Peter the Whaler Part 30

The meal was scarcely over when notice was given that a herd of sea-horses, or walruses, or morse, as they are sometimes called, had come into the fiord, and were at no great distance from the bay. The opportunity of catching some of these animals, so valuable to the Esquimaux, was not to be lost, so, seizing their spears and lines, they hurried down to the beach.

Here their canoes were placed bottom upwards on two upright piles of stones, about four feet from the ground. This is done to allow the air to pa.s.s under them, and to prevent them from rotting. They are about seventeen feet long and rather more than two feet wide, decked over, except a hole in the centre in which the rower sits, and round this there is a high ledge to prevent, the sea washing in. Two feet of the bows float out of the water. The timbers or ribs, which are five or six inches apart, and the stem and stern, are of whalebone; and they are covered with the skins of the seal or walrus sewed neatly together.

When driftwood can be found, they employ it. The paddle is double, and made of fir, the edges of the blade being covered with hard bone to secure them from wearing.

With the greatest caution the Esquimaux lifted their canoes into the water, to prevent them rubbing against the rocks, and they then helped each other in, we a.s.sisting the last man. I observed that each of them took a few handfuls of sand with him in the canoe. As we stood on the beach, we could see the walruses blowing like whales as they came up the fiord, and our friends eagerly paddling out towards them. The canoes went along as fast as a quick-rowing gig.

The walrus may be said to be something like a bullock and a whale, and it grows to the size of an ox. It has two canine teeth twenty inches long, curving inward from the upper jaw; their use is to defend itself against the bear when Bruin attacks it, and to lift itself up on the ice. The head is short, small, and flattened in front. The flattened part of the face is set with strong bristles. The nostrils are on the upper part of the snout, through which it blows like a whale. The fore-paws are a kind of webbed hand; they are above two feet long, and may be stretched out to the width of fifteen to eighteen inches. The hind feet, which form a sort of tail-fin, extend straight backward.

They are not united, but are detached from each other. The termination of each toe is marked by a small nail. The skin of the animal is about an inch thick, and is covered with a short yellowish-brown coloured hair. The inside of the paws in old animals is very roughened, from having to climb over the ice and rocks. Beneath the skin is a layer of fat, the thickness varying in different seasons.

The canoes were soon among the herd, and several of the animals were immediately struck. Instead, however, of darting away, each of the wounded animals made at the canoes, and their occupants had to pull hard to keep out of their reach. When the other walruses saw this, they also swam towards the canoes to the a.s.sistance of their companions, and a regular contest commenced between man and beast.

The men, by the clever twists and turns they gave their canoes, managed to keep out of their way, the wounded animals all the time growing weaker and weaker; and whenever any of those untouched approached so near as to endanger the canoes, they threw a handful of sand so dexterously in their eyes, that the enraged animals were blinded and confused, and immediately swam off.

I regretted that we had not our firearms with us, as we might very soon have killed a large number without difficulty, provided the report did not frighten them away.

It was quite dark by the time the canoes returned to the beach, each towing in triumph the dead body of a walrus. On hearing of their success, the people who remained on sh.o.r.e set up shouts of joy, and hastened down to carry off the blubber and the more delicate morsels for their next day's meal. The greater portion of the flesh was stowed away in holes in the bank, lined with a coating of snow, and thickly covered over with large stones, so that no animal could get at them. They have no fear in this climate of their food being destroyed by vermin or small insects.

We thought our friends had done eating for the day, but the temptation of some fresh blubber was too great to be resisted, and to our astonishment they again set their pot on to boil, and ate till they could eat no more.

Terence and the rest of my party fared in the same way, in their respective tents, which I did. Ickmallick, when he had done eating, made a sign to me to occupy a corner of the family couch; and the whole family were soon snoring away and making a no very harmonious concert, when a dozen or more dogs sneaked in and took up their quarters at our feet.

The lamp was left burning all the night. It is a shallow crescent-shaped vessel of potstone, or what is called soapstone from its soapy feel. The wick is composed of dry moss, rubbed between the hands till it is quite inflammable. It is disposed along the edge of the lamp, on the straight side, and a greater or smaller quant.i.ty lighted, according to the heat required or the fuel that can be afforded.

I was much pleased by observing the clever way in which the lamp is made to supply itself with oil, by suspending a long thin slice of whale, seal, or sea-horse blubber near the flame, the warmth of which causes the oil to drip into the vessel, until the whole is extracted.

The wick is trimmed by a piece of asbestos stone, and a quant.i.ty of moss is kept ready to supply the wick.

Immediately over the lamp is fixed a framework of bone, from which the pots are suspended; as also a large hoop of bone, having a net stretched tightly within it. Into this net are put any wet things which require drying, and it is usually filled with boots, shoes, and mittens. The lamp kept up a pleasant heat in the tent during the night, and without it we should have suffered much from the cold, as it was freezing hard outside.

The first thing my hostess did in the morning was to set on the cooking-pot. The toilet was made as rapidly as that of a family of bears, for all they did was to get up and shake themselves. Before they went out, however, they pulled on some shoes over their boots to keep their feet dry, for it had been snowing hard in the night. I was very little inclined to partake of the breakfast, though I did my best to eat a little to please them.

We now explained to our friends that we wished to return; and they showed their willingness to comply with our wish by catching their dogs and harnessing them to their sledges.

In every part of the world the dog is the faithful companion and servant of man, but especially so in these icy regions. I do not know how the Esquimaux could exist without dogs. Not only do they drag heavy weights for long distances at a great rate, but they by their excellent scent a.s.sist their masters in finding the seal-holes; and they will attack the bear and every other animal with great courage, except the wolf, of which they seem to have an instinctive dread.

In appearance and colour they much resemble the wolf; but the latter when running always carries his head down, and his tail between his legs, as if ashamed of himself, while they always hold their heads up, and their tails curled handsomely over their backs.

In the winter they are covered with hair three or four inches long and a thick under-coat of coa.r.s.e wool, so that they can withstand the severest cold, if protected from the wind by a snow wall or a rock.

Their masters treat them very roughly; and, when food is scarce, they leave them to pick up any garbage they can find. They often beat them unmercifully; but in spite of ill-usage the dogs are much attached to them, and, on their return from a journey, show as much pleasure, by jumping up and trying to lick their faces, as any well-bred hounds in England. If they show a disposition to stray, a fore-leg is tied up to the neck, so that they tumble down when they attempt to run.

The females are tended by the women, and treated with great care, and the puppies are often fed with meat and water at the same time as the children. Consequently, when grown up, they always follow women more willingly than men; and when they are drawing a heavy load, a woman will entice them on by pretending to eat a piece of meat, and by throwing her mitten before them on the snow, when, mistaking it for food, they hurry forward to pick it up.

We afterwards purchased a number, which we found very useful for hunting, as also for drawing a sledge; though we never managed them as well as the Esquimaux did.

A drive of a couple of hours carried us back to our house, where we found our companions well, and ready to accompany our new friends on a visit to their tents. We employed ourselves during their absence in thickening the walls of our house, and in getting our boat ready for hunting seals, in order to lay in a good supply of oil for winter use.

We had no time to lose, for every day the weather was getting colder and colder, and the days shorter, and we might expect the winter speedily to set in.

All this time, it must be remembered, there was no want of ice and icebergs on the sea, and snow on the ground; but still, when the sun shone, the air was pleasantly warm to our feelings, long accustomed to constant exposure to sharp winds, which would have chilled the blood of most of our countrymen accustomed to live at home at ease.

We found our house at night colder than we expected; and we resolved to catch as many animals as we could with warm skins, to make ourselves clothing.

The next morning, while the rest of us were engaged about the house, Tom Stokes, who had gone some way along the beach to watch for any seals which might appear, came running back, declaring that he had seen a fierce-looking wild man grinning at him over a hummock of ice, and that he must be one of the mermen he had read about, but which he did not before believe to exist. He said that when he first saw him, he was in the water; that he came out on the ice, and put up his fist, and made faces at him, and that, though he hove a stone at him, he did not seem to care.

"I'll see what this merman is," I observed, taking up a gun loaded with a bullet, and following Tom to the spot.

There, sure enough, was an ugly black-looking monster; but instead of a merman, it was a walrus. I got round so as to have a fair shot at its side, and knocked it over sprawling on the ice. It had not strength left to crawl off the ice, and Tom and I going up to it, despatched it with our spears. We summoned the rest, and dragged it home on our big sledge in triumph. We never ceased afterwards to joke Tom about his ugly merman.

CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR.

We fancied that we had got everything comfortable for the winter, which now, about the middle of October, began to set in with severe earnestness, with heavy falls of snow and strong northerly winds. Our house, on which we had so much prided ourselves, did not keep out the cold blast as we expected; and though we covered ourselves up with blankets, and sails, and skins, and kept up a constant fire in the little stove we had brought from the cabin of the wreck, we were almost perished with cold.

It was after a very severe night, and we were consulting what we should do to keep warm, that we saw the sledges of our Esquimaux friends come dashing along down the valley towards us. We were anxious to return the hospitality they had shown us so we asked them into the house and stirred up our fire, threw some more wood on it, and put on a pot of lobscouse to regale them.

They could scarcely restrain their feelings of dismay when they saw this waste of wood, to them so precious a thing, and by signs they entreated us to desist; reminding us that they had cooked their meat in a very different way. However, as the pot began to boil, there was no necessity for putting more wood on.

They then tried to show us, by significant gestures, that they thought we should be frozen to death in our house when the cold increased. To do this, they shivered very much, then shut their eyes, and stretched out their limbs till they were rigid, and looking round at the walls, shook their heads, as much as to say, "This will never do." Then they smiled, and explained that they could soon show us how to manage.

Having selected a level spot near our house, they beat the snow on it down till it was quite hard, and then marked out a circle about twelve feet in diameter. They then, from under a bank where the snow had drifted thickly and was very hard, cut out a number of slabs like large bricks, about two feet long and six inches thick. These they placed edgeways on the spot marked out, leaving a s.p.a.ce to the south-west for the door. A second tier was laid on this, but the pieces were made to incline a little inwards. The top of this was squared off with a knife by one of them who stood in the middle, while the others from without supplied him with bricks.

When the wall had been raised to the height of five feet, it leaned so much that we thought it would certainly fall in; but still our friends worked on till they could no longer reach the top. The man within then cut a hole in the south-west side, where the door was intended to be, and through this the slabs were now pa.s.sed. They worked on till the sides met in a well-constructed dome; and then one climbing up to the top, dropped into the centre the last block or keystone.

The rest of the party were all this time busily employed with their snow-shovels in throwing up the snow around the building, and in carefully filling any crevices which might have been left.

While we stood looking on with amazement at the rapidity and neatness with which the work was executed, the builder let himself out as a mole does out of his mole-hill. He cut away the door till he had formed a gothic arch, about three feet high, and two and a half wide at the bottom. From this door in the same way two pa.s.sages were constructed about twelve feet long, the floor of them being considerably lower than the floor of the hut, so that one had to creep up through them into the hut.

We were wondering how they were to see through the thick snow, when from one of the sledges a large slab of fresh-water ice was produced; and the builder cutting a round hole in one side of the roof, it was let into it to form a window.

After the window was cut, the builder remained inside for a short time, and then invited us to enter. He had collected the snow on one side to form the beds for a family. Round the remaining portion seats were formed, and a place for holding the cooking-lamp.

Indeed the house thus rapidly formed was perfect in every respect. The light which came through the ice was like that transmitted through ground gla.s.s, very soft and pleasant, and tinted with the most delicate hues of green and blue. A domed room of the most shining alabaster could not be more beautiful. We found that our friends intended to take up their abode near us; for as soon as they had finished one hut, they began upon others, making signs to us that the first they intended for our occupation.

We would rather, perhaps, for some reasons, that they had selected a spot at a greater distance; but they were so honest and good-natured, that we had little cause to complain. Andrew suggested that though we might not use the hut they had built, we might take a lesson from them, and cover in our house with snow of the same thickness as their walls, procuring from them slabs of ice for the windows.

No sooner was this proposed than we set about the work, at which, when our indefatigable friends observed it, they were so pleased that several of them came to a.s.sist us in forming the bricks of snow; and in a short time a thick wall was run up, which made a very sensible difference in the temperature of our room. The next day we covered in the roof, leaving only a very small opening for the chimney. We also built a deep portico before the door, with a second door to it, which prevented the wind from whistling in as it had before done.

Besides this, we built a courtyard to our house, with the walls eight feet high, to protect us from the wind; and at last we began to flatter ourselves that we might be tolerably comfortable, though we had to own that, notwithstanding all the means we had at our command, the Esquimaux were better able to make themselves so.

Our fire, from the constant care it required and the difficulty of procuring fuel, gave us most trouble; so remembering the lamp we had seen in the tents, we resolved to adopt a similar plan.

We had been so busily engaged in improving our own house, that we had not remarked the progress made by our friends in the construction of their habitations. They now invited us to enter them again, when we found all the families established comfortably in them.

After creeping through the two low pa.s.sages, each with its arched doorway, we came to a small circular apartment, of which the roof was a perfect dome. From this, three doorways, also arched and of larger dimensions than the outer ones, led into as many inhabited apartments, one on each side, and the other facing us as we entered.

The scene presented by the interior was very interesting. The women were seated on the beds at the sides of the huts, each having her little fireplace or lamp, with all her domestic utensils about her. The children crept behind their mothers, and the dogs, except the female ones, which were indulged with a part of the beds, slunk out past us in dismay.