Proves the Ingenuity of Seals, and Shows That the Great
Polar Bear Is No Respecter of Persons.
"When we were last time cruising in the _Alice_, I think I told you all
about the Arctic winter,--did I not?" said the ancient mariner to his
little friends, when they were met once more.
"Yes," answered William (who was always ready to act as spokesman for
the party),--"yes, Captain Hardy, all about the Arctic winter, and the
aurora borealis, and the wonderful moonlight, and the darkness, and how
you and the handsome little Dean lived through it, and what you talked
about, and how you passed the time, and what a doleful life you led, and
what a dreadful thing it was, and how it made you shiver now to think of
it; and--all that, and a great deal more."
"Certainly," replied the Captain, "certainly, that's it,--all told off
nicely, my lad, just as if you were boxing the compass or repeating the
multiplication table;--all about how we protected ourselves from cold,
and kept ourselves from hunger, and prepared a home for ourselves on the
Rock of Good Hope. And this seemed likely to be our home for life
too,--so far, at least, as we could see; for it appeared clear enough to
us that our condition would never change except with death, which we,
like everybody else, whether they have ever been cast away or not,
wanted to put off as long as possible, having no wish at all to die, and
not liking either to freeze or starve: so you see we had good motives
for energy and patience."
Here little Alice, in her quiet way, interrupted the Captain to say that
the aurora borealis had troubled her dreams all night, and that she
would like to know, if the Captain pleased, why anything should have
such a strange name.
"That I will tell you with pleasure, my dear," answered the Captain;
"I'll tell you all about it,--of course I will. Aurora borealis,--that
means northern light; and the name comes from a pagan goddess called
Aurora, who was supposed to have rosy fingers, and to ride in a rosy
chariot, and who opened the gates of the East every morning, and brought
in the light of day; and thus, in course of time, any great flush of
light in the heavens got to be called Aurora. And then there was a pagan
god called Boreas, who was the North Wind, and had long wings and white
hair, and made himself generally disagreeable. So you see Boreas, from
being the pagan name for north wind, got to mean the north; and
Borealis, from that, became Northern, and Aurora Borealis became
Northern Light."
"Thank you, Captain Hardy," said little Alice; and Fred and William said
"Thank you" too; while, as for the Captain, he looked very wise and
solemn, like other great philosophers, appearing as if he would say,
"Don't be surprised, for that's nothing to what I could do if I had a
mind," every word of which the children would have believed, you may
well be sure. However, the Captain hastened on with the story (which is
more to our present purpose) without giving any further proof of his
learning.
"When the winter had fairly set in," said he, "our field of operations
was much enlarged; and, although the birds had all flown away, we were
hardly worse off than before, as you shall see; for all through the
summer we had been kept close prisoners on the island; but now, when
the ice was solid all over the sea, we could walk out upon it, and this
we did as soon as it would bear. Once the Dean broke through, being a
little careless of where he was stepping; but I got him out, with no
more harm coming to him than a cold bath and a fright.
"Soon after this we made a valuable discovery. Some of the seals have a
habit, when the sea is frozen over, of cutting holes through the ice
with their sharp claws, in order that they may get their heads above the
water to breathe,--the seals not being able, as I have told you before,
to breathe under water, like fish. They can keep their heads under water
about an hour, by closing up their nostrils, so that not a drop can get
in; and, during that time, they do not breathe at all; but at last they
must find the open sea, or a crack in the ice, or else dig a hole
through the ice from below, and thus get their heads to the surface in
some way, or they would drown.
"As we did not then know anything about the habits of the seals in this
respect, I was very much surprised one day, while walking over ice that
was everywhere apparently very solid, to find one of my feet suddenly
break through. I was carrying, at the time, our great narwhal horn,
which had already been used for so many purposes; and when I had got my
foot, as quickly as possible, out of the water, I pounded with the heavy
horn all about the place, and found that there was a large round hole
there that had evidently been made by some animal; and I could think of
nothing else as likely to have made it but a seal. The reason why I had
not seen it was because the snow had drifted over it in a hard crust,
and through this crust the seal kept open with his nose a small orifice
for breathing, that was not larger round than a silver dollar.
"This discovery made us very glad and very curious,--for, having
concluded what it was, we concluded also that there must be more like
it, and we went in search of them immediately. Our search was soon
rewarded, for these seal-holes were very numerous.
"How to catch a seal was the question which now most occupied our
thoughts. The difficulty was very great, for we had no weapons of any
sort for such a purpose. Once more, however, we fell back upon our
narwhal horn. To this horn we had already become much attached, and, as
if to express our gratitude, we had bestowed upon it several names,--as,
for instance, 'Life-preserver,' 'Crumply Crowbar,' 'The Castaway's
Friend,' and the like of that; but the title which finally stuck to it
was 'Old Crumply,'--not that it was exactly a crumply horn, like the one
that grew on the head of the cow that tossed the dog, that worried the
cat, that killed the rat, that ate the malt, that lay in the house that
Jack built,--for it was not crumply at all in that sense, but, on the
contrary, was as straight as an arrow, and was no further crumply than
crumply means wrinkled and twisted; and, indeed, the old horn looked as
if it might have been once red-hot, and had been twisted several times
around before it had cooled off.
"Besides this 'Old Crumply,' we made another weapon, in quite an
ingenious way, as we thought, though at a great expense of time and
labor. This was called by several names, like the other; but generally I
called it the 'Dean's Delight,' for it was made after the Dean's idea,
and he used to flourish it about at a great rate, and was very proud of
it. It was simply a kind of spear made by lashing together (after
carefully cutting with our knife, and fitting and overlapping) a great
many pieces of bones. The lashing was the same string or thong we had
before used for the duck-traps. It was very strong, though not half so
heavy as 'Old Crumply.'
"But though we had 'Old Crumply,' and the 'Dean's Delight,' we were
apparently just as far off as ever from catching a seal. The 'Delight'
was tipped with hard ivory (a piece of walrus tusk carved into proper
shape with the jack-knife), and 'Crumply' was of the very best kind of
ivory throughout, yet we could not sharpen either of them so as to be of
much use. But, remembering the general shape of the harpoon-heads used
in whale-ships, I managed to cut one of that pattern out of walrus
ivory, and this I set on the end of the 'Dean's Delight,' and then,
making a hole in the centre of it, I fastened it to the end of one of
our long lines. And thus I had obtained all that was needed, in name at
least, for catching a seal; but only in name, as was soon proved; for
the Dean and I set out at once to try our fortunes in this new line of
adventure, and, discovering a seal-hole, we stood near it (on the
leeward side, that the seal might not scent us) until the animal
appeared, which was not for a long time, and not until we had grown very
cold. The seal had evidently been off breathing in another hole. When he
did come up, we knew it by a little puff he gave, which threw some spray
up through the little orifice in the snow-crust. Quick as thought I
plunged the 'Dean's Delight' down into the very centre of the hole, and
struck the animal; but the ivory harpoon-head that was on the end of it
only glanced off, without penetrating the skin; and the seal, no doubt
very much astonished, got off as quickly as he could, more frightened,
probably, than hurt; at least, we heard of him no more. He never came
back to the hole, for it was all frozen over next day, and so it
remained. We afterwards discovered that when a seal-hole has been once
touched, the seal will never go back to it.
"I was now more puzzled than ever to know what to do; but I did not give
up trying, determined to succeed, one way or another. Presently it
occurred to me that almost anything that was hard would answer to
sharpen the edge and point of the ivory harpoon-head, and, since I could
not get any kind of metal to make a whole harpoon-head out of, I had to
try some other plan. As good luck would have it, I now thought of the
brass buttons on my coat. Some of these I quickly tore off. Then I
hacked my knife with a sharp flint stone until I had made a saw of it,
and with this saw I cut a little groove along the tapering point of the
ivory harpoon-head; and into this groove, which was about a quarter of
an inch deep, I set the buttons, which I had squared with the knife, and
then wedged them firmly. I had now only to grind all these bits of brass
down even, and to sharpen the whole with a stone, and my work was done.
And a most tedious work it had been too. The next thing was to put it to
the test, which we quickly did. A seal-hole being soon found, we had not
long to wait before the seal came into it, with a little puff, as
before; and, as soon as the noise was heard, I let fly with my harpoon,
and, striking through the snow-crust, hit the seal fairly in the neck,
and drove the harpoon into him.
"Down sank the seal through the hole, taking the harpoon along with him,
and spinning out the line which was attached to it at a furious rate.
Before the seal was struck, and while I was watching for him, the Dean
had quietly tied the end of the line that was not fast to the harpoon
around the middle of 'Old Crumply,' and when the seal descended into
the sea, 'Old Crumply' was whipped along over the snow until it lodged
right across the hole, and there the seal was,--'brought up with a round
turn,' as the sailors say.
"And now was anybody ever so rejoiced as we? The Dean fairly shouted
with delight, and danced around the hole as if he were crazy, crying
'Bravo, bravo!' and 'Hurrah for Crumply' and 'Hurrah for Old Crumply!'
and hurrah for this, and hurrah for that, until he was fairly hoarse.
Meanwhile the seal was trying his best to get away. He darted from side
to side, and up and down, without any other result than to tire himself
out; for the harpoon held firmly in his body, and the line held firmly
to 'Old Crumply,' and 'Old Crumply' lay squarely across the hole.
"By and by the seal was forced to come up to breathe; and, since there
was no other place for him, he had to return to the hole where he had
been struck. But he did not stay more than a second or so, going down as
quickly as he had done before. As soon as the line was loosened,
however, we drew in the slack, and wound it around 'Old Crumply,' so
that the seal did not have so much of it now to play with. Nor did he
remain under so long the second time. When he came up again, we got in
all the slack of the line that we could, as before.
"It was now clear enough that we should be sure of the seal, if we could
only get something to kill him with; and so the quick-witted Dean ran
off at once to the hut, and brought a walrus tusk that we had saved.
This was driven into the hard snow not far from the hole, and, while the
Dean held it there firmly, I got the line made fast around it. As soon
as I saw that this was secure, and that the Dean was holding on
bravely, I unfastened the line from 'Old Crumply,' and, when the seal
came next time, I gave him a heavy thrust with the sharp end of it. But
this did not kill him by any means, nor did he give me another chance
for some time. Then, however, he was almost dead with bleeding, and
fright, and hard struggling to get away, to say nothing of holding his
breath so long; but I wanted him too badly to have any mercy on him, so
I worked away as hard as I could to get in all the line, so that the
seal could not sink down through the hole any more.
[Illustration: Ingenuity is rewarded, and "Old Crumply" distinguished.]
"At last I was successful, and the seal was fast in the hole, and with
all his struggling he could not get away. With the aid of 'Old Crumply,'
I now quickly made an end of him. As soon as he was dead, we drew him
out on the ice, and rejoiced over him. Such shouting never was before
known, at least in that part of the world. If anybody could have heard
and seen us, we should have surely been taken up for insane people,
especially the Dean, whose joy knew no bounds.
"Having no sledge, we had to drag the dead seal over the ice and snow,
for which purpose we made the line fast through his nose. It was no easy
task to get him to the hut; and, when we did at last succeed, we found
that the seal was partly frozen, so that we were obliged to draw it
inside the hut, and then thaw it, before we could get the skin off,
which made the hut very disagreeable. After the skin and blubber were
removed, we cut off some of the flesh, and made for ourselves a good hot
supper,--first cooking a stew in our soapstone pot, and then frying some
steaks on a flat stone; and if anything was before wanting to make us
perfectly happy over the capture of so great a prize, we had it now,
when we discovered what excellent food it was, and what a quantity there
was of it.
"When we had finished butchering the seal, we prepared the skin for
making boots; and we put the blubber and flesh away in our storehouses
for future use,--the flesh for food, and the blubber for our fire and
lamp. Then we slept, and the very next day we set out to catch more
seals, without, however, the same success, for we were unfortunate in
every attempt; and it was, indeed, almost a week, I think, before we
made a second capture. Some time afterward we caught a third, and then a
fourth, and by great good fortune on the very same day a fifth; and not
long after that we caught another, which made the sixth.
"But it would have been well had we been content with five, without
coveting a sixth, as this last had like to have been the ruin of us; for
as we were going slowly back to the hut, dragging the seal after us, and
all unsuspicious of harm, we were set upon by a great white beast, the
like of which we had never seen before, but which we knew must be one of
those savage animals called polar bears. He was not coming rapidly, but
was rather crawling along cautiously, with mouth wide open, looking very
fierce. As soon as we discovered him, we dropped the line with which we
were dragging the seal, and ran as fast as our legs would carry us,
never stopping until we had reached the hut and crawled into it,--not
once having had the courage to look back, for at every step we expected
that the bear would be atop of us.
"We had left 'Old Crumply' and 'Dean's Delight' where we captured the
seal, intending to go for them the next day; and, having no weapon of
any kind, we were in the greatest terror, expecting every moment to hear
the bear coming to tear the hut down, and drag us out, and eat us up.
"But, finding that we were not disturbed, we at length fell asleep. Upon
awaking the next day, and finding that we had been suffered to go
undisturbed thus long, we began to wonder whether we had not been
needlessly alarmed, and finally we set to wondering whether we had
really seen a bear after all, and at length we grew to feel quite
ashamed of ourselves. So we put on a little bravado, like the boy that
whistled in the dark to keep his courage up, and went out, cautiously
approaching the spot where we had left the seal. Arriving there, we had
positive proof enough, if any were wanting, that we had certainly seen a
bear. The bones of the seal were all strewn about over the snow, picked
as clean as could be. Some foxes were gnawing at them, as we came up;
but they all scampered off when they saw us coming.
"Hurrying on, we picked up 'Old Crumply' and 'Dean's Delight,' and then
hastened back to the hut, which we reached without any further
adventure; but on the day following, upon going out to visit our
fox-traps, we came across the bear's tracks, from which it was evident
to us that the wild beast was prowling round the island, where he had
already obtained one good meal, and was in hopes, no doubt, of getting
another; and, as we did not know how soon he might feel disposed to
begin upon us, we ran back to the hut with all speed, imagining, as we
went along, that every rock and snow-drift that we passed was a bear.
"We had now even greater fears than before that we should be attacked
and eaten up by the wild beast. It did not once occur to us that the
bear would be much more likely to prefer the contents of our storehouses
to ourselves, if he came that way, but we thought only of our own
safety; and this was perhaps not unnatural, for boys and men alike are
everywhere liable to magnify their own importance, even in the eyes of a
bear.
"We had not been in the hut more than a couple of hours, I should say,
before we heard the tramp of our enemy. We knew it must be the footsteps
of the bear, because it could be nothing else. Our fears were now even
greater than ever.
"The bear appeared from the sound of his footsteps, crunching in the
snow, to be making directly for us, sniffing the air as he came along,
apparently enjoying in advance a supper that he felt quite sure of. He
seemed to halt at every step or so, as if greatly relishing the
prospect.
"At last he came very near, and we expected at every instant to see his
head appear at the window. Resolved to sell our lives as dearly as
possible, we grasped our weapons firmly, the Dean his 'Delight' and I
'Old Crumply,' to the end of which I had firmly lashed the jack-knife,
after grinding it very sharp on a stone, and giving it a good point. As
the knife-blade was quite long, I had strong hopes of giving the bear
such a wound, when he appeared at the window, as might be the death of
him, or, at any rate, frighten him so badly that he would be glad to run
away, and not come back any more.
"Nearer and nearer came the bear, and greater grew our alarm. Our hearts
beat violently in our breasts; our faces were pale as death; we held our
breath, as if fearful of making the least noise to give the bear
encouragement. At length our enemy gave a sudden start. It seemed to us
as if he had now made a dash at the window, so we both rose to our feet,
with our weapons ready to meet him; but, to our great joy and relief,
the sound of his footsteps showed that the beast was retreating, rather
than advancing, and was moving more rapidly. A moment afterward we heard
the rattle of stones, and now, from fear for ourselves, we passed
instantly to fear for our stores; for we knew that it was our stores,
and not us, that he was after, and that he must be tearing down one of
our principal storehouses. And now, what if he should tear them all
down, and eat up all our food and fuel? It was a fearful thought.
"How often do we pass almost insensibly from the greatest terror to the
greatest courage! Relieved now from all immediate personal
apprehension, we felt at once inspired to protect our property, on the
safety of which our lives depended. We ceased at once to feel like
standing passively on the defensive, but immediately crawled out of the
hut to do something,--exactly what, we did not know. Our thoughts had,
indeed, hardly time to take shape in our minds, so quickly had the
change come in the situation and in our feelings.
"The bear was plainly in sight as soon as we got outside, tearing down
our storehouse; but he appeared not to be thinking of us at all. Without
reflecting in the least what I was about, but filled only with alarm at
the prospect of losing our food and fuel, I set up a loud shout, in
which the Dean joined; and, to our great surprise, the huge beast, that
had caused us so much terror, took fright himself, and without looking
round, or stopping a moment, he made a great bound, and tore away over
the rocks, plunging through the snowdrifts, and rolling down the hill
into the valley, where we had dug the turf, in a most ridiculous manner.
"We passed now from a state of terror to a feeling of perfect safety,
and in such an unexpected manner, too, that we laughed outright, and we
thought that we had been very foolish to be so frightened, and looked
upon our enemy as a great coward. So we concluded that an animal who was
so easily scared as that would never attack us, and therefore, getting
our weapons, we followed after him, hoping to drive him from the island.
The jumps that he had made were quite immense, showing clearly the state
of his mind.
"Following the tracks of the bear, we came very soon in full view of the
beach where the carcass of the narwhal was lying, half buried in ice and
snow. The tracks led in that direction, and finally pointed straight to
the spot. He had in his flight evidently smelled the old narwhal, and,
remembering only that he was hungry, had stopped there; for presently we
caught sight of him, tearing away at the narwhal with as much energy as
he had before wasted upon our storehouse.
"We had come quite near to the bear before we saw him; and now our
spirits underwent another sudden change, and our minds were once more
filled with such feelings of respect for the bear, that we turned about
immediately, and beat a hasty retreat; and, when once more under the
shelter of the hut, prepared again to stand on the defensive.
"All we could now do was to watch the bear closely. So long as the old
narwhal lasted, we felt that we were safe enough, even after he had
apparently satisfied himself with a good meal, and had gone away, as
seemed likely, to sleep. He would certainly, however, come back to the
narwhal again when he got hungry; but now, worse than ever, when he did
come back, there were two other bears with him, and all three of them
were making a meal off the carcass of the dead narwhal. These last two
were quite small ones,--the smaller not being larger than a big
Newfoundland dog.
"With this discovery all our newly found courage took rapid flight, and
we were overtaken with even greater alarm than before. That the narwhal
would soon all be gone seemed plain enough, with three bears feeding
upon it; and then, when this feeding was over, this first bear, knowing
where our storehouse was, and forgetting his fright, and having two
bears, and perhaps by that time even more, to help him, we were sure he
would soon come back again. It seemed as if a great crisis had now come
in our fortunes, and what to do we did not know, and what was to become
of us we could not imagine. We were in great trouble."
"I don't wonder," exclaimed William,--"the horrid brutes!"
"I should have been scared to death," cried Fred; while little Alice
thought it was too dreadful to think of; but, "The poor bears, how cold
and hungry they must have been!" said she.