Next take a broad, shallow basin,which partly fill with water stained dark blue with indigo; now placeyour stones, etc, in this water, with one end of each sticking up.Paint these ends and tip them and streak them with green, with white,and with crimson, and lo and behold! you have a model of the FaroeIslands.
The _Fairy Queen_ called at Reykjavik, and the good people of thatquaint wee "city" came trooping on board. Even the Danish parson came,carrying in his own hands--for he was not proud--a string of firm,delicious-looking rock cod as a present for the captain.
Almost every boat brought a gift of some kind. Well, I daresay they didexpect some presents in return, and it is needless to say they got them.This was, after all, only a very pleasant and very justifiable way ofdoing a barter; much better, in my opinion, than if they had lain ontheir oars and said,--
"We have fresh fish, and mountain mutton, and eggs and game for sale;how much tobacco, biscuits, knives, hatches, and cooking utensils haveyou to spare?"
The good little clergyman innocently inquired whether the war betwixtEngland and France was still going on, and was astonished to be told itwas over years ago.
But nothing could exceed the kindness and hospitality of these people toour young heroes when they went on shore. Had they eaten and drunk ahundredth part of what they were pressed to partake of, they would havebeen cleverer far than the Welsh giant I used to read of in my boyhoodin "The Wonderful Adventures of Jack the Giant-killer."
The _Fairy Queen_ lay at Reykjavik--having to take in water--for threedays, and then sailed away. But would it be believed that in this shorttime Leonard and Douglas won so many hearts among old and young, thatthere was hardly a dry eye in the village the morning they left, soprimitive and simple were those people then?
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Note 1. Mawk, _Scottice_--a hare.
Book 2--CHAPTER FOUR.
ON SILENT SEAS.
"And now there came both mist and snow, And it grew wondrous cold, And ice, mast high, came floating by, As green as emerald.
"And through the drifts the snowy clilts Did send a dismal sheen, Nor shapes of men nor beast we ken-- The ice was all between."
Coleridge.
Scene: The Arctic Ocean. One solitary ship in sight. Ice all about,against which, in contrast, the water looks black as ink.
Yes, everything they saw in this voyage and in these seas was indeedvery new to Leonard and Douglas. They certainly were pleased they hadcome. It was like being in a new world.
They saw so many icebergs before they reached Cape Farewell that theyceased to fear them. Nothing very tremendous, though, but of all sizes,mostly covered with snow, and of shapes the most fantastic. Everythingon earth seemed to be mimicked in shape by these bergs. Churches andhouses, or halls with domes and minarets, were common objects.Furniture of all kinds came next in order of frequency; then cameanimals of all sorts, pigs, sheep, lions, bears, giraffes, geese, swans,horses, cattle, cocks, and hens. And the most amusing part of thebusiness was this: as the ship sailed past them, or through the midst ofthem, they kept altering their shapes or forms with the greatestcoolness, so to speak.
A giraffe, for instance, developed into a ginger-beer bottle, a cowturned into a cab, a church into a chair, a pig became a pigeon, and ahen a horse, while, perhaps, a monster lion or couchant bear became adaft-looking old wife with a flap-cap on. It was funny.
Some of the smaller of these icebergs were tenanted by seals.
What a delightfully easy life those lovely creatures seemed to lead!There goes one, for instance, basking on a bit of ice just like a sofa,pillow and all complete; and his snowy couch is floating quietly awaythrough that blue and sunny summer sea, rising and falling gently on thewaves in a way that must be quite delightful. He just raises his headas the ship sails past, and gazes after the _Fairy Queen_ with a kind ofdreamy interest, then lets it drop again, and recommences his study ofthe birds that go wheeling and screaming round in the sky.
Yonder a walrus pops a monster tusked head and goggle eyes out of thewater, looking at the ship as fiercely as an angry bull.
"What are you?" he seems to ask, "or why are you disturbing the placidwaters of my ocean home?"
Then he disappears, and presently is seen far away to the north.
Yonder, ploughing his lonely way through the silence of the dark sea, isa monster narwhal. He makes no remark. If a boat were to attack him,he might lose his temper, and try to stave her with his mighty ivoryhorn; but the _Fairy Queen_ is nothing to him, so he looks not to rightor to left, but goes on and on and away.
Here comes a shoal of dancing porpoises, all going south. How theydance, and how they plunge, and how they caper, to be sure! They takelittle heed of the ship, do not even go out of their way to avoid her.Perhaps they are going on a summer holiday, and are so full of their ownhappiness and joy that they have little time to think of anything else.Bless the innocent creatures! I've often and often felt pleasure inbeholding their gambols; and thanked God from the bottom of my heart,because He has made them, made the earth and its fulness, the sea andall it contains, so full of life and love and beauty.
But look away down yonder, and you will perceive--for the ship is nowbecalmed--a triangular, fan-like thing above the water, and a dark lineclose by it. It is the back of the huge and awful Greenland shark. Andlook! there is a sea-bird perched on it, just as a starling might be onthe back of a sheep. I do not like to think about sharks nor see them,and I could tell you many an ugly story about them--awful enough to makeyour blood run cold, but that would be a digression; besides, I feelsure the reader does not want his blood to run cold. But there is amore terrible-looking monster far than the Greenland shark in theseseas. I allude to the gigantic hammer-head, who is more ugly than anynightmare.
But lo! here comes an honest whale. I do like these great monsters; Ihave seen quite a deal of their ways and manners. I am sure they havefar more sagacity than they get credit for. I should like to own alittle private sea of my own, and have it enclosed, with a notice boardup, "Trespassers will be prosecuted," and keep a full-sized whale ortwo. I feel sure I could teach them quite a host of little tricks.Stay, though--they would not be _little_ tricks. Never mind, I and mywhales would get on very well together. But if one _did_ get angry withme, and _did_ open his mouth, why--but it will not bear thinking about.
The whales our heroes saw in the Greenland ocean were leviathans.Leonard could not have believed such monsters existed anywhere in theworld, and they had a thorough business air about them, too. Some camenear enough the ship to show their eyes. Good-natured, twinkling littleeyes, that seemed to say,--
"We know you are not a whaler, so pass on, and molest us not, else withone stroke of our tails we will send you all to Davy Jones."
Then they would blow, and great fountains of steam would rise into theair, with a roar like that which an engine emits, only louder far. Thisis not _water_, as is generally supposed, but the breath of the vastleviathan of the ocean.
A WHALE'S GARDEN PARTY.
This is no joke of mine, because I have been at one, and Leonard andDouglas on this memorable voyage had also the good luck to witness anentertainment of the sort.
It only takes place at certain seasons of the year, always pretty farsouth of the main ice pack, and always in a spot unfrequented by ships.There is another _sine qua non_ connected with this garden party--namely, plenty to eat, and whales do not require anything to drink, youknow. So the sea where the party is held is so full of a tiny shrimpletthat it is tinged in colour. But why do I call it a _garden_ party youmay ask; are there any flowers? Does not the sun shimmering on thesmall icebergs already described, and on the clear ice itself, bringforth a hundred various tints and colours, more gorgeously, moreradiantly beautiful than any flowers that ever bloomed and grew? Arethere not, too, at the sea bottom flowers of the deep--
"Many a flower that's born to blus
h unseen--"
Lovelier far than those that bloom on land? Yes, I am right in callingit a garden party. But what do the whales do at this garden party oftheirs? Sail quietly round and look at each other? Discuss thepossibility of uniting in a body, and driving all the whaling fleet tothe bottom of the sea? Consider the prospects of the shrimp harvest, ordebate 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 exceedinglycumbersome way they do enjoy themselves. They enjoy themselves with aforce and a vengeance that is terrible to witness. The noise andexplosions of their wonderful gambols can be heard ten miles away on astill night. To see a porpoise leap high out of the water like a salmonis a fine sight, but to see two or three whales at one and the same timethus disporting themselves, while some lie in the water beating timewith their terrible tails, others playing at leap frog, and the sea foracres round them