496 THE FRANKLIN SEARCH— 1848-51. 



played. Just, however, as we reached it, the line which had for the few 

 seconds since the fish had dived been running out with lightning speed, 

 slackened, and the strain stopped. The harpooner looked blue, and began 

 slowly hauling in, his crew assisting, with long faces ; for, be it remarked, 

 each man in a ' fast boat ' gets haLf-a-crown and the harpooner half-a-guinea. 

 We sat gravely by, condoling with them on having lost their fish. In a few 

 minutes the harpoon appeared on the surface, and was hauled on board, with 

 sundry maledictions from the heathens of the unlucky boat. The whale had 

 wrenched herself loose by her sudden and active leap, for the massive iron 

 shaft of the harpoon was bent and twisted upon itself as one would twist 

 a piece of soft copper wire with a pair of pliers. We pulled back again 

 towards our former station. By this time we scarcely knew whether it was 

 night or day. We had a sort of an idea that we had been a night and a day 

 away from the ship, but of that we were not certain* We had made 

 repeated attacks upon the biscuits and canisters of preserved meats, but 

 although the appetites of steady-living people at home are pretty fair time- 

 keepers, we found ours of little use in that way here. 



" I suspected it was again night, but I could scarcely think it possible, the 

 time seemed to have passed so rapidly. But there was a stillness about the 

 air that must have struck every one as peculiar to the dead hour of the night ; 

 and although I have noticed it in far different situations, it never struck me so 

 forcibly as it did here. The light passing breezes and cats' paws which had 

 dimpled the water for some hours back had died away. It was now so calm 

 that a feather dropped from the hand fell plumb into the sea. But it was 

 the dead stiUness of the air which was so peculiar. No hum of insect, none 

 of the other pleasant sounds which betoken it is day, and that nature is 

 awake, can be expected here even at mid-day in the height of summer, 

 twenty miles from land, and that land far within the Arctic circle, where, if 

 one may say so, a third of the year is one long continuous day. Yet there 

 is a most perceptible difference — there is a stir in the air .around-^a sort of 

 silent music heard during day which is dumb during night. Is it not strange 

 that the deep stillness of the dead hour of night should be as peculiar to the 

 solitude of the icy seas as to the centre of the vast city 1 For many hours 

 we lay quietly still, no fish coming near enough for us to attempt getting 

 fast. But dming the whole of this time they were pouring round the point 

 of ice, and apparently running in towards the bay, almost in hundreds, the 

 deep boom of their blowings resounding through the still air like the 

 distant bellowing of a herd of bulls. My ear should have been pretty well 

 accustomed now to the blast of the whales, but it was not until this time 

 that I ever had noticed the peculiar hollow boom of their voice, if voice it 

 may be called. 



" We thought at the time that the fish were running right into the bay. 



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