and we found to our joy that the great bergs had separated sufficiently to allow us to force a passage southwards through the midst of them. A very precarious kind of a passage it was, however, with those terrible ice-blocks, broader than the pyramids, taller than churches, at every side of us.
“South and south we now steamed, and the bergs got smaller and smaller, and beautifully less, till we came into the open sea, and so headed away more to the west.
“‘Boys,’ said our good captain one day, ‘this is a splendid breakfast.’ And a splendid breakfast it was. We had all sorts of nice things, beefsteaks and game pasties, fresh fish, and sea-birds’ eggs – the latter so beautiful in shape and colour that you hesitated a moment before you broke the shell, to say nothing of fragrant tea and coffee, and guava jam and marmalade to finish up with.
“‘Boys,’ said the captain again, as he helped himself to an immense piece of loon pie, ‘it is far too soon to go back to England yet, isn’t it?’
“‘Yes, much too soon.’
“‘Well, I’ve got an idea. Let us bear still more to the westward, and have a look at the island of Jan Mayen. We’ll get some fun there, I’ll be bound; it used to be quite uninhabited, you know, but I was told before leaving our own country that the Yankees – enterprising fellows – had resolved to build a walrus station there for summer months. Now, wherever you find Yanks in these seas, you find Yacks (a tribe of Innuits, of somewhat migratory tendencies). And between the two of them we ought to enjoy ourselves. Shall we go?’
“‘By all means,’ cried everybody.
“Well, we made the island easily enough, in about ten days’ time, and after sailing about halfway round it without seeing anything at all except immense cliffs of snow-capped rocks, against which the waves were beating with a noise like distant thunder, we found a kind of bay, with a beach on which boats could land. Into this we steamed boldly enough, and presently the noise of the anchor cable rattling over the bows seemed suddenly to awaken – it was early morning – the inhabitants of a curious little village that stood near the head of the bay. There was only one long low wooden hut, all the rest of the buildings being primitive in the extreme; indeed, they looked far more like gigantic mole-heaps than the residences of human beings.
“But forth the inhabitants all swarmed; at all events, to the number, I should think, of ’twixt thirty and forty, and a stranger-looking group of individuals it has never been my lot to witness.
“I guessed then, and I found afterwards I was right, that they consisted of men, women, and children; but the fun of the thing was that they were all dressed perfectly alike and looked alike, differing only in size. The dress of the men was composed of skins entirely; they were about five feet high, and broad in proportion. The dress of the women was identical; they were six inches shorter: and the children were all dressed just like their papas and mammas, so they looked like tiny old men and women. And when we landed and stood on the beach among these strange but harmless creatures we found them funnier-looking still; for they all had round, brown faces, all flat noses, and all little beads of eyes that seemed to twinkle with merriment, although nearly hidden by brown cheeks that seemed to shake every time they spoke.
“Amongst these strange people there was one tall figure who stood aside, all by himself, and didn’t laugh in the least. A Yankee he was, six feet four in his boots, if an inch. He was dressed from top to toe in the skin of a polar bear.
“‘Gentlemen,’ he said, presently, ‘if you’re quite done guffawing, perhaps you’ll permit me to welcome you to the island of Jan Mayen.’
“We were serious in a moment, took off our caps and apologised, and ten minutes afterwards we were rowing the Yankee off to breakfast.
“He told us, in the course of conversation, that he was head of the walrus station; that during his stay in the island they had got no end of ivory and blubber; that there was capital sport; and ended by saying:
“‘And now that ye’re come, gentlemen, I hope ye’ll stop and spend next Christmas with me.’
“We laughed at the very idea of spending Christmas in such a place; but little we knew.
“The Yankee was right, the sport was glorious; all sorts of Arctic birds and beasts fell to our guns, and weeks went by, and still we postponed our departure; but at last, one day, we determined to start.
“When we awoke, however, on the following morning, it was to find that during the night an immense shoal of heavy icebergs had floated in from the sea and entirely hemmed us in. The same day the frost set in.
“The captain first pulled a long face, then he laughed.
“‘Boys,’ he said, ‘we must make the best of a bad job. We are bound to stop here till spring.’
“October flew past, November died away, and before we knew where we were Christmas week came round. You see the time had gone quickly because we really had been enjoying ourselves.
“Yet I, for one, could not help contrasting my present position with what it would have been at home in old England. How different it was here! yet the very difference made it quite charming. Suppose that you had stood on the deck of our brave yacht and looked around; you would have seen that the whole bay was frozen over with thick black ice. No need for boats now, we could skate to the shore. Behind us, seaward, across the month of the bay, stretched a rugged wall of serrated icebergs; on each side of the bay were the ice-clad rocks; shoreward, as you turned your eye, there was first the Innuit village, then the land rose gradually upwards, a snow-clad valley rock-bound, till, in the far distance, behold a vast, towering mountain of ice.
“Now remember that we never saw the sun at this time; we had no day at all, nor had had for a whole month. But who can picture the glory of that Arctic night? My pen seems to quiver in my hand when I attempt to describe it to you. During this Christmas week we had no moon. We did not miss the moon any more than we missed the sun. But we had the stars; and somehow, away up in these regions of the Pole, we seemed nearer to the heavens; anyhow, those stars appeared as large as saucers and as bright as suns, and the sky’s blue between them was blue.
“We had the stars, then, but we had something else; we had the Aurora Borealis, in all its splendour of colour and shape. At home we see the Aurora on clear frosty nights only, as a bow of white scintillating lights above the northern horizon. Here we were dwelling in the very home of the Aurora; it stretched from east to west above us, a broad belt of radiant coloured lights. It was a gorgeous scene.
“I have said that the bay in which our yacht lay was all frozen over; but this is not strictly true, because there was one portion of it, about half an acre in extent, and lying close under the barrier of icebergs, which was always kept open. This piece of open water was not only our fishing-ground, but it was a breathing-spot for many sea-mammals.
“During this happy but strange Christmas week we had all sorts of fun on board, and all kinds of games on the ice. Skating under the Aurora! why, you should have seen us; a merrier party you never looked upon.
“‘Boys,’ said the captain one morning, ‘I’m going to give those Innuits a Christmas dinner.’
“‘Hurrah!’ we all cried. ‘What fun it will be!’
“Christmas came at last, and preparations had been made to spend it cheerfully for more than a week beforehand.
“After service – and how impressive the service was, held on the deck of that Aurora-lighted ship, I shall never forget – after service, we all rushed down to dinner. We were to have ours
