Letters From High Latitudes [54]
cottages I saw scattered here and there along the loch, as, startled from their sleep, they listened to the stertorous breathing of the long snake-like ships, and watched them glide past with magic motion along the glassy surface of the water. Of course the novelty and excitement of all we had been witnessing had put sleep and bedtime quite out of our thoughts: but it was already six o'clock in the morning; it would require a considerable time to get out of the fiord, and in a few hours after we should be within the Arctic circle, so that if we were to have any sleep at all--now was the time. Acting on these considerations, we all three turned in; and for the next half-dozen hours I lay dreaming of a great funeral among barren mountains, where white bears in peers' robes were the pall-bearers, and a sea-dragon chief-mourner. When we came on deck again, the northern extremity of Iceland lay leagues away on our starboard quarter, faintly swimming through the haze; up overhead blazed the white sun, and below glittered the level sea, like a pale blue disc netted in silver lace. I seldom remember a brighter day; the thermometer was at 72 degrees, and it really felt more as if we were crossing the line than entering the frigid zone.
Animated by that joyous inspiration which induces them to make a fete of everything, the French officers, it appeared, wished to organize a kind of carnival to inaugurate their arrival in Arctic waters, and by means of a piece of chalk and a huge black board displayed from the hurricane-deck of the "Reine Hortense," an inquiry was made as to what suggestion I might have to offer in furtherance of this laudable object. With that poverty of invention and love of spirits which characterise my nation, I am obliged to confess that, after deep reflection, I was only able to answer, "Grog." But seeing an extra flag or two was being run up at each masthead of the Frenchman, the lucky idea occurred to me to dress the "Foam" in all her colours. The schooner's toilette accomplished, I went on board the "Reine Hortense," and you cannot imagine anything more fragile, graceful, or coquettish, than her appearance from the deck of the corvette,--as she curtsied and swayed herself on the bosom of the almost imperceptible swell, or flirted up the water with her curving bows. She really looked like a living little lady.
But from all such complacent reveries I was soon awakened by the sound of a deep voice, proceeding apparently from the very bottom of the sea, which hailed the ship in the most authoritative manner, and imperiously demanded her name, where she was going, whom she carried, and whence she came: to all which questions, a young lieutenant, standing with his hat off at the gangway, politely responded. Apparently satisfied on these points, our invisible interlocutor then announced his intention of coming on board. All the officers of the ship collected on the poop to receive him.
In a few seconds more, amid the din of the most unearthly music, and surrounded by a bevy of hideous monsters, a white-bearded, spectacled personage-clad in bear-skin, with a cocked hat over his left ear-presented himself in the gangway, and handing to the officers of the watch an enormous board, on which was written
"LE PERE ARCTIQUE,"
by way of visiting card, proceeded to walk aft, and take the sun's altitude with what, as far as I could make out, seemed to be a plumber's wooden triangle. This preliminary operation having been completed, there then began a regular riot all over the ship. The yards were suddenly manned with red devils, black monkeys, and every kind of grotesque monster, while the whole ship's company, officers and men promiscuously mingled, danced the cancan upon deck. In order that the warmth of the day should not make us forget that we had arrived in his dominions, the Arctic father had stationed certain of his familiars in the tops, who at stated intervals flung down showers of hard peas, as typical of hail, while the powdering of each other's faces with handfuls of flour could not fail to remind
Animated by that joyous inspiration which induces them to make a fete of everything, the French officers, it appeared, wished to organize a kind of carnival to inaugurate their arrival in Arctic waters, and by means of a piece of chalk and a huge black board displayed from the hurricane-deck of the "Reine Hortense," an inquiry was made as to what suggestion I might have to offer in furtherance of this laudable object. With that poverty of invention and love of spirits which characterise my nation, I am obliged to confess that, after deep reflection, I was only able to answer, "Grog." But seeing an extra flag or two was being run up at each masthead of the Frenchman, the lucky idea occurred to me to dress the "Foam" in all her colours. The schooner's toilette accomplished, I went on board the "Reine Hortense," and you cannot imagine anything more fragile, graceful, or coquettish, than her appearance from the deck of the corvette,--as she curtsied and swayed herself on the bosom of the almost imperceptible swell, or flirted up the water with her curving bows. She really looked like a living little lady.
But from all such complacent reveries I was soon awakened by the sound of a deep voice, proceeding apparently from the very bottom of the sea, which hailed the ship in the most authoritative manner, and imperiously demanded her name, where she was going, whom she carried, and whence she came: to all which questions, a young lieutenant, standing with his hat off at the gangway, politely responded. Apparently satisfied on these points, our invisible interlocutor then announced his intention of coming on board. All the officers of the ship collected on the poop to receive him.
In a few seconds more, amid the din of the most unearthly music, and surrounded by a bevy of hideous monsters, a white-bearded, spectacled personage-clad in bear-skin, with a cocked hat over his left ear-presented himself in the gangway, and handing to the officers of the watch an enormous board, on which was written
"LE PERE ARCTIQUE,"
by way of visiting card, proceeded to walk aft, and take the sun's altitude with what, as far as I could make out, seemed to be a plumber's wooden triangle. This preliminary operation having been completed, there then began a regular riot all over the ship. The yards were suddenly manned with red devils, black monkeys, and every kind of grotesque monster, while the whole ship's company, officers and men promiscuously mingled, danced the cancan upon deck. In order that the warmth of the day should not make us forget that we had arrived in his dominions, the Arctic father had stationed certain of his familiars in the tops, who at stated intervals flung down showers of hard peas, as typical of hail, while the powdering of each other's faces with handfuls of flour could not fail to remind