A Race for Life.A Race for Life.
“We called to the man to stop; we shouted, ‘Come here, come here!’ and then again, ‘Come back, come back!’ as loud as we could shout, waving our caps, and throwing up our arms, and running in a frantic way; but not the slightest notice would he take of us, not one instant would he stop, but upon his course and purpose he kept right on, pushingafter the running bear, without appearing to give us even a single thought. We could not doubt that he had seen us, we were so near to him.
“On went the bear, on after him went the dogs and sledge and man. More impatient grew the dogs, louder called the man to his excited team, and the Dean and I ran after, shouting still, as we had done in the beginning. We came soon upon the sledge track, and followed it at our greatest speed.
“At length the cries of the dogs grew indistinct, and then died away at last entirely, and the man’s voice was no longer heard; and that which had come so suddenly soon became but a dark moving speck upon the great white frozen sea, as it had first appeared; but after it we still followed on.
“Then the moving speck faded out of sight, and everything around was still and cold and solemn and desolate as before. Yet still we ran and ran.
“I said as desolate as before. But O, it was a thousand times more desolate now than ever,—as the night is darker for the lightning flash that has died away, or a cloudy noon is colder for a single ray of sunshine that has broken through the vapors.
“Yet on and on we ran and ran, until we could run no more.
“And then we laid us down upon the snow and wept, and bemoaned our hard, hard fate; but no word was spoken. The disappointment was too great for words; and, after a short rest in the chilly air upon the frozen sea, we wandered slowly back to our poor hut; and after many weary hours we reached it, not so much alive as dead,—for through miles and miles of heavy snow we had run after the sledge, and through these same miles we had trudged back again, with the cruel disappointmentrankling in our hearts, and with no hope to buoy us up.
“Strange—was it not?—that at no period of our life upon the desert island were we so unhappy as we were that day,—never so utterly cast down, never so broken-spirited, never looking on the future with such hopelessness.
“And in this state of mind we crawled beneath our furs, feeling too lonely and forsaken to have a thought to cook a meal, and so very, very weary with the labor we had done, in running and wading through the heavy snow, that we did not care for food; and in deep sleep we buried up the heaviest sorrow that we had ever known,—the grievous sorrow of a dead, dead hope,—the hope of rescue that had come and gone from us, as the cloud-shadow flies across the summer field.”
CHAPTER XVII.A very Peculiar Person appears and disappears, and the Castaways are filled alternately with Hope and Fear
“How long we slept I have not the least idea. It may have been a whole day, or it may have been two days. It was not a twenty years’ sleep, (how we wished it was!) like that of Rip Van Winkle, yet it was a very long sleep; and, indeed, neither of us cared how long it lasted, we were so heartbroken about what seemed to be the greatest misfortune that had yet happened to us. If we woke up at any time, we went to sleep again as quickly as possible, not caring at all to come back any sooner than was necessary to the contemplation of our miserable situation,—never reflecting for a moment that the situation had not been changed in the least by the unknown man who had appeared and disappeared in such a mysterious way. But the sight of him had brought our thoughts freshly back to the world from which we had been cut off,—a world with human beings in it like ourselves; and it was not unnatural, therefore, that we should be made miserable by the event. And so we slept on and on, and thus we drowned everything but our dreams, which are everywhere very apt to be most bright and cheering in the most gloomy and despondent times. Such, at least, was the case with me; and if I could have kept dreaming and dreaming on forever, about pleasant things to eat, and pleasant people talking to me, I should have been quite well satisfied.
“Thus you see what a great number of ups and downs wehad,—sometimes being cheerful and fully resigned, then again buried in the very depths of despair. Sometimes we felt real pleasure in the life to which we had become so well accustomed; and it seemed to us, as we chatted together in our warm and well-lighted hut, that, since every necessary want was well supplied, and we were entirely free from care, we should be well satisfied to continue in that situation all our lives. We had, in truth, few troubles and few anxieties. Food, fuel, and clothing we possessed in abundance, and no fears crossed our minds that they would ever fail us.
“But this satisfactory state of mind, so natural at times, was apt to be broken up by a very slight occurrence,—unusual fatigue, a restless sleep, a severe storm confining us to the hut for many days together, or by the disappointment we so often experienced when an object which we had confidently believed to be a ship proved to be but an iceberg. Nor was this more unnatural than that we should at times be perfectly happy and well contented. Thus are we all made, and thus are we all, at times, inconsistent; being often unhappy when there is no assignable cause, and often experiencing the sense of great happiness, under circumstances apparently the most distressing.
“You will see, therefore, that there is but one way for any of us to preserve an even temper and uniform disposition; that is, I mean, always to be cheerful, never despondent, ever hopeful; and this can only be attained by always feeling the real presence of God with us; when we meet with disappointment, to say in our hearts, ‘Well, it was not the will of God,’ or, if we meet with what seems great good fortune, ‘It is the will of God that we do some good work, and therefore he has thus blessed us.’ Thus only can we be truly happy. With this feeling there is always consolation in distress. It begetscharity, and love, and confidence, and gentleness; it makes the heart light and the face cheerful, and the life like a sunbeam gladdening where it goes. That’s what the love of God does.
“These thoughts are suggested to me by the experiences that the Dean and I were having at the time I speak of. How much more happy we should have been, had we felt always as I have last described! we should then never have been cast down, but should have been always hopeful,—never wishing to sleep on and on, and thus drown sorrow. We should not have felt as we did now when the strange man had come from the frozen sea and disappeared again.
“Well, to come back to the story, we were not allowed to sleep as long as we wanted to. Our sleep was indeed brought to an end very suddenly. I was first startled by a great noise, and then, springing up, much alarmed, I aroused the Dean, who was a sounder sleeper even than myself.
“‘What’s the matter?’ cried he.
“‘Didn’t you hear a noise?’ I asked.
“‘No!’ answered the Dean; ‘nothing more, at least, than a church-bell, and that was in my sleep,’—which was clear enough.
“Presently I heard the noise again, and this time it seemed to proceed from something not far off. It was now the Dean’s turn to be amazed.
“‘Did you hear?’ I asked again.
“‘Yes,’ said the Dean, holding his breath to listen.
“Again the strange sound was repeated.
“‘Is it the wind?’
“‘How can it be? the wind does not make a noise like that!’
“‘Can it be a bear?’
“‘No! it cannot be a bear!’
“‘A fox? perhaps it is a fox!’
“‘No, listen! there it is again.’
“The sound was louder now, and nearer to the hut. Again and again it was repeated,—nearer now and more constant; then a footfall on the crusted snow.
“‘It is a man! the bear-hunter has come back again!’ spoke the Dean, throwing up his hands.
“Again the noise was heard; again the footfall creaked upon the snow.
“‘The bear-hunter, it must be!’ cried the Dean, again.
“‘O, I pray that it is so!’ I added, earnestly.
“Again the voice was heard. I answered it. The answer was returned, and with the answer came a heavier and more rapid creaking of the footfalls on the snow.
“We rushed from the hut into the open air without another moment’s loss of time, and without saying another word; and there, not ten yards away, stood the very man who had passed us on the sledge,—the bear-hunter of the frozen sea.
“And a strange-looking creature he was, to be sure. There was not the least sign of alarm or fear about him; but, on the contrary, he was looking mightily pleased, and was talking very fast in a language of which the Dean and I could neither of us understand a single word. When he was not talking he was laughing, and his enormous mouth was stretched almost from ear to ear. ‘Yeh, yeh!’ he went, and I went that way too, by way of answer, which seemed greatly to delight him. He was dressed all over in furs, and looked very wild; but, as he keptyeh-yeh-ing all the time, we were not afraid. As he came up to us, we greeted him very cordially; but he could nomore understand what we said than we could understand him. He talked very much, and gesticulated a great deal, pointing very often in one particular direction with his right hand. Then he cried, ‘Mick-ee, mick-ee!’ and pointed to the beach below, towards which we followed him. There we found a sledge and seven dogs; and now we understood very certainly, if we had any doubts before, that this was the man and these were the dogs that had passed us, following the bear.
“The man tried his best to explain to us the whole affair, talking very rapidly; but we could not gather from what he said more than our eyes told us already, for on the sledge we soon discovered a large bear-skin, all bloody and folded up, and some large pieces of bear’s meat. The dogs were tied some distance from the sledge, and were securely fastened by their traces to a heavy stone, which I was very glad of, for the wolfish-looking beasts were snarling at each other, and fighting, and howling at us continually,—seeming all the while to wish themselves loose, that they might fly upon us, and tear us to pieces.
“If we could not understand the hunter’s words, we made out by his signs, after a while, that he had seen us when he passed in pursuit of the bear. After overtaking and capturing the animal, he turned about upon his track to look for us, and, finding our footmarks at last, he had followed us to the hut, calling loudly, as he neared us, to attract our attention, for he could not find us easily,—our hut was so buried up in snow.
“After being fully satisfied with the inspection of the dogs and sledge, and what there was upon it, we all three went up to the hut.
“It would be difficult to describe our visitor. I have said that he was wholly dressed in furs. His pantaloons weremade of bear-skins reaching to the knees, where they met the boots, which were made of the same materials. His underclothing was made of birds’ skins, like our own, and he wore a coat of fox-skins, with a heavy hood covering up the head completely. On his hands he wore mittens made of seal-skins, with warm dog-skin for an inside lining, and his stockings were of the same. So you see no part of him was exposed but his face, which was quite dark, or, rather, copper-colored (something darker than a North American Indian), and it was very broad and very round. The nose was very small and very flat, and the eyes were small and narrow. His hair was jet black, long and tangled, and was cut straight across the forehead. He had but little beard,—only a few black, wiry-looking bristles growing on his upper lip and on the tip of his chin. You would hardly suppose that such a creature could be anything but savage and repulsive; yet this he did not seem to be at all; on the contrary he appeared like the most amiable fellow that ever was seen.
“He sat down before the fire on one of the big stones we used for stools, and the Dean and I sat one on either side of him; and I can never tell you how strange it seemed to be sitting there with another human being besides ourselves, after all that time spent without ever seeing anybody but each other. It was like a dream. We could hardly realize that it was true, as there we sat, staring at the strange man in wonder and astonishment.
“And all this time we were speculating about him,—where he came from, where he was going to, what relation did he hold to the world from which we had come in theBlackbird, could he tell us where we were, would he take us from the island, would he rescue us from this dreary life.
“O, how much we would have given for a few words from him that we could understand! How rejoiced we would have been to have these questions answered! Answering them, however, he might be even then, for anything we knew to the contrary; for he scarcely left off talking a single instant, but away he rattled as lively as a magpie and just as intelligibly. We could make nothing at all out of what he said, any more than I could of the hieroglyphics I have since seen on the stones of Egypt, until he put his hand to his mouth, at the same time throwing his head back a little, and repeating, several times, ‘Me drinkum, Me drinkum.’
“This very much surprised us, as we knew that he was asking for water, which having been given him, he then said, ‘Me eatum,’ signifying that he was hungry. We lost no time, therefore, in preparing him a hearty meal of ducks and bear’s meat, which he appeared to think very fine. Then he had a great deal to tell us about something that he called ‘Oomeaksuak,’ the meaning of which we could not make out; but, as he pointed in a particular direction, we thought he meant the place where he lived. We could not understand from him what his name was; so, as we had to speak of him to each other constantly, we called him at once ‘Eatum,’ as that was the word he used most. He amused us very much with his frequent repetition of it, and with the enormous quantities of food he took into his stomach after he did repeat it; for he only had to say, ‘Me eatum’ to get as much food as he wanted. It soon got to be quite a joke with us, and when he said, ‘Me eatum’ we all three fell, not only to feeding, but to laughing besides.
“Finding himself in such good quarters, Eatum manifested no disposition to leave them; but, after he had taken asound sleep, he had a great deal to say about ‘mickee,’ as before; and since he made a great many motions, as if using a whip (pointing all the while towards the beach), we concluded that he must mean something about his dogs, which we found to be true, for ‘mickee’ in his language means dog, as we afterwards discovered. As soon as we had settled this, we all went out of the hut again, and went down and brought the bear’s meat and skin on the sledge up to the hut, and then we fastened the dogs near by. After being fed, they all lay down and went to sleep on the snow. These dogs were very large and strong animals; and the seven could draw a very heavy load,—I should think that the whole seven could draw as much as a small horse.
“Eatum seemed to have been quite exhausted with long hunting when he came to us, and he did very little but eat and sleep for several days. His nose had been a little touched by the frost, but he scorched some oil, and rubbed it on as we would ointment, and cured it very quickly.
“After he had eaten and slept to his entire satisfaction, he appeared to grow more lively, and showed a great deal of curiosity about our hut and furniture, and hunting implements, being highly pleased with every new thing he saw. It was very surprising to see how nearly like his own many of our things were,—our lamp and pot and cups, for instance, and also our clothing. Our harpoon (the ‘Dean’s Delight’) was almost exactly a match for his.
“It was a great drawback to our satisfaction that we could not understand him or he us, but little by little we got over part of this difficulty; for, upon discovering that he used one particular word very often, I guessed that he must be asking a question. The word was ‘Kina’; so once when he used ithe was pointing to our lamp, and I said ‘lamp’ at a venture, whereupon, after repeating it several times, he appeared to be much gratified, and then said, ‘Kolipsut’, and this I repeated after him, which pleased him again. Then I knew that ‘Kina?’ meant ‘What is it?’ or ‘What’s this?’ so after that wekina-ed everything, and got on finely. We, of course, learned more rapidly than Eatum, picking up a great many words from him; and, having both of us good memories, we got to be able to make him understand us a little in the course of time; and as fast as we learned we taught him, and he got to know some of our language, in which we encouraged him. ‘Me speakum much bad,’ he would say sometimes, which was very true; but so long as we understood him it made little matter.
“And now it was that we got to find out how he had picked up the few words such asme drinkum,me eatum, and so on, that he had used at first; for he gave us to know that we were not a long way from where ships came every year, and that some of his people saw the ships when they passed, and sometimes went aboard of them. ‘Ship’ was what he meant by ‘Oomeaksuak’, which word he had at first used so often. He had frequently been aboard of anOomeaksuak, he said.
“Now this was great news for us, and we began at once to devise means of escape from the island. We made Eatum understand as much of what we wanted as possible. All this time I must not neglect to mention, however, that Eatum was of the greatest service to us; for when the weather was good he would fasten his dogs to the sledge, and all three of us would go out together on the sea to hunt,—Eatum driving. It was very lively sport; and sometimes, when the ice was very smooth and the snow hard, we went very fast, almost as fast as a horse would run, even with the three of us upon thesledge. The sledge, by the way, I must tell you, was made out of bits of bones, all cunningly lashed together with seal-skin thongs. Once we were caught in a severe gale a good way from home, and had to make a little house to shelter ourselves from it out of snow; and in this, with our furs on, we managed to sleep quite comfortably, and remained there about twenty-four hours before the weather would permit us to go on again.
“While in the snow hut we had a lamp to give us light and warmth; and this lamp (which was Eatum’s) was made like ours, and Eatum made a spark, and started a flame, and kept it burning just as we had done,—the tinder being the down of the willow blossom (which he carried wrapped up in several layers of seal-skin), with moss for wick and the blubber for fuel. The pot in which he melted snow for water, and cooked our supper, was made, like ours, of soapstone.
“When the storm broke, we left the snow hut, and set out for the island; catching two seals by the way, and in the very same manner, too, that the Dean and I had done long before we ever knew there was such a person as Eatum in the world. We were much disappointed at not discovering any bears, and so were the dogs.
“But not many days afterward, the weather being fine, we went out upon the sea a great way, and were rejoiced to come across a bear’s track, which Eatum said was very fresh. No sooner had the dogs seen it than away they started upon it; and over the ice and snow—rough and smooth, right upon the track—they ran as fast as they could go.
“The bear had been sleeping behind an iceberg, and we had come upon him so suddenly that he had not time even to get out of sight, and we saw him almost as soon as we had discoveredthe track. ‘Nen-ook, nen-ook!’ cried Eatum, pointing towards the bear; and there he was, sure enough, running as fast as he could. But, no matter how fast he ran, we went still faster; and it could not have been an hour before we overtook him. Then Eatum leaned forward and untied his dogs, letting them run ahead while the sledge stopped. In a few minutes the dogs had brought the bear to bay,—surrounding the huge wild beast, and flying at his sides, and tormenting him in a very fierce manner. But I always observed that they took good care to keep away from his head, for if he should get a chance at one of them, and hit him with his huge paws, he would mash him flat enough, or knock him all into little bits.
“While the dogs were worrying the bear we got out our weapons,—the Dean his ‘Delight,’ I ‘Old Crumply,’ and Eatum a spear made of a narwhal horn, and looking, for all the world, just like ‘Old Crumply’s’ twin brother. Then we rushed up to the bear, Eatum leading; and fierce though the animal looked, and awfully as he roared, we closed right in upon him, and quickly made an end of him. Then we drove off the dogs, and tied them to a hummock of ice, while we butchered the dead animal and secured the skin and what meat we wanted, after which we allowed the dogs to gorge themselves. Being now too full to haul, we had to let them lie down and sleep, while we built a snow hut, and, crawling into it, got a good rest. Then we returned to the island, mighty well satisfied with ourselves.
“After this we fell again into conversation about theOomeaksuaks, or ships, as I have explained before; and, having learned more and more of the language which Eatum spoke, we got to comprehend him better, so we fixed clearly in our minds where the place was that the ships came to, and werefully satisfied that Eatum told the truth about it. We now offered to give him everything we had if he would take us there, and stay with us until the ships should come along and take us off his hands. About this we had several conversations; but just when we thought the treaty was complete, and Eatum was going to carry out the plan we had fixed upon, this singular savage disappeared very suddenly,—dogs, sledge, and all,—without saying a single word to us about it.
“When we made the discovery that he was gone, we were filled with astonishment and dismay. We hoped, at first, that he had gone off hunting; but, finding that he did not return, we tried to follow the tracks of his sledge, but the wind had drifted snow over them, and we could not.
“We now made up our minds that Eatum was nothing more than a treacherous savage; and we were afraid that he would come back with more savages and murder us, in order that he might get the furs and other things that we had; so for a while we were much alarmed, and were more heartbroken I believe, than ever before, for our hopes of rescue had been raised very high by hearing of Eatum’s people and the ships. The suddenness with which all our expectations were thus dashed to the ground quite overcame us, and we passed the next five days very miserably, hardly stirring out of the hut during all that time. But at length we saw the folly of giving way to despair.
“One thing we quickly determined upon, and that was to leave the island, one way or another; for now we were so afraid of the savages coming to murder us, that we would suffer any risk and hardship rather than remain there longer. So once more we began to devise means for our safety.
“It was no longer what we should do for food and fuel, orclothing, but how we should escape. The ships we had given up long ago, and with the ships had vanished every hope of rescue. But now a wild man had come to us out of the ice-desert, and had told us that ships came in the summer not far from where we were, and through this intelligence we had obtained a glimpse of home and our native country, as it were; and this too at the very time when we had become most reconciled to our condition, and had made up our minds to live as best we could on the Rock of Good Hope for the remainder of our days.
“But now our minds were wholly changed. ‘We are worse off than ever,’ said the Dean, ‘for this little hope the savage gave us, and the fear, besides, that he has put into us,’—which was true enough.
“Stimulated now by the memory of that hope and the presence of that fear, we prepared to undertake the bold task of rescuing ourselves. The savage had pointed out to us the direction of the place where the ships passed, ‘And now,’ we thought, ‘if we can only reach the land there before the summer comes we shall be all right.’ But if we should not get to the proper place, or if the ships did not come along, then the chances were that we might starve or freeze to death. Nothing daunted, however, by the contemplation of that gloomy side of the picture, we went earnestly to work, and very soon had contrived a plan.
“Of course we must have a sledge, as we were obliged to travel a long distance, and must carry not only food to eat by the way, but blubber for a lamp with which to melt water from the snow, and furs to keep us warm while we slept. Eatum had taught us how to construct a snow hut, so that we felt sure of being able to shelter ourselves from the storms.
“But the sledge was the great difficulty. How should we make a sledge? was the question which most occupied our thoughts, and taxed our ingenuity. Apparently we had nothing to make it of, nor tools to make it with. To fasten together pieces of bone in the manner that Eatum had done, and thus construct a runner, was not possible, as we had no drill to make holes with,—and besides, if we had, the work would have required too long a time for our present necessities. Our purpose was to get away from the island with all possible haste.
“We made a sledge, however, at last, and in a very ingenious way as we thought, though not a particularly good way as we afterwards discovered. First we cut two strips of seal-skin, and sewed them into tubes. Then we filled the tubes with hair, and pieces of meat chopped very fine, and also bits of moss. Then we poured water into the tubes, and flattened them down by stamping upon them. Very soon the whole froze together, solid as a board, and these we soon fashioned into the proper shape for runners. We found no difficulty in fastening the two together with cross-ties of bone, which we lashed firmly to the runners. Thus, in seven days from the time of beginning to work upon it, our sledge was complete.
“Very much rejoiced over this triumph, we put a load on the sledge, and set out to give it a trial. But one runner gave way before we had gone a dozen fathoms, and we were in a state of great perplexity. We resolved now to bundle up everything we needed in a bear-skin, and drag that over the snow after us, so great was our haste to get away. We would drag the bear-skin head-foremost, so that the fur would slip more easily over the snow. But when we had done this, we discoveredthat, to say nothing of dragging the load, we could not even start it. Our united efforts were wholly unequal to the task of moving it even so much as an inch; and, like Robinson Crusoe with his boat, we had wholly miscalculated the means, thinking only of the end. And so it is sometimes, even with wiser heads than ours.
“We were now in even greater trouble than ever; but being at length fully satisfied of the utter hopelessness of proceeding in this manner, we went back next day to the sledge, and began to work upon it again; all the while looking out for the savages, and expecting them every minute to come and murder us.”
CHAPTER XVIII.A Number of Peculiar People appear, and the Castaways disappear from the Rock of Good Hope.
“We worked away at the sledge as fast as possible, being bent upon having it finished and getting off from the island as quickly as we could.
“At last it was completed, and we dragged it down to the beach and out upon the ice. Finding that it went better than we had dared to expect, we returned to our hut, and, bundling together such of our furs and other things as we thought we should require on the long journey before us, carried them down and stowed them on the sledge. Among them were included one lamp, one pot, and one cup. We could not drag a very heavy load, even if the sledge would bear up under it, so we had to limit ourselves to the least possible allowance of everything. Food was, of course, more important to us than anything else, and of this we determined to take all that we could put upon the sledge with safety.
“All this time we felt very sad, and we worked in a very gloomy spirit. Everything appeared so uncertain before us; the journey we were about to undertake, at first seeming to promise so hopefully, had become a very doubtful undertaking; and, since day after day passed by without bringing the savages upon us, we got to be less afraid of them, and in this same proportion was reduced our confidence in the propriety ofleaving the island in this manner for an unknown place, and in utter ignorance as to whether the savage had told us truth about the ships.
“However, as you have seen before, when the Dean and I got an idea in our heads we did not easily abandon it. Once determined to make the trial, we had persevered until we had obtained a sledge; and now, as I have told you, it was already half loaded.
“But we might have saved ourselves all this trouble, as you will soon see.
“While in the very midst of our packing, we were suddenly startled by a loud noise. Looking up from our work, and turning in the direction whence the sound proceeded, there, to our horror and dismay, were the very savages we had been for so long a time expecting. They were just rounding a point of the island, and were nearing us at a rapid pace.
“We soon discovered them to be five in number, each riding upon a sledge, drawn by wild and fierce-looking dogs, that made a great outcry as soon as they saw us, as did also the savages on the sledges.
“‘At last,’ thought I, ‘our time has come. We shall be murdered now for certain, and then be given to the dogs for food.’
“‘Oh!’ exclaimed the Dean, ‘if our poor mothers only knew where we were!’
“Dangerous as appeared to be our situation, I could still not help asking the Dean whether he did not think it would be quite as much to the purpose if we only knew where we were ourselves,—to which, however, he made no reply, for the savages were almost upon us. Seizing our weapons, we prepared to defend ourselves, since there was no use trying torun away, as the dogs would be atop of us before we could reach the hut.
“But there was not the least use of our being so much alarmed, for the savages soon convinced us that they meant no harm. They would not let their dogs come near us, but kept them off, and, stopping, tied them fast. Then, without any weapons in their hands, they came up to us in a most friendly manner, allyeh-yeh-ing at a wonderful rate. So we took the five of them right off up to the hut, and now our fears were turned into rejoicing and our sorrow into joy. One of them was Eatum, and they all proved to be just as singular-looking people, and were as curious about us and about everything we had as Eatum had been. Their faces were on a broad grin all the while.
“Having learned something of their language from Eatum, as I told you before, we contrived to make them understand, with the aid of a great many signs, how the ship had been wrecked, and how we got first to the ice and then to the land,—for this they were most curious about,—and they were greatly puzzled to know how we came to be there at all. After this they treated us quite affectionately, patting us on the back, and exclaiming,Tyma, tyma, which we knew to mean ‘Good, good,’ as Eatum had told us. Then Eatum wanted to show himself off in our language, and, pointing to us, he said, ‘Hunter plenty good, plenty eat get. All same,’ (pointing to himself by way of illustration, and thus finishing it,) ‘tyma? yeh-yeh, yeh!’ which was the way he had of laughing, as I told you before, and all the restyeh, yeh-ed just like him. One of them we called at once ‘Old Grim,’ because heyeh-yeh-ed with his insides; but no laugh ever showed itself in his face.
“After their curiosity was satisfied, they imitated Eatum, and began to call loudly,drinkumand theneatum,—yeh-yeh-ing as before in a very lively manner; so that, what with theiryeh-yeh-ing andeatumanddrinkum, there was quite a merry time of it. Meanwhile, however, we were busying ourselves to satisfy their wants, and it was not long before the savages were as full as they could hold. It was a curious sight to see them eat. They would put one end of a great chunk of meat in the mouth, and, holding tight to the other end, they would cut it off close up to the lips. Our seal-blubber they treated in the same way. To this blubber they seemed to be very partial; and, indeed, all people living in cold climates soon grow fond of fat of every kind. It is such strong food, which people require there as much as they do warm clothing, and in great quantities too. The people living in the Arctic regions have little desire for vegetable food; and the savages there eat nothing but meat, fish, and fat.
“Our guests did not leave off eating until each had consumed a quantity of food equal at least to the size of his head; and then they grew drowsy, and wanted tosingikpok, which we knew from Eatum meant sleep; and insingikpokwe were glad enough to indulge them, although greatly to our inconvenience, for they nearly filled our hut.
“But before this we went down to the sledge and brought up the furs and other things we had stowed upon it for our journey, as we needed them for the accommodation of our visitors. The savages went with us, and when they saw what a sledge we had made, and understood what sort of journey we were going upon, they laughed.
“You must understand, however, that we did not give up the journey; but, on the contrary, were more than ever disposedto make it. For, although we could see no harm in the savages, yet we put no trust in them,—they appeared to have no serious side to them at all, but treated everything with such levity that we could not tell what to make of them. Sometimes we wished they would go away; and then again we wished they would stay; and then we wished they would take us with them, and then again we were afraid to trust them. Thus did our hopes and fears alternately get the better of us.
“The savages slept very soundly for a while; but one by one they woke up, and, as soon as their eyes were open, they fell to eating again until they were satisfied, and then in a minute afterwards they were fast asleep. This they kept up for about two days, and you may be sure they made way with a great deal of our provisions before they had finished.
“When they had thoroughly gorged themselves, and slept all they could, they were ready to start off again; and now we found that they had come to take us away,—a discovery which was both agreeable and disagreeable; for we could not tell what to make of the savages at all, we could understand so little of what they meant, or of what they said, or of what their designs might be respecting us.
“‘However,’ we thought, ‘after all here is a possible chance of escape and rescue,’ and, like a drowning man catching at a straw, we could not seriously think of allowing the opportunity to slip; besides, there proved in the end to be little chance of our having our own will in the matter, since the savages never once asked us if we would go with them, but began to bundle up our furs, food, and blubber, and everything else we had, as if resolved to take us whether or no.
“At first we felt a little alarm,—without expressing it, however; but, seeing how good-natured they were about it,and how considerate they appeared to be for us, we had no further fear, but trusted them entirely.
“The savages went to work with a hearty good-will to get us off. Not a thing escaped them,—not a piece of fur of any kind; fox-skins, bird-skins, bear-skins, pots, lamps, and everything else, were picked up and carried off just as if we had no right to them at all; and although there were, as I have said, five sledges, yet these were all quite heavily laden.
“As we passed down by our sledge, the savages set up another laugh at it. It seemed to amuse them very much, but they showed no disposition to take it along.
“At last we were all ready. The sledges were all stowed, everything was tightly lashed down, and off we started,—I riding on the sledge with Eatum, while the Dean was on the sledge of ‘Old Grim.’
“The Dean carried his ‘Delight,’ of course, while I held on to ‘Old Crumply.’ Nor were our ‘palm and needle,’ and jack-knife, that had done such good service, forgotten. Indeed, we brought away everything.
“Of course we were very much rejoiced to get away from the Rock of Good Hope, even although our fortunes were yet very uncertain; still, it had been our rock of refuge and safety, and, in our thankfulness, we could not fail to cast upon it a look of tender regret at parting from it. Together there the Dean and I had achieved many triumphs which were to us a source of great pride, and would always continue to be as long as we lived; while, on the other hand, if we had suffered many discomforts and sorrows, these would not, we knew, linger long in the memory. Besides, on the Rock of Good Hope, and in the hut we were leaving, we had learned to know each other, and to love each other, and to be bound together by astrong bond of friendship, which, as it was formed in adversity, was not likely to be broken.
“But then, on the other hand, the prospect that loomed up ahead of us was not of a very encouraging description. ‘Where were the savages taking us? what would they do with us?’ were questions which kept haunting us all the time. We could see nothing clearly; and no matter what might happen in the end for our advantage, we must, in any case, live among these wild people for an indefinite time, subject to their savage caprices and savage and lawless ways of life.
“But we soon had to give up speculating about the prospect ahead, and had to let the Rock of Good Hope, and the hut, and the life we had led there, with its struggles and trials and triumphs, pass away as some vaguely remembered dream; for on we sped, with our caravan of sledges, over the frozen sea,—the dogs all lively, and galloping away with their bushy tails curled over their backs, and their heads up; their savage drivers crying to them, now and then, ‘Ka-ka! ka-ka!’ and snapping their whips to keep them at a brisker run, and all the while talking to each other in a loud voice,—sometimes, as we could clearly understand, about ourselves, sometimes whether they should go off on a bear-hunt. Occasionally one of the teams would scent a seal-hole, and away the dogs would rush towards it as hard as they could go, all the other teams following after, pell-mell; and, when they reached the hole, it was all the hunters could do, by whipping and shouting and scolding, to keep the teams from coming atop of each other, and getting into a snarl. Once this happened with two of the teams. The dogs all became tangled in each other’s traces, the sledges got locked together, and the animals fell to fighting, one team against the other, in a most vicious manner.
“This was such a novel mode of travelling that we enjoyed it immensely, even although it was pretty cold and the journey was very long. It seemed strange to us to be thus wandering, without chart or compass, over the great ice-desert on the sea; for all around us was nothing but a great plain of whiteness, only broken here and there by an iceberg, which glittered like a great diamond in the bright sunshine.
The Children of the Frozen Sea.The Children of the Frozen Sea.
“We must have gone at least sixty or seventy miles before we made a single halt; and then we came to the village where these savages lived. It was not on the land, but out on the frozen sea over which we had travelled. As we approached,the dogs ran very fast. ‘Igloo, igloo!’ exclaimed the savages, pointing, when we neared the village. As we had already learned thatigloomeant hut, in their language, we were much rejoiced; for we were very tired with the long journey, and cold besides. But still we fell to wondering what sort of place this was we were coming to, and what strange sight we were next going to see.
“Old Grim drove his sledge close up along side of Eatum’s, trying to pass; and we went into the village with a perfect rush,—the men shouting, the dogs barking, and everything in an uproar generally.
“While this race between Old Grim and Eatum was going on, the Dean and I were for a few moments side by side, and near together. The Dean called out to me, ‘Hardy, this don’t seem real, does it? These ain’t dogs, they are wolves; these ain’t men, they’re devils’; and, as I looked over at Old Grim, and saw him throwing his long whip to right and left, and heard him calling out to his dogs in a language which seemed like nothing human, and all the while preserving the same immovable expression of countenance, I must confess that there seemed to be a great deal of truth in what the Dean said.
“Thus it was we went rushing into the village. And a strange village, indeed, it proved to be,—nothing but a collection of huts made of frost-hardened snow. There were in all six of them.
“Many more savages were there, who came out to meet us; and their dogs rushed out too, making a great noise; and when we had halted, a number of women joined them, all dressed in furs just like the men, and also children dressed in the same way, and all very curious about us, and allyeh-yeh-inga great deal. Indeed, we made such a commotion in the village as never was seen before.
“But everybody appeared to be kindly disposed towards us, and into one of the huts we were both taken immediately, and down we sat on the floor of the hut, which was covered all over with bear-skins. There were two lamps in it, almost exactly like ours, and two pots were hanging over them. We had soon a good meal, and very quickly after that were sound asleep; and even although it was a snow hut, and among savages, we were thankful in our very heart of hearts. And our thankfulness was because we were among human beings once more, and felt no longer as if we were wholly cast away from the world; and we now felt hopeful that through these savages would come means of escape to our homes. We felt thankful, too, that they treated us so kindly,—the women especially; for, savages though they were, they were possessed of much feeling and sympathy. One of the women made the Dean go to sleep with his head in her lap, which it was easy to see he did not like a bit; and, before this, she had fed him with her own fingers, and, while he was sleeping, she stroked his bright hair away from his handsome face. Another of the women treated me very much in the same way; but being older, and not handsome, like the Dean, I did not come in for so many favors.
“Then, besides that, the women took off our damp fur stockings, and gave us dry ones before we went to sleep; and they seemed to want to do everything they could for us, so that we soon became convinced they meant us no harm. The woman who was particularly kind to me was the wife of Eatum; and the Dean and I at once called her Mrs. Eatum, which made them allyeh-yehvery much; and they got to callingher that too,—as near, at least, as they could pronounce it which was,Impsuseatum. Her right name wasSerkut, which means ‘little nose’; Eatum’s right name wasTuk-tuk, that is, reindeer, because he could run very fast. There were two young Eatums; and when I began to play with them, I grew in great favor with the Eatum family.
“The Dean was quite as well off for patrons as I, being specially taken care of by a woman whose husband had been one of our party. Her name I forget now, but it meant ‘big toes.’ So what with nursing by ‘Mrs. Little-nose’ and ‘Mrs. Big-toes,’ and with plenty of seal meat to eat, the Dean and I got on famously. The name of Mrs. Big-toes’ husband wasAwak, which means walrus. He was a fine hunter, and had plenty of dogs. These dogs, I should mention, were always allowed to run loose about the village; and, no matter how cold it was, they slept on the snow. But their harness had to be taken off, else they would eat it; and everything eatable was buried out of sight in the snow, or brought inside the hut.
“After we had been eating, and sleeping, and enjoying the hospitality of these savages about three days, a young hunter whose name wasKossuit, which meant that he was a little dark-skinned fellow, came driving into the village (he had been out prospecting for a hunt), proclaiming, in a very loud voice, that there was a great crack in the ice, and that it was alive with walrus and seal. There was immediately a great stir, and a great harnessing of dogs, and hunting up of whips, and getting together of harpoons and spears and lines. Everybody was going on the hunt, that is, all the men and boys. When all was ready, Eatum came to me, and said, ‘Ketchumawak, ketchumpussay, you go?’ meaning, would we go with them,and catch walrus and seals. Of course we said ‘yes,’ and off we started at a wild pace; the Dean riding with Kossuit, while I rode with Eatum. We had to go I should think four miles before we came to the crack; and, when we reached it, we found it to be as Kossuit had described it. As soon as the savages saw the crack, they stopped their dogs, which was done by crying,Eigh, eigh, eigh!to them, and whipping then:, fiercely if they did not mind soon enough. The dogs being now fastened by running the points of the runners into the snow, the hunters went forward with their lines and spears and harpoons; and, by approaching the side of the crack very cautiously, they managed at length to get near enough to throw their harpoons into the animals when they came up to the surface to breathe. Their mode of capturing them was almost the same as that which we employed in catching seals, after finding it out for ourselves. Thus you see how all people in the same conditions of life will naturally be led to the same way of providing for their wants,—our senses being given to us all, whether savage or civilized, for the same purpose. I have showed you already how, in our mode of starting a fire, in our lamp, pot, and other domestic implements; our clothing, harpoon, and the like,—we had imitated these savages unconsciously; and the more I was with them, the more I saw how much we were like them.
“Knowing how we killed the seals, it is not necessary to tell you how the savages managed; and catching the walrus was just the same, only more difficult, for a walrus is several times larger than a seal. You know the walrus are those huge marine animals, living in the Arctic seas, that have long white tusks, and look so fierce. They make a very loud and very hideous noise; and in the summer, like the seals, theycome up on the ice, or on the rocks along the shore, in great numbers, to bask and sleep in the sun.
“It is enough to say there was a great deal of sport, and a great deal of excitement, not unmixed with danger. One of the hunters got a line tangled about his legs, and was whipped over into the water, where he was not noticed, except to be laughed at, while all the hunters went on with what they were about, letting him shift for himself,—little caring, as it appeared, whether he drowned or not; and I really believe he would have drowned, had it not been for the assistance of the Dean and myself. This was the first time I had observed how reckless these people were of their lives.
“There were in the party altogether nine sledges, with one good hunter to each sledge. Five of them were old men and four were young men, besides which there were six boys of various ages; and these, with the Dean and myself, made seventeen. By helping each other all round, we caught seven seals and three walruses,—all of which we skinned and quartered, and put on the sledges; and then we returned to the village,—walking back, however, as the load on the sledges was too heavy to allow us to ride.
“When we reached the village, the women came out to meet us, talking very much, andyeh, yeh-ing louder than ever; and now I observed that they took all the game we had captured, and butchered it, the men doing nothing at all but look after their dogs. It was thought to be a disgrace for a man to do any work about his hut.
“The Dean and I had taken our full share in the hunt, and won much admiration. Before, they had treated us with a kind of pity, but now they had great respect for us. Eatum said, ‘Much good hunter you.’
“Seeing that we were good hunters, they were now going to marry us right off, that we might have wives to cut up our seals when we brought them home, which proposition put us in a great embarrassment. If we refused, they might be offended, as was very natural; so I accepted their offer at once without a moment’s hesitation, appearing as if I was very glad, and thought it a great compliment indeed; but at the same time I told them, with a very grave face, that all our relations lived in a far-off country, to which we were obliged to go as soon as a ship came that way; and, of course, when we did go, the wives they gave us would go along. As none of the young women were willing to take us on these conditions, although not very flattering to us, we got out of the difficulty without offending anybody. At first the Dean was quite indignant, but afterwards he laughed, and said, ‘Why, just think of it! Mrs. Hardy and Mrs. Dean in seal-skin breeches and long boots,—a jolly idea indeed!’ But one of the girls was fond enough of the Dean for all, only she mustn’t show it; for these people are mighty particular about that. When all is arranged by the parents, the girl is obliged, even then, to say she won’t have her lover. So the lover has to steal up, and take her unawares, and run off with her bodily. Of coarse, if she really likes the fellow, and wants to get married to him, he has an easy time enough of it; but if, on the other hand, she dislikes him, she can readily get away from him.
“Old Grim (whose right name was Metak, meaning eider-duck) had an adventure of this sort, as they told me, which resulted very differently from what usually happens. He was then quite a young man, but, having caught a seal, he thought it was time he had a wife. Meanwhile a wife had been provided for him by his father, who had made the bargain withthe girl’s father. The girl was told who her husband was to be, but it would have been against all rules to tell her when he was coming after her. Well, as I have said, having caught his first seal, Metak made up his mind to have a wife to butcher it for him; so he set out for the snow hut of his lady-love’s father, where the dusky-faced girl was lying fast asleep, all rolled up in furs.
“As it was contrary to custom for any girl to be captured in a hut, but must be taken on the wing, as it were, Metak had to wait for her to come out, which she finally did, and passed very near a deep bank of snow, behind which her lover was lying, shivering with cold, and crying with impatience. Quick as a fox to pounce upon an unsuspecting rabbit was Metak to pounce upon the unsuspecting girl. He seized her, and started for his sledge. She screamed, she pulled his hair, she tore his fur, she bit his fingers; but the valiant Metak held manfully to his purpose, and would not let her go. He reached the sledge, and put her on it; he tied her there, and, springing on himself, he whipped up his dogs, and started for his home. But the refractory damsel would not stay tied. She cut the lashings with her teeth, she seized the whip out of Metak’s hands, she pushed Metak off the sledge, and sent him sprawling on the snow; and then she wheeled the dogs around, and fairly made them fly again on the backward track to her father’s hut, where she crawled once more into her nest of furs, and where the luckless Metak was ever afterwards content to let her stay, satisfied that he was no match for her.
“This story was told by Eatum one evening in the snow hut, while Old Grim was present, and it was evidently a standing joke against him. He did not seem to relish it at all, for he went out of the hut as if driven away by their shouts oflaughter. I could not understand the language well enough to fully appreciate the story at the time, but afterward I got Eatum to repeat it to me.
“It proved that the name Old Grim, that the Dean and I had given Metak, was even more appropriate than we thought; for it seemed that he was generally known as the man who laughed with his insides without the help of his face.
“Altogether these savages were a most singular people. They seemed to be happy and cheerful all the time, never caring for anything, so long as they had enough to eat, and plenty of time to tell stories about each other and make each other laugh. But what struck the Dean and I most strangely was that they should be living in this happy state away out there on the sea, a long distance from land, really burrowing in the snow for shelter, and roaming about for food like beasts of prey, and yet enjoying themselves and amusing themselves after the fashion of civilized human beings, so far as their relations to one another were concerned.
“‘Well, I do declare,’ said the Dean, ‘this is an odd party, to be sure. I’m going to christen them, Hardy.’
“‘Christen them, or Christian them’? I asked.
“‘Both, perhaps,’ answered the Dean; ‘but for the present I mean christen,—that is, give them a name.’
“‘That I understand; but what’s the name?’
“‘The Children of the Frozen Sea.’
“‘Very good,’ I said, ‘capital! Children of the frozen sea! Sounds good, at any rate; and all the world is agreed that whatever sounds good must be good.’”