GREENLAND.
"SUPPOSE and suppose I tried what the very cold countries are like!"
And Lucy bent over the globe till she was nearly ready to cut her head
off with the brass meridian, as she looked at the long jagged tongue,
with no particular top to it, hanging down on the east side of America.
Perhaps it was the making herself so cold that did it, but she found
herself in the midst of snow, snow, snow. All was snow except the sea,
and that was a deep green, and in it were monstrous floating white
things, pinnacled all over like the Cathedral, and as big, and with
hollows in them of glorious deep blue and green, like jewels; Lucy knew
they were icebergs. A sort of fringe of these cliffs of ice hemmed in
the shore. And on one of them stood what she thought at first was a
little brown bear, for the light was odd, the sun was so very low down,
and there was so much glare from the snow that it seemed unnatural.
However, before she had time to be afraid of the bear, she saw that it
was really a little boy, with a hood and coat and leggings all of thick,
thick fur, and a spear in his hand, with which he every now and then
made a dash at a fish,--great cod fish, such as Mamma had, with oysters,
when there was a dinner-party.
Into them went his spear, up came the poor fish, and was strung with
some others on a string the boy carried. Lucy crept up as well as she
could on the slippery ice, and the little Esquimaux stared at her with a
kind of stupid surprise.
[Illustration: "Is that the way you get fish?" she asked.
_Page 47._]
"Is that the way you get fish?" she asked.
"Yes, and seals; Father gets them," he said.
"Oh, what's that, swimming out there?"
"That's a white bear," he said, coolly; "we had better get home."
Lucy thought so indeed; only where was home? that puzzled her. However,
she trotted along by the side of her companion, and presently came to
what might have been an enormous snowball, but there was a hole in it.
Yes, it was hollow; and as her companion made for the opening, she saw
more little stout figures rolled up in furs inside. Then she perceived
that it was a house built up of blocks of snow, arranged so as to make
the shape of a beehive, all frozen together, and with a window of ice.
It made her shiver to think of going in, but she thought the white bear
might come after her, and in she went. Even her little head had to bend
under the low doorway, and behold it was the very closest, stuffiest, if
not the hottest place she had ever been in! There was a kind of lamp
burning in the hut; that is, a wick was floating in some oil, but there
was no glass, such as Lucy had been apt to think the chief part of a
lamp, and all round it squatted upon skins these queer little stumpy
figures, dressed so much alike that there was no knowing the men from
the women, except that the women had much the biggest boots, and used
them instead of pockets, and they had their babies in bags of skin upon
their backs.
They seemed to be kind people, for they made room by their lamp for the
little girl, and asked her where she had been wrecked, and then one of
the women cut off a great lump of raw something--was it a walrus, with
that round head and big tusks?--and held it up to her; and when Lucy
shook her head and said, "No, thank you," as civilly as she could, the
woman tore it in two, and handed a lump over her shoulder to her baby,
who began to gnaw it. Then her first friend, the little boy, hoping to
please her better, offered her some drink. Ah! it was oil, just like
the oil that was burning in the lamp!--horrid train-oil from the whales!
She could not help shaking her head, so much that she woke herself up!