ADIEU TO THE REGION OF ICE.
Next morning I was up early, my bed not being exactly so luxurious as
I could have wished; and there was about everything that overpowering
odour of blubber which pervades a Greenland household. For
breakfast, Grethe brought in a gaily-painted Muscovite bowl, full of
warm milk, and a hot barley-cake, made by Alfa. Her father soon
after brought my gun, cleaned and oiled; and then bidding adieu in
rather symbolical language to his daughters, we set forth into the
clear, cold atmosphere of the young May morning--for we were now in
what is deemed in kindlier climes the second month of summer--but as
yet no sun was visible.
Far away in distance stretched the Fin Whale Strait, towards Kalla
Fiord, which opens into the Icy Sea; its broken scenery, its
splintered crags, its lofty bluffs and pinnacles, exhibiting the most
singular combinations of light and shadow in the yellow blaze of the
yet unrisen sun. The summits seemed tipped with fire, while the
bases which rose sheer from the still, deep waters of the waveless
strait were dark and sombre as ebony.
Waveless it truly was, save where broken by the knoblike head of a
blackfin-whale, as he swam against the wind, and blew clouds of water
into the air.
As we proceeded, I could perceive that Wolmar Fynböe, though merry
and good-humoured, like all Greenlanders was deeply imbued with
superstitions dark and gloomy as those of the Scandinavian Edda.
Leaning on his hunting-spear, he pointed to a rock in the strait,
saying that his mother's sister Alfa (from whom he named his youngest
daughter) was wont to see a handsome young merman seated thereon,
every time she came to the beach to gather shell-fish or dry nets.
"A merman!" I reiterated, believing that I had not heard him
correctly.
"A merman," continued Fynböe, emphatically. "His curling beard was
green, and his features, like those of the _Innuit_ (Greenlanders),
were as soft and pleasing as his manner was mild and persuasive. He
took her by the hand, and after their fourth meeting led her under
the sea, where she lived with him at the bottom of the Fin Whale
Strait for a great many years, and never grew less beautiful, though
she frequently pined for the dwelling of her mother, whom at times
she could behold from the windows of her watery home, every summer
when the ice-floes floated out to sea, and the young whales came to
play about the headlands in the sunny waves.
"One summer came, but the old woman appeared no more on the slope of
the hill; and then Alfa knew that her sorrowing mother had gone to
the Island of the Dead.
"Alfa dwelt with the merman, till one night as he was sporting about
in the moonbeams amid the waters of the strait, Grön Jette, the wild
huntsman, who once in every year comes over the sea at midnight out
of Denmark, slew him by a blow of his lance, as he sped with his
yelling hounds and fierce black horses over land and ocean towards
the north, where the bright streamers were dancing.
"The spell was thus broken; and the young girl found herself turned
suddenly into an old woman, seated on the same rock where, twenty
years before, the merman had wooed and won her; but now seven
well-grown children with fish-tails, and hair that was half green
like her husband's and half golden like her own, were swimming about
in the flood before her, weeping for her return. So, to rejoin them,
she plunged in and was drowned--for the spell of the merman's
presence was no longer around her. Next day I found her body
floating in the strait, and by a string of crystals round her neck,
knew her to be the sister my mother had lost twenty years before. We
bore her to the Island of the Dead; and as we use no coffins, like
the red-haired Danes, we heaped up stones to hide her from view; but
a bear swam off from Sermesoak, tore our gathered heap asunder, and
devoured her!"
Wolmar Fynböe rehearsed this strange story with the utmost good
faith; for he was simple enough to believe that Torngarsück, the God
of Greenland--a spirit which, though no larger than one's thumb, at
times assumes the form of a gigantic white bear--dwelt at the bottom
of the Whale Strait, with his wife the Demon of Evil, guarded by
droves of narwhals and ferocious seals, and surrounded by vast lamps
filled with train-oil, in which the sea-birds swam by night.
With many a strange story of witches, and conflicts with whales,
walruses, and with devils that sailed through the air and changed
themselves into snowdrifts to overwhelm belated hunters, he beguiled
the way, until we reached Cunninghame's Haven, where I found Paul
Reeves and Hans Peterkin awaiting me in considerable anxiety, and
irresolute whether to put off for the Bear Isle and report to Hartly
that I had been lost, or to return once more in search of me.
I now gave the honest Greenlander two crown pieces, as neck amulets
for each of his daughters (among whose descendants they may become
heirlooms for ages), and bidding him farewell, we stepped into our
boat, which was well stocked with game--a large white bear, a pile of
hares, and several brace of birds shot by the two mates. Then we
shoved off to join the _Leda_, and Wolmar Fynböe, ever and anon
pausing to look after us, slowly ascended the cliffs, assisted by his
harpoon-shaped hunting spear, and at last disappeared on the path to
his half-barbarous and wholly secluded home.
In two hours after, we reached the _Leda_, which had her courses
loose, a signal for sea. Our quota of provisions proved a very
acceptable addition to those obtained by Hartly from the Danish
resident.
"Bravo, Jack!" said he, as we hoisted the bear on board, "our
victualling department is complete now, and if this wind holds we
shall weigh an hour before sunset."
"But the victualling--of what does it consist?"
"The dainties--the luxuries of Greenland!"
"Indeed," said I, doubtfully.
"In exchange for a few hundred seal-skins, and some kegs of rancid
blubber, we have got pickled bear's flesh, bull-heads, gulls and
belugas, salmon-trout, and reindeer tongues, hares and partridges in
pickle, with a few tubs of whortleberries, preserved in oil. We
shall have the white bear in the cabin to ourselves."
"Why?"
"Sailors won't eat white bear hams?"
"But why?"
"They assert that the flesh makes their hair grey. We have also a
cask of sorrel preserved in blubber."
"Ugh! of course; but for what purpose?"
"As a preservative against scurvy. And now up blue-peter, man the
windlass, and heave short on the anchor!"
We sailed an hour before sunset; and ere the pale white moon rose
from the sea, the jagged pinnacles of Sermesoak and the stormy bluff
of Cape Farewell were melting into the brilliant sky astern, while
our sailors sang cheerily as they hoisted the working anchor on
board, unbent the chain-cable and stowed it in the tier. The month
being May we had the light of the sun nearly all night, though in the
daytime he only rises thirty-three degrees above the horizon.
However, we lit our binnacle lamps when he set, the sails were
trimmed for a south-west course, and now we fairly bore away into the
mighty ocean, and bade adieu for ever to the REGION OF ICE.