A VOYAGE TN THE NORTH SEAS. 24$ 



the young lady) with his grog and his pipe, leaving the young people 

 to their own devices. Meantime the ship, having now arrived at the 

 fishing ground, the boats were got out, lines, harpoons, and lances pre- 

 pared, and the business of the voyage commenced with alacrity. As, 

 however, the operations of the fishes are not connected with the main 

 incidents of our tale, we must beg the reader to imagine the Labrador 

 cruising backwards and forwards on the then excellent fishing ground 

 at the west side of the Streights ; towing, warping, and milldolling ; 

 sometimes struggling through ajield of ice ; sometimes boring under a 

 press of canvas across a stream ; sometimes coasting the intermin- 

 able ice-fields, on the edges of which the hummocks, or protuberances, 

 caused by the squeezing of one piece above another, wear the most 

 picturesque and fantastic appearances; sometimes fast to ajloe ; some- 

 times to a fish, with the jets-d'eau which she throws out to the height 

 of forty or fifty feet, the tempest of blood and foam which she flings 

 about in her last agonies, and the jolly cheers of the fishers when she 

 turns on her back, amid a sea of her own blood, and the bustle 

 of fleushing her, and the myriads of sea-birds, terns, auks, and 

 petrels, gulls, kettlewakes, and snow birds, all stationed in the rear, 

 waiting for the fragments which are wafted to leeward, whilst the ra- 

 pacious burgomaster darts occasionally down to seize his prey from 

 the lofty pinnacles of an enormous iceberg, which, with its shattered 

 spires and towers, and carved icework, looking like a magnificent 

 temple reared to the genius of the region, closes in the picture, and 

 hides from the sight the eternal chains of adamant which bind down 

 the waters of the polar seas. 



CHAPTER II. 



" He that's sure to perish on the land 

 May quit the nicety of card and compass, 

 And trust the open sea without a pilot."- Tragedy of Brennovalt. 



PERPETUAL day now reigned in the polar regions. The feeble 

 but continual action of the sun's rays began to discover its effect in the 

 melting of the ice, precipitating thousands of pellucid streams down 

 the sides of the floating frozen cliffs, and dissolving away the friable 

 crust of the ice-fields. These, agitated by the winds and currents, 

 burst asunder with tremendous uproar, and were driven over the 

 surface of the ocean, as if the mighty element were hurling about in 

 scorn the chains which had so long confined it. Sometimes enormous 

 masses were driven together with horrible crash, hugh detached pieces 

 being shivered by the shock and hurled around, as if some vast bomb 

 had exploded, scattering wide destruction in its flying fragments. 

 Sometimes, in regular procession, the frozen masses slide along the 

 surface of the ocean, presenting in the equal height and curious out- 

 line of their forms, with the broad lanes of open water between them, 

 the singular spectacle of streets of icy domes in motion. But the 

 most romantic and sublime appearances were those which a number 

 of enormous icebergs, most of them above two hundred feet above 

 the surface of the water, displayed to the astonished sight of Flora 

 and Arundel. More than the wonders of the most extravagant fairy 



M.M. No. 3. 2 K 



