CHAPTER XXII.
SPRING TWILIGHT.—ARRIVAL OF ESQUIMAUX.—OBTAINING DOGS.—KALUTUNAH, TATTARAT, MYOUK, AMALATOK AND HIS SON.—AN ARCTIC HOSPITAL.—ESQUIMAU GRATITUDE.
SPRING TWILIGHT.—ARRIVAL OF ESQUIMAUX.—OBTAINING DOGS.—KALUTUNAH, TATTARAT, MYOUK, AMALATOK AND HIS SON.—AN ARCTIC HOSPITAL.—ESQUIMAU GRATITUDE.
My time became now fully occupied with preparations for my journey northward. The sun appearing on the 18th, as recorded in the last chapter, rose completely above the horizon on the next day, was something higher the day following, and, continuing to ascend in steady progression, we had soon several hours of broad daylight before and after noon, although the sun did not for some time come in sight above the hills on the south side of the harbor. The long dreary night was passing away; we had with each succeeding day an increase of light, and the spring twilight was merging slowly into the continual sunshine of the summer, as we had before seen the autumn twilight pass into the continued darkness of the winter.
The details of my preparations for traveling would have little interest to the reader, and I pass them over. It is proper, however, that I should recur to the situation in which I found myself, now that the traveling season had opened.
The dogs, five in number, which Hans brought back from the southern journey, had recovered, and did not appear to have been materially injured; but there were not enough of them to furnish a serviceableteam for one sledge. They were therefore of little use; and it became clear that, unless I obtained a fresh supply from the Esquimaux, any plan of sledge exploration which I might form must depend wholly upon the men for its execution. Men, instead of dogs, must drag the sledges.
ARRIVAL OF ESQUIMAUX.
The Esquimaux had disappointed me by not coming up to Etah; and, February having almost passed away without bringing reinforcements from that quarter, I had quite given up the expectation of seeing them, when a party of three arrived most opportunely. This gave me new encouragement; for, although I could not hope to replace the fine teams which I had lost, yet there was still a prospect of some much-needed assistance.
The Esquimau party comprised three individuals, all of whom I had known before. Their names were Kalutunah, Tattarat, and Myouk. Kalutunah was, in 1854, the best hunter of the tribe, and was, besides, the Angekok, or priest. He was not slow to tell me that he had since advanced to the dignity of chief, or Nalegak, an office which, however, gave him no authority, as the Esquimaux are each a law unto himself, and they submit to no control. The title is about as vague as that of "Defender of the Faith;" and the parallel is not altogether bad, for if this latter did originate in a Latin treatise about the "Seven Sacraments," it was perpetuated by a sharp sword; and so the title chief, or Nalegak as they call it, is the compliment paid to the most skillful hunter, and his title is perpetuated by skill in the use of a sharp harpoon.
ESQUIMAU TEAMS.
The excellence of Kalutunah's hunting equipments—his strong lines and lances and harpoons, his finesledge and hearty, sleek dogs—bore ample evidence of the sagacity of the tribe. Tattarat was a very different style of person. His name signifies "The Kittiwake Gull," and a more fitting title could hardly have been bestowed upon him, for he was the perfect type of that noisy, chattering, graceful bird, thriftless to the last degree; and, like many another kittiwake gull or Harold Skimpole of society, he was, in spite of thieving and other arts, always "out at elbows." Myouk was not unlike him, only that he was worse, if possible. He was, in truth, one of Satan's regularly enlisted light-infantry, and was as full of tricks as Asmodeus himself.
The party came up on two sledges. Kalutunah drove one and Tattarat the other. Kalutunah's team was his own. Of the other team, two dogs belonged to Tattarat, one was borrowed, and the fourth was the property of Myouk. It is curious to observe how the same traits of character exhibit themselves in all peoples, and by the same evidences. While Kalutunah came in with his dogs looking fresh and in fine condition, with strong traces and solid sledge, the team of Tattarat was a set of as lean and hungry-looking curs as ever was seen, their traces all knotted and tangled, and the sledge rickety and almost tumbling to pieces. They had traveled all the way from Iteplik without halting, except for a short rest at Sorfalik. They declared that they had not tasted food since leaving their homes; and if the appetite should govern the belief, I thought that there was no ground for doubting, since they made away with the best part of a quarter of venison, the swallowing of which was much aided by sundry chunks of walrus blubber, beforethey rolled over among the reindeer skins of Tcheitchenguak's hut and slept.
KALUTUNAH.
Next morning I had Kalutunah brought to my cabin, thinking to treat him with that distinguished consideration due to his exalted rank. But caution was necessary. For a stool I gave him a keg, and I was particularly careful that his person should not come in contact with any thing else, for under the ample furs of this renowned chief there were roaming great droves of creeping things, for which no learned lexicographer has yet invented a polite name, and so I cannot further describe them. Nor can I adequately describe the man himself, as he sat upon the keg, his body hidden in a huge fur coat, with its great hood, and his legs and feet inserted in long-haired bear-skin,—the whole costume differing little from the hitherto described dress of the dark-faced Tcheitchenguak. He was a study for a painter. No child could have exhibited more unbounded delight, had all the toys of Nuremberg been tumbled into one heap before him. To picture his face with any thing short of a skillful brush were an impossible task. It was not comely like that of "Villiers with the flaxen hair," nor yet handsome like that of the warrior chief Nireus, whom Homer celebrates as the handsomest man in the whole Greek army, (and never mentions afterwards,) nor was it like Ossian's chief, "the changes of whose face were as various as the shadows which fly over the field of grass;" but it was bathed in the sunshine of a broad grin. Altogether it was quite characteristic of his race, although expressing a much higher type of manhood than usual. The features differed only in degree from those of Tcheitchenguak, heretofore described; the skin was less dark, the facebroader, the cheek-bones higher, the nose flatter and more curved, the upper lip longer, the mouth wider, the eyes even smaller, contracting when he laughed into scarcely distinguishable slits. Upon his long upper lip grew a little hedge-row of black bristles, which did not curl gracefully nor droop languidly, but which stuck straight out like the whiskers of a cat. A few of the same sort radiated from his chin. I judged him to be about forty years old, and since soap and towels and the external application of water have not yet been introduced among the native inhabitants of Whale Sound, these forty years had favored the accumulation of a coating to the skin, which, by the unequal operation of friction, had given his hands and face quite a spotted appearance.
A DIRTY POTENTATE.
But if he was not handsome, he was not really ugly; for, despite his coarse features and dirty face, there was a rugged sort of good-humor and frank simplicity about the fellow which pleased me greatly. His tongue was not inclined to rest. He must tell me every thing. His wife was still living, and had added two girls to the amount of his responsibilities; but his face glowed with delight when I asked him about their first-born, whom I remembered in 1854 as a bright boy of some five or six summers, and he exhibited all of a father's just pride in the prospect of the lad's future greatness. Already he could catch birds, and was learning to drive dogs.
I asked him about his old rival Sipsu, who once gave me much trouble, and was an endless source of inconvenience to Kalutunah. He was dead. When asked how he died, he was a little loath to tell, but he finally said that he had been killed. He had become very unpopular, and was stabbed one night in a darkhut, and, bleeding from a mortal wound, had been dragged out and buried in the stones and snow, where the cold and the hurt together soon terminated as well his life as his mischief.
Death had made fearful ravages among his people since I had seen them five years before, and he complained bitterly of the hardships of the last winter, in consequence of a great deficiency of dogs, the same distemper which swept mine off having attacked those of his people. Indeed, the disease appears to have been universal throughout the entire length of Greenland. But notwithstanding this poverty, he undertook to supply me with some animals, in return for which I was to make liberal presents; and, as a proof of his sincerity, he offered me two of the four which composed his present team. From Tattarat I afterwards purchased one of his three, and for a fine knife I obtained the fourth one of that hunter's team, the property of Myouk, and the only dog that he possessed.
A PRIMITIVE TREATY.
The hunters were all well pleased with their bargains, for they went away rich in iron, knives, and needles,—wealth to them more valuable than would have been all the vast piles of treasure with which the Inca Atahuallpa sought to satisfy the rapacious Pizarro, or the lacs of rupees with which the luckless Rajah Nuncomar strove to free himself from the clutches of the remorseless Hastings. And we had made a treaty of peace and friendship, and had ratified it by a solemn promise, befitting a Nalegak and a Nalegaksoak. The Nalegak was to furnish the Nalegaksoak with dogs, and the Nalegaksoak was to pay for them. This exceedingly simple treaty may at first strike the reader with surprise; but I feel surethat that surprise will vanish when he recalls the memorable historical parallel of Burgoyne and his Hessians.
OBTAINING DOGS.
I did not tell Kalutunah that I wished only to bestow benefits upon his people, for no one is more quick to penetrate the hollowness of such declarations than the "untutored savage." He is not so easily hoaxed with philanthropic sentiment as is generally supposed, and he fully recognizes the practical features of being expected to return aquid pro quo. But I did venture upon a little harmless imposition of another sort, giving him to understand that it was useless for the Esquimaux to attempt to deceive me, as I could read not only their acts but their thoughts as well; and, in proof of my powers, I performed before him some simple sleight-of-hand tricks, and after turning up a card with much gravity told him exactly what (it was not much of a venture) Ootinah and his wooden-legged companion had stolen. He was much astonished, said that I was quite right about the stealing, for he had seen the stolen articles himself, and evidently thought me a wonderful magician. He owned to me that he did something in the jugglery business himself; but when I asked him about his journeys to the bottom of the sea, in his Angekok capacity, to break the spell by which the evil spirit Torngak holds within her anger the walrus and seal, in the days of famine, he very adroitly changed the subject, and began to describe a recent bear-hunt which appeared to amuse him greatly. The wounded animal broke away from the dogs, and, making a dive at one of the hunters, knocked the wind out of the unhappy man with a blow of his fore-paw. Kalutunah laughed heartily while relating the story, and seemed to think it a capital joke.
Our savage guests remained with us a few days, and then set out for their homes, declaring their intention to come speedily back and bring more of the tribe and dogs. I drove out with them a few miles, and we parted on the ice. When about a mile away, I observed Myouk jump from the sledge to pick up something which he had dropped. No doubt rejoiced to be rid of this extra load on his rickety sledge, Tattarat whipped up his team, and the last I saw of poor Myouk he was running on, struggling manfully to catch up; but, notwithstanding all his efforts, he was falling behind, and it is not unlikely that he was suffered to walk all the way to Iteplik.
AN ARCTIC MICAWBER.
DOMESTIC FELICITY.
This Myouk was the same droll creature that he was when I knew him formerly,—a sort of Arctic Micawber, everlastingly waiting for something to turn up which never did turn up; and, with much cheerfulness, hoping for good luck which never came. He recited to me all of his hardships and misfortunes. His sledge was all broken to pieces, and he could not mend it; his dogs were all dead except the one he sold to me; he had stuck his harpoon into a walrus, and the line had parted, and the walrus carried it away; he had lost his lance, and altogether his affairs were in a very lamentable state. His family were in great distress, as he could not catch any thing for them to eat, and so they had gone to Tattarat's hut. Tattarat was a poor hunter, and he made a terrible grimace, which told how great was his contempt for that doughty individual. So now he proposed, as soon as he got home, to try Kalutunah. To be sure, Kalutunah's establishment was pretty well filled already, there being not less than three families quartered there; but still, he thought there was room for onefamily more. At all events, he should try it. And now would not the Nalegaksoak,—the big chief who was so rich and so mighty, be good enough to give him so many presents that he would go back and make everybody envious? Human nature is the same in the Arctic as in the Temperate zone; and, gratified with this discovery, I fairly loaded the rogue down with riches, and sent him away rejoicing. But this wife, what of her? "Oh, she's lazy and will not do any thing, and made me come all this long journey to get her some needles which she won't use, and a knife which she has no use for; and now when I go back without any dog, won't I catch it!"—and he caught hold of his tongue and pulled it as far out of his mouth as he could get it, trying in this graphic manner to illustrate the length of that aggressive organ in the wife of his bosom. "But," added this savage Benedict, "she has a ragged coat, so full of holes that she cannot go out of the hut without fear of freezing; and if she scolds me too much I won't give her any of these needles, and I won't catch her any foxes to make a new one;"—but it was easy to see that the needles would not be long withheld, and that the foxes would be caught when he was told to catch them. And so pitying his domestic misfortunes, I added some presents for this amiable creature of the ragged coat; and when he told me that she had presented him with an heir to the Myouk miseries, I added something for that, too. This little hopeful, he informed me, was already being weaned from its natural and maternal supplies, and was exhibiting great aptitude for blubber. He had called it Dak-ta-gee, which was the nearest that he could come to pronouncing Doctor Kane.
ESQUIMAU GRATITUDE.
Kalutunah and his companions had scarcely been gone when another sledge came, bringing two more Esquimaux,—Amalatok, of Northumberland Island, and his son. They had four dogs; and having stopped on the way to catch a walrus, part of which they had brought with them, they were much fatigued; and, having got wet in securing the prize, they were cold and a little frozen. Both were for several days quite sick in Tcheitchenguak's snow-hut, and I had at last a patient, and the snow-hut became a sort of hospital, for old Tcheitchenguak was sick too. I either visited them myself or sent Mr. Knorr twice daily; but the odor of the place becoming at length too much for that gentleman's aristocratic nose, I could no longer prescribe by proxy, and so went myself and cured my patients very speedily, winning great credit as a Narkosak, the "medicine man," in addition to being the Nalegaksoak, "the big chief." Amalatok thought at one time that he was going to die, and indeed I became sincerely alarmed about my reputation; but he came round all right in the end, and, strange though it may appear, his memory actually outlived the service long enough for him to do more than to say "Koyanak,"—"I thank you;"—that is to say, as soon as he could get about he brought me his best dog, and, in token of gratitude, made me a present of it. Afterward, upon the offer of some substantial gifts, he sold me another, and he went home as rich as the party that had preceded him, and happy as Moses Primrose returning from the fair with his gross of shagreen spectacles.
And thus my kennels were being once more filled up, and my heart was rejoiced.