From Paris to New York by Land Part 9

The time at Whalen pa.s.sed with exasperating slowness, especially after the first ten days, when monotony had dulled the edge of success and worn off the novelty of our strange surroundings. On the Lena we had experienced almost perpetual darkness; here we had eternal daylight, which, with absolutely nothing to do or even to think about, was even more trying. Almost our sole occupation was to sit on the beach and gaze blankly at the frozen ocean, which seemed at times as though it would never break up and admit of our release from this natural prison. Every day, however, fresh patches of brown earth appeared through their white and wintry covering, and wild flowers even began to bloom on the hillsides, but the cruel waste of ice still appeared white and unbroken from beach to horizon. One day Harding fashioned a rough set of chessmen out of drift-wood, and this afforded some mental relief, but only for a few days. "Pickwick" had been read into tatters, even our Shakespeare failed us at last, and having parted with the "_Daily Mail_ Year Book"

at Verkhoyansk, this was our sole library. Sometimes we visited our neighbours, where we were generally kindly received, presents occasionally being made us. One day the Chief's eldest daughter worked and presented me with a pair of deerskin boots with a pretty pattern worked in deerskins of various colours, obtained from dyes of native manufacture. I naturally wondered how these could be extracted from natural products in this barren land of rock, sand and drift-wood, but Billy partly explained the secret of the operation which is, I fancy, peculiar to the coast.[63] The ex-whaleman furnished me with this information during a talk we had over his experiences of the previous winter. From the same source I also gleaned many facts concerning these people, who invariably try to mislead the ingenuous stranger. Billy, however, enjoyed their complete confidence, and had stored up a fund of interesting information, some of which I reproduce for the reader's benefit.

[Footnote 63: A bright red colour is obtained from a rock found in the interior. Green by boiling the fur in the urine of a dog. I was unable to ascertain how dark blue, the only other dye, is made.]

Next to irresponsible and armed drunkards my greatest anxiety at Whalen was caused by the medicine men, of whom there were about a score, and who never lost an opportunity of setting their patients against us.

Medicine men are all-powerful here, although their treatment consists solely of spells and incantations. But the unfortunate dupes have a firm belief in these men, who are not only medical advisers, but are consulted on everything pertaining to the affairs of life, from marital differences to the price of whalebone. Billy had at one time aroused the enmity of these impostors, who naturally distrust the influence generally gained by the owner of a modern medicine chest. Our friend had landed in Siberia with a bottle of embrocation and some c.o.c.kle's pills, but even this modest pharmacopia had aroused the bitterest jealousy amongst the doctors at East Cape. But familiarity breeds contempt, and when Billy had gradually been reduced to the social standing of the humblest Tchuktchi the medicine men simply ignored him, and made no objection to his presence at their _seances_, which generally took place in the dark. Occasionally, however, the Shamans officiated in the daylight, when their skill as conjurers would, according to Billy, have eclipsed an Egyptian Hall performance. To swallow several pieces of walrus hide, and afterwards vomit forth a pair of miniature moccasins, would seem a trick beyond the powers of the untutored savage, but the whaleman often saw it accomplished. He also a.s.sisted to bind a Shaman hand and foot with walrus thongs, and in less than ten seconds the man had freed himself, although secured by knots which Billy himself could not have unravelled in a week.

My friend is probably the only white man who has ever a.s.sisted at a whale dance, which took place in a hut, dimly lit by seal oil lamps and crowded with both s.e.xes in a state of nature, with the exception of their sealskin boots. The performance commenced with music in the shape of singing accompanied by walrus-hide drums, after which a long plank was brought in and suspended on the shoulders of four men. Upon this three women were hoisted astride, and commenced a series of wild contortions, back and forth and from side to side, not unlike the "Dance du ventre." Relays of girls continued this exercise for two or three hours, until all were exhausted, and then flesh of the whale, caught the preceding summer, was handed round by children, and washed down by floods of raw whisky, which brought the entertainment to a close for that night. The following day athletic sports were indulged in by those sufficiently sober, the owner of one hut furnishing the prizes and refreshments. This giver of the feast and his family were distinguished by faces plastered with the red paint already mentioned as being obtained from the mountains of the interior. Wrestling and racing were the chief pastimes, the prizes consisting of a cartridge, a piece of calico, or perhaps a fox skin. The women did not join in these contests, but with them a form of "tossing in a blanket" was gone through. A walrus skin perforated around with holes to give a firmer grip was held by seven or eight stalwart men, and at a given signal a girl lying in the centre was sent flying into the air, she who reached the greatest height receiving the appropriate prize of a needle or thimble. At night the dance was continued, and on this occasion a fire was kindled around which the medicine men seated themselves, mumbling incantations and casting small pieces of deer or walrus meat into the flames as a sacrifice to the evil spirits. The whale entertainment lasted for three nights, but the incidents which occurred upon the last evening are not fit for reproduction here. The whaleman, being more or less of a celebrity, had attracted the bright glances of several Tchuktchi maidens. But even when he found his affinity poor Billy's courtship was of short duration, for his ladylove, when embraced for the first time upon the lips, indignantly thrust him away and screamed for help.

According to Tchuktchi customs, she had suffered an irreparable insult, the only recognised mode of kissing here being to rub noses while murmuring "Oo" for an indefinite period. This was Billy's first and last experience of love-making here, although Teneskin would gladly have welcomed a white man as a son-in-law, and without the tiresome preliminaries which generally precede a Tchuktchi marriage. For, on ordinary occasions, a man must first obtain the consent of his _fiancee_, then that of her parents, and when these points are settled he must reside for several months as an inmate of the girl's hut before he becomes her husband. A Tchuktchi may put a wife away on the slightest pretext, but no crime on his part ent.i.tles his wife to a divorce. A curious custom here is that of exchanging wives with a friend or acquaintance, who thereupon becomes a brother, even legally, and so far as the disposal of property is concerned.

A Tchuktchi may have as many wives as he pleases or can afford, but married life here is usually a happy one, which is probably due to the fact that a wife is never idle. Not only must she attend to the wants of the household, needlework, cooking, washing, and in winter clearing the roof of the _yarat_ of snow, but there are hides to be tanned and deerskins to be dressed and sewn into clothing. A married woman must also pa.s.s cold and weary hours in winter watching for seal and walrus, and in summer probe the depths of boredom by fishing with a line for "Tom cod." And from a feminine point of view, there is no reward for her labours, no b.a.l.l.s or parties, nor smart hats or gowns to excite the envy of her neighbours; all the Tchuktchi spouse can hope for being a "quid" of tobacco, so rare a luxury that it only reaches her lips when her husband has extracted most of its flavour. While smoking, the Tchuktchis, like the Yakutes, use tiny pipes; the smoke is not ejected or inhaled, but swallowed, and the rankest tobacco is so precious here that it is usually eked out with seal-hairs.

Tchuktchi-land teems with legends and superst.i.tions of which Whalen had its full share. A rock off the coast hard by was said to sing and talk whenever a chief of the village was about to die, and the following curious legend was gravely related to me by Yemanko. Many years ago there lived at Whalen a chief with a wife so pretty that even fish were attracted to the land by her charms. Amongst the dwellers of the sea was a whale, with whom, unknown to her husband, she contracted a union.

Eventually a young whale was born to the amazement of the settlement, which, regarding it as a mysterious gift from the spirits, paid the new arrival great homage. A huge tank was dug and contained the monster until it had attained its full growth, when it was marked and turned loose in the sea to decoy other whales. But the natives of Inchaun, an adjoining village, caught and killed the marked whale, which was scaring away all their fish. The Inchaun people were thereupon attacked by the Whalen men, who slaughtered every soul in their village. There is no doubt that this tribal conflict did take place some time during the eighteenth century, but I cannot say whether the murder of the marked whale was the real cause of the battle.

The Tchuktchis appeared to have no religion, and I never saw any ceremony performed suggestive of a belief in a Supreme Being, although good and evil spirits are believed to exist, and when I was at Oumwaidjik, sacrifices of seal and walrus meat were often thrown into the sea by the medicine men to abate its fury. Three men who died at Whalen during our visit were clad after death in their best deerskins and carried some distance away from the settlement, where I believe they were eventually devoured by the dogs. Several natives told me that a man who dies a violent death ensures eternal happiness, but that an easy dissolution generally means torment in the next world, which shows that the Tchuktchi has some belief in a future state. The theory that a painful death meets with spiritual compensation probably accounts for the fact that loss of life is generally regarded here with utter indifference. A ghastly ceremony I once witnessed at Oumwaidjik is a proof of this. It was called the _Kamitok_, in other words the sacrifice, with the full consent, of the aged and useless members of the community. When a man's powers have decreased to a depreciable extent from age, accident, or disease, a family council is held and a day and hour is fixed for the victim's departure for another world. The most curious feature of the affair is the indifference shown by the doomed one, who takes a lively interest in the preliminaries of his own execution. The latter is generally preceded by a feast where seal and walrus meat are greedily devoured and whisky is consumed until all are intoxicated. After a while the executioner, usually a near relative of the victim, steps forward, and placing his right foot against the back of the condemned, quickly strangles him with a walrus thong. Or perhaps he is shot with a Winchester rifle, this being the usual mode of despatching a friend who has asked another to put him out of the world on account, perhaps, of some trifling but troublesome ailment such as earache or neuralgia, which the sufferer imagines to be incurable.[64]

And a request of this kind must be obeyed, or if not lifelong misfortune will attend the man who has refused to fire the fatal shot. Women, however, are never put to death, nor, so far as I could glean, do they ever want to be. The origin of this custom is probably due to the barren nature of this land where every mouthful of food is precious, and where a man must literally work to live.

[Footnote 64: Mr. Waldemar Bogoras, the Russian naturalist, writes as follows in _Harper's Magazine_ of April 1903: "One of the attendants I had with me for two years while in the Kolyma country belonged to a family with a tradition of this kind. He was a man of fifty, and the father and elder brothers had already followed in the way of their ancestors [by the _Kamitok_]. One time, while stricken with a violent fever, instead of taking the medicine that I gave him, he inquired anxiously if I were sure that he would recover at all, otherwise he felt bound to send for his son and ask for the last stroke."--"A Strange People of the North," by Waldemar Bogoras, _Harper's Magazine_, April 1903.]

That the _Kamitok_ also exists amongst the Eskimo of Alaska is shown by the following anecdote. Captain Healy, of the Revenue cutter _Thetis_, told me that he once inquired of a native near Point Barrow whether one Charlie he had known the previous year was still alive and in good health.

"Oh no," was the reply, "Charlie dead, I shot him."

"Shot him?" said Healy, taken aback. "What did you do that for?"

"Oh, poor Charlie sick, pains all over, he asked me shoot him, so I shot him with his own gun and kept it afterwards!"

The Tchuktchis are by no means an idle race, and whenever I entered a hut I invariably found even the youngest inmates usefully employed; the women busily engaged cooking and sewing, or cleaning and polishing firearms, while the men were away duck-shooting or hunting the seal or walrus. Sometimes we went seal-hunting with our friends, but this is poor sport, especially in damp, chilly weather. The outfit is very simple, consisting of a rifle, snowshoes and spear. A start is made at daylight until a likely-looking hole in the ice is reached, and here you sit down and wait patiently, perhaps for hours, until a seal's head appears above water, which it frequently fails to do. In warm weather this might be an agreeable occupation, but on cold days it seldom induced me to leave even the comfortless shelter of our hut. Most of the seals caught here are hair seals, which must not be confounded with the valuable fur seal, which is used in Europe for wearing apparel, and is seldom found north of the Privilov Islands in Bering Sea. The latter animal is too well known to need description, but the skin of the hair seal is a kind of dirty grey, flecked with dark spots, and is short and bristly. But it is warm and durable and therefore used by the Tchuktchis for breeches and foot wear. Recently, too, it has been introduced into Europe for the use of _chauffeurs_ of automobiles, but ten years ago it was practically worthless; although the flesh is preferable as food to that of the more costly species.

A chase after walrus is far more exciting than either a seal or bear hunt, for their capture involves a certain risk and occasionally actual danger. As soon as one of these beasts is sighted four or five _Baidaras_ are launched and set out at a terrific pace, for the crew of the first boat up gets the lion's share of the spoil. Winchester rifles are now used instead of the old-fashioned harpoon, so that accidents are rarer than they used to be, although boats are often upset. I have only once seen a walrus: a distorted, shapeless ma.s.s of discoloured flesh, spa.r.s.ely covered with coa.r.s.e bristles. The one I saw measured about ten feet long, had quite that girth, and must have weighed over a ton.

Walrus meat as a diet is less repulsive than seal, for it is not so fishy in flavour and has more the consistency of beef.

We had been here about ten days when a native arrived from East Cape and reported a whaler off that headland. At Whalen the ice still presented a hopelessly unbroken appearance, but low, dark clouds to the eastward looked like open water in the direction of the Straits, and I sent Harding and Stepan, with the East Cape man, to verify his report. He was a silent, sulky brute, and I felt some anxiety until the pair returned the next day after a terrible journey, partly by land but princ.i.p.ally over the sea ice across which they had to wade knee deep in water. For about six miles crossing the tundra they floundered in soft snow up to the waist, and finally reached their destination, wet through and exhausted, to find that the ship, probably scared by heavy pack ice, had disappeared to the southward. The natives, however, treated them well, and sent a man to accompany them half way back to Whalen, for the thaw had come so suddenly that he could proceed no further, and our companions only just managed to reach home. This was the last journey made by land between the two settlements, for which I was not sorry, as the undesirable community at East Cape were now as completely cut off from us as the pirates of Oumwaidjik. Harding informed me that at East Cape a totally different dialect was spoken to that at Whalen, but this did not surprise me, as I compiled while at Oumwaidjik a small glossary which completely differed from words in use at Whalen. The natives of the Diomede Island have also a distinctive language, of which, however, I was unable to obtain any words. A reference to the Appendix will show the difference existing between the dialects spoken on the mainland of Siberia. East of Tchaun Bay the same language existed in every village as far as Whalen. The languages spoken by the Reindeer Tchuktchis of the interior and the Eskimo of the Alaskan Coast do not in any way resemble the dialects spoken on the Siberian Coast.

By the end of June the snow on land was fast disappearing, and blue lakes began to appear amongst the white plains and hummocks of the sea.

But those were weary days of waiting even when warmer weather enabled us to live altogether in our hut without taking shelter in the chief's malodorous _yarat_. For the former was crowded all day with natives, who used it as a kind of club, and left us souvenirs every night in the shape of a stifling stench and swarms of vermin. As time wore on the heat in our heavy furs became insupportable, but frequent and sudden changes of temperature rendered it impossible to discard them altogether. For often the sun would be blazing at midday with a temperature of 60 in the shade, and a few minutes later we would be cowering over the stove listening to the howling of the wind and the rattle of sleet against the wooden walls. This would last perhaps an hour or two, and then the sky would again become blue and cloudless, the sunshine as powerful as before. One day in early June is thus described in my journal: "Clear, cloudy, warm, cold, windy, calm, sunshine, fog and a little rain!" The wind troubled us most, for here there is no happy medium between a dead calm and a tearing gale, and the latter occurred on an average every second day. Northerly and north-westerly winds prevailed, and we whistled in vain for a southerly buster to clear the coast of ice. And yet notwithstanding our many miseries there were pleasant days, still and sunlit, when I would stroll to the summit of a gra.s.sy hill near the settlement, where the sward was carpeted with wild flowers and where the soothing tinkle of many rivulets formed by melting snow were conducive to lazy reverie. From here one could see for a great distance along the coast to the westward, and on bright days the snowy range of cliffs and kaleidoscopic effects of colour cast by cloud and sunshine over the sea ice formed a charming picture. Stepan pa.s.sed most of his time on these cliffs watching in vain, like a male sister Anne, for ships, for, like most Russians, the Cossack suffered severely from nostalgia.

But the days crawled wearily away, each more dreary than its predecessor, and the eternal vista of ice greeted each morning the anxious gaze of the first man up to survey the ocean. Our Union Jack, now almost torn to shreds by incessant gales, was hoisted on a long stick lent by Teneskin for the purpose, but I began to think that the shred of silk might as well have fluttered at the North Pole for all the attention it was likely to attract from seaward. So pa.s.sed a month away, and the grey hag Despair was beginning to show her ugly face when one never-to-be-forgotten morning Harding rushed into the hut and awoke me with the joyful news that a thin strip of blue was visible on the horizon. A few hours later waves were seen breaking near the land, for when once ice begins to move it does so quickly. Three days later wavelets were rippling on the beach, and I felt like a man just released from a long term of penal servitude when on the 15th of July the hull of a black and greasy whaler came stealing round the point where Stepan had pa.s.sed so many anxious hours.

The whaler proved to be the _William Bayliss_ of New Bedford. We boarded her with some difficulty on account of the jagged ice floes on the beach to which she was moored. It was an acrobatic feat to jump from the slippery ice, lay hold of a jibboom towering overhead, and scramble over the bows. But once aboard, Captain Cottle loaded us with good things (including a tin of sorely-needed tobacco), and all would now have seemed _couleur-de-rose_ had Cottle been able to give us news of the _Thetis_. This, however, he was unable to do, and when that night the whaler had sailed away I almost regretted that I had declined her skipper's offer of a pa.s.sage across the Straits, which might, however, have been prolonged for an indefinite period as the ship was now bound in an opposite direction. That night was certainly the worst we ever experienced, for even Teneskin was rendered helpless by the pandemonium created by the floods of whisky which had streamed into the settlement from the hold of the _William Bayliss_. Towards evening things looked so ugly that the chief and his sons, armed with Winchester rifles, took up their quarters for the night in our hut, the door of which was barricaded by means of iron bars. Even Yemanko looked pale and anxious, for every man in the village, he said, was mad with drink. The chief's wife and daughters remained in the _yarat_, for a Tchuktchi however drunk has never been known to molest a woman. Singing, shouting and deafening yells were heard during the earlier part of the night, as men reeled about the settlement in bands, and occasionally our door would re-echo with crashing blows and demands for admission. This went on for two or three hours, and when things had quieted down and we were thinking of emerging from the stifling hut for fresh air, a shot rang out on the stillness. We seized our rifles, and not a moment too soon, for simultaneously the door flew open with a crash and half a dozen men reeled into the room. One of them brandished a Winchester, but I noticed with relief that the rest of the intruders were unarmed. The face of another whom I recognised as a medicine man, was streaming with blood from a wound across the forehead. Fortunately all were overcome by the fiery poison they had been greedily imbibing and were therefore as weak as children in the hands of seven sober men. In less time than it takes me to write it the invaders were firmly secured with walrus thongs and thrown out of doors to sleep the drink off. A watch was kept throughout the night in case of an attack by reinforcements, but the deadly "Tangle-foot" had done its work, and the village did not awaken until the following day from its drunken slumbers. Unfortunately a native was killed by the shot we heard.

On the morning of the 18th of July Harding and I, while walking on the beach, remarked a white cloud on the horizon, the only blur on a dazzling blue sky. Presently the vapour seemed to solidify, and a.s.sume the appearance of a floating berg, until, a few minutes after, we looked again at the object which had attracted our attention, and lo and behold a thin black thread was now ascending from it into the clear still air.

"A steamer!" shouted Harding, rushing back to the hut for a field-gla.s.s.

But before he could return through the deep heavy shingle doubt had become certainty and I had recognised the Revenue cutter _Thetis_. This is the same vessel, by the way, which rescued Lieutenant Greely and his party on the sh.o.r.es of Smith Sound, but I do not think even they can have been more heartily grateful to see the trim white vessel than we were.

In less than an hour our welcome deliverer had threaded her way through the ice, and we stood on the beach and watched her cast anchor about half a mile off sh.o.r.e. As the chains rattled cheerily through the hawse holes Stepan flew, on the wings of a light heart, to the flagstaff. I am not emotional, but I must confess to feeling a lump in my throat as the Stars and Stripes were slowly dipped in response to a salute from our ragged little Union Jack. For with the meeting of those familiar colours all my troubles seemed to vanish into thin air!

Once aboard the _Thetis_ Harding and I, at any rate, were amongst acquaintances who had previously served on the Revenue cutter _Bear_. I also found an old friend, Lieutenant Cochrane, once third officer of the _Bear_, and now second in command of the _Thetis_, which made this sudden change from a life of mental and physical misery to one of security and well-being the more enjoyable. There was nothing to delay the cutter, save farewells to our kind old host and the repayment for the food with which he had provided us, and by midday we were steaming away from the dreary settlement where I had pa.s.sed so many anxious hours. And then, for the first time in many weary months, we sat down in the ward-room to a decent and well-served meal and enjoyed it beyond description, for are not all pleasures in this world comparative?

Success to the Expedition was drunk in b.u.mpers of champagne, and I then adjourned to Cochrane's room for coffee and liqueurs and a talk over old days on the _Bear_. And the afternoon in that cosy, sunlit cabin, the blessed sensation of rest after toil combined with a luxurious lounge and delicious cigar, const.i.tuted as near an approach to "Nirvana" as the writer is ever likely to attain on this side of the grave!

PART II

AMERICA

CHAPTER XIV

ACROSS BERING STRAITS--CAPE PRINCE OF WALES

The term "cutter" is somewhat of a misnomer, if literally taken, for the Government vessels which patrol these Northern waters. The _Bear_, for instance, which landed us on the Siberian coast in 1896, was a three-masted screw-steamer of over 600 tons, an old Dundee whaler purchased for the United States for the Greeley Relief Expedition. The _Thetis_, although somewhat smaller, is practically a sister ship of the _Bear_, which latter is regarded as the best and stoutest vessel of the Revenue Cutter Service. And her officers and men are well worthy of her.

Three or four years ago no less than eight whalers were hopelessly jammed in the ice off Point Barrow in the Arctic Ocean, and their crews were in imminent danger of starvation. The season was too far advanced for a ship to proceed to their rescue, but a party from the _Bear_ managed to carry supplies to the beleaguered ships after a sled journey of almost unparalleled difficulty, and thereby avert a terrible catastrophe. Several of the shipwrecked men had already perished, but the majority were rescued, chiefly through the pluck and perseverance of Lieutenant Jarvis, first lieutenant of the _Bear_, and leader of the expedition.

The _Thetis_, when she called for us at Whalen, was bound on a mission of some peril--the search for two large steamers from San Francisco which, while trying to reach Nome City, had been caught in the pack and swept away by drifting ice into the Polar Sea. Both vessels were crowded with pa.s.sengers, including many women, and the _Thetis_ had already made two unsuccessful attempts to ascertain their whereabouts. Indeed, it was feared that no more would ever be heard of the _Portland_ or _Jeannie_ which had, as usual, been racing to reach Nome City before any rival liner from the Golden Gate.

When, on that sunlit morning, we left Whalen, a cloudless sky and gla.s.sy sea unflecked by the tiniest floe led me to hope that our troubles were at an end. Captain Healey of the _Thetis_ had resolved to land us on Cape Prince of Wales, but when, towards evening, that promontory was sighted, my heart sank at the now familiar sight of ice packed heavily around the coast. By nine o'clock we were (to use a whaling term) "up against" the outer edge of the pack, and shortly afterwards the engines of the _Thetis_ were slowed down, for the man in the crow's nest reported trouble ahead. And we found it in plenty, for the stout little vessel, after cleaving and crashing her way through the floes for a couple of hours, was finally brought to a standstill by an impa.s.sable barrier. We were now about six miles from the land, but an Eskimo village under the Cape was plainly visible across the swirling ma.s.ses of ice which were drifting to the northward.

"I can't go in any further," cried Healey, and I now had the choice of two evils--to attempt a landing with the aid of the natives, or remain on board the Thetis perhaps for weeks searching for the _Portland_ and _Jeannie_.[65] But I quickly decided on the former course, and a signal was run up for a.s.sistance from the sh.o.r.e, which was quickly seen by a crowd of natives a.s.sembled on the beach. To add to our difficulties a breeze, which had arisen towards evening, was now a.s.suming the proportions of a southerly gale, and Healey impatiently paced the deck, as he watched the Eskimo launch a _baidara_, and cautiously approach us, now threading narrow leads of water, now hauling their skin-boat across the drifting ice.

[Footnote 65: Both these vessels were eventually rescued without loss of life.]

Finally, after a perilous journey, they reached us, and without a moment's delay the expedition was bundled, bag and baggage, into the _baidara_, for the position of the _Thetis_ was now not devoid of danger. Amidst hearty cheers from those on board, we pushed off with some misgivings, while the cutter slowly veered away northward on her errand of mercy. I shall never forget that short, but extremely unpleasant journey. At times it seemed as though our frail craft must be overwhelmed and swamped, for it was now blowing a gale. Every moment huge cakes of ice around us were dashed against each other, and splintered into fragments with a report as of a gun. We made way so slowly that the sh.o.r.e seemed to recede instead of to advance, for often boat and baggage had to be hauled across the floes which now travelled so quickly with the wind and tide that it seemed as though we must be carried past our destination and into the Arctic Ocean. Sometimes it looked as though we could never reach the coast, for--

"The ice was here, the ice was there, The ice was all around, It cracked and growled, and roared and howled Like noises in a swound."

At times the ice-islands we were crossing were tossed to and fro by the waves so violently that it became almost impossible to stand, much less walk, on their slippery surface; at others, while all were paddling for dear life, a towering berg would sail down in perilous proximity, for its touch would have sunk our skin boat like a stone. Once I thought it was all over, when a floe we were on became detached from the main pack, and there was barely time to regain the latter by quickly leaping from one cake of ice to the other as the waves and current tore them apart.

It took us four hours to reach land, or rather the foot-ice securely attached to it, and here, worn out after the tough struggle against the forces of nature, every man took a much-needed rest. It was not until 7 A.M. on June 19 that our feet actually touched the soil of America, six months to a day after our departure from the Gare du Nord, Paris.

Cape Prince of Wales is a rocky, precipitous promontory about 2000 ft.

high, which stands fully exposed to the furious winds, prevalent at all times on this connecting link between Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean.

Why Bering Straits should be so known remains a mystery, for the explorer of that name only sailed through them in the summer of 1728, while Simeon Deschnev, a Cossack, practically discovered them in the middle of the seventeenth century.[66] Captain Cook, of British fame, who pa.s.sed through the Straits in 1778, is said to be responsible for the nomenclature, which seems rather an unjust one, but perhaps the intrepid English navigator had never heard of Deschnev.

[Footnote 66: "On June 20, 1648, Simeon Deschnev, a Cossack trader, sailed from the River Kolyma for the eastward to trade for ivory with the Tchuktchis. His party sailed in three small shallops drawing but little water. After a while the known waters behind them closed up with floes, rendering a return to the Kolyma impossible, but the unknown wastes ahead were open, and invited exploration. Hugging the coast, Deschnev sailed through the Bering Straits, landing there in September.

He called the Siberian sh.o.r.e an isthmus, and described the Diomede Islands, which he plainly saw. Although no mention is made by this party of having seen the American continent, it was probably observed by them, for Cape Prince of Wales can easily be seen on a clear day from the Asiatic side. Deschnev's voyage was quite forgotten until discovered by accident amongst some old records in 1774.

"Only in August, 1728, did Bering sail through here, going a short distance into the Arctic Ocean, but returning without giving any sign of the importance of the pa.s.s, or its nature, and believing, most likely, that what land he saw on the eastern side was a mere island, and not the great American continent. Captain Cook, who came third, made no mistake, for he fully realised that the division of the two hemispheres was here affected, and gave to these straits the name of Bering, August 1778."--"An Arctic Province," by H. W. Elliott.]

The Eskimo settlement which nestles at the foot of Cape Prince of Wales is known as Kingigamoot, and contains about 400 souls. The place looked infinitely drearier and more desolate than the filthy Tchuktchi village which had been our home for so many weary weeks, and it seemed to me at first as though we had stepped, like the immortal Mr. Winkle in "Pickwick," "quietly and comfortably out of the frying-pan into the fire." For our welcome on the sh.o.r.es of America was a terrific gale, and driving sleet against which we could scarcely make headway from the spot where a landing was effected to the village, a distance of perhaps a mile, which took us an hour to accomplish. It was barely eight o'clock, and no one was yet stirring in the settlement, which is only visible a short distance away, for the Eskimo, unlike the Tchuktchis, dwell under the ground.

The sight of a wooden house with gla.s.s windows considerably enlivened the dismal and storm-swept landscape, and we made our way to this solitary haven, which proved to be the residence of Mr. Lopp, an American missionary. His home, though snug enough, was too small to contain more inmates, being already occupied by its owner's wife and family, but an empty shed adjoining it was placed at our disposal, and our hospitable friend bustled about to make it as cosy as possible for our reception. The place was cold, pitch dark, and draughty, being only used as a store-house, but by mid-day our tent was pitched inside the building, and a fire was burning merrily in a small stove cleverly fixed up by the missionary, whose kindly a.s.sistance was very welcome on this bleak and barren sh.o.r.e. Food is scarce enough here, and had it not been for these good friends in need, we should indeed have fared badly, having landed with but few provisions. But although they could ill afford it, the missionary and school teacher, Mrs. Bernardi, gave freely from their scanty store, thereby rendering us a service which I can never adequately repay.

Nome City was now our objective point, but how to reach it by land was a puzzler, the hundred odd miles of country being flooded by melting snow. Two or three wide rivers must also be crossed, which at this season of the year are often swollen and impa.s.sable. It was clearly useless to think of walking, so there was nothing for it but to wait for some pa.s.sing craft to take us down, a rather gloomy prospect, for whalers were now entering the Arctic, and few other vessels get so far north as this. We were lucky to find a white man at Cape Prince of Wales, for the natives would certainly have afforded us no a.s.sistance, and might, indeed, have been actually unfriendly without the firm and restraining hand of Mr. Lopp to keep them in order. A wide and varied experience of savage races has seldom shown me a more arrogant, insolent, and generally offensive race than the Alaskan Eskimo, at any rate of this portion of the country. The Tchuktchis were infinitely superior in every respect but perhaps cleanliness, which, after all, matters little in these wilds. With all their faults our Whalen friends were just and generous in their dealings, though occasionally disquieting during their periods of festivity. The Eskimo we found boorish and surly at all times, and the treachery of these people is shown by the fact that a few years previously they had brutally murdered Mr. Lopp's predecessor by shooting him with a whale-gun. A monument on the cliff facing the Straits bears the following inscription:

HARRISON R. THORNTON, born January 5, 1858, died August 19, 1893.