lǎt'i tūde weath'êr LESSON XCVII. syl'lå bleş post'hû mous diş'mal FROZEN WORDS. 1. THERE are no books which I more delight in than in travels, especially those that describe remote countries, and give the writer an opportunity of showing his parts without incurring any danger of being examined or contradicted. Among all the authors of this kind, our renowned countryman, Sir John Mandeville, has distinguished himself by the copiousness of his invention and the greatness of his genius. 2. The present paper I intend to fill with an extract of Sir John's journal, in which that learned and worthy knight gives an account of the freezing and thawing of several short speeches which he made in the territories of Nova Zembla. The relation put into modern language is as follows: 3. "We were separated by a storm in the latitude of 73, insomuch that only the ship which I was in, with a Dutch and a French vessel, got safe into a creek of Nova Zembla. We landed, in order to refit our vessels, and store ourselves with provisions. The crew of each vessel made themselves a cabin of turf and wood, at some distance from each other, to fence themselves against the inclemencies of the weather, which was severe beyond imagination. 4. "We soon observed, that in talking to one another we lost several of our words, and could not hear one another at above two yards' distance, and that too when we sat very near the fire. After much perplexity, I found that our words froze in the air before they could reach the ears of the person to whom they were spoken. 5. "I was soon confirmed in this conjecture, when, upon the increase of the cold, the whole company grew dumb, or rather deaf; for every man was sensible, as we afterwards found, that he spoke as well as ever; but the sounds no sooner took air than they were condensed and lost. It was now a miserable spectacle to see us nodding and gaping at one another, every man talking, and no man heard. One might observe a seaman that could hail a ship at a league distance, beckoning with his hands, straining his lungs, and tearing his throat, but all in vain. 6. "We continued here three weeks in this dismal plight. At length, upon a turn of wind, the air about us began to thaw. Our cabin was immediately filled with a dry clattering sound, which I afterwards found to be the crackling of consonants that broke above our heads, and were often mixed with a gentle hissing, which I imputed to the letter S, that occurs so frequently in the English tongue. I soon after felt a breeze of whispers rushing by my ear; for those, being of a soft and gentle substance, immediately liquefied in the warm wind that blew across our cabin. 7. "These were soon followed by syllables and short words, and at length by entire sentences, that melted sooner or later, as they were more or less congealed; so that we now heard everything that had been spoken during the whole three weeks that we had been silent, if I may use that expression. 8. "It was now very early in the morning, and yet, to my surprise, I heard somebody say, 'Sir John, it is midnight, and time for the ship's crew to go to bed.' This I knew to be the pilot's voice, and, upon recollecting myself, I concluded that he had spoken these words to me some days before, though I could not hear them before the present thaw. My reader will easily imagine how the whole crew was amazed to hear every man talking, and see no man opening his mouth. 9. "In the midst of this great surprise we were all in, we heard a volley of oaths, lasting for a long while, and uttered in a very hoarse voice, which I knew belonged to the boatswain, who was a very choleric fellow, and had taken his opportunity of swearing at me when he thought I could not hear him; for I had several times given him the strappado on that account, as I did not fail to repeat it for these his pious soliloquies when I got him on shipboard. 10. "When this confusion of voices was pretty well over, though I was afraid to offer at speaking, as fearing I should not be heard, I proposed a visit to the Dutch cabin, which lay about a mile farther up the country. My crew were extremely rejoiced to find they had again recovered their hearing, though every man uttered his voice with the same apprehensions that I had done. 11. "At about half a mile's distance from our cabin, we heard the groanings of a bear, which at first startled us; but upon inquiry we were informed by some of our company that he was dead, and now lay in salt, having been killed upon that very spot about a fortnight before in the time of the frost. Not far from the same place we were likewise entertained with some posthumous snarls and barkings of a fox. 12. "We at length arrived at the little Dutch settlement, and, upon entering the room, found it filled with sighs that smelt of brandy, and several other unsavory sounds that were altogether inarticulate. My valet fell into so great a rage at what he heard, that he drew his sword; but not knowing where to lay the blame, he put it up again. We were stunned with these confused noises, but did not hear a single word till about half an hour after; which I ascribed to the harsh and obdurate sounds of that language, which wanted more time than ours to melt and become audible. 13. “After having met with a very hearty welcome, we went to the French cabin, who, to make amends for their three weeks' silence, were talking and disputing with greater rapidity and confusion than ever I heard in an assembly even of that nation. Their language, as I found, upon the first giving of the weather, fell asunder and dissolved. 14. "I was here convinced of an error into which I had before fallen; for I fancied that for the freezing of the sound it was necessary for it to be wrapped up, and, as it were, preserved in breath; but I found my mistake when I heard the sound of a kit playing a minuet over our heads. I asked the occasion of it; upon which one of the company told me that it would play there above a week longer if the thaw continued. For,' says he, 'finding ourselves bereft of speech, we prevailed upon one of the company, who had this musical instrument about him, to play to us from morning to night; all of which time we employed in dancing." 1. ABOUT the time that King Alfred was fighting against the pirate Northmen in England, other bands of these fierce rovers settled on the northern shores of France, just across the English Channel. This land was known as "the Northman's land," or Normandy. 2. These Northmen, or Normans, as they were called, soon gave up their heathen religion and became Christians. They learned very rapidly all that the people knew in the civilized land where they had settled. Within a hundred years Normandy was settled with busy, flourishing towns. Large churches and stately stone castles had been built in many parts of the country. 3. They changed their language and government as well as their religion. They now spoke French instead of their old Norse language, and were ruled both in peace and war by one man, called a duke, instead of having the laws made by the people themselves in town meetings. 4. These Normans, who had been the fiercest of all the northern pirates, soon were noted through all Europe for their graceful and polished manners. 5. But although they learned so much from the French, they had not forgotten how to be brave and daring soldiers. |