GREENLAND.
"Now suppose I tried what the very cold countries are like!"
And Lucy bent over the globe till she was nearly ready to cut her
head off with the brass meridian, as she looked at the long, jagged
tongue, with no particular top to it, hanging down on the east side
of America. Perhaps it was the making herself so cold that did it,
but she found herself in the midst of snow, snow, snow! All was
snow except the sea, and that was a deep green, and in it were
monstrous, floating white things, pinnacled all over like a Cathedral,
and as big, and with hollows in them of glorious deep blue and green,
like jewels; Lucy knew they were icebergs. A sort of fringe of these
cliffs of ice hemmed in the shore. And on one of them stood what she
thought at first was a little brown bear, for the light was odd, the
sun was so very low down, and there was so much glare from the snow
that it seemed unnatural. However, before she had time to be afraid
of the bear, she saw that it was really a little boy, with a hood and
coat and leggings of thick, thick fur, and a spear in his hand, with
which he every now and then made a dash at a fish,--great cod fish,
such as Mamma had often on a Friday.
Into them went his spear, up came the poor fish, which was strung
with some others on a string the boy carried. Lucy crept up as
well as she could on the slippery ice, and the little Esquimaux
stared at her with a kind of stupid surprise.
"Is that the way you get fish?" she asked.
"Yes, and seals; father gets them," he said.
"Oh, what's that swimming out there?"
"That's a white bear," he said coolly; "we had better get home."
Lucy thought so indeed; only where was home?--that puzzled her.
However, she trotted along by the side of her companion, and
presently came to what might have been an enormous snow-ball, but
there was a hole in it. Yes, it was hollow; and as her companion
made for the opening, she saw more little stout figures rolled up
in furs inside. Then she perceived that it was a house built up of
blocks of snow, arranged so as to make the shape of a beehive, all
frozen together, and with a window of ice. It made her shiver to
think of going in, but she thought the white bear might come after
her, and in she went. Even her little head had to bend under the
low doorway, and behold, it was the very closest, stuffiest, if
not the hottest place she had ever been in! There was a kind of
lamp burning in the hut; that is, a wick was floating in some oil,
but there was no glass, such as Lucy had been apt to think the
chief part of a lamp, and all round it squatted upon skins these
queer little stumpy figures dressed so much alike that there was
no knowing the men from the women, except that the women had much
bigger boots, and used them instead of pockets, and they had their
babies in bags of skin upon their backs.
They seemed to be kind people, for they made room near their lamp
for the little girl, and asked her where she had been wrecked.
Then one of the women cut off a great lump of raw something--was
it a walrus, with that round head and big tusks?--and held it up
to her; and when Lucy shook her head and said, "No, thank you," as
civilly as she could, the woman tore it in two, and handed a lump
over her shoulder to her baby, who began to gnaw it. Then her
first friend, the little boy, hoping to please her better, offered
her some drink. Ah! it was oil, just like the oil that was burning
in the lamp!--horrid oil from the whales! She could not help
shaking her head; and so much that she woke herself up!