218 
LAST VOYAGE OF CAPT. ROSS. 
again with a force which threatened to break in the floor of the 
Victory, and precipitate both spectators and performers in one 
undistinguishable mass into the hold below. 
The feet of Taglioni were never heard to touch the ground, 
the steps of Mercandotti were scarcely audible, but gracious 
heavens and all ye worshippers of Terpischore—tell us, thou 
great navigator of the Arctic seas, what were the feelings— 
what were the sensations which thrilled through thy every nerve, 
as with thy straining vision thou didst behold the figurantes of 
thy corps de ballet, throwing out their legs first to the right and 
then to the left, then fore and aft, like the pendulum of a clock, 
and then giving a bound, shade of Vestris forgive us ! for thy well 
known bound was a mere hop to it; and then alighting on the 
floor like the monkey falling on the pile, or the rammer of the 
pavior on the granite stone, accompanied also with the usual 
sonorous and harmonious grunt, like the deep diapason note of 
the organ, though varying in the intensity of its sound, accord¬ 
ing to the pulmonary ability of the danseuse. A pause in the 
dancing suddenly took place, expectation was on the stretch to 
ascertain what was forth coming ; the furrows on the brow of 
the commander increased wonderfully in depth, and his dark and 
shaggy eyebrows bristling terrifically over his sunken eyes, be¬ 
spoke the internal commotion of the man; Felix Harbour never 
saw the like before, and centuries will most probably elapse before 
it will see the like again. To those who have paid the slightest 
attention to the operations of nature, it would be superfluous in 
us to remark, that previously to any great act or exertion on her 
part, she generally sinks into a state of repose, as if it were her 
disposition to collect all her scattered powers, in order to enable 
her to endure the approaching commotion. A calm is proverbially 
indicative of a storm ; Vesuvius is generally at rest previously to 
an eruption, and non magna componere parva, which being 
Anglicised means, that a sprat should not be compared with a 
whale ; Capt. Ross was assuredly at rest before he paddled 
away with his steam engine to break the ice of Baffin’s Bay. 
Not a leg nor limb moved of the whole corps de ballet, when 
on a sudden a piercing cry of koonig, koonig, koonig, issued from 
