The World of Ice | Page 9

was on the
quarter-deck, by the side of his friend Tom.
The ship, loosed from her moorings, spread her canvas, and plunged
forward on her adventurous voyage.
But this time she does not grow smaller as she advances before the

freshening breeze, for you and I, reader, have embarked in her, and the
land now fades in the distance, until it sinks from view on the distant
horizon, while nothing meets our gaze, but the vault of the bright blue
sky above, and the plain of the dark blue sea below.
CHAPTER THREE.
THE VOYAGE--THE DOLPHIN AND HER CREW--ICE
AHEAD--POLAR SCENES--MASTHEAD OBSERVATIONS--THE
FIRST WHALE--GREAT EXCITEMENT.
And now we have fairly got into blue water--the sailor's delight, the
landsman's dread--
"The sea! the sea! the open sea; The blue, the fresh, the ever free."
"It's my opinion," remarked Buzzby to Singleton one day, as they stood
at the weather gangway, watching the foam that spread from the
vessel's bow as she breasted the waves of the Atlantic gallantly,--"It's
my opinion that our skipper is made o' the right stuff. He's entered quite
into the spirit of the thing, and I hear'd him say to the first mate
yesterday, he'd made up his mind to run right up into Baffin's Bay, and
make enquiries for Captain Ellice first, before goin' to his usual
whalin'-ground. Now that's wot I call doin' the right thing; for, ye see,
he runs no small risk o' gettin' beset in the ice, and losing the fishin'
season altogether by so doin'."
"He's a fine fellow," said Singleton; "I like him better every day, and I
feel convinced he will do his utmost to discover the whereabouts of our
missing friend; but I fear much that our chances are small, for although
we know the spot which Captain Ellice intended to visit, we cannot tell
to what part of the frozen ocean, ice and currents may have carried
him."
"True," replied Buzzby, giving to his left eye and cheek just that
peculiar amount of screw which indicated intense sagacity and
penetration; "but I've a notion that, if they are to be found, Captain Guy
is the man to find 'em."

"I hope it may turn out as you say. Have you ever been in these seas
before, Buzzby?"
"No, sir--never; but I've got a half-brother wot has bin in the Greenland
whale-fishery, and I've bin in the south-sea line myself."
"What line was that, Buzzby?" enquired David Summers, a sturdy boy
of about fifteen, who acted as assistant steward, and was, in fact, a
nautical maid-of-all-work. "Was it a log-line, or a bow-line, or a
cod-line, or a bit of the equator?--eh!"
The old salt deigned no reply to this passing sally, but continued his
converse with Singleton.
"I could give ye many a long yarn about the South Seas," said Buzzby,
gazing abstractedly down into the deep. "One time, when I was about
fifty mile to the sou'west o' Cape Horn, I--"
"Dinner's ready, sir," said a thin, tall, active man, stepping smartly up to
Singleton, and touching his cap.
"We must talk over that some other time, Buzzby. The captain loves
punctuality." So saying, the young surgeon sprang down the companion
ladder, leaving the old salt to smoke his pipe in solitude.
And here we may pause a few seconds to describe our ship and her
crew.
The Dolphin was a tight, new, barque-rigged vessel of about three
hundred tons burden, built expressly for the northern whale-fishery, and
carried a crew of forty-five men. Ships that have to battle with the ice
require to be much more powerfully built, than those that sail in
unencumbered seas. The Dolphin united strength with capacity and
buoyancy. The under part of her hull and sides were strengthened with
double timbers, and fortified externally with plates of iron; while,
internally, stanchions and cross-beams were so arranged as to cause
pressure on any part to be supported by the whole structure; and on her
bows, where shocks from the ice might be expected to be most frequent

and severe, extra planking, of immense strength and thickness, was
secured. In other respects the vessel was fitted up much in the same
manner as ordinary merchantmen. The only other peculiarity about her,
worthy of notice, was the crow's-nest, a sort of barrel-shaped structure
fastened to the fore-masthead, in which, when at the whaling-ground, a
man is stationed to look out for whales. The chief men in the ship were
Captain Guy, a vigorous, practical American; Mr Bolton, the first mate,
an earnest, stout, burly, off-hand Englishman; and Mr Saunders, the
second mate, a sedate, broad-shouldered, raw-boned Scot, whose
opinion of himself was unbounded, whose power of argument was
extraordinary, not to say exasperating, and who stood six feet three in
his stockings. Mivins, the steward, was,