University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.

Campbell.

It was about midday, when the two Sea Lions opened
their canvass, at the same moment, and prepared to quit
Sealer's Land. All hands were on board, every article was
shipped for which there was room, and nothing remained
that denoted the former presence of man on that dreary
island, but the deserted house, aud three or four piles of
cord-wood, that had grown on Shelter Island and Martha's
Vineyard, and which was now abandoned on the rocks of
the antarctic circle. As the topsails were sheeted home,
and the heavy fore-and-aft mainsails were hoisted, the songs
of the men sounded cheerful and animating. `Home' was
in every tone, each movement, all the orders. Daggett
was on deck, in full command, though still careful of his
limb, while Roswell appeared to be everywhere. Mary
Pratt was before his mind's eye all that morning; nor did
he even once think how pleasant it would be to meet her
uncle, with a “There, deacon, is your schooner, with a
good cargo of elephant-oil, well chucked off with fur-seal
skins.”

The Oyster Pond craft was the first clear of the ground.
The breeze was little felt in that cove, where usually it did
not seem to blow at all, but there was wind enough to serve
to cast the schooner, and she went slowly out of the rocky
basin, under her mainsail, foretopsail, and jib. The wind
was at south-west,—the nor-wester of that hemisphere,—
and it was fresh and howling enough, on the other side of

the island. After Roswell had made a stretch out into the
bay of about a mile, he laid his foretopsail flat aback, hauled
over his jib-sheet, and put his helm hard down, in waiting
for the other schooner to come out and join him. In a
quarter of an hour, Daggett got within hail.

“Well,” called out the last, “you see I was right, Gar'ner;
wind enough out here, and more, still further from
the land. We have only to push in among them bergs
while it is light, pick out a clear spot, and heave-to during
the night. It will hardly do for us to travel among so much
ice in the dark.”

“I wish we had got out earlier, that we might have made
a run of it by day-light,” answered Roswell. “Ten hours
of such a wind, in my judgment, would carry us well
towards clear water.”

“The delay could not be helped. I had so many traps
ashore, it took time to gather them together. Come, fill
away, and let us be moving. Now we are under way, I'm
in as great haste as you are yourself.”

Roswell complied, and away the two schooners went,
keeping quite near to each other, having smooth water, and
still something of a moderated gale, in consequence of the
proximity and weatherly position of the island. The course
was towards a spot to leeward, where the largest opening
appeared in the ice, and where it was hoped a passage to
the northward would be found. The further the two vessels
got from the land, the more they felt the power of the
wind, and the greater was their rate of running. Daggett
soon found that he could spare his consort a good deal of
canvass, a consequence of his not being full, and he took
in his topsail, though, running nearly before the wind, his
spar would have stood even a more severe strain.

As the oldest mariner, it had been agreed between the
two masters that Daggett should lead the way. This he
did for an hour, when both vessels were fairly out of the
great bay, clear of the group altogether, and running off
north-easterly, at a rate of-nearly ten knots in the hour.
The sea got up as they receded from the land, and everything
indicated a gale, though one of no great violence.
Night was approaching, and an Alpine-like range of icebergs
was glowing, to the northward, under the oblique

rays of the setting sun. For a considerable space around
the vessels, the water was clear, not even a cake of any sort
being to be seen; and the question arose in Daggett's mind,
whether he ought to stand on, or to heave-to and pass the
night well to windward of the bergs. Time was precious,
the wind was fair, the heavens clear, and the moon would
make its appearance about nine, and might be expected to
remain above the horizon until the return of day. This
was one side of the picture. The other presented less
agreeable points. The climate was so fickle, that the clearness
of the skies was not to be depended on, especially with
a strong south-west wind—a little gale, in fact; and a
change in this particular might be produced at any moment.
Then it was certain that floes, and fragments of bergs,
would be found near, if not absolutely among the sublime
mountain-like piles that were floating about, in a species
of grand fleet, some twenty miles to leeward. Both of our
masters, indeed all on board of each schooner, very well
understood that the magnificent array of icy islands which
lay before them was owing to the currents, for which it is
not always easy to account. The clear space was to be
attributed to the same cause, though there was little doubt
that the wind, which had now been to the southward fully
eight-and-forty hours, had contributed to drive the icy fleet
to the northward. As a consequence of these facts, the
field-ice must be in the vicinity of the bergs, and the embarrassment
from that source was known always to be very
great.

It required a good deal of nerve for a mariner to run in
among dangers of the character just described, as the sun
was setting. Nevertheless, Daggett did it; and Roswell
Gardiner followed the movement, at the distance of about
a cable's length. To prevent separation, each schooner
showed a light at the lower yard-arm, just as the day was
giving out its last glimmerings. As yet, however, no difficulty
was encountered; the alpine-looking range being yet
quite two hours' run still to leeward. Those two hours
must be passed in darkness; and Daggett shortened sail
in order not to reach the ice before the moon rose. He
had endeavoured to profit by the light as long as it remained,
to find a place at which he might venture to enter

among the bergs, but had met with no great success. The
opening first seen now appeared to be closed, either by
means of the drift or by means of the change in the position
of the vessels; and he no longer thought of that.
Fortune must be trusted to, in some measure; and on he
went, Roswell always closely following.

The early hours of that eventful night were intensely
dark. Nevertheless, Daggett stood down towards the icy
range, using no other precautions than shortening sail and
keeping a sharp look-out. Every five minutes the call from
the quarter-deck of each schooner to “keep a bright look-out”
was heard, unless, indeed, Daggett or Roswell was on
his own forecastle, thus occupied in person. No one on
board of either vessel thought of sleep. The watch had
been called, as is usual at sea, and one half of the crew
was at liverty to go below and turn in. What was more,
those small fore-and-aft rigged craft were readily enough
handled by a single watch; and this so much the more
easily, now that their top-sails were in. Still, not a man
left the deck. Anxiety was too prevalent for this, the least
experienced hand in either crew being well aware that the
next four-and-twenty hours would, in all human probability,
be decisive of the fate of the voyage.

Both Daggett and Gardiner grew more and more uneasy
as the time for the moon to rise drew near, without the orb
of night making its appearance. A few clouds were driving
athwart the heavens, though the stars twinkled as usual,
in their diminutive but sublime splendour. It was not so
dark that objects could not be seen at a considerable distance;
and the people of the schooners had no difficulty in
very distinctly tracing, and that not very far ahead, the
broken outlines of the chain of floating mountains. No
alpine pile, in very fact, could present a more regular or
better defined range, and in some respects more fantastic
outlines. When the bergs first break away from their native
moorings, their forms are ordinarily somewhat regular;
the summits commonly resembling table-land. This regularity
of shape, however, is soon lost under the rays of the
summer sun, the wash of the ocean, and most of all by the
wear of the torrents that gush out of their own frozen
bosoms. A distinguished navigator of our own time has

compared the appearance of these bergs, after their regularity
of shape is lost, and they begin to assume the fantastic
outlines that uniformly succeed, to that of a deserted
town, built of the purest alabaster, with its edifices crumbling
under the seasons, and its countless unpeopled streets,
avenues and alleys. All who have seen the sight unite in
describing it as one of the most remarkable that comes
from the lavish hand of nature.

About nine o'clock on the memorable night in question,
there was a good deal of fog driving over the ocean to increase
the obscurity. This rendered Daggett doubly cautious,
and he actually hauled up close to the wind, heading
off well to the westward, in order to avoid running in among
the bergs, in greater uncertainty than the circumstances
would seem to require. Of course Roswell followed the
movement; and when the moon first diffused its mild rays
on the extraordinary scene, the two schooners were pitching
into a heavy sea, within less than a mile of the weather-line
of the range of bergs. It was soon apparent that floes
or field ice accompanied the floating mountains, and extended
so far to the southward of them as to be already
within an inconvenient if not hazardous proximity to the
two vessels. These floes, however, unlike those previously
encountered, were much broken by the undulations of the
waves, and seldom exceeded a quarter of a mile in diameter;
while thousands of them were no larger than the ordinary
drift ice of our own principal rivers in the time of a
freshet. Their vicinity to the track of the schooners, indeed,
was first ascertained by the noise they produced in
grinding against each other, which soon made itself audible
even above the roaring of the gale.

Both of our masters now began to be exceedingly uncomfortable.
It was soon quite apparent that Daggett had
been too bold, and had led down towards the ice without
sufficient caution and foresight. As the moon rose, higher
and higher, the difficulties and dangers to leeward became
at each minute more and more apparent. Nothing could
have been more magnificent than the scene which lay before
the eyes of the mariners, or would have produced a
deeper feeling of delight, had it not been for the lively
consciousness of the risk the two schooners and all who

were in them unavoidably ran, by being so near and to
windward of such an icy coast, if one may use the expression
as relates to floating bodies. By that light it was very
easy to imagine Wilkes' picture of a ruined town of alabaster.
There were arches of all sizes and orders; pinnacles
without number; towers, and even statues and columns.
To these were to be added long lines of perpendicular walls,
that it was easy enough to liken to fortresses, dungeons and
temples. In a word, even the Alps, with all their peculiar
grandeur, and certainly on a scale so vastly more enlarged,
possess no one aspect that is so remarkable for its
resemblance to the labours of man, composed of a material
of the most beautiful transparency, and considered as the
results of human ingenuity, on a scale so gigantic. The
glaciers have often been likened, and not unjustly, to a
frozen sea; but here were congealed mountains seemingly
hewed into all the forms of art, not by the chisel it is true,
but by the action of the unerring laws which produced
them.

Perhaps Roswell Gardiner was the only individual in
those two vessels that night who was fully alive to all the
extraordinary magnificence of its unusual pictures. Stephen
may, in some degree, have been an exception to the
rule; though he saw the hand of God in nearly all things,
“It's wonderful to look at, Captain Gar'ner, isn't it?” said
this worthy seaman, about the time the light of the moon
began to tell on the view; “wonderful, truly, did we not
know who made it all!” These few and simple words had
a cheering influence on Roswell, and served to increase
his confidence in eventual success. God did produce all
things, either directly or indirectly; this even his sceptical
notions could allow; and that which came from divine
wisdom must be intended for good. He would take courage,
and for once in his life trust to Providence. The most resolute
man by nature feels his courage augmented by such
a resolution.

The gales of the antarctic sea are said to be short, though
violent. They seldom last six-and-thirty hours, and for
about a third of that time they blow with their greatest
violence. As a matter of course, the danger amid the ice
is much increased by a tempest; though a good working

breeze, or small gale of wind, perhaps, adds to a vessel's
security, by rendering it easier to handle her, and to avoid
floes and bergs. If the ice is sufficient to make a lee,
smooth water is sometimes a consequence; though it
oftener happens that the turbulence produced in clear water
is partially communicated over a vast surface, causing the
fields and mountains to grind against each other under the
resistless power of the waves. On the present occasion,
however, the schooners were still in open water, where the
wind had a long and unobstructed rake, and a sea had got
up that caused both of the little craft to bury nearly to their
gunwales. What rendered their situation still more unpleasant
was the fact that all the water which came aboard of
them now soon froze. To this, however, the men were
accustomed, it frequently happening that the moisture deposited
on their rigging and spars by the fogs froze during
the nights of the autumn. Indeed, it has been thought by
some speculators on the subject, that the bergs themselves
are formed in part by a similar process, though snows undoubtedly
are the principal element in their composition.
This it is which gives the berg its stratified appearance,
no geological formation being more apparent or regular in
this particular than most of these floating mountains.

About ten, the moon was well above the horizon; the
fog had been precipitated in dew upon the ice, where it
congealed, and helped to arrest the progress of dissolution;
while the ocean became luminous for the hour, and objects
comparatively distinct. Then it was that the seamen first
got a clear insight into the awkwardness of their situation.
The bold are apt to be reckless in the dark; but when
danger is visible, their movements become more wary and
better calculated than those of the timid. When Daggett
got this first good look at the enormous masses of the field-ice,
that, stirred by the unquiet ocean, were grinding each
other, and raising an unceasing rushing sound like that the
surf produces on a beach, though far louder, and with a
harshness in it that denoted the collision of substances
harder than water, he almost instinctively ordered every
sheet to be flattened down, and the schooner's head brought
as near the wind as her construction permitted. Roswell
observed the change in his consort's line of sailing, slight

as it was, and imitated the manœuvre. The sea was too
heavy to dream of tacking, and there was not room to ware.
So close, indeed, were some of the cakes, those that might
be called the stragglers of the grand array, that repeatedly
each vessel brushed along so near them as actually to receive
slight shocks from collisions with projecting portions.
It was obvious that the vessels were setting down upon the
ice, and that Daggett did not haul his wind a moment too
soon.

The half-hour that succeeded was one of engrossing interest.
It settled the point whether the schooners could or
could not eat their way into the wind sufficiently to weather
the danger. Fragment after fragment was passed; blow
after blow was received; until suddenly the field-ice appeared
directly in front. It was in vast quantities, extending
to the southward far as the eye could reach. There
remained no alternative but to attempt to ware. Without
waiting longer than to assure himself of the facts, Daggett
ordered his helm put up and the main gaff lowered. At
that moment both the schooners were under their jibs and
foresails, each without its bonnet, and double-reefed mainsails.
This was not canvass very favourable for waring,
there being too much after-sail; but the sheets were attended
to, and both vessels were soon driving dead to leeward,
amid the foam of a large wave; the next instant, ice
was heard grinding along their sides.

It was not possible to haul up on the other tack ere the
schooners would be surrounded by the floes; and seeing a
comparatively open passage a short distance ahead, Daggett
stood in boldly, followed closely by Roswell. In ten minutes
they were fully a mile within the field, rendering all
attempts to get out of it to windward so hopeless as to be
almost desperate. The manœ\uvre of Daggett was begun
under circumstances that scarcely admitted of any alternative,
though it might be questioned if it were not the best
expedient that offered. Now that the schooners were so far
within the field-ice, the water was much less broken, though
the undulations of the restless ocean were still considerable,
and the grinding of ice occasioned by them was really
terrific. So loud was the noise produced by these constant
and violent collisions, indeed, that the roaring of the wind

was barely audible, and that only at intervals. The sound
was rushing, like that of an incessant avalanche, attended
by cracking noises that resembled the rending of a glacier.

The schooners now took in their foresails, for the double
purpose of diminishing their velocity and of being in a
better condition to change their course, in order to avoid
dangers ahead. These changes of course were necessarily
frequent; but, by dint of boldness, perseverance and skill,
Daggett worked his way into the comparatively open passage
already mentioned. It was a sort of river amid the
floes, caused doubtless by some of the inexplicable currents,
and was fully a quarter of a mile in width, straight
as an air-line, and of considerable length; though how
long could not be seen by moonlight. It led, moreover,
directly down towards the bergs, then distant less than a
mile. Without stopping to ascertain more, Daggett stood
on, Roswell keeping close on his quarter. In ten minutes
they drew quite near to that wild and magnificent ruined
city of alabaster that was floating about in the antarctic
sea!

Notwithstanding the imminent peril that now most seriously
menaced the two schooners, it was not possible to
approach that scene of natural grandeur without feelings
of awe, that were allied quite as much to admiration as to
dread. Apprehension certainly weighed on every heart;
but curiosity, wonder, even delight, were all mingled in
the breasts of the crews. As the vessels came driving down
into the midst of the bergs, everything contributed to
render the movements imposing in all senses, appalling in
one. There lay the vast maze of floating mountains,
generally of a spectral white at that hour, though many of
the masses emitted hues more pleasing, while some were
black as night. The passages between the bergs, or what
might be termed the streets and lanes of this mysterious-looking,
fantastical, yet sublime city of the ocean, were
numerous, and of every variety. Some were broad, straight
avenues, a league in length; others winding and narrow;
while a good many were little more than fissures, that might
be fancied lanes.

The schooners had not run a league within the bergs
before they felt much less of the power of the gale, and the

heaving and setting of the seas were sensibly diminished.
What was, perhaps, not to be expected, the field-ice had
disappeared entirely within the passages of the bergs, and
the only difficulty in navigating was to keep in such channels
as had outlets, and which did not appear to be closing.
The rate of sailing of the two schooners was now greatly
lessened, the mountains usually intercepting the wind,
though it was occasionally heard howling and scuffling in
the ravines, as if in a hurry to escape, and pass on to the
more open seas. The grinding of the ice, too, came down
in the currents of air, furnishing fearful evidence of dangers
that were not yet distant. As the water was now
sufficiently smooth, and the wind, except at the mouths of
particular ravines, was light, there was nothing to prevent
the schooners from approaching each other. This was
done, and the two masters held a discourse together on the
subject of their present situation.

“You're a bold fellow, Daggett, and one I should not
like to follow in a voyage round the world,” commenced
Roswell. “Here we are, in the midst of some hundreds
of ice-bergs; a glorious sight to behold, I must confess—
but are we ever to get out again?”

“It is much better to be here, Gar'ner,” returned the
other, “than to be among the floes. I'm always afraid of
my starn and my rudder when among the field-ice; whereas
there is no danger hereabouts that cannot be seen before
a vessel is on it. Give me my eyes, and I feel that I have
a chance.”

“There is some truth in that; but I wish these channels
were a good deal wider than they are. A man may feel a
berg as well as see it. Were two of these fellows to take
it into their heads to close upon us, our little craft would
be crushed like nuts in the crackers!”

“We must keep a good look-out for that. Here seems
to be a long bit of open passage ahead of us, and it leads
as near north as we can wish to run. If we can only get
to the other end of it, I shall feel as if half our passage
back to Ameriky was made.”

The citizen of the United States calls his country “America”
par excellence, never using the addition of `North,'
as is practised by most European people. Daggett meant

`home,' therefore, by his `Ameriky,' in which he saw no
other than the east end of Long Island, Gardiner's Island,
and Martha's Vineyard. Roswell understood him, of
course; so no breath was lost.

“In my judgment,” returned Gardiner, “we shall not
get clear of this ice for a thousand miles. Not that I expect
to be in a wilderness of it, as we are to-night; but
after such a summer, you may rely on it, Daggett, that the
ice will get as far north as 45°, if not a few degrees further.”

“It is possible: I have seen it in 42° myself; and in 40°
to the nor'ard of the equator. If it get as far as 50°, however,
in this part of the world, it will do pretty well. That
will be play to what we have just here—In the name of
Divine Providence, what is that, Gar'ner!”

Not a voice was heard in either vessel; scarcely a breath
was drawn! A heavy, groaning sound had been instantly
succeeded by such a plunge into the water, as might be
imagined to succeed the fall of a fragment from another
planet. Then all the bergs near by began to rock as if
agitated by an earthquake. This part of the picture was
both grand and frightful. Many of those masses rose above
the sea more than two hundred feet perpendicularly, and
showed wall-like surfaces of half a league in length. At
the point where the schooners happened to be just at that
moment, the ice-islands were not so large, but quite as
high, and consequently were more easily agitated. While
the whole panorama was bowing and rocking, pinnacles,
arches, walls and all, seeming about to totter from their
bases, there came a wave sweeping down the passage that
lifted them high in the air, some fifty feet at least, and bore
them along like pieces of cork, fully a hundred yards.
Other waves succeeded, though of less height and force;
when, gradually, the water regained its former and more
natural movement, and subsided.

“This has been an earthquake!” exclaimed Daggett.
“That volcano has been pent up, and the gas is stirring
up the rocks beneath the sea.”

“No, sir,” answered Stimson, from the forecastle of his
own schooner, “it's not that, Captain Daggett. One of

them bergs has turned over, like a whale wallowing, and it
has set-all the others a-rocking.”

This was the true explanation; one that did not occur
to the less experienced sealers. It is a danger, however,
of no rare occurrence in the ice, and one that ever needs
to be looked to. The bergs, when they first break loose
from their native moorings, which is done by the agency
of frosts, as well as by the action of the seasons in the
warm months, are usually tabular, and of regular outlines;
but this shape is soon lost by the action of the waves on
ice of very different degrees of consistency; some being
composed of frozen snow; some of the moisture precipitated
from the atmosphere in the shape of fogs; and some
of pure frozen water. The first melts soonest; and a berg
that drifts for any length of time with one particular face
exposed to the sun's rays, soon loses its equilibrium, and
is canted with an inclination to the horizon. Finally, the
centre of gravity gets outside of the base, when the still
monstrous mass rolls over in the ocean, coming literally
bottom upwards. There are all degrees and varieties of these
ice-slips, if one may so term them, and they bring in their
train the many different commotions that such accidents
would naturally produce. That which had just alarmed
and astonished our navigators was of the following character.
A mass of ice that was about a quarter of a mile in
length, and of fully half that breadth, which floated quite
two hundred feet above the surface of the water, and twice
that thickness beneath it, was the cause of the disturbance.
It had preserved its outlines unusually well, and stood upright
to the last moment; though, owing to numerous strata
of snow-ice, its base had melted much more on one of its
sides than on the other. When the precise moment arrived
that would have carried a perpendicular line from the centre
of gravity without this base, the monster turned leisurely
in its lair, producing some such effect as would have been
wrought by the falling of a portion of a Swiss mountain
into a lake; a sort of accident of which there have been
many and remarkable instances.

Stimson's explanation, while it raised the curtain from
all that was mysterious, did not serve very much to quiet
apprehensions. If one berg had performed such an evolution,

it was reasonable to suppose that others might do the
same thing; and the commotion made by this, which was
at a distance, gave some insight into what might be expected
from a similar change in another nearer by. Both
Daggett and Gardiner were of opinion that the fall of a
berg of equal size within a cable's length of the schooners
might seriously endanger the vessels by dashing them
against some wall of ice, if in no other manner. It was
too late, however, to retreat, and the vessels stood on gallantly.

The passage between the bergs now became quite
straight, reasonably broad, and was so situated as regarded
the gale, as to receive a full current of its force. It was
computed that the schooners ran quite three marine leagues
in the hour that succeeded the overturning of the berg.
There were moments when the wind blew furiously; and,
taking all the accessories of that remarkable view into the
account, the scene resembled one that the imagination
might present to the mind in its highest flights, but which
few could ever hope to see with their proper eyes. The
moon-light, the crowd of ice-bergs of all shapes and dimensions,
seeming to flit past by the rapid movements of the
vessels; the variety of hues, from spectral white to tints
of orange and emerald, pale at that hour yet distinct;
streets and lanes that were scarce opened ere they were
passed; together with all the fantastic images that such
objects conjured to the thoughts; contributed to make that
hour much the most wonderful that Roswell Gardiner had
ever passed. To add to the excitement, a couple of whales
came blowing up the passage, coming within a hundred
yards of the schooners. They were fin-backs, which are
rarely if ever taken, and were suffered to pass unharmed.
To capture a whale, however, amid so many bergs, would
be next to impossible, unless the animal were killed by the
blow of the harpoon, without requiring the keener thrust
of the lance.

At the end of the hour mentioned, the Sea Lion of the
Vineyard rapidly changed her course, hauling up by a sudden
movement to the westward. The passage before her
was closed, and there remained but one visible outlet, towards
which the schooner slowly made her way, having

got rather too much to leeward of it, in consequence of
not earlier seeing the necessity for the change of course in
that dim and deceptive light. Roswell, being to windward,
had less difficulty, but, notwithstanding, he kept his station
on his consort's quarter, declining to lead. The passage into
which Daggett barely succeeded in carrying his schooner
was fearfully narrow, and appeared to be fast closing;
though it was much wider further ahead, could the schooners
but get through the first dangerous strait. Roswell remonstrated
ere the leading vessel entered, and pointed out
to Daggett the fact that the bergs were evidently closing,
each instant increasing their movement, most probably
through the force of attraction. It is known that ships are
thus brought in contact in calms, and it is thought a similar
influence is exercised on the ice-bergs. At all events,
the wind, the current, or attraction, was fast closing the
passage through which the schooners had now to go.

Scarcely was Daggett within the channel, when an enormous
mass fell from the summit of one of the bergs, literally
closing the passage in his wake, while it compelled Gardiner
to put his helm down, and to tack ship, standing off
from the tottering berg. The scene that followed was
frightful! The cries on board the leading craft denoted
her peril, but it was not possible for Roswell to penetrate
to her with his vessel. All he could do was to heave-to his
own schooner, lower a boat, and pull back towards the
point of danger. This he did at once, manfully, but with
an anxious mind and throbbing heart. He actually urged
his boat into the chasm beneath an arch in the fallen fragment,
and made his way to the very side of Daggett's vessel.
The last was nipped again, and that badly, but was not
absolutely lost. The falling fragment from the berg alone
prevented her and all in her from being ground into powder.
This block, of enormous size, kept the two bergs asunder;
and now that they could not absolutely come together, they
began slowly to turn in the current, gradually opening and
separating, at the very point where they had so lately seemed
attracted to a closer union. In an hour the way was
clear, and the boats towed the schooner stern foremost into
the broader passage.