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Article The Ship seen on the Ice. ← Page 2 of 4 Article The Ship seen on the Ice. Page 2 of 4 →
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
The Ship Seen On The Ice.
" Get the jolly-boat over , Mr . Sweers , " said tbe captain , " and take a hand with you , and go and hare a look at that craft there ; and if you can board her , do so , and bring away her log-book , if you come across it . The newspapers sha ' nt say that I fell in with such an ohiect as that and passed on without taking- any notice . "
I caught Mr . Sweers' eye , "You'll do , " said he . and in a few minutes he and I were pulling away in the direction of the ice , I in the bow , and he aft , rowing fisherman-fashion , face forward . The schooner had backed her yards on the fore when she was within a mile of the berg , and we bad not far to row . Our four arms made the fat little jolly-boat buzz over tlie wrinkled surface of the green ,
cold water . The wreck—if a wreck she could be called—lay with her decks sloping seawards upon an inclined shelf or beach of ice , with a mass of rugged , abrupt stuff behind her , and vast coagulated lumps heaped like a Stonehenge at her bows and at her stern . When we approached the beach , as I may term it , Salamon Sweers
said" 111 tell you what : I am not going to board that craft alone , Kerry . Who ' s to toll what ' s inside of her ? She may have been ly ing twenty years for all we know , frozen up where it ' s always day or always night—where everything ' s out of the order of nature , in fact ; and rat me if I ' m going to be the first man to . enter her cabin . "
" I ' m along with 3 * 011 , " said I . " So yon are , David , " said he , " and we'll overhaul her together , and the best way to secure the boat'll be to drag her high and dry ;" and as he said this the stem of the boat touched the ice . and we both
of us jumped out , and , catching bold of her by the gunwale , walked her up the slope by some five times her own length , where she lay as snug as though chocked aboard her own mother , the schooner . Sweers and I stood , first of all to take a view of the barque—for a barque she was ; her topgallant masts down , but her topsail and
lower yards across , sails bent , all gear rove , and everything right so far as we could see , saving that her flying jib-boom was gone . There wsis no need to look long at her to know that she hadn't been one of Franklin ' s ships . Her name and the place she hailed from were on her stern : the Trcsideul—New Heiifonl . And now it was easy to see that she was a Yankee whaler . Her sides bristled with cranes or
davits for boats , but every boat was gone . The tackles were overhauled , and the blocks of two of them lay upon the ice . She was it stout , massive , round-bowed structure , to all appearances as sound as on the day when she was launched . She was coppered , and r . ot a sheet of the metal was off , not a rent anywhere visible througJt the length and breadth of the dingy green surface of it .
We first of all walked round her , not knowing but that 011 the other side , concealed from the landing-place by the interposition of the hull , some remains of her people might be lying , but there was nothing in that way to see . We united our voices in a , loud " hallo ! " and the rocks re-echoed us ; but all was still , frozen , lifeless .
" Let ' s get aboard , " said Mr . Sweers , gazing , nevertheless , up tit the shi p ' s side with a flat lace of reluctance and doubt . I grasped a boat ' s bill and went up hand over hand , and Sweers followed me . The single of the deck was considerable , but , owing to the fat bilge of the whaler ' s bottom , not greater than the inclination
of si deck of a shi p under a heavy press of canvas . It was impossible to walk . Wo put our legs over the rail and came to a stand , and took a- view of the decks of the ship . Nothing , saving the boats , seemed to be missing . Every detail of deck furniture was its complete as though the shi p were ready for getting under weigh , with a
lull hold for a final start home . Caboose , scuttle-butts , harnesscask , wheel , binnacle , companion cover , skylight , winch , pumps , capstan—nothing was wanting : nothing but boats and men . " Is it possible that till hands can be below ? " said Sweers , straiuino- his ear .
1 looked aloft and about me , wondering that the body of the vessel and her masts and rigging should not be sheathed with ice ; but if ever the structure had been glazed in her time when she lay hard and fast far to the northward of S pitzbergen , for all one could tell ,
nothing was now frozen ; there was not so much as an icicle anywhere visible about her . The decks were dry , and on my kicking a ' coil of rope that was near my feet , the stuff did not crackle , as one could have expected , as though frosted to the core .
"The vessel seems to have been thawed throngh , " said I , " and I expect that this berg is only a fragment of the mass that broke adrift with her . " " Likel y enough , " said Sweers . " Hark ! what is that ? " " What do yon hear ? " I exclaimed ,
"Why , that ! " cried he , pointing to a shallow fissure in the icy rocks which towered above the ship ; and down the fissure I spied 11 cascade of water falling like smoke , with a harsh , hissing noise , which 1 had mistaken for the seething of the sea . I ran my eye over the face of the heights and witnessed many similar falls of Water .
" I here 11 not he much of this iceberg left soon , " said I , " if the drift is to the . southward . " "What d ' ye think , —that the drift ' s northerly , " exclaimed Sweers . "I'll tell you what if is : its these icebergs drifting in masses down south into the Atlantic which causes the sudden spells of cold weather you get in England during seasons when it ought to be hot . "
The Ship Seen On The Ice.
As be said this he walked to the companion-hatch , the cover of which was closed and the door shut . The cover yielded to a thrust of his hand . He then pulled open the doors and put his head in , and I hoard him spit . " There ' s foul air here , " said he ; "but where a match will burn a man can breathe , I ' ve learnt . "
He struck a match and descended two or three steps of the ladder , and then called out to me to follow . The air was not foul , but it was close , and there was a dampish smell upon it , and it was charged with a fishy odour like that of decaying spawn and dead marine vegetation . Liglit fell through the companion-way , and a sort of blurred dimness drained through the grimy skylight .
We thoroughly overhauled this interior , spending some time m looking about us , for Sweers ' s fear of beholding something affrighting vanished when he found himself in a plain ship ' s cabin , with nothing more terrible to behold than the rough furniture of a whaleman ' s living room of near half a century old . There were three sleeping berths , and these we explored , but met with nothing that
in any way hinted at the story of the ship . It was impossible to tell , indeed , which had been the captain ' s cabin . All three berths were filled alike with lockeis , hammocks , washstaiids , and so forth ; and two of them were li g hted by dirt y little scuttles in the ship ' s side ; but the third lay athwartships , and all the light that it received came from the cabin through its open door .
I don ' t know how long we were hunting these cabins for any sort of papers which would enable Captain Funnel to make out the story of the barque . We were too eager and curious and interested to heed the passage of time . There were harpoons and muskets nicked in the state cabin , some wearing apparel in the berths , a few books
on nautical subjects , but without the owner ' s name in them , and there was a bundle of what proved to be bears' skins stowed away in the corner of the berth that was without a scuttle . A door led to a couple of bulk-headed compartments in the fore part of the state cabin , and Sweers was in the act of advancing to it when he cried
out" By the tunder of heaven , what is dot ? " losing his customary hold of the English tongue in ( he excitement of the moment . " The ice is melting and discharging in Niagara Falls upon the whaler ' s deck ! " 1 cried , after listening a moment to the noise of a downpour above that rang through the cabin in a hollow thunder .
We rushed on deck . A furious squall was blowing , but the air was been lined wheve the vessel lay by the high cliff ' s of iee , and the rain of the squall fell almost up and down in a very sheet of water , intermingled with hailstone as big its the eggs of the thrush . The whole scene
of the ocean was ; i swirling , revolving smother , as though the sky was full of steam , and the screech of tlie wind , as it ( led off the mitre of the dead white heights which sheltered us , poireed the ear like the whistlings of a thousand locomotives .
There was nothing to be seen of the schooner ; but that was trilling for ( ho moment compared to this : there teas nothing to he seen of tin : liont ! The furious discharge of the squall would increase her weight by half filling her with water ; the slashing wet of tlie rain would also render the icy slope up which we had hauled her as slippery as a sheet of skaters : a single shock or blast of wind might
sullice to start her . Bo this as it will , she had launched herselfshe was gone ! We strained our sight , but no faintest blotch of shadow could we distinguish amid tin . white water rushing smoothly off from the base of berg , and streaming into the pallid shadow of the squall where you saw the sea clear of the ice beginning to work with true Atlantic spite .
" Crate Cott ! ' cried Sweers , " what ' s to be done ? There was no appearance of a squall when we landed here . It drove up abaft this berg , and it may have been hidden from tbe schooner herself by the iee . "
We crouched 111 the companion-way for shelter , not doubting that the squall would speedily pass , and that the schooner which , we naturally supposed , lay close to the berg hove-to , would , the instant the weather cleared send a boat to take us off . But tho . squall , instead of abating , gradually rose into a half a gale of wind—a , wet , dark gale that shrouded tlie sea with fl ying spume and rain to within a
musket-shot ot the , ice-berg , whilst the sky was no more than a weeping , pouring shadow coming and going as if were with a lightening ami darkening of it by masses of headlong torn vapour . Some of the lugged pinnacles of the cliffs of ice seemed to pierce that wild , dark , fly ing sky of storm as it swept before the gale close down over our heads .
We could not bring our minds to realise that wo were to be left aboard this ice-stranded wrecker all ni ght , and perhaps all next day , and for hen veil alone knows how much longer for the matter of that ; and it was not until the darkness of the evening had drawn down ,
coming along earl y with the howling gloom of the storm-shrouded ocean , without so much as a rusty tinge of hectic to tell us where the West lay , that we abandoned our idle task of staring at the sea and made our minds to go through with the night as best wo could .
And first of sill we entered the galley , and by the aid of such dim light as still lived we contrived to catch sight ' of a tin lamp with a spout to if dangling over the coppers . There was a wick in the spent , but one mi ght swear that the lamp had ' nt been used for months and months . "We must have a light , anyhow , " said Sweers , " and if this President be a whaler , there should be no lack of oil aboard . "
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
The Ship Seen On The Ice.
" Get the jolly-boat over , Mr . Sweers , " said tbe captain , " and take a hand with you , and go and hare a look at that craft there ; and if you can board her , do so , and bring away her log-book , if you come across it . The newspapers sha ' nt say that I fell in with such an ohiect as that and passed on without taking- any notice . "
I caught Mr . Sweers' eye , "You'll do , " said he . and in a few minutes he and I were pulling away in the direction of the ice , I in the bow , and he aft , rowing fisherman-fashion , face forward . The schooner had backed her yards on the fore when she was within a mile of the berg , and we bad not far to row . Our four arms made the fat little jolly-boat buzz over tlie wrinkled surface of the green ,
cold water . The wreck—if a wreck she could be called—lay with her decks sloping seawards upon an inclined shelf or beach of ice , with a mass of rugged , abrupt stuff behind her , and vast coagulated lumps heaped like a Stonehenge at her bows and at her stern . When we approached the beach , as I may term it , Salamon Sweers
said" 111 tell you what : I am not going to board that craft alone , Kerry . Who ' s to toll what ' s inside of her ? She may have been ly ing twenty years for all we know , frozen up where it ' s always day or always night—where everything ' s out of the order of nature , in fact ; and rat me if I ' m going to be the first man to . enter her cabin . "
" I ' m along with 3 * 011 , " said I . " So yon are , David , " said he , " and we'll overhaul her together , and the best way to secure the boat'll be to drag her high and dry ;" and as he said this the stem of the boat touched the ice . and we both
of us jumped out , and , catching bold of her by the gunwale , walked her up the slope by some five times her own length , where she lay as snug as though chocked aboard her own mother , the schooner . Sweers and I stood , first of all to take a view of the barque—for a barque she was ; her topgallant masts down , but her topsail and
lower yards across , sails bent , all gear rove , and everything right so far as we could see , saving that her flying jib-boom was gone . There wsis no need to look long at her to know that she hadn't been one of Franklin ' s ships . Her name and the place she hailed from were on her stern : the Trcsideul—New Heiifonl . And now it was easy to see that she was a Yankee whaler . Her sides bristled with cranes or
davits for boats , but every boat was gone . The tackles were overhauled , and the blocks of two of them lay upon the ice . She was it stout , massive , round-bowed structure , to all appearances as sound as on the day when she was launched . She was coppered , and r . ot a sheet of the metal was off , not a rent anywhere visible througJt the length and breadth of the dingy green surface of it .
We first of all walked round her , not knowing but that 011 the other side , concealed from the landing-place by the interposition of the hull , some remains of her people might be lying , but there was nothing in that way to see . We united our voices in a , loud " hallo ! " and the rocks re-echoed us ; but all was still , frozen , lifeless .
" Let ' s get aboard , " said Mr . Sweers , gazing , nevertheless , up tit the shi p ' s side with a flat lace of reluctance and doubt . I grasped a boat ' s bill and went up hand over hand , and Sweers followed me . The single of the deck was considerable , but , owing to the fat bilge of the whaler ' s bottom , not greater than the inclination
of si deck of a shi p under a heavy press of canvas . It was impossible to walk . Wo put our legs over the rail and came to a stand , and took a- view of the decks of the ship . Nothing , saving the boats , seemed to be missing . Every detail of deck furniture was its complete as though the shi p were ready for getting under weigh , with a
lull hold for a final start home . Caboose , scuttle-butts , harnesscask , wheel , binnacle , companion cover , skylight , winch , pumps , capstan—nothing was wanting : nothing but boats and men . " Is it possible that till hands can be below ? " said Sweers , straiuino- his ear .
1 looked aloft and about me , wondering that the body of the vessel and her masts and rigging should not be sheathed with ice ; but if ever the structure had been glazed in her time when she lay hard and fast far to the northward of S pitzbergen , for all one could tell ,
nothing was now frozen ; there was not so much as an icicle anywhere visible about her . The decks were dry , and on my kicking a ' coil of rope that was near my feet , the stuff did not crackle , as one could have expected , as though frosted to the core .
"The vessel seems to have been thawed throngh , " said I , " and I expect that this berg is only a fragment of the mass that broke adrift with her . " " Likel y enough , " said Sweers . " Hark ! what is that ? " " What do yon hear ? " I exclaimed ,
"Why , that ! " cried he , pointing to a shallow fissure in the icy rocks which towered above the ship ; and down the fissure I spied 11 cascade of water falling like smoke , with a harsh , hissing noise , which 1 had mistaken for the seething of the sea . I ran my eye over the face of the heights and witnessed many similar falls of Water .
" I here 11 not he much of this iceberg left soon , " said I , " if the drift is to the . southward . " "What d ' ye think , —that the drift ' s northerly , " exclaimed Sweers . "I'll tell you what if is : its these icebergs drifting in masses down south into the Atlantic which causes the sudden spells of cold weather you get in England during seasons when it ought to be hot . "
The Ship Seen On The Ice.
As be said this he walked to the companion-hatch , the cover of which was closed and the door shut . The cover yielded to a thrust of his hand . He then pulled open the doors and put his head in , and I hoard him spit . " There ' s foul air here , " said he ; "but where a match will burn a man can breathe , I ' ve learnt . "
He struck a match and descended two or three steps of the ladder , and then called out to me to follow . The air was not foul , but it was close , and there was a dampish smell upon it , and it was charged with a fishy odour like that of decaying spawn and dead marine vegetation . Liglit fell through the companion-way , and a sort of blurred dimness drained through the grimy skylight .
We thoroughly overhauled this interior , spending some time m looking about us , for Sweers ' s fear of beholding something affrighting vanished when he found himself in a plain ship ' s cabin , with nothing more terrible to behold than the rough furniture of a whaleman ' s living room of near half a century old . There were three sleeping berths , and these we explored , but met with nothing that
in any way hinted at the story of the ship . It was impossible to tell , indeed , which had been the captain ' s cabin . All three berths were filled alike with lockeis , hammocks , washstaiids , and so forth ; and two of them were li g hted by dirt y little scuttles in the ship ' s side ; but the third lay athwartships , and all the light that it received came from the cabin through its open door .
I don ' t know how long we were hunting these cabins for any sort of papers which would enable Captain Funnel to make out the story of the barque . We were too eager and curious and interested to heed the passage of time . There were harpoons and muskets nicked in the state cabin , some wearing apparel in the berths , a few books
on nautical subjects , but without the owner ' s name in them , and there was a bundle of what proved to be bears' skins stowed away in the corner of the berth that was without a scuttle . A door led to a couple of bulk-headed compartments in the fore part of the state cabin , and Sweers was in the act of advancing to it when he cried
out" By the tunder of heaven , what is dot ? " losing his customary hold of the English tongue in ( he excitement of the moment . " The ice is melting and discharging in Niagara Falls upon the whaler ' s deck ! " 1 cried , after listening a moment to the noise of a downpour above that rang through the cabin in a hollow thunder .
We rushed on deck . A furious squall was blowing , but the air was been lined wheve the vessel lay by the high cliff ' s of iee , and the rain of the squall fell almost up and down in a very sheet of water , intermingled with hailstone as big its the eggs of the thrush . The whole scene
of the ocean was ; i swirling , revolving smother , as though the sky was full of steam , and the screech of tlie wind , as it ( led off the mitre of the dead white heights which sheltered us , poireed the ear like the whistlings of a thousand locomotives .
There was nothing to be seen of the schooner ; but that was trilling for ( ho moment compared to this : there teas nothing to he seen of tin : liont ! The furious discharge of the squall would increase her weight by half filling her with water ; the slashing wet of tlie rain would also render the icy slope up which we had hauled her as slippery as a sheet of skaters : a single shock or blast of wind might
sullice to start her . Bo this as it will , she had launched herselfshe was gone ! We strained our sight , but no faintest blotch of shadow could we distinguish amid tin . white water rushing smoothly off from the base of berg , and streaming into the pallid shadow of the squall where you saw the sea clear of the ice beginning to work with true Atlantic spite .
" Crate Cott ! ' cried Sweers , " what ' s to be done ? There was no appearance of a squall when we landed here . It drove up abaft this berg , and it may have been hidden from tbe schooner herself by the iee . "
We crouched 111 the companion-way for shelter , not doubting that the squall would speedily pass , and that the schooner which , we naturally supposed , lay close to the berg hove-to , would , the instant the weather cleared send a boat to take us off . But tho . squall , instead of abating , gradually rose into a half a gale of wind—a , wet , dark gale that shrouded tlie sea with fl ying spume and rain to within a
musket-shot ot the , ice-berg , whilst the sky was no more than a weeping , pouring shadow coming and going as if were with a lightening ami darkening of it by masses of headlong torn vapour . Some of the lugged pinnacles of the cliffs of ice seemed to pierce that wild , dark , fly ing sky of storm as it swept before the gale close down over our heads .
We could not bring our minds to realise that wo were to be left aboard this ice-stranded wrecker all ni ght , and perhaps all next day , and for hen veil alone knows how much longer for the matter of that ; and it was not until the darkness of the evening had drawn down ,
coming along earl y with the howling gloom of the storm-shrouded ocean , without so much as a rusty tinge of hectic to tell us where the West lay , that we abandoned our idle task of staring at the sea and made our minds to go through with the night as best wo could .
And first of sill we entered the galley , and by the aid of such dim light as still lived we contrived to catch sight ' of a tin lamp with a spout to if dangling over the coppers . There was a wick in the spent , but one mi ght swear that the lamp had ' nt been used for months and months . "We must have a light , anyhow , " said Sweers , " and if this President be a whaler , there should be no lack of oil aboard . "