The World of Ice

Ice ahead-Polar scenes-Masthead observ

to blue water-the sailor's de

the sea! t

e fresh, the

our skipper is made o' the right stuff. He's entered quite into the spirit of the thing, and I heard him say to the first mate yesterday he'd made up his mind to run right up into Baffin's Bay and make inquiries for C

r the whereabouts of our missing friend; but I fear much that our chances are small, for, although we know the spot which

amount of screw which indicated intense sagacity and penetration; "but I've

ou say. Have you ever been i

wot has bin in the Greenland whale-fishery

en, who acted as assistant steward, and was, in fact, a nautical maid-of-all-work

o this passing sally, but conti

Buzzby, gazing abstractedly down into the deep. "One time wh

tall, active man, stepping smartly u

s punctuality." So saying, the young surgeon sprang down the comp

few seconds to describ

r respects, the vessel was fitted up much in the same manner as ordinary merchantmen. The only other peculiarity about her worthy of notice was the crow's-nest, a sort of barrel-shaped structure fastened to the fore-mast-head, in which, when at the whaling-ground, a man is stationed to look out for whales. The chief men in the ship were Captain Guy, a vigorous, earnest, practical American; Mr. Bolton, the first mate, a stout, burly, off-hand Englishman; and Mr. Saunders, the second mate, a sedate, broad-shouldered, raw-boned Scot, whose opinion of himself was unbounded, whose power of argument was extraordinary, not to say exasperating, and who stood six feet three in his stockings. Mivins, the steward, was, as we have already remarked, a tall, thin, active young

cipated, from the point of his broad chin to the top of his bald head, rather tended to favour this supposition. Mizzle was prematurely bald-being quite a young man-and when questioned on the subject, he usually attributed it to the fact of his having been so long employed about the cooking coppers, that the exces

f his childhood having been spent among green hills, and trees, and streamlets, he was sent to sea with a strange captain before he was old enough to care about the name of his native land. Afterwards he ran away from his ship, and so lost all chance of ever discovering who he was; but, as he sometimes remarked, he didn't much care who he was, so long as he was

ver the broad Atlantic with favouring winds, and without meeting wi

last few morsels of the repast, as men who have more leisure than they desire are wont to do, there

finishing his cup of chocolat

d the first mate, loo

sing and taking down a small telescope

but there is an ice-blink righ

r head, M

and by no

name at least, with floes, and bergs, and hummocks of ice, but neither of them had seen such in reality. These objects were associated in their young minds with all that was romantic and wild, hyperborean and polar, brilliant and sparkling, and light and white-emphatically white.

r. Gradually the blink on the horizon (as the light haze always distinguishable above ice, or snow-covered land, is called) resolved itself into a long white line of ice, which seemed to grow larger as the ship neared it, and in about two hours more they were

aid Fred, seizing his friend by th

the fore-mast, just where it is connected with the fore-top-mast, and from

n tone, and signs of life are visible all over the distant country, while cries from afar reach the ear, as well as those from below. But from the mast-head you hear only the few subdued sounds under your feet-all beyond is silence; you behold only the small, oval-shaped platform that is your world-beyond lies the calm desolate ocean. On dec

some floated in the form of arches and domes, some were broken and rugged like the ruins of old border strongholds, while others were flat and level like fields of white marble; and so calm was it, that the ocean in which they floated seemed like a groundwork

eton after a long silence. "No wonder that authors speak of sc

tently at the ice, I get almost to believe that these are streets, and palaces, and cathedrals. I never felt so strong a desire to have

fancy, Fred, but

g silence, "has not the thought oc

on passed away. Is it not very strange that the idea of the Creator

untable reluctance to renew it. Neither of them distinctly understood that the natural heart is enmity against God

islands of ice. The breeze freshened, and rendered it impossible to avoid an occasional collision with the floating masses; but the good ship was well armed for the fight, and, although

cry from the crow's-

p sprang to his feet as if he

?" shouted

w, sir," repli

o a condition of the utmost animation, and, apparently, unmeaning, confu

sang out the man at

right for her?"

bit; steady!" rep

answered the m

the boats out, Mr. Bol

n a tempestuous voice, while the men

rs, get your

ay,

d tossed its flukes-that is, its tail-in the air, not more t

"Mr. Bolton, brace up the mizzen-top-sai

ern-sheets of the captain's boat just as it pushed off, and, in less than five minutes, the three boats were bounding over the sea in the direct