Chapter Two.
Stornoway—The ball—At sea—Go out to tea on the Atlantic—Among the ice—Sighting land—A sleepy sight—York Factory and Bachelors’ Hall

The harbour of Stornoway is surrounded by high hills, except at the entrance, where a passage—not more, I should think, than three hundred yards wide—admits vessels of any tonnage into its sheltering bosom. Stornoway, a pretty, modest-looking town, apparently pleased with its lot, and contented to be far away from the busy and bustling world, lies snugly at the bottom of the bay. Here we remained upwards of a week, engaging men for the wild Nor’-West, and cultivating the acquaintance of the people, who were extremely kind and very hospitable. Occasionally Wiseacre and I amused ourselves with fishing excursions to the middle of the bay in small boats; in which excursions we were usually accompanied by two or three very ragged little boys from the town. Our sport was generally good, and rendered extremely interesting by our uncertainty as to which of the monsters of the deep would first attack our hooks. Rock-codlings and flounders appeared the most voracious, and occasionally a skate or long-legged crab came struggling to the surface.

Just before leaving this peaceful little spot, our captain gave a grand ball on board, to which were invited the élite of Stornoway. Great preparations were made for the occasion. The quarter-deck was well washed and scrubbed; an awning was spread over it, which formed a capital ceiling; and representatives of almost every flag that waves formed the walls of the large and airy apartment. Oil lamps, placed upon the skylights, companion, and capstan, shed a mellow light upon the scene, the romantic effect of which was greatly heightened by a few flickering rays of the moon, which shot through various openings in the drapery, and disported playfully upon the deck. At an early and very unfashionable hour on the evening of the appointed night the guests arrived in detachments; and while the gentlemen scrambled up the side of the vessel, the ladies, amid a good deal of blushing and hesitation, were hoisted on board in a chair. Tea was served on deck; and after half an hour’s laughing and chatting, during which time our violin-player was endeavouring to coax his first string to the proper pitch without breaking, the ball opened with a Scotch reel. Every one knows what Scotch reels are, but every one does not know how the belles of the Western Isles can dance them.

“Just look at that slip of thread-paper,” said the doctor to the captain, pointing to a thin, flat young lady, still in her teens. “I’ve watched her from the first. She’s been up at six successive rounds, flinging her shanks about worse than a teething baby; and she’s up again for another, just as cool and serene as a night in the latter end of October. I wonder what she’s made of?”

“Leather, p’r’aps, or gutta-percha,” suggested the captain, who had himself been “flinging his legs” about pretty violently during the previous half-hour. “I wish that she had been my partner instead of the heavy fair one that you see over there leaning against the mizzen belaying-pins.”

“Which?” inquired the doctor. “The old lady with the stu’n-sails set on her shoulders?”

“No, no,” replied the captain—“the young lady; fat—very fat—fair, and twenty, with the big blue eyes like signal-lamps on a locomotive. She twisted me round just as if I’d been a fathom of pump-water, shouting and laughing all the time in my face, like a sou’-west gale, and never looking a bit where she was going till she pitched head-foremost into the union-jack, carrying it and me along with her off the quarter-deck and half-way down the companion. It’s a blessing she fell undermost, else I should have been spread all over the deck like a capsized pail of slops.”

“Hallo!” exclaimed the doctor; “what’s wrong with the old lady over there? She’s making very uncommon faces.”

“She’s sea-sick, I do believe,” cried the captain, rushing across the deck towards her.

And, without doubt, the old lady in question was showing symptoms of that terrible malady, although the bay was as smooth as a mill-pond, and the Prince Rupert reposed on its quiet bosom without the slightest perceptible motion. With impressive nautical politeness the captain handed her below, and in the sudden sympathy of his heart proposed as a remedy a stiff glass of brandy and water.

“Or a pipe of cavendish,” suggested the second mate, who met them on the ladder as they descended, and could not refrain from a facetious remark, even although he knew it would, as it did, call forth a thundering command from his superior to go on deck and mind his own business.

“Isn’t it jolly,” said a young Stornowite, coming up to Wiseacre, with a face blazing with glee—“isn’t it jolly, Mr Wiseacre?”

“Oh, very!” replied Wiseacre, in a voice of such dismal melancholy that the young Stornowite’s countenance instantly went out, and he wheeled suddenly round to light it again at the visage of some more sympathising companion.

Just at this point of the revelry the fiddler’s first string, which had endured with a dogged tenacity that was wonderful even for catgut, gave way with a loud bang, causing an abrupt termination to the uproar, and producing a dead silence. A few minutes, however, soon rectified this mischance. The discordant tones of the violin, as the new string was tortured into tune, once more opened the safety-valve, and the ball began de novo.

Great was the fun, and numerous were the ludicrous incidents that happened during that eventful night; and loud were the noise and merriment of the dancers as they went with vigorous energy through the bewildering evolutions of country-dance and reel. Immense was the delight of the company when the funniest old gentleman there volunteered a song; and ecstatic the joy when he followed it up by a speech upon every subject that an ordinary mind could possibly embrace in a quarter of an hour. But who can describe the scene that ensued when supper was reported ready in the cabin!—a cabin that was very small indeed, with a stair leading down to it so steep that those who were pretty high up could have easily stepped upon the shoulders of those who were near the foot; and the unpleasant idea was painfully suggested that if any one of the heavy ladies (there were several of them) was to slip her foot on commencing the descent, she would infallibly sweep them all down in a mass, and cram them into the cook’s pantry, the door of which stood wickedly open at the foot of the stair, as if it anticipated some such catastrophe. Such pushing, squeezing, laughing, shrieking, and joking, in the vain attempt made to get upwards of thirty people crammed into a room of twelve feet by ten! Such droll and cutting remarks as were made when they were at last requested to sup in detachments! All this, however, was nothing to what ensued after supper, when the fiddler became more energetic, and the dancers more vigorous than ever. But enough. The first grey streaks of morning glimmered in the east ere the joyous party “tumbled down the sides” and departed to their homes.

There is a sweet yet melancholy pleasure, when far away from friends and home, in thinking over happy days gone by, and dwelling on the scenes and pleasures that have passed away, perhaps for ever. So I thought and felt as I recalled to mind the fun and frolic of the Stornoway ball, and the graver mirth of the Gravesend dinner, until memory traced my course backward, step by step, to the peaceful time when I dwelt in Scotland, surrounded by the gentle inmates of my happy home. We had left the shores and the green water behind us, and were now ploughing through the blue waves of the wide Atlantic; and when I turned my straining eyes towards the faint blue line of the lessening hills, “a tear unbidden trembled” as the thought arose that I looked perhaps for the last time upon my dear native land.

The sea has ever been an inexhaustible subject for the pens of most classes of writers. The poet, the traveller, and the novelist has each devoted a portion of his time and talents to the mighty ocean; but that part of it which it has fallen to my lot to describe is very different from those portions about which poets have sung with rapture. Here, none of the many wonders of the tropical latitudes beguile the tedium of the voyage; no glittering dolphins force the winged inhabitants of the deep to seek shelter on the vessel’s deck; no ravenous sharks follow in our wake to eat us if we chance to fall overboard, or amuse us by swallowing our baited hook; no passing vessel cheers us with the knowledge that there are others besides ourselves roaming over the interminable waste of waters. All was dreary and monotonous; the same unvarying expanse of sky and water met our gaze each morning as we ascended to the deck, to walk for half an hour before breakfast, except when the topsails of the other two vessels fluttered for a moment on the distant horizon. Occasionally we approached closer to each other, and once or twice hailed with the trumpet; but these breaks in the solitude of our existence were few and far between.

Towards the end of July we approached Hudson Straits, having seen nothing on the way worth mentioning, except one whale, which passed close under the stern of the ship. This was a great novelty to me, being the first that I had ever seen, and it gave me something to talk of and think about for the next four days.

The ships now began to close in, as we neared the entrance of the straits, and we had the pleasure of sailing in company for a few days. The shores of the straits became visible occasionally, and soon we passed with perfect confidence and security among those narrow channels and mountains of ice that damped the ardour and retarded the progress of Hudson, Button, Gibbons, and other navigators in days of yore.

One day, during a dead calm, our ship and the Prince of Wales lay close to each other, rolling in the swell of the glassy ocean. There seemed to be no prospect of a breeze, so the captain ordered his gig to be launched, and invited the doctor, Mr Carles, and myself to go on board the Prince of Wales with him. We accepted his offer, and were soon alongside. Old Captain Ryle, a veteran in the Company’s service, received us kindly, and insisted on our staying to tea. The passengers on board were—a chief factor, (The chief factorship is the highest rank attainable in the service, the chief trader being next) who had been home on leave of absence, and was returning to end his days, perhaps, in the North-West; and Mr John Leagues, a young apprentice clerk, going, like myself, to try his fortune in Hudson Bay. He was a fine, candid young fellow, full of spirit, with a kind, engaging disposition. From the first moment I saw him I formed a friendship for him, which was destined to ripen into a lasting one many years after. I sighed on parting from him that evening, thinking that we should never meet again; but about six years from the time I bade him farewell in Hudson Straits, I again grasped his hand on the shores of the mighty St. Lawrence, and renewed a friendship which afforded me the greatest pleasure I enjoyed in the country, and which, I trust, neither time nor distance will ever lessen or destroy.

We spent the evening delightfully, the more so that we were not likely to have such an opportunity again, as the Prince of Wales would shortly part company from us, and direct her course to Moose Factory, in James Bay, while we should proceed across Hudson Bay to York Factory. We left the ship just as a few cats-paws on the surface of the water gave indications of a coming breeze.

Ice now began to surround us in all directions; and soon after this I saw, for the first time, that monster of the Polar Seas, an iceberg. It was a noble sight. We passed quite close, and had a fine opportunity of observing it. Though not so large as they are frequently seen, it was beautifully and fantastically formed. High peaks rose from it on various places, and down its sides streams of water and miniature cataracts flowed in torrents. The whole mass was of a delicate greenish-white colour, and its lofty pinnacles sparkled in the moonbeams as it floated past, bending majestically in the swell of the ocean. About this time, too, we met numerous fields and floes of ice, to get through which we often experienced considerable difficulty.

My favourite amusement, as we thus threaded our way through the ice, was to ascend to the royal-yard, and there to sit and cogitate whilst gazing on the most beautiful and romantic scenes.

It is impossible to convey a correct idea of the beauty, the magnificence, of some of the scenes through which we passed. Sometimes thousands of the most grotesque, fanciful, and beautiful icebergs and icefields surrounded us on all sides, intersected by numerous serpentine canals, which glittered in the sun (for the weather was fine nearly all the time we were in the straits), like threads of silver twining round ruined palaces of crystal. The masses assumed every variety of form and size; and many of them bore such a striking resemblance to cathedrals, churches, columns, arches, and spires, that I could almost fancy we had been transported to one of the floating cities of Fairyland. The rapid motion, too, of our ship, in what appeared a dead calm, added much to the magical effect of the scene. A light but steady breeze urged her along with considerable velocity through a maze of ponds and canals, which, from the immense quantity of ice that surrounded them, were calm and unruffled as the surface of a mill-pond.

Not a sound disturbed the delightful stillness of nature, save the gentle rippling of the vessel’s bow as she sped on her way, or the occasional puffing of a lazy whale, awakened from a nap by our unceremonious intrusion on his domains. Now and then, however, my reveries were interrupted by the ship coming into sudden contact with huge lumps of ice. This happened occasionally when we arrived at the termination of one of those natural canals through which we passed, and found it necessary to force our way into the next. These concussions were occasionally very severe—so much so, at times, as to make the ship’s bell ring; but we heeded this little, as the vessel was provided with huge blocks of timber on her bows, called ice-pieces, and was, besides, built expressly for sailing in the northern seas. It only became annoying at meal-times, when a spoonful of soup would sometimes make a little private excursion of its own over the shoulder of the owner instead of into his mouth.

As we proceeded, the ice became more closely packed, and at last compelled us to bore through it. The ship, however, was never altogether arrested, though often much retarded. I recollect, while thus surrounded, filling a bucket with water from a pool on the ice, to see whether it was fresh or not, as I had been rather sceptical upon this point. It was excellent, and might almost compete with the water from the famous spring of Crawley. In a few days we got out of the ice altogether; and in this, as the ships are frequently detained for weeks in the straits, we considered ourselves very fortunate.

We all experienced at this time a severe disappointment in the non-appearance of the Esquimaux from the coast. The captain said they would be sure to come off to us, as they had always been in the habit of doing so, for the purpose of exchanging ivory and oil for saws, files, needles, etcetera, a large chestful of which is put on board annually for this purpose. The ivory usually procured from them is walrus tusks. These are not very large, and are of inferior quality.

As we approached the shores of the straits, we shortened sail and fired three or four guns, but no noisy “chimo” floated across the water in answer to our salute; still we lingered for a while, but, as there was no sign of the natives on shore, the captain concluded they had gone off to the interior, and he steered out to sea again. I was very much disappointed at this, as it was wholly unexpected, and Wiseacre and I had promised ourselves much pleasure in trading with them; for which purpose all the buttons of our old waistcoats had been amputated. It was useless, however, to repine, so I contented myself with the hope that they would yet visit us in some other part of the straits. We afterwards learned that our guns had attracted them to the coast in time to board the Prince Albert (which was out of sight astern), though too late for us.

The passage across Hudson Bay was stormy, but no one on board cared for this, all having become accustomed to rough weather. For my part, I had become quite a sailor, and could ascend and descend easily to the truck without creeping through the lubber’s hole