CHAPTER XIX.
SONNTAG.—TWILIGHT INCREASING.—A DEER-HUNT.—THE ARCTIC FOXES.—THE POLAR BEAR.—ADVENTURES WITH BEARS.—OUR NEW ESQUIMAUX.—ESQUIMAU DRESS.—A SNOW HOUSE.—ESQUIMAU IMPLEMENTS.—A WALRUS HUNT.
SONNTAG.—TWILIGHT INCREASING.—A DEER-HUNT.—THE ARCTIC FOXES.—THE POLAR BEAR.—ADVENTURES WITH BEARS.—OUR NEW ESQUIMAUX.—ESQUIMAU DRESS.—A SNOW HOUSE.—ESQUIMAU IMPLEMENTS.—A WALRUS HUNT.
I will not trouble the reader with the many gloomy reflections which I find scattered over the pages of my journal during the period succeeding the events which are recorded in the last chapter. While the loss of my dogs left me in much doubt and uncertainty as to my future prospects, the death of Mr. Sonntag deprived me of assistance which was very essential to the accomplishment of some of my purposes. His familiar acquaintance with the physical sciences, and his earnest enthusiasm in every thing which pertained to physical research, both in the field and study, made him an invaluable aid, while his genial disposition and manly qualities gave him a deep hold upon my affections. Similarity of taste and disposition, equal age, a common object, and a mutual dependence for companionship, had cemented more and more closely a bond of friendship which had its origin in the dangers and fortunes of former travel.
A DEER-HUNT.
The light was now growing upon us from day to day, and we found a fresh excitement in the renewal of the hunt. It must not, however, be supposed that, even at noon, we had yet any daylight; but therewas a twilight, which was increasing with each successive day. The reindeer had grown very poor during the winter, and their flesh was tough and almost tasteless; but this did not discourage the hunters, and several captures were made. One day a large herd came down near the store-house, which, being reported, caused a general scramble for guns, and a rush over the hills to surround the game. The crew appeared more like boys on a holiday frolic than men catering for their mess. They made noise enough, as one would have thought, to frighten every living thing from the neighborhood; but, nevertheless, three deer were shot. The thermometer stood at 41° below zero, and, there being a light wind, the air was somewhat biting, and gave rise to numerous incidents quite characteristic of our life. The handling of the cold gun was attended with some risk to the fingers, as one can neither pull the trigger nor load with a mittened hand; and there were quite a number of slight "burns," as wounds from this cause were jestingly called. McDonald carried an old flint-lock musket, the only weapon that he could lay his hands on, and in the midst of the excitement he was heard to fire. Hurrying in that direction, Knorr eagerly inquired what he was shooting at, and where the game had gone. His answer afterward furnished us not a little amusement: "There was a monstrous big deer deer there half an hour ago, and had I pulled trigger when I left the ship I should have killed him. But you see the powder is so cold that it won't burn, and it takes half an hour to touch it off;" and, to prove his theory, he poured a lot of it out on the dry snow, and applied a match. His singed whiskers bore ample evidence that his theory was not founded on fact.
THE ARCTIC FOXES.
The hill-side seemed to be alive with foxes; and, scenting the blood of the dead deer, they flocked in from all directions. These little animals were at first quite tame, but they had been cured of their familiarity by the lessons learned from the hunters, and had to be approached with adroitness. Of both the blue and white varieties I had living specimens in my cabin. One of them was the gentle creature, named Birdie, which I have already mentioned. The other one was purely white, and did not differ from Birdie in shape, although it was somewhat larger. The fur of the latter was much more coarse than the former. Their cry was exactly the same. But, while Birdie was very docile, and had grown quite domesticated, the other was thoroughly wild and untamable. Their respective weights were 4¼ and 7 pounds. The latter was full grown and unusually large.
These two varieties of the fox, notwithstanding their many points of resemblance, are evidently distinct species. I have not known them to mix, the coat of each preserving its distinctive hue, that of the blue fox varying merely in degree of shade, while the white changes only from pure white to a slightly yellowish tinge. The term "blue," as applied to the species to which Birdie belonged, is not wholly a misnomer, for, as seen upon the snow, its color gives something of that effect. The color is in truth a solid gray, the white and black being harmoniously blended, and not mixed as in the gray fox of Northern America. Their skins are much sought after by the trappers of Southern Greenland, where the animals are rare, for the fur commands a fabulous price in the Copenhagen market.
These foxes obtain a very precarious subsistence,and they may be seen at almost any time scampering over the ice, seeking the tracks of the bears, which they follow with the instinct of the jackal following the lion; not that they try their strength against these roving monarchs of the ice-fields, but, whenever the bear catches a seal, the little fox comes in for a share of the prey. Their food consists besides of an occasional ptarmigan, (the Arctic grouse,) and if quick in his spring he may be lucky enough to capture a hare. In the summer they congregate about the haunts of the birds, and luxuriate upon eggs. It is a popular belief in Greenland that they gather enormous stores of them for their winter provender, but I have never witnessed in them any such evidence of foresight.
THE POLAR BEAR.
ADVENTURES WITH BEARS.
The bears, wandering continually through the night, must needs have a hard struggle to live. During the summer, the seal, which furnish their only subsistence, crawl up on the ice, and are there easily caught; but in the winter they only resort to the cracks to breathe, and, in doing so, barely put their noses above the water, so that they are captured with difficulty. Driven to desperation by hunger, the bear will sometimes invade the haunts of men, in search of the food which their quick sense has detected. Our dogs, during the early winter, kept them from our vicinity; but, when the dogs were gone, several bears made their appearance. One of them came overland from the Fiord, and approached the store-house from behind the observatory, where Starr was engaged in reading the scale of the magnetometer. The heavy tread of the wild beast was heard through the stillness of the night, and, without much regard to the delicate organization of the instrument which he wasobserving, the young gentleman rushed for the door, upset the magnetometer, and had nearly lost his life in his precipitate haste to get over the dangerous ice-foot, while hurrying on board to give the alarm. We sallied out with our rifles; but while Starr was fleeing in one direction, the bear had been making off in the other. I had an adventure, about this time, which, like that of Starr's, shows that the Polar bear is not so ferocious as is generally supposed; indeed, they have never been known to attack man except when hotly pursued and driven to close quarters. Strolling one day along the shore, I was observing with much interest the effect of the recent spring tides upon the ice-foot, when, rounding a point of land, I suddenly found myself confronted in the faint moonlight by an enormous bear. He had just sprung down from the land-ice, and was meeting me at a full trot. We caught sight of each other at the same instant. Being without a rifle or other means of defence, I wheeled suddenly toward the ship, with, I fancy, much the same reflections about discretion and valor as those which crossed the mind of old Jack Falstaff when the Douglas set upon him; but finding, after a few lengthy strides, that I was not gobbled up, I looked back over my shoulder, when, as much to my surprise as gratification, I saw the bear tearing away toward the open water with a celerity which left no doubt as to the state of his mind. I suppose it would be difficult to determine which was the worst frightened—the bear or I.
OUR NEW ESQUIMAUX.
The additions to the Hans family furnished us as well a welcome source of amusement as of service. As I have said before, they were three in number, and bore respectively the names of Tcheitchenguak,Kablunet, and Angeit. This latter was the brother of Hans's wife, and his name signifies "The Catcher"—given to him, no doubt, in early infancy, from some peculiarity of disposition which he then manifested. And he was not inaptly named. The sailors took him into their favor, scrubbed and combed him, and dressed him in Christian clothing, and under their encouraging countenance he was soon found to be as full of tricks as a monkey, and as acquisitive as a magpie. He was the special torment of the steward and the cook. Driven almost to despair, and utterly defeated in every project of reform, the former finally set at the little heathen with a bundle of tracts and a catechism, while the latter declared his fixed resolve to scald him on the first favorable opportunity. "Very well, cook; but remember they hang for murder." "Den I kills him a leetle," was the ready answer.
His mother, Kablunet, proved to be a useful addition to our household. She was very industrious with her needle; and, until she became possessed, in payment for her work, of such articles of domestic use as she needed, sewed for us continually, making every sort of skin garment, from boots to coats, which belong to an Arctic wardrobe. Her complexion was quite light, as her name implied. Kablunet is the title which the Esquimaux give to our race, and it signifies "The child with the white skin;" and if the name of her husband, Tcheitchenguak, did not mean "The child with the dark skin," it ought to, for he was almost black.
The personal appearance of this interesting couple was not peculiarly attractive. Their faces were broad, jaws heavy, cheek-bones projecting like other carnivorous animals, foreheads narrow, eyes small and veryblack, noses flat, lips long and thin, and when opened there were disclosed two narrow, white, well-preserved rows of polished ivory,—well worn, however, with long use and hard service, for the teeth of the Esquimaux serve a great variety of purposes, such as softening skins, pulling and tightening cords, besides masticating food, which I may here mention is wholly animal. Their hair was jet black, though not abundant, and the man had the largest growth of beard which I have seen upon an Esquimau face, but it was confined to the upper lip and the tip of the chin. The face of the Esquimau is indeed quite Mongolian in its type, and is usually beardless. In stature they are short, though well built, and bear, in every movement, evidence of strength and endurance.
ESQUIMAU DRESS.
The dress of the male and female differed but little one from the other. It consisted of nine pieces,—a pair of boots, stockings, mittens, pantaloons, an under-dress, and a coat. The man wore boots of bear-skin, reaching to the top of the calf, where they met the pantaloons, which were composed of the same materials. The boots of the woman reached nearly to the middle of the thigh, and were made of tanned seal-skins. Her pantaloons, like her husband's, were of bear-skin. The stockings were of dog-skin, and the mittens of seal-skin. The under-dress was made of bird-skins, feathers turned inwards; and the coat, which did not open in front, but was drawn on over the head like a shirt, was of blue fox-skins. This coat terminates in a hood which envelops the head as completely as an Albaniancapoteor a monk's cowl. This hood gives the chief distinction to the dresses of the sexes. In the costume of the man it is round, closely fitting the scalp, while in the woman it is pointed atthe top to receive the hair which is gathered up on the crown of the head, and tied into a hard, horn-like tuft with a piece of raw seal-hide,—a style ofcoiffurewhich, whatever may be its other advantages, cannot be regarded as peculiarly picturesque.
Their ages could not be determined; for, since the Esquimaux cannot enumerate beyond their ten fingers, it is quite impossible for them to refer to a past event by any process of notation. Having no written language whatever, not even the picture-writing and hieroglyphics of the rudest Indian tribes of North America, the race possesses no records, and such traditions as may come down from generation to generation are not fixed by any means which will furnish even an approximate estimate of their periods of growth, prosperity, and decay, or even of their own ages.
A SNOW HUT.
TCHEITCHENGUAK "AT HOME."
These old people, soon growing tired of the warmth of Hans's tent, went ashore and built a snow-hut, and set up housekeeping on their own account; and living upon supplies which they got regularly from my abundant stores, and, with no need for exertion, it was perhaps not surprising that they should prove to be a very happy and contented couple. This snow-hut, although an architectural curiosity, would have excited the contempt of a beaver. It was nothing more than an artificial cave in a snow-bank, and was made thus: Right abreast of the ship there was a narrow gorge, in which the wintry winds had piled the snow to a great depth, leaving, as it whirled through the opening, a sort of cavern,—the curving snow-bank on the right and overhead, and the square-sided rock on the left. Starting at the inner side of this cavern, Tcheitchenguak began to bury himself in the snow,very much as a prairie-dog would do in the loose soil,—digging down into the drift, and tossing the lumps behind him with great rapidity. After going downward for about five feet, he ran off horizontally for about ten feet more. This operation completed, he now began to excavate his den. His shovel was struck into the hard snow above his head, the blocks which tumbled down were cleared away, and thrown out into the open air, and in a little while he could stand upright and work; and when at length satisfied with the size of the cave, he smoothed it off all around and overhead, and came out covered with whiteness. The door-way was now fixed up and made just large enough to crawl through on all fours; the entering tunnel was smoothed off like the inside; the floor of the cave was covered first with a layer of stones, and then with several layers of reindeer-skins; the walls were hung with the same materials; two native lamps were lighted; across the door-way was suspended another deer-skin, and Tcheitchenguak and his family were "at home." I called upon them some hours afterwards, and found them apparently warm and comfortable. The lamps (their only fire) blazed up cheerfully, and the light glistened on the white dome of this novel den; the temperature had risen to the freezing point, and Kablunet, like a good housewife, was stitching away at some article of clothing; Tcheitchenguak was repairing a harpoon for his son-in-law, and Angeit, the bright-eyed pest of the galley and the pantry, was busily engaged stowing away in a stomach largely disproportionate to the balance of his body, some bits of venison which looked very much as as if they had recently been surreptitiously obtained from a forbidden corner of the steward's store-room.
ESQUIMAU PRESENTS.
In consideration for the kindness which I had shown these people, they gave me a set of their hunting and domestic implements, the principal of them being a lance, harpoon, coil of line, a rabbit-trap, a lamp, pot, flint and steel, with some lamp-wick and tinder. The lance was a wooden shaft, probably from Dr. Kane's lost ship, theAdvance, with an iron spike lashed firmly to one end of it, and a piece of walrus tusk, shod with sharp iron, at the other. The harpoon staff was a narwal tooth or horn, six feet long,—a very hard and solid piece of ivory, and perfectly straight. The harpoon head was a piece of walrus tusk, three inches long, with a hole through the centre for the line, a hole into one end for the sharpened point of the staff, and at the other end it was, like the lance-head, tipped with iron. The line was simply a strip of raw seal-hide about fifty feet long, and was made by a continuous cut around the body of the seal. The rabbit-trap was merely a seal-skin line with a multitude of loops dangling from it. The lamp was a shallow dish of soft soap-stone, in shape not unlike a clam-shell, and was eight inches by six. The pot was a square-sided vessel of the same material. The flint was a piece of hard granite, the steel a lump of crude iron pyrites, the wick was dried moss, and the tinder the delicate down-like covering of the willow catkins.
Tcheitchenguak told me that he was preparing the lances for a walrus hunt, and that he and Hans intended to try their skill on the morrow. The walrus had been very numerous in the open waters outside the harbor all through the winter, and their shrill cry could be heard at almost any time from the margin of the ice. The flesh of these animals is the staple food of the Esquimaux; and although they prize theflesh of the reindeer, yet it is much as we do "canvas-backs;" and, for a long and steady pull, there is nothing like the "Awak," as they call the walrus, in imitation of its cry. To them its flesh is what rice is to the Hindoo, beef to the Gouchos of Buenos Ayres, or mutton to the Tartars of Mongolia.
A WALRUS HUNT.
A SEASON OF PLENTY.
The proposed hunt came off successfully. Hans and the old man set out with all of their tackle in fine order, and found a numerous herd of walrus swimming near the edge of the ice. They were approached with caution, on all fours, and were not alarmed. The hunters reached within a few feet of the water. They both then lay down flat on the ice and imitated the cry of the animals of which they were in pursuit; and the whole herd was soon brought by this means within easy reach of the harpoon. Rising suddenly, Hans buried his weapon in a good-sized beast, while his companion held fast to the line and secured his end of it with the iron spike of a lance-staff, which he drove into the ice and held down firmly. The beast struggled hard to free itself, floundering and plunging like a wild bull held by a lasso, but all without avail. With every opportunity Hans took in the slack of the line and secured it, and at length the struggling prey was within twenty feet of the hunters. The lance and rifle now did their work very expeditiously; the frightened comrades of the dying animal rushed away through the waters with loud cries of alarm, their deep bass voices sounding strangely through the darkness. The edge of the ice proved to be too thin to bear the captured game, and, having secured it with a line, it was allowed to remain until the following day, when, the ice having thickened with the low temperature, the flesh was chopped outand brought in. The snow-hut now rejoiced in a supply of food and blubber sufficient to last its inmates for a long time to come; the dogs were refreshed with a substantial meal; and the head and skin were put into a barrel and labeled "Smithsonian."
Head of Walrus