LEAVING SMITH SOUND.--CROSSING THE NORTH WATER.--MEETING THE
PACK.--THE SEA AND AIR TEEMING WITH LIFE.--REMARKABLE
REFRACTION.--REACHING WHALE SOUND.--SURVEYING IN A BOAT.--THE
SOUND TRACED TO ITS TERMINATION.--MEETING ESQUIMAUX AT
ITEPLIK.--HABITS OF THE ESQUIMAUX.--MARRIAGE CEREMONY.--THE
DECAY OF THE TRIBE.--VIEW OF BARDEN BAY.--TYNDALL GLACIER.
The ice coming in at length with an easterly wind, and being unable to
find any harbor (Cadogen Inlet was completely filled with ice), we had
no alternative but to stand away to the south; and this we did at a
fortunate moment, for the ice crowded in against the shore with great
rapidity; and, had we waited longer, we should have been unable to
escape, and would have been driven upon the beach by the irresistible
pack.
We carried the wind along with us down the coast until we reached below
Talbot Inlet, when we came upon a heavy pack, and held our course
for Whale Sound, which I was desirous of exploring. Passing close to
the land, I had an excellent opportunity for observing the coast and
perfecting the chart, especially of Cadogen and Talbot Inlets, both of
which were traced around their entire circuit. The coast is everywhere
bristling with glaciers. A large island lies below Talbot Inlet, inside
of the Mittie Island of Captain Inglefield, and not before laid down.
[Sidenote: A RARE DAY.]
[Sidenote: ARCTIC MIRAGE.]
Skirting the northern margin of the ice, we made a course to the
northeastward, across the North Water, through one of the most
charming days that I have spent under the Arctic skies. There was but
the feeblest "cat's-paw" to ruffle the sea, and we glided on our way
over the still waters through a bright sunshine. The sea was studded
all over with glittering icebergs and bits of old floes, and here and
there a small streak of ice which had become detached from the pack.
The beasts of the sea and the fowls of the air gathered around us, and
the motionless water and the quiet atmosphere were alive. The walrus
came snorting and bellowing through the sea as if to have a look at us;
the seals in great numbers were continually putting up their cunning
heads all around the vessel; the narwhal in large schools, "blowing"
lazily, thrust their horns out of the sea, and their dappled bodies
followed after with a graceful curve, as if they enjoyed the sunshine
and were loathe to quit it; great numbers of white whale darted
past us; the air and the icebergs swarmed with gulls; and flocks of
ducks and auks were flying over us all the time. I sat upon the deck
much of the day, trying, with indifferent success, to convey to my
portfolio the exquisite green tints of the ice which drifted past us,
and watching a most singular phenomenon in the heavens. These Arctic
skies do sometimes play fantastic tricks, and on no occasion have I
witnessed the exhibition to such perfection. The atmosphere had a
rare softness, and throughout almost the entire day there was visible
a most remarkable mirage or refraction,--an event of very frequent
occurrence during the calm days of the Arctic summer. The entire
horizon was lifting and doubling itself continually, and objects at a
great distance beyond it rose as if by strange enchantment and stood
suspended in the air, changing shape with each changing moment.
Distant icebergs and floating ice-fields, and coast-lines and mountains
were thus brought into view; sometimes preserving for a moment their
natural shapes, then widening or lengthening, rising and falling as the
wind fluttered or fell calm over the sea. The changes were as various
as the dissolving images of a kaleidoscope, and every form of which the
imagination could conceive stood out against the sky. At one moment
a sharp spire, the prolonged image of a distant mountain-peak, would
shoot up; and this would fashion itself into a cross, or a spear, or
a human form, and would then die away, to be replaced by an iceberg
which appeared as a castle standing upon the summit of a bill, and the
ice-fields coming up with it flanked it on either side, seeming at one
moment like a plain dotted with trees and animals; again, as rugged
mountains; and then, breaking up after a while, disclosing a long line
of bears and dogs and birds and men dancing in the air, and skipping
from the sea to the skies. To picture this strange spectacle were an
impossible task. There was no end to the forms which appeared every
instant, melting into other shapes as suddenly. For hours we watched
the "insubstantial pageant," until a wind from the north ruffled the
sea; when, with its first breath, the whole scene melted away as
quickly as the "baseless fabric" of Prospero's "vision;" and from
watching these dissolving images, and wooing the soft air, we were, in
a couple of hours, thrashing to windward through a fierce storm of rain
and hail, under close-reefed sails.
[Sidenote: LOST IN THE FOG.]
We had some ugly knocking about and some narrow escapes in the thick
atmosphere, before we reached Whale Sound. A heavy pack, apparently
hanging upon the Carey Islands, drove us far up the North Water; and,
to get to our destination, we were obliged to hold in close to Hakluyt
Island. Here, the air having fallen calm, I pulled ashore; and, when we
set out to return, we found ourselves enveloped in a fog which caused
us some alarm. Observing its approach, we pulled to catch the schooner
before the dark curtain closed upon us, but were overtaken when almost
a mile away. Having no compass we became totally ignorant of which way
to steer; and, although we heard the ship's bell and an occasional
discharge of guns to attract our attention, yet, so deceptive is the
ear where the eye is not concerned in guiding it, that no two of us
caught the sound from the same direction; so we lay on our oars, and
trusted to fortune. After a while, a light wind sprung up; and the
schooner, getting under way, by the merest chance bore right upon us,
and came so suddenly in view out of the dark vapors that we had like to
have been run down before we could get headway on the boat.
We had much difficulty, owing to the fogs, current, and icebergs,
in getting up Whale Sound; but, after much patient perseverance, we
arrived at length in Barden Bay, and came to anchor off the native
settlement of Netlik.
The settlement was found to be deserted. The fog lifting next day,
disclosing much heavy ice, among which it would be dangerous to trust
the schooner, I took a whale-boat and pulled up the Sound.
The Sound narrows steadily until a few miles beyond Barden Bay, where
the coasts run parallel until the waters terminate in a deep bay or
gulf, to which I gave the name of the enterprising navigator, Captain
Inglefield, who first passed the entrance to it. The coast on the north
side runs much further south than appears on the old charts; and two
conspicuous headlands, which Inglefield mistook for islands, I have
designated on my chart by the names which the supposed islands have
on his. A cluster of islands at the farther end of the gulf I called
Harvard Islands, in remembrance of the University at Cambridge, to
members of whose faculty I am indebted for many courteous attentions
while fitting out in Boston; and a range of noble mountains which
rise from the head of the gulf and with stately dignity overlook the
broad _mer de glace_, holding the vast ice-flood in check, I named the
Cambridge Hills.
On the south side of the Sound, toward which the Harvard Islands seem
to trend, there are two prominent capes which I named respectively
Cape Banks and Cape Lincoln;[16] while two deep bays are designated
as Cope's Bay and Harrison Bay. Another, on the north side, I called
Armsby Bay.
[Footnote 16: In honor of His Excellency N. P. Banks, Governor of
Massachusetts, and of His Honor F. W. Lincoln, Mayor of Boston, at the
time of my sailing, in 1860.]
[Sidenote: AN ESQUIMAUX VILLAGE.]
I had to regret that I could not reach the further end of the gulf. The
ice for about twenty miles remained quite solid and impenetrable, so
that I was obliged to draw back. Skirting along the southern coast we
came upon the village of Itiplik and found it inhabited by about thirty
people. They were living in seal-skin tents, three in number, and were
overjoyed to see us. Near by, there was a rookery of auks similar to
that near Port Foulke, which, together with the seal and walrus that
were observed to be very numerous in all parts of the Sound, furnished
them ample subsistence. There were in all nine families, but there was
no family that consisted of more than four persons,--the parents and
two children. The largest family that I have seen among them was that
of Kalutunah. Hans told me of several families of three children; and
Tattarat, now a lonely widower, lives on Northumberland Island, near
the auk-hill of that place, with three orphans; and his wife bore him
a fourth, which disappeared in some mysterious manner soon after its
mother died and while it was yet a babe at the breast.
[Sidenote: ESQUIMAU STATISTICS.]
With the aid of Hans, I endeavored to get at a correct estimate of the
whole tribe, and, commencing with Cape York, took down their names. In
this community there can be no domestic secrets, and everybody knows
all about everybody else's business,--where they go for the summer, and
what luck they have had in hunting,--and talk and gossip about it and
about each other just as if they were civilized beings, having good
names to pick to pieces. But I strongly suspect that Hans grew tired of
my questioning and cross-questioning, and stopped short at seventy-two.
I have good reason to believe, however, that the tribe numbers more
nearly one hundred. I obtained a complete list of the deaths which
had taken place since Dr. Kane left them, in 1855. They amounted to
thirty-four; and, during that time, there had been only nineteen births.
[Sidenote: ESQUIMAU MARRIAGE CEREMONY.]
Their marriage engagements are, of necessity, mere matters of
convenience. Their customs allow of a plurality of wives; but among
this tribe, even if there were sufficient women, no hunter probably
could support two families. The marriage arrangement is made by the
parents, and the parties are fitted to each other as their ages best
suit. When a boy comes of age, he marries the first girl of suitable
years. There is no marriage ceremony further than that the boy is
required to carry off his bride by main force; for, even among these
blubber-eating people, the woman only saves her modesty by a sham
resistance, although she knows years beforehand that her destiny
is sealed and that she is to become the wife of the man from whose
embraces, when the nuptial day comes, she is obliged by the inexorable
law of public opinion to free herself if possible, by kicking and
screaming with might and main until she is safely landed in the hut of
her future lord, when she gives up the combat very cheerfully and takes
possession of her new abode. The betrothal often takes place at a very
early period of life and at very dissimilar ages. A bright-looking boy
named Arko, which means "The spear thrower," who is not over twelve
years of age, is engaged to a girl certainly of twenty, named Kartak,
"The girl with the large breasts." Why was this? I inquired. "There
is no other woman for him." I thought he looked rather dubious of his
future matrimonial prospects when I asked him how soon he proposed to
carry off this big-breasted bride. Two others, whom I judged to be
about ten years each, were to be married in this romantic style as soon
as the lover had caught his first seal. This, I was told, is the test
of manhood and maturity.
I talked to the oldest hunter of the tribe, an ancient,
patriarchal-looking individual named Kesarsoak,--"He of the white
hairs,"--about the future of the tribe. The prospect to him was the
same as to Kalutunah,--"Our people have but a few more suns to live!"
Would they all come up to Etah if I should return, and stay there, and
bring guns and hunters? His answer was a prompt, "Yes." He told me, as
Kalutunah had done before, that Etah was the best hunting-place on the
coast, only the ice broke up so soon and was always dangerous; while
Whale Sound was frozen during nearly all the year, and gave the hunters
greater security.
[Sidenote: TYNDALL GLACIER.]
After returning to the schooner, I pulled up into Barden Bay, taking
with me the magnetic and surveying instruments and facilities for
completing my botanical and other collections, and for photographing
the fine scenery of the bay. Landing on its north shore, we found
the hill-side covered in many places with a richer green sward than
I had ever seen north of Upernavik, except once on a former occasion
at Northumberland Island. The slope was girdled with the same tall
cliffs which everywhere meet the eye along this coast; and the same
summer streams of melted snow tumbled over them, and down the slope
from the mountain sides. The day was quite calm and the sky almost
cloudless. The sun shone broadly upon us, and the temperature was 51°.
Immense schools of whales and walrus, with an occasional seal, were
sporting in the water; flocks of sea-fowl went careering about the
icebergs and through the air, and myriads of butterflies fluttered
among the flowers; while from the opposite side of the bay an immense
glacier,[17] whose face was almost buried in the sea, carried the eye
along a broad and winding valley, up steps of ice of giant height, and
over smooth plains of whiteness, around the base of the hills, until
at length the slope pierced the very clouds, and, reappearing above the
curling vapors, was lost in the blue canopy of the heavens.
[Footnote 17: I have named this glacier in honor of Professor John
Tyndall.]
[Sidenote: TYNDALL GLACIER.]
Three glaciers were visible from my point of observation,--a small
one, to the right, barely touching the water, and hanging, as if in
suspensive agony, in a steep declivity; another, at the head of the
bay, was yet miles away from the sea; while before us, in the centre
of the bay, there came pouring down the rough and broken flood of
ice before alluded to, which, bulging far out into the bay, formed a
coast-line of ice over two miles long.
The whole glacier system of Greenland was here spread out before me
in miniature. A lofty mountain ridge, like a whale's back, held in
check the expanding _mer de glace_, but a broad cleft cut it in twain,
and the stream before me had burst through the opening like cataract
rapids tumbling from the pent-up waters of a lake. The sublimity and
picturesqueness of the scene was greatly heightened by two parallel
rocky ridges, whose crests were to the left of the glacier. These
crests are trap-dykes, left standing fifty feet perhaps above the
sloping hill-side below them, by the wasting away of the sandstone
through which they have forced their way in some great convulsion of
Nature.
On the day following, I visited this glacier and made a careful
examination of it, pulling first along its front in a boat and then
mounting to its surface.
[Sidenote: GOTHIC GLACIER.]
It would be difficult to imagine any thing more startling to the
imagination or more suggestive to the mind than the scene presented by
this two miles of ice coast-line, as I rowed along within a few fathoms
of it. The glacier was broken up into the most singular shapes, and
presented nothing of that uniformity usual to the glacier's face. It
was worn and wasted away until it seemed like the front of some vast
incongruous temple,--here a groined roof of some huge cathedral, and
there a pointed window or a Norman door-way deeply molded; while on
all sides were pillars round and fluted, and pendants dripping crystal
drops of the purest water, and all bathed in a soft, blue atmosphere.
Above these wondrous archways and galleries there was still preserved
the same Gothic character,--tall spires and pinnacles rose along the
entire front and multiplied behind them, and new forms met the eye
continually. The play of light and the magical softness of the color of
the sea and ice was perfectly charming, as the scene I have heretofore
described among the icebergs. Strange, there was nothing cold or
forbidding anywhere. The ice seemed to take the warmth which suffused
the air, and I longed to pull my boat far within the openings, and
paddle beneath the Gothic archways. The dangers from falling ice alone
prevented me from entering one of the largest of them.
[Sidenote: GLACIER STREAM.]
Pulling around to the west side of the glacier, I clambered up a steep
declivity over a pile of mud and rock, which the expanding and moving
ice had pushed out from its bed. Once at the top of this yielding
slope, the eye was met by a perfect forest of spires; but it was not
easy to get on the glacier itself. Along its margin, half in mud and
rock and half in ice, a torrent of dirty water came tearing along at
a furious pace, disclosing the laminated structure of the ice in a
very beautiful manner; and this was not easily crossed. At length,
however, I came to a spot where the chief feeder of this rushing stream
branched off at right angles, coming from the glacier itself, and I
had no difficulty in wading across above the junction of the two arms.
Following thence up the eastward branch as it dashed wildly down in a
succession of cataracts, cutting squarely across the laminæ or strata
(which lay at an angle of about 35°), I came at length to a place where
the ice was much disturbed, and rose by broken steps from the plain on
which I stood to the height of about one hundred and fifty feet, and
right out from this wall came the rushing torrent, hissing and foaming
from a monstrous tunnel, to which the Croton Aqueduct would be a pigmy.
It was a strange sight. The ice was perfectly pure and transparent; and
yet, out of its very heart, was pouring the muddy stream of which I
have made mention, and which, although the comparison is rather remote,
reminded me of the image which Virgil draws of the Tiber, when Æneas
first beheld its turbid waters, pouring out from beneath the bright and
lovely foliage which overspread it.
The tunnel out of which the waters poured was about ten yards wide
and as many high, the supporting roof being composed of every form of
Gothic arch, fretted and fluted in the most marvelous manner, and pure
as the most stainless alabaster; yet the distant effect within the
tunnel was quite different,--the dark stream beneath being reflected
above; and truly, if I might be allowed to paraphrase a line of
Dryden,--
"The muddy bottom o'er the arch was thrown."
I clambered within this tunnel as far as I could, along a slippery
shelf above the tumbling waters, until the light was almost shut out
behind me, but far enough to perceive that, on my right hand, other
tunnels discharged into this main sewer, as the underground culverts
which drain into the main artery the refuse of a city.
[Sidenote: CLIMBING THE GLACIER.]
Returning to the open air, I pursued my way up the glacier for a couple
of miles further, and discovered that this stream had its origin in the
mountain on the right, where the melting snows rolled over the rocky
slope, evidently by a newly formed channel, for the water was tearing
through moss-beds and deposits of sand and silt, and, rushing thence on
the glacier, tumbled headlong hundreds and hundreds of feet, down into
a yawning chasm. This chasm or crevasse no doubt extended to the bottom
of the glacier, and the water, after winding along the rocky bed under
the ice, finally has found its way into the cracks formed by the ice in
its descent over a steep and rugged declivity, and has slowly worn away
the tunnels or culverts which I have described.
I had now come to the gorge in the mountain through which the glacier
descends to the sea. The view of the glacier from the margin is,
at this point, somewhat like what I fancy the _mer de glace_ at
Trélaporte, in the Alps, would be if the Grande Jorasse and Mont Tacul,
and the other mountains which form the cradle for the _glacier de
Léchaud_ and the _glacier du Géant_, and their tributaries, were all
leveled. Instead of the variety disclosed in the Alpine view, the eye
lights here upon one expanding stream instead of many streams, which
narrows as it approaches the pass until it is about two miles over;
thence descending the steep declivity to the sea, breaking up as it
moves over the rougher places in the manner before described.
[Sidenote: GRANDEUR OF THE GLACIERS.]
In all my glacier experience I had not seen any thing so fully
exhibiting the principles of glacier movement or so forcibly
illustrating the river-like character of the crystal stream. To scale
the glacier further was not in my power; but the eye climbed up, step
by step, through the mountain-pass to the giddy summit, and as the
imagination wandered from this icy pinnacle over sea and mountain, it
seemed to me that the world did not hold any more impressive evidence
of the greatness and the power of the Almighty hand; and I thought how
feeble were all the efforts of man in comparison. As I turned away and
commenced my descent, I found myself repeating these lines of Byron,
penned as his poet-fancy wandered up the ice-girdled steeps and over
the ice-crowned summits of the Alps:--
"... these are
The palaces of Nature, whose vast walls
Have pinnacled in clouds their snowy scalps,
And throned Eternity in icy halls
Of cold sublimity."
[Illustration]
[Illustration: TYNDALL GLACIER--WHALE SOUND
(FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY DR. HAYES.)]