WOLMAR FYNBÖE.
After various efforts to make ourselves mutually understood, he said
something in a kind of jargon which resembled German, and as I had
learned that language at home for commercial rather than literary
purposes, we contrived to converse, though not with great fluency,
using grimaces and signs when words failed us, which was a
circumstance of frequent occurrence.
He informed me that he had been searching for a friend who came forth
to hunt for a musk-ox, which had been seen in their district, and who
he feared had fallen a victim to its horns or the bear's paws.
"I shot the musk-ox," said I; "and as for your friend, I fear your
surmises are only too correct, for the half-devoured remains of a
dead man are lying at the foot of these rocks just now."
He hurried to the base of the precipice, where I was too exhausted to
follow him, and by the sounds of rage and lamentation which preceded
his return, I was assured that his friend or kinsman had been the
victim of these rapacious brutes. This comforted me, however, with
the conviction that the remains were neither those of Paul Reeves nor
old Peterkin, our second mate.
But, meantime, where were they?
The Greenlander rejoined me, with my shot-belt and gory knife, which
he found among the rocks. He thanked me for so amply avenging his
friend's death on his destroyers, and proceeded at once to calculate
the value of the four skins and eight hams of the bears. He invited
me to his house, which he said was not far off, adding that his name
was Wolmar Fynböe; that he was a merchant who exported to Europe
seal-skins, the horns of the sea-unicorn, whalebone, and blubber;
bartering these, and the skins of blue and white foxes, hares, and
bears, for knives and guns, shot, tobacco, barley, beer and brandy,
&c.; that he had once been as far as Kiobenhaven,[*] but did not like
the manners of the _kablunaet_ (foreigners), who were but half men
when compared to the Greenlanders; for national vanity is a great
characteristic of these poor people, as it is of many others even
less civilized.
[*] Copenhagen.
Like the Lapps, he wore a long pelisse of untanned reindeer skin,
having a hood like a friar's cowl attached thereto, and buttons of
walrus teeth. His hose, boots, and breeches, which were all in one,
were of the same material, but decorated at the sides by bunches of
thongs and tufts of white bearskin. Thus, but for his fair
complexion, he might have passed very well for an Esquimau of the
Labrador coast.
I gladly committed myself to his guidance.
We soon reached his house, a dwelling of singular aspect, built on
the slope of a snow-covered hill which overlooked the Fin Whale
Strait, on the waters of which the rays of the northern Aurora were
still playing with wondrous beauty; and from thence he dispatched
some of his men to bring home the remains of his friend, the dead
bears, and the head of the musk-ox.
We were received at the door by an old servant, a woman of fearful
aspect, also dressed in skins; but these were adorned by stripes of
red and blue leather to indicate her sex. She was aged, and being of
"the _old_ school"--for there is one there, even in Greenland--she
was tattooed as completely as if she had been a denizen of Nootka
Sound. Aloft in her hand, which resembled a crow's talons, she held
a lamp to light us into an inner apartment, where Wolmar Fynböe
introduced me to his daughters, two girls dressed in skins; but these
were neatly adorned with variously-coloured leather, especially about
the moccassins which encased their trim legs. Their dresses were cut
low at the neck, either to reveal its whiteness (for females have
vanity even in that region of ice), or to display their under
garments, which were formed of the skins of little birds, ingeniously
preserved, sewn together, and worn with the soft feathers next the
skin.
Wolmar Fynböe was the tallest man in Greenland, yet he measured only
five feet; and though deemed handsome, he had all the peculiarities
of his race--to wit, a paunchy figure, a broad flat visage, of a
brown brick-dust colour; small eyes, thick lips, and coal-black
locks, that waved upon his shoulders like those of a gnome.
Nevertheless, his daughters Grethe and Alfa had rather regular
features, clear complexions, and long brown hair, their mother having
been a woman of Iceland.
They were preparing a supper of _grod_ (Danish), a species of food
made of oats or barley, and eaten with butter and milk, when their
father's entrance with a _stranger_--a being more seldom seen than
mermaids and gnomes, by common report--startled them so much, that
some time elapsed before they could resume their occupation, and
swing upon the fire the great pot-stone kettle containing the
aforesaid _grod_ with my assistance--in proffering which I won the
hearts of all, politeness to females being rather a rarity on the
shore of the Fin Whale Strait.
The large fire burned brightly and cheerily, being composed of
drift-wood; for upon that barren coast, in addition to the stranded
wrecks of Scottish and Russian whalers, are found at times the spoil
of the Great Gulf Stream, the palmettoes of South America, and,
covered with weeds and barnacles, the vast logs that whilome cast the
shadows of their foliage on the lovely Bay of Honduras. By this
strange current the spoils of Virginia and Carolina are also cast on
the shores of Iceland, and by it the main-mast of H.M.S. _Tilbury_,
which was burned in Jamaica, was thrown upon the western coast of
Scotland.
After having fed so long upon the spoils of the ice--the odds and
ends of seals and blubber--I made a veritable banquet with the worthy
merchant and his two daughters. Then we had the luxury of hot
brandy-and-water thereafter--the Ganymede who served us being, ugh!
the old tattooed woman.
I have mentioned that the mansion of Weimar Fynböe presented a
curious aspect, but this arose from the circumstance of its being (as
he informed me) built from the remains of an old whale-ship of large
dimensions, which had been cast away in the Fin Whale Strait about
one hundred and fifty years ago. Her ribs and timbers formed the
roof and uprights of the walls; on these the outer and inner
sheathing were bolted or pegged anew, and filled-in between with moss
and turf. The lockers in which her cabin stores had been placed were
our seats, the beds were her berths; the room of the fur-clad Grethe
and Alfa was merely separated from ours by an old bulkhead, in the
centre of which a cabin door was hinged. The four stern-windows were
framed into the wall, a luxury, a piece of splendour, in Greenland,
where the casements are usually formed of the entrails of seals and
dolphins dried, and neatly stitched together. Some faded charts were
nailed on the wall as pictures. An old musket or two, and a
pinchbeck watch, were nearly all that now remained of the spoil found
in the ship, which had been deserted by her crew; but from none of
these relics could her name or country be discerned, though I
supposed her to have been English from the circumstance of a Bible
and little book in that language having been found in her by the
grandfather of Wolmar Fynböe, who built his house from her materials.
The "little book" Wolmar showed me. It was a curious black-letter
pamphlet, printed at London in the time of Charles II., and in Dutch
types. I took a particular fancy for it, as it contained the
relation of a perilous voyage performed by a ship which belonged to
the Seven United Provinces.
Wolmar Fynböe offered to barter it for the horns of the musk-ox; but
I assured him that he was welcome alike to the entire head, the
bears' skins, and hams to boot. To this he agreed at once,
conceiving, probably, that one who parted so readily with spoil did
not deserve to possess any; so I retired with my literary acquisition
(the contents of which I shall give to the reader elsewhere), begging
Wolmar Fynböe to have me summoned betimes in the morning, as I was
most anxious to reach Cunninghame's Haven, and rejoin my friends on
board the _Leda_.