Born to Wander: A Boy's Book of Nomadic Adventures

The whales our heroes saw in the Greenland ocean were leviathans. Leonard could not have believed such monsters existed anywhere in the world, and they had a thorough business air about them, too. Some came near enough the ship to show their eyes. Good-natured, twinkling little eyes, that seemed to say, —

“We know you are not a whaler, so pass on, and molest us not, else with one stroke of our tails we will send you all to Davy Jones.”

Then they would blow, and great fountains of steam would rise into the air, with a roar like that which an engine emits, only louder far. This is not water, as is generally supposed, but the breath of the vast leviathan of the ocean.

A Whale’s Garden Party

This is no joke of mine, because I have been at one, and Leonard and Douglas on this memorable voyage had also the good luck to witness an entertainment of the sort.

It only takes place at certain seasons of the year, always pretty far south of the main ice pack, and always in a spot unfrequented by ships. There is another sine quâ non connected with this garden party – namely, plenty to eat, and whales do not require anything to drink, you know. So the sea where the party is held is so full of a tiny shrimplet that it is tinged in colour. But why do I call it a garden party you may ask; are there any flowers? Does not the sun shimmering on the small icebergs already described, and on the clear ice itself, bring forth a hundred various tints and colours, more gorgeously, more radiantly beautiful than any flowers that ever bloomed and grew? Are there not, too, at the sea bottom flowers of the deep —

“Many a flower that’s born to blush unseen – ”

Lovelier far than those that bloom on land? Yes, I am right in calling it a garden party. But what do the whales do at this garden party of theirs? Sail quietly round and look at each other? Discuss the possibility of uniting in a body, and driving all the whaling fleet to the bottom of the sea? Consider the prospects of the shrimp harvest, or debate upon the best methods of extracting a harpoon from fin or tail, and the easiest method of capsizing a boat? No; nothing of the sort. They have met together to enjoy themselves, and in their own exceedingly cumbersome way they do enjoy themselves. They enjoy themselves with a force and a vengeance that is terrible to witness. The noise and explosions of their wonderful gambols can be heard ten miles away on a still night. To see a porpoise leap high out of the water like a salmon is a fine sight, but to see two or three whales at one and the same time thus disporting themselves, while some lie in the water beating time with their terrible tails, others playing at leap frog, and the sea for acres round them churned into froth and meerschaum, is a sight that once seen can never be forgotten. The boldest harpooner that ever drew breath would not venture near those gambolling whales, and I verily believe that the biggest line-of-battle ships that ever floated would be staved and sunk in the midst of that funny but fearful maelstrom.

This gives you, reader, but the very faintest notion of a whale’s garden party. It is one of the wonders of the world, and one which few have ever seen and lived to tell of, for there is no surety of the huge monsters not shifting ground at any moment, and sweeping down like a whirlwind on some devoted ship.

The Fairy Queen sailed on, and in due time sighted and passed Cape Farewell, then northward ho! through Davis Straits to Baffin’s Sea, and here they had the great good luck to fall in with the vessels they had come to succour.

Some delay was caused in unloading, and as the summer was now far advanced, and Captain Blunt had no desire to winter in these dismal regions, he was naturally anxious to get away south as soon as possible.

They were cleared at last, however, and bidding the research vessels farewell, with three-times-three ringing cheers, all sail was set that the ship could stagger under, and on she rushed through an open sea, although there were plenty of icebergs about.

For a whole week everything went favourably and well. Then, alas! the tide turned with a vengeance. One of those dense fogs so common in these regions came down upon them like a wall, and so enveloped the ship that it was impossible, standing at the windlass, to see the jibboom end; and at the same time.

“Down dropt the wind, the sails dropt down,
’Twas sad as sad could be;
And we did speak only to break
The silence of the sea.”

But worse was to come.

For now, up-looming through the dismal fog, came great green-ribbed icebergs, the waves lapping at their feet and the spray washing their dripping sides.

In the midst of so great a danger Captain Blunt felt powerless. There was absolutely nothing to be done but wait and wait, and pray the good Father to send a breeze.

When we pray earnestly for anything we should never forget to add the words of Him Who spake as never man spake, and say, “Thy will be done.” No prayer is complete without that beautiful line; and yet, though easy to say it, it is – oh! so hard sometimes to pray it. But then we poor mortals do not know what is best for us.

In the present instance our heroes’ prayers were not heard, and days and weeks flew by; then the sky cleared, and they saw the sun once more, but only to find themselves so surrounded by ice on all quarters that escape was impossible. Besides, the season was now far gone, autumn was wearing through, the sun was far south, and the nights getting long and cold and dreary.

Frost now set in, and snow began to fall.

They were safe from all dangers for six months to come, at the least.

“Never mind,” said Blunt cheerily to Leonard, “we have provisions enough to last us for a year at the very least. So we must do the best to make ourselves comfortable.”

“That we will,” replied Leonard, “though I fear our friends at home will think we are lost.”

“That is the only drawback – my dear wife and child, and your parents, boys. Well, we are in the hands of Providence. God is here in these solitudes, and just as easily found as if we were in the cathedral of old St. Giles’.”

It was indeed a dreary winter they passed in the midst of that frozen sea. No sun, no light save moon or stars and the lovely aurora. Silence deep as the grave, except – which was rare – when a storm came howling over the pack, raising the snow in whirlwinds, and often hurling off the peaked and jagged tops of the weird-looking icebergs.

But the sun appeared at last, and in due time. With a noise and confusion that is indescribable the ice broke up, and the Fairy Queen began to move slowly – oh, so slowly! – through the ice on her way southwards, with danger on every quarter, danger ahead, and danger astern. She sailed for many, many miles without a rudder; for lest it should get smashed it had been unshipped, the men steering ahead by means of boat and hawser, and the ship often being so close to an iceberg that the tips of the yard arms touched, and when the berg moved over with a wave it threw the vessel upwards from the bottom. On these occasions poles were used to edge her off.

It was tedious work all this, but it came to an end at last, and the water being now more open, the rudder was re-shipped, and more sail clapped on, so that much better way was made.

Another week passed by. They were well south now in Davis Straits, albeit the wind had been somewhat fickle.

They had high hopes of soon seeing the last of the ice, and both Douglas and Leonard began to think of home, and talk of it also.

It was spring time once more. The larches, at all events, would be green and tasselled with crimson in the woods around Glen Lyle, primroses would be peeping out in cosy corners in moss-bedded copses, and birds would be busy building, and the trees alive with the voice of song.

“In three weeks more,” said Douglas, “we ought to be stretching away across the blue Atlantic, and within a measurable distance of dear old Scotland.”

“Ay, lad!” replied Leonard, “my heart jumps to my mouth with very joy to think of it.”

In this great chart that lies before me, a chart of the Polar regions, I can point out the very place, or near it, where the Fairy Queen was crushed in the ice as a strong man might crush a walnut, and sank like a stone in the water, dragging down with her, so quickly did she go at last, more than one of her brave crew, whose bones may lie in the black depths of that inhospitable ocean, —

“Till the sea gives up its dead.”

Midway ’twixt Nipzet Sound and Cape Mercy, just a little to the nor’ard of Cumberland Gulf, I mark the point with a plus.

It was in a gale of wind, and at the dead of night, when she was surrounded by an immense shoal of flat bergs, of giant proportions, and staved irremediably. The water came roaring in below. Pumping was of no avail. She must founder, and that very soon. So every effort consonant with safety was made to embark upon the very icebergs that had caused the grief. Stores and water were speedily got out, therefore, and long ere the break of day the end came, the ship was engulphed. There was no longer any Fairy Queen to glide over the seas like a thing of life – only two wave-washed bergs, each with a huddled crew of hopeless shipwrecked mariners.

And these were already separating. They had bade each other adieu.

They were gliding away, or south or north or east or west, they knew not whither.

Book Two – Chapter Five

Afloat on an Iceberg

“Midnight soft and fair above,
Midnight fierce and dark beneath,
All on high the smile of love,
All below the frown of death:

“Waves that whirl in angry spite
With a phosphorescent light,
Gleaming ghastly in the night,
Like the pallid sneer of Doom.”

    Tupper.
Scene: In Baffin’s Sea. Shipwrecked mariners afloat on an iceberg, which rises and falls on the smooth-rolling waves.

Morning broke grey and hazily; the wind, as if it had done its worst and spent its fury, went down, but the sea still ran very high, dashing in cold spray over the bergs on which the shipwrecked mariners were huddled together for warmth, and leaving a thick coating of ice on top of the sail that covered them.

Captain Blunt had gone on board one berg with half the crew, about ten all told, and Leonard, with Douglas, on board the other, along with the remainder, the two friends determining to be together to the bitter end, if indeed the end were to come.