Life with the Esquimaux/Volume 1/Chapter VIII
CHAPTER VIII.
For several days now our life was of a very monotonous description, except so far as varied by the visits of Esquimaux, who were frequently on board performing different avocations more or less useful to us. Scrubbing the cabin floor, sewing and dressing sealskins, were some of the occupations that engrossed their time. Occasionally the younger members were ready pupils under my hand in trying to learn whatever I could teach them of civilized education.
But at this time the phenomena of Nature frequently gave me intense delight. The aurora, in all its glorious brilliancy, shone forth on several nights, and often did I linger on deck gazing upon it, with my soul entranced by the sight. It is impossible for me to give a just and full description of the immeasurable beauty and grandeur of such a scene. All I can attempt to do is to put before the reader my thoughts and sensations at the several times, as recorded in my journal.
"November 23, 1860.—A few places at six o'clock this evening where the cerulean sky and stars can be seen. While standing on deck near the bow of the vessel, viewing Mars in its meridian passage at this place, all at once a bright, beautiful beam of aurora shot up midway between the star and the moon. The moon—some 39° or 40° east of Mars—was shining brightly, but above and below it were cirri cumuli clouds. Between the planets all was clear. The aurora beams increased rapidly. They were of prismatic colours to-night, pea-green predominating. Oh that I could pen or pencil the beauty of this display! The kind of clouds which I have named are the most distant of any. The aurora, as it frequently ascended high in the heavens, plainly painted its golden rays upon the face of the clouds, thus proving it was at play between me and them. Blind George, the Esquimaux, was standing by my side. I told him what was going on in the heavens. I said the moon was shining, and the aurora showing off finely at the time. He wished me to place him
THE AURORA, NOV. 23, 1860.
AURORA, DECEMBER 17, 1860.
"My ecstasy in the beauty of the scene before me was caught up by the spirit of George, thus making him an object worthy of a poet's pen—worthy of lasting remembrance."
On another occasion, December 3d, I find myself saying, "The aurora commenced its fantastic dances at 5 p.m. It now stretches its arch across the heavens from S.E. to W. the whole southerly of the vessel. Though not at first so, yet now their base is of prismatic colours. I know of no phenomenon more deeply interesting than that which is to be seen here every fair night in the aurora."
Again, on another morning, December 17th, at six o'clock, I write, "The heavens are beaming with aurora. The appearance of this phenomenon is quite changed from what it has been. Now the aurora shoots up in beams scattered over the whole canopy, all tending to meet at zenith. How multitudinous are the scenes presented in one hour by the aurora! This morning the changes are very rapid and magnificent. Casting the eye in one direction, I view the instantaneous flash of the aurora shooting up and spreading out its beautiful rays, gliding this way, then returning, swinging to and fro like the pendulum of a mighty clock. I cast my eyes to another point; there instantaneous changes are going on. I close my eyes for a moment; the scene has changed for another of seemingly greater beauty. In truth, if one were to catch the glowing heavens at each instant now passing, his varied views would number thousands in one hour. Who but God could conceive such infinite scenes of glory? Who but God execute them, painting the heavens in such gorgeous display?"
At another time the aurora presented a new phase, rays shooting athwart the south-western sky parallel with the horizon.
Later still, March 11th, I say: "It seemeth to me as if the very doors of heaven have been opened to-night, so mighty, and beauteous, and marvellous were the waves of golden light that a few moments ago swept across the 'azure deep,' breaking forth anon into floods of wondrous glory. God made His wonderful works to-night to be remembered. I have witnessed many displays of the aurora since making anchorage in this harbour, a great many of them of surpassing magnificence, yet what I beheld this night crowns them all. I could never have anticipated the realization of such a scene!
"I was not alone enjoying it. Captain Budington and Mate Gardiner were with me, and we all looked on in wondrous yet delighted awe.
"The day had been fine, with a moderate wind from the north-west. When the sun went down behind the ridge of mountains limiting the bay, a perfect calm followed, with a sky absolutely cloudless. At 4 p.m. there had been seen one solitary and peculiar cloud hanging in the heavens to the north about 15° above the horizon. This cloud was a deep dark blue, looking much like the capital letter S. This at last disappeared, and the night set in, still beautiful and mild, with myriads of stars shining with apparently greater brilliancy than ever.
"I had gone on deck several times to look at the beauteous scene, and at nine o'clock was below in my cabin going to bed when the captain hailed me with the words, 'Come above, Hall, at once! The world is on fire!'
"I knew his meaning, and, quick as thought, I redressed myself, scrambled over several sleeping Innuits close to my berth, and rushed to the companion stairs. In another moment I reached the deck, and as the cabin door swung open, a dazzling, overpowering light, as if the world was really a-blaze under the agency of some gorgeously-coloured fires, burst upon my startled senses! How can I describe it? Again I say, no mortal hand can truthfully do so. Let me, however, in feeble, broken words, put down my thoughts at the time, and try to give some faint idea of what I saw.
"My first thought was, 'Among the gods there is none like unto Thee, O Lord; neither are there any works like unto Thy works!' Then I tried to picture the scene before me. Piles of golden light and rainbow light, scattered along the azure vault, extended from behind the western horizon to the zenith; thence down to the eastern, within a belt of space 20° in width, were the fountains of beams, like fire-threads, that shot with the rapidity of lightning hither and thither, upward and athwart the great pathway indicated. No sun, no moon, yet the heavens were a glorious sight, flooded with light. Even ordinary print could have been easily read on deck.
"Flooded with rivers of light. Yes, flooded with light; and such light! Light all but inconceivable. The golden hues predominated; but, in rapid succession, prismatic colours leaped forth.
"We looked, we saw, and trembled; for, even as we gazed, the whole belt of aurora began to be alive with flashes. Then each pile or bank of light became myriads; some now dropping down the great pathway or belt, others springing up, others leaping with lightning flash from one side, while more as quickly passed into the vacated space; some, twisting themselves into folds, entwining with others like enormous serpents, and all these movements as quick as the eye could follow. It seemed as if there was a struggle with these heavenly lights to reach and occupy the dome above our heads. Then the whole arch above became crowded. Down, down it came; nearer and nearer it approached us. Sheets of golden flame, coruscating while leaping from the auroral belt, seemed as if met in their course by some mighty agency that turned them into the colours of the rainbow, each of the seven primary, 3° in width, sheeted out to 21°; the prismatic bows at right angles with the belt.
"While the auroral fires seemed to be descending upon us, one of our number could not help exclaiming,
"'Hark! hark! such a display! almost as if a warfare was going on among the beauteous lights above—so palpable—so near—seems impossible without noise.'
"But no noise accompanied this wondrous display. All was silence.
"After we had again descended into our cabin, so strong was the impression of awe left upon us that the captain said to me,
"'Well, during the last eleven years I have spent mostly in these northern regions, I never have seen anything of the aurora to approach the glorious vivid display just witnessed. And, to tell you the truth, Friend Hall, I do not care to see the like ever again.'"
That this display was more than ordinarily grand was evidenced by the testimony of the Innuits, particularly Tookoolito, who, when she came on board a few days afterwards, stated that she had been much struck by its remarkable brilliancy, and that "it had exceeded in beauty and magnificence all displays ever before witnessed by her." I would here make the remark that the finest displays of the aurora only last a few moments. Though it may be playing all night, yet it is only now and then that its grandest displays are made. As if marshalling forces, gathering strength, compounding material, it continues on in its silent workings. At length it begins its trembling throes; beauty anon shoots out here and there, when all at once the aurora, flashes into living hosts of powdered coruscating rainbows, belting the heavenly dome with such gorgeous grandeur sometimes that mortals tremble to behold!
On October 13th we had an unexpected arrival. A steamer and a sailing vessel were observed coming up from sea, and in the evening both vessels anchored on the opposite side of Field Bay. In a short time we ascertained that the strangers were well-known English whalers, being no less than the famous Captain Parker, of the True-love, and his son, commanding the steam-ship Lady Celia. They had come from Cornelius Grinnell Bay in less than a day, leaving Captain Allen, of the Black Eagle, there. Intelligence of our schooner's wreck had reached them at that place a few days after it had occurred, an Esquimaux and his wife having travelled by land and carried the news.
Directly there was an opportunity I paid a visit to the new-comers, starting from our ship early in the morning. Ugarng's boat and crew took me there. The party consisted of himself, his wife Nikujar and child, Kokerjabin (Kudlago's widow), Sterry, and myself, besides other Esquimaux.
When we were one mile from Look-out Island the sun was lifting his bright face from the sea. The whole ridge of mountains, running south-easterly to "Hall's" Island of Frobisher, was in plain sight, covered with white, and as we approached them, no opening into the harbour where the vessels were supposed to lie could be seen. But Nikujar being a capital pilot, knowing every channel and inlet within
NIKUJAR, THE BOAT-STEERER AND PILOT.
two hundred miles of our anchorage, the steering-oar was given to her; and there, seated upon the logger-head, with her pretty infant in its hood behind her neck, she steered us correctly to the spot.
With a few good strokes of the oars, we soon entered the snug little cove where the Parkers had taken shelter. In a moment or two after passing the steamer we were standing on the deck of the True-love, most kindly welcomed by Captain Parker, senior, and shortly afterward by his son, who came on board. I there found "Blind George," who immediately recognised my voice, calling me by name, and saying, "How. do you, Mitter Hall?" and then, without waiting for reply, adding, "Pretty well, I tank you!"
I was, indeed, right glad to again meet this noble but afflicted Esquimaux. The four times I had seen him at Cornelius Grinnell Bay caused him to be much impressed upon my memory, and now, strangely, here he was, and actually in presence of Nikujar, who was his former wife, before Ugarng took her away and made her his. Ugarng, however, could support the woman, and poor blind George could not; hence the latter had to submit, and be content with an occasional visit of their only child, as an idol which he cherished even more than his own life.
Captain Parker soon took me into his cabin, and had an excellent breakfast spread on the table. After this, conversation turned upon many subjects of a most interesting nature. He had brought his ship, guided by an Esquimaux pilot—Ebierbing—from Niountelik, in Northumberland Inlet, to Cornelius Grinnell Bay, through a channel 128 miles long, and not above one to two miles broad, behind a line of islands facing the sea. The steamer towed the sailing ship, as no vessel of their size could pass up or down such a channel unless with a fair wind. In the channel the flood tide runs south, while elsewhere it runs north. Captain Parker said the scenery was most magnificent, and there was plenty of salmon, deer, and other game. Altogether it was a trip, as he expressed it, that I would have been delighted with.
Among the many incidents related to me by Captain Parker, one or two may be worth recording here. He said that in 1833-4 he had been down Prince Regent's Inlet as far as Cape Kater, in company with the Isabella, Captain Humphreys, who rescued Sir John Ross and his companions after their four years' abode in an icy home. Parker had seen Ross's boats while on their way to escape, but supposing them to be the Isabella's, took no especial notice. In Regent's Inlet, he said, there were hundreds of whales between Cape York and Cape Kater. He had caught five off Cape Kater, and twenty-three more between there and Cape York. Seals, narwhals, white whales, and the walrus, were also in great abundance.
He likewise described to me, in a most graphic manner, the terrible storm of 1830 in Baffin's Bay, when twenty-two vessels were wrecked, and yet his own ship escaped without the slightest damage. One thousand men had to make good their retreat upon the ice toward the Danish settlements, some 600 miles distant, and all arrived safely with the exception of two, who died from the effects of spirituous liquors they injudiciously drank.
Captain Parker, at the time I saw him, was sixty-nine years of age, and good, to all appearance, for half a score more in the arctic regions. He had been navigating those northern seas (whaling) for forty-five years, with an interval of about five years, when he rested. He commenced in 1815, and was a commander in 1820. He had never lost a ship. On the present voyage neither vessel had a chronometer. They depended upon dead reckoning for their longitude.
There was a doctor on board, quite a young man, and apparently of merit. He had been one year in Springfield, Ohio.
The True-love is well known in arctic history as connected with the late searching expeditions. In 1849 she landed some coals at Cape Hay, in Lancaster Sound, as requested by Lady Franklin, who sent them out, that fuel might be deposited at every likely spot where her husband and his companions might possibly visit. This remarkable vessel is 100 years old, and was built in Philadelphia, Pa.
I explained to Captain Parker all about my plans, and he expressed himself much interested in them, promising to let me have a boat I desired, as an additional one to that I should get from the George Henry, and which would be needed to carry my stores.
On Captain Parker's invitation I remained to dinner, and then, after a most agreeable visit, returned to the George Henry.
In a few days after this both the Parkers suddenly went to sea—as we supposed, driven out of their anchorage by a gale that had been blowing, and, owing to this, I did not receive the boat promised me, nor were we able to send home the letters that had been prepared.
It was about this time I was visited by two Esquimaux, man and wife, who will henceforth often appear in my narrative, and who, together with a child afterward born to them, accompanied me to the States. The man's name was Ebierbing—otherwise called by us "Joe"—his wife's Tookoolito, or "Hannah."
I was informed that this couple had been taken to England in 1853, and presented to Her Majesty Queen Victoria, and that the female was a remarkably intelligent, and what might be called an accomplished woman. They had remained nearly two years in Great Britain, and were everywhere well received. I heard, moreover, that she was the sister of Toto and Ee-noo-loo-a-pik, both celebrated in their country as great travellers and intelligent men, and the latter well known in England from his visit there in 1839, and from a memoir of him published by Surgeon Macdonald, of the ill-fated Franklin Expedition. Ebierbing was a good pilot for this coast, and had brought Captain Parker's ship through the channels, as already narrated. At the time of the gale, when my boat and the Rescue were wrecked, he was up in Northumberland Inlet, and also lost a boat of his own.
When I visited Captain Parker "Joe" was not on board, nor did I know much of him until the above particulars were furnished to me. I was, therefore, naturally anxious to see this couple, and looked forward to our meeting with much hope that it would prove not only pleasing, but useful in many ways. The first interview I had is recorded in my journal as follows:—
"November 2d, 1860.—While intently occupied in my cabin, writing, I heard a soft, sweet voice say, 'Good morning, sir.' The tone in which it was spoken—musical, lively, and varied—instantly told me that a lady of refinement was there greeting me. I was astonished. Could I be dreaming? Was it a mistake? No! I was wide awake, and writing. But, had a thunder-clap sounded on my ear, though it was snowing at the time, I could not have been more surprised than I was at the sound of that voice. I raised my head: a lady was indeed before me, and extending an ungloved hand.
"Of course, my welcome to such an unexpected visitor in these regions was as befitting as my astonished faculties for the moment could make it. The doorway in which she stood leads from the main cabin into my private room. Directly over this entrance was the skylight, admitting a flood of light, and thus revealed to me crinoline, heavy flounces, an attenuated toga, and an immensely expanded 'kiss-me-quick' bonnet, but the features I could not at first make out.
"'Coming events cast their shadows before them.' Ladies are events casting umbra and penumbra along wherever their pathway be, thus bespeaking glory about them constantly. Knowing the philosophy of all this even before leaving the States, I immediately tried to do honour to my unknown visitor. But, on turning her face, who should it be but a lady Esquimaux! Whence, thought I, came this civilization refinement? But, in a moment more, I was made acquainted with my visitor. She was the Tookoolito I had so much desired to see, and directly I conversed with her she showed herself to be quite an accomplished person. She spoke my own language fluently, and there, seated at my right in the main cabin, I had a long and interesting conversation with her. Ebierbing, her husband—a fine, and also intelligent-looking man—was introduced to me, and, though not speaking English so well as his wife, yet I could talk with him tolerably well. From them I gleaned many interesting particulars of their visit to England, and I was gratified to hear that they had actually dined with Prince Albert, who treated them very kindly, and with much consideration.
"Ebierbing, in speaking of the Queen, said he liked her very much, and she was quite 'pretty.' He also said that Prince Albert was a 'very kind, good man, and he should never forget him.'"
The following conversation, as copied from my journal, written at the time, will show the sentiments of Tookoolito on civilized life:—
I asked her how she would like to live in England. She replied, "I would like very well, I thank you."
"Would you like to go to America with me?" said I.
"I would indeed, sir," was the ready reply.
In reference to the Queen of England, she said,
"I visited her, and liked the appearance of Her Majesty, and everything about the palace. Fine place, I assure you, Sir.
Tookoolito was suffering with a cold, and I noticed that whenever she coughed she threw her face on one side and held her hand before her lips, the same as any lady of good manners would. Her costume was that of civilization, being a dress with heavy flounces, an elegant toga made of young tuktoo fur deeply fringed, and a bonnet of the style invented on the principle "cover the head by a rosette on its back!"
As Tookoolito continued speaking, I could not help admiring the exceeding gracefulness and modesty of her demeanour. Simple and gentle in her way, there was a degree of calm intellectual power about her that more and more astonished me. I felt delighted beyond measure, because of the opportunity it gave me for becoming better acquainted with these people through her means, and I hoped to improve it toward the furtherance of the great object I had in view.
After a stay of some duration she went on shore, and the following day I visited her and her husband at their tent. She was then in native costume, and it seemed to me that this suited her even better than the other.
Some short time after this, I made an excursion by myself to the island on which was situated the Esquimaux "North Star" village.
The day became stormy after I had landed in one of the native boats, but I continued my walk, accompanied by the dogs, to a part of the island I wished to visit. On arriving there, I found a sort of natural causeway, formed of stones, leading to a smaller islet, and, crossing it, I continued examining the locality for some time. At length the snow-storm increased so much as to compel my return, and I made my way back to the south side of the main island.
But now I could hardly see my way. The snow came down so thick that I was fain to take shelter under the lee of some rocks near me, and, while there, I examined my compass to ascertain if I was going right. To my astonishment, I found the course I had pursued was exactly the reverse of the right one. I looked again and again, and yet the needle pointed exactly opposite to what I had expected. What was I to do? retrace my steps? For a moment I hesitated; but at length moving on, I was about walking back as I had come, when, on looking at the compass again, I found it just the opposite of what it was before! Strange, thought I. Surely there must be local attraction in the rocks where I took shelter. But still it made me anxious, especially as the weather was becoming worse. Indeed, I felt it very possible I might be lost in the storm, and perhaps have to wander about all the coming night, or be frozen to death by remaining stationary, should the compass play me another trick; but at last, thanks to my faithful dogs, they actually guided me straight to the village, where I arrived without any mishap.
The one I entered was Ebierbing's. He himself had gone out, but Tookoolito welcomed me as usual, soon entering into lively and instructing conversation. Two native boys were there at the time, and Tookoolito herself was busy knitting socks for her husband! Yes, to my surprise, she was thus engaged, as if she had been in a civilized land and herself civilized, instead of being an Esquimaux in her own native wilds of ice and snow!
It was a strange contrast, the sight within that tent and the view without. The latter presented a picture of barrenness and storm; the former much that tended to the idea of warmth and home. Knitting stockings for her husband! How much of dear home was in that favourite domestic occupation! Then, too, her voice, her words and language, the latter in my own vernacular, were something more than common in that region. I have before said that she was peculiarly pleasing and refined in her style and manners; and now, while sheltering me beneath her hospitable roof, with the bright lamp before me, the lively prattle of the two boys came in strong contrast to the soft tones of her partly civilized tongue as my mind opened to receive all she uttered.
What she said, and what my impressions were at the time, will be found in the following extract from my journal:
"November 14th, 1860.—Tookoolito, after returning from England five years ago, where she and her wing-a (husband) spent twenty months, commenced diffusing her accomplishments in various ways, to wit, teaching the female portion of the nation, such as desired, to knit, and the various useful things practised by civilization. In all the places around Northumberland Inlet she has lived, and done what she could to improve her people. A singular fact relative to dressing her hair, keeping her face and hands cleanly, and wearing civilization dresses—others of her sex, in considerable numbers, follow these fashions imported by her. This shows to me what one person like Tookoolito could accomplish in the way of the introduction of schools and churches among this people. To give this woman an education in the States, and subsequent employment in connexion with several of our missionaries, would serve to advance a noble and good work. And yet I must state that, unless a working colony, or several of them, were established, co-operating in this work, and laws were made by the fundamental power that should be as rigid relative to whalers visiting the coasts as those of Denmark to Greenland, all would be as nought.
"The working or trading colony would make its government, school, and church institutions self-supporting. Let the plan of Denmark for Greenland be followed. It is a good one, and works well.
"While in the tent, Tookoolito brought out the book I had given her, and desired to be instructed. She has got so far as to spell words of two letters, and pronounce most of them properly. Her progress is praiseworthy. At almost every step of advancement, she feels as elated as a triumphant hero in battle. She is far more anxious to learn to read and write than Ebierbing. I feel greater confidence (allowing it were possible to feel so) in the success of my mission since engaging these two natives. They can talk with me in my own vernacular, are both smart, and will be useful each in the department they will be called upon to fill. Tookoolito will especially fill the place of an interpreter, having the capacity for it surpassing Karl Petersen, the Dane, who has been employed as Esquimaux interpreter by various expeditions in search of Sir John Franklin—1st, by Captain Penny, 1850-1; 2d, by Dr. Kane, 1853-5; 3d, by Captain (now Sir Leopold) M'Clintock, 1857-9.
"Tookoolito, I have no doubt, will readily accomplish the differences in language between the Innuits of Boothia and King William's Land, and that of her own people around Northumberland Inlet and Davis's Strait. The pronunciation of the same words by communities of Esquimaux living at considerable distances from each other, and having but little intercourse, is so different that it is with difficulty they are understood one by the other. I should judge, from the very great difference of the language as spoken by the Greenlanders and the natives on the west side of Davis's Strait, that Petersen was of little service to M'Clintock as an Esquimaux interpreter. This conclusion would be arrived at by any one reading the narrative of M'Clintock's interviews with the natives on King Williain's Land.
"The Greenlanders have a mixed language consisting of Danish and Esquimaux.... Even the intercourse of the whalers with the Esquimaux around Northumberland Inlet has introduced among them many words that are now in constant use. Tookoolito informed me to-day that the words pickaninny, for infant; cooney, for wife; pussy, for seal; Husky, for Innuit; smoketute, for pipe, and many other words, are not Esquimaux, though in use among her people.
"I now complete the tupic interview. Before I was aware of it, Tookoolito had the 'tea-kettle' over the friendly fire-lamp, and the water boiling. She asked me if I drank tea. Imagine my surprise at this, the question coming from an Esquimaux in an Esquimaux tent! I replied, 'I do; but you have not tea here, have you?' Drawing her hand from a little tin box, she displayed it full of fine-flavoured black tea, saying, 'Do you like your tea strong?' Thinking to spare her the use of much of this precious article away up here, far from the land of civilization, I replied, 'I'll take it weak, if you please.' A cup of hot tea was soon before me—capital tea, and capitally made. Taking from my pocket a sea-biscuit which I had brought from the vessel for my dinner, I shared it with my hostess. Seeing she had but one cup, I induced her to share with me its contents. There, amid the snows of the North, under an Esquimaux's hospitable tent, in company with Esquimaux, for the first time I shared with them in that soothing, cheering, invigorating emblem of civilization—T-E-A! Tookoolito says that she and her winga (husband) drink it nearly every night and morning. They acquired a taste for it in England, and have since obtained their annual supply from English and American whalers visiting Northumberland Inlet.
"By-the-bye, Tookoolito said to me during the entertainment just described, 'I feel very sorry to say that many of the whaling people are very bad, making the Innuits bad too; they swear very much, and make our people swear. I wish they would not do so. Americans swear a great deal—more and worse than the English. I wish no one would swear. It is a very bad practice, I believe.'
"How think you, beloved Americans, I felt with these hot coals on my head? Oh that every swearing man, and every saint, could have seen and heard that Esquimaux woman as she spoke thus! I had just returned from a hard encounter with deep snow—falling snow, driven by almost a hurricane; but, O God, give me a thousand storms—worse, if they could be—rather than have the like thundering in my ears again! Her words, her looks, her voice, her tears, are in my very soul still. Here, one of the iron daughters of the rocky, ice-ribbed North, standing like an angel, pleading the cause of the true God, weeping for the sad havoc made and making among her people by those of my countrymen who should have been, and ever should be, the glorious representatives of freedom, civilization, and Christianity! It was too much; I was a child. I confess, I blushed for this stain upon my country's honour—not only this, but for the wickedness diffused almost throughout the unenlightened world by the instrumentality of whalers hailing from civilized lands.
"This I am ready to admit, that some commanders, some officers, and some crews of whaling ships are as they should be, exemplary men—men who take pleasure in doing good wherever they are—who seek to extend the bounds of civilization, planting philanthropic and Christian institutions where darkness and ignorance had before reigned universal.
"Being now ready to return—three o'clock p.m.—Ebierbing kindly gathered a crew from among his friends to convey me aboard. Much seko (ice) had set into the cove, causing us great trouble and delay to get out. Once clear, a few strokes brought us alongside.
"10 o'clock, night, thermometer 29°, barometer 29.525; wind south—fresh; cloudy."
BONE SLEDGE-RUNNER.