weather, which seldom trouble them; especially in the Bay of Disco, in
the 68th degree of Latitude, where they commonly have clear and settled
weather during the whole summer season: but again, when foul and stormy
weather falls in, it rages with an incredible fierceness and violence,
chiefly when the wind comes about Southerly, or South West; and the
storm is laid and succeeded by fair weather as soon as the wind shifts
about to the West and North.
The country would be exceeding pleasant and healthful in summer time,
if it was not for the heavy fogs that annoy it, especially near the sea
coast; for it is as warm here as anywhere, when the air is serene and
clear, which happens when the wind blows Easterly; and sometimes it is
so hot, that the sea water, which after the ebbing of the sea has
remained in the hollow places of the rocks, has often, before night, by
the heat of the sun, been found coagulated into a fine white salt. I can
remember, that once, for three months together, we had as fair settled
weather and warm sunshine days as one could wish, without any rain.
The length of the summer is from the latter end of May to the midst of
September; all the remaining part of the year is winter, which is
tolerable in the latitude of 64°, but to the Northward, in 68° and
above, the cold is so excessive, that even the most spirituous liquors,
as French brandy, will freeze near the fire side. At the end of August
the sea is all covered with ice, which does not thaw before April or
May, and sometimes not till the latter end of June.
It is remarkable, that on the Western coasts of different countries,
lying in one and the same latitude, it is much colder than on the
Eastern, as some parts of Greenland and Norway. And though Greenland is
much colder than Norway, yet the snow never lies so high, especially in
the bays and inlets, where it is seldom above half a yard higher than
the ground; whereas the inland parts and the mountains are perpetually
covered with ice and snow, which never melts; and not a spot of the
ground is bare, but near the shore and in the bays; where in the summer
you are delighted with a charming verdure, caused by the heat of the
sun, reverberated from side to side, and concentred in these lower parts
of the valleys, surrounded by high rocks and mountains, for many hours
together without intermission; but as soon as the sun is set, the air is
changed at once, and the cold ice mountains make you soon feel the
nearness of their neighbourhood, and oblige you to put on your furs.
Besides the frightful ice that covers the whole face of the land, the
sea is almost choaked with it, some flat and large fields of ice, or bay
ice, as they call it, and some huge and prodigious mountains, of an
astonishing bigness, lying as deep under water as they soar high in the
air. These are pieces of the ice mountains of the land, which lie near
the sea, and bursting, tumble down into the sea, and are carried off.
They represent to the beholders, afar off, many odd and strange figures;
some of churches, castles with spires and turrets others you would take
to be ships under sail; and many have been deluded by them, thinking
they were real ships, and going to board them. Nor does their figure and
shape alone surprise, but also their diversity of colours pleases the
sight; for some are like white crystal, others blue as sapphires; and
others again green as emeralds. One would attribute the cause of these
colours to metals or minerals of the places where this ice was formed;
or of waters of which it was coagulated: but experience teaches me, that
the blue ice is the concretion of fresh water, which at first is white,
and at length hardens and turns blue; but the greenish colour comes from
salt water. It is observed, that if you put the blue ice near the fire
and let it melt, and afterwards remove it to a colder place, to freeze
again, it does not recover its former blue, but becomes white. From
whence I infer, that the volatile sulphur, which the ice had attracted
from the air, by its resolution into water, exhales and vanishes.
Though the summer season is very hot in Greenland, it seldom causes any
thunder and lightning; the reason of which I take to be the coolness of
the night, which allays the heat of the day, and causes the sulphureous
exhalations to fall again with the heavy dew to the ground.
As for the ordinary meteors, commonly seen in other countries, they are
visible in Greenland; as the rainbow, flying or shooting stars, and the
like. But what is more peculiar to the climate, is the Northern Light,
or Aurora Borealis, which in the spring of the year, about the new
moon, darts streams of light all over the sky, as quick as lightning,
especially if it be a clear night, with such a brightness, that you may
read by it as by daylight.
At the summer solstice there is no night, and you have the pleasure to
see the sun turn round about the horizon all the twenty-four hours; and
in the depth of winter they have but little comfort in that planet, and
the nights are proportionally long; yet it never is so dark, but you can
see to travel up and down the country, though sometimes it be neither
moonshine nor starlight: but the snow and ice, with which both land and
sea is covered, enlightens the air; or the reason may be fetched from
the nearness of the horizon to the equator.
The temperament of the air is not unhealthful; for, if you except the
scurvy and distempers of the breast, they know nothing here of the many
other diseases with which other countries are plagued; and these
pectoral infirmities are not so much the effects of the excessive cold,
as of that nasty foggish weather which this country is very much subject
to; which I impute to the vast quantity of ice that covers the land and
drives in the sea. From the beginning of April to the end of July is the
foggish season, and from that time the fog daily decreases. But as in
the summer time they are troubled with the fog, so in the winter season
they are likewise plagued with the vapour called frost smoke, which,
when the cold is excessive, rises out of the sea as the smoke out of a
chimney, and is as thick as the thickest mist, especially in the bays,
where there is any opening in the ice. It is very remarkable, that this
frost, damp, or smoke, if you come near it, will singe the very skin of
your face and hands; but when you are in it, you find no such piercing
or stinging sharpness, but warm and soft; only it leaves a white frost
upon your hair and clothes.
I must not forget here to mention the wonderful harmony and
correspondence which is observed in Greenland between fountains and the
main sea, _viz._ that at spring tides, in new and full moon, when the
strongest ebbing is at sea, the hidden fountains or springs of fresh
water break out on shore, and discover themselves, often in places where
you never would expect to meet with any such; especially in winter, when
the ground is covered with ice and snow; yet at other times there are no
water springs in those places. The cause of this wonderful harmony I
leave to the learned inquiry of natural philosophers; how springs and
fountains follow the motion of the main sea, as the sea does that of the
moon. Yet this I must observe to you, that some great men have been
greatly mistaken, in that they have taken for granted and asserted, that
in Norway and Greenland the tide was hardly remarkable. (See Mr. Wollf’s
Reasonable Thoughts on the Effects of Nature, p. 541.) Whereas nowhere
greater tide is observed; the sea, at new and full moon, especially in
the spring and fall, rises and falls about three fathoms.
CHAP. V.
[Illustration]
_Of the Land Animals, and Land Fowls or Birds of Greenland; and how
they hunt and hill them._
There are no venomous serpents or insects, no ravenous wild beasts to be
seen in Greenland, if you except the bear, which some will have to be an
amphibious animal, as he lives chiefly upon the ice in the most Northern
parts, and feeds upon seals and fish. He very seldom appears near the
colony, in which I had taken up my quarters. He is of a very large size,
and of a hideous and frightful aspect, with white long hairs: he is
greedy of human blood[27]. The natives tell us moreover of another kind
of ravenous beasts, which they call Amarok, which eagerly pursue other
beasts, as well as men; yet none of them could say, they ever had seen
them, but only had it from others by hearsay; and whereas none of our
own people, who have travelled up and down the country, ever met with
any such beast, therefore I take it to be a mere fable.
Rein deer are in some places in so great numbers that you will see whole
herds of them[28]; and when they go and feed in herds they are
dangerous to come at. The natives spend the whole summer season in
hunting of rein deer, going up to the innermost parts of the bays, and
carrying, for the most part, their wives and children along with them,
where they remain till the harvest season comes on. In the mean while
they with so much eagerness hunt, pursue, and destroy these poor deer,
that they have no place of safety, but what the Greenlanders know; and
where they are in any number, there they chase them by clap-hunting,
setting upon them on all sides, and surrounding them with all their
women and children, to force them into defiles and narrow passages,
where the men armed lay in wait for them and kill them: and when they
have not people enough to surround them, then they put up white poles
(to make up the number that is wanted) with pieces of turf to head them,
which frightens the deer, and hinders it from escaping.
There are also vast numbers of hares, which are white summer and winter,
very fat and of a good taste. There are foxes of different colours,
white, grey, and blueish; they are of a lesser size than those of
Denmark and Norway, and not so hairy, but more like martens. The natives
commonly catch them alive in traps, built of stones like little huts.
The other four-footed animals, which ancient historians tell us are
found in Greenland, are sables, martens, wolves, losses, ermins, and
several others; I have met with none of them on the Western side.--See
Arngrim Jonas’s History of Greenland; as also Ivarus Beni’s Relation,
mentioned by Undalinus.
Tame or domestic animals there are none, but dogs in great numbers, and
of a large size, with white hairs, or white and black, and standing
ears. They are in their kind as timorous and stupid as their masters,
for they never bay or bark, but howl only. In the Northern parts they
use them instead of horses, to drag their sledges, tying four or six,
and sometimes eight or ten to a sledge, laden with five or six of the
largest seals, with the master sitting up himself, who drives as fast
with them as we can do with good horses, for they often make fifteen
German miles with them in a winter day, upon the ice: and though the
poor dogs are of so great service to them, yet they do not use them
well, for they are left to provide for and subsist themselves as wild
beasts, feeding upon muscles thrown up on the sea side, or upon berries
in the summer season; and when there has been a great capture of seals
they give them their blood boiled and their entrails.
As for land fowls or birds, Greenland knows of none but rypper, which is
a sort of large partridges, white in winter, and grey in summer time,
and these they have in great numbers. Ravens seem to be domestic birds
with them, for they are always seen about their huts, hovering about the
carcases of seals, that lie upon the ground. There are likewise very
large eagles, their wings spread out being a fathom wide, but they are
seldom seen in the Northern parts of the country. You find here falcons
or hawks, some grey, some of a whitish plumage, and some speckled; as
also great speckled owls. There are different sorts of little sparrows,
snow birds, and ice birds, and a little bird not unlike a linnet, which
has a very melodious tune.
Amongst the insects of Greenland, the midge or gnats are the most
troublesome, whose sting leaves a swelling and burning pain behind it;
and this trouble they are most exposed to in the hot season, against
which there is no shelter to be found. There are also spiders, flies,
humble bees, and wasps. They know nothing of any venomous animals, as
serpents and the like; nor have they any snakes, toads, frogs, beetles,
ants, or bees; neither are they plagued with rats, mice, or any such
vermin.
CHAP. VI.
[Illustration]
_Of the Greenland Sea Animals, and Sea Fowls and Fishes._
The Greenland Sea abounds in different sorts of animals, fowls, and
fishes, of which the whale bears the sway, and is of divers kinds,
shapes, and sizes. Some are called the finned whales, from the fins they
have upon their back near the tail; but these are not much valued,
yielding but little fat or blubber, and that of the meaner sort; they
consist of nothing but lean flesh, sinews, and bones. They are of a
long, round, and slender shape, very dangerous to meddle with, for they
rage and lay about them most furiously with their tail, so that nobody
cares to come at them, or catch them. The Greenlanders make much of
them, on account of their flesh, which, with them, passes for dainty
cheer. The other sort of whales are reckoned the best for their fat, and
fins or whalebones. These differ from the first sort, in that they have
no fin on the back towards the tail, but two lesser ones near the eyes,
and are covered with a thick black skin, marbled with white strokes.
With these side fins they swim with an incredible swiftness. The tail is
commonly three or four fathoms broad. The head makes up one-third of the
whole fish. The jaws are covered, both above and beneath, with a kind of
short hair. At the bottom of the jaws are placed the so called barders,
or whalebones, which serve him instead of teeth, of which he has none.
They are of different colours, some brown, some black, and others yellow
with white streaks. Within the mouth, the barders or whalebones are
covered with hair like horse-hair, chiefly those that inclose the
tongue. Some of them are bent like a scymitar, or sabre. The smallest
are ranged the foremost in the mouth, and the hindermost near the
throat; the broadest and largest are in the middle, some of them two
fathoms long, by which we may judge of the vast bigness of this animal.
On each side there are commonly two hundred and fifty, in all five
hundred pieces. They are set in a broad row, as in a sheaf, one close to
the other, bent like a crescent or half-moon, broadest at the root,
which is of a tough and grisly matter, of a whitish colour, fastened to
the upper part of the jaws near the throat, and they grow smaller
towards the end, which is pointed; they are also covered with hair, that
they may not hurt the tongue. The undermost jaw is commonly white, to
which the tongue is fastened, inclosed in the barders, or long whale
bones; it is very large, sometimes about eighteen feet, and sometimes
more, of a white colour, with black spots, of a soft, fat, and spungy
matter. The whale has a bunch on the top of his head, in which are two
spouts or pipes, parallel one to the other, and somewhat bent, like the
holes upon a fiddle. Through these he receives the air, and spouts out
the water, which he takes in at his mouth, and is forced upwards through
these holes in very large quantities, and with such violence and noise,
that it is heard at a great distance, by which, in hazy weather, he is
known to be near, especially when he finds himself wounded, for then he
rages most furiously, and the noise of his spouting is so loud, that
some have resembled it to the roaring of the sea in a storm, or the
firing of great guns, His eyes are placed between the bunch and the side
fins; they are not larger than those of an ox, and are armed with
eyebrows.
The penis of a whale is a strong sinew, seven or eight, and sometimes
fourteen feet long, in proportion to his bulk: it is covered with a
sheath, in which it lies hidden, so that you see but little of it: the
nature of the female is like that of the four-footed animals: she has
two breasts with teats like a cow; some white, others stained with
black or blue spots. In their spawning time their breasts are larger
than usual; and when they couple together, they reach their head above
water, to fetch breath, and to cool the heat contracted by that action.
It is said, that they never bring forth more than two young ones at a
spawning, which they suck with their teats. The spawn of the whale,
while it is fresh, is clammy and gluish, so that it may be drawn out in
threads like wax or pitch; it has no relation to that which we call
spermaceti, for it is soon corrupted and by no art can be preserved.
These sea animals, or rather monsters, are of different sizes and bulks;
some yield one hundred, and some two or three hundred tuns of fat or
blubber. The fat lies between the skin and the flesh, six or eight
inches thick, especially upon the back and under the belly. The thickest
and strongest sinews are in the tail, which serves him for a rudder, as
his fins do for oars, wherewith he swims with an astonishing swiftness,
proportioned to his bulk, leaving a track in the sea, like a great ship;
and this is called his wake, by which he is often followed.
These sea monsters are as shy and timorous as they are huge and bulky,
for as soon as they hear a boat rowing, and perceive any body’s
approach, they immediately shoot under water and plunge into the deep;
but when they find themselves in danger, then they shew their great and
surprising strength; for then they break to pieces whatever comes in
their way, and if they should hit a boat, they would beat it in a
thousand pieces. According to the relation of the whale-catchers, the
whale, being struck, will run away with the line some hundreds of
fathoms long, faster than a ship under full sail. Now one would think,
that such a vast body should need many smaller fishes and sea animals to
feed upon; but on the contrary, his food is nothing but a sort of
blubber, called _pulmo marinus_, or whale food, which is of a dark brown
colour, with two brims or flaps, with which it moves in the water, with
such slowness that one may easily lay hold of it, and get it out of the
water. It is like a jelly, soft and slippery, so that if you crush it
between your fingers you find it fat and greasy like train oil. The
Greenland seas abound in it, which allures and draws this kind of whales
thither in search of it; for as their swallow or throat is very narrow
(being but four inches in diameter), and the smaller whalebones reaching
down his throat, they cannot swallow any hard or large piece of other
food, having no teeth to chew it with, so that this sort of nourishment
suits them best, their mouth being large and wide to receive a great
quantity, by opening it and shutting it again, that nature has provided
them with the barders or whalebones, which by their closeness only give
passage to the water, like a sieve, keeping back the aliment. Here we
ought to praise the wise and kind providence of an Almighty Creator, who
has made such mean things suffice for the maintenance of so vast an
animal.
Next to this there is another sort of whales, called the North Capers,
from the place of their abode, which is about the North cape of Norway,
though they also frequent the coasts of Iceland, Greenland, and sundry
other seas, going in search of their prey, which is herring and other
small fish, that resort in abundance to those coasts. It has been
observed, that some of these North Cape whales have had more than a tun
of herrings in their belly. This kind of whales has this common with the
former called fin-whale, in that it is very swift and quick in its
motion, and keeps off from the shore in the main sea, as fearing to
become a prey to its enemies, if it should venture too near the shore.
His fat is tougher and harder than that of the great bay whale; neither
are his barders or bones so long and valuable, for which reason he is
neglected.
The fourth sort is the sword-fish, so called from a long and broad bone,
which grows out of the end of his snout on both sides, indented like a
saw. He has got two fins upon his back, and four under the belly, on
each side two: those on the back are the largest; those under the belly
are placed just under the first of the back: his tail broad and flat
underneath, and above pointed, but not split or cloved. From the
hindermost fin of the back he grows smaller: his nostrils are of an
oblong shape: the eyes are placed on the top of his head, just above his
mouth. There are different sizes of sword-fish, some of twenty feet,
some more, some less. This is the greatest enemy the true whale has to
deal with, who gives him fierce battles; and, having vanquished and
killed him, he contents himself with eating the tongue of the whale,
leaving the rest of the huge carcase for the prey and spoils of the
morses and sea birds.
The cachelot or pot-fish is a fifth species of whales, whose shape is
somewhat different from that of other whales, in that the upper part of
his head or skull is much bigger and stronger built; his spouts or pipes
are placed on the forehead, whereas other whales have them on the
hinder part of the head: his under jaw is armed with a row of teeth
which are but short: his tongue is thin and pointed, and of a yellowish
colour: he has but one eye on the side of the head, which makes him of
easy access to the Greenlanders, who attack him on his blind side. Of
his skull that wrongly so called spermaceti is prepared, one yielding
twenty to twenty-four tuns thereof. The rest of the body and the tail
are like unto those of other whales. He is of a brownish colour on the
back, and white under the belly: he is of different sizes, from fifty to
seventy feet long.
Then comes the white fish, whose shape is not unlike that of the great
bay whale, having no fins upon the back, but underneath two large ones;
the tail like a whale; his spouts, through which he breathes and throws
out the water, are the same; he has likewise a bunch on the head: his
colour is of a fading yellow; he is commonly from twelve to sixteen feet
in length, and is exceeding fat. The train of his blubber is as clear as
the clearest oil: his flesh as well as the fat has no bad taste, and
when it is marinated with vinegar and salt, it is as well tasted as any
pork whatsoever. The fins also and the tail, pickled or sauced, are good
eating. This fish is so far from being shy, that whole droves are seen
about the ships at sea: the Greenlanders catch numbers of them, of which
they make grand cheer.
There is yet another smaller sort of whales, called but-heads, from the
form of its head, which at the snout is flat, like a but’s end: he has a
fin upon his back towards the tail, and two side fins: his tail is like
to that of a whale. In the hinder part of the head he has a pipe to
fetch air, and spout the water through, which he does not spout out with
that force the whale does: his size is from fourteen to twenty feet: he
follows ships under sail with a fair wind, and seems to run for a wager
with them; whereas, on the contrary, other whales avoid and fly from
them. Their jumping, as well as that of fishes and sea animals,
forebodes boisterous and stormy weather.