Nothing could
stand on the polished table, and I sincerely pitied the captain that
he had not another tablecloth.
My readers will imagine that what I have described would have been
quite sufficient to make my stay in the vessel any thing but
agreeable; but I discovered another circumstance, which even made it
alarming. This was nothing less than that our little vessel was
constantly letting in a considerable quantity of water, which had to
be pumped out every few hours. The captain tried to allay my
uneasiness by asserting that every ship admitted water, and ours
only leaked a little more because it was so old. I was obliged to
be content with his explanation, as it was now too late to think of
a change. Fortunately we did not meet with any storms, and
therefore incurred less danger.
Our journey lasted twenty days, during twelve of which we saw no
land; the wind drove us too far east to see the Feroe or the
Shetland Isles. I should have cared less for this, had I seen some
of the monsters of the deep instead, but we met with scarcely any of
these amiable animals. I saw the ray of water which a whale emitted
from his nostrils, and which exactly resembled a fountain; the
animal itself was unfortunately too far from our ship for us to see
its body. A shark came a little nearer; it swam round our vessel
for a few moments, so that I could easily look at him: it must have
been from sixteen to eighteen feet long.
The so-called flying-fish afforded a pretty sight. The sea was as
calm as a mirror, the evening mild and moonlight; and so we remained
on deck till late, watching the gambols of these animals. As far as
we could see, the water was covered with them. We could recognise
the younger fishes by their higher springs; they seemed to be three
to four feet long, and rose five to six feet above the surface of
the sea. Their leaping looked like an attempt at flying, but their
gills did not do them good service in the trial, and they fell back
immediately. The old fish did not seem to have the same elasticity;
they only described a small arch like the dolphins, and only rose so
far above the water that we could see the middle part of their body.
These fish are not caught; they have little oil, and an unpleasant
taste.
On the thirteenth day we again saw land. We had entered the
Skagerrak, and saw the peninsula of Jutland, with the town of
Skaggen. The peninsula looks very dreary from this side; it is flat
and covered with sand.
