Summer Life In Norland Seas

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Title:     Summer Life In Norland Seas
Author: Gordon Stables [More Titles by Stables]

"To the ocean now I fly
And those Norland climes that lie
Where Day never shuts his eye."

"And nought around, howe'er so bright,
Could win his stay, or stop his flight
From where he saw the pole-star's light
Shine o'er the north."

It was no wonder that, with the snow lying deep around our dwelling, and the storm-wind rattling our windows of a night, and howling and "howthering" around the chimnies, both Frank's thoughts and my own should be carried away to the wild regions of the Pole, where both of us had spent some years of our lives; or that I should have been asked one night to relate some of my experiences of Greenland seas and their strange animal inhabitants, seals and bears among the rest.

I related, among other things--

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HOW SEALS ARE CAUGHT IN GREENLAND.

"That sealing trip," I said, "I shall never forget. My particular friend the Scotch doctor, myself, and Brick the dog, were nearly always hungry; many a midnight supper we went in for, cooked and eaten under the rose and forecastle."

Friday night was sea-pie night, by the universal custom of the service. The memory of that delicious sea-pie makes my month water even now, when I think of it.

The captain came down one morning from the crow's-nest--a barrel placed up by the main truck, the highest position in the ship from which to take observations--and entered the saloon, having apparently just taken leave of his senses. He was "daft" with excitement; his face was wreathed in smiles, and the tears of joy were standing in his eyes.

"On deck, my boys, on deck with you, and see the seals!"

The scene we witnessed on running aloft into the rigging was peculiarly Greenlandish. The sun had all the bright blue sky to himself--not the great dazzling orb that you are accustomed to in warmer countries, but a shining disc of molten silver hue, that you can look into and count the spots with naked eye. About a quarter of a mile to windward was the main icepack, along the edge of which we were sailing under a gentle topsail breeze. Between and around us lay the sea, as black as a basin of ink. But everywhere about, as far as the eye could see from the quarter-deck, the surface of the water was covered with large beautiful heads, with brilliant earnest eyes, and noses all turned in one direction--that in which our vessel was steering, about south-west and by south. Nay, but I must not forget to mention one peculiar feature in the scene, without which no seascape in Greenland would be complete. Away on our lee-bow, under easy canvas, was the Green Dutchman. This isn't a phantom ship, you must know, but the most successful of all ships that ever sailed the Northern Ocean. Her captain--and owner--has been over twenty years in the came trade, and well deserves the fortune that he has made by his own skill and industry.

If other proof were wanting that we were among the main body of seals, the presence of that Green Dutchman afforded it; besides, yonder on the ice were several bears strolling up and down, great yellow monsters, with the ease and self-possession of gentlemen waiting for the sound of the last dinner gong or bugle. Skippers of ships might err in their judgment, the great Green Dutchman himself might be at fault, but the knowledge and the instinct of Bruin is infallible.

We were now in the latitude of Jan Mayen; the tall mountain cone of that strange island we could distinctly see, raised like an immense shining sugar-loaf against the sky's blue. To this lonely spot come every year, through storm and tempest, in vessels but little bigger or better than herring-boats, hardy Norsemen, to hunt the walrus for its skin and ivory, but by other human feet it is seldom trodden. It is the throne of King Winter, and the abode of desolation, save for the great bear that finds shelter in its icy caves, or the monster seals and strange sea-birds that rest on its snow-clad rocks. At this latitude the sealer endeavours to fall in with the seals, coming in their thousands from the more rigorous north, and seeking the southern ice, on which to bring forth their young. They here find a climate which is slightly more mild, and never fail to choose ice which is low and flat, and usually protected from the south-east swell by a barrier of larger bergs. The breeding takes place as soon as the seals take the ice, the males in the meantime removing in a body to some distant spot, where they remain for three weeks or so, looking very foolish--just, in truth, as human gentlemen would under like circumstances--until joined by the ladies. The seal-mothers are, I need hardly say, exceedingly fond of their young. At all other times timid in the extreme, they will at this season defend them with all the ferocity of bears. The food of the seals in nursing season consists, I believe, of the small shrimps with which the sea is sometimes stained for miles, like the muddy waters of the Bristol Channel, and also, no doubt, of the numerous small fishes to be found burrowing, like bees in a honeycomb, on the under surface of the pieces of ice. The wise sealer "dodges" outside, or lies aback, watching and wary, for a fortnight at least, until the young seals are lumpy and fat, then the work of death begins. I fear I am digressing, but these remarks may be new to some readers.

"The Green Dutchman has filled her fore-yard, sir, and is making for the ice;" thus said the first mate to the captain one morning.

"Let the watch make sail," was the order, "and take the ice to windward of her."

The ship is being "rove" in through the icebergs, as far and fast as sail will take her. Meanwhile, fore and aft, everybody is busy on board, and the general bustle is very exciting. The steward is serving out the rum, the cook's coppers are filled with hams, the hands not on deck are busy cleaning their guns, sharpening their knives, getting out their "lowrie tows" (dragging-ropes), and trying the strength of their seal-club shafts by attempts to break them over their hardy knees. The doctor's medical preparations are soon finished; he merely pockets a calico bandage and dossel of lint, and straps a tourniquet around his waist, then devotes his attention exclusively to his accoutrements. Having thus arranged everything to his entire satisfaction, he fills a sandwich-case, then a brandy-flask and baccy-pouch, and afterwards eats and drinks as long as he can--to pass the time, he says--then, when he can't eat a morsel more, he sits and waits and listens impatiently, beating the devil's tattoo with his boot on the fender. Presently it is "Clew up," and soon after, "All hands over the side."

The day was clear and bright and frosty, and the snow crisp and hard. There was no sinking up to the knees in it. You might have walked on it with wooden legs. Besides, there was but little swell on, so the movement of the bergs was slow, and leaping easy.

Our march to the sealing-ground was enlivened by a little logomachy, or wordy war, between the first mate and the doctor. The latter began it:

"Harpooneers and clubmen," he cried, "close up behind me, here; I'm gaun to mak' a speech; but keep movin' a' the time--that's richt. Well, first and foremost, I tell ye, I'm captain and commander on the ice; d'ye hear?"

"You commander!" exclaimed the mate; "I'll let ye ken, my lad, that I'm first officer o' the ship."

"Look here, mate," said the doctor, "I'll no lose my temper wi' ye, but if ye interrupt me again, by ma sang, ye'll ha' to fecht me, and ye ken ye havena the biceps o' a daddy-lang-legs, nor the courage o' a cockney weaver, so keep a calm sough.--Now, men," he continued, "I, your lawfully constituted commander, tell ye this: there is to be nae cruelty, this day, to the innocent lambs we're here to kill. Mind ye, God made and cares for a' His creatures. But I'm neither going to preach or pray, but I'll put it to ye in this fashion. If I see one man Jack of ye put a knife in a seal that he hasna previously clubbed and killed, I'll simply ca' that man's harns oot [dash his brains out] to begin wi', and if he does it again, I'll stop his 'bacca for the entire voyage, and his grog besides."

Probably the last threat was more awful to a sailor than actual braining. At all events, it had the desired effect, for during the whole of that day I saw nothing among our men but slaughter as humane as slaughter could be made. Even then, however, there was much to harrow the feelings of any one at all sensitive. For the young Greenland seal is such an innocent little thing, so beautiful, so tender-eyed, and so altogether like a baby in a blanket, that killing it is revolting to human nature. Besides, they are so extremely confiding. Raise one in your arms--it will give a little petted grumble, like a Newfoundland puppy, and suck your fingers; not finding its natural sustenance in that performance, it will open its mouth, and give vent to a plaintive scream for its ma, which will never fail in bringing that lady from the depths beneath, eager-eyed and thirsting for your life.

Towards the middle of the day I strolled among the crew of the P--e. The men were wildly excited, half-drunk with rum, and wholly with spilling blood, singing and shouting and blaspheming, striking home each blow with a terrible oath, flinching before the blood had ceased to flow, and sometimes, horrible to say, flinching the unhappy innocents alive. All sorts of shocking cruelties were perpetrated, in order to make puppies scream, and thus entice the mother to the surface to be shot or clubbed. I saw one fellow--Pah! I can't go on.

Blood shows to advantage on ice. Here there were oceans of it. The snow was pure and white and dazzling in the morning--I leave it to the imagination of the sentimental to guess its appearance at eventide. The stout Shetlandmen, with their lowrie tows, dragged the skins to the ship. There were no regular meals any day during sealing. The crew fed and drank alike, when they could and what they could. There was but little sport in all this--a certain wild excitement, to be sure, quite natural under the circumstances, for were we not engaged in one of the lawful pursuits of commerce and making money? The bears were having fine times of it, for there was but little inclination on our part to pursue them, while there were seals to slay; and Bruin seemed to know this, and was correspondingly bold and impertinent, although never decidedly aggressive; for compared to seals men are merely skin and bone, and Bruin has a penchant for adiposity.

In ten days there was not a seal left, for ships had collected from all quarters--like war-horses scenting the battle from afar, or like sea-gulls on "making-off" days--to assist in the slaughter. By-the-by, what peculiar instinct or what sense is it that enables those sea-gulls to determine the presence of carrion in the water at almost incredible distances? On making-off days--that is, idle days at sea--when, there being nothing else to do, the hands are employed in separating the blubber from the skins, putting them in different tanks and casting the offal overboard, there shall not be a single gull in sight from the crow's-nest, even within ken of the telescope; but when, twenty minutes afterwards, the work is well begun, the sea shall be white with those gulls, singly or in clusters fighting for the dainty morsels of flesh and blubber.

We got frozen in after this, and in a fortnight's time we found ourselves forsaken by the bears, and even by the birds, both of which always follow the seals.

What a lonely time we had of it for the next month, in the centre of that silent, solitary icepack! But for the ships that lay here and there, frozen in like ourselves, it might have been mistaken for some snow-clad moorland in the dead of winter. And all the time there never was a cloud in the blue sky, even as big as a man's hand; the sun shone there day and night but gave no heat, and the silence was like the silence of space--we could have heard a snow-flake fall.

Once a week, at least, a gale of wind might be blowing, hundreds of miles away from where we were--it was always calm in the pack--then the great waves would come rolling in beneath the ice, though of course we could not see them, lifting up the giant bergs, packing and pitching the light bay-ice over the heavy, and grinding one against the other or against our seemingly doomed ship with a shrieking, deafening noise, that is quite indescribable. We thus lived in a constant state of suspense, with our traps always packed and ready to leave the vessel if she were "nipped." One ship had gone down before our very eyes, and another lay on the top of the ice on her beam ends, with the keel exposed.

But clouds and thaw came at last, and we managed, by the aid of ice-saws and gunpowder, to cut a canal and so get free and away into the blue water once more.

"Were you not glad?" said Maggie May.

"Yes, glad we all were, yet I do not regret my experience, for in that solitary ice-field we were indeed alone with Nature. And, Maggie May, being alone with Nature is being alone with God."

"Ah! Frank," I added, "it is amid such scenes as these, and while surrounded with danger, that one learns to pray."

"True, lad, true," said Uncle Frank solemnly, "and strange and many are the wonders seen by those who go down to the sea in ships."

[The end]
Gordon Stables's short story: Summer Life In Norland Seas

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