The Pacha of Many Tales

Volume Two–Chapter Six

Your highness will be surprised at the unheard-of adventures that occurred to me in my last voyage, and I think I can boldly assert that no man, either before or since, has explored so much, or has been in the peculiarly dangerous situations in which I have been placed by destiny.

Notwithstanding the danger which I incurred from my former expedition to the Northern Ocean, I was persuaded to take the command of a whaler about to proceed to those latitudes: we sailed from Marseilles early in the year that we might arrive at the northward in good time, and be able to quit the Frozen Ocean before the winter had set in. We were very fortunate on our arrival at Baffin’s Bay, and very soon had eighteen fish on board. The autumn was hardly commenced before I proposed to return, and we were steering in a southerly direction, when we encountered two or three large icebergs, upon the edges of which the walruses or sea-horses were lying in herds. As we had some casks still empty, I determined to fill them with the oil to be obtained from these animals, and hoisted out my boats to attack them. We killed a large number, which we sent on board, and continued our fishery with great success, having only lost one boat, the bottom plank of which had been bitten out by the tusks of one of these unwieldy animals. Of a sudden the wind changed to the southward, and the small icebergs which were then to windward rapidly closed with the large one upon which we were fishing. The harpooners observed it, and recommended me to return to the ship, but I was so amused with the sport that I did not heed their advice. A sea-horse was lying in a small cave accidentally formed on the upright edge of the iceberg, and wishing to attack him, I directed my boat to pull towards it. At this time there was not more than twenty yards of water between the two icebergs, and a sudden squall coming on, they closed with great rapidity. The men in the other boats immediately pulled away, and, as I afterwards learnt, when I arrived at Marseilles, they escaped, and returned home in the ship; but those in mine, who were intent upon watching me, as I stood in the bow of the boat with the harpoon to strike the animal, did not perceive the danger until the stern of the boat was touched by the other iceberg. The two now coming within the attraction of cohesion of floating bodies, were dashed like lightning one against the other, jamming the men, as well as the boat, into atoms.

Being in the bow of the boat, and hearing the crash, I had just time, in a moment of desperation, to throw myself into the cave upon the back of the sea-horse, when the two enormous bodies of ice came in contact—the noise I have no doubt was tremendous, but I did not hear it, as I was immediately enclosed in the ice. Although at first there were interstices, yet, as the southerly gale blew the icebergs before it into the northern region, all was quickly cemented together by the frost, and I found myself pent up in an apartment not eight feet square, in company with a sea-horse.

I shall not detain your highness by describing my sensations: my ideas were, that I was to exist a certain time, and then die for want of fresh air; but they were incorrect. At first, indeed, the cave was intolerably hot from the accumulation of breath, and I thought I should soon be suffocated. I recollected all my past sins, I implored for mercy, and lay down to die; but I found that the ice melted away with the heat, and that, in so doing, a considerable portion of the air was liberated, so that in a few minutes my respiration became more free. The animal in the meantime, apparently frightened at his unusual situation, was perfectly quiet; and, as the slightest straw will be caught at by the drowning man, so did the idea of my preservation come into my head. I considered how much air so enormous an animal must consume, and determined upon despatching him, that I might have more for my own immediate wants. I took out my knife, and inserting it between the vertebral bones that joined his head to his neck, divided the spinal marrow, and he immediately expired.

When I found that he was quite dead, I crawled from his shoulders, and took up a more convenient berth in that part of the cave which was before his head, to which I had been afraid to venture while the animal was alive, lest he should attack me with his enormous tusks. The air soon became more pure, and I breathed freely. Your highness may be surprised at the assertion; but, whether I obtained air from the ice itself, or whether the ice was sufficiently porous to admit of it, I know not; but from that time I had no difficulty of respiration. In our country we have had instances of women and children, who have been buried in the snow for two months, and yet have been taken out alive, and have recovered, although they had little or no nourishment during their inhumation. I recollected this, and aware that the carcase of the animal would supply me for years, I began to indulge a hope that I might yet be saved, if driven sufficiently to the southward to admit of my being thawed out. I was convinced that the ice about me could not be more than six or eight feet thick, as I had sufficient light to distinguish the day from the night. Afterwards my eye-sight became so much more acute, that I could see very well to every corner of the cave in which I was embedded.

During the first month the calls of hunger obliged me to make frequent attacks upon the carcase of the sea-horse; after that, my appetite decreased, until at length I would not touch a mouthful of food in a week,—I presume from the want of fresh air and exercise, neither of which I could be said to enjoy. I had been about two months in this hole, when a violent shock like that of an earthquake took place, and I fell from the top of the cave to the bottom, and for a minute was knocked about like a pea in a rattle. I had almost lost my senses before it was over, and I found myself lying upon what was before the top of the cave. From these circumstances I inferred that the iceberg in which I was inclosed had come in contact with another, and that I had been broken off from it, and was floating on the sea with other pieces, which, when collected in large quantities, are termed a floe of ice. Whether my situation was changed for the better I knew not, but the change inspired me with fresh hopes. I now calculated that five months had elapsed, and that it was the depth of winter, therefore I had no chance of being released until the ensuing spring.

“Allah wakbar, God is every where!” interrupted the pacha. “But I wish to know, Huckaback, how you were so exactly aware of the time which had passed away.”

“Min bashi, and head of thousands!” replied Huckaback, “I will explain to your highness. I once jammed my nail at the bottom, and I expected to lose it. It did not however come off but grew up as before, and I had the curiosity to know how often people changed their nails in the course of a year. It was exactly two months, and from this I grounded my calculations. I observed specks on my nails, and as they grew up, so did I calculate time.”

“Mashallah, how wonderful is God! Wallah thaib! Well said, by Allah! I never should have thought of that,” observed the pacha. “Proceed with your story.”

The five months had elapsed, according to my calculations, when one morning I heard a grating noise close to me; soon afterwards I perceived the teeth of a saw entering my domicile, and I correctly judged that some ship was cutting her way through the ice. Although I could not make myself heard, I waited in anxious expectation of deliverance. The saw approached very near to where I was sitting, and I was afraid that I should be wounded, if not cut in halves; but just as it was within two inches of my nose, it was withdrawn. The fact was, that I was under the main floe, which had been frozen together, and the firm ice above having been removed and pushed away, I rose to the surface. A current of fresh air immediately poured into the small incision made by the saw, which not only took away my breath from its sharpness, but brought on a spitting of blood. Hearing the sound of voices, I considered my deliverance as certain. Although I understood very little English, I heard the name of Captain Parry frequently mentioned—a name, I presume, that your highness is well acquainted with.

“Pooh! never heard of it,” replied the pacha.

“I am surprised, your highness; I thought every body must have heard of that adventurous navigator. I may here observe that I have since read his voyages, and he mentions as a curious fact, the steam which was emitted from the ice—which was nothing more than the hot air escaping from my cave when it was cut through—a singular point, as it not only proves the correctness of his remarks, but the circumstance of my having been there, as I am now describing it to your highness.”

But, alas! my hopes soon vanished: the voices became more faint, I felt that I was plunged under the floe to make room for the passage of the ship, and when I rose, the water which had filled the incision made by the saw, froze hard, and I was again closed in—perhaps for ever. I now became quite frantic with despair, I tore my clothes, and dashed my head against the corners of the cave, and tried to put an end to my hated existence. At last, I sank down exhausted with my own violent efforts, and continued sullen for several days.

But there is a buoyant spirit in our composition which raises our heads above the waters of despair. Hope never deserts us, not even in an iceberg. She attends us and supports us to the last; and although we reject her kind offices in our fury, she still watches by us, ready to assist and console us, when we are inclined to hearken to her encouraging whispers.

I once more listened to her suggestions, and for six months fed upon them, aided by occasional variations of the flesh of the sea-horse. It was now late in the summer, and the ice in which I was bound up had evidently melted away. One morning I was astonished by perceiving that the light of the sun seemed to change its position regularly every quarter of an hour. Had it done so occasionally during the day, and at no stated intervals, I should have imagined that the ice that I was enclosed in, altered its position with the winds and currents; but the regularity astonished me. I watched it, and I found that the same phenomenon occurred, but at shorter intervals, and it continued until the light shifted from side to side every minute.

After some reflection, the horrid idea occurred to me that I must have been drifted to the coast of Norway, and was in the influence of the dreadful whirlpool, called the Maelstroom, and that, in a few minutes, I should be engulfed for ever; and, whilst I was thinking that such might be the case, the light revolved each fifteen seconds. “Then it is!” cried I in despair; and, as I uttered the words, it became quite dark, and I knew that I had sunk in the vortex, and all was over.

It may appear strange to your highness, that after the first pang, occasioned by the prospect of perdition, had passed away, that so far from feeling a horror at my situation, I mocked and derided it. I could feel no more, and I waited the result with perfect indifference. From the marks in my nails, I afterwards found out that I was nearly six months in the interior of the earth. At last, one day I was nearly blinded by the powerful light that poured through my tenement, and I knew that I was once more floating on the water.

“Allah kebir! God is most powerful!” exclaimed the pacha. “Holy Prophet, where was it that you came up again?”

“In the harbour of Port-Royal in Jamaica. Your highness will hardly credit it, but on my honour it is true.”

The heat of the sun was so great, that in a very short time the ice that surrounded me was thawed, and I found myself at liberty; but I still floated upon the body of the sea-horse, and the ice which was under the water. The latter soon vanished, and striding the back of the dead animal, although nearly blind by the rays of the sun, and suffocated with the sudden change of climate, I waited patiently to gain the shore, which was not one mile distant; but, before I could arrive there, for the sea breeze had not yet set in, an enormous shark, well known among the English by the name of Port-Royal Tom, who had daily rations from government, that by remaining in the harbour he might prevent the sailors from swimming on shore to desert, ranged up along side of me. I thought it hard that I should have to undergo such new dangers, after having been down the Maelstroom, but there was no help for it. He opened his enormous jaws, and had I not immediately shifted my leg, would have taken it off. As it was, he took such a piece out of my horse, as to render it what the sailors call lopsided. Again he attacked it, and continued to take piece after piece off my steed, until I was afraid that he would come to the rider at last, when fortunately a boat full of black people, who were catching flying fish, perceived me and pulled to my assistance. They took me on shore, and carried me to the governor, to whom I gave a history of my adventures; but Englishmen suppose that nobody can meet with wondrous adventures except themselves. He called me a liar, and put me in the Clink, and a pirate schooner havimg been lately taken and the crew executed, I was declared to have been one of them; but, as it was clearly proved that the vessel only contained thirty men, and they had already hung forty-seven, I was permitted to quit the island, which I did in a small vessel bound to America, on condition that I would work my passage.

We had gained to the northward of the Bahama Isles, and were standing to the westward before a light breeze, when early one morning several waterspouts were observed to be forming in various directions. It was my watch below, but as I had never seen one of these curious phenomena of nature, I went on deck to indulge my curiosity.

“Pray what is a waterspout?” inquired the pacha; “I never heard of one before.”

“A waterspout, your highness, is the ascent of a large body of water into the clouds—one of those gigantic operations by which nature, apparently without effort, accomplishes her will, pointing out to man the insignificance of his most vaunted undertakings.”

“Humph! that’s a waterspout, is it?” replied the pacha; “I’m about as wise as before.”

“I will describe it more clearly to your highness, for there is no one who has a better right to know what a waterspout is, than myself.”

A black cloud was over our heads, and we perceived that for some time it was rapidly descending. The main body then remained stationary, and a certain portion of it continued bellying down until it had assumed the form of an enormous jelly-bag. From the end of this bag a thin, wiry, black tongue of vapour continued to descend until it had arrived half-way between the cloud and the sea. The water beneath, then ruffled on its surface, increasing its agitation more and more until it boiled and bubbled like a large cauldron, throwing its foam aside in every direction. In a few minutes a small spiral thread of water was perceived to rise into the air, and meet the tongue which had wooed it from the cloud. When the union had taken place, the thread increased each moment in size, until it was swelled into a column of water several feet in diameter, which continued to supply the thirsty cloud until it was satiated and could drink no more. It then broke, the sea became smooth as before, and the messenger of heaven flew away upon the wings of the wind, to dispense its burden over the parched earth in refreshing and fertilising showers.