SENDING FORWARD SUPPLIES.--KALUTUNAH AS A DRIVER.--KALUTUNAH
CIVILIZED.--MR. KNORR.--PLAN OF MY PROPOSED JOURNEY.--PREPARING
TO SET OUT.--INDUSTRIOUS ESQUIMAU WOMEN.--DEATH AND BURIAL OF
KABLUNET.--THE START.
During the next few days the dog-sledges were going and coming between
the schooner and Cairn Point continually, carrying to the latter place
the stores needed for our summer campaign. The temperature still held
very low, and I did not deem it prudent to send out a foot party. I
knew by former experience how important it is for a commander to keep
inexperienced men under his own eye, for one frozen man will demoralize
a dozen, and a frosted foot is as contagious as the small-pox.
[Sidenote: KALUTUNAH CIVILIZED.]
Kalutunah's team was turned over to Mr. Knorr, and in doing this I
gratified both parties and served my own interests. The novelty of
serving me, and of traveling with me, had by this time worn off, and I
could plainly see that the chief was quite as well satisfied to remain
with his wife and babies as to trust himself to the uncertain fortunes
of the ice-fields, more especially as his curiosity to see how this man
that he called the big chief behaved himself had been fully gratified.
The recent journey had convinced him that I was fully entitled to his
respect, since I did not freeze, and altogether conducted myself as
well as an Esquimau would have done under like circumstances; and this
was a great deal in his eyes. It was not difficult to perceive that
Kalutunah started with me expecting to take me under his protecting
wing; and if he did not have the pleasing satisfaction of seeing me
groaning with the cold, at least he should have the opportunity to
instruct me how to live and how to travel; but when I began to instruct
him, and turned the tables on him, he was much disappointed; and when
to this violation of propriety I added the still more unpardonable
offense of refusing him a bear-hunt, his enthusiasm oozed out very
rapidly; and if he admired the Nalegaksoak the more he desired to
follow him the less, particularly as the dangers of the service
preponderated over the emoluments. Indeed, the fellow was disposed to
avail himself fully of the advantages of his new situation, and I soon
made up my mind that he was henceforth a pensioner upon my bounty, so
I doubled his riches and made him the happiest Esquimau that ever was
seen. My thoroughly energetic, daring and skillful hunter, who prided
himself upon the excellence of his equipments and the abundance of
his supplies, for once in his life found himself so situated that he
was freed from all necessity of giving thought to the morrow. It was
truly a novel sensation, and it is not surprising that he should wish
to enjoy the short-lived holiday. He was greatly amused,--amused with
himself, amused with the Nalemaksoak who had made him so rich and
allowed him to be so lazy, and amused with the white man's dress with
which he was bedecked, and in which he cut such a sorry figure. His
face was never without a full-blown grin. I gave him a looking-glass,
and he carried it about with him continually, looking at himself and
laughing at his head with a cap on it, and at his reel shirt which
dangled beneath an old coat. It was all very fine and very wonderful.
"Don't I look pretty?" was the poser which he put to everybody.
[Sidenote: KALUTUNAH UNCIVILIZED.]
But this pleasing state of mind into which he had been thrown by this
new style of costume was doomed to be short-lived. The novelty wore off
in a few days. It ceased to amuse him; and he discovered, no doubt,
that in gratifying his vanity he was vexing the flesh. One day he
appeared on board in his old suit of furs. "What has become of the cap
and red shirt and coat?" "Oh! I tumbled into the water, and my wife is
drying them!" The truth leaked out afterward that he had gone home,
changed the white man's finery for the cold-resisting fox-skins, and
had chucked the whole suit among the rocks.
Kalutunah's team fell to Mr. Knorr from sheer necessity, since there
was no one else in the ship except Hans who could handle the whip.
Knorr, with commendable foresight, had commenced his exercises early
in the winter, plainly foreseeing that his chances of accompanying me
throughout my northern journey were not likely to be diminished by
knowing how to drive dogs. The labor properly devolved upon one of the
sailors; but the field was open to all alike; and the young gentleman,
finding that official dignity stood in the way of his ambition, with a
spirit which I was not slow to appreciate, did not long hesitate in his
choice.
I have elsewhere mentioned that the labor of driving dogs is not an
easy one. Indeed, of all the members of my party, Mr. Knorr was the
only one who succeeded well. Even in Southern Greenland, among the
Danes long resident there, it is rare to find a skillful driver.
Neither of the sailors, Carl nor Christian, whom I had taken from
Upernavik, could throw the lash anywhere else than about their legs, or
into the face of whomsoever might happen to sit upon the sledge. As for
hitting a dog, they could scarcely do it by any chance.
[Sidenote: PREPARING TO START.]
My recent journey had decided my course of action. The last view which
I had from the top of the lofty cliff behind Cairn Point convinced
me that my only chance for the season was to cross the Sound from
that place, for my observations up the Greenland coast had shown me,
as has been already observed, the impracticability of reaching the
Polar Sea by that route. McCormick had immediate charge of the work of
preparation, and pushing every thing forward with his customary energy,
we were ready to start before the close of March. But the temperature
still continued to range too low for safety, and I only awaited a rise
of the thermometer. Our little community was now full of life and
business.
The Esquimaux were not an unimportant element in the hive. The most
useful service came, however, from the ancient dames who presided over
the domestic affairs of the snow house and the hut at Etah. They were
sewing for us constantly, and were probably the first women in the
world who ever grew rich
"Plying the needle and thread."
[Sidenote: AN ESQUIMAU FUNERAL.]
But misfortune fell at length within the snow-hut. Poor old Kablunet,
the voluble and kind-hearted and industrious wife of Tcheitchenguak,
took sick. Her disease was pneumonia, and it ran its course with
great rapidity. All my medicines and all my efforts to save her were
of no avail, and she died on the fourth day. This unhappy event had
nearly destroyed my prestige as a Narkosak, and indeed it would have
done so completely had it not been for the fortunate occurrence of an
auroral display, during which time Jensen, whom my journal mentions as
"a convenient and useful man," informed the Esquimaux that the white
man's medicine will not operate. And thus was saved my reputation.
She died at five o'clock in the evening; at six she was sewed up in
a seal-skin winding-sheet, and before it was yet cold the body was
carried on Hans's sledge to a neighboring gorge and there buried among
the rocks and covered with heavy stones. The only evidences of sorrow
or regret were manifested by her daughter, Merkut, the wife of Hans,
and these appeared to be dictated rather from custom than affection.
Merkut remained by the grave after the others had departed, and for
about an hour she walked around and around it, muttering in a low
voice some praises of the deceased. At the head of the grave she then
placed the knife, needles, and sinew which her mother had recently been
using, and the last sad rites to the departed savage were performed.
Tcheitchenguak came over and told me that there was no longer anybody
to keep his lamp burning, and that his hut was cold, and with a very
sorrowful face he begged to be allowed to live with Hans. My consent
given, that of Hans was not deemed necessary; and so the snow-hut
became deserted, and the cheerful family that had there dispensed a
rude hospitality was broken up; and the "house of feasting" had become
a "house of mourning," and Tcheitchenguak had come away from it to
finish alone his little remaining span of life. Old and worn down by
a hard struggle for existence, he was now dependent upon a generation
which cared little for him, while she who alone could have soothed
the sorrows of his declining years had gone away before him to the
far-off island where the Great Spirit, Torngasoak the Mighty, regales
the happy souls with an endless feast on the ever green banks of the
boundless lake, where the ice is never seen and the darkness is never
known,--where the sunshine is eternal, in the summer of bliss that is
everlasting,--the Upernak that has no end.
The temperature having somewhat moderated, I determined to set out in
the evening of the third of April. Although the sun had not yet reached
the horizon at midnight, there was quite light enough for my purposes,
and by traveling in the night instead of the day we would have greater
warmth while in camp, which is really the time of greatest danger from
the cold; for when on the march men have usually little difficulty
in keeping warm, even at the lowest temperatures, provided there is
no wind. Besides this, there is still another difficulty obviated.
The constant glare of the mid-day sun is a very severe tax upon the
eye, and great caution is needed to guard against that painful and
inconvenient disease known as "snow-blindness." In order to protect my
men against it, as much as possible, I had supplied each of them with a
pair of blue-glass goggles.
[Sidenote: THE FIELD PARTY.]
[Sidenote: THE START.]
My field party consisted of every available officer and man in the
schooner, twelve in number. We were all ready to start at seven
o'clock; and when I joined them on the ice beside the schooner their
appearance was as picturesque as it was animated. In advance stood
Jensen, impatiently rolling out his long whip-lash; and his eight
dogs, harnessed to his sledge, "The Hope," were as impatient as
he. Next came Knorr with six dogs and the "Perseverance," to the
upstander of which he had tied a little blue flag bearing this, his
motto, "_Toujours prêt_." Then came a lively group of eight men, each
with a canvas belt across his shoulder, to which was attached a line
that fastened him to the sledge. Alongside the sledge stood McCormick
and Dodge, ready to steer it among the hummocks, and on the sledge
was mounted a twenty-foot metallic life-boat with which I hoped to
navigate the Polar Sea. The mast was up and the sails were spread, and
from the peak floated our boat's ensign, which had seen service in
two former Arctic and in one Antarctic voyage, and at the mast-head
were run up the Masonic emblems. Our little signal-flag was stuck in
the stern-sheets. The sun was shining brightly into the harbor, and
everybody was filled with enthusiasm, and ready for the hard pull that
was to come. Cheer after cheer met me as I came down the stairway from
the deck. At a given signal Radcliffe, who was left in charge of the
vessel, touched off the "swivel," "March," cried McCormick, crack went
the whips, the dogs sprang into their collars, the men stretched their
"track ropes," and the cavalcade moved off.
The events which follow I will give from my "field-book," trusting that
the reader will have sufficient interest in my party to accompany them
through the icy wilderness into which they plunged; but for this we
will need a new chapter.