The Smoky God; Or, A Voyage to the Inner WorldEmerson, Willis George
Science
The Smoky God; Or, A Voyage to the Inner World
Emerson, Willis George
Voyages, Imaginary
(13 Nansen, on page 394, says: "To-day another noteworthy thing
happened, which was that about mid-day we saw the sun, or to be more
correct, an image of the sun, for it was only a mirage. A peculiar
impression was produced by the sight of that glowing fire lit just
above the outermost edge of the ice. According to the enthusiastic
descriptions given by many Arctic travelers of the first appearance of
this god of life after the long winter night, the impression ought to
be one of jubilant excitement; but it was not so in my case. We had not
expected to see it for some days yet, so that my feeling was rather one
of pain, of disappointment that we must have drifted farther south than
we thought. So it was with pleasure I soon discovered that it could not
be the sun itself. The mirage was at first a flattened-out, glowing red,
streak of fire on the horizon; later there were two streaks, the one
above the other, with a dark space between; and from the maintop I could
see four, or even five, such horizontal lines directly over one another,
all of equal length, as if one could only imagine a square, dull-red
sun, with horizontal dark streaks across it.")
One day soon after this, I felt exceedingly drowsy, and fell into a
sound sleep. But it seemed that I was almost immediately aroused by
my father's vigorous shaking of me by the shoulder and saying: "Olaf,
awaken; there is land in sight!"
I sprang to my feet, and oh! joy unspeakable! There, far in the
distance, yet directly in our path, were lands jutting boldly into the
sea. The shore-line stretched far away to the right of us, as far as the
eye could see, and all along the sandy beach were waves breaking into
choppy foam, receding, then going forward again, ever chanting in
monotonous thunder tones the song of the deep. The banks were covered
with trees and vegetation.
I cannot express my feeling of exultation at this discovery. My father
stood motionless, with his hand on the tiller, looking straight ahead,
pouring out his heart in thankful prayer and thanksgiving to the gods
Odin and Thor.
In the meantime, a net which we found in the stowage had been cast, and
we caught a few fish that materially added to our dwindling stock of
provisions.
The compass, which we had fastened back in its place, in fear of another
storm, was still pointing due north, and moving on its pivot, just as it
had at Stockholm. The dipping of the needle had ceased. What could this
mean? Then, too, our many days of sailing had certainly carried us far
past the North Pole. And yet the needle continued to point north. We
were sorely perplexed, for surely our direction was now south.(14)
(14 Peary's first voyage, pages 69 and 70, says:
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