Louis Legrand Noble

“ Awake, ye devotees of the fishing-rod and rifle, and the red camp-fire beneath the green-wood trees, and know that to visit St. George’s cape and bay and river, and all that is St. George’s, is better late than never.
The sun is in the waves, and yonder we have those wonderful heavens again. The west is all one bath of colors, colors of the rainbow. And clouds like piled-up fleeces, and like fleeces pulled apart and scattered, and fleeces spun into soft and woolly threads, and again those threads woven into downy fabrics, are weltering in the glory. ”

“ It is ice, a point of the berg pricking up into the illuminated surface and reflecting the light. You will understand that better, perhaps, by and by. But wait an instant. Now!—now!—Beauty strikes the billow with her magic rod, and, presto—change!—all is glittering green. A thousand feet of purple, cloud-like wave passes, in the twinkling of an eye, into the brightness of an emerald gem, and thus rolls up and smites the iceberg. And thus, like night perpetually bursting into the splendid noon, roll up the billows, and strike the minutes of the hour. ”

“ You will do well to recollect, that nature works in other ways in the high north than in the high Cordilleras and Alps, and especially in the latter, where she carefully slides her mer-de-glace into the warm valley, and gently melts it off, letting it run merrily and freely to the sea, every crystal fetter broken into silvery foam. But in Greenland she heaves her mile-wide glacier, in all its flinty hardness, into the great deep bodily, and sends it, both a glory and a terror, to flourish or perish as the currents of the solemn main move it to wintry or to summer climes. ”

“ While the outside of this heap of fragments is white, with tints of green, touched here and there with what seems to be the most delicate bronze and gilding; every crevice, where there is a shadow lurking, is a blue, the purity and softness of which cannot be described nor easily imagined. To one who has any feeling for color, it has a sentiment as sweet as any thing in all visible nature. A pure, white surface, like this fine opaque ice, seen through deep shade produces blue, and such a blue as one sees in the stainless sky when it is full of warmth and light. ”

“ You shall seek the beauties of scales and of plumage, and the graces of motion and the wild music of voices, among the creatures of the brooks and woodlands. Our game, for once, is the wandering alp of the waves; our wilderness, the ocean; our steed, the winged vessel; our arms, the pencil and the pen; our game-bags, the portfolio, painting-box, and note-book, all harmless instruments, you perceive, with mild report. It is seldom that they are heard at any distance, although, at intervals, the sound has gone out as far as the guns of the battle-field. ”

“ A pine split by lightning has the point, but not the awful breadth and fulness of the sound. Air, ocean, and the berg, all fairly spring at the power of it. And then the ice-fall, with its ringing, rumbling, crashing roar, and the heavy, explosion-like voice of the final plunge, followed by the wild, frantic dashing of the waters. You see the whole upper face of the ice, yards deep, and scores of them in width, all gone. All was blasted off instantly, and dropped at once, a stupendous cataract of brilliant ruins. ”

“ Icebergs, to the imaginative soul, have a kind of individuality and life. They startle, frighten, awe; they astonish, excite, amuse, delight and fascinate; clouds, mountains and structures, angels, demons, animals and men spring to the view of the beholder. They are a favorite playground of the lines, surfaces and shapes of the whole world, the heavens above, the earth and the waters under: of their sounds, motions and colors also. These are the poet’s and the painter’s fields, more than they are the fields of the mere naturalist, much as they are his. ”

“ Down sinks the long water-line into the black deep; down go the porcelain crags, and galleries of glassy sculptures, a speechless and awful baptism. Now it pauses and returns: up rise sculptures and crags streaming with the shining, white brine; up comes the great, encircling line, followed by things new and strange, crags, niches, balconies and caves; up, up it rises, higher and higher still, crossing the very breast of the grand ice, and all bathed with rivulets of gleaming foam. Over goes the summit, ridge, pinnacles and all, standing off obliquely in the opposite air. ”

“ What heightens the effect of this dye of the ocean, is the pale emerald water around the berg, and in which it floats as in a vast bath, the loveliness, clarity and divine beauty of which no language can paint in a way to kindle the proper feeling and emotion. From ten to fifty feet in breadth, it encircles the berg, a zone or girdle of sky-green, that most delicate tint of the sunset heavens, and lies, or plays with a kind of serpent play, between the greenish white ice and the violet water, as the bright deeps of air lie beyond the edge of a blue-black cloud. ”

“ Most beautiful in its life and changes, it is, next to an earthquake, most terrible and appalling, in the moment of its destruction, to those who may happen to be near it. Upon the falling of its peaks and precipices, waves and thunders carry the intelligence across the waters. Lofty as it frequently is, the head only, helmeted and plumed with dazzling beauty, is above the sea. In its solemn march along the blue main, how it steps upon the high places of the deep, is all unseen. Around its mighty form, far down its alabaster cliffs and caverns, no eye plays but that of the imagination. ”

“ As the light streams over and around from the illuminated side, the entire outline of the berg shines like newly-burnished silver in the blaze of noon. The painter is working with all possible rapidity; but we pass too quick to harvest all this beauty: he can only glean some golden straws. A few sharp words from the captain bring the vessel to, and we pause long enough for some finishing touches. He has them, and we are off again. An iceberg is an object most difficult to study, for which many facilities, much time, and some danger are indispensable. ”

“ The clouds are clearing away before the breeze, and letting us have a sparkling sea, a fine blue sky, and landscapes dappled with light and shadow.
Parsboro, a village on the north shore of the Basin, enjoys more than its share of broad, gravelly beach, overhung with clifted and woody bluffs. One fresh from the dead walls of a great city would be delighted with the sylvan shores of Parsboro. The beach, with all its breadth, a miracle of pebbly beauty, slants steeply to the surf, which is now rolling up in curling clouds of green and white. ”

“ In all its notched, zigzag and flowing outline, it palpitates and glitters as if it were bordered with the very lightning. He that watches the Andean clouds of a July sunset, and beholds them rimmed, now with pink and rose-hues, and now with golden fire, will see the edges of an iceberg when it stands against the sky glowing with the yellow and orange blaze of sunset. We go to the skies for pure azure; you will find it at twilight in these wonderful Greenland ices. I am looking now upon what mimics the ruins of a tower, every block of which, in one light, gleams like crystal ”

“ We content ourselves with catching a panfull of water, fresh from the great Humboldt glacier, quite likely, and cold and pure it is. While we are busy at the fountain, we amuse ourselves with looking down through the clear, green water—right under us, clear almost as air—at the roots and prongs of the mountain mass. They shoot out into the dark sea below far beyond our boat, not a pleasing vision to dwell upon, when we reflect, that these very prongs and spurs only wait to take their turn in the sunshine, under the aspect of upright towers. ”

“ On board the Merlin, one feels disposed to give the harshest words of his vocabulary a frequent airing. He sees how it is, and he says to himself: I have the secret of this Merlin; she is intended to put a stop to travel; to hinder people from leaving Halifax for Sydney and St. Johns. Wait you eight and forty hours after this ungenerous soliloquy, and speak out then. What do you say? The Merlin is the thing!
Away in this dusky corner of the world Peril spins her web. High and wide and deep she stretches her subtle lines: cliffs, reefs and banks, ice, currents, mists and winds. ”

“ Hisses, long-drawn sighs, booming thunder-sounds, mingle with low muttering, plunging, rattling, and popping—a bedlam of all the lunatic voices of the ocean. We appear to be at the edge of a shower, such a sprinkling and spattering of drops. All abroad, and all aloft, from every edge and gutter the iceberg spouts, and rains, and drips. Over the entire face of the ice is flowing swiftly down one noiseless river thin as glass, looking, for all the world, like the perpetual falling of a transparent veil over the richest satin. ”

“ SLOW SAILING BY THE BAY OF ISLANDS.—THE RIVER HUMBER.—ST. GEORGE’S RIVER, CAPE, AND BAY.—A BRILLIANT SUNSET.
Tuesday, July 19. We have a brilliant morning and a favoring breeze, but a vexatious current. What a net of these currents has the tyrannous Neptune set around his beloved Newfoundland! Like a web in a dim cellar window, it is perpetually entangling some fly of a craft in its subtle meshes. Buzz and struggle as we will, he has got us by the foot, and, spider-like, may look on, and enjoy our perplexity. ”

“ How beautiful is the transfiguration! See them split upon this angle of the castle; and as they run along the walls, with the whispery, hissing sound of smoothly sliding waters, mark how high they wash, and sweep them with their snowy banners, here and there bending over, and curling into long scrolls of molten glass, which burst in dazzling foam, and plunge in many an avalanche of sparkling jewelry. Into the great porch of yonder Parthenon they rush in crowds, and thunder their applause upon the steps.
Is not all this very grand and beautiful? Have you ever seen the like before? ”

“ We are breaking away from the isles into the open Atlantic, bearing northerly for Cape St. John, where Captain Knight promises the very finest coast scenery. Far away on the blue, floats a solitary pyramid of ice, while a few miles to the east of us there stands the image of some grand Capitol, in shining marble. Looking back upon the isles, as they retire in the south and west, with the hues of sunset upon their green and cloud-like blue, we behold, the painter tells me, a likeness to some West-Indian views. ”

“ The dashing of the waves sounded like the dashing at the foot of rocky cliffs, indicative of the mass of ice below the surface.
As the afternoon advances the breeze strengthens, blowing sharply off to sea. We have the most brilliant sunshine, with a clear, cold, exhilarating air. It very nearly dispels all the nausea caused by this excessive rolling. We are now beating up from the east toward the land, and passing several of the bergs, in the chase of which we have spent so many joyous hours. Every few minutes we have new forms and new effects, new thoughts and fresh emotions. ”

“ The summit of the hill is six hundred and twenty feet above the tide, and the square-headed portal reaches all but half-way up. The ocean goes deep home to the precipice, and so we sail right in. With the wet, black walls and the chilly shade behind, we look back upon the bright, sparkling sea and the shining icebergs. The sound of the waves rings and rolls through the huge space like the deep bass of a mighty organ. We retreat slowly, rising and sinking on the dark, inky swells coming in, and steer for Mr. Burton’s, the sole inhabitant of the small bay close by, where we hope for supper. ”

“ The weary week is just lying down to ruminate in these solemn shades. A few scattering sounds, the finishing strokes of the axe and hammer, and the low wail of the surf beyond the coast-ridge break the rest of the cool, bracing air. The upper end of the lake, as I call the bay or fiord, is hidden behind a headland, reminding me of our Hudson Butter Hill. Nothing would be pleasanter than a small voyage of discovery by twilight. Below the stern of the schooner, which swings near the beach, are the timbers of a ship peeping above water, and full of story, no doubt, as so many old salts. ”

“ Full against it, an iceberg rises from the ocean, after the figure of a thunderhead, and of the color of a newly-blown rose of Damascus—a gorgeous spectacle. The waters have that dark violet, with a silvery surface, lucent like the face of a mirror, and a complexion in the deeps reminding one of the soft, dusky hues of a Claude Lorraine glass. The painter is busy with his colors, and all are silently opening mind and heart to the universal beauty. We move on over the lovely sea with a quiet gracefulness, in harmony with the visible scene and with our emotions. ”

“ The bergs are in part behind us, and we are rocking on the easy swells of Henly Harbor, where we can glean no more signs of human “toil and trouble” than are just enough to tie a name to, and quite a pretty name too. The lazy sails flap idly in the sunshine, and the cold air cuts with the sharpness of a frosty October morning. I sit in the July heat with overcoat, and cloak over the overcoat, woollen mittens and woollen stockings, and with cold feet at that. And yet this miserable shore has, in its cod and salmon, attractions for thousands of people during the transient summer. ”

“ Cold as November, and a gale outside. After a late breakfast, we roam the hills of Cariboo, under the cliffs of which the Integrity now lies tied to the rocks. We gather roots and flowers, gaze upon the vast and desolate prospect, count the icebergs, and watch the motions of the fog driving, in large, cloud-like masses, across the angry ocean. It is surprising how much we do in these, to us, almost interminable days. But for the necessity of it, I believe that we should not sleep at all, but work and play right on from midnight into morning, and from morning down to midnight. ”

“ We are a long time sailing by the Bay of Islands. But it gives us time to look, and talk about it with the Captain. Beyond the forest-covered hills which surround it, are lakes as beautiful, and larger than Lake George, the cold, clear waters of which flow to the bay under the name of the river Humber. It has a valley like Wyoming, and more romantic scenery than the Susquehanna. The Bay of Islands is also a bay of streams and inlets, an endless labyrinth of cliffs and woods and waters, where the summer voyager would delight to wander, and which is worth a volume sparkling with pictures. ”

“ All things have their uses. Even this bone of the earth, picked of all vegetable growth and beauty, and flung into the deep, has the marrow of goodness in it to a degree that invites a multitude of God’s fair creatures to make it their estate and dwelling-place. Gulls with cimetar-like pinions, cut and slash the air in all directions. Pretty little sea-pigeons fly to and fro, flying off with whistling wings in straight lines, and flying back, full of news, and full of alarm.
A grand iceberg is before us, remarkable, in this particular light, for its pure, white surface. ”

“ When, like thoughtless children, they had played themselves weary, the old alabaster of Greenland mercifully suffered them to gather up their toys, and go down to their cockle of a boat, and flee away. As if the time and the distance were measured, he waited until they could see it and live, when, as if his heart had been volcanic fire, he burst with awful thunders, and filled the surrounding waters with his ruins. A more astonished little party seldom comes home to tell the story of their panic. It was their first, and their last day of amusement with an iceberg. ”

“ The greenish waters, tinted by the verdure reflected from their surface, expand to the breadth of a mile by six or seven in length, with a depth of fifty fathoms or more. We glide past the village—a knot of fish-houses, flakes and dwellings, in the bight to the left or south, and drop anchor within pistol-shot of the spruces and a mountain brook. Here we are, till next week, like a lonely fly on this mirror of the mountains, and must make the most of our shadows and reflections, sunshine and solitude, and see what they will bring us. ”

“ No apple, peach or rose is more within one network of sweet, living grace, than the round world. How wonderful and precious a thing must this beauty be, that it is thus all-pervading, and universal! Here on these bleak and barren shores, so rocky, rough and savage, is a rich and delicate splendor that amazes. The pure azure of the skies, and the deeply blue waters, one would think were sufficient for rude and fruitless regions such as these. But look, how they shine and scintillate! The iron cheeks of yonder headland blush with glory, and the west is all magnificent. ”