THE FIRST STRANGE FACES--THE ESQUIMAUX.
The week that followed has left me nothing to remember but
anxieties and sorrow. Nearly all our party, as well the rescuers as the
rescued, were tossing in their sick-bunks, some frozen, others undergoing
amputations, several with dreadful premonitions of tetanus. I was myself
among the first to be about; the necessities of the others claimed it of
me.
Early in the morning of the 7th I was awakened by a sound from Baker's
throat, one of those the most frightful and ominous that ever startle a
physician's ear. The lock-jaw had seized him--that dark visitant whose
foreshadowings were on so many of us. His symptoms marched rapidly to
their result; he died the next day. On the 9th we placed him in his
coffin, and, forming a rude, but heart-full procession, bore him over the
broken ice and up the steep side of the ice-foot to Butler Island; then,
passing along the snow-level to Fern Rock, and climbing the slope of the
Observatory, we deposited his corpse upon the pedestals which had served
to support our instruments. We read the service for the burial of the
dead, sprinkling over him snow for dust, and repeated the Lord's Prayer;
and then icing up again the opening in the walls we had made to admit the
coffin, left him in his narrow house.
[Sidenote: The Esquimaux]
We were watching in the morning at Baker's death-bed, when one of our
deck-watch, who had been cutting ice for the melter, came hurrying down
into the cabin with the report, "People holloaing ashore!" I went up,
followed by as many as could mount the gangway; and there they were, on
all sides of our rocky harbour, dotting the snow-shores and emerging
from the blackness of the cliffs,--wild and uncouth, but evidently human
beings.
As we gathered on the deck, they rose upon the more elevated fragments of
the land-ice, and distributing themselves around almost in a half-circle.
They were vociferating as if to attract our attention, or perhaps only to
give vent to their surprise; but I could make nothing out of their cries,
except "Hoah, ha, ha!" and "Ka, kăāh! ka, kăāh!" repeated over and over
again.
There was light enough for me to see that they brandished no weapons, and
were only tossing their heads and arms about in violent gesticulations.
A more unexcited inspection showed us, too, that their numbers were not
as great nor their size as large as some of us had been disposed to
fancy at first. In a word, I was satisfied that they were natives of the
country; and, calling Petersen from his bunk to be my interpreter, I
proceeded unarmed, and waving my open hands, toward a stout figure who
made himself conspicuous, and seemed to have a greater number near him
than the rest. He evidently understood the movement, for he at once, like
a brave fellow, leaped down upon the floe and advanced to meet me fully
half-way.
He was nearly a head taller than myself, extremely powerful and
well-built, with swarthy complexion and piercing black eyes. His dress
was a hooded _capôte_ or jumper of mixed white and blue fox-pelts,
arranged with something of fancy, and booted trousers of white bear-skin,
which at the end of the foot were made to terminate with the claws of the
animal.
I soon came to an understanding with this gallant diplomatist. Almost
as soon as we commenced our parley, his companions, probably receiving
signals from him, flocked in and surrounded us; but we had no difficulty
in making them know positively that they must remain where they were,
while Metek went with me on board the ship. This gave me the advantage of
negotiating with an important hostage.
Although this was the first time he had ever seen a white man, he went
with me fearlessly; his companions staying behind on the ice. Hickey
took them out what he esteemed our greatest delicacies,--slices of good
wheat bread and corned pork, with exorbitant lumps of white sugar; but
they refused to touch them. They had evidently no apprehension of open
violence from us. I found afterward that several among them were singly a
match for the white bear and the walrus, and that they thought us a very
pale-faced crew.
[Sidenote: Outfit of the Esquimaux]
Being satisfied with my interview in the cabin, I sent out word that
the rest might be admitted to the ship; and, although they, of course,
could not know how their chief had been dealt with, some nine or ten of
them followed with boisterous readiness upon the bidding. Others in the
meantime, as if disposed to give us their company for the full time of
a visit, brought up from behind the land-ice as many as fifty-six fine
dogs, with their sledges, and secured them within two hundred feet of the
brig, driving their lances into the ice, and picketing the dogs to them
by the seal-skin traces. The animals understood the operation perfectly,
and lay down as soon as it commenced. The sledges were made up of small
fragments of porous bone, admirably knit together by thongs of hide; the
runners, which glistened like burnished steel, were of highly-polished
ivory, obtained from the tusks of the walrus.
The only arms they carried were knives, concealed in their boots; but
their lances, which were lashed to the sledges, were quite a formidable
weapon. The staff was of the horn of the narwhal, or else of the
thigh-bones of the bear, two lashed together, or sometimes the mirabilis
of the walrus, three or four of them united. This last was a favourite
material also for the cross-bars of their sledges. They had no wood. A
single rusty hoop from a current-drifted cask might have furnished all
the knives of the party; but the flame-shaped tips of their lances were
of unmistakable steel, and were riveted to the tapering bony point with
no mean skill. I learned afterward that the metal was obtained in traffic
from the more southern tribes.
They were clad much as I have described Metek, in jumpers, boots, and
white bear-skin breeches, with their feet decorated like his, _en
griffe_. A strip of knotted leather worn round the neck, very greasy
and dirty-looking, which no one could be persuaded to part with for an
instant, was mistaken at first for an ornament by the crew: it was not
until mutual hardships had made us better acquainted that we learned its
mysterious uses.
When they were first allowed to come on board, they were very rude and
difficult to manage. They spoke three or four at a time, to each other
and to us, laughing heartily at our ignorance in not understanding them,
and then talking away as before. They were incessantly in motion, going
everywhere, trying doors, and squeezing themselves through dark passages,
round casks and boxes, and out into the light again, anxious to touch
and handle everything they saw, and asking for, or else endeavouring to
steal, everything they touched. It was the more difficult to restrain
them, as I did not wish them to suppose that we were at all intimidated.
But there were some signs of our disabled condition which it was
important they should not see; it was especially necessary to keep them
out of the forecastle, where the dead body of poor Baker was lying; and,
as it was in vain to reason or persuade, we had at last to employ the
"gentle laying-on of hands," which, I believe, the laws of all countries
tolerate, to keep them in order.
Our whole force was mustered and kept constantly on the alert; but
though there may have been something of discourtesy in the occasional
shoulderings and bustlings that enforced the police of the ship, things
went on good-humouredly. Our guests continued running in and out and
about the vessel, bringing in provisions, and carrying them out again
to their dogs on the ice,--in fact, stealing all the time until the
afternoon, when, like tired children, they threw themselves down to
sleep. I ordered them to be made comfortable in the hold; and Morton
spread a large buffalo-robe for them, not far from a coal-fire in the
galley-stove.
[Sidenote: Eating Habits]
They were lost in barbarous amaze at the new fuel,--too hard for blubber,
too soft for firestone,--but they were content to believe it might cook
as well as seals' fat. They borrowed from us an iron pot and some melted
water, and parboiled a couple of pieces of walrus-meat; but the real
_pièce de resistance_, some five pounds a head, they preferred to eat
raw. Yet there was something of the _gourmet_ in their mode of assorting
their mouthfuls of beef and blubber Slices of each, or rather strips,
passed between the lips, either together or in strict alternation, and
with a regularity of sequence that kept the molars well to their work.
They did not eat all at once, but each man when and as often as the
impulse prompted. Each slept after eating, his raw meat lying beside
him on the buffalo-skin; and as he woke, the first act was to eat, and
the next to sleep again. They did not lie down, but slumbered away in a
sitting posture, with the head declined upon the breast, some of them
snoring famously.
In the morning they were anxious to go; but I had given orders to
detain them for a parting interview with myself. It resulted in a
treaty, brief in its terms, that it might be certainly remembered, and
mutually beneficial, that it might possibly be kept. I tried to make
them understand what a powerful Prospero they had had for a host, and
how beneficent he would prove himself so long as they did his bidding.
And, as an earnest of my favour, I bought all the walrus-meat they had to
spare, and four of their dogs enriching them in return with needles and
beads, and a treasure of old cask-staves.
In the fulness of their gratitude, they pledged themselves emphatically
to return in a few days with more meat, and to allow me to use their dogs
and sledges for my excursions to the north. I then gave them leave to go.
They yoked in their dogs in less than two minutes, got on their sledges,
cracked their two-fathom-and-a-half-long seal-skin whips, and were off
down the ice to the south-west at a rate of seven knots an hour.
They did not return. I had read enough of treaty-makings not to expect
them too confidently. But the next day came a party of five, on foot--two
old men, one of middle age, and a couple of gawky boys. We had missed a
number of articles soon after the first party left us, an axe, a saw,
and some knives. We found afterward that our storehouse at Butler Island
had been entered; we were too short-handed to guard it by a special
watch. Besides all this, reconnoitring stealthily beyond Sylvia Head, we
discovered a train of sledges drawn up behind the hummocks.
There was cause for apprehension in all this; but I felt that I could not
afford to break with the rogues. They had it in their power to molest
us seriously in our sledge-travel; they could make our hunts around the
harbour dangerous; and my best chance of obtaining an abundant supply of
fresh meat, our great desideratum, was by their agency. I treated the new
party with marked kindness, and gave them many presents; but took care
to make them aware that, until all the missing articles were restored,
no member of the tribe would be admitted again as a guest on board the
brig. They went off with many pantomimic protestations of innocence;
but M'Gary, nevertheless, caught the incorrigible scamps stealing a
coal-barrel as they passed Butler Island, and expedited their journey
homeward by firing among them a charge of small shot.
Still, one peculiar worthy--we thought it must have been the venerable
of the party, whom I knew afterwards as a staunch friend, old
Shang-hu--managed to work round in a westerly direction, and to cut to
pieces my India-rubber boat, which had been left on the floe since Mr
Brook's disaster, and to carry off every particle of the wood.
[Sidenote: "Myouk"]
A few days after this, an agile, elfin youth drove up to our floe in open
day. He was sprightly and good-looking, and had quite a neat turn-out of
sledge and dogs. He told his name with frankness,--"_Myouk_, I am,"--and
where he lived. We asked him about the boat; but he denied all knowledge
of it, and refused either to confess or repent. He was surprised when
I ordered him to be confined to the hold. At first he refused to eat,
and sat down in the deepest grief; but after a while he began to sing,
and then to talk and cry, and then to sing again; and he kept crying,
singing, and talking by turns, till a late hour of the night. When I
turned in, he was still noisily disconsolate.
There was a simplicity and _bonhommie_ about this boy that interested
me much; and I confess that when I made my appearance next morning--I
could hardly conceal it from the gentleman on duty, whom I affected to
censure--I was glad my bird had flown. Some time during the morning-watch
he had succeeded in throwing off the hatch and escaping. We suspected
that he had confederates ashore, for his dogs had escaped with as much
address as himself. I was convinced, however, that I had the truth from
him, where he lived, and how many lived with him--my cross-examination on
these points having been very complete and satisfactory.
It was a sad business for some time after these Esquimaux left us, to go
on making and registering our observations at Fern Rock. Baker's corpse
still lay in the vestibule, and it was not long before another was placed
by the side of it. We had to pass the bodies as often as we went in or
out; but the men, grown feeble and nervous, disliked going near them in
the night-time. When the summer thaw came, and we could gather stones
enough, we built up a grave on a depression of the rocks, and raised a
substantial cairn above it.
"_April 19._--I have been out on the floe again, breaking in my dogs. My
reinforcement from the Esquimaux makes a noble team for me. For the last
five days I have been striving with them, just as often and as long as
my strength allowed me; and to-day I have my victory. The Society for
Preventing Cruelty to Animals would have put me in custody if they had
been near enough; but, thanks to a merciless whip freely administered, I
have been dashing along twelve miles in the last hour, and am back again;
harness, sledge, and bones all unbroken. I am ready for another journey.
"_April 22._--Schubert has increasing symptoms of erysipelas around his
amputated stump; and every one on board is depressed and silent except
himself. He is singing in his bunk, as joyously as ever. Poor fellow!
I am alarmed about him: it is a hard duty which compels me to take the
field, while my presence might cheer his last moments."
[Illustration]
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