CHAPTER VII. FROZEN IN. THE arctic summer now rapidly drew to a close, and we did not then anticipate, nor were we favored, after the event above detailed, with any more cetaceous interviewers that season. Whence they go and in what conditions they hibernate are questions long mooted yet unsolved. There may be places known to them where the constant commotion of the waters, caused by rapid streams or counter currents, keeps ice from forming on the surface and thus affords them clear opportunity "to blow." These they may frequent in ice-blocked security from invaders, luxuriating on the fat things of the deep, growing as if for their especial benefit; then, when the long day of summer has dawned, they may give choice to smoother waters, on which to enjoy company and bring up their young. Or it may be that an open polar sea, so long speculated upon by savants and discussed by men of practical knowledge, and not yet demonstrated nor disproved, offers to them a winter habitat stocked with plenty, where in uncontrolled freedom they range with bracing cold arctic air at will. Or it may be that like some animals, bears for instance, though hardly true, I think, of the polar variety, they pass in dormancy a portion of their period of absence from their summer haunts, protected from a deadly attack of cold by the thick matting of adiposity and oleagine in which their frames are enveloped, though this idea can hardly be entertained on any good ground except that of newness, which is an excellent set-off towards establishing its probability in the eyes of some, I know; but from the good condition in which they come forth in spring, I will not myself maintain too stoutly the correctness of this hypothesis. Be all these different suppositions as they may be, however, it is fact, uncontrovertible and unassailable, that toward the end of October, or at furthest the beginning of November, they are gone from the fond notice of whalers, "Like the dew on the mountain, Like the foam on the river, But no-not forever! leaving in the trackless deep no trace behind. In answer to the secret premonitions of Nature, presumably whispered in their ears, they accordingly left Cumberland Gulf that season, a little later than sometimes they do, in the beginning of November. About the ninth of that month, not one of them was to be seen by any of our vessels, so reported; and we then conjointly prepared to go into winter quarters. Just then anxiety was pressed upon us, with regard to what seemed to threaten miscarriage to our enterprise. We had not contemplated this before, but as soon as we did we began brooding despondingly enough over our situation. It was briefly this: A tender which we had surely depended on as having sailed very shortly after us from New London, though long due, had not yet arrived, and we knew that soon she would be precluded from reaching us by the ice. The stores she was to bring us, we relied on as provision for the winter. The empty casks, etc., she was to carry along, we reckoned upon as necessary furnishing for cargo we proposed having next season. Without all these we could not foresee how we could get along. Hence then our sudden embroilment in solicitude and despondency. The company who owned our vessel, had here a station, in charge of a man who had formerly been in their employment as a petty officer, and who had lost one arm in their service. Boats, sledges, coal and some provisions, along with a number of natives and their dogs, were here at slight expense maintained, or held in connection. These, subject to draft or conscription for the different vessels of the line, according as requirements from them arose, formed a small settlement in a state of dubious formation, little more than the nucleus of what is called, on the coast of Asia and Africa, where Europeans have establishments for trade, a Factory. To it more or less every season, they are in the habit of making consignment of large supplies. For this purpose a tender was customarily freighted by them, which, disgorging her whole material, and loading up as expeditiously as practicable with whatever of cargo the others had on hand, was then supposed to thread her way out before the ice had effectually closed in, leaving the others to spend the winter on the grounds, where in the early part of next season, before any ships could get through, they would have good opportunity to fill up again, and, unless intercepted by another tender with fresh orders, return to port as soon as their cargo was made up. On the present occasion, the barque "Oddfellow," commanded by Captain Buddington, afterward of "Polaris" distinction, was looked for. The brig "Isabella" was the only one of our vessels besides our own now on the coast. She as well as we were expectant of the arrival of the " Oddfellow." She had sailed about the same time as we, and had got into the gulf only a day or two ahead of us. Her stores were in every way deficient, though we were pretty well fixed in all else except in a supply of fuel; but this was one of the greatest essentials to existence during the coming winter, when some days the cold might be expected to be so intense as to hinder us from getting out doors even, and we had moreover, come out without our full complement of casks. With the crew of the " Isabella," we compared notes, and clearly saw that something serious must be portended by the non-arrival. Still we kept anxiously peering into the offing for some sign of the "Oddfellow," until convinced that there was no use in doing so, and even after that. We were then forced to turn around and survey our situation as deprived of all help from outside. What should we do in it? Should we seek help of the other whalers? Or should we make up our minds to live as nearly like the Esquimaux as possible, and with snow-hut shelter, as the best adapted to the circumstances, use oil and blubber for fuel, and seal's flesh and walrus meat for food, to eke out the scanty provisions, which we would share in common till the distant spring-saving as much as possible for then? These important questions presented themselves before us, from a whispered inception to fully pronounced quandaries. Resolutions anent them were about being adopted, when lo! after the eleventh hour, we were most agreeably surprised by an appearance like that of a steamer in the distance heading right toward us. Nearer and nearer it came, until beyond surmise a steamer it proved to be. She was not long in fetching up alongside, and we learned from her commander, who turned out to be none other than the redoubtable Captain Buddington, that the " Oddfellow," which had started punctually as was appointed, had foundered in a storm off the coast of Newfoundland, but that all hands had got safely on shore; when, im |