20. CHAPTER XX.
IN A FOG HE IS SET TO WORK AS A BELL-TOLLER, AND BEHOLDS
A HERD OF OCEAN-ELEPHANTS.
What is this that we sail through? What palpable
obscure? What smoke and reek, as if the whole steaming
world were revolving on its axis, as a spit?
It is a Newfoundland Fog; and we are yet crossing the
Grand Banks, wrapt in a mist, that no London in the Novemberest
November ever equaled. The chronometer pronounced
it noon; but do you call this midnight or mid-day?
So dense is the fog, that though we have a fair wind, we
shorten sail for fear of accidents; and not only that, but
here am I, poor Wellingborough, mounted aloft on a sort of
belfry, the top of the “Sampson-Post,” a lofty tower of
timber, so called; and tolling the ship's bell, as if for a
funeral.
This is intended to proclaim our approach, and warn all
strangers from our track.
Dreary sound! toll, toll, toll, through the dismal mist
and fog.
The bell is green with verdigris, and damp with dew;
and the little cord attached to the clapper, by which I toll
it, now and then slides through my fingers, slippery with wet.
Here I am, in my slouched black hat, like the “bull that
could pull,” announcing the decease of the lamented Cock-Robin.
A better device than the bell, however, was once pitched
upon by an ingenious sea-captain, of whom I have heard.
He had a litter of young porkers on board; and while sailing
through the fog, he stationed men at both ends of the
pen with long poles, wherewith they incessantly stirred up
and irritated the porkers, who split the air with their
squeals; and no doubt saved the ship, as the geese saved
the Capitol.
The most strange and unheard-of noises came out of the
fog at times: a vast sound of sighing and sobbing. What
could it be? This would be followed by a spout, and a
gush, and a cascading commotion, as if some fountain had
suddenly jetted out of the ocean.
Seated on my Sampson-Post, I stared more and more,
and suspended my duty as a sexton. But presently some
one cried out—“There she blows! whales! whales close
alongside!”
A whale! Think of it! whales close to me, Wellingborough;—would
my own brother believe it? I dropt the
clapper as if it were red-hot, and rushed to the side; and
there, dimly floating, lay four or five long, black snaky-looking
shapes, only a few inches out of the water.
Can these be whales? Monstrous whales, such as I had
heard of? I thought they would look like mountains on the sea;
hills and valleys of flesh! regular krakens, that made it high
tide, and inundated continents, when they descended to feed!
It was a bitter disappointment, from which I was long in
recovering. I lost all respect for whales; and began to be
a little dubious about the story of Jonah; for how could
Jonah reside in such an insignificant tenement; how could
he have had elbow-room there? But perhaps, thought I,
the whale, which according to Rabbinical traditions was a
female one, might have expanded to receive him like an anaconda,
when it swallows an elk and leaves the antlers
sticking out of its mouth.
Nevertheless, from that day, whales greatly fell in my
estimation.
But it is always thus. If you read of St. Peter's, they
say, and then go and visit it, ten to one, you account it a
dwarf compared to your high-raised ideal. And, doubtless,
Jonah himself must have been disappointed when he looked
up to the domed midriff surmounting the whale's belly,
and surveyed the ribbed pillars around him. A pretty
large belly, to be sure, thought he, but not so big as it
might have been.
On the next day, the fog lifted; and by noon, we found
ourselves sailing through fleets of fishermen at anchor.
They were very small craft; and when I beheld them, I
perceived the force of that sailor saying, intended to illustrate
restricted quarters, or being on the limits. It is like a
fisherman's walk, say they, three steps and overboard.
Lying right in the track of the multitudinous ships crossing
the ocean between England and America, these little
vessels are sometimes run down, and obliterated from the
face of the waters; the cry of the sailors ceasing with the
last whirl of the whirlpool that closes over their craft.
Their sad fate is frequently the result of their own remissness
in keeping a good look-out by day, and not having their
lamps trimmed, like the wise virgins, by night.
As I shall not make mention of the Grand Banks on
our homeward-bound passage, I may as well here relate,
that on our return, we approached them in the night; and
by way of making sure of our whereabouts, the deep-sea-lead
was heaved. The line attached is generally upward
of three hundred fathoms in length; and the lead itself,
weighing some forty or fifty pounds, has a hole in the lower
end, in which, previous to sounding, some tallow is thrust,
that it may bring up the soil at the bottom, for the captain
to inspect. This is called “arming” the lead.
We “hove” our deep-sea-line by night, and the operation
was very interesting, at least to me. In the first place, the
vessel's heading was stopt; then, coiled away in a tub, like
a whale-rope, the line was placed toward the after part of
the quarter-deck; and one of the sailors carried the lead
outside of the ship, away along to the end of the jib-boom,
and at the word of command, far ahead and overboard it
went, with a plunge; scraping by the side, till it came to
the stern, when the line ran out of the tub like light.
When we came to haul it up, I was astonished at the
force necessary to perform the work. The whole watch
pulled at the line, which was rove through a block in the
mizen-rigging, as if we were hauling up a fat porpoise.
When the lead came in sight, I was all eagerness to examine
the tallow, and get a peep at a specimen of the bottom
of the sea; but the sailors did not seem to be much
interested by it, calling me a fool for wanting to preserve a
few grains of the sand.
I had almost forgotten to make mention of the Gulf
Stream, in which we found ourselves previous to crossing
the Banks. The fact of our being in it was proved by the
captain in person, who superintended the drawing of a bucket
of salt water, in which he dipped his thermometer. In the
absence of the Gulf-weed, this is the general test; for the
temperature of this current is eight degrees higher than that
of the ocean, and the temperature of the ocean is twenty
degrees higher than that of the Grand Banks. And it is to
this remarkable difference of temperature, for which there
can be no equilibrium, that many seamen impute the fogs
on the coast of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland; but why
there should always be such ugly weather in the Gulf, is
something that I do not know has ever been accounted for.
It is curious to dip one's finger in a bucket full of the
Gulf Stream, and find it so warm; as if the Gulf of Mexico,
from whence this current comes, were a great caldron or
boiler, on purpose to keep warm the North Atlantic, which
is traversed by it for a distance of two thousand miles, as
some large halls in winter are by hot air tubes. Its mean
breadth being about two hundred leagues, it comprises an
area larger than that of the whole Mediterranean, and may
be deemed a sort of Mississippi of hot water flowing through
the ocean; off the coast of Florida, running at the rate of
one mile and a half an hour.
