I never could have felt, and so must not think of making others feel through the medium of language, the possibility of being so deceived in respect of the bulk of these islands-of-ice, as our sailors always call them. What seems, in the distance, a mere piece of ice, of good snow-bank size only, is really a mass of such dimensions as to require you to look up to it, as you sail around it, and feel, as you gaze, a sense of grandeur. What you might suppose could be run down as easily as a pile of light cotton, would wreck the proudest clipper as effectually as the immovable adamant.
Between the great northern current, and the breeze which plumes the innumerable waves with sparkling white, our course has become rather more tortuous and rough than is agreeable to landsmen who have only come abroad upon the deep for pleasure and instruction. The painter has cleaned his pallet, wiped his brushes, shut his painting-box, and gone below. I am sitting here, near the helm, close upon the deck, screened from the spray that occasionally flies over, heavily coated, and cold at that, making some almost illegible notes. Life, it is often said, is a stormy ocean. It is on the ocean, certainly, that one feels the whole force of the comparison.
The wind, which is blowing strongly, is getting into the north, dead ahead, and sweeping us away upon our back track. We are too lightly ballasted to tack with success, and hold our own. The bergs are retiring, and appear like ruins and broken columns. We are now fairly on the retreat, and flying under reefed sails to a little bay, called Cat Harbor. All aloft has the tightness and the ring of drums, and the whistling of a hundred fifes. The voice of the master is quick, and to the point, and the motions and the footsteps of the men, rapid. On our bows are the explosion and the shock of swells, the resounding knocks and calls of old Neptune, and upon the deck such showers of his most brilliant flowers and bouquets as I feel in no haste to gather. The sea-fowl whirl in the gale like loose plumes and papers, pouring out their wild complaints as they pass.
CAT HARBOR.—EVENING SERVICE IN CHURCH.—THE FISHERMAN’S FIRE.—THE RETURN AT MIDNIGHT.
AT eight o’clock, our brave little pink-stern was lying at anchor in her haven, as quietly as a babe in its cradle, with the wind piping a pleasant lullaby in the rigging, and the roar of the ocean nearly lost in the distance. A few rude erections along the rocky shore, with a small church, a store and warehouse, compose the town of Cat Harbor, the life of which seems to be the water-craft busy in the one common employment, some returning with the catch of the day, others going for the catch of the night. While C—— was painting a sketch of the scene, the sun vanished behind the purple inland hills, with unusual splendor, and left the distant icebergs in such a white “as no fuller on earth can white them.”