Letters From High Latitudes [75]
and lips of that rare tint which lines the conch-shell. Such was the Chatelaine of Kaafiord,--as perfect a type of Norse beauty as ever my Saga lore had conjured up! Frithiof's Ingeborg herself seemed to stand before me. A few minutes afterwards, two little fair-haired maidens, like twin snowdrops, stole into the room; and the sweet home picture was complete.
The rest of the day has been a continued fete. In vain after having transacted my business, I pleaded the turning of the tide, and our anxiety to get away to sea; nothing would serve our kind entertainer but that we should stay to dinner; and his was one of those strong energetic wills it is difficult to resist.
In the afternoon, the Hammerfest steamer called in from the southward, and by her came two fair sisters of our hostess from their father's home in one of the Loffodens which overlook the famous Maelstrom. The stories about the violence of the whirlpool Mr. T-- assures me are ridiculously exaggerated. On ordinary occasions the site of the supposed vortex is perfectly unruffled, and it is only when a strong weather tide is running that any unusual movements in the water can be observed; even then the disturbance does not amount to much more than a rather troublesome race. "Often and often, when she was a girl, had his wife and her sisters sailed over its fabulous crater in an open boat." But in this wild romantic country, with its sparse population, rugged mountains, and gloomy fiords, very ordinary matters become invested with a character of awe and mystery quite foreign to the atmosphere of our own matter-of-fact world; and many of the Norwegians are as prone to superstition as the poor little Lapp pagans who dwell among them.
No later than a few years ago, in the very fiord we had passed on our way to Alten, when an unfortunate boat got cast away during the night on some rocks at a little distance from the shore, the inhabitants, startled by the cries of distress which reached them in the morning twilight, hurried down in a body to the sea-side,--not to afford assistance,--but to open a volley of musketry on the drowning mariners; being fully persuaded that the stranded boat, with its torn sails, was no other than the Kracken or Great Sea-Serpent flapping its dusky wings: and when, at last, one of the crew succeeded in swimming ashore in spite of waves and bullets,--the whole society turned and fled!
And now, again good-bye. We are just going up to dine with Mr. T--; and after dinner, or at least as soon as the tide turns, we get under way--Northward Ho! (as Mr. Kingsley would say) in right good earnest this time!
LETTER XI.
WE SAIL FOR BEAR ISLAND, AND SPITZBERGEN--CHERIE ISLAND-- BARENTZ-SIR HUGH WILLOUGHBY--PARRY'S ATTEMPT TO REACH THE NORTH POLE--AGAIN AMONGST THE ICE--ICEBLINK--FIRST SIGHT OF SPITZBERGEN--WILSON--DECAY OF OUR HOPES--CONSTANT STRUGGLE WITH THE ICE--WE REACH THE 80 DEGREES N. LAT.--A FREER SEA--WE LAND IN SPITZBERGEN--ENGLISH BAY--LADY EDITH'S GLACIER--A MIDNIGHT PHOTOGRAPH--NO REINDEER TO BE SEEN--ET EGO IN ARCTIS--WINTER IN SPITZBERGEN-- PTARMIGAN--THE BEAR-SAGA--THE "FOAM" MONUMENT-- SOUTHWARDS--SIGHT THE GREENLAND ICE--A GALE--WILSON ON THE MAELSTROM--BREAKERS AHEAD--ROOST--TAKING A SIGHT-- THRONDHJEM.
Throndhjem, Aug. 22nd, 1856.
We have won our laurels, after all! We have landed in Spitzbergen--almost at its most northern extremity; and the little "Foam" has sailed to within 630 miles of the Pole; that is to say, within 100 miles as far north as any ship has ever succeeded in getting.
I think my last letter left us enjoying the pleasant hospitalities of Kaafiord.
The genial quiet of that last evening in Norway was certainly a strange preface to the scenes we have since witnessed. So warm was it, that when dinner was over, we all went out into the garden, and had tea in the open air; the ladies without either bonnets or shawls, merely plucking a little branch of willow to brush away the mosquitoes; and so the evening wore away in alternate intervals of chat and song. At midnight, seawards again began
The rest of the day has been a continued fete. In vain after having transacted my business, I pleaded the turning of the tide, and our anxiety to get away to sea; nothing would serve our kind entertainer but that we should stay to dinner; and his was one of those strong energetic wills it is difficult to resist.
In the afternoon, the Hammerfest steamer called in from the southward, and by her came two fair sisters of our hostess from their father's home in one of the Loffodens which overlook the famous Maelstrom. The stories about the violence of the whirlpool Mr. T-- assures me are ridiculously exaggerated. On ordinary occasions the site of the supposed vortex is perfectly unruffled, and it is only when a strong weather tide is running that any unusual movements in the water can be observed; even then the disturbance does not amount to much more than a rather troublesome race. "Often and often, when she was a girl, had his wife and her sisters sailed over its fabulous crater in an open boat." But in this wild romantic country, with its sparse population, rugged mountains, and gloomy fiords, very ordinary matters become invested with a character of awe and mystery quite foreign to the atmosphere of our own matter-of-fact world; and many of the Norwegians are as prone to superstition as the poor little Lapp pagans who dwell among them.
No later than a few years ago, in the very fiord we had passed on our way to Alten, when an unfortunate boat got cast away during the night on some rocks at a little distance from the shore, the inhabitants, startled by the cries of distress which reached them in the morning twilight, hurried down in a body to the sea-side,--not to afford assistance,--but to open a volley of musketry on the drowning mariners; being fully persuaded that the stranded boat, with its torn sails, was no other than the Kracken or Great Sea-Serpent flapping its dusky wings: and when, at last, one of the crew succeeded in swimming ashore in spite of waves and bullets,--the whole society turned and fled!
And now, again good-bye. We are just going up to dine with Mr. T--; and after dinner, or at least as soon as the tide turns, we get under way--Northward Ho! (as Mr. Kingsley would say) in right good earnest this time!
LETTER XI.
WE SAIL FOR BEAR ISLAND, AND SPITZBERGEN--CHERIE ISLAND-- BARENTZ-SIR HUGH WILLOUGHBY--PARRY'S ATTEMPT TO REACH THE NORTH POLE--AGAIN AMONGST THE ICE--ICEBLINK--FIRST SIGHT OF SPITZBERGEN--WILSON--DECAY OF OUR HOPES--CONSTANT STRUGGLE WITH THE ICE--WE REACH THE 80 DEGREES N. LAT.--A FREER SEA--WE LAND IN SPITZBERGEN--ENGLISH BAY--LADY EDITH'S GLACIER--A MIDNIGHT PHOTOGRAPH--NO REINDEER TO BE SEEN--ET EGO IN ARCTIS--WINTER IN SPITZBERGEN-- PTARMIGAN--THE BEAR-SAGA--THE "FOAM" MONUMENT-- SOUTHWARDS--SIGHT THE GREENLAND ICE--A GALE--WILSON ON THE MAELSTROM--BREAKERS AHEAD--ROOST--TAKING A SIGHT-- THRONDHJEM.
Throndhjem, Aug. 22nd, 1856.
We have won our laurels, after all! We have landed in Spitzbergen--almost at its most northern extremity; and the little "Foam" has sailed to within 630 miles of the Pole; that is to say, within 100 miles as far north as any ship has ever succeeded in getting.
I think my last letter left us enjoying the pleasant hospitalities of Kaafiord.
The genial quiet of that last evening in Norway was certainly a strange preface to the scenes we have since witnessed. So warm was it, that when dinner was over, we all went out into the garden, and had tea in the open air; the ladies without either bonnets or shawls, merely plucking a little branch of willow to brush away the mosquitoes; and so the evening wore away in alternate intervals of chat and song. At midnight, seawards again began