Kalli, the Esquimaux Christian Part 2

[Ill.u.s.tration: Seal Hunter]

In this situation, we are told, a man will sit quietly for ten or twelve hours together, at a temperature of thirty or forty degrees below zero, watching for the opportunity of killing and taking the seal, which is supposed to be at work making its hole beneath in the ice. The Esquimaux, partly sheltered from the "winter's wind," and fast-falling snow, by a snow-wall, has got his spear and lines ready, and he has tied his knees together, to prevent his disturbing the seal by making the slightest noise.

Sights in England

Kalli, whilst in London, on a visit to the author, was taken to the British Museum. With some of the objects there he was much gratified.

The antiquities, sculpture, and specimens of art and science, had not such charms in his sight as had the life-like forms of stuffed animals in that great national collection. With the seals, reindeer, and a gigantic walrus, with bright gla.s.s eyes, he was especially struck and amused, lingering for some time in the attractive apartment which contained them.

He had now and then much to bear from rudeness and incivility on the part of some thoughtless persons, who derided his personal appearance, though they were not successful in putting him out of temper. The author recollects an instance of this in a street in London. He was walking with Kalli, when two young men, who ought to have known better, stared at the youth in pa.s.sing, and laughed in his face: then presently turning round, they said, as they pointed at him, "There goes a Chinese!" He merely looked up, smiling, as if at their ignorance, and want of proper feeling.

It has been observed of the people of his nation, that they evince little or no surprise or excitement at such things as occasion admiration in others. When Kalli first came up the river Thames with Captain Ommanney, and travelled from Woolwich by the railway, thence proceeding through the wonderful thoroughfare from London Bridge to the West End of the town, pa.s.sing St. Paul's Cathedral, and Charing Cross, he merely said, _It was all very good_.

"I took him with me," said the Captain, "to the Great Exhibition, the Crystal Palace, in Hyde Park. He beheld all the treasures around him with great coolness, and only expressed his wonder at the vast mult.i.tude of people."

Great Exhibition of 1851

This is natural enough. Many of our readers may recall the feelings of astonishment with which they viewed that large a.s.semblage. On one of the shilling days, in October, 1851, ninety-two thousand human beings were collected together in the Crystal Palace at one time[5]. The force of contrast could perhaps go no further than in this instance.

A young stranger who, in his own country, in a s.p.a.ce of hundreds of miles around him, had only three families (probably twelve persons) to count, makes one of a mult.i.tude of more than ninety thousand of his fellow-creatures, in a building of gla.s.s, covering only eighteen acres of ground!

[Footnote 5: This was the case on Tuesday, Oct. 7, 1851. The total number of visitors on that day alone was 109,915.]

He was taken to see the Horse Guards' Stables. On seeing a trooper mount his charger, (both being fully accoutred,) Kalli was puzzled. He could not account for the perfect order and discipline of the animal, and the mutual fitness of the man and his horse, the one for the other.

St. Augustine's College

In November, 1851, Kallihirua was placed, by direction of the Lords of the Admiralty, at the suggestion of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, in the Missionary College of St. Augustine's, at Canterbury. This college, built on the site of the ancient monastery of St. Augustine, was established in 1848, for the reception of students intended for the work of the sacred Ministry in the colonies and dependencies of the British Empire, as well as among the heathen.

The College, to which the Queen gave a charter of incorporation, owes its origin chiefly to the munificence of A. J. B. Beresford Hope, Esq., who purchased the ground, and gave the site. The College Chapel was consecrated on the morning of St. Peter's Day, June 29th, 1848, when seven prelates, with the Archbishop of Canterbury at their head, were present.

College Studies

Kallihirua remained a student of the College, attending to the instruction given him, and conducting himself well and properly in all respects. Under the kind auspices of the Rev. H. Bailey, the learned and judicious Warden of the College, who took the greatest interest in him, he availed himself, as far as his powers admitted, of the advantages of the inst.i.tution. He appeared rightly to understand and value the blessings of education in a civilized community, and received with reverence the simple and saving truths of the Gospel. It was hoped, that, should he willingly and intelligently embrace the Christian faith, he might at no distant period convey the "glad tidings of good things" as a missionary or catechist to his own benighted friends and countrymen.

In September, 1852, the Warden, in a letter, informed the author, that Kallihirua had been in good health all the summer. "We consider him,"

said he, "a youth of intelligence, and quick observation. His progress in reading is necessarily slow, though he can manage words of four or five letters, he is fond of writing, and succeeds very well. He is very devout at prayers, and attentive to the religious instruction given him. I think he will one day be of essential use to a missionary in some northern region. He is grateful to you for your kind offer of books, and will write a letter of acknowledgment."

His Reverence for Sacred Places

It was but a short time after his settling at St. Augustine's College, that one of the students took him to see Canterbury Cathedral. The reverent regard with which he had been taught to look upon a church, as a place where prayer was made to G.o.d, manifested itself in his inquiry, when entering the nave, "Whether he might cough there?" This tendency to cough, arising from an ailment, the seeds of which had probably been sown long before, was often observable; and he was very susceptible of cold.

Illness from Changes in the Weather

In the spring of 1853 he suffered much from the variableness of the season. The mode in which he described his state to a friend is very simple and affecting. The original letter, which was entirely his own, both in composition and handwriting, is here copied verbatim. It commences with his signature:--

"E. YORK, St. Augustine's College. April, 1853.

"My dear Sir,

"I am very glad to tell, How do you do, Sir? I been England, long time none very well. Long time none very well. Very bad weather. I know very well, very bad cough. I very sorry, very bad weather, dreadful. Country very difference. Another day cold. Another day wet, I miserable.

"Another summer come. Very glad. Great many trees.

Many wood. Summer beautiful, country Canterbury."

Should any reader be disposed to look with the smile of a critic on this humble but genuine effort, let him bear in mind the difficulties which poor _English_ adults have to encounter in learning to read and write; and then let him judge of the obstacles in the way of one whose existence had been spent with his native tribe, on fields of ice, and in dark snow-huts.

In all attacks of illness he was attended with a.s.siduous kindness by Mr. Hallowes, of Canterbury, the skilful surgeon employed by the College, who showed much hospitality to Kalli. One of Mr. Hallowes'

family circle on Christmas-day was always the good-humoured broad-faced Esquimaux. At their juvenile parties, the youth joined cheerfully in the sports of the children, and he sometimes sung them some of the wild and plaintive airs peculiar to his tribe.

It is believed that Kalli never omitted his morning and evening prayers by his bed-side, and his utterance was full of devout earnestness. Mr. Bailey remembers once travelling with him to Deal, and while in the railway carriage, the youth quietly took out of his pocket a little book, which was afterwards found to be a collection of texts for each day in the year. For some time he was reading thoughtfully the text for the day. No notice was taken of this to him; and as for himself, never perhaps was any one more free from the least approach to ostentation.

Greenland Esquimaux Vocabulary

In the year 1853, Kalli rendered essential Service in the preparation of a Greenland Esquimaux Vocabulary, for the use of the Arctic Expedition of that year. The work was printed by direction of the Lords of the Admiralty, with a short Preface acknowledging the advantage of his a.s.sistance. Captain Washington, R.N., Hydrographer of the Admiralty, says in the Preface, "Every word has now been revised from the lips of a native. In the Midsummer vacation in 1852 Kallihirua pa.s.sed some days with me, and we went partly over the Vocabulary. I found him intelligent, speaking English very fairly, docile and imitative, his great pleasure appearing to be a pencil and paper, with which he drew animals and ships. At the Christmas holidays, we revised more of the Vocabulary, &c."

A member of the Expedition afterwards visited St. Augustine's College and stated that the Vocabulary had been found to be of much service.

Visit to Kalli at College