White Sea

“ When we get on deck again we find that the evening, but not the White Dove, has advanced. There is no wind; there is no rain; around us there is the silent, glassy, lilac-grey sea, which, far away in the west, has one or two gleams of a dull bronze on it, as if some afterglow were struggling through the clouds at the horizon. Along the Gribun cliffs, and over the islands, the gloom has surely increased ”

“ On the clearing away of the mists of early morning we find the air on the Sound very bright and bracing. A slight breeze just ripples the blue waters of this Mediterranean sea; the summer sky is delicately mottled with flecks of foam-white clouds; seals sport below; birds flit from shore to shore above; a golden silence, only broken by the paddle-wheels of our steamer, wraps all together in a dreamy unreality very charming to the tourist. Occasionally a white sail, gleaming in mid-distance, adds an interest to the scene ”

“ And now the rain-clouds break in deluges; the men in their black oilskins go staggering this way and that along the slippery decks; the White Dove is wrestling with the sudden storm; another low murmur of thunder comes booming through the darkness. What is that solitary light far in there towards the land?—dare any steamer venture so near the shore on such a night? And we, too; would it not be safer for us to turn and run out to sea rather than beat against a squall into the narrow and shallow channels of Ulva's Sound? But John of Skye is not afraid. ”

“ And the pale, wan, dream-like sea was so perfect a mirror that an absolutely double picture was produced—of the gloomy mountain-masses of Ben-More, amid silver gleams of cloud and motionless wreaths of mist; of the basaltic pillars of the coast nearer at hand—a pale reddish-brown, with here and there a scant sprinkling of grass; of that broad belt of rich orange-yellow seaweed that ran all along the rocks, marking the junction of the world of the land with the water-world below. An absolutely perfect mirror ”

“ The sea is black with wind, white puffs of spindrift rise, drive over the water and disappear again. Some native vessels, which last night may have anchored in land-locked harbours some miles astern of us, are racing before the north wind, only daring to shew a corner of their great lateen main-sails, while we have not wind enough to find our way out of the reef-labyrinth in which we anchored for the night. ”

“ Omitting the great inlet of the White Sea in the south, it extends from about 67° to 80° N., and from 20° to 60° E. The southern part, off the Murman coast of the Kola peninsula, is sometimes called the Murman Sea. ”

“ Night fishing has its attractions in these tropics, if only for the freedom from severe heat, the glory of the moonlight or starlight, and the waking dreams that come to one upon the sea, when the canoe rests tranquil, the torch blazes, and the fish swim to meet the harpoon. The night was moonless, but the sea was covered with phosphorescence, sometimes a glittering expanse of light, and again black as velvet except where our canoe moved gently through a soft and glamorous surface of sparkling jewels. ”

“ MR. WILTON. "Yes; for the Bielse More, or White Sea, is reckoned, with the Mediterranean and the Baltic, as one of Europe's principal inland seas. The largest gulfs connected with this sea are the Gulf of Archangel and the Gulf of Candalax; the waters of the latter wash the shores of Lapland, and are filled with numerous small islands. Archangel is a port on the White Sea; and here the Russians build most of their men-of-war: before the reign of Peter the Great, it was the only port from which Russia communicated with other countries of Europe." ”

“ There are certain parts of the world—like our American mountains, deserts, and lonely stretches of coast—which seem planned for the spiritual refreshment of mankind; places from which one carries away a new serenity and the sense of a yearning for beauty satisfied. Ever since the days of Cook the islands of the South Sea have charmed the white man—explorers, naturalists, traders, and the rough crews of whaling vessels ”

“ We came down upon the schooner, a thousand men, covering the lagoon with our canoes. Also, we were blowing conch shells, singing war songs, and striking the sides of the canoes with our paddles. What chance had one white man and three black boys against us? No chance at all, and the mate knew it.
“White men are hell. I have watched them much, and I am an old man now, and I understand at last why the white men have taken to themselves all the islands in the sea. It is because they are hell. Here are you in the canoe with me. You are hardly more than a boy. ”

“ The night grows dark, the wind rises and is cold, and the tide changes, so does the luminosity of the sea. The pale spectres sink deeper and are lost to sight, but the increasing waves are tinged here and there with green and white, and often along a line, where the fresh water is mixing with the salt in an estuary, there is brightness so intense that boats and shores are visible. But if such sights are to be seen on the surface, what must not be the phosphorescence of the depths! Every sea-pen is glorious in its light ”

“ A grand old Neptune in the prow,
Gray-hair'd, and white with touch of time, 22
Yet strong as in his middle prime;
A grizzled king, I see him now,
With beard as blown by wind of seas,
And wild and white as white sea-storm,
Stand up, turn suddenly, look back
Along the low boat's wrinkled track,
Then fold his mantle round a form
Broad-built as any Hercules,
And so sit silently. ”

“ And perceiuing it to be ful of clifts,976 and not low sandy ground with same hills977 as it is on the east side of the White Sea, we assured our selues978 that we were on ye west side of the White Sea, vpon the coast of Lapeland, for the which we thanked God that he had helped vs to saile over the White Sea in thirty houres, it being forty Dutch [160] miles at the least, our course being west with a [nice] north-east wind. ”

“ Scattered along the shore, we stand motionless, with full hearts and anxious eyes, gazing at the silent horizon. For some moments, then, between two hills we perceive a gray speck over the sea, very, very, far away, and then it finally disappears.
“The way to the Pole is clear, no more obstacles to encounter—the sea, the ice-fields, and the Unknown!”
Out of the Great White North came a lone survivor, a carrier-pigeon, bringing the tidings written “July 13th, 12:30 P.M., 82° 2 ́ north latitude, 15° 5 ́ east longitude. Good journey eastward, 10° south. All goes well on board. ”

“ The notion of the land under the sea has its origin in their faculty of observation. They see ships coming in from sea appear, first the mast, then the hull; and thus at a decent distance out, so as not to reveal the trick, we white men emerge from the ocean. Travellers love to enlarge upon the wonders they have seen, and so the story grows, and the people have been brought up in the belief that away under the sea their relatives make cloth, etc., for us white folk. ”

“ There is something cheerful and tranquilizing in this life-like picture of ships seeking and finding each other again in the immeasurable grass-sea, which gives us a feeling of security. It must be a sight to the people of this region that they cannot comprehend, owing to the distance. ”

“ Bear on! Bear on! And strike—where? Strike to the northeast! The vapor flies to the far rim of the Sea of Atolls. Strike there! Strike far north! The sea casts up distant Nuka-Hiva, Land of the War Fleet, where the waves are towering billows.”
This was the ancient chant of the Raiateans, sung in the old days before the whites came, when they thought of the deeds that were done by the more-than-human men who lived on these desolate islands.
Harbor of Tai-o-hae
Schooner Fetia Taiao in the Bay of Traitors. ”

“ Along the coast of the Island of Margueretta, and in many parts of the Caribbean Sea, there are submarine scenes of surpassing beauty. Often the bed of the ocean is as smooth and firm as a house floor, and the water as transparent as crystal, while the white sandy bottom acts as a reflector to the bright sunshine above the surface. In some places there are widespreading pastures of stumpy, scrubby marine vegetation, a growth not unlike seaweed, and of a bluish gray tinge. ”

“ The sea changes soon from dull grey to bright blue, embroidered thickly with golden specks, as it rolls and rushes and dances in the wind. The sand at our feet grows brighter and purer to the eye; the sea-birds flying and swooping above us, look like flashes of white light against the blue firmament ”

“ We slept on the deck, and we hailed the morning hour with joy on account of the shower-bath which was afforded when the sailors washed the deck. It is a conundrum to me why this body of water is called the Red Sea, for there is nothing whatever to suggest this color. One day we had a miniature illustration of a sand storm. A strong wind carried the sand from the coast of Africa several miles into the sea and covered the steamer with a layer of fine, white sand, which looked like fresh snow. ”

“ We had fought many times with the strange white men who live upon the sea, and always we had beaten them. A few of us were killed, but what was that compared with the stores of wealth of a thousand thousand kinds that we found on the ships? And then one day, maybe twenty years ago, or twenty-five, there came a schooner right through the passage and into the lagoon. It was a large schooner with three masts. She had five white men and maybe forty boat's crew, black fellows from New Guinea and New Britain; and she had come to fish beche-de-mer. ”

“ Slowly we crept into the wide Bay of Traitors and felt our way into the anchorage of Taha-Uka, a long and narrow passage between frowning cliffs, spray-dashed walls of granite lashed fiercely by the sea. All along the bluffs were cocoanut-palms, magnificent, waving their green fronds in the breeze. Darker green, the mountains towered above them, and far on the higher slopes we saw wild goats leaping from crag to crag and wild horses running in the upper valleys. ”

“ It always seems as if there must be somewhat beyond a thickness of any sort at sea. But there was one thing that I did notice, and that was that the sea was no longer grey, as it had been yesterday, but was browner against the cold sky, while the foam of the following wave crests was surely not so white as it had been, and at this I wondered. ”

“ Drums were beating all the morning, thrilling the valley and mountain-sides with their barbaric boom-boom. The savage beat of them quickened the blood, stirring memories older than mankind, waking wild and primitive instincts. Toho's eyes gleamed, and her toes curled and uncurled like those of a cat, while she told me that the afternoon would see an old dance, a drama of the sea, of war, and feasting such as the islands had known before the whites came. ”

“ It was a picture of which artist's dream, the naked girl laughing in the torrents of transparent water, the wet crimson blossoms washing from her drowned hair, and beneath the striped shade of the palm-trunks her simple, savage companions waiting their turn, squatting on the sand or crowded on the canoe, their loins wrapped in crimson and blue and yellow pareus. Behind them all the mountains rose steeply, a mass of brilliant green jungle growth, and before them, across the rim of shining white sand, spread the wide blue sea. ”

“ There the brook, tumbling over stony ledges, shoots into a cascade between huge masses of rock, and hurries still with lively noise across the beach, talking as freely to boulders of five tons’ weight as to stones of a pound; heedless, apparently, that its voice will soon be drowned for ever in the mighty voice of the sea. It is a charming scene, truly, even under a gloomy sky: you will see none fairer on all the coast. On a sunshiny day it should attract many visitors from Scarborough, when those able to walk might explore Cloughton Wyke—less beautiful than this—on the way. ”

“ The sight of the varied features which open on you, increasing in beauty at every bend, will suggest frequent comparison. Here among the hills nature hems the Elbe in with loveliness, as if to prepare the great river for its long, dreary course from Dresden to the sea. ”

“ Yet all around us there was life—life in a thousand varying forms, filling the sea and the air. On calm mornings the swelling waves were splashed by myriads of leaping fish, the sky was the playground of innumerable birds, soaring, diving, following their accustomed ways through their own strange world oblivious of the human creatures imprisoned on a bit of wood below them. ”

“ There is in the nature of every man, I firmly believe, a longing to see and know the strange places of the world. Life imprisons us all in its coil of circumstance, and the dreams of romance that color boyhood are forgotten, but they do not die. They stir at the sight of a white-sailed ship beating out to the wide sea; the smell of tarred rope on a blackened wharf, or the touch of the cool little breeze that rises when the stars come out will waken them again. Somewhere over the rim of the world lies romance, and every heart yearns to go and find it. ”

“ Those caught were the Copper-Mine River salmon, white-fish, and two species of pleuronectes. We felt a considerable change of temperature on reaching the sea-coast, produced by the winds changing from the southward to the North-West. Our Canadian voyagers complained much of the cold but they were amused with their first view of the sea and particularly with the sight of the seals that were swimming about near the entrance of the river, but these sensations gave place to despondency before the evening had elapsed. They were terrified at the idea of a voyage through an icy sea in bark canoes. ”