
great to be thought of, so long as any reasonable alternative offered.
The bergs to the southward were in motion, and a large fleet of them was
putting to sea, as it might be, coming in from those remote and then
unknown regions in which they were formed. From the mountain, our hero
counted at least a hundred, all regularly shaped, with tops like that of
table-land, and with even, regular sides, and upright attitudes. It was
very desirable to get ahead of these new maritime Alps, for the ocean to
the northward was unusually clear of ice of all kinds, that lodged between
the islands excepted.
So long as it was safe to calculate on the regular changes of the seasons,
Roswell knew that patience and vigilance would serve his turn, by bringing
everything round in its proper time and place. But it was by no means
certain that it was a usual occurrence for the Great Bay to be crammed
with field-ice, as had happened the past winter; if the actual state of
the surrounding waters were an exception instead of the rule. On examining
the shores, however, it was found that the rain and melted snow had
created a sort of margin, and that the strong winds which had been
blowing, and which in fact were still blowing, had produced a gradually
increasing attrition, until a space existed between the weather-side of
the field and the rocks that was some thirty fathoms wide. This was an
important discovery, and brought up a most grave question for decision.
Owing to the shape of the surrounding land, it would not be possible for
the ice to float out in a body, for two or three months to come; or until
so much had melted as to leave room for the field to pass the capes and
head-lands. It never could have entered the bay for the same reason, but
for the resistless power of a field that extended leagues out into the
ocean, where, acted on jointly by wind and tide, it came down with a
momentum that was resistless, ripping and tearing the edges of the field
as if they had been so much freshly turned up mould. It was, then, a
question how to get the schooner out of her present bed, and into clear
water.
The reader will probably remember that, on her first arrival at the group,
the Sea Lion had entered the Great Bay from the southward; while, in her
subsequent effort to get north, she had gone out by the opposite passage.
Now, it occurred to Roswell that he might escape by the former of these
routes more readily than by the latter, and for the following
reasons:--No field-ice had ever blocked up the southern passage, which
was now quite clear, though the approach to it just then was choked by the
manner in which the north-east gale that was still blowing, pressed home
against the rocks the field that so nearly filled the bay. A shift of
wind, however, must soon come; and when that change occurred, it was
certain that this field would move in an opposite direction, leaving the
margin of open water, that has already been mentioned, all along the
rocks. The distance was considerable, it is true--not less than fifteen
miles--and the whole of it was to be made quite close to sharp angular
rocks that would penetrate the schooner's sides almost as readily as an
axe, in the event of a nip; but this danger might be avoided by foresight,
and a timely attention to the necessities of the case. Seeing no more
available plan to get the vessel out of her present duresse, the mates
came readily into this scheme, and preparations were made to carry it out.
As the cove was so near the north-east end of Sealer's Land, it may be
well to explain that the reason this same mode of proceeding could not be
carried out in a northern direction, was the breadth of the field seaward,
and the danger of following the north shore when the solid ice did leave
it, on account of the quantities of broken fragments that were tossing and
churning in its front, far as the eye could reach from the cliffs
themselves.
The third day after the commencement of the thaw, the wind came round
again from the south-west, blowing heavily. As was expected, this soon
began to set the field in motion, driving it over towards the volcano, and
at the same time northerly. About six in the morning, Hazard brought a
report to Roswell that a margin of open water was beginning to form all
along under the cliffs, while there was great danger that the channel
which had been cut from the schooner to the nearest point beneath the
rocks, in readiness for this very contingency, might be closed by the
pressure of the ice without, on that within the cove. No time was to be
lost, therefore, if it was intended to move the craft on this shift of
wind. The distance that had been sawed through to make the channel just
named, did not exceed a hundred yards. The passage was not much wider than
the schooner's breadth: and it will be easily understood that it was to
the last degree important to carry her through this strait as soon as
possible. Although many useful articles were scattered about on the ice,
and several remained to be brought over the rocks from the house, the
order was given to get out lines, and to move the vessel at once, the men
set to work with hearty goodwill, another glimpse of home rising before
their imaginations; and, in five minutes after Hazard had made his
communication, the Sea Lion had gone six or eight times her length towards
the cliffs. Then came the pinch! Had not the ice been solid between the
cape and the berth just before occupied by the schooner, she would have
been hopelessly nipped by the closing of the artificial channel. As it
was, she was caught, and her progress was arrested, but the field took a
cant, in consequence of the resistance, of the solid ice that filled the
whole cove to the eastward of the channel; and, before any damage was
done, the latter began to open even faster than it had come together. The
instant the craft was released the sealers manned their hauling lines
again, and ran her up lo the rocks with a hurrah! The margin of water was
just opening, but so prompt had been the movement of the men that it was
not yet wide enough to permit the vessel to go any further; and it was
found necessary to wait until the passage was sufficiently wide to enable
her to move ahead. The intervening time was occupied in bringing to the
craft the articles left behind.
By nine o'clock everything was on board; the winding channel that followed
the sinuosities of the coast could be traced far as the eye could see; the
lines were manned; and the word was again given to move. Roswell now felt
that he was engaged in much the most delicate of all his duties. The
desperate run through the fleet of bergs, and the second attempt to get to
sea, were not in certain particulars as hazardous as this. The field had
been setting back and forth now, for several weeks; the margin of cleat
water increasing by the attrition at each return to the rocks; and it was
known by observation that these changes often occurred at very short
notices. Should the wind haul round with the sun, or one of the
unaccountable currents of those seas intervene before the south-east cape
was reached, the schooner would probably be broken into splinters, or
ground into powder, in the course of some two or three hours. It was
all-important, therefore, to lose not a moment.
Several times in the course of the first hour, the movement of the
schooner was arrested by the want of sufficient room to pass between
projecting points in the cliffs and the edge of the ice. On two of these
occasions passages were cut with the saw, the movement of the field not
answering to the impatience of the sealers. At the end of that most
momentous hour, however, the craft had been hauled ahead a mile and a
half, and had reached a curvature in the coast where the margin of open
water was more than fifty fathoms wide, and the tracking of the vessel
became easy and rapid. By two o'clock the Sea Lion was at what might be
called the bottom of the Great Bay, some three or four leagues from the
cove, and at the place where the long low cape began to run out in a
south-easterly direction. As the wind could now be felt over the rocks,
the foretopsail was set, as well as the lower sails, the latter being
mainly becalmed, however, by the land; when the people were all taken on
board, the craft moving faster under her canvass than by means of the
hauling lines. The wind was very fresh, and in half an hour more the
south-east cape came in sight, close as were the navigators to the rocks.
Ten minutes later, the Sea Lion was under reefed sails, stretching off to
the southward and eastward, in perfectly clear water!
At first, Roswell Gardiner was disposed to rejoice, under the impression
that his greatest labour had been achieved. A better look at the state of
things around him, however, taught the disheartening lesson of humility,
by demonstrating that they had in truth but just commenced.
Although there was scarcely any field-ice to the southward of the group,
and in its immediate neighbourhood, there was a countless number of bergs.
It is true, these floating mountains did not come very near the passage,
for the depth of water just there usually brought them up ere they could
get into it; nevertheless, a large fleet of them was blockading the entire
group, far as the eye could reach, looking east, west and south, or along
the whole line of the southern coast. It was at first questionable
whether, and soon after it became certain, that the schooner could never
beat through such dangers. Had the wind been fair, the difficulty would
have been insurmountable; but ahead, and blowing a little gale, the matter
was out of the question. Some other course must be adopted.
There was a choice of alternatives. One was to go entirely round the whole
group, passing to the eastward of the volcano, where no one of the party
had ever been; and the other was to follow the eastern margin of the bay,
keeping inside of it, and trusting to finding some opening by which the
schooner could force her way into clear water to the northward. After a
very brief consultation with his mates, Roswell decided on attempting the
last.
As the course now to be steered was almost dead before the wind, the
little craft, lightened of so much of her upper works, almost flew through
the water. The great source of apprehension felt by our young men in
attempting this new expedient, was in the probability that the field would
drift home to the rocks in the north-east quarter of the bay, which, with
a south-west wind, was necessarily a quarter to leeward. Should this prove
to be the case, it might be found impossible to pass ahead, and the
schooner would be caught in a _cul de sac_; since it would not be in the
power of her people to track her back again in the teeth of so strong a
wind. Notwithstanding these probabilities, on Roswell went; for he saw
plain enough that at such a moment almost anything was better than
indecision.
The rate at which the little craft was flying before a fresh gale, in
perfectly smooth water, soon put our sealers in a better condition to form
closer estimates of their chances. The look-outs aloft, one of whom was
Hazard, the first officer, sent down on deck constant reports of what they
could see.
"How does it look ahead, now, Mr. Hazard?" demanded Roswell, about five in
the afternoon, just as his schooner was coming close under the smoking
sides of the volcano, which had always been an object of interest to him,
though he had never found time to visit it before. "Is there no danger of
our touching the ground, close in as we are to this island?"
"I think not, sir; when I landed here, we kept the lead going the whole
time, and we got two fathoms quite up to the, shore. In my judgment,
Captain Gar'ner, we may run down along this land as bold as lions."
"And how does it look ahead? I've no wish to get jammed here, close aboard
of a volcano, which may be choking us all with its smoke before we know
where we are."
"Not much danger of that, sir, with this wind. These volcanoes are nothin'
but playthings, a'ter all. The vapour is driving off towards the
north-east---That was a crack, with a vengeance!"
Just as Hazard was boasting of the innocuous character of a volcano, that
near them fired a gun, as the men afterwards called it, casting into the
air a large flight of cinders and stones, accompanied by a sharp flash of
flame. All the lighter materials drove away to leeward, but the heavier
followed the law of projectiles, and scattered in all directions. Several
stones of some size fell quite close to the schooner, and a few smaller
actually came down on her decks.
"It will never do to stop here to boil our pot," cried Roswell to the
mate. "We must get away from this, Mr. Hazard, as fast as the good craft
can travel!"
"Get away it is, sir. There is nothing very near ahead to stop us; though
it does look more toward the east cape as if the field was jammed in that
quarter."
"Keep all your eyes about you, sir; and look out especially for any
opening among the smaller islands ahead. I am not without hope that the
currents which run among them may give us a clear passage in that
quarter."
These words explain precisely that which did actually occur. On went the
schooner, almost brushing the base of the volcano, causing Roswell many a
bound of the heart, when he fancied she must strike; but she went clear.
All this time, it was crack, crack, crack, from the crater, rumbling
sounds and heavy explosions; the last attended by flames, and smoke of a
pitchy darkness. A dozen times the Sea Lion had very narrow escapes when
nearest to the danger, stones of a weight to pass through her decks and
bottom falling even on the ice outside of her; but that hand which had so
benevolently stayed various other evils, was stretched forth to save, and
nothing touched the schooner of a size to do any injury. These escapes
made a deep impression on Roswell. Until the past winter he had been
accustomed to look upon things and events as matters of course. This
vacant indifference, so common to men in prosperity, was extended even to
the sublimest exhibition of the Almighty power; our hero seeing nothing in
the firmament of heaven, of a clear night, but the twinkling rights that
seemed to him to be placed there merely to garnish and illumine the
darkness of this globe. Now, how differently did he look upon natural
objects, and their origin! If it were only an insect, his mind presented
its wonderful mechanism, its beauty, its uses. No star seemed less than
what science has taught us that it is; and the power of the Dread Being
who had created all, who governed all, and who was judge of all, became an
inseparable subject of contemplation, as he looked upon the least of his
works. Feelings thus softened and tempered by humility, easily led their
subject to the reception of those leading articles of the Christian faith
which have been consecrated by the belief of the church catholic since the
ages of miraculous guidance, and which are now venerable by time. Bold and
presuming is he who fancies that his intellect can rectify errors of this
magnitude and antiquity, and that the church of God has been permitted to
wallow on in a most fatal idolatry for centuries, to be extricated by the
pretending syllogisms of his one-sided and narrow philosophy!
The people of the Sea Lion were less affected by what they saw than their
young commander. Their hearts were light with the prospect of a speedy
release from the hardships and dangers they had undergone; and, at each
explosion of the volcano, as soon as out of reach of the falling stones,
they laughed, and asserted that the mountain was firing a salute in honour
of their departure. Such is the difference between men whose hearts and
spirits have submitted to the law of faith, and those who live on in the
recklessness of the passing events of life!
The schooner was racing past a rocky islet, beginning to haul more on a
wind, as she made the circuit of the bay, just as Hazard came to the
conclusion that the field had drifted home on the outer island of the
group, and that it would be impossible to pass into clear water by going
on. Turning his head in quest of some bay, or other secure place in which
the craft might wait for a favourable change, he saw a narrow opening to
leeward of the islet he had passed but a minute before; and, so far as he
could perceive, one that led directly out to sea.
It was too late to keep away for the entrance of the passage, the ice
being too close at hand to leeward; but, most fortunately, there was room
to tack. A call to Roswell soon caused the schooner to be close on a wind;
down went her helm, and round she came like a top. Sail was shortened in
stays, and by the time the little craft was ready to fall off for the
passage, she had nothing on her but a foretopsail, jib, and a close-reefed
mainsail. Under this canvass she glided along, almost brushing the rocks
of the islet, but without touching. In twenty minutes more she was clear
of the group altogether, and in open water!
That night some embarrassment was encountered from broken field-ice, of
which the ocean was pretty full; but by exercising great vigilance, no
serious thump occurred. Fortunately the period of darkness was quite
short, the twilight being of great length both mornings and evenings; and
the re-appearance of the sun cast a cheerful glow on the face of the
troubled waters.
The wind held at south-west for three days, blowing heavily the whole
time. By the second night-fall the sea was clear of ice, and everything
was carried on the schooner that she could bear. About nine o'clock on the
morning of the fourth day out, a speck was seen rising above the ragged
outline of the rolling waves; and each minute it became higher and more
distinct. An hour or two later, the Sea Lion was staggering along before a
westerly gale, with the Hermit of Cape Horn on her larboard beam distant
three leagues. How many trying scenes and bitter moments crowded on the
mind of young Roswell Gardiner, as he recalled all that had passed in the
ten months which intervened since he had come out from behind the shelter
of those wild rocks! Stormy as was that sea, and terrible as was its name
among mariners, coming, as he did, from one still more stormy and
terrible, he now regarded it as a sort of place of refuge. A winter
there, he well knew, would be no trifling undertaking, but he had just
passed a winter in a region where even fuel was not to be found, unless
carried there. Twenty days later the Sea Lion sailed again from Rio,
having sold all the sea-elephant oil that remained, and bought stores; of
which, by this time, the vessel was much in want. Most of the portions of
the provisions that were left had been damaged by the thawing process; and
food was getting to be absolutely necessary to her people, when the
schooner went again into the noble harbour of the capital of Brazil. Then
succeeded the lassitude and calms that reign about the imaginary line that
marks the circuit of the earth, at that point which is ever central as
regards the sun, and where the days and nights are always equal. No
inclination of the earth's axis to the plane of its orbit affected the
climate there, which knew not the distinctions of summer and winter; or
which, if they did exist at all, were so faintly marked as to be nearly
imperceptible.
Twenty days later the schooner was standing among some low sandy keys,
under short canvass, and in the south-east trades. By her movements an
anchorage was sought; and one was found at last, where the craft was
brought up, boats were hoisted out, and Roswell Gardiner landed.