However, I Did
Not Starve, For The Mate, Who Was A Man As Well As A Sailor, And
Had Always Been A Good Friend To Me, Smuggled A Pan Of Rice Into
The Galley, And Told The Cook To Boil It For Me, And Not Let The
"Old Man" See It.
Had it been fine weather, or in port, I should
have gone below and lain by until my face
Got well; but in such
weather as this, and short-handed as we were, it was not for me
to desert my post; so I kept on deck, and stood my watch and did
my duty as well as I could.
Saturday, July 2nd. This day the sun rose fair, but it ran too
low in the heavens to give any heat, or thaw out our sails and
rigging; yet the sight of it was pleasant; and we had a steady
"reef topsail breeze" from the westward. The atmosphere, which had
previously been clear and cold, for the last few hours grew damp,
and had a disagreeable, wet chilliness in it; and the man who came
from the wheel said he heard the captain tell "the passenger" that
the thermometer had fallen several degrees since morning, which he
could not account for in any other way than by supposing that there
must be ice near us; though such a thing had never been heard of
in this latitude, at this season of the year. At twelve o'clock
we went below, and had just got through dinner, when the cook put
his head down the scuttle and told us to come on deck and see the
finest sight that we had ever seen. "Where away, cook?" asked
the first man who was up. "On the larboard bow." And there lay,
floating in the ocean, several miles off, an immense, irregular mass,
its top and points covered with snow, and its center of a deep indigo
color.
This was an iceberg, and of the largest size, as one of our men said
who had been in the Northern ocean. As far as the eye could reach,
the sea in every direction was of a deep blue color, the waves
running high and fresh, and sparkling in the light, and in the
midst lay this immense mountain-island, its cavities and valleys
thrown into deep shade, and its points and pinnacles glittering
in the sun.
All hands were soon on deck, looking at it, and admiring in various
ways its beauty and grandeur. But no description can give any idea
of the strangeness, splendor, and, really, the sublimity, of the sight.
Its great size; - for it must have been from two to three miles
in circumference, and several hundred feet in height; - its
slow motion, as its base rose and sank in the water, and its
high points nodded against the clouds; the dashing of the waves
upon it, which, breaking high with foam, lined its base with
a white crust; and the thundering sound of the cracking of
the mass, and the breaking and tumbling down of huge pieces;
together with its nearness and approach, which added a slight
element of fear, - all combined to give to it the character of
true sublimity.
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