12 AN ICEBERG AND FOGS. 



and rising, like the gauze curtain of a theatre, gave 

 us the distant but beautiful and terribly -interesting view 

 of a majestic iceberg on the port-bow, its distance from 

 us not correctly to be computed, but guessed at about 

 ten miles, and its length about three hundred feet by 

 ninety. The size and pallid yet colossal appearance 

 of this spectre on the deep made me perfectly aware of 

 the danger of collision in those dense fogs that frequent 

 ly cumber these latitudes, and pray for clear weather. 

 With night, however, the fog returned; we were 

 reduced, for the purpose of greater safety, to half speed, 

 and there was no sleeping on account of the fog-whistle 

 sounding at intervals throughout the night. On the 

 second Sunday after leaving Liverpool some of us 

 expected to sight Newfoundland, for the weather had 

 again become clear, fine, and calm, but in this expect 

 ation we were in error. During the voyage the wea 

 ther had been, in my opinion, very fine, from first to 

 last, with two whales, the iceberg, and a very large 

 shoal of very small porpoises, gulls, divers, and Mother 

 Carey's chickens to amuse me ; but among my fellow- 

 passengers, and on account of the head wind and swell 

 and long pitch of the vessel, there was a vast deal of 

 sickness. One old lady, I regret to say, died from the 

 effects of sea-sickness three days prior to reaching New 

 York, and it was deemed proper to carry the body to 

 the United States. 



Throughout this voyage, then, we had fine sea-going 

 weather, with two or three fresh breezes at night, which 

 rendered pillows far from restful, and occasionally sent 

 undressing victims reeling from side to side, cannoning, 

 as a billiard-player would express it, against every corner 

 of their berths, and in all probability pocketing them- 



