It need scarcely be said that there was a jovial feast that night at
supper. The bear's tongue was cooked after all, but the impudent
tongues of the party were not silenced, for they almost worried the life
out of poor Davy for having run away from a bear.
Soon after this event the preparations for spending the winter were
completed; at least as far as the fitting up of the vessel was
concerned.
"This morning," writes Gregory, in his journal, "we finished housing
over our Arctic home. The _Hope_ is very snug, lined with moss, and
almost covered with snow. A sail has been spread over the quarter-deck
like an awning; it is also covered with moss and snow. This, we hope,
will give much additional warmth to our house below. We all live
together now, men and officers. It will require our united strength to
fight successfully against that terrible enemy, John Frost. John is
king of the Arctic regions, undoubtedly!
"Dawkins got a cold-bath yesterday that amused the men much and did him
no harm. For some time past we have been carrying moss from the island
in large bundles. Dawkins got leave to help, as he said he was
sick-tired of always working among stores. He was passing close to the
fire-hole with a great bundle of moss on his back, when his foot
slipped, and down he went. This hole is kept constantly open. It is
Baker's duty night and morning to break the ice and have it ready in
case of fire. The ice on the surface was therefore thin; in a moment
nothing was to be seen of poor Dawkins but his bundle! Fortunately he
held tight on to it, and we hauled him out, soaked to the skin. The
thermometer stood at 35 degrees below zero, the coldest day we have had
up to this time; and in two minutes the unfortunate man's clothes were
frozen so stiff that he could scarcely walk! We had to break the ice on
his legs and arms at the joints, and even then he had to be half hoisted
on board and carried below. We all dress in seal-skin and fox-skin
garments now. Dawkins had on a rough coat, made of white and grey
foxes; trousers of the same; boots of seal-skin, and mittens ditto.
When all this was soaked and frozen he was truly a humbling sight!
"The undressing of him was a labour of difficulty as well as of love.
However, when he was rubbed dry, and re-clothed, he was none the worse.
Indeed, I am inclined to think he was much the better of his ducking.
"To-morrow we are to make some curious experiments with boats, sledges,
and kites. The captain is anxious to take our largest boat over the ice
as far to the south as possible, and leave her there with a quantity of
provisions, so that we may have her to fall back upon if any misfortune
should befall the brig, which I earnestly pray that God may forbid.
"Davy Butts, who is an ingenious fellow in his way, says that we can
sail a boat on the ice almost as well as on the water, and that we may
drag sledges by means of kites, if we choose. The captain means to
attempt a journey to the north with sledges in spring, so, if the kites
answer, Butts will have done us good service. But I have my doubts.
"The nights are closing in fast; very soon we shall be without the sun
altogether. But the moon is cheering us. Last night, (28th October)
she swept in a complete circle round the sky _all day_ as well as all
night. She only touched the horizon, and then, instead of setting, she
rose again, as if the frozen sea had frightened her.
"_October 30th_.--Baker came in to-day and reported open water about six
miles off, and walrus sporting in it. I shall set out to-morrow on a
hunt."
The hunt which the young doctor here wrote of came off the following
day, but it was a very different one from what any of the men had
expected.
Early in the morning, Baker, Davy Butts, and Gregory set off on foot,
armed with a rifle and two muskets, besides a couple of harpoons, a
whale-lance, and a long line. They also took a small sledge, which was
intended to be used in hauling home the meat if they should be
successful. Three hours' hard walking brought the party to the edge of
the solid ice, after which they travelled on the floes that were being
constantly broken by the tides, and were only joined together by ice of
a night or two old. This was little more than an inch thick, so they
had to advance with caution.
Presently the loud mooing of a bull walrus was heard. Its roar was
something between the lowing of a bull and the bark of a large dog, but
much louder, for the walrus resembles an elephant in size more than any
other animal. Soon after they came in sight of their game. Five walrus
were snorting and barking in a hole which they had broken in the ice.
The way in which this huge monster opens a hole when he wants to get out
of the sea is to come up from below with considerable violence and send
his head crashing through the ice.
The three men now became very wary. They crept on their hands and knees
behind the ice-hummocks until within about a hundred yards of the
brutes. Then they ascended a small hummock to take a look round and
decide on their plan of operations. While lying there, flat on their
faces, they took particular care to keep their heads well concealed,
just raising them high enough to observe the position of the walrus.
There was a sheet of flat ice between them and the hole, so that it was
impossible to advance nearer without being seen. This perplexed them
much, for although their bullets might hit at that distance, they would
not be able to run in quick enough to use their lances, and the harpoons
would be of no use at all.
While thus undecided what to do, they were unexpectedly taught a lesson
in walrus-hunting that surprised them not a little.
"Hallo! there's a bear!" whispered Davy Butts, as a hairy object crawled
out from behind an ice-hummock about two hundred yards from the place
where they lay, and made toward the walrus in a sly, cat-like manner.
"More like a seal," observed Baker.
"A seal! why, it's a _man_!" said Gregory, in a low, excited whisper.
"So it is, sure enough," said Baker; "it must be an Eskimo, though his
hairy garments make him look more like a bear than a man, and as the
fellow has got here before us, I suppose we must give up our claim to
the brutes."
"Time enough to talk of that when the brutes are killed," said Gregory
with a smile. "But lie still, lads. We will take a lesson from this
fellow, who has been so earnestly staring at the walrus that he has not
noticed us."
The three men lay perfectly motionless watching the native, who crept as
near to the hole as he could without being seen, and then waited for a
few minutes until the creatures should dive. This they were constantly
doing; staying down a few moments at a time, and then coming up to
breathe--for the walrus cannot live without air. He is not a fish, and
although he can stay down a long time, he _must_ come to the surface
occasionally to breathe. In this he resembles the seal and the whale.
Presently, down they all went with a tremendous splash. Now was the
moment! the Eskimo rose, ran at full speed for a few yards, then fell
flat on his face, and lay quite still as if he had been shot dead. The
reason of this was soon apparent. He understood the habits of the
walrus, and knew that they would rise again. This they did almost the
moment after, and began their snorting, bellowing, and rolling again.
Once more they dived. Up got the Eskimo, ran a few yards further
forward, and then fell flat down as before. In this way he got near to
the hole without being seen.
The watchers observed that he carried a harpoon and a coil of thick
line.
The next time the walrus dived he ran to the edge of the hole, but now,
instead of falling down, he stood quite still with the harpoon raised
above his head ready to be thrown. In a few moments the monsters
reappeared. Two rose close at the edge of the hole; one was a male, the
other a female. They were frightfully ugly to look at. Shaking the
water from his head and shoulders, the bull at once caught sight of the
man who had thus suddenly appeared. At that instant the Eskimo threw up
his left arm. This action, instead of frightening the brutes away,
caused them to raise themselves high out of the water, in order to have
a good look at the strange creature who had thus dared to disturb them
in their watery home. This was just what the native wanted. It gave
him a chance of driving the harpoon under the flipper of the male. The
instant this was done he caught up the end of his coil and ran quickly
back to the full length of the line.
The battle that now begun was perhaps one of the fiercest that was ever
fought in the Arctic regions. The walrus lashed the water furiously for
a second or two and dived. This checked the native, who at once stopped
running, drove the sharp point of a little piece of wood into the ice,
and put the loop at the end of his line over it. He pressed the loop
close down to the ice with his feet, so that he could hold on when it
tightened, which it did with great force. But the line was a stout one.
It had been cut from the hide of a walrus, and prepared in a peculiar
way for the purpose of standing a heavy strain.
The Eskimo now played the monster as an angler plays a trout. At one
moment he held on, the next he eased off. The line was sometimes like a
bar of iron, then it was slackened off as the animal rose and darted
about. After this had happened once or twice the bull came to the
surface, blowing tremendously, and began to bark and roar in great fury.
The female came up at the same time. She evidently meant to stick by
her partner and share his danger. The others had dived and made off at
the first sign of war.
The wounded walrus was a little flurried and very angry; the female was
not at all frightened, she was passionately furious! Both of them tore
up the ice tables with their great ivory tusks, and glared at their
enemy with an expression that there was no mistaking. The walrus is
well known to be one of the fiercest animals in the world. Woe to the
poor native if he had been caught by these monsters at that time.
After some minutes spent in uselessly smashing the ice and trying to get
at the native, they both dived. Now came into play the Eskimo's
knowledge of the animal's habits and his skill in this curious kind of
warfare. Before diving they looked steadily at the man for a second,
and then swam under the ice straight for the spot where he stood. The
Eskimo of course could not see this, but he knew it from past
experience. He therefore changed his position instantly; ran a few
yards to one side, and planted his stick and loop again. This had
hardly been done when the ice burst up with a loud crash; a hole of more
than fifteen feet wide was made on the exact spot which the man had
quitted, and the walrus appeared with a puff like that of a
steam-engine, and a roar that would have done credit to a lion.
The great lumpish-looking heads and square-cut faces of the creatures
looked frightful at this point in the fight. There was something like
human intelligence in their malicious and brutal faces, as the water
poured down their cheeks and over their bristling beards, mingled with
blood and foam.
At this moment there was a shout close at hand, and two other Eskimos
ran out from behind the ice-hummocks and joined their comrade. They
were armed with long lances, the handles of which were made of bone, and
the points of beautiful white ivory tipped with steel. It was
afterwards discovered that these natives obtained small pieces of iron
and steel from the Eskimos further south, who were in the habit of
trading at the settlements on the coast of Greenland.
The strangers at once ran to the edge of the pool and gave the bull
walrus two deep wounds with their lances. They also wounded the female.
This seemed to render them more furious than ever. They dived again.
The first Eskimo again shifted his position, and the others ran back a
short distance. They were not a moment too soon in these changes, for
the ice was again burst upward at the spot they had just quitted, and
the enraged beasts once more came bellowing to the surface and vented
their fury on the ice.
It may seem almost incredible to the reader, _but it is a fact_, that
this battle lasted fully four hours. At the end of the third hour it
seemed to the sailors who were watching it, that the result was still
doubtful, for the Eskimos were evidently becoming tired, while the
monsters of the Polar seas were still furious.
"I think we might help them with a butlet," whispered Baker. "It might
frighten them, perhaps, but it would save them a good deal of trouble."
"Wait a little longer," replied Gregory. "I have it in my mind to
astonish them. You see they have wounded the female very badly, but
when the male dies, which he cannot now be long of doing, she will dive
and make off, and so they'll lose her, for they don't seem to have
another harpoon and line."
"Perhaps they have one behind the hummocks," suggested Davy Butts, whose
teeth were chattering in his head with cold.
"If they had they would have used it long ago," said Gregory. "At any
rate I mean to carry out my plan--which is this. When the bull is about
dead I will fire at the female and try to hit her in a deadly part, so
as to kill her at once. Then, Sam, you will run out with our harpoon
and dart into her to prevent her sinking, or diving if she should not be
killed. And you, Davy, will follow me and be ready with a musket."
This plan had just been settled when the bull walrus began to show signs
of approaching death. Gregory therefore took a deliberate aim with the
rifle and fired. The result was startling! The female walrus began to
roll and lash about furiously, smashing the ice and covering the sea
around with bloody foam. At first the Eskimos stood motionless--rooted
to the spot, as if they had been thunderstruck. But when they saw Sam
Baker dart from behind the hummock, flourishing his harpoon, followed by
Gregory and Butts, their courage deserted them; they turned in terror
and fled.
On getting behind the hummocks, however, they halted and peeped over the
ledges of ice to see what the seamen did.
Sam Baker, being an old whaleman, darted his harpoon cleverly, and held
fast the struggling animal. At the same time Davy Butts seized the end
of the line which the natives had thrown down in terror, and held on to
the bull. It was almost dead, and quite unable to show any more fight.
Seeing that all was right, Gregory now laid down his rifle and advanced
slowly to the hummock, behind which the Eskimos had taken refuge.
He knew, from the reports of previous travellers, that holding up both
arms is a sign of peace with the Eskimos. He therefore stopped when
within a short distance of the hummocks and held up his arms. The
signal was understood at once. The natives leaped upon the top of the
hummock and held up their arms in reply. Again Gregory tossed up his,
and made signs to them to draw near. This they did without hesitation,
and the doctor shook them by the hand and patted their hairy shoulders.
They were all of them stout, well-made fellows, about five feet seven or
eight inches high, and very broad across the shoulders. They were fat,
too, and oily-faced, jolly-looking men. They smiled and talked to each
other for a few moments and then spoke to Gregory, but when he shook his
head, as much as to say, "I don't understand you," they burst into a
loud laugh. Then they suddenly became grave, and ran at full speed
toward the hole where the walrus floated.
Davy Butts made the usual sign of friendship and handed them the end of
their line, which they seized, and set about securing their prize
without taking any farther notice of their new friends.
The manner in which these wild yet good-natured fellows hauled the
enormous carcass out of the water was simple and ingenious. They made
four cuts in the neck, about two inches apart from each other, and
raised the skin between these cuts, thus making two bands. Through one
of these bands they passed a line, and carried it to a stick made fast
in the ice, where they passed it through a loop of well-greased hide.
It was then carried back to the animal, made to pass under the second
band, and the end was hauled in by the Eskimos. This formed a sort of
double purchase, that enabled them to pull out of the hole a carcass
which double their numbers could not have hauled up.
Some idea of the bull's weight may be formed when I say that the carcass
was eighteen feet long and eleven feet in circumference at the thickest
part. There were no fewer than sixty deep lance-wounds in various parts
of its body.
When seen close at hand the walrus is a very ugly monster. It is
something like a gigantic seal, having two large flippers, or fins, near
its shoulders, and two others behind, that look like its tail. It uses
these in swimming, but can also use them on land, so as to crawl, or
rather to bounce forward in a clumsy fashion. By means of its
fore-flippers it can raise itself high out of the water, and get upon
the ice and rocks. It is fond of doing this, and is often found
sleeping in the sunshine on the ice and on rocks. It has even been
known to scramble up the side of an island to a height of a hundred
feet, and there lie basking in the sun.
Nevertheless, the water is the proper element of the walrus. All its
motions are clumsy and slow until it gets into the sea; there it is "at
home." Its upper face has a square, bluff look, and its broad muzzle
and cheeks are covered by a coarse beard of bristles, like quills. The
two white tusks point downward. In this they are unlike to those of the
elephant. The tusks of the bull killed on this occasion were thirty
inches long. The hide of the walrus is nearly an inch thick, and is
covered with close, short hair. Beneath the skin he has a thick layer
of fat, and this enables him to resist the extreme cold in the midst of
which he dwells.
The walrus is of great value to the Eskimos. But for it and the seal
these poor members of the human family could not exist at all in those
frozen regions. As it is, it costs them a severe struggle to keep the
life in their bodies. But they do not complain of what seems to us a
hard lot. They have been born to it. They know no happier condition of
life. They wish for no better home, and the All-wise Creator has fitted
them admirably, both in mind and body, to live and even to enjoy life in
a region where most other men could live only in great discomfort, if
they could exist at all.
The Eskimos cut the walrus' thick hide into long lines with which they
hunt--as we have seen. They do not cut these lines in strips and join
them in many places; but, beginning at one end of the skin, they cut
round and round without break to the centre, and thus secure a line of
many fathoms in length.
It is truly said that "necessity is the mother of invention." These
natives have no wood. Not a single tree grows in the whole land of
which I am writing. There are plenty of plants, grasses, mosses, and
beautiful flowers in summer--growing, too, close beside ice-fields that
remain unmelted all the year round. But there is not a tree large
enough to make a harpoon of. Consequently the Eskimos are obliged to
make sledges of bones; and as the bones and tusks of the walrus are not
big enough for this purpose, they tie and piece them together in a
remarkably neat and ingenious manner.
Sometimes, indeed, they find pieces of drift-wood in the sea. Wrecks of
whale-ships, too, are occasionally found by the natives in the south of
Greenland. A few pieces of the precious wood obtained in this way are
exchanged from one tribe to another, and so find their way north. But
the further north we go the fewer pieces of this kind of wood do we
find; and in the far north, where our adventurous voyagers were now
ice-bound, the Eskimos have very little wood, indeed.
Food is the chief object which the Eskimo has in view when he goes out
to do battle with the walrus. Its flesh is somewhat coarse, no doubt,
but it is excellent, nourishing food notwithstanding, and although a
well-fed Englishman might turn up his nose at it, many starving
Englishmen have smacked their lips over walrus-beef in days gone by--
aye, and have eaten it raw, too, with much delight!
Let not my reader doubt the truth of this. Well-known and truth-loving
men have dwelt for a time in those regions, and some of these have said
that they actually came to _prefer_ the walrus flesh raw, because it was
more strengthening, and fitted them better for undertaking long and
trying journeys in extremely cold weather. One of the most gallant men
who ever went to the Polar seas, (Dr Kane, of the American navy), tells
us, in his delightful book, "Arctic Explorations", that he frequently
ate raw flesh and liked it, and that the Eskimos often eat it raw. In
fact, they are not particular. They will eat it cooked or raw--just as
happens to be most convenient for them.
When the animals, whose killing I have described, were secured, the
Eskimos proceeded to skin and cut them up. The sailors, of course,
assisted, and learned a lesson. While this was going on one of their
number went away for a short time, and soon returned with a sledge drawn
by about a dozen dogs. This they loaded with the meat and hide of the
bull, intending evidently to leave the cow to their new friends, as
being their property. But Gregory thought they were entitled to a share
of it, so, after loading his sledge with a considerable portion of the
meat, he gave them the remainder along with the hide.
This pleased them mightily, and caused them to talk much, though to
little purpose. However, Gregory made good use of the language of
signs. He also delighted them with the gift of a brass ring, an old
knife, and a broken pencil-case, and made them understand that his abode
was not far distant, by drawing the figure of a walrus in a hole in the
snow, and then a thing like a bee-hive at some distance from it,
pointing northward at the same time. He struck a harpoon into the
outline of the walrus, to show that it was the animal that had just been
killed, and then went and lay down in the picture of the bee-hive, to
show that he dwelt there.
The natives understood this quite well. They immediately drew another
bee-hive, pointed to the south and to the sun, and held up five fingers.
From this it was understood that their village was five days distant
from the spot where they then were.
He next endeavored to purchase three of their dogs, but they objected to
this, and refused to accept of three knives as a price for them. They
were tempted, however, by the offer of a whale harpoon and a hemp line,
and at last agreed to let him have three of their best dogs. This the
young doctor considered a piece of great good fortune, and being afraid
that they would repent, he prepared to leave the place at once. The
dogs were fastened by lines to the sledge of their new masters. A whip
was made out of a strip of walrus hide, a bone served for a handle, and
away they went for the brig at a rattling pace, after bidding the
natives farewell, and making them understand that they hoped to meet
again in the course of the winter.
Thus happily ended their first meeting with the Eskimos. It may well be
believed that there were both astonishment and satisfaction on board the
_Hope_ that night, when the hunting party returned, much sooner than had
been expected, with the whip cracking, the men cheering, the dogs
howling, and the sledge well laden with fresh meat.