Читать книгу After Icebergs with a Painter - Louis Legrand Noble - Страница 10

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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.