BUCOLICS--THE GOAT--MAID MARIAN--A LAPP LADY--LAPP LOVE- MAKING--THE SEA-HORSEMAN--THE GULF STREAM--ARCTIC CURRENTS--A DINGY EXPEDITION--A SCHOOL OF PERIPATETIC FISHES--ALTEN--THE CHATELAINE OF KAAFIORD--STILL NORTHWARD HO!
July 27th, Alten.
This letter ought to be an Eclogue, so pastoral a life have we been leading lately among these pleasant Nordland valleys. Perhaps it is only the unusual sight of meadows, trees and flowers, after the barren sea, and still more barren lands we have been accustomed to, that invests this neighbourhood with such a smiling character. Be that as it may, the change has been too grateful not to have made us seriously reflect on our condition; and we have at last determined that not even the envious ocean shall for the future cut us off from the pleasures of a shepherd life. Henceforth, the boatswain is no longer to be the only swain on board! We have purchased an ancient goat--a nanny-goat--so we may be able to go a-milking upon occasion. Mr. Webster, late of her Majesty's Foot-guards, carpenter, etc., takes brevet-rank as dairy-maid; and our venerable passenger is at this moment being inducted into a sumptuous barrel [Footnote: The cask in question was bought in order to be rigged up eventually into a crow's-nest, as soon as we should again find ourselves among the ice.] which I have had fitted up for her reception abaft the binnacle. A spacious meadow of sweet-scented hay has been laid down in a neighbouring corner for her further accommodation; and the Doctor is tuning up his flageolet, in order to complete the bucolic character of the scene. The only personage amongst us at all disconcerted by these arrangements is the little white fox which has come with us from Iceland. Whether he considers the admission on board of so domestic an animal to be a reflection on his own wild Viking habits, I cannot say; but there is no impertinence--even to the nibbling of her beard when she is asleep--of which he is not guilty towards the poor old thing, who passes the greater part of her mornings in gravely butting at her irreverent tormentor.
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But I must relate our last week's proceedings in a more orderly manner.
As soon as the anchor was let go in Hammerfest harbour, we went ashore; and having first ascertained that the existence of a post does not necessarily imply letters, we turned away, a little disappointed, to examine the metropolis of Finmark. A nearer inspection did not improve the impression its first appearance had made upon us; and the odour of rancid cod-liver oil, which seemed indiscriminately to proceed from every building in the town, including the church, has irretrievably confirmed us in our prejudices. Nevertheless, henceforth the place will have one redeeming association connected with it, which I am bound to mention. It was in the streets of Hammerfest that I first set eyes on a Laplander. Turning round the corner of one of the ill-built houses, we suddenly ran over a diminutive little personage in a white woollen tunic, bordered with red and yellow stripes, green trousers, fastened round the ankles, and reindeer boots, curving up at the toes like Turkish slippers. On her head--for notwithstanding the trousers, she turned out to be a lady--was perched a gay parti-coloured cap, fitting close round the face, and running up at the back into an overarching peak of red cloth. Within this peak was crammed--as I afterwards learnt--a piece of hollow wood, weighing about a quarter of a pound, into which is fitted the wearer's back hair; so that perhaps, after all, there does exist a more in, convenient coiffure than a Paris bonnet.
Hardly had we taken off our hats, and bowed a thousand apologies for our unintentional rudeness to the fair inhabitant of the green trousers, before a couple of Lapp gentlemen hove in sight. They were dressed pretty much like their companion, except that an ordinary red night-cap replaced the queer helmet worn by the lady; and the knife and sporran fastened to their belts, instead of being suspended in front as hers were, hung down against their hips. Their tunics, too, may have been a trifle shorter. None of the three were beautiful. High cheek-bones, short noses, oblique Mongol eyes, no eyelashes, and enormous mouths, composed a cast of features which their burnt-sienna complexion, and hair like ill-got-in hay did not much enhance. The expression of their countenances was not unintelligent; and there was a merry, half-timid, half-cunning twinkle in their eyes, which reminded me a little of faces I had met with in the more neglected districts of Ireland. Some ethnologists, indeed, are inclined to reckon the Laplanders as a branch of the Celtic family. Others, again, maintain them to be Ugrians; while a few pretend to discover a relationship between the Lapp language and the dialects of the Australian savages, and similar outsiders of the human family; alleging that as successive stocks bubbled up from the central birthplace of mankind in Asia, the earlier and inferior races were gradually driven outwards in concentric circles, like the rings produced by the throwing of a stone into a pond; and that consequently, those who dwell in the uttermost ends of the earth are, ipso facto, first cousins.
This relationship with the Polynesian Niggers, the native genealogists would probably scout with indignation, being perfectly persuaded of the extreme gentility of their descent. Their only knowledge of the patriarch Noah is as a personage who derives his principal claim to notoriety from having been the first Lapp. Their acquaintance with any sacred history--nay, with Christianity at all--is very limited. It was not until after the thirteenth century that an attempt was made to convert them; and although Charles the Fourth and Gustavus ordered portions of Scripture to be translated in Lappish, to this very day a great proportion of the race are pagans; and even the most illuminated amongst them remain slaves to the grossest superstition. When a couple is to be married, if a priest happens to be in the way, they will send for him perhaps out of complaisance; but otherwise, the young lady's papa merely strikes a flint and steel together, and the ceremony is not less irrevocably completed. When they die, a hatchet and a flint and steel are invariably buried with the defunct, in case he should find himself chilly on his long journey--an unnecessary precaution, many of the orthodox would consider, on the part of such lax religionists. When they go boar-hunting--the most important business in their lives--it is a sorcerer, with no other defence than his incantations, who marches at the head of the procession. In the internal arrangements of their tents, it is not a room to themselves, but a door to themselves, that they assign to their womankind; for woe betide the hunter if a woman has crossed the threshold over which he sallies to the chase; and for three days after the slaughter of his prey he must live apart from the female portion of his family in order to appease the evil deity whose familiar he is supposed to have destroyed. It would be endless to recount the innumerable occasions upon which the ancient rites of Jumala are still interpolated among the Christian observances they profess to have adopted.
Their manner of life I had scarcely any opportunities of observing. Our Consul kindly undertook to take us to one of their encampments; but they flit so often from place to place, it is very difficult to light upon them. Here and there, as we cruised about among the fiords, blue wreaths of smoke rising from some little green nook among the rocks would betray their temporary place of abode; but I never got a near view of a regular settlement.
In the summer-time they live in canvas tents: during winter, when the snow is on the ground, the forest Lapps build huts in the branches of trees, and so roost like birds. The principal tent is of an hexagonal form, with a fire in the centre, whose smoke rises through a hole in the roof. The gentlemen and ladies occupy different sides of the same apartment; but a long pole laid along the ground midway between them symbolizes an ideal partition, which I dare say is in the end as effectual a defence as lath and plaster prove in more civilized countries. At all events, the ladies have a doorway quite to themselves, which, doubtless, they consider a far greater privilege than the seclusion of a separate boudoir. Hunting and fishing are the principal employments of the Lapp tribes; and to slay a bear is the most honourable exploit a Lapp hero can achieve. The flesh of the slaughtered beast becomes the property--not of the man who killed him, but of him who discovered his trail, and the skin is hung up on a pole, for the wives of all who took part in the expedition to shoot at with their eyes bandaged. Fortunate is she whose arrow pierces the trophy,--not only does it become her prize, but, in the eyes of the whole settlement, her husband is looked upon thence forth as the most fortunate of men. As long as the chase is going on, the women are not allowed to stir abr but as soon as the party have safely brought home their booty, the whole female population issue from the tents, and having deliberately chewed some bark of a species of alder, they spit the red juice into their husband's faces, typifying thereby the bear's blood which has been shed in the honourable encounter.
Although the forests, the rivers, and the sea supply them in a great measure with their food, it is upon the reindeer that the Laplander is dependent for every other comfort in life. The reindeer is his estate, his horse, his cow, his companion, and friend. He has twenty-two different names for him. His coat, trousers, and shoes are made of reindeer's skin, stitched with thread manufactured from the nerves and sinews of the reindeer. Reindeer milk is the most important item in his diet. Out of reindeer horns are made almost all the utensils used in his domestic economy; and it is the reindeer that carries his baggage, and drags his sledge. But the beauty of this animal is by no means on a par with his various moral and physical endowments. His antlers, indeed, are magnificent, branching back to the length of three or four feet; but his body is poor, and his limbs thick and ungainly; neither is his pace quite so rapid as is generally supposed. The Laplanders count distances by the number of horizons they have traversed; and if a reindeer changes the horizon three times during the twenty-four hours, it is thought a good day's work. Moreover, so just an appreciation has the creature of what is due to his own great merit, that if his owner seeks to tax him beyond his strength, he not only becomes restive, but sometimes actually turns upon the inconsiderate Jehu who has over-driven him. When, therefore, a Lapp is in a great hurry, instead of taking to his sledge, he puts on a pair of skates exactly twice as long as his own body, and so flies on the wings of the wind.
Every Laplander, however poor, has his dozen or two dozen deer; and the flocks of a Lapp Croesus amount sometimes to two thousand head. As soon as a young lady is born--after having been duly rolled in the snow--she is dowered by her father with a certain number of deer, which are immediately branded with her initials, and thenceforth kept apart as her especial property. In proportion as they increase and multiply does her chance improve of making a good match. Lapp courtships are conducted pretty much in the same fashion as in other parts of the world. The aspirant, as soon as he discovers that he has lost his heart, goes off in search of a friend and a bottle of brandy. The friend enters the tent, and opens simultaneously--the brandy--and his business; while the lover remains outside, engaged in hewing wood, or some other menial employment. If, after the brandy and the proposal have been duly discussed, the eloquence of his friend prevails, he is himself called into the conclave, and the young people are allowed to rub noses. The bride then accepts from her suitor a present of a reindeer's tongue, and the espousals are considered concluded. The marriage does not take place for two or three years afterwards; and during the interval the intended is obliged to labour in the service of his father-in-law, as diligently as Jacob served Laban for the sake of his long-loved Rachel.
I cannot better conclude this summary of what I have been able to learn about the honest Lapps, than by sending you the tourist's stock specimen of a Lapp love-ditty. The author is supposed to be hastening in his sledge towards the home of his adored one:--
"Hasten, Kulnasatz! my little reindeer! long is the way, and boundless are the marshes. Swift are we, and light of foot, and soon we shall have come to whither we are speeding. There shall I behold my fair one pacing. Kulnasatz, my reindeer, look forth! look around! Dost thou not see her somewhere--BATHING?"
As soon as we had thoroughly looked over the Lapp lady and her companions, a process to which they submitted with the greatest complacency, we proceeded to inspect the other lions of the town; the church, the lazar-house,-- principally occupied by Lapps,--the stock fish establishment, and the hotel. But a very few hours were sufficient to exhaust the pleasures of Hammerfest; so having bought an extra suit of jerseys for my people, and laid in a supply of other necessaries, likely to be useful in our cruise to Spitzbergen, we exchanged dinners with the Consul, a transaction by which, I fear, he got the worst of the bargain, and then got under way for this place,--Alten.
The very day we left Hammerfest our hopes of being able to get to Spitzbergen at all--received a tremendous shock. We had just sat down to dinner, and I was helping the Consul to fish, when in comes Wilson, his face, as usual, upside down, and hisses something into the Doctor's ear. Ever since the famous dialogue which had taken place between them on the subject of sea-sickness, Wilson had got to look upon Fitz as in some sort his legitimate prey; and whenever the burden of his own misgivings became greater than he could bear, it was to the Doctor that he unbosomed himself. On this occasion, I guessed, by the look of gloomy triumph in his eyes, that some great calamity had occurred, and it turned out that the following was the agreeable announcement he had been in such haste to make: "Do you know, Sir?"--This was always the preface to tidings unusually doleful. "No--what?" said the Doctor, breathless. "Oh nothing, Sir; only two sloops have just arrived, Sir, from Spitzbergen, Sir--where they couldn't get, Sir;--such a precious lot of ice--two hundred miles from the land-and, oh, Sir--they've come back with all their bows stove in!" Now, immediately on arriving at Hammerfest, my first care had been to inquire how the ice was lying this year to the northward, and I had certainly been told that the season was a very bad one, and that most of the sloops that go every summer to kill sea-horses (i.e., walrus) at Spitzbergen, being unable to reach the land., had returned empty-handed; but as three weeks of better weather had intervened since their discomfiture, I had quite reassured myself with the hope, that in the meantime the advance of the season might have opened for us a passage to the island.
This news of Wilson's quite threw me on my back again. The only consolation was, that probably it was not true; so immediately after dinner we boarded the honest Sea-horseman who was reported to have brought the dismal intelligence. He turned out to be a very cheery intelligent fellow of about five-and-thirty, six feet high, with a dashing "devil-may-care" manner that completely imposed upon me. Charts were got out, and the whole state of the case laid before me in the clearest manner. Nothing could be more unpromising. The sloop had quitted the ice but eight-and-forty hours before making the Norway coast; she had not been able even to reach Bear Island. Two hundred miles of ice lay off the southern and western coast of Spitzbergen--(the eastern side is always blocked up with ice)--and then bent round in a continuous semicircle towards Jan Mayen. That they had not failed for want of exertion--the bows of his ships sufficiently testified. As to OUR getting there it was out of the question. So spake the Sea-horseman. On returning on board the "Foam" I gave myself up to the most gloomy reflections. This, then, was to be the result of all my preparations and long-meditated schemes. What likelihood was there of success, after so unfavourable a verdict? Ipse dixit, equus marinus. It is true the horse-marines have hitherto been considered a mythic corps, but my friend was too substantial-looking for me to doubt his existence: and unless I was to ride off on the proverbial credulity of the other branch of that amphibious profession, I had no reason to question his veracity. Nevertheless, I felt it would not become a gentleman to turn back at the first blush of discouragement. If it were possible to reach Spitzbergen, I was determined to do so. I reflected that every day that passed was telling in our favour. It was not yet the end of July; even in these latitudes winter does not commence much before September, and in the meantime the tail of the Gulf Stream would still be wearing a channel in the ice towards the pole; so, however unpromising might be the prospect, I determined, at all events, that we should go and see for ourselves how matters really stood.
But I must explain to you why I so counted upon the assistance of the Gulf Stream to help us through.
The entire configuration of the Arctic ice is determined by the action of that mysterious current on its edges. Several theories have been advanced to account for its influence in so remote a region. I give you one which appears to me reasonable. It is supposed, that in obedience to that great law of Nature which seeks to establish equilibrium in the temperature of fluids,--a vast body of gelid water is continually mounting from the Antarctic, to displace and regenerate the over-heated oceans of the torrid zone. Bounding up against the west side of South America, the ascending stream skirts the coasts of Chili and Peru, and is then deflected in a westerly direction across the Pacific Ocean, where it takes the name of the Equatorial Current. Having completely encircled Australia, it enters the Indian Sea, sweeps up round the Cape of Good Hope, and, crossing the Atlantic, twists into the Gulf of Mexico. Here its flagging energies are suddenly accelerated in consequence of the narrow limits within which it finds itself compressed. So marvellous does the velocity of the current now become, so complete its isolation from the deep sea bed it traverses, that by the time it issues again into the Atlantic, its hitherto diffused and loitering waters are suddenly concentrated into what Lieutenant Maury has happily called--"a river in the ocean," swifter and of greater volume than either the Mississippi or the Amazon. Surging forth between the interstices of the Bahamas, that stretch like a weir across its mouth, it cleaves asunder the Atlantic. So distinct is its individuality, that one side of a vessel will be scoured by its warm indigo-coloured water, while the other is floating in the pale, stagnant, weed-encumbered brine of the Mar de Sargasso of the Spaniards. It is not only by colour, by its temperature, by its motion, that this (Greek) "ron Okeanuio" is distinguished; its very surface is arched upwards some way above the ordinary sea-level toward the centre, by the lateral pressure of the elastic liquid banks between which it flows. Impregnated with the warmth of tropic climes, the Gulf Stream-as it has now come to be called,--then pours its genial floods across the North Atlantic, laving the western coasts of Britain, Ireland, and Norway, and investing each shore it strikes upon, with a climate far milder than that enjoyed by other lands situated in the same latitudes. Arrived abreast of the North Cape, the impetus of the current is in a great measure exhausted.
From causes similar (though of less efficacy, in consequence of the smaller area occupied by water) to those which originally gave birth to the ascending energy of the Antarctic waters, a gelid current is also generated in the Arctic Ocean, which, descending in a south-westerly direction, encounters the already faltering Gulf Stream in the space between Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla. A contest for the mastery ensues, which is eventually terminated by a compromise. The warmer stream, no longer quite able to hold its own, splits into two branches, the one squeezing itself round the North Cape, as far as that Varangar Fiord which Russia is supposed so much to covet, while the other is pushed up in a more northerly direction along the west coast of Spitzbergen. But although it has power to split up the Gulf Stream for a certain distance, the Arctic current is ultimately unable to cut across it, and the result is an accumulation of ice to the south of Spitzbergen in the angle formed by the bifurcation, as Mr. Grote would call it, of the warmer current.
It is quite possible, therefore, that the north-west extremity of Spitzbergen may be comparatively clear, while the whole of its southern coasts are enveloped in belts of ice of enormous extent. It was on this contingency that we built our hopes, and determined to prosecute our voyage, in spite of the discouraging report of the Norse skipper.
About eight o'clock in the evening we got under way from Hammerfest; unfortunately the wind almost immediately after fell dead calm, and during the whole night we lay "like a painted ship upon a painted ocean." At six o'clock a little breeze sprang up, and when we came on deck at breakfast time, the schooner was skimming at the rate of five knots an hour over the level lanes of water, which lie between the silver-grey ridges of gneiss and mica slate that hem in the Nordland shore. The distance from Hammerfest to Alten is about forty miles, along a zigzag chain of fiords. It was six o'clock in the evening, and we had already sailed two-and-thirty miles, when it again fell almost calm. Impatient at the unexpected delay, and tempted by the beauty of the evening,--which was indeed most lovely, the moon hanging on one side right opposite to the sun on the other, as in the picture of Joshua's miracle,--Sigurdr, in an evil hour, proposed that we should take a row in the dingy, until the midnight breeze should spring up, and bring the schooner along with it. Away we went, and so occupied did we become with admiring the rocky precipices beneath which we were gliding, that it was not until the white sails of the motionless schooner had dwindled to a speck, that we became aware of the distance we had come.
Our attention had been further diverted by the spectacle of a tribe of fishes, whose habit it appeared to be--instead of swimming like Christian fishes in a horizontal position beneath the water--to walk upon their hind-legs along its surface. Perceiving a little boat floating on the loch not far from the spot where we had observed this phenomenon, we pulled towards it, and ascertained that the Lapp officer in charge was actually intent on stalking the peripatetic school--to use a technical expression--whose evolutions had so much astonished us. The great object of the sportsman is to judge by their last appearance what part of the water the fish are likely to select for the scene of their next promenade. Directly he has determined this in his own mind, he rows noiselessly to the spot, and, as soon as they show themselves, hooks them with a landing-net into his boat.
By this time it had become a doubtful point whether it would not be as little trouble to row on to Alten as to return to the schooner, so we determined to go on. Unfortunately we turned down a wrong fiord, and after a long pull, about two o'clock in the morning had the satisfaction of finding ourselves in a cul-de-sac. To add to our discomfort, clouds of mosquitoes with the bodies of behemoths and the stings of dragons, had collected from all quarters of the heavens to make a prey of us. In vain we struggled--strove to knock them down with the oars,--plunged our heads under the water,--smacked our faces with frantic violence; on they came in myriads, until I thought our bleaching bones would alone remain to indicate our fate. At last Sigurdr espied a log but on the shore, where we might at least find some one to put us into the right ragain; but on looking in at the open door, we only saw a Lapland gentleman fast asleep. Awaking at our approach he started to his feet, and though nothing could be more gracefully conciliatory than the bow with which I opened the conversation, I regret to say that after staring wildly round for a few minutes, the aboriginal bolted straight away in the most unpolite manner and left us to our fate. There was nothing for it but patiently to turn back, and try some other opening. This time we were more successful, and about three o'clock A.M. had the satisfaction of landing at one of the wharves attached to the copper mines of Kaafiord. We came upon a lovely scene. It was as light and warm as a summer's noon in England; upon a brplateau, carved by nature out of the side of the grey limestone, stood a bright shining house in the middle of a plot of rich English-looking garden. On one side lay the narrow fiord, on every other rose an amphitheatre of fir-clad mountains. The door of the house was open, so were many of the windows--even those on the ground-floor, and from the rwhere we stood we could see the on the library shelves. A swing and some gymnastic appliances on the lawn told us that there were children. Altogether, I thought I had never seen such a charming picture of silent comfort and security. Perhaps the barren prospects we had been accustomed to made the little oasis before us look more cheerful than we might otherwise have thought it.
The question now arose, what was to be done? My principal reason for coming to Alten was to buy some salt provisions and Lapland dresses; but dolls and junk were scarcely a sufficient pretext for knocking up a quiet family at three o'clock in the morning. It is true, I happened to have a letter for Mr. T--, written by a mutual friend, who had expressly told me that--arrive when I might at Alten,--the more unceremoniously I walked in and took possession of the first unoccupied bed I stumbled on, the better Mr. T-- would be pleased; but British punctilio would not allow me to act on the recommendation, though we were sorely tried. In the meantime the mosquitoes had become more intolerable than ever. At last, half mad with irritation, I set off straight up the side of the nearest mountain, in hopes of attaining a zone too high for them to inhabit; and, poising myself upon its topmost pinnacle, I drew my handkerchief over my head--I was already without coat and waistcoat--and remained the rest of the morning "mopping and mowing" at the world beneath my feet.
About six o'clock, like a phantom in a dream, the little schooner came stealing round the misty headland, and anchored at the foot of the rocks below. Returning immediately on board, we bathed, dressed, and found repose from all our troubles. Not long after, a message from Mr. T--, in answer to a card I had sent up to the house as soon as the household gave signs of being astir--invited us to breakfast; and about half-past nine we presented ourselves at his hospitable door. The reception I met with was exactly what the gentlemen who had given me the letter of introduction had led me to expect; and so eager did Mr. T-- seem to make us comfortable, that I did not dare to tell him how we had been prowling about his house the greater part of the previous night, lest he should knock me down on the spot for not having knocked him up. The appearance of the inside of the house quite corresponded with what we had anticipated from the soigne air of everything about its exterior. , maps, pictures, a number of astronomical instruments, geological specimens, and a magnificent assortment of fishing-rods, betrayed the habits of the practical, well-educated, business-loving English gentlemen who inhabited it; and as he showed me the various articles of interest in his study, most heartily did I congratulate myself on the lucky chance which had brought me into contact with so desirable an acquaintance.
All this time we had seen nothing of the lady of the house; and I was just beginning to speculate as to whether that crowning ornament could be wanting to this pleasant home, when the door at the further end of the room suddenly opened, and there glided out into the sunshine--"The White Lady of Avenel." A fairer apparition I have seldom seen,--stately, pale, and fragile as a lily--blond hair, that rippled round a forehead of ivory--a cheek of waxen purity on which the fitful colour went and came--not with the flush of southern blood, or flower-bloom of English beauty,--but rather with a cool radiance, as of "northern streamers" on the snows of her native hills,-- eyes of a dusky blue, and lips of that rare tint which lines the conch-shell. Such was the Chatelaine of Kaafiord,--as perfect a type of Norse beauty as ever my Saga lore had conjured up! Frithiof's Ingeborg herself seemed to stand before me. A few minutes afterwards, two little fair-haired maidens, like twin snowdrops, stole into the room; and the sweet home picture was complete.
The rest of the day has been a continued fete. In vain after having transacted my business, I pleaded the turning of the tide, and our anxiety to get away to sea; nothing would serve our kind entertainer but that we should stay to dinner; and his was one of those strong energetic wills it is difficult to resist.
In the afternoon, the Hammerfest steamer called in from the southward, and by her came two fair sisters of our hostess from their father's home in one of the Loffodens which overlook the famous Maelstrom. The stories about the violence of the whirlpool Mr. T-- assures me are ridiculously exaggerated. On ordinary occasions the site of the supposed vortex is perfectly unruffled, and it is only when a strong weather tide is running that any unusual movements in the water can be observed; even then the disturbance does not amount to much more than a rather troublesome race. "Often and often, when she was a girl, had his wife and her sisters sailed over its fabulous crater in an open boat." But in this wild romantic country, with its sparse population, rugged mountains, and gloomy fiords, very ordinary matters become invested with a character of awe and mystery quite foreign to the atmosphere of our own matter-of-fact world; and many of the Norwegians are as prone to superstition as the poor little Lapp pagans who dwell among them.
No later than a few years ago, in the very fiord we had passed on our way to Alten, when an unfortunate boat got cast away during the night on some rocks at a little distance from the shore, the inhabitants, startled by the cries of distress which reached them in the morning twilight, hurried down in a body to the sea-side,--not to afford assistance,--but to open a volley of musketry on the drowning mariners; being fully persuaded that the stranded boat, with its torn sails, was no other than the Kracken or Great Sea-Serpent flapping its dusky wings: and when, at last, one of the crew succeeded in swimming ashore in spite of waves and bullets,--the whole society turned and fled!
And now, again good-bye. We are just going up to dine with Mr. T--; and after dinner, or at least as soon as the tide turns, we get under way--Northward Ho! (as Mr. Kingsley would say) in right good earnest this time!
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