Just at this instant, poor old "Sailor," who had been poking his nose over the vessel's side, and snuffing and whining, rushed up to me, and, placing his head in my lap, turned his eyes towards my face, and looked as much as to say, "Are we not near our journey's end; and don't I smell the land?" Little Jacko, too, came out of his crib, and chirped, and chattered, and scratched himself, and rolled about on the deck in the sunniest corners; and then, all of a sudden, up he would jump, and, seizing hold of "Sailor's" tail, pull it as if he was hauling taut the weather runner. How everything was replete with life; and how happiness, without the heart's reservation, was written on every face! I cannot conceive anything more exhilarating than a beautiful morning at sea, and land in sight; I could have passed the remaining portion of my life without a pang of sorrow, or a gush of joy, but with equanimity, on this dark blue wave, surpassed only in its dark dye and eternity by the dome on which it looked.
When I returned upon deck after breakfast, the first object that attracted my attention was the helmsman. He smiled as soon as his eye met mine, and raised, in recognition, his Spanish-looking hat. He was a stout, tall, fair-complexioned man, with a mild expression of countenance, blue eyes, a long, straight-pointed nose, high cheekbones, and light flaxen hair flowing down almost to his shoulders. He made some observation to me in a dialect which sounded as being a mixture of German, Celtic, and English; but the sense of it was incomprehensible.
"Norway?" I said in reply, pointing to the land now not three miles from us.
"Ja, ja," he answered; and, turning to King, our interpreter, begged, in the Norwegian language, that some of the sails might be trimmed.
I need not say he was the pilot who had come on board to take us up to Christiansand. His dress differed not from the ordinary costume of our own pilots; but I could not help gazing on him with a feeling of mystery and interest which cannot easily be described. His whole appearance bore a close resemblance to all I had read and seen in pictures of the Esquimaux; and now I have formed their acquaintance personally, I feel assured that the Norwegians are a branch of that family.