第8章 LETTER V(2)

Thinking to draw consolation from his professional experiences,I heard Fitz's voice,now very weak,say in a tone of coaxing cheerfulness,--"Well,Wilson,I suppose this kind of thing does not last long?"The Voice,as of the tomb."I don't know,Sir."Fitz.--"But you must have often seen passengers sick."The Voice.--"Often,Sir;very sick."

Fitz.--"Well;and on an average,how soon did they recover?"The Voice.--"Some of them didn't recover,Sir."Fitz.--"Well,but those that did?"

The Voice.--"I know'd a clergyman and his wife as were,ill all the voyage;five months,Sir."Fitz.--(Quite silent.)

The Voice;now become sepulchral.--"They sometimes dies,Sir."Fitz.--"Ugh!"

Before the end of the voyage,however,this Job's comforter himself fell ill,and the Doctor amply revenged himself by prescribing for him.

Shortly after this,a very melancholy occurrence took place.I had observed for some days past,as we proceeded north,and the nights became shorter,that the cock we shipped at Stornaway had become quite bewildered on the subject of that meteorological phenomenon called the Dawn of Day.In fact,I doubt whether he ever slept for more than five minutes at a stretch,without waking up in a state of nervous agitation,lest it should be cock-crow.

At last,when night ceased altogether,his constitution could no longer stand the shock.He crowed once or twice sarcastically,then went melancholy mad:finally,taking a calenture,he cackled lowly (probably of green fields),and leaping overboard,drowned himself.The mysterious manner in which every day a fresh member of his harem used to disappear,may also have preyed upon his spirits.

At last,on the morning of the eighth day,we began to look out for land.The weather had greatly improved during the night;and,for the first time since leaving the Hebrides,the sun had got the better of the clouds,and driven them in confusion before his face.The sea,losing its dead leaden colour,had become quite crisp and burnished,darkling into a deep sapphire blue against the horizon;beyond which,at about nine o'clock,there suddenly shot up towards the zenith,a pale,gold aureole,such as precedes the appearance of the good fairy at a pantomime farce;then,gradually lifting its huge back above the water,rose a silver pyramid of snow,which Iknew must be the cone of an ice mountain,miles away in the interior of the island.From the moment we got hold of the land,our cruise,as you may suppose,doubled in interest.Unfortunately,however,the fair morning did not keep its promise;about one o'clock,the glittering mountain vanished in mist;the sky again became like an inverted pewter cup,and we had to return for two more days to our old practice of threshing to windward.So provoked was I at this relapse of the weather,that,perceiving a whale blowing convenient,I could not help suggesting to Sigurdr,son of Jonas,that it was an occasion for observing the traditions of his family;but he excused himself on the plea of their having become obsolete.

The mountain we had seen in the morning was the south-east extremity of the island,the very landfall made by one of its first discoverers.[Footnote:There is in Strabo an account of a voyage made by a citizen of the Greek colony of Marseilles,in the time of Alexander the Great,through the Pillars of Hercules,along the coasts of France and Spain,up the English Channel,and so across the North Sea,past an island he calls Thule;his further progress,he asserted,was hindered by a barrier of a peculiar nature,--neither earth,air,nor sky,but a compound of all three,forming a thick viscid substance which it was impossible to penetrate.Now,whether this same Thule was one of the Shetland Islands,and the impassable substance merely a fog,--or Iceland,and the barricade beyond,a wall of ice,it is impossible to say.

Probably Pythias did not get beyond the Shetlands.]This gentleman not having a compass,(he lived about A.D.

864,)nor knowing exactly where the land lay,took on board with him,at starting,three consecrated ravens--as an M.P.would take three well-trained pointers to his moor.Having sailed a certain distance,he let loose one,which flew back:by this he judged he had not got half-way.

Proceeding onwards,he loosed the second,which,after circling in the air for some minutes in apparent uncertainty,also made off home,as though it still remained a nice point which were the shorter course toward terra firma.But the third,on obtaining his liberty a few days later,flew forward,and by following the direction in which he had disappeared,Rabna Floki,or Floki of the Ravens,as he came to be called,triumphantly made the land.