a revolving island, to compromise the security of the world’s broad highway. No chart, no sounding, no knowledge of latitude avails to fix thy whereabout, thou roving Ishmael of the sea. No look-out, and no friendly hail or authoritative warning can cope with thy secrecy or thy silence. Mist and darkness are thy work-day raiment. Though the watchman lay his ear to the water, he may not hear thy coming footsteps.
We gazed at the great ark of nature’s building with steady, silent eyes. Motionless and solemn as a tomb, it seemed to look back over the waves as we sped forward into its grand presence. The captain changed the course of the steamer a few points so as to pass it as closely as possible. C—— was quietly making preparation to sketch it. The interest was momentarily increasing. We were on our way to hunt icebergs, and had unexpectedly come up with the game. We fancied it was growing colder, and felt delighted at the chilly air, as if it had been so much breath fresh from the living ice. To our regret, I may say, to our grief, the fog suddenly closed the view. No drop-curtain could have shut out the spectacle more quickly and more completely. The steamer was at once put on her true course, and the icebergs were left to pursue their solitary way along the misty Atlantic.
CHAPTER VIII.
NEWFOUNDLAND.—St. JOHNS.
When the mist dispersed, the rocky shores of Newfoundland were close upon our left—lofty cliffs, red and gray, terribly beaten by the waves of the broad ocean. We amused ourselves, as we passed abreast the bays and headlands and rugged islands, with gazing at the wild scene, and searching out the beauty timidly reposing among the bleak and desolate. On the whole, Newfoundland, to the voyager from the States, is a lean and bony land, in thin, ragged clothes, with the smallest amount of ornament. Along the sides of the dull, brown mountains there is a suspicion of verdure, spotted and striped here and there with meagre woods of birch and fir. The glory of this hard region is its coast: a wonderful perplexity of fiords, bays and creeks, islands, peninsulas and capes, endlessly picturesque, and very often magnificently grand. Nothing can well exceed the headlands and precipices, honey-combed, shattered, and hollowed out into vast caverns, and given up to the thunders and the fury of the deep-sea billows. Read the Pirate of Scott again, and Sumburg Head will picture for you numbers of heads, of which it is not important to mention the name. The brooks that flow from the highlands, and fall over cliffs of great elevation into the very surf, and that would be counted features of grandeur in some countries, are here the merest trifles, a kind of jewelry on the hem of the landscape.
The harbor of St. Johns is certainly one of the most remarkable for bold and effective scenery on the Atlantic shore. The pictures of it, which of late abound, and are quite truthful as miniature portraits, fail entirely to suggest the grand expression and strong character of the coast. We were moving spiritedly forward over a bright and lively sea, watching the stern headlands receding in the south, and starting out to view in the north, when we passed Cape Spear, a lofty promontory, crowned with a light-house and a signal-shaft, upon which was floating the meteor-flag of England, and at once found ourselves abreast the bay in front of St. Johns. Not a vestige, though, of any thing like a city was in sight, except another flag flitting on a distant pinnacle of rock. Like a mighty Coliseum, the sea-wall half encircled the deep water of this outer bay, into which the full power of the ocean let itself under every wind except the westerly. Right towards the coast where it gathered itself up into the greatest massiveness, and tied itself into a very Gordian knot, we cut across, curious to behold when and where the rugged adamant was going to split and let us through. At length it opened, and we looked through, and presently glided through a kind of mountain-pass, with all the lonely grandeur of the Franconia Notch. Above us, and close above, the rugged, brown cliffs rose to a fine height, armed at certain points with cannon, and before us, to all appearance, opened out a most beautiful mountain lake, with a little city looking down from the mountain side, and a swamp of shipping along its shores. We were in the harbor, and before St. Johns. As we bade adieu to the sea, and hailed the land with our plucky little gun, the echoes rolled among the hills, and rattled along the rocky galleries of the mountains in the finest style. We were quite delighted. So fresh and novel was the prospect, so unexpected were the peculiar sentiment and character of the scene, one could hardly realize that it was old to the experience of tens of thousands. I could scarcely help feeling, there was stupidity somewhere, that more had not been said about what had been seen by so many for so long a time.
CHAPTER IX.
AN ENGLISH INN.—GOVERNOR AND BISHOP.—SIGNAL HILL.
Wednesday, June 22, 1859.—We are at Warrington’s, a genuine English inn, with nice rooms and a home-like quiet, where the finest salmon, with other luxuries, can be had at moderate prices. Every thing is English but ourselves. I feel that the Yankee in me is about as prominent as the bowsprit of the Great Republic, the queen ship of the metropolis of yankeedom, the renowned port from which we sailed, and through the scholarly air of which my thoughts wing their flight home.
Among other qualities foremost at this moment, (and for which I discover the Bull family is certainly pre-eminent,) is appetite, the measure of which, at table, is time, not quantity. My chief solicitude at breakfast, dinner, tea and supper, is not so much about what I am to eat, as about how I shall eat, so as not to distinguish myself. C——, who is looked upon as one of the immortals, and I, in his wake, perhaps as his private chaplain, may be regarded as representative people from the States. We would, therefore, avoid signalizing ourselves at the trencher. The method adopted on these frequent occasions, is to be on hand early, to expend small energy in useless conversation, and to retire modestly, though late, from the entertainment. It is surprising how well we acquit ourselves without exciting admiration. I am hopeful that the impression in the house is, that we are small eaters and talkers, persons slightly diffident, who eat chiefly in order to live, and prosper on our voyage. Under this cover, it is wonderful what an amount of spoil we bear away, over which merriment applauds in the privacy of our rooms.
When the gray morning light stole at the same time into my chamber and my dreams, it was raining heavily, a seasonable hindrance to early excursions, affording ample time to arrange those plans which we are now carrying out. In company with Mr. Newman, our consul, to whom we are indebted for unremitting attentions and hospitalities, we first called on the Bishop of Newfoundland.
The visitation of his large diocese, which embraces both the island and Labrador, together with the distant isle of Bermuda, has given him a thorough knowledge of the shores and ices of these northern seas. An hour’s conversation, illustrated with maps and drawings, seems to have put us in possession of nearly all the facts necessary in order to a pleasant and successful expedition. At the close of our interview, during which the Bishop informed us that he was just setting off upon an extensive coast visitation, he very kindly invited us to join his party for the summer, and take our passage in the Hawk, his “Church Ship.” It was a most tempting offer, and would have been accepted with delight had the voyage been shorter. There was no certainty of the vessel’s return before September, a time too long for my purposes. To be left in any port, in those out-of-the-way waters, with the expectation of a chance return, was not to be thought of. We declined the generous offer of the Bishop, but with real regret. To have made the tour of Newfoundland and Labrador, with a Christian gentleman and scholar so accomplished, would have been a privilege indeed. From the house of the Bishop, a neat residence near his cathedral, we climbed the hill upon which stands the palace of the Governor, Sir Alexander Bannerman, commanding a fine prospect of the town and harbor, the ocean and adjacent country. As we passed up the broad avenue, shaded by the poplar, birch and fir, instead of those patricians of the wood, the maple, oak and elm; the flag, waving in the cool sea-breeze, and the brown-coated soldier, pacing to and fro, reminded
