THE NEW YEAR.--LOOKING FOR SONNTAG.--THE AURORA BOREALIS.--A
REMARKABLE DISPLAY.--DEPTH OF SNOW.--STRANGE MILDNESS
OF THE WEATHER.--THE OPEN SEA.--EVAPORATION AT LOW
TEMPERATURES.--LOOKING FOR THE TWILIGHT.--MY PET FOX.
January 1st, 1861.
The Christmas holidays have passed quickly away, and the year of grace
eighteen hundred and sixty-one was born amid great rejoicings. We
have just "rung out the Old and in the New." As the clock showed the
midnight hour, the bell was tolled, our swivel gun sent a blaze of fire
from its little throat into the darkness, and some fire-works went
fizzing and banging into the clear sky. The rockets and blue-lights
gleamed over the snow with a weird and strange light; and the loud boom
of the gun and the crash of the bell echoing and reëchoing through the
neighboring gorges seemed like the voices of startled spirits of the
solitude.
[Sidenote: LOOKING FOR SONNTAG.]
I now look anxiously for the return of Sonntag and Hans. Indeed, I have
been prepared to see them at any time within these past seven days;
for although I had little expectation that they would find Esquimaux
at Sorfalik or Peteravik, yet their speedy return would not have
surprised me. This is the tenth day of their absence, and they have
had more than ample time to go even to the south side of Whale Sound
and come back again. I am the more anxious now that the moon has set,
and the difficulties of traveling are so greatly multiplied. However,
Sonntag had an undisguised wish to remain some time among the natives,
to study their language and habits, and to join them in their hunting
excursions; and when he left I felt quite sure that, if a reasonable
pretext could be found for absenting himself so long, we would not see
him until the January moon. There is no doubt that he will remain if he
finds no interest of the expedition likely to suffer in consequence.
January 5th.
I have no longer a dog. The General was the last of them, and he died
two days ago. Poor fellow! I had become more than ever attached to him
lately, especially since he had quite recovered from the accident to
his leg, and seemed likely to be useful with the sledge after a while.
It seems strange to see the place so deserted and so quiet. In the
early winter I never went out of the vessel on the ice without having
the whole pack crowding around me, playing and crying in gladness at
my coming; now their lifeless carcasses are strewn about the harbor,
half buried in snow and ice, and, if not so fearful, they are at
least hardly more sightly than were those other stiff and stark and
twisted figures which the wandering poets found beneath the dark sky
and "murky vapors" and frozen waters of the icy realm of Dis. There
was a companionship in the dogs, which, apart from their usefulness,
attached them to everybody, and in this particular we all feel alike
the greatness of the loss.
But it is hard to get along without a pet of some kind, and since the
General has gone I have got Jensen to catch me a fox, and the cunning
little creature now sits coiled up in a tub of snow in one corner of
my cabin; and, as she listens to the scratching of my pen, she looks
very much as if she would like to know what it is all about. I am
trying hard to civilize her, and have had some success. She was very
shy when brought in, but, being left to herself for a while, she has
become somewhat reconciled to her new abode. She is about three fourths
grown, weighs four and a quarter pounds, has a coat of long fine fur,
resembling in color that of a Maltese cat, and is being instructed to
answer to the name of _Birdie_.
January 6th.
[Sidenote: THE AURORA BOREALIS.]
I have often been struck with the singular circumstance that up to
this time we have scarcely seen the Aurora Borealis; and until to-day
there has been no display of any great brilliancy. We have been twice
favored during the past twelve hours. The first was at eleven o'clock
in the morning, and the second at nine o'clock in the evening. The arch
was perfect in the last case; in the former it was less continuous,
but more intense. In both instances, the direction of the centre
from the observatory was west by south (true), and was 30° above the
horizon. Twenty degrees above the arch in the evening there was another
imperfect one, a phenomenon which I have not before witnessed. In the
direction west-northwest a single ray shot down to the horizon, and
there continued for almost an hour.
The infrequency of the Auroral light has been more marked here than at
Van Rensselaer Harbor. We seem to have passed almost beyond it. The
region of its greatest brilliancy appears to be from ten to twenty
degrees further south. As at Van Rensselaer Harbor, its exhibition is
almost invariably on the western sky; and Jensen tells me that this
occurs at Upernavik, and he says also that the phenomena are there
much more brilliant and of greater frequency than here.
The display of the morning was much finer than that of the evening.
Indeed, I have rarely witnessed a more sublime or imposing spectacle.
By the way, how strange it seems to be speaking of events happening in
the morning and in the evening, when, to save your life, you could not
tell without the clock by what name to call the divisions of time! We
say eleven o'clock in the morning and eleven o'clock in the evening
from habit; but if, by any mischance, we should lose our reckoning
for twelve hours, we would then go on calling the evening morning and
the morning evening, without being able to detect the error by any
difference in the amount of light at these two periods of the day. But
this is a digression.
[Sidenote: AURORA.]
To come back to the Aurora of this morning. When it first appeared
I was walking out among the icebergs at the mouth of the harbor;
and, although the time was so near noon, yet I was groping through
a darkness that was exceedingly embarrassing to my movements among
the rough ice. Suddenly a bright ray darted up from behind the black
cloud which lay low down on the horizon before me. It lasted but an
instant, and, having filled the air with a strange illumination,
it died away, leaving the darkness even more profound than before.
Presently the arch which I have before mentioned sprang across the
sky, and the Aurora became gradually more fixed. The space inclosed
by the arch was very dark, and was filled with the cloud. The play of
the rays which rose from its steadily brightening border was for some
time very capricious, alternating, if I might be allowed the figure,
the burst of flame from a conflagration with the soft glow of the
early morn. The light grew by degrees more and more intense, and from
irregular bursts it settled into an almost steady sheet of brightness.
This sheet was, however, far from uniform, for it was but a flood of
mingling and variously-tinted streaks. The exhibition, at first tame
and quiet, became in the end startling in its brilliancy. The broad
dome above me is all ablaze. Ghastly fires, more fierce than those
which lit the heavens from burning Troy, flash angrily athwart the sky.
The stars pale before the marvellous glare, and seem to recede further
and further from the earth,--as when the chariot of the Sun, driven by
Phæton, and carried from its beaten track by the ungovernable steeds,
rushed madly through the skies, parching the world and withering the
constellations. The gentle Andromeda flies trembling from the flame;
Perseus, with his flashing sword and Gorgon shield, retreats in fear;
the Pole Star is chased from the night, and the Great Bear, faithful
sentinel of the North, quits his guardian watch, following the feeble
trail. The color of the light was chiefly red, but this was not
constant, and every hue mingled in the fierce display. Blue and yellow
streamers were playing in the lurid fire; and, sometimes starting side
by side from the wide expanse of the illumined arch, they melt into
each other, and throw a ghostly glare of green into the face and over
the landscape. Again this green overrides the red; blue and orange
clasp each other in their rapid flight; violet darts tear through a
broad flush of yellow, and countless tongues of white flame, formed of
these uniting streams, rush aloft and lick the skies. The play of this
many-colored light upon the surrounding objects was truly wonderful.
The weird forms of countless icebergs, singly and in clusters, loomed
above the sea, and around their summits the strange gleam shone as
the fires of Vesuvius over the doomed temples of Campania. Upon the
mountain tops, along the white surface of the frozen waters, upon the
lofty cliffs, the light glowed and grew dim and glowed again, as if the
air was filled with charnel meteors, pulsating with wild inconstancy
over some vast illimitable city of the dead. The scene was noiseless,
yet the senses were deceived, for unearthly sounds seemed to follow the
rapid flashes, and to fall upon the ear like
----"the tread
Of phantoms dread,
With banner, and spear, and flame."
January 13th.
The month of January runs on through stormy skies. The wind continues
to blow as before, and the wild rush of gales fills the night with
sounds of terror.
[Sidenote: DEPTH OF SNOW.]
The air has been, however, for the most part, quite clear. But little
snow has fallen since November. The total depth now mounts up to
53¾ inches. I am more and more struck with the difference in the
atmospheric conditions of this place and Van Rensselaer Harbor. There
we had rarely moisture, and gales were scarcely known. The temperatures
were very low, and the winter was marked by a general calm. Here
the temperatures are more mild than Parry's at Melville Island, the
atmospheric disturbances have been very great, and the amount of snow
has been truly surprising. There is one comfort at least in the winds.
They either carry off the snow or pack it very hard, so that we get
about with as little difficulty as if we were walking upon the bare
ice. It is pounded as hard as the drives in the Central Park.
All these unusual phenomena are, as has been hitherto observed,
doubtless due to the close proximity of the open sea. How extensive
this water may be is of course unknown, but its limits cannot be very
small to produce such serious atmospheric disturbance. It seems,
indeed, as if we were in the very vortex of the north winds. The poet
has told us that the north winds
"Are cradled far down in the depths that yawn
Beneath the Polar Star;"
and it appears very much as if we had got into those yawning depths,
and had come not only to the place where the winds are cradled, but
where they are born.
[Sidenote: EVAPORATION AT LOW TEMPERATURES.]
I have been making, all the winter through, a series of experiments
which give me some interesting results. They show that evaporation
takes place at the very lowest temperatures, and that precipitation
often occurs when the air is apparently quite clear. To determine
this latter, I have exposed a number of smooth and carefully measured
ice-surfaces, and have collected from them the light deposit. These
accumulations, after reducing them to the standard of freshly fallen
snow, amount thus far to seven eighths of an inch. To determine
the evaporation, I have suspended in the open air a number of thin
ice-plates, made in a shallow dish, and some strips of wet flannel.
The flannel becomes perfectly dry in a few days, and the ice-plates
disappear slowly and steadily. I generally weigh them every second day,
and it is curious to watch my little circular disks silently melting
away and vanishing "into thin air," while the thermometer is down in
the zeros.
This evaporation at low temperatures is constantly taking place before
our eyes, to our advantage. On wash-days the clothes are hung on lines
stretched across the ship's rigging, or upon poles across the ice, as
you will see on Monday afternoons in the farmhouse yards; and before
the week is over the moisture has disappeared, no matter how cold it
may be.
January 16th.
Our eyes now turn wistfully to the south, eagerly watching for the tip
of Aurora's chariot, as the fair goddess of the morning rises from
the sea to drop a ray of gladness from her rosy fingers into this
long-neglected world.
It is almost a month since we passed the darkest day of the winter, and
it will be a long time yet before we have light; but it is time for us
now to have at noontime a faint flush upon the horizon. We find a new
excitement, if such it may be called, in the impatience of expectation.
Meanwhile I pet my fox.
[Sidenote: MY PET FOX.]
Birdie has become quite tame, and does great credit to her instructor.
She is the most cunning; creature that was ever seen, and does not
make a bad substitute for the General. She takes the General's place
at my table, as she has his place in my affections; but she sits in
my lap, where the General never was admitted, and, with her delicate
little paws on the cloth, she makes a picture. Why, she is indeed a
perfect little gourmande, well bred, too, and clever. When she takes
the little morsels into her mouth her eyes sparkle with delight,
she wipes her lips, and looks up at me with a coquetterie that is
perfectly irresistible. The eagerness of appetite is controlled by
the proprieties of the table and a proper self-respect; and she is
satisfied to prolong a feast in which she finds so much enjoyment.
She does not like highly seasoned food; indeed, she prefers to take
it _au natural_, so I have a few little bits of venison served for
her on a separate plate. She has her own fork; but she has not yet
advanced sufficiently far in the usages of civilization to handle it
for herself, so I convey the delicate morsels to her mouth. Sometimes
she exhibits too much impatience; but a gentle rebuke with the fork on
the tip of the nose is quite effective in restoring her patience, and
saving her from indigestion.
Her habits greatly interest me. I have allowed her to run loose in
my cabin, after a short confinement in a cage had familiarized her
with the place; but she soon found out the "bull's-eye" over my head,
through the cracks around which she could sniff the cool air; and she
got into the habit of bounding over the shelves, without much regard
for the many valuable and perishable articles which lay thereon. From
this retreat nothing can tempt her but a good dinner; and as soon as
she sees from her perch the bits of raw venison, she crawls leisurely
down, sneaks gently into my lap, looks up longingly and lovingly into
my face, puts out her little tongue with quick impatience, and barks
bewitchingly if the beginning of the repast is too long delayed.
I tried to cure her of this habit of climbing by tying her up with
a chain which Knorr made for me of some iron wire; but she took
it so much to heart that I had to let her go. Her efforts to free
herself were very amusing, and she well earned her freedom. She tried
continually to break the chain, and, having once succeeded, she seemed
determined not to be baffled in her subsequent attempts. As long as I
was watching her she would be quiet enough, coiled up in her bed or
her tub of snow; but the moment my eyes were off her, or she thought
me asleep, she worked hard to effect her liberation. First she would
draw herself back as far as she could get, and then suddenly darting
forward, would bring up at the end of her chain with a jerk which sent
her reeling on the floor; then she would pick herself up, panting as
if her little heart would break, shake out her disarranged coat, and
try again. But this she would do with much deliberation. For a moment
she would sit quietly down, cock her head cunningly on one side, follow
the chain with her eye along its whole length to its fastening in the
floor, and then she would walk leisurely to that point, hesitate a
moment, and then make another plunge. All this time she would eye me
sharply, and if I made any movement, she would fall down at once on the
floor and pretend sleep.
She is a very neat and cleanly creature. She is everlastingly brushing
her clothes, and she bathes very regularly in her bath of snow. This
last is her great delight. She roots up the clean white flakes with
her diminutive nose, rolls and rubs and half buries herself in them,
wipes her face with her soft paws, and when all is over she mounts with
her delicate fingers to the side of the tub, looks around her very
knowingly, and barks the prettiest little bark that ever was heard.
This is her way of enforcing admiration; and, being now satisfied with
her performance, she gives a goodly number of shakes to her sparkling
coat, and then, happy and refreshed, she crawls to her airy bed in the
"bull's-eye" and sleeps.