Page:Twenty years before the mast - Charles Erskine, 1896.djvu/156

 On, little bark! On, yet awhile! Across the frozen desert flee; For yonder, with its welcome smile, Now sparkles bright thine own blue sea.

The baffled monsters fall behind, Nor longer urge pursuit so vain; One moment more, and rest we find — ’Tis past; she’s safe, she’s safe again!

With drooping peak now lying to, Where sea-fowl brood she checks her motion, Like them to plume herself anew In the bright mirror of the ocean.

All signs of strife soon wiped away, They northward turn — God speed them on! To climes beneath whose genial ray Repose is sweet when toil is done.

We learned that the brig Porpoise, after having been deserted by the two French ships, had cruised along the  icy barriers to longitude 100° east, latitude 64° south. On March 5th she had made Lord Auckland’s Isles. The 27th she anchored in the harbor of Sarah’s Bosom, in twelve fathoms of water. These islands were resorted to by whalers and sealers, to overhaul, refit, wood, and  water ships.

March 17. They spoke the whale-ships Mary and Martha. Captain Coffin informed them that there were at least one hundred whale-ships cruising in these seas,  several of them being in sight. This will give some idea of the number of ships employed in the whale and seal  fisheries in this quarter of the globe.