Left on Labrador Part 39

"No doubt."

"Well, honestly, old fellow, I could not see any better way to get it for you."

"Well, I hoped never to eat a supper procured by slave-labor."

"You won't notice any great difference in the taste, I dare say,"

replied Wade.

Donovan was preparing splints from the old thwart, and covering them with the blubber in the arch. Ten or a dozen of the Esquimaux were looking on. When he struck a match on his sleeve, exclamations of wonder broke out. Matches were a novelty with them. From their strange looks, and glances toward each other, we concluded that they took us to be either great saints, or devils; most likely the latter, from the way we had previously deported ourselves. The eggs were fried, and eaten with a sprinkling of salt. A fire of seal-blubber was probably a very extravagant luxury in the eyes of our Husky subjects. They had no fire while we were with them, save their flickering stone lamps. Yet the use of cooked food seemed not to be wholly unknown among them. On several occasions we saw them boiling, or at least parboiling, a duck in a stone kettle over five or six of their lamps set together. They often gave food cooked in this way to their young children, and in cases where any of their number are sick. If wood were plenty, they would doubtless soon come to relish it best; since it is undoubtedly the scarcity of wood which has driven them to raw food.

Whatever we did,--in our cooking, eating, and in all our movements,--we were sure of a curious and admiring crowd. There were, in all, thirty-seven of the Esquimaux on the island,--nine men and eleven women, adults: the remaining seventeen ranged from one to eighteen years apparently. So far as we could learn, they kept little or no record of their ages. One man, whom they called _Shug-la-wina_, seemed to exercise a sort of authority over the rest; but whether it was from any hereditary claim to power, or simply from the fact that he was rather larger in stature than the others, was not very clear.

Another, the little dark chap whom Donovan had punished for his snappishness, was almost continually slapping and cuffing the rest about. His name was _Twee-gock_. Besides _Wutchee_ and _Wunchee_, there were, of the girls, one named _c.o.o.nee_,--a very laughing little creature,--and another called _Iglooee_ ("hut-keeper" or "house-keeper"). Neither of these was so large nor so handsome as _Wutchee_ or _Wunchee_. The last two were Kit and Wade's favorites.

They were quaint little creatures, just about four feet and a half in height; chubby, and rather fleshy; and would have weighed rising a hundred pounds, probably. Their faces were rather larger in proportion than our American girls, rounder and flatter; noses inclined to the pug order; eyes black, and pretty well drawn up at the inner corners; cheek-bones rather high, though their flesh prevented them from appearing disagreeably prominent; mouths large, showing large white teeth; ears big enough to hear well; hair black, straight, and occasionally pugged up behind; complexion swarthy, though, in their case, tolerably clear; feet very small; and hands sizable. Add to this description an ever-genial, pleased expression of countenance, with considerable sprightliness of manner dashed with something like _navete_; then picture them in trousers and jackets, with their hoods, and those irresistibly comical "tails,"--and you have _Wutchee_ and _Wunchee_, the belles of our island kingdom.

After our supper of eggs, of which they soon brought as many as seven or eight dozen, Raed proposed that we should take a look at the interior of some of their huts. So, leaving the two sailors with Guard on sentinel duty, we went along to the hut belonging to _Shug-la-wina_, and by signs expressed our desire to go in. He pulled aside the flap in front, and we stepped under. The tent-frame was of small sticks of the yellow pine, with a straight ridge-pole. Over the frame was thrown a covering of cured seal-skin or walrus-skin. A stone lamp, suspended by seal-skin thongs, hung at the farther end. It was burning feebly. The wick seemed to be of long fibers of moss. The lamp itself was simply an open bowl hollowed out of a stone, about the size of a two-quart measure. The oil was the fat of seals or walruses. On one side there was a quant.i.ty of fox-skins and bear-skins thrown down promiscuously. Upon these reclined _Shug-la-wina's_ wife _Took-la-pok_ and his daughter _Iglooee_. Kit made them a present of three pins each. On the other side of the hut there was stowed a sledge, with runners of bone firmly lashed together with thongs. On it was a stone pot, hollowed, like the lamp, out of a large stone. Several harpoons stood in the farther corner. A coil of thong lay on the sledge; also two whips with short handles of bone, but exceedingly long lashes,--not less than fifteen or twenty feet in length. There were lying about half a dozen tusks of the walrus, and, on a low stone shelf, a hundred-weight or more of seal-pork. We were turning to go out, when Wade pointed to the end of a bow and the heads of two arrows protruding from under the furs. Kit took them up; but _Shug-la-wina_ very gravely took them from his hands, and returned them to their hiding-place. The bow was of some dark bone, I thought,--possibly whalebone; the bow-string of sinew; and the arrows of wood, but provided with rough iron heads. The sight of these iron heads surprised us a little, as well as the discovery in another hut of an English case-knife. That knife, doubtless, had a history. On going out, Wade took up one of the bear-skins, and pointed off to our tent.

"_Abb_," replied the Esquimau, nodding.

We took it along with us. The other huts were much the same as _Shug-la-wina's_. We got a bear-skin from each. Wutchee and Wunchee gave us two. These skins, spread over a "shake-down" of moss, made us a very comfortable bed.

By this time it was past ten o'clock; and, after arranging for regular sentinel duty,--two hours in each watch,--we turned in on our bear-skins, save Weymouth, who had the first watch. But we were horribly disturbed by the incessant barking, growling, and fighting of their dogs. Such a set of vicious, snarling curs do not exist in any other quarter of the world, I hope. They were decidedly the most troublesome of our new subjects. Guard could not stir out away from us without being a.s.saulted tooth and nail. Fights of from two to half a dozen combatants were in progress all night; and not only that night, but each succeeding night. Several times some one or other of the Huskies would rush out from their huts, and lay about them with their long whips, shouting "_Eigh, eigh, eigh!_" We could hear the whips snap, followed by piteous yelps and long-drawn howls. Then there would be silence for perhaps ten minutes: by that time another fight would be in full blast.

"What, for thunder sake, do they keep so many dogs for?" growled Donovan.

"To draw their sledges in winter," I heard Raed explaining to him....

[Seventeen pages, containing, as appears from the chapter-head, an account of an Esquimau ball, a funeral, also of _Wutchee's_ and _Wunchee's_ cookery, are here missing from the ma.n.u.script. The young author is now absent with the party in Brazil.--ED.]

Strange how these people can live without salt! They make no use of it with their food; eat fresh seal-blubber, mainly, all their lives. No wonder they look flabby! And yet they are a happy set; always laughing, joking, and badgering each other. Very likely their joys are not of a very high order: but I doubt whether civilization would make them much happier; though, according to the theory of us civilized folks, it ought to. They lead an easy life,--easy, in a savage way; though breaking up dog-fights does keep them pretty tolerably busy.

To-day (Aug. 7) we had a perfect dog-war. Three or four of the ravening, howling curs a.s.saulted Guard under the very flap of our tent. Donovan caught up a musket, and, running out, pinned one of them down with the bayonet, and held him for some seconds. On letting him up, the dog ran off howling, with the blood streaming out of him.

Instantly all the rest set after him, barking like furies. Round and round the huts they went, all snarling and snapping at the wounded one. Presently out rushed old _Shug-la-wina_ and _Twee-gock_ with their whips, shouting "_Eigh, eigh!_" and laying about them. The ends of the thongs cracked like pistol-shots. The hair and hide flew up from the dogs' backs. As fast as one got a _crack_, he would leap up and run off, licking at the spot. How the boys laughed!

"That's a savage weapon!" exclaimed Wade. "I should about as lief take a shot from a revolver as one of those 'cracks' on my bare skin.

Moses, how it would sting!"

"I don't believe it would hurt through anybody's thick coat," Donovan remarked.

"Humph! it would cut right through to a fellow's hide!" exclaimed Kit.

"Nonsense!"

"Bet you don't dare to let one of them crack at you!"

"I wouldn't let one of them snap at my back, for fear he would hit my ears or hands instead; but I had just as lief let him crack at my leg below my knee, under my boot-leg, as not."

"Agreed!"

Kit ran to get old _Shug-la-wina_ with his whip.

"Bet my musket against yours that you can't stand three cracks on your boot-leg!" laughed Wade.

"I take it!" cried Donovan.

In a few minutes Kit came back with the old Esquimau and his whip.

Signs were made; and Donovan raised his foot on a rock, exposing his boot-leg. The veteran Husky began to _yeh-yeh!_ He understood.

Standing off about twenty-five feet, he gathered the lash up; then, swinging the handle around his head, let the long thong go circling around him like a black snake. Faster and faster revolved the black gyres,--twenty times, I have no doubt. Presently he fetched a snap.

The black thong shot out like lightning. _Thut!_ A bit of the leather flew up, spinning in the air. Donovan caught away his leg with a profane exclamation. We crowded round. There was a hole in the boot-leg!

"Gracious!" exclaimed Weymouth.

Don jerked off his boot. On the calf of his leg there was a mark about half an inch wide, and an inch or more in length, red as blood, and rapidly puffing up.

"Have another?" demanded Wade.

"Not much! One will do for me!"

We naturally picked up a good many words of their language; though of its structure--if it have any--we learned little. Other anxieties occupied our minds so fully, that we were not very attentive scholars.

Like the Indians of our Territories, the Esquimaux seemed much addicted to running a whole sentence into a single word, or what sounded like it, of immense length. These sentence-words we could make very little of. But of their detached words, standing for familiar things, I add a vocabulary from such as I can now call to mind:--

Pillitay, Give. Give me something.

Igloo, A hut.

Igloo-ee, A hut-keeper.

Wau-ve, An egg.

Mickee, A dog.

Tuk-tuk, A reindeer.

Muck-tu, A caribou.

Tuck-tu, Seal-blubber.

Nenook, A bear.

Chymo, Trade; barter.

Eigh! Stop! Hold up! Get out!

Karrack, Wood.

Tyma, Good.

Mai, Good.

Negga-mai, Not good.

Na-mick, No.

Abb, Yes.

Singipok, Sleep.

Kayak, A canoe.

c.o.o.nee, A kiss.

Cobloo-nak, An Englishman.

Pee-o mee-w.a.n.ga, I want.

Aunay, Far off.

Ye-meck, Water.

Hennelay, A woman.

We-we, A white goose.

Muck-mhameek, A knife.

Kolipsut, A lamp.

Pussay, A seal.