In the Land of the Great Snow Bear Part 12

Next, Claude would make Byarnie tell him some wild old Norse story--he was full of them--with Sagas, or Vikings, or fairies in it, and then sing. Oh! Byarnie could sing well, but a strange, monotonous kind of lilt it was--very pleasant, nevertheless, for it _never_ once failed to put Claude to sleep. So sure, indeed, was Claude of falling asleep when Byarnie began to sing, that he used to lie down in the stern-sheets with a cushion beneath his head.

Sometimes he awoke with such a happy, happy half-dazed look on his handsome face, and say, "Oh! Byarnie, I've had such a pleasant dream!"

Next they would land, and Claude would now read in earnest, while poor Byarnie cooked the dinner in gipsy fashion.

Very often after this Claude would keep his companion talking about Iceland, with Meta always the centre figure, for hours, till, when near sundown, they would probably hear the report of a rifle at some distance off. This was Dr Barrett signalling to his men, and not long after the whaler would come sweeping up, and the boats would return together, often enjoying the fun and frolic of a good race, for Byarnie was a splendid oarsman; his skiff was light, and he, if not a feather, had the strength of three ordinary seamen.

Thus pleasantly pa.s.sed the summer days on that lonesome Greenland ocean.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

AMONG ARCTIC FIORDS--A STRANGE DISCOVERY.

If the reader happens to possess a map of the polar regions, or even a good map of the world, and will take a glance or two at the discovered lands and seas beyond the Arctic circle, he will be struck at once by their nomenclature. It would be interesting to know the why and the wherefore of many of these names, which I do not believe have, in any single instance, been given at random. The origin of some of them is evident enough--"Lady Franklin's Sound," for example, or "Hayes' Inlet,"

or "Peabody Bay."

But I do not wish to be told of the exact reasons that determined these names. Knowing what I do about the Polar regions, I would rather let my imagination have a little play.

A little to the south of Spitzbergen lies Hope Isle, or Sea Horse Island; I happen to know that many walruses, sometimes called sea-horses, frequent the ice or the icy land there; but why called _Hope_ Island? Some ship, perhaps, had been long imprisoned, north of this place, provisions exhausted, and the chances of ever getting clear small indeed; but, behold! the ice opens as if by magic, and by sawing and blasting they struggle as far south as this lone isle, where, though locked up once more in the icy embrace of King Winter, they live in hope, and are eventually rewarded.

Down the east coast of Greenland proper there is a point with an ugly name, "Cape Discord." Was it mutiny or only mutiny threatened? did men struggle on slippery blood-bespattered decks, or was the discord confined to muttered threats, to black and angry looks and round-robins?

[Note 1.]

"Cape Farewell" again--the southernmost point in Greenland. The ship has been wintered in Baffin's Bay, and the men have undergone cold, misery, and privation; but hurrah! the last land is left behind, the blue open sea is all before them, cheerily sings the wind through the rigging, the sails are full, and the men's hearts are also so full that if they did not sing they would go mad. So "farewell, old Greenland; our dear wives and sweethearts are waiting us at home in merry England.

Farewell, farewell."

But round that point is Cape Desolation. Look at those bluff, bare crags that overhang the sea, the home of hardly even a wild bird; see afar off the tree-lands covered with snow, leaden clouds athwart the sky, billows dashing in foam against the black rocks, and the cold wind blowing. Ugh! let us leave it. It is pleasant to find a Prince Albert Land and a Victoria Land up in the Arctic ocean, side by side; and a North Lincoln and North Devon, separated only by Jones's Sound. We have been told that when the North Pole is eventually discovered a Scotchman will be found at the top of it. I should not wonder, for the most northerly land, if my memory serves me aright, is called Grant's Land, and everybody knows that Grant is the name of a brave old Scottish clan.

Obeying instructions from his employers, Claude worked his ship north and north along the western sh.o.r.es of Greenland, exploring every creek and fiord; the doctor being meanwhile very busy, as we have seen in the last chapter, taking scientific notes and collecting specimens.

In their voyage out, the _Icebear_ had only once spoken the _Kittywake_.

She was a schooner commanded by the ex-skipper of a Dundee whaler, a man who knew the country well, and though but a small craft she was strong, and eminently suited for the work she had to perform, namely, to follow the _Icebear_ with stores. She had received instructions to hug the western land, and, if a flagstaff was seen at the entrance to any creek, there to lay-to until the _Icebear_ came out.

But the _Kittywake's_ powers of sailing were only of a very limited character, and steam she had none. So, after spoken, she was not seen again for a time.

Very few of these wonderful fiords, as I have already mentioned, are even known. Now, it had occurred to our learned _savants_ at home that it would pay, not in one way, but in two, to explore the largest of them. Untold wealth lies buried in Greenland. Scientific wealth, and the dross called gold, mayhap even diamonds, mayhap precious stones of a kind not yet known to the world. For why? Was not Greenland--that vast country which a single glance at the map tells you is as large in extent, as long and as wide as Africa itself--was it not at one time, ages ago, they argued, an inhabited continent as free from ice as our fair England is at the present day? They believed that the mountains which now shoot their jagged peaks, covered with perpetual snow, up into the blue-green sky were once purple and crimson with gorgeous heath; that green valleys and lovely glens lay below, with placid lakes and rolling rivers, and cascades of sparkling water; that gigantic forest lands covered the greater part of the country, forests in which the bison and wild deer roamed and fed; that, in a word, Greenland was once upon a time--while the torrid zone was but a fiery belt, uncrossable, uninhabitable--a fertile land of beauty, a land of mountain, forest, and stream.

They even went farther. Might not man himself, they said, have dwelt in this beautiful country--primeval man--and might not his remains be found even yet? There is, indeed, no length to which some learned _savants_ will not go, if they once give the reins to their imaginative power.

While not for a moment feeling half so sanguine as his employers, Claude, having undertaken a task, meant to do his duty, his best; and who can do more?

As long as the summer lasted, and before the mists began to rise, Claude continued his explorations. He came at last to a vast wall of solid rock, darkly frowning over the deep. He would have pa.s.sed along it, never dreaming there could be any opening in there, had he not seen some bears swimming in the water. They disappeared on being followed by a boat, and the officer in charge, on returning, reported having discovered the inlet to a vast fiord. The _Icebear_ was headed for the rock, and found the opening just soon enough to enter with safety.

It was a bright, clear day, with little wind and hardly a cloud in the sky, with every indication that fine weather would continue for a time at least.

All hands were on deck as the _Icebear_ was turned sh.o.r.ewards and headed straight for the rocks. The boat that had gone in pursuit of the bears was ahead, guiding. To go steaming stem on to that adamantine wall seemed courting destruction, but lo! after a progress of a few hundred yards, the cliffs opened up as if by magic, showing a long channel of deep blue water. It got wider inland, but the cliffs were higher; gradually, however, they receded from the water's edge, and got lower and lower.

The ship was now stopped, and a party sent on sh.o.r.e to climb the highest peak adjoining the sea, and plant thereon the flagstaff that should signal to the _Kittywake_ the whereabouts of her consort.

Slowly on and on steamed the _Icebear_, two men taking soundings from the chains, lest the water should suddenly shoal, but the beach at each side still continued rocky, though no longer high.

"What do you think of this?" asked Claude of Dr Barrett, who stood near him on the bridge.

"I am rejoiced beyond measure at our discovery," was the reply. "Why, this _would_ please Professor Hodson, for no slowly descending glaciers ever made this wonderful cutting--it is volcanic entirely. Behold the rocks, Captain Alwyn."

"You are right, doctor, beyond a doubt."

"And I should not be surprised now what we came to."

"Nor I."

"I wish," said Mr Lloyd, "I could see things with the eyes you seem to possess, doctor. How delightful it must be to be quite at-home-like with everything you see around you! You are a learned man, doctor."

"Nay, nay," cried the surgeon, laughing. "I am but a student--a baby student. Were I to live for ten thousand years I should still be only reading in the first book of Nature."

"You are modest, at all events," Claude said; "and I believe that is a sign of genius."

"One cannot help feeling both modest and humble, Captain Alwyn, when standing face to face with the first facts of science, and knowing that the little knowledge he has acquired is to the vast unknown but as the light of a candle to the noonday sun."

For days the _Icebear_ followed the course of this estuary. Sometimes it narrowed to a mere deep cutting or ca.n.a.l, anon it would widen out into a broad oblong lake. At length it ended in an inland gulf or sea, some thirty or forty miles square.

In lat.i.tude this mysterious sheet of water was fully a degree and a half south of the inlet.

Dr Barrett spent days in dredging, and in roaming over the hills, studying botany and geology.

There were high mountains all around, and it was a strange sight for those on the deck of the _Icebear_, which was anch.o.r.ed at some little distance from the sh.o.r.e, to witness mighty cataracts tumbling sheer over the very summits of these hills, and coming roaring and foaming down their sides. The men looked upon this as magical, but it is easily explained: there were other hills behind these--much higher ones--that were invisible from the ship's deck, and it was from these the waters poured down.

As might have been supposed, they found the waters of this inland sea less salt than the ocean itself, though by no means brackish.

"I think, sir," said Dr Barrett, when he came off one evening, "that we need hardly proceed farther north. We can hardly expect to find another such lake as this."

"Here, then, we shall winter," replied Claude.

"Here, I believe, we ought, too. For look what I have dredged up."

"Coal!"

"It is coal. I found it close in sh.o.r.e, and there is more of it.

Depend upon it, we have discovered a country rich in mineral wealth; and, if I am any judge, there is gold in abundance here, too. Look at this. There are specimens for you."

He handed him a few pieces of rock as he spoke.

"Pretty morsels of stone enough," said Claude, as he bandied and weighed them in his palm. "Would make nice ornaments for a mantelpiece. But do they really represent anything of value?"

"Well, I will tell you. You see I have numbered all these morsels of stone. Here is Number 1." (Number 1 was a piece of dark brown stone mingled with patches of the darkest blue, in which little stars sparkled and shone.) "That," said Dr Barrett, "is carbonate of copper ore.

Number 2, you perceive, is black with streaks of green; that also is a copper ore of some value. Number 3--take hold of it, Mr McDonald,"

continued the doctor, addressing the third mate. "What would you call it?"