fr:Les Aventures du capitaine Hatteras - Première partie - 19
Melville Bay, although perfectly navigable, was not wholly
free of ice; immense ice-fields could be seen stretching to the
horizon; here and there appeared a few icebergs, but they stood
motionless as if anchored in the ice. The Forward went under
full steam through broad passes where she had plenty of sailing-room. The wind shifted frequently from one point of the compass to another.
The variability of the wind in the arctic seas is a remarkable
fact, and very often only a few minutes intervene between a calm
and a frightful tempest. This was Hatteras's experience on the
23d of June, in the middle of this huge bay.
The steadiest winds blow generally from the ice to the open
sea, and are very cold. On that day the thermometer fell several
degrees; the wind shifted to the southward, and the heavy
gusts, having passed over the ice, discharged themselves of their
dampness under the form of a thick snow. Hatteras immediately
ordered the sails which were aiding the engine to be reefed; but
before this could be done his main-topsail was carried away.
Hatteras gave his orders with the utmost coolness, and did not
leave the deck during the storm; he was obliged to run before
the gale. The wind raised very heavy waves which hurled about
pieces of ice of every shape, torn from the neighboring ice-fields; the brig was tossed about like a child's toy, and ice was dashed against its hull; at one moment it rose perpendicularly to the top of a mountain of water; its steel prow shone like molten metal; then it sank into an abyss, sending forth great whirls of smoke, while the screw revolved out the water with a fearful clatter. Rain and snow fell in torrents.
The doctor could not miss such a chance to get wet to the
skin; he remained on deck, gazing at the storm with all the
admiration such a spectacle cannot fail to draw forth. One
standing next to him could not have heard his voice; so he said
nothing, but looked, and soon he saw a singular phenomenon, one
peculiar to the northern seas.
The tempest was confined to a small space of about three or four
miles; in fact, the wind loses much of its force in passing over
the ice, and cannot carry its violence very far; every now and
then the doctor would see, through some rift in the storm, a clear
sky and a quiet sea beyond the ice-fields; hence the Forward had
only to make her way through the passes to find smooth sailing; but she ran a risk of being dashed against the moving masses which obeyed the motion of the waves. Notwithstanding, Hatteras succeeded in a few hours in carrying his vessel into smooth water, while the violence of the storm, now at its worst at the horizon, was dying away within a few cable-lengths from the Forward.
Melville Bay then looked very different; by the influence
of the winds and waves a large number of icebergs had been
detached from the shores and were now floating northward, continually crashing against one another. They could be counted by hundreds; but the bay is very broad, and the brig avoided them without difficulty. The sight of these floating masses, which seemed to be racing together, was indeed magnificent.
The doctor was wild with enthusiasm about it, when Simpson, the harpooner, came up to him and asked him to notice the changing tints of the sea, which varied from deep blue to olive green; long bands ran from north to south with edges so sharply cut that the line of division could be seen as far as the horizon. Sometimes a transparent sheet would stretch out from an opaque one.
“Well, Dr. Clawbonny, what do you think of that?” said
Simpson.
“I agree, my friend, with what Scoresby said about these
differently colored waters,” answered the doctor, “namely, that
the blue water does not contain the millions of animalcules
and medusæ which the green water contains; he made a great
many experiments to test it, and I am ready to agree with
him.”
“0, but there's something else it shows!”
“What is that?”
“Well, if the Forward were only a whaler, I believe we should
have some sport.”
“But,” answered the doctor, “I
don't see any whales.”
“We shall very soon, though, I
promise you. It's great luck for a
whaler to see those green patches in
these latitudes.”