His CAPTORS. 175 



Requiem for the Dead. Becalmed among Icebergs. 



while their own deliverance served to throw a 

 ray of light amid the gloom. 



They thought of his worth, but no words found birth, 



To tell of the love they bore him ; 

 But the sea-bird's wail, and the stormy gale, 



And the roar of the ocean wave, 

 Sung deep and long the funeral song 



O'er the seaman's traceless grave. 



In this connection, it is not unsuitable to give 

 place to what an accredited writer in the West- 

 minster Review relates of an incident, or, rather, 

 a dread tragedy in the Greenland whale-fishery, 

 which is almost too appalling and unparalleled, 

 not to say impossible, to be believed : 



One serene evening in the middle of August, 

 1775, Captain Warrens, the master of a Green- 

 land whale ship, found himself becalmed among 

 an immense number of icebergs, in about sev- 

 enty-seven degrees of north latitude. On one 

 side and within a mile of his vessel, these were 

 of immense height, and closely wedged together, 

 and a succession of snow-covered peaks appear- 

 ed behind each other as far as the eye could 

 reach, showing that the ocean was completely 

 blocked up in that quarter, and that it had 

 probably been so for a long period of time. Cap- 

 tain Warrens did not feel altogether, satisfied 



