W. G. Burn Murdoch

“ All day we travelled north and as westerly as possible, trying to get within sight of Greenland, and for once the sun came out and we felt as if we could paint on deck, and did so for a little—dead smooth sea, with fine icicles forming and very level fields of ice, with few hummocks, extending to the pigeon-grey ribbed sky on horizon—rather monotonous. The guitar was going somewhere on board and most of us cooling our heels in the silence. Only the captive bears seem busy—grate, grate, grating at their wooden walls; one got nearly out last night, when we were off after the narwhal. ”

“ It is September now, and a Wednesday, and early and clear and cold, with no gale, with just a ripple down Lerwick Bay; one or two people are lighting their peat fires and the scent comes off to us on the pure, almost wintry air, and we hoist the Union Jack astern though no one may see it, and let steam into the steam donkey-engine, and up comes the port anchor, then the starboard and there is a pause and a bell rings for stand-by, then half-speed and clash goes the air pressure; then full speed, and the motor settles down to its steady musical beat and hum. ”

“ There is pale moonlight, and the air is fragrant. The hours before dawn dreamily pass, and we nod, and look up now and then to see clay walls and trees dusky against the night sky, and our thoughts go back to the grand old buildings we leave behind us to the north in Agra. The red stone Fort, and Palace, and Taj, and the marble courts seem to become again alive, and full of people and colour and movement, a gallant array, and the fountains bubble, and Akbar plays living chess with his lovely wives, in colour and jewels, on his marble courts. ”

“ A sailing ship's deck is ever so much nicer, for you have a reasonable bulwark to keep wind and water off your body instead of an open rail. You can look over a bulwark comfortably, your eyes sheltered from the glare off the sea; on these steam-liners it comes slanting up to your eyes under eyebrows and eyelashes—no wonder people take to blue spectacles! In the sailing ship too you can look up and watch the bends of white canvas and the spars-and cordage swinging to and fro across the infinite blue, an endless delight! ”

“ I write in our little chart-room on the bridge, with a view all round of floes of ice extending right round the horizon; we are anchored to one—in its shelter. The wind is falling and it is very quiet; there is the lap, lap of the small waves against the green edge of the floe, the tweet, tweet of some ivory gulls, and the homely barn-door-fowl-like cluck, cluck of the fulmar petrels, as they squabble and splutter under the stern for scraps of food, not forgetting the frequent low, deep growls of the bear we lassoed last night. ”

“ The only way to see nature thoroughly is to have it rubbed into you. Who can see a rainstorm with an umbrella up? When you have one leg in a hole in the floe and the other on the floe, and hands, rifle and staff going, you do not know how deep, there is plenty of time for the dripping icicles over the blue ledge in front of you to impress themselves on your memory; and for a time at least, the seal you are stalking, or even the bear that may be stalking you, or when you think of the beauty in front, the cold in your boots, become of little importance. ”

“ The arrangements for the procession through the streets were perfect, and the crowds in the streets were great! and best of all were the groups of Burmese country people coming in to town in their bullock carts, the rough dry wood of the wheels and arched sun-bitten covers in such contrast to the family parties tucked up inside, in their short white jackets and skirts and kilts of brightly coloured silks. How happy they are, old and young—you begin to wish you had been born a Burman when you hear their laughter and jollity. ”

“ Whales seem to be such good beasts, and have such kind brown eyes—nothing of the fish in them, and their colouring is that of all the sea; their backs are grey-black to dove-colour, reflecting the blue of the sky, and the white of their underside is like the white of a kid glove with the faintest pink beneath, so white it makes the sea-foam look grey as it washes across it to and fro, and the white changes to emerald-green in the depths to the blue-green of an iceberg’s foot. ”

“ The colouring and sandbanks this first day are undoubtedly suggestive of the Nile, but the Irrawaddy is wider; the sand edge falls in the same kind of chunks; the Nile is silvery and blue, with colourless shadows, here everywhere rainbow tints spread out most delicately, and here instead of Egyptians in floppy robes you have refined people exquisitely dressed. As the river is low, we do not see much beyond the edge of the banks. They are topped with high grass and reeds and low palm ferns, and over these appear cane matting roofs of cottages and fine trees. ”

“ The little excitement of narwhal-hunting broke the stillness of rather a monotonous evening of mist and fine rain. Pretty enough, though, for a little sunlight penetrates the mist, giving the snow the faintest warm flesh tint, a pleasing contrast to the green and blue underside of the snow blocks on the floe to which we are anchored. We can study these delicate snow tints through our cabin door, as we sit at meals, always hoping that a whale may blow in the still water, or a bear may cross the delicate tints of the middle distance. Our language at table is in Spanish, French, and Norwegian. ”

“ In the dark behind the lantern, the deck below is crawling with them. The trees we light up on the banks have the green of lime-lit trees on the stage, and the same cut out appearance. Fantastic boats suddenly appear out of the velvet darkness. They have high sterns elaborately carved, and the red teak wood and the brown bodies of the rowers pushing long oars glow in the halo of soft light; other figures resting on their decks are wrapped up in rose and white and green draperies, and each soft colour is reflected quivering in the ripple from the oars. ”

“ No mother bear could shut her ears to it, were she alive. The two cubs, each on a line, are swimming; they seem to prefer the water to the floe-edge. A huge mushroom of ice, pale blue and of exquisite form, drifted alongside, and the young male cub got on to it and it slowly turned over—how he swore and gnashed at his rope; but what exquisite delicate colours, the bears, the ice, and the reflections make. They are brother and sister; the brother is the stronger and makes, if possible, more row than his sister in their struggles for liberty. ”

“ The wood smoke gives rather a pleasant scent in the air—pretty much like last halting place, same sunny dusty banks, plus a few rocks, and similar village of dainty cottages and of weather-bleached cane and teak showing out of green jungle. Above the place we stop at, a spit of sand runs into the river with a hillock and on it, there is a little golden pagoda amongst a few trees and palms: a flight of narrow white steps leads up to it, and below in the swirl of the stream are wavering reflections of gold, and white, and green foliage. ”

“ We bury our bows. For five minutes our faces pour with rain and spray, the next five we dry and shiver in the cold and early sun, and vainly search the horizon for a whale. We think, almost with regret, of warm rooms in town in the South. There is no rest anywhere, aft or forward, or on the bridge, and we plug on northwards, and there’s never a blow anywhere in this useless bit of the world. It requires extreme æstheticism to see beauty in such cold water and sky, and hope to see sunshine through these squalls. ”

“ The sun sets on our right beyond a plain of stubble fields and young crops and distant hills, and in the sky a rich band of gold, veined with vermillion, lies above a belt of violet, and higher still a star or two begin to glitter in the cold blue. To us newcomers, this first sunset we have seen in India in the open over the high plains filled us with new and almost solemn interest. ”

“ The crow’s nest and mast, shining in the sun, go swinging to and fro across the sky—now she puts her nose down into the blue, pleasantly, and rises and our old level horizon of the ice days is away below us as our bows point to the skies—right and left we roll and we swing her south-east, for habitable land, for Trömso and Trondhjem and green trees growing and new fresh food; for even a few months in the ice with food getting rather stale makes us hanker a little after a new kitchen. ”

“ An out-and-out pirate, you can tell at a glance, even though she does fly a square red flag astern with a white edge. Her bows are viking or saucer-shaped, prettier than the usual fiddle-bow we see here, and her high bulwarks on her long sloping quarter deck you feel must conceal brass guns. From beyond her the afternoon sun sends the shadows of her mast and stays in fine curves down the bend of her sail, the jib-boom is inboard and the jib flat against the lee of the main sail. ”

“ A fisherman is not to be pitied coming home with seventy tons to port and sixty to starboard, enjoying the sense of comfort and well-being that comes after the first hardening days at sea, enjoying the pure air and the scent of roasting coffee. We do ourselves well on our Norwegian boats this year; at least the coffee is good. As we imbibe it and think our sport is over, we come into warmer weather, a froth of soft white and grey clouds reflected in the swell, two whalers on the horizon and finners in sight. ”