1
 
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 UBRARY 
 
 V),< 
 
 r-f/o -
 
 PICTURES OF ARCTIC TRAVEL. 
 
 GREENLAND.
 
 PICTURES 
 
 ARCTIC TRAVEL 
 
 KY 
 
 DR. ISAAC I. HAYES, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "TnK OPEN POLAR SEA," "AN AKCTIC BOAT JOURNEY, 
 
 " THE LAND OF DESOLATION," " CAST AWAY 
 
 IN THE COLD," ETC. 
 
 G REENLAND. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 Copyright, 1881, 
 
 G. W. Carleton & Co., Publishers. 
 
 LONDON : S. LOW & CO. 
 
 MDCCCLXXXI. 
 
 -
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 
 
 by ISAAC I. HAYES, M.D.. 
 
 in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, 
 
 at Washington, D. C. 

 
 TO 
 
 WARRE N SAWYER, 
 
 OF BOSTON, 
 
 In grateful appreciation of a long and never- 
 failing friendship, this volume is affectionately in- 
 scribed by 
 
 THE AUTHOR.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THIS book is not a narrative of travel. The purr 
 pose of the author has been to draw, from per- 
 sonal experience, some pen-pictures of life and na- 
 ture among the sublime mountains, crags, glaciers, 
 and icebergs of Greenland. His original design 
 was to publish a work of more pretentious size, in 
 three parts, to be entitled, respectively, " Green- 
 land," " Iceland," and " The Arctic Sea ;" but, as 
 he found the matter expanding to cumbersome pro- 
 portions, he has divided the three parts into as 
 many volumes. 
 
 NEW YORK, January, 1881.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I. THE DOCTOR " 
 
 II. THE SAVAGE 59 
 
 III. SNOW AND ICE 95
 
 I. 
 
 THE DOCTOR
 
 " WHERE rose the mountains, there to him were friends ; 
 Where rolled the ocean, thereon was his home ; 
 Where a blue sky, and glowing clime extends, 
 He had the passion and the power to roam ; 
 The desert, forest, cavern, breaker's foam 
 Were unto him companionship ; they spake 
 A mutual language, clearer than the tome 
 Of his land's tongue, which he would oft forsake 
 
 For Nature's pages glaz'd by sunbeams on the lake." 
 
 BYRON'S CHILDE HAROLD.
 
 PICTURES 
 
 ARCTIC TRAVEL 
 
 i. 
 
 THE DOCTOR. 
 
 As my own fancy led me into the Greenland seas, 
 so chance sent me into a Greenland port. It was a 
 choice little harbor, a good way north of the Arctic 
 Circle, fairly within the realm of hyperborean bar- 
 renness very near the remotest border of civilized 
 settlement. And civilization was exhibited there 
 by unmistakable evidences a very dilute civiliza- 
 tion it is true, yet such as it was outwardly recog- 
 nizable ; for Christian habitations and Christian be- 
 ings were in sight from the vessel's deck at least 
 
 ii
 
 12 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 some of the human beings who appeared upon the 
 beach were dressed like Christians and veritable 
 smoke curled gracefully upward into the bright air 
 above the roofs of houses from veritable chim- 
 neys. 
 
 We had been fighting the Arctic ice and Arctic 
 storms for so long a time, that it was truly refresh- 
 ing to get into this good harbor. The little craft 
 which had borne us thither seemed positively to 
 enjoy her repose as she lay quietly to her anchors 
 on the still waters, in the calm air and blazing sun- 
 shine of the Arctic noonday. As for myself, I was 
 simply wondering what I should find ashore. A 
 slender fringe of European custom, bordering native 
 barbarism and its offensive accompaniments, was 
 what I anticipated ; for, as I looked upon the naked 
 rocks which there, as in other Greenland ports, 
 afforded solid foundation for a few straggling huts 
 of native fishermen and hunters, with only now and 
 then a more pretentious white man's lodge, I could 
 hardly imagine that much would be found seductive 
 to the fancy or inviting to the eye. A country where 
 there is no soil to yield any part of man's subsist- 
 ence seemed to offer such a slender chance for man 
 in the battle of life, that I could well imagine it to
 
 The Doctor. 13 
 
 be repulsive rather than attractive. Yet I was eager 
 to see how poor men might be and live. 
 
 While thus looking forward to a novel experience, 
 I. was unconsciously preparing myself for a great 
 surprise. Whatever there might be of poverty in 
 the condition of the few dozens of human beings 
 who there forced a scanty subsistence from the sea, 
 I was to discover one person in the place who did 
 in no way share it who, born as it might seem to 
 different destinies, yet, voluntarily choosing wild 
 nature for companionship, and rising superior to the 
 forbidding climate and the general desolation, re- 
 joiced there in his own strong manhood, and lived 
 seemingly contented as well with himself as with the 
 great world, of which he heard from afar but the 
 faintest murmurs. 
 
 The anchors had been down about an hour, and 
 the bustle and confusion necessarily attending an 
 entrance into port had subsided. The sails were 
 stowed, the decks were cleared up, and the ropes 
 were coiled. A port watch was set. The crew had 
 received their "liberty," and there was much won- 
 dering among them whether Esquimaux eyes could 
 speak a tender welcome. Nor had the Danish flag 
 been forgotten. That swallow-tailed emblem of a
 
 14 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 gallant nationality, which, according to song and 
 tradition, has the peculiar distinction of having 
 
 " Come from heaven down," 
 
 was fluttering from a white flag-staff at the front of 
 the government house, and we had answered its dis- 
 play by running up our own Danish colors at the 
 fore, and saluting them with our signal-gun in all 
 due form and courtesy. 
 
 Soon after reaching the anchorage, I had dis- 
 patched an officer to look up the chief ruler of the 
 place, and to assure him of the great pleasure I 
 should have in calling upon him, if he would name 
 an hour convenient to himself ; and I was awaiting 
 my messenger's return with some impatience, when, 
 suddenly, I heard the thump of his heavy sea-boots 
 on the deck above. 
 
 In a few moments he entered the cabin, and re- 
 ported that the governor was absent, but that his 
 office was temporarily filled by a gentleman who 
 had been good enough to accompany him on 'board 
 " the surgeon of the settlement, Doctor Molke," 
 and then stepping aside, Doctor Molke passed 
 through the narrow doorway and stood before me, 
 bowing. I bowed in return, and bade him wel-
 
 The Doctor. 15 
 
 come, saying in English, as I suppose, just what any 
 other person would have said under like circumstan- 
 ces, and then turning to the officer, I signified my 
 wish that he should act as interpreter, he being of 
 the same nationality. But that was needless. My 
 Greenland visitor answered me in the language of 
 my country, with as little hesitation as if he had 
 spoken none other all his life ; and, in conclusion, 
 said, "I come to invite you to my poor house and 
 to offer you my service. I can give you but a feeble 
 welcome in this outlandish place, but such as I have 
 is yours ; and if you will accompany me ashore I 
 will be much delighted." 
 
 The delight was mutual, and it was not many 
 minutes before we were pulling towards the land, 
 seated in the stern-sheets of a whale-boat. 
 
 My new-found friend interested me at once. The 
 surprise at finding myself addressed in English was 
 increased when I discovered that this Greenland 
 official bore every mark of refinement, culture, and 
 high breeding. His manner was wholly free from 
 restraint, and it struck me as something odd, that 
 all the self-possession and ease of a thorough man 
 of the world should be exhibited in this desert 
 place. He did not seem to be at all aware that
 
 1 6 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 there was anything incongruous in either his dress 
 or manner, and his present situation. Yet this man, 
 who sat with me in the stern- sheets of an ice-bat- 
 tered whale-boat, pulling across a Greenland harbor 
 to a Greenland settlement, might, with the simple 
 addition of a pair of suitable gloves, have stepped, 
 as he was, into a ball-room, without giving rise to any 
 other remark than would be excited by his bearing. 
 
 His graceful figure was well set off by a neatly 
 fitting and closely buttoned blue frock coat, orna- 
 mented with gilt buttons, embroidered and heavily 
 braided shoulder-knots. The Dannebrog cross upon 
 his breast told that he was a favorite with his king. 
 His finely shaped head was covered by a blue cloth 
 cap, having a gilt band and the royal emblems. 
 Over his shoulders was thrown a cloak of mottled 
 seal-skins, lined with the soft and beautiful fur of 
 the Arctic fox. His cleanly shaven face was finely 
 formed and full of force, while a soft blue eye spoke 
 of gentleness and good nature, and, with fair hair, 
 completed the evidences of Scandinavian birth. 
 
 My curiosity was soon greatly excited. 
 
 " How," thought I, " in the name of everything 
 mysterious, has it happened that such a man should 
 have turned up in such a place ? " From curiosity I
 
 The Doctor. 17 
 
 passed to amazement as his mind unfolded itself 
 and his tastes were manifested. I was prepared to 
 be received by a fur-clad hunter, a coppery faced 
 Esquimau, or a meek and pious missionary, upon 
 whose face privation and penance had set their seal ; 
 but for this high-bred, graceful, and evidently ac- 
 complished gentleman I was not prepared. 
 
 I could not refrain from one leading observation. 
 " I suppose, Dr. Molke," said I, " that you have not 
 been here long enough to have yet wholly exhausted 
 the novelty of these noble hills." 
 
 "Eleven years, one would think," replied he, 
 " ought to pretty well exhaust anything ; and yet 
 I cannot say that these hills, upon which my eyes 
 rest continually, have grown to be wearisome com- 
 panions, even if they may appear something forbid- 
 ding." 
 
 Eleven years among these barren hills ! Eleven 
 years in Greenland ! Surely, thought I, this is 
 something " passing strange." 
 
 The scene around us as we crossed the bay was 
 indeed imposing, and although desolate enough, was 
 certainly not without its bright and cheerful side. 
 Behind us rose a majestic line of cliffs, climbing up 
 into the clouds in giant steps, picturesque yet solid
 
 1 8 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 a great massive pedestal, as it were, supporting 
 mountain piled on mountain, with caps of snow 
 whitening their summits, and great glaciers hanging 
 on their sides. Before us lay the town, built upon a 
 gnarled spur of primitive rock, which seemed to 
 have crept from underneath the lofty cliffs as a 
 serpent from its hiding place, and after wriggling 
 through the sea, to have stopped at length when it 
 had almost completely inclosed a beautiful sheet of 
 water about a mile long by half a mile broad, leav- 
 ing but one narrow winding entrance to it. Through 
 this entrance the swell of the sea could never come 
 by any chance to disturb the silent bay which lay 
 there, nestling among the dark rocks beneath the 
 mountain shadows as calmly as a Swiss lake in an 
 Alpine valley. 
 
 But the rocky spur which supported on its rough 
 back what there was of the town wore a most woe- 
 begone and distressed appearance. A few little 
 patches of grass and moss were visible, but generally 
 there was nothing to be seen but the cold, gray-red, 
 naked rocks, broken and twisted into knots and 
 knobs, and cut across with deep and ugly cracks. 
 I could but wonder that, on such a dreary spot, 
 man should ever think of seeking a dwelling-place.
 
 The Doctor. 19 
 
 My companion must have interpreted my thoughts, 
 for he pointed to the shore, and said playfully, " Ah, 
 it is true you behold at last the fruits of wisdom 
 and instruction a city founded on a rock." And 
 then, after a moment's pause he added, " Let me 
 point out to you the great features of the new won- 
 der. First to the right there, underneath that little 
 low black peaked roof, dwells the royal cook a 
 Dane who came out here a long time ago, married a 
 native of the country, and rejoices in a brood of 
 half-breed children, among whom are four girls, 
 rather dusky, but not ill-favored. Next in order is 
 the government house, that pitch-coated structure 
 near the flag-staff. This is the only building, you 
 observe, that can boast of a double tier of windows. 
 Next, a little higher up, you see, is my own lodge, 
 bedaubed with pitch to protect it against the as- 
 saults of the weather, and to stop the cracks. Down 
 by the beach, a little farther on, that largest build- 
 ing of all is the storehouse, where the governor 
 keeps all sorts of traps for trade with the natives, 
 and where the shops are in which the cooper puts 
 together the oil barrels before the arrival of the 
 Danish ship, and where other like industrial pursuits 
 are carried on. A little farther down, you observe a
 
 2O Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 low structure where the oil is stored. On the ledge 
 above the shop you see another pitchy building. 
 This furnishes quarters for the half-dozen Danish 
 employees fellows who, not having married native 
 wives, hunt and fish for the glory of Denmark. 
 Near the den of these worthies you observe another, 
 a duplicate of that in which lives the cook. There 
 resides the royal cooper, and not far from it are two 
 others, not quite so pretentious, where dwell the 
 carpenter and blacksmith, all of whom have followed 
 the worthy example of the cook, and have dusky 
 sons and daughters to console their declining years. 
 You may, perhaps, be able to distinguish a few 
 moss-covered hovels dotted about here and there ; 
 perhaps there may be twenty of them in all, 
 though there are but few in sight. These are the 
 huts of native hunters. At present they are not 
 occupied, for, being without roofs that will turn 
 water, the people are compelled to abandon them 
 when the snow begins to melt in the spring, and be- 
 take themselves to seal-skin tents, some of which 
 you observe scattered here and there among the 
 rocks. And now I've shown you everything, just 
 in time too, for here we are at the landing." 
 
 We had drawn in close to the end of a narrow
 
 The Doctor. 21 
 
 pier run out into the water on slender piles, and 
 now, quickly ascending some steps, the doctor led 
 the way up to his house. The whole settlement 
 had turned out to meet us men, women, children, 
 and dogs, which latter, about two hundred in num- 
 ber, little dogs and all, set up an ear-splitting cry, 
 wild, and strangely in keeping with every other part 
 of the scene, and, like nothing so much as the dis- 
 mal evening concert of a pack of wolves. The 
 children, on the other hand, kept quiet, and clung 
 to their mothers, as all children do in exciting times. 
 The mothers grinned, and laughed, and chattered, 
 as becomes the gentler sex in the savage state, 
 while the men, all smoking short clay pipes (one of 
 their customs borrowed from civilization) looked on 
 with that air of stolid indifference peculiar to the 
 male barbarian. They were mostly dressed in seal- 
 skins, but some of them wore greasy Guernsey 
 frocks and other European clothing. Many of the 
 women carried cunning looking babies strapped 
 upon their backs in seal-skin pouches. The heads 
 of men and women alike were for the most part cap- 
 less, but every one of the dark, beardless faces was 
 surmounted by a heavy mass of straight uncombed 
 and tangled jet black hair. There were some half-
 
 22 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 breed girls standing in little groups upon the rocks, 
 who, adding something of taste to the simple need of 
 an artificial covering for the body, were attired in 
 dresses which, although of the Esquimaux fashion, 
 were quite neatly ornamented. 
 
 While passing through this curious crowd, the eye 
 could not but find pleasure in the novel scene, the 
 more especially, as the delight of these half-barba- 
 rous people was excited to the highest pitch by the 
 strange being who had come among them. 
 
 But if what the eye drank in gave delight, less 
 fortunate the nose ; for from about the store-house 
 and the native huts, and indeed from almost every- 
 where, welled up that horrid odor of decomposing 
 oil and flesh peculiar to a fishing-town. On this 
 account, if on no other, I was not sorry when we 
 arrived at our destination. 
 
 "You like not this Greenland odor," said my 
 conductor. " Luckily it does not reach me here, or 
 I should seek a still higher perch to roost on," say- 
 ing which he opened the door and led the way in- 
 side, first through a little vestibule into a square 
 hall, where we deposited our fur coats, and then to 
 the right into a small room, furnished with a table, 
 an old pine bench, a single chair, a case with glass
 
 The Doctor. 23 
 
 doors, containing white jars and glass bottles, hav- 
 ing Latin labels, and smelling dreadfully of doctor's 
 stuffs. 
 
 "I always come through here," said my host, 
 " after passing the town. It gives the olfactories a 
 new sensation. This you observe is the place where 
 I physic the people." 
 
 " Have you many patients, Doctor ? " I inquired. 
 
 " Not very many ; but, considering that I go 
 sometimes a hundred miles or so to see the suffer- 
 ing sinners, I have quite enough to satisfy me. Not 
 much competition, you know. But come, we have 
 some lunch waiting for us in the next room, and 
 Sophy will be growing impatient." 
 
 A lady, eh ? 
 
 The room into which the Doctor ushered me was 
 neatly furnished. On the walls were hung some 
 prints and paintings of fruits and animals and flow- 
 ers, and in the center stood a small round table cov- 
 ered with dishes carefully placed on a snowy- cloth. 
 
 All very nice, but who's Sophy ? 
 
 The Doctor tinkled a little bell, the tones of which 
 told that it was silver, and then, all radiant with 
 smiles and beaming with good-nature, Sophy en- 
 tered. A strange apparition !
 
 24 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 "This is my housekeeper," said the Doctor in 
 explanation, " speak to the American, Sophy." 
 
 And without embarrassment or pausing for an 
 instant she advanced and bade me welcome, ad- 
 dressing me in fair English, while extending at the 
 same time a delicate little hand which peeped out 
 from under cuffs of eider-down. 
 
 "I am glad," said she, "to see the American. I 
 have been looking through the window at him ever 
 since he left the ship." 
 
 " Now, Sophy," said the Doctor, " let us see what 
 you have got for lunch." 
 
 " Oh, I haven't anything at all, Doctor Molke," 
 answered Sophy, "but I hope the American will 
 excuse me until dinner, when I have some nice 
 trout and venison." 
 
 "Pot-luck, as I told you," exclaimed my host. 
 " But never mind, Sophy, let's have it, be what it 
 may." And Sophy tripped lightly out of the room 
 to do her master's bidding. 
 
 " A right good girl that," said the Doctor when 
 the door was closed. " Takes capital care of me." 
 
 Strange Sophy. A pretty face of dusky hue, and 
 a fine figure attired in native costume, neatly orna- 
 mented and arranged with cultivated taste. Panta-
 
 The Doctor. 25 
 
 loons of mottled seal-skin and of silvery luster, ta- 
 pered down into long white boots which inclosed 
 the neatest of ankles and daintiest of feet. A little 
 jacket of Scotch plaid, with a collar and border of 
 fur, covered the body to the waist, while from be- 
 neath the collar peeped up a pure white cambric 
 handkerchief covering the throat ; and heavy masses 
 of glossy black hair were intertwined with ribbons 
 of gay red. Marvelous Sophy ! Dusky daughter 
 of a Danish father and a native mother. From her 
 mother she had her rich brunette complexion and 
 raven hair ; from her father Saxon features and 
 light blue Saxon eyes. 
 
 If the housekeeper attracted my attention, so did 
 the dishes which she set before me. Smoked sal- 
 mon of exquisite delicacy ; reindeer sausages, rein- 
 deer tongues, nicely dried and thinly sliced, and fine 
 fresh Danish bread made up a style of " pot-luck " 
 calculated to cause a hungry man from the high 
 seas and sailors' " grub," to wish for the same style 
 of luck for the remainder of his days. But when 
 all this came to be washed down with the contents 
 of sundry bottles with which Sophy dotted the clean 
 white cloth, the luck was perfect, and there was 
 nothing further to desire.
 
 26 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 " Ah, here we are," said my entertainer. " Sophy 
 wishes to make amends for the dryness of her fare. 
 This is a choice Margaux, and I can recommend it. 
 But, Sophy here, you haven't warmed this quite 
 enough. Ah, my dear sir, you experience the 
 trouble of a Greenland life. One can never have 
 his wines properly tempered." 
 
 One cannot have his wines properly tempered ! 
 And this is the trouble of a Greenland life ! "Sure- 
 ly," thought I, " one might find something worse 
 than this." 
 
 " Here," picking up the next bottle, " we have 
 some Johannisberg, very fine, as I can assure 
 you ; but I have little fancy even for the best of 
 these Rhenish wines. Too much like a pretty 
 woman without a soul. They never warm the 
 imagination. There's something better to build upon 
 there, close beside your elbow. Since the claret's 
 forbidden us for the present, I'll drink you welcome 
 in that rich Madeira. Why, do you know, sir," 
 rattled on the Doctor, as I passed the bottle, seem- 
 ingly rejoiced in his very heart at having some one 
 to talk to, " do you know, sir, that I have kept that 
 by me here these ten years past ? My good old 
 father sent it to me as a mark of special favor. It
 
 The Doctor. 27 
 
 has a pedigree as long as one of Lockley's cloth- 
 yard shafts. But the pedigree will keep ; let's prove 
 the bottle ; " and he filled up two dainty French 
 straw-stem glasses, and pledged me in good old Dan- 
 ish style. Then, when the claret came back, this 
 time all rightly tempered, the Doctor filled the 
 glasses and hoped that when I left the place the 
 girls would pull lustily on the tow-ropes. 
 
 Hunger and thirst were soon appeased. " And 
 now," said the Doctor, when this was done, " I know 
 you are dying for the want of something fresh and 
 green. You have probably tasted nothing that grew 
 out of dear old Mother Earth since leaving home ; " 
 and he tinkled his little silver bell again, and Sophy 
 of the silver seal-skin pantaloons and dainty snow- 
 white boots tripped softly through the door. 
 
 " Sophy haven't you a surprise for the American ? " 
 
 Sophy smiled knowingly as she answered " Yes," 
 while she retreated. In a moment she came back, 
 carrying a little silver dish with a little pyramid of 
 green upon it. Out from the green peeped little 
 round red globes radishes, as I lived ! Round red 
 radishes! Ten round red radishes ! 
 
 " What ! radishes in Greenland ! " I exclaimed, 
 involuntarily.
 
 28 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 " Yes, and raised on my own farm, too ! You 
 shall see it by and by." The Doctor was enjoying 
 my surprise, and Sophy looked on with undisguised 
 satisfaction. Meanwhile I lost no time in tumbling 
 the pyramid to pieces, and crunching the delicious 
 bulbs. They disappeared in a twinkling. Their 
 rich and luscious juices seemed to pour at once into 
 the very blood, and to tingle at the very finger-tips. 
 I never knew before the full enjoyment of the 
 fresh growth of the soil. After so long a de- 
 privation (more than a year) , it was indeed a strange, 
 as it will remain a lasting, sensation. Never, to my 
 dying day, shall I forget the ten round red radishes 
 of Greenland ! 
 
 " You see that I was right," exclaimed my host, 
 after the vigorous assault was ended. " And now," 
 continued he, addressing Sophy, "bring the other 
 things." 
 
 The other things proved to be a plate of fine let- 
 tuce, a bit of Stilton cheese, and coffee, in transpa- 
 rent little china cups, and sugar in a silver bowl, and 
 then cigars everything of the best and purest and 
 as we passed from one thing to another, I became 
 persuaded that the Arctic Circle was a myth, that 
 my cruise among the icebergs was a dream, and
 
 The Doctor. 29 
 
 that Greenland was set down wrongly on the maps. 
 Long before this I had been convinced that Doctor 
 Molke was a most mysterious character, and wholly 
 unaccountable. 
 
 After we had finished this sumptuous lunch, and 
 chatted for a while, the Doctor surprised me again 
 by asking if I would like a game of billiards. Bill- 
 iards in Greenland, as well as radishes ! " But 
 first," said he, "let us try this sunny Burgundy. 
 Ah, these red wines are the only truly generous 
 wines. They monopolize all the sensuous glories 
 and associations of the fruit. With these red wines 
 one drinks in the very soul and sentiment of the 
 lands which grow the grapes that breed them." 
 
 " Even if drank in Greenland ! " 
 
 "Yes, or at the very pole. Geographical lines 
 may confine our bodies, but nature is an untamed 
 wild where the spirit roams at will. If I am here 
 hemmed in by barren hills, and live in a desert 
 waste, yet, as one of your sweetest poets has put it, 
 my 
 
 ' Fancy, like the finger of a clock, 
 Runs the great circuit, and is still at home.' 
 
 And truly I believe that I have in this retreat about
 
 30 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 as much enjoyment of life as they who taste of it 
 more freely ; for, while I can here feel all the 
 world's warm pulsations, I am freed from its annoy- 
 ances. If the sweet is less sweet, the bitter is less 
 bitter. But Well, let's have the billiards." 
 
 My host now led the way into the billiard-room, 
 which was tastefully ornamented with everything 
 needful to harmonize with a handsome table stand- 
 ing in its center, upon which we were soon knock- 
 ing the balls about in a very lively manner. I was 
 much surprised at the skillfulness of his play, and 
 expressed myself accordingly. I thought it some- 
 thing singular that he should there find any one to 
 keep him so well in practice. 
 
 "Ah, my dear sir," he replied, "you have yet 
 much to learn. This country is not so bad as you 
 think for. Sophy, native born Sophy, is my antago- 
 nist, and she beats me three times out of five." 
 Wonderful Sophy ! 
 
 The game finished, my host next led the way into 
 his study a charming retreat as ever human wit 
 and ingenuity devised. It was indeed rather a par- 
 lor than a study. The room was large, and was 
 literally filled with odd bits of furniture, elegant 
 and well kept. Heavy crimson curtains were
 
 The Doctor. 31 
 
 draped about the windows ; a rich crimson carpet 
 covered the floor, and there were lounges and 
 chairs of various patterns adapted for every temper 
 of mind and mood of body, all of the same pleasing 
 color. Odd ttagtres, hanging and standing, and a 
 large solid walnut case were all well filled with 
 books, and other books were carefully arranged on a 
 table in the center of the room. My eye quickly de- 
 tected the works of various English and American 
 authors, conspicuous among which were Shake- 
 speare, Byron, Scott, Dickens, Cooper, and Wash- 
 ington Irving. Sam Slick had a place there, and 
 close beside him was the renowned Lemuel Gulli- 
 ver ; and, in science, there were, besides many 
 others, Brewster, Murchison, Agassiz, and Lyell. 
 The books all showed that they were well used, and 
 they embraced the principal classical stores of the 
 French and German tongues, besides the English 
 and his own native Danish. In short, the collec- 
 tion was precisely such as one would expect to find 
 in any civilized place where means were not want- 
 ing, the disposition to read a habit and a pleasure, 
 and the books themselves boon companions. 
 
 A charming feature of the room was the air of 
 refreshing n/gligt with which sundry robes of bear
 
 32 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 and fox skins were tossed about upon the chairs 
 and lounges and upon the floor, while the blank 
 spaces of the walls were broken by numerous pic- 
 tures, some of them apparently family relics, and 
 on little brackets were various souvenirs of art and 
 travel. 
 
 "I call this my study," said the Doctor, "but in 
 truth there is the real shop," and he led me into a 
 little room adjoining, in which there was but one 
 window, one table, one chair, no shelves, a great 
 number of books lying about in every direction, 
 and great quantities of paper. On the wall were 
 hung about two dozen pipes of various shapes and 
 sizes, and a fine assortment of guns and rifles, and 
 all the paraphernalia of a practiced sportsman. It 
 was easy to see that there was at least one place 
 where the native-born Sophy did not come. 
 
 The chamber of this singular Greenland recluse 
 into which he next conducted me, was in keeping 
 with his study. The walls were painted light 
 blue, a blue carpet adorned the floor, blue curtains 
 softened the light which stole through the windows 
 from the south, and blue hanging cast a pleasant 
 
 
 
 hue over a snowy pillow. Although small, there 
 was indeed nothing wanting, not even a well-ar-
 
 The Doctor. 33 
 
 ranged bath-room nothing that the most fastidious 
 taste could covet or desire. 
 
 " And now," said my entertainer, when we had got 
 back into the study, " does this present attractions 
 sufficient to tempt you from your narrow bunk on 
 shipboard ? You are most heartily welcome to that 
 blue den which you admire so much, and which I 
 am heartily sick of, while I can make for myself a 
 capital shake-down here, or vice versa. If neither 
 of these will suit you, then cast your eyes out of the 
 window and you will observe something out of 
 which to fashion a more truly Arctic lodging." 
 
 I stepped to the window, and there, sure enough, 
 piled up beneath it and against the house was a 
 bank of snow, which the summer's sun had not yet 
 dissolved, and as I saw this, and then looked beyond 
 it over the wretched little village, and the desolate 
 waste of rocks on which it stood, and then on up 
 the craggy steeps to the great white-topped mount- 
 ains, I could but wonder what strange event of 
 fate or fortune had sent this luxury-loving man, 
 with books only for companions, into such a howl- 
 ing wilderness." Was it his own fancy, or was it 
 some cruel necessity ? In truth, the surprise was so 
 
 great that I found myself suddenly turning from the 
 2*
 
 34 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 scene outside to that within, not indeed without an 
 impression that the whole thing might have van- 
 ished in the interval as the palace of Aladdin in the 
 Arabian tale. 
 
 My host was watching me attentively, no doubt 
 reading my thoughts, for, as I turned round, he 
 asked if I liked the contrast. To be quite candid, I 
 was forced to own myself greatly wondering that 
 a " den " so well fitted for the latitude of Paris, 
 should be stumbled upon away up here so near the 
 pole. 
 
 " Hardly in keeping with the ' eternal fitness of 
 things,' eh, as Square would say ? " 
 
 " Precisely so." 
 
 " You think then because a fellow chooses to live 
 in barbarous Greenland, he must needs turn barba- 
 rian." 
 
 " Not exactly that, but we are in the habit of 
 associating the appreciation of comfort and luxury, 
 or what we call the aesthetic side of life, with the 
 desire for social intercourse, certainly not with ban- 
 ishment like this." 
 
 " Then you would be inclined to" think there is 
 something unnatural, in short mysterious, in my be- 
 ing here, tastes, fancies, inclinations, and all."
 
 The Doctor. 35 
 
 " I confess it would strike me so if I took the 
 liberty to speculate upon it." 
 
 " Very far from the truth, I do assure you. I am 
 not obliged to be here any more than you are. I 
 came from pure choice, and am at liberty to return 
 when I please, like yourself, only with this "difference, 
 that while I must remain a year, you can give your 
 little schooner wings at any moment, and flee home 
 just when it suits you. In truth, I do go home with 
 the ship to Copenhagen once in three or four years, 
 and spend a winter there, living the while in a den 
 much like what you here see, but I am always glad 
 enough to get back again. The salary which I re- 
 ceive from the government does not support me as I 
 live, so you see that is not a motive. But I am per- 
 fectly independent, have capital health, lots of ad- 
 venture, hardship enough (for you must know that 
 if I do sleep under a sky-blue canopy, I am es- 
 teemed one of the most hardy men in all Green- 
 land) to satisfy the most insatiate appetite and per- 
 verse disposition." 
 
 " Sufficient reason, I should say, for a year or so, 
 but hardly, one would think, for a lifetime." 
 
 "Why <not?" 
 
 "Because the novelty of adventure wears off
 
 36 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 in a little time. Good health never yields us satis- 
 faction, for we do not give it thought until we lose 
 it. So that can never be an impelling motive, and 
 as for independence, what is that when one can 
 never be freed from himself ? However, I am only 
 curious, not critical." 
 
 "But, my dear sir, you forget these shelves. 
 Those books are my friends. Of them I never grow 
 weary ; they never grow weary of me. We under- 
 stand each other perfectly. They talk to me when 
 . I would listen, they sing to me when I would be 
 charmed, they play for me when I would be amused. 
 Ah ! sir, this country is great, as all countries are 
 great, each in its way ; and this is a great country 
 to read books in. Upon my word, I wonder every- 
 body don't fill ships with books and come up here, 
 burn the ships as did the great Spaniard, and each 
 spend the remainder of his days in devouring his 
 shipload of books. In this fancy of mine you may 
 perhaps imagine that you find something quite 
 peculiar, but I assure you it is nothing of the kind. 
 Each one to his taste, you know, and, like every body 
 else, of course I think mine the best. Another of 
 your poets, Henry Taylor I think, must Have had 
 some notion of this sort in his mind when he wrote,
 
 The Doctor. 37 
 
 ' We figure to ourselves 
 The thing we like, and then we build it up 
 As chance will have it, on the rock or sand ; ' 
 
 and so you see that I have built in fact as well as 
 fancy on the rock." 
 
 I could not help being pleased with this novel 
 way in which my host viewed his situation and ex- 
 hibited his desires ; and I amused him greatly when 
 I told him so. Then I said, " Truly a pretty picture 
 you have drawn of the country, and of the wonder- 
 ful uses to which it may be put ; but let me ask you, 
 how often do books reach you ? " 
 
 " Once a year, when the Danish ship comes out to 
 bring us bread, sugar, coffee, coal, and such like 
 things, and to take home the few trifles, in the 
 shape of furs, oil, and fish, which the natives have 
 gathered in the interval." 
 
 " Books to the contrary, I should say the ship 
 would not return more than once without me, were 
 I in your situation." 
 
 "So you would think me a sensible fellow, no 
 doubt, if I would pick up this box and carry it off 
 to Paris or Copenhagen, or may be to New 
 York?" 
 
 " That's exactly what I was thinking, or rather, it
 
 38 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 would certainly have appeared to me more reasona- 
 ble if you had built it there in the first instance." 
 
 " Quite the contrary, I do assure you ; quite the 
 contrary. Indeed, I can prove to your entire satis- 
 faction that I am a very sensible man ; but wait 
 until I have shown you all my possessions. Will you 
 look at my farm ? " 
 
 Farm ! well this was, after all, exhibiting some 
 claims of the country to the consideration of a civil- 
 ized man. A farm in Greenland was something I 
 was hardly prepared for. 
 
 The Doctor now led the way to the rear of the 
 house, into an inclosure about eighty feet square, 
 surrounded by a high board fence. 
 
 " This is my farm," said the Doctor. 
 
 " Where ? " 
 
 " Here, look ; it isn't a large one." And he pointed 
 to a patch of earth about thirty feet long by four 
 wide, inclosed with boards and covered over with 
 glass. Under the glass were growing lettuce, radishes, 
 and pepper-grass, all looking as bright and fresh and 
 green and well contented as if they, like the man 
 for whose benefit they grew, cared little where they 
 sprouted, so they only grew. The ten round red 
 radishes of the recent luncheon were accounted for.
 
 Tlic Doctor. 39 
 
 " So you see," exclaimed the Doctor, " something 
 besides a lover of books can take root in this coun- 
 try. Are you not growing reconciled to it ? To be 
 sure, they are fed on pap from home, but so does the 
 farmer who cultivates them get his books from the 
 same quarter." 
 
 " How is that ? Do you mean to say you bring 
 the earth they grow in from home ? " 
 
 "Even so. This is good, rich Jutland earth, 
 brought in barrels by ship from Copenhagen." 
 
 An imported farm ! One more novelty. 
 
 " Now you shall see my barn," and we passed 
 over to a little, tightly-made building in the oppo- 
 site corner, where the first sound that greeted my 
 ears was the bleating of goats and the grunting of 
 pigs, and as the door was opened I heard the 
 cackling and flutter of chickens. Twenty chickens, 
 two pigs, and three goats. 
 
 "All brought from Copenhagen with the farm," 
 and the Doctor began to talk to them in a very 
 familiar manner in the Danish tongue. They all 
 recognized the kindly voice of their master, and 
 flocked around him to be fed, and while this was 
 being done I observed that he provided for the 
 safety of his pets by securing in the center of their
 
 4O Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 house a large stove, which was now cold, but which 
 in the winter must give the animals abundant heat. 
 And so the Doctor, besides his round red radishes 
 and his fresh butter, had pork and milk and eggs of 
 native growth ! 
 
 The next object of interest to attract attention 
 was the Doctor's smoke-house then in full operation. 
 This was simply a large hogshead, one head pierced 
 with holes and the other head knocked out. The 
 end without a head was set upon a circle of loose 
 stones, which supported it half a foot above the 
 ground, and inside of this circle a great volume of 
 smoke was being generated, and which came puffing 
 out through the holes in the head above. Inside of 
 this simple contrivance were suspended a number of 
 fine salmon, the delicate flesh of which was being 
 dried by the heat and penetrated by the sweet aroma 
 of the smoke. The smoke arose from a smoulder- 
 ing fire of the leaves and branches of the andromeda 
 {Andromeda tetragona) the heather of Greenland a 
 trailing plant with a pretty purple blossom, which 
 grows in sheltered places in great abundance. Be- 
 sides moss, this is the only vegetable production of 
 North Greenland that will burn, and it is sometimes 
 used by the natives for fuel after it is dried by the
 
 The Doctor. 41 
 
 sun, for which purpose it is torn up and spread upon 
 the rocks in the summer time. The perfume of the 
 smoke is really delicious, which accounts for the 
 excellent flavor of the salmon which the Doctor had 
 given me for lunch. Nothing of its kind could pos- 
 sibly exceed the delicacy of the fish thus pre- 
 pared. 
 
 The inspection of the Doctor's garden, or " farm " 
 as he facetiously called it, occupied us during the 
 remainder of the afternoon, and so novel was every- 
 thing to me, from the Doctor down to his vegetables 
 and perfumed fish, that the hours passed away un- 
 noticed, and I was quite astonished when Sophy 
 came to announce dinner. 
 
 We were soon seated at the table where we had 
 been before, and Sophy served the meal. Her soup 
 was excellent ; the trout, from a neighboring moun- 
 tain stream, were of fine quality and well cooked ; 
 the haunch was done to a turn ; the wines were this 
 time rightly tempered ; the champagne needed not 
 to be iced ; more of the round red radishes appeared 
 in season ; and then followed lettuce, and cheese, and 
 coffee, and then we found ourselves at another game 
 of billiards, and at length were settled for the even- 
 ing in the Doctor's study, one on either side of a
 
 42 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 table, on which stood all the ingredients of an arrack 
 punch, and in their midst a bundle of cigars. 
 
 Our conversation, naturally enough, ran upon the 
 affairs of the big world on the other side of the 
 Arctic Circle, upon its politics, and literature, and 
 science, and art, passing lightly from one to the 
 other, lingering now and then over some book which 
 we had mutually fancied. I found my companion 
 perfectly posted up to within a year, and inquired 
 how he managed things so well. 
 
 "Ah ! you must know," answered he, "that is a 
 clever little illusion of mine. I'm always precisely 
 one year behind the rest of the world. The Danish 
 ship brings me a file of papers for the past twelve 
 months, the principal reviews and periodicals, the 
 latest maps, such books as I have sent for during 
 the year, and besides this the bookseller and my other 
 home friends make me up an assortment of what 
 they think will please me. Now, you see, in devour- 
 ing this I pursue an absolute method. The books, 
 of course, I take up as the fancy pleases me, but the 
 reviews, periodicals, and newspapers, I turn over to 
 Sophy, and the faithful creature places on my break- 
 fast table, every morning, exactly what was pub- 
 lished that day one year before. Clever, isn't it ?
 
 The Doctor. 43 
 
 You see I get every day the news, and go through 
 the drama of the year with perhaps quite as much 
 satisfaction as they who live the passing day in the 
 midst of the occurring events. Each day's paper 
 opens a new act in the play, and what matters it 
 that news is one year old ? It is none the less news 
 to me, and, besides, are not Gibbon, Shakespeare, 
 and Mother Goose still more ancient ? " 
 
 I could but smile at this ingenious device, and the 
 Doctor, seeing plainly that I was deeply interested 
 in his novel mode of life, loosened a tongue, which, 
 in truth, needed little encouragement, and rattled 
 away over the rough and smooth of his Greenland 
 experiences, with an enjoyment on his part perhaps 
 scarcely less than mine, for it was easy to see that 
 his love of wild adventure kept pace with his love 
 of comfort, and that he heartily enjoyed the expos- 
 ures of his career, and the reputation which his 
 hardihood had acquired for him. I perceived, too, 
 that he possessed a warm and vivid imagination, and 
 that, clothing everything he saw and everything he 
 did with a fitting sentiment of strength or beauty, he 
 had blended wild nature and his own strange life into 
 a romantic scheme, which completely filled his fancy 
 leaving, apparently at least, nothing unsupplied;
 
 44 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 and this he enjoyed to the very bottom of his 
 soul. 
 
 The hours glided swiftly away, as we sat sipping 
 our punch and smoking our cigars, in that quaint 
 study of the Doctor's, chatting of this and of that, 
 and a novel feature of the evening was that, as we 
 talked on and on, the light grew not dim with the 
 passing hours ; for when the hand of a Danish 
 clock which ticked above the mantel told nine, and 
 then ten, and then eleven o'clock, it was still broad 
 day, and at length, in the full blaze of sunshine, the 
 clock rang out the witching hour of midnight. The 
 .sun, low down upon the northern horizon, poured his 
 bright rays over the hills and sea, throwing the dark 
 shadow of the mountains upon the town, but illu- 
 minating everything to right and left with that soft 
 and pleasant light, which we so often see at home 
 in the early morning of the spring. 
 
 After the clock had struck twelve, we threw our 
 fur cloaks over our shoulders, and strolled out into 
 this strange midnight. Passing through the town, I 
 remarked the quiet which everywhere prevailed, and 
 how all nature seemed to have caught the inspiration 
 of the hour. Not a soul was stirring abroad. The 
 dogs crouching in clusters were all asleep, and it
 
 The Doctor. 45 
 
 seemed as if my little vessel lay under the shadows 
 of the cliffs with a consciousness that midnight is a 
 solemn thing, even in the sunshine. And never did 
 the sun shine more brightly, and never did a more 
 brilliantly illuminated landscape give evidence of 
 day. But wearied nature had sought repose, even 
 though no sable cloud with silver lining turned upon 
 the world its darkening shadow, for the hour of rest 
 was come. 
 
 Walking on over the rough rocks, we came at 
 length upon the sea, and I noticed that the very 
 birds, which were wont to paddle about in great 
 flocks upon the waters, or fly gayly through the air, 
 had crawled upon the shore, and, tucking their 
 heads beneath their wings, had gone to sleep. Even 
 the little flowers and blades of grass seemed to 
 droop, as if wearied with the long hours of the day ; 
 and, defying the restless sun to rob them of their 
 natural repose, had fallen to sleep with the beasts 
 and birds. The very sea itself appeared to have 
 caught the infection of the hour dissolving in its 
 blue depths the golden clouds of day. 
 
 The night was far from being cold, and selecting 
 the most tempting and sunny spot, we sat down 
 upon a rock close beside the sea, watching the gen-
 
 46 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 tie wavelets playing on the sand, and the changing 
 light as the sun rolled on, glistening upon the hills 
 and upon the icebergs which, in countless numbers, 
 lay upon the watery plain before us, like great mon- 
 oliths of Parian marble waiting as if but for the 
 sculptor's chisel to stand forth in fluted pillar and 
 solid architrave floating Parthenons and Pantheons 
 and Temples of the Sun. 
 
 The scene was favorable to the conversation, 
 which had been broken off when we left the study, 
 and the Doctor came back to it of his own accord. 
 I was much absorbed with the grandeur of this mid- 
 night scene, and had remained for some time quiet. 
 My companion, breaking in abruptly, said, " I think 
 I promised to prove to you that I am the most sen- 
 sible fellow alive. Now let me tell you, to begin 
 with, that I would not exchange this view for any 
 other I have ever seen. It is one of which I am 
 very fond, for, at this hour, the repose which you 
 here see is frequently repeated ; and, to compare 
 big things with little, it might be likened to some 
 huge lion sleeping over his prey, which he is not yet 
 prepared to eat quick to catch the first sound of 
 movement. There is something truly terrible in this 
 untamed nature. Man's struggle here gives him
 
 The Doctor. 47 
 
 something to rejoice in, and I would not barter it for 
 the effeminate life to which I should be destined at 
 home, on any account whatever. Perhaps, if I should 
 there be compelled absolutely to earn my daily bread, 
 the case might be different, for enforced occupation 
 is quite too sober an affair to give time for much 
 reflection. ' But I should, most likely, lead an idle 
 sort of existence there, and should simply live with- 
 out, so far as I can see, a motive. I should encoun- 
 ter few perils, have few sorrows, fewer disappoint- 
 ments, and want for nothing nothing indeed but 
 temptation to exert myself, or prove my own man-" 
 hood in its strength, or enjoy the luxury of risking 
 the precious breath of life, which is so little worth, 
 and which is so easily knocked away. You have 
 seen one side of me how I live. Well, I enjoy 
 life, and make the most of it after my own fashion, 
 as everybody should do. If it is a luxurious fash- 
 ion, as you are pleased to think, it but gives me a 
 keener relish for the opposite ; and, that it does not 
 unfit me for encountering the hardships of the field, 
 is proved by the reputation for endurance which I 
 have among the natives. If I sleep between well- 
 aired sheets one night, I can coil myself up among 
 my dogs on the ice-fields the next, and sleep there
 
 48 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 as well. I care not if it's as cold as the frigid cir- 
 cle that Dante tells of so satisfactorily. If I have a 
 penchant for Burgundy, and like to drink it out of 
 French glass, I can drink train-oil out of a tin cup 
 when I am cold and hungry, and never murmur. I 
 like well-fitting clothes, but rough furs suit me just 
 as well that is, in season. Why, it would make you 
 fairly laugh to see these people here, countrymen of 
 mine, with whom I sometimes travel, who never 
 tasted Burgundy in all their lives, and would rather 
 have one keg of Danish corn brandy than a whole 
 tun of it, and who never took their frugal fare off 
 anything more tempting than tin. Do you think 
 that these people can, under any circumstances, be 
 induced to strengthen their bodies with eating blub- 
 ber, as I often do when traveling in the cold ? Not 
 a bit of it ! Do you think they can be persuaded to 
 sleep outside of their own wretched lodgings, with- 
 out groaning and everlastingly desiring to get back 
 again ? Not they ! " 
 
 When the Doctor had finished this half soliloquy, 
 I could not help asking what had impelled him to 
 the life of solitude and exposure of which he had 
 clearly grown so fond. 
 
 " The motives are various," he answered, " but
 
 The Doctor. 49 
 
 before we say anything under that head, let me re- 
 vert to a word which you have just let fall, and 
 which you have, perhaps, not duly considered the 
 value of." 
 
 I asked him what it was. 
 
 " Solitude." 
 
 "But, surely," I replied, "the word can hardly 
 fail to suit a description of this place." 
 
 The Doctor shrugged his shoulders while play- 
 fully answering, " Evidently all my talk about 
 books, and the pleasure I have in them, has been 
 quite thrown away, and my sweetness has been 
 ' wasted on the desert air.' Perhaps you may have 
 seen upon my shelves a rather fine edition of Lord 
 Byron. Of all the poets he is my favorite, when 
 describing wild nature. Why, what do you think 
 would have been his handling of this grand mid- 
 night scene these glorious cliffs, these snow-clad 
 mountains, these glittering icebergs, glaciers, mid- 
 night sun he who could behold the comparatively 
 insignificant ice streams of the Alps, and call them 
 'palaces of nature,' where eternity sat throned in 
 ' icy halls of cold sublimity,' and write so grandly 
 about their expanding, yet appalling the human 
 spirit, and how insignificant man stands forth in
 
 5<D Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 contrast with nature in her rugged grandeur ? Why, 
 sir, what Byron saw was as nothing compared with 
 this, and yet you call this solitude. Now let me 
 answer you in this with a quotation from my favor- 
 ite, which everybody, no doubt, who reads your 
 splendid language, has by heart that is to say, if 
 I am not tiring your patience." 
 
 " By no means," I answered. " You cannot 
 please me better than by praising this great poet, 
 or by quoting from him." 
 
 " That being the case, then here are the lines I 
 want to use 
 
 ' To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell, 
 To slowly trace the forest's shady scene, 
 Where things that own not man's dominion dwell, 
 And mortal foot hath ne'er, or rarely, been ; 
 To climb the trackless mountain all unseen ; 
 With the wild flock that never heeds a fold ; 
 Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean ; 
 This is not solitude ; 'tis but to hold 
 Converse with nature's charms, and see her stores unroll'd.' 
 
 " To be sure there is here no 'forest's shady scene,' 
 but I have oftentimes, in the winter moonlight, come 
 to this same spot, and, looking out over the desolate,
 
 The Doctor. 51 
 
 frozen sea, have, in the dark trailing shadow of a 
 high ridge of hummock ice and icebergs, imagined 
 that I was looking out upon a great woodland, such 
 as I have many a time seen in winter time else- 
 where. But if the forest is not here, all the rest of 
 it most surely is ; but the reverse of the picture 
 quite as surely, is not. And now to wind up all this 
 Byronic sentiment, let me just say, in the same 
 Spenserian meter as before, and from the same 
 excellent fountain head of poetry, 
 
 ' I live not in myself, but I become 
 Portion of that around me ; and to me, 
 High mountains are a feeling, but the hum 
 Of human cities torture.' 
 
 " But to change the subject," continued my host 
 in a less grave manner, " and answer your question 
 more fairly, you see I do a good deal of exploring, 
 have reached many of the glaciers, have dabbled in 
 natural history, meteorology, magnetism, and all that 
 sort of thing, besides making many photographs and 
 geographical surveys, and have sent home to various 
 societies and museums many curiosities and much 
 information. My name, as you know, stands well
 
 52 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 enough among the dons of science. But, apart from 
 this, my duties require me to travel about at all 
 times and during all seasons. You must know that 
 everybody in this country lives upon the coast, and, 
 therefore, the settlements are reached only by the 
 sea. In the winter I travel over the ice with my 
 dog-sledge, and, in the summer, when the ice has 
 broken up, I go from place to place in that little 
 yacht which you saw lying in the harbor. Some- 
 times I go from choice, stopping at the villages and 
 exhibiting my professional abilities upon Dane or 
 native, as the case may be. Often I am sent for. 
 The Greenlanders don't like to die any better than 
 other people ; and they all have an impression that 
 if Dr. Molke only looks upon them they are safe. 
 So if anybody gets but an ache of any sort, away 
 goes a courier for the Doctor. Perhaps it is in sum- 
 mer, and the distance may be a hundred miles or 
 more. No matter, he gets into his kayak and pad- 
 dles through all sorts of weather ; and, at the rate 
 of seven knots the hour, comes for me. Glad of the 
 excuse for a change, to say nothing (and the less 
 perhaps any of us say on that score the better) of 
 the claims of humanity, I send Sophy after Adam 
 (a converted native) and directly along comes Adam
 
 The Doctor. 53 
 
 with his son Carl ; and my medicine and instrument 
 cases, my gun and rifle, and a plentiful supply of 
 ammunition, a tent and some fur bedding, a lamp 
 and other camp fixtures, and a little simple food, are 
 put into the boat, and off we go. Perhaps a gale 
 springs up and we are forced to make a harbor in 
 some little island, or perhaps it falls calm and we 
 crawl into one under oars. It is sure to be alive 
 with ducks and geese and snipe. The shooting is 
 superb. Happen what may, come storm or calm or 
 fine weather, though often wet and cold, and fre- 
 quently in danger, yet I have a good time of it. I 
 may be back in a day, two days, a week, or I may 
 be gone a month. Then the winter comes, and 
 I have again to answer another summons. The 
 same " traps " are put on the sledge, to which are 
 harnessed the twelve finest dogs in the village my 
 own team and at the wildest pace at which this 
 wolfish herd can rush along, Adam guides me to my 
 destination. Perhaps it may be early in the winter 
 and the ice in places thin. We very likely break 
 through' and get wet and are in danger of freezing. 
 Perhaps we reach a crack which we cannot pass, 
 and have to halt, and, possibly in a hut of snow, wait 
 until the frost builds a bridge for us to pass. This
 
 54 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 is the wildest and most dangerous of my experi- 
 ences this dog-sledging it from place to place in 
 the early or late winter ; and I have many wild ad- 
 ventures. In the middle of the winter, when it is 
 dark pretty much all the time, and the snow is hard 
 and crisp, and the clear cold bracing air makes the 
 blood run freely through the veins, is the best 
 time for traveling ; for then we may start a bear 
 and be pretty sure of catching him before he gets 
 on rotten ice or across a crack, defying us in the 
 pursuit." 
 
 By this time the sun had begun to climb above 
 the hills, and the shadow of the cliffs had passed 
 over the town, so we strolled back to the Doctor's 
 house. The Doctor insisting that I should not 
 sleep on board, we returned to the study, where I 
 was soon wrapt in a sound sleep on the Doctor's 
 " shake-down," from which I never once awoke 
 until there came a loud tapping on the door. 
 
 " Who's there ? " 
 
 " Sophy." 
 
 " What's Sophy want ? " 
 
 " Breakfast ! " 
 
 Breakfast indeed ! It was hard to believe that I 
 was to come back to the experiences of h'fe under
 
 The Doctor. 55 
 
 such a summons, for I had dreamed that I was on a 
 visit to the Man in the Moon, and was enjoying a 
 genuine surprise at finding him happy and well con- 
 tented, seated in the center of an extinct volcano, 
 with all the riches of the great satellite gathered 
 round him, hanging in tempting clusters on its 
 horns. 
 
 But my eyes at length were opened wide enough 
 to see near by the very terrestrial ruins of our even- 
 ing's pastime ; and, if these had left any doubt 
 upon my mind as to the reality of my present situa- 
 tion, these doubts would certainly have been re- 
 moved by the cheerful voice of the Doctor ; for a 
 loud " Good morning," came from out the painted 
 chamber, and from beneath the sky-blue canopy a 
 graceful query of the night, 
 
 "What of the night, sleeper ! what of the night ? " 
 
 Then I was quickly out upon the floor and 
 dressed, and in the cosy little room where the 
 fruits and flowers were hanging on the wall, and 
 where the bright face of Sophy, and aromatic cof- 
 fee, and a charming little breakfast were awaiting 
 us with a kindly welcome. 
 
 Breakfast over, I left the Doctor to expend his 
 skill and knowledge on a patient who had sent to
 
 56 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 claim his services, and strolled out over the rocks 
 behind the town, wondering all the time at the 
 strangeness of the human fancy and its power on 
 the will, and I reflected too, and remembered, that 
 in the explanation of the satisfying character of 
 the life which my new-found friend was leading, 
 there had been no clew given to the first great 
 motive which had destined such a finely organized 
 and altogether splendid man to such a career. Was 
 he exempt from the lot of other mortals ? or must 
 he, too, own, like all the rest of us, when we own 
 the truth, that every firm step we ever made in 
 those days of our early lives when steps were criti- 
 cal, was made to please a woman to win her slight- 
 est praise, to heal a wound or drown a sorrow of her 
 making ? I would have given much to have the 
 question answered, for then a thing now myste- 
 rious would have become as plain as day ; but there 
 was no one there to heed the question or to give the 
 answer, and I could only wander on over the rough 
 rocks wondering more and more.
 
 II. 
 
 TH E SAVAGE.
 
 He was a dark, unlettered savage ; wild, 
 Untamable. You might as well have tried 
 
 To tame the fiercest jungled forest child 
 Tiger or leopard, lion, catamount. Allied 
 
 Were these to him by nature. Gentle and mild 
 He might be to his kith and kin, but pride 
 
 Would brook no interference with his will 
 
 Unchallenged. Savage born, he was a savage still." 
 
 ANON.
 
 II. 
 
 THE SAVAGE. 
 
 " Do you wish to see one of my friends ? " said 
 Doctor Molke to me one bright morning, while I 
 still remained his guest. 
 
 "Certainly." 
 
 "But he's fifty miles or so away." 
 
 " So much the better." 
 
 "And to reach him is not v/ithout danger." 
 
 " Not greater to others perhaps than to yourself." 
 
 " Shall we set out at once ? " 
 
 " The sooner the better." 
 
 And the Doctor once more tinkled his little silver 
 bell, and once more Sophy, of the silver seal-skin 
 pantaloons and dainty snow-white boots, tripped 
 softly through the door. 
 
 " We are going on a journey, Sophy," said the 
 Doctor ; " can you put up something for us to eat 
 
 and drink ? " 
 
 59
 
 60 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 " Yes," answered Sophy, promptly ; " but I should 
 know better what to do if Doctor Molke would tell 
 me how long he means to be away." 
 
 " Perhaps a week." 
 
 " A week ! " exclaimed Sophy, evidently surprised ; 
 and she appeared as if very much inclined to ask 
 the Doctor where he proposed taking the American 
 to stay so long, for she looked first at him and then 
 at me, and then at him again. 
 
 The Doctor quickly interpreted the puzzled ex- 
 pression of the countenance of his housekeeper, and 
 prepared to gratify her. 
 
 "You would like to know, Sophy," said he, " where 
 we are going, would you not ? " 
 
 "Yes," she answered, and with a promptness, too, 
 which showed that she had great interest in the mat- 
 ter, though I could not imagine why. 
 
 " Then suppose I tell you we are going to pay our 
 respects to Sipsu, the savage," said the Doctor. 
 
 " I shouldn't half believe it if you did," answered 
 Sophy. 
 
 " But we are, really and truly," said the Doctor. 
 
 " Really and truly," echoed Sophy, in, as it seemed 
 to me, a half-inquiring, half -pleading tone of voice. 
 
 " Really and truly, Sophy."
 
 The Savage. 6 1 
 
 " Oh, don't do that ! " said she. 
 
 " Why not, Sophy ? " 
 
 " Because," she answered, hesitating, " because 
 it's such a horrid place to take the American ; it 
 will give him such a bad idea of the country and 
 and the people." 
 
 " Perhaps his ideas of the country and the people 
 are as bad as bad can be, already, Sophy ; at any 
 rate, I think he can stand it, so be a good girl now, 
 and help us off." 
 
 This appeal to be a good girl and help us off, was 
 clearly made on the weak side of Sophy's character, 
 for it was easy to see that a good girl, in Doctor 
 Molke's estimation, was what Sophy was very glad 
 to be. At least she made no further remonstrance, 
 but at once tripped lightly out, as she had tripped 
 lightly in, to do her master's bidding, giving, as she 
 turned to go, a cunning little pout and a modest 
 shrug, which could not have been better done nor 
 more charming to look upon, had Sophy been 
 dressed in petticoats and skirts, instead of silver 
 seal-skin pantaloons, and dainty snow-white boots, 
 and fur-tipped jacket, reaching to the waist. 
 
 In a couple of hours everything was ready for 
 the start, and we went down to the boat. And the
 
 62 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 boat was really ready to some purpose. The stern- 
 sheets presented a tempting nest of fine robes of 
 bear and fox-skins ; a tent lay rolled up beside the 
 mast ; the locker beneath the robes was filled with 
 whatever, in the shape of eatables, and drinkables, 
 and smokables, the most fastidious taste or hungry 
 appetite could desire, in reason ; while stretched 
 across the thwarts were guns, and rifles, and pouches, 
 and indeed everything that a hunter needed for a long 
 campaign. Then there was a cooking furnace for- 
 ward in the bows, and it was clear enough that noth- 
 ing had been neglected by my prudent host, or the 
 thoughtful Sophy, or the pilot Adam, that could con- 
 tribute to the comfort of the inner or the outer man. 
 Adam was as odd-looking a pilot as was ever 
 seen. Coppery-faced, heavy-jawed, broad-visaged, 
 beardless, fur-coated, and altogether stumpy, he was 
 clearly a native-born Esquimau, for nothing else was 
 ever molded exactly after that pattern. He was 
 clean, which showed that he had received instruction, 
 and by it had profited. His name indicated that he 
 enjoyed the benefits of baptism, and was of the 
 Christian faith. He could speak a little English, 
 which proved that the schoolmaster was abroad, 
 even then, in Greenland.
 
 The Savage. 63 
 
 "All ready, Adam?" inquired the Doctor, as we 
 stepped aboard. 
 
 " Very ready," answered the pilot, evidently desir- 
 ing to exhibit his proficiency in the English tongue, 
 for my particular benefit. 
 
 " Up anchor then, and shake out the sails." 
 
 The anchor was soon lifted out of a great bed 
 of sea-weed, in which it had been lying, and the 
 sails unfurled by the sealskin-coated Adam, as- 
 sisted by three other natives, who had been shipped 
 to pull an oar, in case of need ; and now, with the 
 Doctor at the helm, we were soon gliding out of the 
 harbor, shaping our course for the mainland to the 
 eastward. 
 
 The wind soon became light, and baffling, but the 
 time being midsummer the temperature was warm, 
 and the sun shone upon us all the time, as bright 
 and glorious at midnight as at noon. This cir- 
 cumstance gave to the day a strange romantic fresh- 
 ness that was truly delightful, for, although the con- 
 tinuous daylight of the Arctic summer was not new 
 to me, yet it seemed, for all, a novel thing to be 
 sailing on and on in an open boat, and never needing 
 to look up a place of retreat or anticipate the night. 
 
 We were full thirty-six continuous hours upon the
 
 64 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 water, and during this protracted sail we watched 
 the changing scenery without weariness, breaking 
 the monotony now and then by prying into the 
 mysteries of Sophy's well-stocked locker, or by a 
 shot at a passing duck, or gull, or other bird, or by 
 a nap, or by whatever else served most pleasantly to 
 while away the time. 
 
 And the scenery about us was at all times enough 
 in itself to occupy the thoughts and prevent fatigue. 
 The great solid wall of the Greenland coast rose 
 steadily before us, and the multiplying cones of 
 whiteness which climbed up behind it melted away 
 among the clouds, unbroken by a single ray of 
 green one boundless waste of sterile rocks, sub- 
 lime as they were desolate. 
 
 By and by little islands began to show themselves 
 above the water ; and as we passed near some of 
 them, the eye was charmed by the discovery of here 
 and there a patch of grass or moss mosaiced in 
 dark slopes, like emerald in a bed of jet. On sev- 
 eral of these islands there were lonely little hunter's 
 huts. Sometimes these huts had peaked roofs, but 
 more usually the roof was flat, the former denoting 
 the white man's home, the latter the shelter of a 
 native hunter. Desolate as appeared the land, and
 
 The Savage. 65 
 
 dreary as it seemed for human residence, the air 
 and sea were teeming with life. Great flocks of 
 birds, principally eider-ducks, different varieties of 
 auks, and glaucus, tridactyl, and other gulls, were 
 constantly darting by or curiously hovering over- 
 head. Seals in great numbers were sporting in the 
 sea, putting up their half-human faces when we 
 neared them, as if to ask why we had come into 
 their haunts, and, sometimes, again upon the ice- 
 fields that we passed, great schools of them were 
 lazily basking in the summer's sun, or were fast 
 asleep in the noonday warmth. 
 
 And during all this time icebergs were constantly 
 in sight, rising one after another from the sea before 
 us, and sinking away behind us, passing us, as it 
 were, in solemn procession, sparkling all the while 
 like precious gems, and, now and then, cracking and 
 crumbling to pieces, piercing the air with sounds 
 compared to which the loudest thunder would be 
 hoarse and feeble. This latter phenomenon was 
 clearly caused by the warmth of the sun, which, 
 falling unequally upon them, split them with ex- 
 plosive violence, and tumbled fragments from their 
 sides- like a blast of powder in a quarry cliff. 
 
 Passing on among these unusual scenes, we came
 
 66 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 at length beneath a lofty cape, which rose almost 
 squarely from the sea to the height, as it seemed, of 
 two or three thousand feet or more. Commencing 
 at the bottom, a series of ledges followed each other 
 half way to the top, and on these ledges were stand- 
 ing, or sitting bolt upright, long rows of birds with 
 black heads and backs and pure white breasts, 
 crowded close together, and looking for all the 
 world like soldiers with black shakos and Austrian 
 coats, shoulder to shoulder, in solid column on 
 parade. They were the well-known lumme, one 
 of the most numerous varieties of the Greenland 
 auks. 
 
 There was not much sport to be had in slaughter- 
 ing such stupid looking innocents as these, and so 
 we ran in close to the cliff to observe rather than to 
 shoot. 
 
 The birds upon the lower ledges, were, as we 
 came near, readily counted, but above they vanished 
 into scarcely distinguishable streaks of white. To 
 and from all the ledges, low and high, birds were 
 coming and going continually, as bees come and go 
 from a hive, hurrying to the sea to get a meal of 
 shrimps, and hurrying back again to nurse their 
 eggs, each to its own particular egg, for each lays
 
 TJic Savage. 67 
 
 but one, on which it sits or stands bolt upright, and 
 hatches out the chick without a nest of any sort, and 
 without the least protection from the naked rock. 
 
 The eggs being all alike, it seemed to me strange 
 that each bird should know its own, and come back 
 to it, but the Doctor told me that they did this with 
 unerring certainty, each picking out its egg as a 
 hen would pick her brood of chickens from 1 the 
 largest flock. Sometimes an egg, however, tumbles 
 from its shelf while its owner is away, and then the 
 unhappy bird seizes upon the first unclaimed one 
 she can find when she comes back, and down she 
 sits upon it as unconcernedly as if it were her own, 
 and there were no means among the feathered tribes 
 for the punishment of theft. But she must take good 
 care that she is not observed, else punishment will 
 surely come. The robbed bird may rob another in 
 her turn, but woe be unto her if the theft be known. 
 I saw one old sobersides as we passed along sud- 
 denly pounced upon by an infuriated hen, whose 
 egg she had doubtless stolen ; and then began a 
 combat as fierce and angry as ever took place be- 
 tween old fish-wives. The birds clutched each other 
 by the throat, they pounded each other with their 
 wings, they pegged away at each other's eyes, until,
 
 68 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 at last, their bills were locked together, and down 
 they floundered to the water, where they kept on 
 fighting still until we pulled them into the boat and 
 parted them, when Adam quickly wrung their necks, 
 and soon after had them stewing in his pot and 
 made a meal of them. 
 
 Combats such as these were very frequent, and 
 the shrieks of the fighting birds, the screams of the 
 other birds, who seemed to be spoiling for a fight, 
 the endless scoldings and chatterings that were go- 
 ing on between near neighbors as they sat there 
 bolt upright on their rocky shelves, all mingled 
 with and added to the ceaseless flutter of the wings 
 of birds that were flying to and fro, filled the air 
 with a roaring sound, which, distinguishable for 
 miles, as if it were the deep murmuring of a distant 
 water-fall, almost drowned our voices as we neared 
 the cape. 
 
 But this was nothing to what we were to see, for 
 the Doctor had it in his head to make a sensation. 
 He proposed a shot, not, as he said, to slaughter the 
 innocents, but to give them a fright for my particu- 
 lar benefit. Accordingly, all our pieces being made 
 ready, we fired them in concert. The effect was 
 wonderful. As the strange wild echo of the guns
 
 The Savage. 69 
 
 rang from crag to crag, off from every ledge, from 
 the top to the bottom of the lofty wall, and through- 
 out its mile 5r more of length, from end to end, the 
 startled birds came with a rush of a tornado ten 
 thousand, or perhaps a thousand times ten thousand, 
 frightened, fluttering, screaming birds. It was an 
 instantaneous rush, a wild leap into the air, some 
 darting upwards, some downwards, others in a zig- 
 zag course, and all in such rapid flight that they 
 fairly whistled through the air, while down along 
 the wall behind them, from ledge to ledge, came a 
 perfect cataract of spattering eggs. 
 
 The number of birds that passed over us was 
 something almost incredible. They were so thick 
 for a few moments that they cast a shadow like a 
 cloud. They soon came down with a tremendous 
 splash upon the sea, all, at least except a few of the 
 bravest, who wheeled about and put back again 
 before they had flown far. Upon the sea, however, 
 they did not long remain, but, gaining courage, all 
 swarmed back again to their rocky ledges, hastening 
 to get upon their eggs once more before they cooled. 
 And there, as we looked back with our glasses, we 
 saw them in the distance, in long rows, sitting bolt 
 upright as they had been before.
 
 70 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 This cliff passed, we were now fairly within a 
 deep, wide bay or fiord. The coast on either side 
 was lofty, tortuous, and craggy ; the land behind 
 the coast was mountainous and white. The fiord 
 was dotted with islands, and was crowded with ice- 
 bergs of every conceivable form and size. 
 
 The scene was dreary past description, and grew 
 more and more dreary as we went along ; for the 
 icebergs multiplied in number, and the smaller 
 fragments covered the sea to such an extent that 
 we were often compelled to pick a crooked pas- 
 sage, or to make a wide detour. And all the 
 while, as we were thus pushing our way into this 
 cheerless wilderness, deafening sounds were pealing 
 through the air and reverberating from the cliffs, 
 for masses of ice were, as described before, tum- 
 bling from the bergs on every side, while now and 
 then a berg turned over in the sea, rolling the waves 
 beneath us as if a gale of wind were piling up the 
 waters. 
 
 To the dreariness of the scene a weird effect 
 was added by the frequently strange shapes of the 
 bergs, as we passed them by ; for in the clear, glit- 
 tering ice were fashioned rude semblances of towers 
 and spires, of castles and architectural designs of
 
 The Savage. 71 
 
 every sort, and beasts, and birds, and sphinx-like 
 statues colossal as those of Thebes. 
 
 But by and by a pleasant light came stealing 
 through the ice forest from the midnight sun, 
 and the bergs reflected the hues of the sky and 
 clouds above, blue, and purple, and bright crimson, 
 while the water, as seen against the ice, was green. 
 Its tender, emerald hues were reflected up into 
 the deep caverns and underneath the overhanging 
 shelves and tongues of the icy walls ; and, as the 
 waves rolled into these caverns, and beneath these 
 overhanging shelves, sometimes with a deep re- 
 sounding roar, the green light would come and go, 
 and flutter, as if it were a vapor playing there. 
 
 This play of light in the air and water was, how- 
 ever, of short duration, for a heavy cloud at length 
 came trailing over us from the sea, at first winding 
 gracefully about the crests of the icebergs, and then 
 after a while settling down heavily upon the waters 
 in a blinding mist. 
 
 And now the sounds of falling ice, which before 
 could be traced to their source, came from out a 
 gloom into which the eye could not penetrate. 
 Mysterious darkness hung over the fiord, and it 
 seemed as if mysterious voices were warning us
 
 72 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 away, or enticing us to ruin ; and, as I listened to 
 these voices coming through the fog, it really did 
 seem as if there was but a slender chance for us 
 ever coming out alive. 
 
 The Doctor was intent upon his duty of steering 
 the boat, and he guided it with a skillful hand. 
 Conversation was checked by the necessity for 
 greater caution and watchfulness. I observed the 
 Doctor's fine face attentively. His practiced eye 
 was quick to detect every new danger in season to 
 avoid it. 
 
 Presently, however, his face wore an expression of 
 intense earnestness. He peered into the dense fog- 
 bank ahead of us in a way that quite astonished me. 
 An instant more and he had jammed his helm hard 
 down. The boat came quickly to, but I could see 
 no cause for this maneuver. There was scarcely a 
 piece of ice visible, and we were free, so far as I 
 could perceive, from every source of danger, lying 
 quietly upon the dark waters, the sails shaking and 
 flapping in the light wind. 
 
 But when I directed my eyes to the same quarter 
 with Doctor Molke's, I was not long in detecting a 
 moving object vaguely looming through the murky 
 air, and very near to us. The fog and the sea were so
 
 The Savage. 73 
 
 closely blended that there was no line of demarka- 
 tion visible beyond the distance of a few yards, and 
 the object, whatever it might be, seemed as if it 
 were floating in the air, swaying from side to side, 
 and steadily coming toward us. When it had ar- 
 rived within about fifty yards it wheeled to the left, 
 and appeared to increase its speed. 
 
 Up to this time, whatever may have been the im- 
 pression upon Doctor Molke's mind as to the nature 
 of the apparition, I was certainly much puzzled, 
 the thick atmosphere magnified it so immensely and 
 distorted its proportions in every way. The re- 
 fraction of the fog apparently lifted it above the 
 place where the imagination placed the line of 
 water, and it might well have been taken for some 
 huge winged creature from the skies sweeping down 
 upon us with threatening gestures. 
 
 I was not, however, long in doubt, for the mo- 
 ment the object wheeled I detected in the little 
 shimmering line of light which lay above the water 
 the outline of a boat and the figure of a man pad- 
 dling through the mist. 
 
 At this instant the Doctor called loudly to the 
 strange boatman to stop, but he was evidently not 
 
 so inclined, holding steadily to his altered course, 
 4
 
 74 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 and apparently exerting himself to the utmost to 
 hide himself again in the gloom from which he had 
 so suddenly emerged. 
 
 As soon as it became clear that the boatman 
 would not stop in obedience to his summons, the 
 Doctor dropped the tiller, and, before I knew what 
 he was about, the sharp crack of a rifle stunned my 
 ear and went echoing among the invisible icebergs. 
 
 I saw the rifle ball strike the water to the left of 
 the boatman, and as curiosity was keenly excited to 
 know more of him, I was glad that no harm had 
 been done ; and, in truth, there was on the Doctor's 
 part no intention of injuring him, for the rifle had 
 not been aimed. He had fired merely to " bring 
 him to." And it had that result most speedily, for 
 the boat was wheeled about at once, and the boat- 
 man halted facing us. 
 
 " Come here ! " shouted the Doctor in a peremp- 
 tory tone of voice. Without further delay the boat- 
 man started toward us, slowly however and cau- 
 tiously. 
 
 The conduct of this boatman was wholly inexpli- 
 cable to me, for there could be no doubt that he saw 
 us, and also heard the summons of Doctor Molke. 
 Why, then, was he seeking to avoid us ? It seemed
 
 The Savage. 75 
 
 to me that the meeting of human beings in a place 
 like this, lonely and full of danger, must be such an 
 unusual event that, under any circumstances, it 
 would be welcome. 
 
 Why, on the other hand, the Doctor should mani- 
 fest such great eagerness to speak to the man, when 
 he was with not less eagerness striving to avoid us, 
 I was equally at loss to understand, the more espe- 
 cially as I could not see that the Doctor would, in 
 any possible way, be the gainer by an interview. 
 
 I looked into the Doctor's face to see if that 
 would help me to read the riddle ; but I could only 
 see that Doctor Molke was clearly not a man in the 
 habit of seeing his commands slighted. 
 
 The effect was most remarkable as the boat 
 approached us. From its immense size and the 
 constantly changing shape which it assumed in the 
 dense fog, the figure dwindled down at length to 
 human proportions as it came near, paddling to right 
 and left. 
 
 There was something so strange in our situation 
 and surroundings, that the introduction of this epi- 
 sode into the experiences of the day, the sudden 
 appearance of a human being in this vast ice-forest 
 and impenetrable mist, and the bringing him to our
 
 76 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 side, as it seemed, a captive, added the fascination 
 of mystery to the sense of novelty and surprise. 
 The incident occurred most opportunely, for I had 
 already made up my mind that with the closing 
 down of the fog had come the end of our pleasant 
 experiences, and, growing damp and chilly, was 
 about to bury myself in the fur robes and be pa- 
 tient. 
 
 But who and what was this mysterious boatman ? 
 To give it the greater romance, I might have taken 
 him for some pirate of the ice-forest, had the idea 
 of icebergs and pirates been in any way capable of 
 association. There was more reason for belief that 
 he was some outlawed criminal fleeing from the 
 sight of man, and venturing abroad only when 
 nature dropped a curtain behind which he might 
 steal in safety, for when I got a fair view of his face 
 I found it not by any means attractive, and yet one 
 could not feel disposed to judge the man by any 
 common standard. 
 
 A more singular-looking creature it would be diffi- 
 cult to imagine. His boat itself was a curiosity to 
 behold the frailest thing perhaps that ever carried 
 human freight. And yet, to the nautical eye, its 
 lines were beautiful gracefully curved, and indicat-
 
 The Savage. 77 
 
 ing speed. It had no keel, as I afterward discov- 
 ered, and it rode upon the water with the lightness 
 of a duck, turning about as easily and shooting for- 
 ward or backward without any apparent effort of 
 the boatman. It was propelled and guided by a 
 long oar, which the boatman grasped in the mid- 
 dle, and which had a blade at either end, and neatly 
 tipped and strengthened with walrus ivory. The 
 length of the boat was about twenty feet, and its 
 width as many inches at the middle, from which it 
 tapered to a sharp, upward-curving point at either 
 end, where were ivory ornaments, as on the paddles, 
 and an ivory cut-water, thin and sharp, like the 
 blade of a knife. The frame of it was made of 
 light wood, the different 'pieces cunningly lashed 
 together, and, over this slender frame tanned seal- 
 skins were stretched and sewed with sinew thread in 
 a perfect seam. The skins covered the top as well 
 as sides and bottom, leaving only a small hole at 
 the center to admit the boatman's body to the waist. 
 Around this hole was drawn firmly the lower mar- 
 gin of the boatman's outer coat, which, made of the 
 same sort of tanned leather as the boat itself, was 
 surmounted with a hood that covered up the head, 
 and was bound tightly with a draw-string around
 
 78 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 the face before the ears, while the sleeves were 
 fastened with other draw-strings about the wrists. 
 There was not left a single orifice through which 
 a drop of water could find its way either to the 
 body of the man or inside his boat, no matter how 
 much the waves might wash over him, even burying 
 man, boat, and all from sight. 
 
 The man and the boat were indeed one bound 
 together, moving together, acting together in every 
 way, and apparently possessed of the same life and 
 will. It seemed almost as if the whole might be 
 some marine monster a sort of centaur of the sea. 
 
 I have said the face of the man was not attract- 
 ive, but I should rather say that it was savage sav- 
 age in every feature coarse, and unrestrained, and 
 strong, full of passion and of energy, but whether 
 naturally cruel, I could not well make out. 
 
 His features, which were of a dark copper hue, 
 showed plainly that he belonged to the same race 
 as our pilot Adam, and differed only in degree in 
 being coarser in every particular. Everything that 
 was marked in Adam's face was more marked in 
 this mysterious boatman's. The face was some- 
 thing broader, the cheek-bones were more project- 
 ing, the jaws were heavier, the nose was flatter.
 
 TJic Savage. 79 
 
 The mouth was very large and very wide, the chin 
 was small, and the lips were thick. The upper lip 
 was long, and on this and the chin there were a few 
 stiff black hairs, but upon no other part of the face 
 was there any beard. As in all his race, the inner 
 corners of the eyes were drawn down, giving the 
 impression that the nose had tumbled from its natu- 
 ral fastenings, and had pulled the eyes a little out 
 of place. 
 
 Why the Doctor had brought him to us was, of 
 course, what I wished to know. But the Doctor 
 was so intent upon securing him, that I determined 
 to postpone the solution of the matter to some other 
 time, contenting myself with observing, before he 
 came well in view, that I thought it " strange that 
 he should desire, seemingly at least, to avoid us." 
 
 " Oh, not at all," responded the Doctor, "not at 
 all ; these Greenlanders are an odd race, and their 
 whims are endless." 
 
 " He is then an Esquimau ? " said I inquiringly. 
 
 " Yes, and I should have told you that before. 
 But, you see I took a fancy to speak with him, and 
 I was busy about that. Besides, I did not want him 
 to get away, after I had ordered him to come to 
 me ; that would never do unless I should choose
 
 8o Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 forever to lose all influence over him. Not only is 
 he an Esquimau, but an untamed one. We call him 
 Sipsu, the savage." 
 
 "The name, I think, of the person we are to 
 visit." 
 
 " The very same, and this is the very man him- 
 self. You see I did well to send that ball after the 
 fellow, for otherwise we should have missed him, 
 and been deprived of the chief pleasure of our 
 call." 
 
 Sipsu was looking very sullen, as he had abundant 
 cause to do, as I thought. When within a few yards 
 of us, he backed water with his oar, and brought his 
 boat to rest almost with the suddenness of a skillful 
 rider bringing up a horse on his haunches. 
 
 " Hallo, Sipsu," cried the Doctor, as if noticing 
 his sullen looks ; " I thought you didn't see us, and 
 didn't hear me call, so I fired to let you know we 
 were about." 
 
 Sipsu did not appear to see any joke in the firing 
 of the rifle, nor pleasure in being near us ; for he 
 gave neither smile nor answer, and did not change 
 a muscle of his stolid face. 
 
 " We are going up to see you," continued the 
 Doctor. " Here is a stranger come in a big ship
 
 The Savage. 81 
 
 from a great country far away across the waters, and 
 he wants to visit you. We are going up to your 
 island." 
 
 The savage manifested no further signs of satis- 
 faction than he had done before, merely nodding 
 his head and saying "Ap," for yes, by way of 
 signifying that he understood what was said to 
 him. 
 
 "Where were you going to in such a desperate 
 hurry, Sipsu ?" asked the Doctor. 
 
 " Catch seals," answered Sipsu, in a language 
 which former experiences enabled me sufficiently to 
 understand. 
 
 "All right," replied the Doctor, "very good. 
 Now Sipsu lead the way while we follow after, and 
 mind don't go too fast. If you hear me call, you 
 had better stop at once." 
 
 The savage "appeared to hesitate, and looked more 
 sullen than ever. 
 
 " Do you hear ? " exclaimed the Doctor in a 
 louder voice. 
 
 At this the savage dipped his oar and turned his 
 boat up the fiord, and with two sturdy strokes shot 
 his little craft ahead as if it were an arrow from a 
 bow. 
 
 4*
 
 82 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 " Slow and easy," called the Doctor after him, 
 "slow and easy," and Sipsu eased his stroke and 
 proceeded quietly. 
 
 " A little angry just now at being disturbed," ex- 
 plained the Doctor, " but he'll soon cool off." 
 
 " Much bad man ! " exclaimed Adam overhear- 
 ing his master's words. 
 
 " Much mind your business and get that jib-tack 
 aboard ! " exclaimed the Doctor rather impatiently. 
 
 Under the healthful stimulus of this command, 
 Adam and his fellows quickly performed their part 
 of the preparation for getting under way, and we 
 were soon once more standing up the fiord, Sipsu 
 leading off, and as he had been directed, adapting 
 his movements to our own. 
 
 We had not far to go, for in less than half an 
 hour a dark rock loomed through the thick atmos- 
 phere, and almost as soon as it was seen we were 
 alongside of it and ashore. Sipsu pulled up near by, 
 and laying his boat close to the rock, placed his 
 paddle on it and, with this to steady him, he drew 
 himself out of his cranky little craft, then seizing it 
 with his right hand, he took it on his arm as one 
 would take a common market-basket, and started 
 up the rocky slope, we following.
 
 The Savage. 83 
 
 In a few moments we came to a large seal-skin 
 tent, and on a great platform of flat stones, elevated 
 on eight pillars of the same material, Sipsu placed 
 his boat. This platform was about six feet from 
 the ground, and held a sledge, a great quantity of 
 harpoons and spears and lines and harness for dogs, 
 some twenty or more of which were howling about 
 us the moment we had landed. 
 
 " Why are these things put there so carefully ? " 
 I asked. 
 
 " To keep the dogs from tearing them to pieces." 
 
 And, indeed, the villainous and wolfish appear- 
 ance of the animals was in keeping with their de- 
 structive reputation. Savage and untamed like their 
 master, they kept circling round us, snarling in a 
 very threatening and disagreeable sort of way. They 
 were of all sizes and colors, and, unlike those which 
 I had usually seen in the country elsewhere, they 
 were sleek and well fed, and looked as if they might 
 whirl a sledge over the ice at a very rapid rate. 
 
 When Sipsu had put away his boat (kayak he 
 called it), he took off his tanned seal-skin coat and 
 stood before us robed in shaggy furs, and now it was 
 that for the first time the sullen lines of his face 
 were crossed by any other expression. Suddenly he
 
 84 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 gave a broad and hideous grin, and proceeded to 
 imitate a white man's custom by advancing toward 
 me with an outstretched hand. For an instant I felt 
 inclined to shrink, as I would from the embrace of 
 one of Du Chaillu's gorillas, but my repugnance to 
 the savage did not make itself apparent, and, indeed, 
 when he opened his mouth to speak, I found my- 
 self so much amused by what he said that 1 only 
 remembered I was holding the hancl of an exceed- 
 ingly interesting and curious specimen of the human 
 race. 
 
 " Why," said he to Doctor Molke, with an appar- 
 ent heartiness difficult, after the Doctor's recent 
 treatment of him, to understand ; " why it's as good 
 as a big fat seal to see you, and better than a pile of 
 eggs to see this other man. Who is he ? " 
 
 Whereupon the Doctor told him, and then the 
 savage invited us to enter his tent, himself leading 
 the way. 
 
 " Here's an intirieur for you," said the Doctor as 
 we entered. 
 
 And truly it was a curious one. Half the floor 
 was raised a little above the other with flat stones, 
 and on the edge of this raised place sat three women 
 dressed in shaggy furs like Sipsu, and having round
 
 The Savage. 85 
 
 coarse faces like Sipsu, and the same flat and tum- 
 ble-down appearance generally of eyes and nose 
 which distinguished the Sipsu countenance ; and be- 
 hind these three women seven children had rooted 
 and stowed themselves away in a nest of furs, as little 
 pigs would root and stow themselves away in a well- 
 littered sty, leaving their seven odd-shaped little 
 heads only to be seen, and from these seven little 
 heads fourteen little tumble-down eyes stared at us 
 wildly. 
 
 Two of these women were watching lamps that 
 were but open soap-stone dishes, which were sup- 
 ported upon stones, and were smoking villainously 
 beneath pots of the same material hung suspended 
 from the rafters of the tent. From these same 
 rafters were dangling articles of dress and skins 
 of bears and foxes. In the left-hand corner 
 there was a pile of the same sort of materials. In 
 the right hand corner there was a litter of whining 
 puppies, and directly in the center the quarter of a 
 seal, which the third woman was cutting up in bits 
 and tossing into the pots which hung above the 
 smoking lamps. 
 
 Curiosity satisfied, we were glad enough to get out 
 into the open air again, and to look about a little.
 
 86 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 The tent was Sipsu's summer residence, and was 
 composed of seal-skins, sewed together and thrown 
 over a rude frame made of wood and bone, many 
 pieces being lashed one to the other in a cunning way. 
 Near by was his residence for the winter. This was 
 simply a low flat hut built of stones and turf, and 
 was evidently thought to be a great affair by its 
 savage proprietor, but it did not possess sufficient 
 attraction to tempt either of us within the entrance, 
 where we should have been compelled to stoop very 
 low, or crawl ten feet on our hands and knees be- 
 fore reaching the doorway. 
 
 Passing this hut, we went on to a little lake of 
 melted snow around which grew a fringe of moss 
 and grass. Some snipe were flying about, which we 
 were quick to bag, and we plucked some bright little 
 flowers, which were growing there in a very doleful 
 sort of way, and were seemingly unhappy. I 
 thought they looked up into my face appealingly, 
 but when I stuck them in my buttonhole they did 
 not seem grateful, for they wilted away immedi- 
 ately. 
 
 There was no need to wander farther, for there 
 was nothing more to see a mass of rough and 
 rugged rocks as bare of life as the desert sands. But
 
 The Savage. 87 
 
 here, in spite of the desolation, the savage Sipsu 
 lived and prospered, and here he was at home. A 
 strange home truly, on a little rocky island in a wil- 
 derness of icebergs, and within the sound of their 
 everlasting cannonade. Great icebergs towered above 
 the island on every side, as we could see when the 
 fog had lifted, and great heaps of ice were piled 
 along the beach. Yet myriads of birds were flying 
 through the air, and seals in any number were sport- 
 ing in the sea. It was not difficult to see whence 
 the savage Sipsu obtained each day his daily food. 
 Nor was it difficult to make out, when looking at the 
 sterile land, that his food was wholly animal. But 
 of this his supplies were plentiful, as was shown on 
 every hand. I asked him if he never came to 
 want ? 
 
 " Never. " 
 
 " Did he always have everything he needed ? " 
 
 "Always." 
 
 " What was the food he most relied upon ? " 
 
 " Seals." 
 
 " The skins of what animals for clothes ? " 
 
 " Seals." 
 
 " No others ? " 
 
 " Bears and foxes."
 
 88 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 " No more ? " 
 
 " Sometimes birds." 
 
 The savage seemed indisposed to talk, but he 
 would answer, so I kept up a fusillade of questions, 
 determined if I could to draw him out. 
 
 Why did he live upon this rocky island away up 
 here among the icebergs ? 
 
 " Because he liked to." 
 
 This might well have posed a modest man, but I 
 was not to be baffled thus. 
 
 Why did he not go down where Doctor Molke 
 lived ? 
 
 "Among the Christian folks?" asked Sipsu, and 
 he grinned a horrid grin. 
 
 " Yes, of course." 
 
 " I hate them."" 
 
 " What, Doctor Molke here, and all ? " 
 
 " No, not him, but all the rest of them," and he 
 laughed a savage laugh, as if there was a mental 
 reservation covering Doctor Molke. 
 
 I could get but little out of him, but by keeping 
 up the questions I found (at least that was what he 
 told me) that he would not go down to where Doc- 
 tor Molke lived, because if he did he would be 
 obliged to do what the missionary bade him, which
 
 The Savage, 89 
 
 he would never do, for if he did he would be " as 
 poor," he said, " as all the rest of them." 
 
 But was he not poor here ? 
 
 No, who ever said he was ? He always had plenty 
 to eat and plenty to wear. There was never want 
 in hut or tent for anything, and nobody ever came 
 there and went away hungry. 
 
 " Do you think him a case for conversion ? " 
 asked the Doctor laughing. 
 
 I had to own that I thought the man was fixed in 
 a faith not easily shaken. His theory of life was 
 deeply rooted, and he had clearly no doubt what- 
 ever that he had done his part when he kept 
 his family well fed and clothed, and had a good 
 supply of food laid up against an evil day, with 
 blubber enough to wash it down, and to keep his 
 lamps well going in the long dark winter, and, when 
 besides keeping himself and family in comfort, he 
 could also give to any weary hunter who might pass 
 that way, food and shelter. 
 
 " One of your friends, I think you told me," said 
 I to the Doctor as we walked down towards the 
 boat. 
 
 " Rather a sorry one, you think ? " 
 
 " Each to his taste ; but I should hardly suppose
 
 QO Pictures of Arctic 'I ravel. 
 
 the savage would quickly forget that business in the 
 fog, or be inclined to love you very deeply, if such 
 are your approaches to his heart." 
 
 " Ah ! " replied the Doctor, " he knows me of 
 old, and, if he does not love me very deeply, he has 
 a wholesome fear of me, which is, perhaps, as well. 
 Yet, after all, he has befriended me, and would 
 serve me now, though, in truth he has little cause to 
 love me, and I really cannot help liking the fellow 
 after a fashion. He is the most perfect type of his 
 race that I have met with, and it is always some- 
 thing at least to get hold of a man with real charac- 
 ter." 
 
 " Certainly, whether good or bad." 
 
 "Well," continued the Doctor, " there is not 
 much of the good according to our civilized notions 
 in this savage Sipsu. He has all the savage virtues, 
 if you know what they are, as well as savage resent- 
 ment. It so happens that I am the only man who 
 can do anything with him, and the only white man 
 for whom he manifests the least attachment." 
 
 " I should not think," said I, " that sending balls 
 about his head as you did to-day, would be calcu- 
 lated to strengthen it." 
 
 The Doctor smiled and said the fellow was
 
 The Savage. 91 
 
 rather used to it. " Besides, I wanted you to see 
 him, and had you not, the journey would have been 
 rather disappointing." 
 
 " What was his business in the fog ? " I asked. 
 
 " That is what I should like to know myself ; 
 some villainy, you may be sure. In such a fog these 
 people will never stir abroad to hunt on any pre- 
 text ; for they are sure to lose their way. They 
 cannot find the game, and are always in needless 
 danger. However, this savage is an exception, for 
 he finds his way through a fog in a most marvelous 
 manner, with the instinct of the sleuth-hound on the 
 scent." 
 
 By the time the Doctor had finished this not very 
 flattering account of his friend, we had reached our 
 landing-place, where Adam had found a patch of 
 grass, and pitched our tent and cooked a supper (or 
 dinner, or breakfast, whatever it might be, for the 
 sun being always up, we gave no thought to the 
 time of day), and had ransacked Sophy's well-stored 
 locker and spread all the eatables and drinkables 
 and smokables upon a huge flat rock near by. And 
 to these things we did as one may well suppose, full 
 and ample justice. 
 
 Supper over, we crept into the tent and stowed
 
 92 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 ourselves away in the furs we had brought with us, 
 and undisturbed by the ceaseless roar of the crum- 
 bling ice on every side, or by the damp and chilly fog, 
 slept soundly. But, before I fell asleep, I could 
 not but reflect how strange it was that any human 
 being should, from choice, live in such a desert home ; 
 and as I thought of my companion in the tent, and 
 remembered my surprise at seeing him first in the 
 lonely spot he had chosen for his residence, and then 
 recalled what I had seen of the strange relation ex- 
 isting between these two men, the one a type of 
 everything refined. the other, a true savage, both 
 alone in solitary places, with all the evidences about 
 them of their status in the social scale, each in his 
 way, it seemed to me that I had come into a very 
 land of wonders, and that they would never cease.
 
 III. 
 
 SNOW AND ICE
 
 NATURE ! great parent ! whose unceasing hand 
 Rolls round the seasons of the changeful year, 
 How mighty, how majestic are thy works ! 
 With what a pleasing dread they swell the soul ! 
 That sees astonished ! and astonished sings ! 
 
 THOMSON'S SEASONS,
 
 III. 
 
 SNOW AND ICE. 
 
 THE dense fog that had overspread the sea lifted 
 in the early morning under the warm influence of 
 the sun. Near by the camp there was a cliff to 
 which I quickly made my way alone. 
 
 The view was grand beyond description. No 
 feeble words of mine could ever bring to any other 
 person's mind more than the most faint conception 
 of the splendors of that morning scene. To the 
 east rose the mighty cliffs of the Greenland coast, 
 while far away beyond far as the eye could wan- 
 der rose mountain after mountain canopied with 
 snow and ice ; while all around, dark rocky islands, 
 intermingled with towering icebergs, dotted the sil- 
 very water. Far down the fiord a vast glacier came 
 trailing to the sea. 
 
 Ah, that glacier ! what a tale it had to tell ! The 
 
 95
 
 96 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 earth and sea were full of it: but more than that, 
 the air the air which there, as everywhere, governs 
 whatever happens to mankind for help or harm 
 the air that dispenses heat and cold, drought and 
 moisture over all the world, in sunshine and in 
 storm, in cold and heat, throughout the year the 
 air that wafts to one sweet perfumes, to another 
 noxious vapors the air that brings pestilence or 
 health to suit its own caprice the air that blights 
 the strong and invigorates the feeble, that depresses 
 and revives the spirits, that admits the sun and 
 keeps the sun away the air that, everywhere in- 
 visible, is yet a sponge, for does it not soak up the 
 waters and scatter them again to all the quarters 
 of the globe ! Yet while that which it absorbs is 
 composed of infinitesimal particles, that which it 
 scatters is very tangible in its shape ; for when too 
 highly charged, it gathers, as it were, its hot and 
 cold extremes together, rolls up a cloud and flings 
 abroad the rains and snows. This it repeats again 
 and again, as if in playful exhibition of its strength 
 and power. 
 
 Thus may a particle of water, perhaps a dewdrop 
 from some tropic leaf, be transported to the Arctic 
 regions, or to a mountain so lofty that it has an
 
 Snow and Ice. 97 
 
 Arctic climate. Here the air drops it as a snow- 
 flake. If now touched by a warm solar ray before 
 the air can again take it up in vapor, it becomes a 
 globule of water. Should the air then grow cold 
 and spiteful, the globule of water thus formed from 
 the snow-flake, is hardened into a crystal, and is 
 bound fast for untold ages. 
 
 Thus begins the ice-sea of the mountains ; 
 
 From the ice-sea comes the ice-stream ; 
 
 From the ice-stream comes the iceberg. 
 
 The ice-sea we commonly called the mer de glace, 
 borrowing from the French : 
 
 The ice-stream, borrowing from the same quarter, 
 we call a glacier : 
 
 Iceberg is from the Dutch, and signifies ice-moun- 
 tain. 
 
 Heat and cold are, as everybody knows, merely 
 relative terms ; yet each in its way creates convul- 
 sions. With the negative condition as with the posi- 
 tive, the thermometer is the test of natural force. 
 
 The greatest heat of the earth is presumably at 
 its center ; the greatest cold is at its extremities ; 
 that is to say, the mountain tops. The internal heat 
 produces the volcano and the earthquake : the ex- 
 ternal cold produces, as we have seen, the iceberg 
 5
 
 98 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 and it likewise produces the ice-field. This latter, 
 however, belongs to the ocean, or to arms of the 
 ocean, as Baffin's Bay, where it is formed in contact 
 with the land. It makes the ice-barrier, or ice-pack, 
 or ice-belt, as it is indifferently called, of the Arctic 
 waters, and is the pest of the navigator. It blocks 
 up all the gateways to the Polar Basin, and has, thus 
 far, kept the North Pole of the earth sacred from 
 invasion. Hence man has wooed the Polar Sea in 
 vain. The ice-field forms an unbroken girdle about 
 the chaste Queen of Oceans, and he is told, " Thus 
 far, and no farther." 
 
 The iceberg is very different from the ice-field. 
 Hundreds of them may be seen at one time, but 
 they are all separate one from the other. The 
 name, signifying, as we have seen, ice-mountain, dis- 
 tinguishes it conspicuously from ice-field. This 
 latter is salt and flat ; the former is fresh and lofty. 
 
 I have said that the ice-sea begins with the 
 snow-flake. Its growth is from an infinite number 
 of sno.w-flakes, falling in annual layers, and con- 
 verted into successive layers of ice. Thus formed 
 upon the land, the iceberg is therefore, in the sea, a 
 vagrant. 
 
 Its birth is the "convulsion" of cold, as the
 
 Snozu and Ice. 99 
 
 earthquake is of heat ; and it is difficult to say 
 which is the most sublime and startling the birth 
 of an iceberg or an earthquake shock. 
 
 " Glacier," as we have also seen, is the general 
 name we apply to the whole formation which finally 
 results in the iceberg. These form upon all the 
 lofty mountain chains of the earth having a certain 
 geological character. It is even supposed by many 
 philosophers, and among the number the late emi- 
 nent Professor Agassiz, that many parts of the earth 
 now fertile and inhabited were once covered with 
 ice. They have gone so far even as to add " gla- 
 cial period " to geological nomenclature. 
 
 At the present time, however, glaciers are con- 
 fined to the lands of the Arctic and Antarctic 
 regions and the lofty mountain chains, as, for in- 
 stance, the Alps, the Andes, and the Himalayas. 
 
 No part of the Arctic regions presents any exten- 
 sive or magnificent display of glaciers except 
 Greenland. In this respect it is truly a typical 
 land, and might well be called the Arctic continent. 
 In fact, it is a vast reservoir of ice, being almost 
 wholly covered with it. Nothing but the great 
 headlands between the fiords (that is to say, the 
 deep bays) and the off-lying islands escape. This
 
 ioo Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 covering is many hundreds of feet in average thick- 
 ness, and to the eye it presents one vast illimitable 
 waste of whiteness a gelid cloak an ice-sea a 
 mer de glace. 
 
 This is the last place in all the world where one 
 would expect to meet with such a phenomenon, if 
 there were any meaning in a name. Greenland, 
 with its pleasant-sounding title, has come to be 
 regarded as the symbol of desolation. It ought to 
 have been Snowland or Frostland. Yet, after all, 
 there was meaning in it to Eric, the Icelander, who 
 was its discoverer. He found some valleys and 
 slopes of the headland, where he first stepped 
 ashore, clothed with verdure. Here a great herd of 
 curious reindeer, who had never before seen human 
 beings, were browsing, and down they came, all 
 unsuspicious ot harm, to look at Eric and his fol- 
 lowers. This was but a little way north and west 
 of Cape Farewell, near what is now Julianashaab. 
 
 Eric wanted credit for this discovery of a new 
 world, and he wanted likewise colonists. So he 
 named it Greenland, the more conspicuously to 
 distinguish it from Iceland, whence he came. 
 
 The name took with the Icelanders amazingly, 
 producing much the same effect upon their minds
 
 Snow and Ice. 101 
 
 that " Valley of Eden" did upon the mind of Mar- 
 tin Chuzzlewit. The result, however, on the whole, 
 was better. It gave Eric twenty-five shiploads of 
 colonists, a full pardon for sundry crimes, and much 
 prosperity. It gave one of his sons (Lief, the 
 Lucky) an opportunity to discover America, which 
 feat was performed in the year 1001. It brought, 
 also, fresh treasures to the exchequer of Iceland, 
 and, in time, it furnished beef cattle for the private 
 table of the King of Norway. 
 
 But the field of the colonists was circumscribed. 
 Still they and their descendants flourished there for 
 three hundred years and more. They built churches 
 and a cathedral, and cultivated farms, and lived in 
 peace and plenty, by the sea. In the valleys alone 
 and in those only which had a southerly exposure, 
 was there any life. Behind and above them, all 
 was sterility rugged cliffs of immense height, and 
 mountain wastes of ice and snow. 
 
 I have climbed those cliffs, and traveled upon 
 those mountain wastes upon the mer de glace, or 
 ice-sea, reaching as far inland as eighty miles, and 
 as far above the level of the sea as five thousand 
 feet. 
 
 There it was almost as level as the ocean in a
 
 IO2 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 calm, and as unbroken ; as void of life as the des- 
 ert of Sahara, and more dreary to look upon. The 
 temperature was thirty- four degrees below zero, and 
 had steadily fallen to that degree as we climbed up 
 higher and higher, by the scarcely perceptible ac- 
 clivity. Then we were suddenly set upon by a 
 tempest. Nothing could be more terrible except 
 a furnace blast. The drifting snow, which came 
 whirling along the icy plain, was like the sand clouds 
 of the desert, which so often overwhelm travelers. 
 There was no chance for life except in flight. With 
 our backs to the wind, we descended as rapidly as 
 possible to the level of the sea, where the tempera- 
 ture was zero, at which degree of cold life is sup- 
 ported without inconvenience. My companions were 
 then all unaccustomed to such exposure ; yet, while 
 all were at first somewhat alarmed, none were, in the 
 end, seriously touched by the frost. 
 
 It would be difficult to inflict upon a man greater 
 torture than to expose him to such a storm. The 
 effect, after a time, is to make life undesirable 
 alarm first, then pain, then lack of perception. 
 When one dies from freezing, it is the brain which, 
 in effect, first surfers eclipse. The cold has not 
 solidified it, that is true, but has made it torpid
 
 Snow and Ice. 103 
 
 like certain animals in the winter time, with which 
 one may do anything and they will not resist, being 
 quite incapable of receiving an impression. One of 
 the men said, " I cannot go any farther ; I do not 
 want to ; I am sleepy ; I cannot walk." Another 
 said, " I am no longer cold ; I am quite warm again ; 
 shall we not camp ? " Then I knew there was the 
 greater need to hurry on, if we would not all be de- 
 stroyed by the fearful wind. 
 
 This digression may perhaps the more readily 
 enable the reader to understand the nature of this 
 Greenland ice-sea. 
 
 The whole continent is, perhaps, 1,200 miles long, 
 by, say, 600 broad. This gives 720,000 square miles 
 of superficial area, the greater part of which is this 
 ice-sea. Multiply this by the tenth of a mile, which 
 may be taken as the fair average depth of the moun- 
 tain ice, and we have piled up on Greenland 72,000 
 cubical miles of solid ice a result which seems 
 almost fabulous. And all this, as we have seen, is 
 composed of successive layers of hardened snow, 
 which is still increasing year by year, and century 
 by century ; and while thus accumulating, the cli- 
 mate has been steadily growing colder. This is 
 shown by the fact that, from the tenth to the four-
 
 IO4 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 teenth century, people lived in Greenland quite 
 comfortably, while they now live there quite misera- 
 bly a change which is only to be accounted for, 
 independent of all astronomical influences, by the 
 circumstance that the sea, as well as the land, has 
 more and more ice gathering upon it from year to 
 year. 
 
 Now, it must be borne in mind, that an ice-sea, 
 such as that of Greenland, is not a stationary mass, 
 like rock, but is a moving mass, like water. What 
 is it but hardened water water crystallized ? 
 
 Take the better known glaciers of the Alps by 
 way of illustration. There we find a mer de glace 
 from which are many branches extending down the 
 valleys on every side. These are called glaciers. 
 They are ice -sir earns, for they flow downward 
 through the valleys, and are the means by which 
 the mer de glace, or ice-sea, discharges itself, thus 
 preventing an accumulation which would, but for 
 these ice-streams, become interminable. It is esti- 
 mated that tne mountain -snows of the Alps would 
 gather there at the rate of four thousand feet in a 
 thousand years. This accumulation is, however, 
 prevented by natural law ; for the Creator, in the 
 all-wise dispensation of His power, has made ice
 
 Snow and Ice. . 105 
 
 ductile, as if it were fluid. Hence it flows, when 
 on an inclined plane, just as water flows, only, of 
 course, slower. An ice-stream is, therefore, in effect, 
 a river, and drains the mountain-ice of the Alps 
 down to the sea, as rivers drain the rains which fall 
 in other places. The Alpine ice-streams become, 
 however, actual rivers in the end ; for, as they flow 
 down the valleys in a continuous stream from the 
 mer de glace, the end reaches the base of the moun- 
 tains, where the temperature becomes comparatively 
 warm, and the end of the ice-stream is steadily 
 melted off, as a candle held to the fire. 
 
 The water thus formed completes the circuit to 
 the sea as a real river, and not an ice-river, the only 
 difference, however, in the flow and the law of flow 
 being one of rate. 
 
 The ice molds itself to its bed, as the river does. 
 When the bed is wide, it expands ; when the bed is 
 narrow, it contracts and thickens ; when the descent 
 is slight, it deepens ; when rapid, it hurries along, 
 and becomes shoal. An ice-stream, like a river, has 
 therefore its cascades, its rapids, its broad lagoons 
 (so to speak), and its smooth, steady, even-flowing 
 places. It carries rocks along with it upon its sur- 
 face, which have been hurled down upon it from 
 5*
 
 io6 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 neighboring cliffs by the frost, as the river carries 
 sticks of wood, leaves, and other light materials. 
 
 Greenland is only the Alps many times magni- 
 fied not in altitude, but in extent of surface and 
 the quantity of mountain-ice which it has accumu- 
 lated. The whole interior of that continent, as we 
 have seen, is, in effect, covered with an ice-sea, from 
 which flow ice-streams on either side down through 
 the valleys. 
 
 There is, however, one great point of difference 
 between the Alpine ice-stream, or glacier, and the 
 Greenland ice-stream. While the end of an Alpine 
 ice-stream melts in the warm air, at a lower level 
 than that in which it was formed, the Greenland ice- 
 stream, on the other hand, meets no such fate. The 
 whole of Greenland, from the sea upward to the 
 mountain-tops, has too low a temperature for that. 
 Hence the ice-streams pour all the way down to the 
 sea, which they usually reach at the head of the 
 deep fiords. Thus does the sea take the place of 
 the air in the melting process. But not precisely in 
 the same manner, for the sea first breaks off a mass 
 from the end of the Greenland ice-stream, and then 
 gradually melts it, as it floats south with the current. 
 
 This mass is the iceberg.
 
 Snow and Ice. 107 
 
 Both these processes, however, have in the end 
 the same result the final return of the mountain- 
 snows to their natural home in the ocean. 
 
 The flow of an ice-stream is, unlike that of a 
 river, imperceptible to the eye ; but its rate can be 
 measured. The method is simple enough : You 
 mount to the surface of the glacier, and stake off a 
 base-line upon it, either in its axis or parallel with 
 its axis. You then set up your theodolite at one 
 end of the base-line, and connect the base-line by 
 angles with some fixed object on the land which 
 borders the glacier, like the banks of a river, to left 
 and right. You go then to the other end of the 
 base-line, and repeat the process. After, say, a 
 week, or a month, and as many more times as you 
 may find necessary, you go through this same oper- 
 ation of setting up your theodolite and measuring 
 the angles. Then a very simple trigonometrical 
 computation reveals the fact that the ice-stream is 
 carrying your base-line along with it down the val- 
 ley, leaving the fixed objects on the banks behind. 
 It is almos* as if you made a base-line on a long 
 raft, and surveyed a river's banks as you floated 
 down the river with the current. 
 
 To further prove the resemblance of an ice-stream
 
 io8 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 to a river, you plant a line of stakes across it, from 
 side to side, each, say, twenty fathoms from the 
 other. Observe your stakes closely, and, after a 
 time, your straight line has become a curve. This 
 curve steadily increases. The middle of the glacier 
 is flowing more rapidly than the sides. So, in like 
 manner, does the top flow more rapidly than the 
 bottom. 
 
 These measurements I have often made ; once on 
 an ice-stream in North Greenland. The tempera- 
 ture was below zero, and it was cheerless work 
 enough. We reached the top of the glacier with 
 much difficulty, cutting steps with an axe. Then 
 we came upon unfathomable cracks, which made 
 the walking dangerous as the view was dreary. 
 There was a strong wind howling down from the 
 ice-sea, bringing with it sharp, cutting snow-drift. 
 The brass instrument froze the eye-lids, and had to 
 be covered with buckskin. The moisture of the 
 breath condensed upon the lenses, and the observer 
 had to breathe through a tube. The men who car- 
 ried the chain scorched their fingers with the cold 
 metal. Under these circumstances, science be- 
 comes a species of martyrdom. Yet we completed 
 our survey,, and discovered the ice-stream to be flow-
 
 Snow and Ice. 109 
 
 ing toward the ocean at the rate of four inches a 
 day. 
 
 Many of the Greenland ice-streams are of ?maz- 
 ing extent. There is one sixty miles wide. Its 
 front is in the water, and it is washed by the waves 
 like any other coast-line ; for it is really a coast-line 
 an ice coast-line. The cliffs of the land on either 
 side of it are very lofty from five hundred to a 
 thousand feet. These ice-cliffs are from fifty to 
 three hundred feet in altitude. Below the surface 
 of the water, of course, this wall extends downward, 
 resting on the bottom of the sea like all others. This 
 great ice-stream is known as the Humboldt Glacier, 
 and is at the head of Smith Sound, latitude 79. 
 
 There is another Greenland ice-stream that is 
 twenty miles wide ; others that are ten, and five, 
 and indeed of any width, down to the quarter of a 
 mile or even less. Some of them have been pouring 
 into the sea for ages ; some have not yet reached 
 the sea, but are steadily nearing it, like a flood com- 
 ing down a valley from a broken dam. Not noise- 
 lessly, however, for the flow of an ice-stream is at- 
 tended with continual crackings and breakings, and 
 tumbling of avalanches, which add greatly to its 
 sublimity, and give it an aspect of terror. In fact
 
 HO Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 this whole Arctic continent is full of startling won- 
 ders and novelties of nature, and its history is so 
 replete with violent commotions, from the time when 
 it was a volcanic nest to the present, that it is well 
 worthy of more consideration than it has ever yet 
 received from the learned, or the curious, or even 
 the adventurous. I had once occasion to visit a 
 famous glacier of the Greenland coast. It lies at the 
 head of a fiord which is fifty miles long, measured 
 from the outer coast line, and is from ten to fifteen 
 miles wide ; in one place it is twenty. It is dotted 
 here and there by little rocky islands, and is lined 
 on either side by dark reddish-bnr.vn cliffs of great 
 height and of forbidding aspect. The color of the 
 rocks gives the native name to the fiord. Ank-pad- 
 lar-tok, they call it signifying " The place of the 
 Red Rocks." The glacier at the end of it takes its 
 name from the fiord. 
 
 This fiord is in its general appearance like all the 
 other deep inlets which give such peculiar character 
 to the outline of Greenland. They are, as it were, 
 deep cuts in the land. The coasts are tortuous ; 
 they are very barren ; the water is very deep ; the 
 fiord is encumbered with ice ; it is inhabited by 
 bears and seals, and in the summer time the islands
 
 Snow and Ice. 1 1 1 
 
 swarm with different varieties of water-fowl chiefly 
 gulls, ducks, geese, and auks, which have come 
 there from the south, to breed in the perpetual 
 sunshine of the summer, and to feed upon the in- 
 finite varieties and inexhaustible supply of shrimps 
 and other minute inhabitants of the chill Arctic 
 waters. 
 
 The fiord of Auk-pad-lar-tok lies immediately 
 north of Upernavik, in latitude 73. In fact Uper- 
 navik stands upon an island at the southern horn of 
 the fiord, in latitude 72 40'; and it is not only the 
 most northern of the Danish colonies in Greenland, 
 but it is the most northern Christian settlement on 
 the globe. One would think it the most northern 
 border of human occupation ; but it is only the 
 dilute margin of civilized existence ; for I have dis- 
 covered savages much farther north traces of them 
 within five hundred miles of the pole, and actual 
 residents within seven hundred. These people 
 the Esquimaux no doubt wandered to America 
 from Asia crossing Behring Strait into Alaska in 
 canoes. Moving thence eastward along the north 
 coast of America (they are an exclusively coast 
 people, and are nowhere tillers of the soil), they 
 have finally reached Greenland in the same man-
 
 112 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 ner as they had before reached America, or have 
 crossed over on the ice. 
 
 Upernavik is a kind of polar Long Branch (its 
 name signifying " Summer Place," from Upernak, 
 " summer," and navik, " place "), being, during the 
 summer time, a great resort for the natives, who 
 flock thither for no discoverable purpose except to 
 make themselves and others, as uncomfortable as 
 possible. It is very barren and desolate, and is 
 much exposed to the sea. 
 
 Having brought my vessel to an anchor in the 
 little harbor, I made preparation at once to visit Auk- 
 fad-lar-tok glacier ; and I was soon off in a whale- 
 boat with a full crew, camp equipage enough for 
 any number of days' absence, scientific instruments 
 for any amount of explorations, and guns and rifles 
 enough for any quantity of shooting. These latter 
 were indeed most important, as they were our chief 
 reliance for supplies. The birds, as I have said, 
 were very numerous. That they were very fishy we 
 had long since ceased to remember we had be- 
 come so used to them, and were so glad to get them. 
 
 We were two days in reaching our destination, 
 during which time the weather was fine, the tempera- 
 ture ranging at about 60. The sun did not leave us
 
 Snow and Ice. 1 1 3 
 
 at midnight, and altogether it was rather a holiday 
 excursion than a " hard experience." The shooting 
 could not be excelled, but the work for the sailors 
 was, it must be owned, rather severe. The fiord 
 was crowded everywhere with ice to such an extent 
 that it appeared on all sides of us as if covered with 
 a canopy, and among the masses we were compelled 
 to pick a devious passage, which was often attended 
 with excessive labor, and was not without danger. 
 First, there were the fields of ice, large and small 
 some very thin and rotten, others thick and solid 
 which sometimes, by completely blocking up the 
 way, compelled us to make over the ice-field a sort 
 of portage dragging our boat and carrying our 
 cargo. Then again came the icebergs, great and 
 little, of every size, from a hencoop to a city, and of 
 every height, from almost no height at all to the 
 dome of the national capitol. Some were wall- 
 sided like a fort ; some were rounded like a huge 
 pot turned upside down ; some had spires like a 
 church ; some had blue and green caverns in their 
 sides, which led the imagination off into a great 
 glacial mammoth cave ; no two were alike, and 
 there was nothing the fancy might conjure up that 
 did not take shape in the endless blocks of glitter-
 
 H4 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 ing crystal a dog here, a bear there, a bird in an- 
 other place ; then a Greek temple to the right, a 
 mosque to the left ; the gable-end of a country 
 house in front, an unfinished city hall behind, and 
 ruins everywhere. Being for the most part transpar- 
 ent, the play of light upon them was very wonderful ; 
 being angular, they dissolved the sun's rays ; being 
 glassy, they reflected the hues of the clouds. Fill- 
 ing the fiord within its walls, they scattered at its 
 mouth, and dotted with sparks of light the deep 
 blue waters of Baffin's Bay. 
 
 To reach the end of the fiord we required a 
 guide ; so, agreeably to the directions of the Gov- 
 ernor of Upernavik, we hauled in to a tall cliff, 
 which is about thirty miles up the fiord. At the 
 base of this cliff we find a narrow ledge of rock, and 
 on this we discover a rude hut overgrown with turf. 
 Here lives the man we seek at his feet the sea, 
 above him as gloomy a wall as eye ever lighted on, 
 where the croaking ravens have gathered for an 
 evening concert. Great numbers of wolfish-looking 
 dogs bay a deep-mouthed defiance rather than a wel- 
 come ; that is, they howl it as we approach ; while 
 the inevitable odor of fish gives us a Greenland 
 greeting.
 
 Snow and Ice. 115 
 
 It is a dreary and solitary place for human resi- 
 dence ; but, for all, our guide (not a professional 
 guide as you find in other countries, but a simple 
 seal-hunter) is a cheerful looking man as he meets 
 us at the beach. He is flaxen haired, and is dressed 
 partly in the skins of wild beasts, and partly in 
 clothes of European fabrication. He is a Dane, 
 and, strange to say, of his own free will and accord 
 came to this wild and solitary place some five and 
 twenty years gone by, and has lived there happy as 
 a clam at high water ever since. At least his cheery, 
 weather-beaten face makes you think so. His name 
 is Philip. 
 
 Philip's history has not been a peculiarly event- 
 ful one hunting and fishing year in and year out ; 
 trading what he does not need for home consump- 
 tion to the Governor of Upernavik, and receiving in 
 exchange all sorts of domestic luxuries, such as 
 coffee, tea, sugar, and tobacco, which his family 
 seem to know well how to dispose of. For Philip 
 has a family. 
 
 On his way into the fiord, " in the days of his 
 youth," he stopped at Upernavik long enough to fall 
 in love ; no very uncommon thing to happen to 
 a young bachelor of high or low degree, at any time
 
 n6 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 or in any place ; but Philip's Dulcinea was a full- 
 blown Esquimau, with high cheek-bones, and jet- 
 black hair, and jet-black eyes, and a very dark com- 
 plexion. "She isn't lazy," said Philip, growing 
 sentimental, " and she has been a good wife to me, 
 very good indeed." I did not inquire whether she 
 had been converted from the religion of her people, 
 but suppose so, from the fact that she had taken the 
 first great step toward godliness, according to St. 
 Paul, in being clean. The inside of her hut was 
 polished like the deck of a man of war, and although 
 there was but one room, yet this was partitioned 
 off into a number of stalls, which were filled half 
 way up to the roof with what looked like bags of 
 air ; in one of which, under the firm impression that 
 I was floating in space, and rolling in a cloud, I 
 slept (between two bags of eider-down, as it proved) 
 the sleep of the weary man, after having eaten the 
 meal of a hungry one ; the meal being mainly com- 
 posed of a fine salmon freshly caught in some 
 neighboring lake, and venison from a neighboring 
 valley. 
 
 Philip's wife has brought into the world a numer- 
 ous progeny. Some are flaxen-haired and blue- 
 eyed, like the father ; others black-eyed and black-
 
 Snow and Ice. 117 
 
 haired, like the mother ; and they are of all sizes, 
 from a babe at the breast to a full-grown hunter. 
 But midway in the series is a phenomenon a bright 
 girl of fifteen summers, very fair, with eyes of the 
 father and hair of the mother a wild flower, truly, 
 in the wilderness. This pretty creature is to be- 
 come the bride of a savage hunter lately converted 
 and baptized Jens by the missionary at Upernavik. 
 And so once more is a 
 
 " flower born to blush unseen, 
 And waste its sweetness on the desert air." 
 
 But, alas ! Christina wears seal-skin trousers ; 
 and who could weave a romance of such materials ? 
 and so I let her pass to the reader's imagination. 
 
 Leaving the good wife and the fair Christina and 
 the solitary hut, we once more threaded the fiord 
 over the dead waters and among the shifting ice 
 that was grinding noisily with the tide. 
 
 We had a hard pull of it, and at length were 
 brought to a stand five miles from the end of the 
 fiord. We tried first one opening, then another, 
 not without serious danger to our boat ; and at 
 length, convinced that we could proceed no further 
 on account of the closely-impacted ice, we made
 
 1 1 8 Pictures of A rctic Travel. 
 
 our way to the land, drew the boat up on the 
 beach so far that it was perfectly safe from any 
 waves which the crumbling icebergs might set in 
 motion ; and then, after a good rest, we mounted a 
 neighboring hill for observation. 
 
 To reach the summit we find to be no easy task, 
 the ascent being through a steep gorge, which is 
 filled with sharp rocks that the frosts had hurled 
 down from the cliffs above. But at last we come 
 upon a tolerably level plain, across which we walk 
 half a mile, and then we stand upon the edge of a 
 precipice about a thousand feet high, facing the 
 ice-encumbered fiord through which we have made 
 our way. 
 
 Never did eye of man light upon a more mar- 
 velous spectacle. Below us the winding fiord with 
 its vast forest of icebergs glittering there in wind- 
 ing procession between the dark coasts and islands, 
 made darker by the contrast. There, over the tops 
 of the great icebergs, rose the opposite wall of the 
 fiord to a great altitude, terminating in rounded 
 bluffs that were partially covered with snow, and 
 these blended with hills that rose still higher and 
 higher in the distance, and these again into great 
 cones of spotless whiteness, leading the imagination
 
 and Ice. 119 
 
 away in the pearly distance to the gates of some 
 hitherto undreamed-of paradise. 
 
 But down at my right was the object that I most 
 rejoiced in the phenomenon which I had come to 
 see the great glacier of Auk-pad-lar-tok, an im- 
 mense wall of white and blue and green, crossing the 
 waters from shore to shore, a distance of about ten 
 miles. Behind this wall, like the snow-covered roof 
 of a house, sloped up the white surface of the ice- 
 stream, resting in the valley between the great bluffs 
 and cliffs, which border it with a dark and dwin- 
 dling line, until in the far distance this inclined 
 plane has carried the eye up to the altitude of the 
 most distant and lofty mountains, where it is lost in 
 a great level line of bluish whiteness, stretching away 
 to the east and north and south. This is the sur- 
 face of the great ice-sea the mer de glace. 
 
 As my eye lingered upon this far- distant line of 
 the ice-sea this boundless waste of accumulated 
 snows my imagination wandered back to the time 
 when the great ice-stream before me first emerged 
 from it, when the valley in which it now rests was 
 clothed with verdure, when sparrows chirped among 
 the branches of its stunted trees, when herds of 
 reindeer browsed upon its abundant pastures, and
 
 I2O Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 drank from a stream of limpid water which poured 
 from the front of the mer de glace at a time when 
 the climate was warmer than it is to-day. Then I 
 fancied myself standing where I am standing now 
 (ages and ages ago), and saw the ice-stream first 
 come in sight far up the winding valley, its front 
 hundreds of feet high, and miles across ; and I 
 fancied myself watching the icy flood twisting and 
 turning, widening and narrowing, sometimes moving 
 with comparative rapidity, sometimes very slow, 
 but steadily, year by year, coming toward the sea. 
 I see it swallowing up rock and pasture ; I see the 
 deer retire farther and farther down the valley with 
 each returning year ; I see the hills within the 
 valley overwhelmed, the crystal stream pouring over 
 and around them as if the ice were soft putty ; I 
 hear the cracking of the ice as the strain here and 
 there becomes too great ; and I hear the echoing 
 sound of the avalanche of ice and snow crumbling 
 from its front, and crashing far down into the plain 
 beneath. All this seems to be passing before me. 
 I watch the stream until the front of it has reached 
 the sea. But here it does not stop. The bed of 
 the sea is but a continuation of the same inclined 
 plane as the bed of the valley, and its onward course
 
 Snow and Ice. 121 
 
 is continued. It presses back the water ; it makes 
 now a coast line of ice where there had been a 
 beach ; and a white wall stretches across the fiord 
 from one side to the other. As it flows onward it 
 gets into deeper and deeper water, its foot now rest- 
 ing on the bottom of the fiord. Thus the icy wall 
 sinks gradually down, as it moves along, and, in 
 course of time, it has almost gone out of sight. 
 Then it gets beyond its depth. 
 
 When fresh ice floats freely in salt water, there is 
 one-eighth of it above the surface to seven-eighths 
 below. If these proportions become disturbed, 
 then the buoyancy of the water will lift the end of 
 the ice-stream up until it reaches its natural equilib- 
 rium. But for a long time the continuity of the 
 ice is not interrupted, so great is its depth (many 
 hundreds of feet), so great is its width (ten miles). 
 But finally it is forced to give way. A crack is 
 opened. It widens. A fragment is detached. It 
 is lifted upwards ; and now, when free, it bounds to 
 its natural floating level, and while the loud voice of 
 the disruption is echoing among the hills, and 
 
 " Far along , 
 
 From peak to peak, the rolling crags among 
 Leaps the live thunder " 
 6
 
 122 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 of its making, great waves which it has stirred to life 
 are rolling down the fiord, while the enormous frag- 
 ment of the glacier is coming slowly to its natural 
 equilibrium and rest, and is, as it were, making ready 
 to float away with the current to the broad ocean. 
 
 This fragment is the iceberg. 
 
 Have I made the ice-stream clear ? its great width 
 and depth ; its length ; its steady flow ; the bound- 
 less sources of its origin ? It is the Arctic river. 
 To Greenland it is what the Amazon is to South 
 America. The one drains down to the sea the pre- 
 cipitations of the air which fall as rain upon the 
 slopes of the Andes and the mountains of Brazil, 
 and the plains between ; the other drains to the sea 
 the precipitations of the air which fall as snows upon 
 the Greenland hills and mountains. The parallel is 
 complete. 
 
 The surface of the ice-stream is, however, far 
 from smooth, or its flow noiseless. Its substance is 
 not so plastic that it yields to pressure readily. The 
 movement of its particles in the molding process is 
 very slow. The pressure, hence, sometimes be- 
 comes too great. Cracks are opened, perhaps down 
 through all the hundreds of feet which compose its 
 depth ; and beginning as a loud peal, it becomes in
 
 Snow and Ice. 123 
 
 the end a crash. This particularly happens when 
 the bed over which the stream is flowing is very 
 rough, and the descent rapid. Here the surface of 
 the stream, losing its generally smooth character, is 
 crossed with great crevasses in every direction. On 
 the Auk-pad-lar-tok Glacier this was nowhere so 
 conspicuous as about the point of a sharp headland, 
 which, projecting far out into the valley, caused the 
 ice-stream to narrow itself, and to flow more rap- 
 idly. This same effect was observable a little higher 
 up, where it had wound around a hill which it had 
 not quite covered, the dark rocky crest showing 
 conspicuously above the white surface of the stream, 
 as an island in a river. 
 
 It is, perhaps, not surprising that so few people 
 should really know what an iceberg is, seeing how 
 few people there are who go where icebergs come 
 from. We have seen that they come from Green- 
 land. (See note, p. 142.) 
 
 But how do they get down into the region of ordi- 
 nary observation into the region of the North At- 
 lantic, coming there in season and out of season, as 
 if for no other purpose than to worry the people who 
 travel on the ships which traverse the North At- 
 lantic waters.
 
 124 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 The answer is simple. They are brought down 
 from Greenland by that great polar current whose 
 course is now through the Spitzbergen Sea, the 
 Greenland Sea, and Baffin's Bay a current which in 
 some remote geological epoch once swept over the 
 greater part of what is now North America, as, at 
 the present time it sweeps over the growing banks 
 of Newfoundland a current into which Lake Su- 
 perior once discharged as a* gulf ; then afterwards, 
 Huron and Michigan ; then Erie and Ontario, and 
 now the Gulf of St. Lawrence, which will, in the 
 course of time, form another fresh-water lake in the 
 great chain, as the sea becomes more and more filled 
 up, while another gulf and a river still beyond, will 
 tempt some enterprising explorer of a distant time to 
 give a name. 
 
 Many of the icebergs that drift down with this 
 current carry, imbedded in their very heart, vast 
 quantities of rock and sand, which are deposited at 
 the bottom of the sea when the iceberg melts. 
 Thus do they add something every year to the 
 shoals off Newfoundland and to the northward, and 
 thus do they strew the entire bed of the polar cur- 
 rent with bowlders from the Greenland hills. When 
 these now submerged regions come to be elevated
 
 Snow and Ice. 125 
 
 above the ocean, the geologists of that day will have 
 less trouble to account for the bowlders being there, 
 than our forefathers had to explain the presence of 
 similar masses on an Illinois prairie, or in the valleys 
 of the Mohawk, the Potomac, and the Connecticut. 
 
 The melting of the iceberg is far from rapid. It 
 requires many years to mingle its crystal particles 
 with the waters of the ocean. Yet its rate of drift 
 being slow, and the distance great, by the time it 
 has reached the track of vessels in the North Atlan- 
 tic the largest part of it has disappeared ; and im- 
 mense though they sometimes appear to be when 
 seen from the deck of ships crossing to Europe, 
 they are then but a fragment of their former great- 
 ness. Indeed, very few of them ever reach so low a 
 latitude at all, going to pieces long before the cur- 
 rent has carried them so far. 
 
 To make the nature of the iceberg more clear to 
 the reader's mind, I will use a very homely illustra- 
 tion. 
 
 Observe the little bit of ice that clicks in your 
 tumbler at dinner-time. Observe it closely, and 
 you will perceive how very small a part of it floats 
 above the surface of the water not more than one- 
 eighth at the farthest while the remaining seven-
 
 126 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 eighths float beneath. Now, this little bit of ice is 
 an iceberg in miniature an iceberg in every essen- 
 tial feature, except that it did not, in all human 
 probability, come from Greenland. In shape, in 
 general transparency, in the play of light upon it, in 
 its prismatic character, in its frequently cavernous 
 form, in the general shape of the projecting tongues 
 which lie beneath the surface of the water, in the 
 delicate mist which plays around its summit in the 
 warm air, it is the very image of those great floating 
 monoliths of the Arctic frost which come sailing 
 down Baffin's Bay with the polar current in all their 
 stately grandeur and magnificence, meeting, as 
 they tread their watery way, the great billows of 
 the ocean with a cold disdain, sending them away 
 moaning and shattered in defeat, chilling the air for 
 leagues around, yet gathering to themselves the gor- 
 geous colors of the sky ; immovable from their 
 steadfast course majestic as the " silvery moon," 
 that, like the iceberg, bathes its sides in the trem- 
 bling wave. 
 
 The iceberg is the largest independent floating 
 body in the universe, except the heavenly orbs. 
 There is nothing approaching it, within the range of 
 our knowledge, on this globe of ours ; and yet it is,
 
 Snow and Ice. 127 
 
 as we have seen, but a fragment of the ice-stream, 
 which is, in its turn, but an arm of the ice-sea. 
 And yet the iceberg is to the great quantity of 
 Greenland ice as the paring of a finger nail to the 
 human body as a small chip to the largest tree as 
 a shovelful of earth to Manhattan Island. Yet mag- 
 nify the bit of ice in your tumbler until it becomes, 
 to your imagination, a half a mile in diameter each 
 way, and you have a mass that is far from unusual. 
 Add to this a mile, two miles of length, and you 
 have what may sometimes be seen. I have sailed 
 alongside of an iceberg two miles and a half, meas- 
 ured with a log -line, before coming to the end 
 of it. 
 
 The name signifies, as we have seen before, ice 
 mountain ; and it is truly mountainous in size. 
 Lift it out of the water, and it becomes a mountain 
 one thousand, two thousand, three thousand feet 
 high. In dimensions, it is as if Central Park were 
 set adrift in the Atlantic Ocean. An iceberg of the 
 size of Central Park is far from unusual ; while 
 its surface, in form, is not very unlike. Like the 
 Park, it is undulating and craggy, and crossed by 
 ravines and dotted with lakes, the water of the 
 lakes being formed from the melting snows of the
 
 128 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 late winter, and also from the ice itself after the 
 snows have disappeared before the warmth of the 
 summer's sun. I have even bathed in such a lake, 
 although I am glad to say but once, and that was in 
 " those days of other years " when the youthful in- 
 sanity is strong to say " I have done it," a disease 
 which I believe to be amenable only to that treat- 
 ment popularly known as " sad experience." Skating 
 on an iceberg lake is far more satisfactory and sen- 
 sible. 
 
 Such are the general features of the iceberg, as 
 they are to be seen every day in the Arctic waters. 
 
 Let us go back now to the ice-stream of Auk- 
 pad-lar-tok, with which we closed the last sketch. 
 Here we saw an iceberg leaving its hold upon the 
 land, breaking loose from the parent stream, and 
 restoring to the sea its own again. I would once 
 more call attention to that ice-stream, and show 
 more particularly its river-like character. 
 
 I have spoken of the long line of the glacier front, 
 stretching away to the opposite shore, in glittering 
 white and blue and green ; but it was not an un- 
 broken front. Near its center there was a dark 
 rock, nearly imbedded in the ice the ice being on 
 both sides of it, and overtopping it.
 
 Snow and Ice. 129 
 
 This rock had been an island. The ice-stream, 
 pouring out into the fiord, had at length touched 
 this island, and encroaching more and more upon it 
 from year to year, molding itself to the rock, had 
 finally attained the position which I have described. 
 
 I asked the guide, Philip, if he had observed any 
 change in it during the period of his residence in 
 the fiord. 
 
 " Oh, yes," said he, " a very great change. When 
 I first came here, I could pull all the way around 
 the rock in my boat." 
 
 " How far was the rock then from the face of the 
 ice-stream ? " 
 
 "A good half English mile." 
 
 " How long was the rock ? " 
 
 " At least as long as the distance was from the 
 ice-stream." 
 
 " How did you learn all this ? " 
 
 " I have gone to it many a time, and have brought 
 away from it many a barrel of eggs, and many a bag 
 of eider-down." 
 
 Making all proper allowance for the general dis- 
 position of people to magnify distances, here is 
 yet a most valuable observation a mile of flow, 
 
 according to Philip, in five-and-twenty years almost 
 6*
 
 130 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 seven inches for each day. My own observation of 
 an ice-stream, continued through almost a year, 
 showed, as has been previously stated, a daily rate 
 of four inches. Suppose Philip to have even doub- 
 led the distance in his rough guessing, we have 
 still a rate of flow equal to three inches and a half 
 per day. An inspection of the numerous breakings 
 from its front shows that it must have been con- 
 siderable indeed, judging from the great numbers of 
 icebergs that were scattered down the fiord, all of 
 which were its children. Many of the largest of 
 them had lingered in the fiord ever since Philip 
 came there. Missing the deepest channel, they had 
 grounded, and held on for years and years, until 
 they had been gradually reduced by melting, and 
 by pieces breaking from them, but never yet were 
 small enough to tide over the rocky bottom and 
 reach the sea outside. I looked upon these " an- 
 cients" with much reverence. 
 
 But hark ! what was that ? 
 
 We still stood upon the summit of the bluff, over- 
 looking the fiord and the ice-stream. 
 
 The ice-stream had been constantly emitting 
 sounds, as I have said before, sometimes by the break- 
 ing off of a small fragment from its front, sometimes
 
 Snow and Ice. 131 
 
 by a partial crack opening far up in the body of it, 
 as it strained in its rocky bed ; but now a loud re- 
 port, as of " deep-mouthed thunder," broke from its 
 profoundest depths seemingly, indeed, as if from 
 the very bowels of the earth. It fairly shook the 
 ground on which we stood. 
 
 Philip said, quietly, "The ice-stream is going to 
 calve." 
 
 An instant afterward the report was repeated, 
 louder and still more startling. The shock beneath 
 my feet was more sensibly felt : it seemed like the 
 first warning cry of a coming earthquake. 
 
 Philip said again, " See ! it is rising." 
 
 A portion of the glacier was being lifted up by 
 the sea, A great wave was rolling back with this 
 movement of the ice, and was dashed wildly against 
 the ice in front. 
 
 An instant more, the sound, which was before so 
 deep and loud, now broke through the air with a 
 crash that was almost deafening as when a heavy 
 gun is fired near by. 
 
 I knew that a monstrous crack was opening in 
 the ice-stream. 
 
 The position of the crack was soon seen. A frag- 
 ment, of enormous proportions, had been disen-
 
 132 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 gaged. Its front raised itself aloft as if it were 
 some grea': leviathan endowed with life, and while it 
 rose the crack opened wide. The unwieldy mass 
 plunged forward, crashing against other ice-masses, 
 scattering the broken fragments to right and left 
 with irresistible force. Then the inner side rose up 
 and the front sank down, while vast volumes of 
 water that had been lifted with it went roaring and 
 hissing over its sides into the foaming and violently 
 agitated sea. 
 
 Thus an iceberg had been born. 
 
 It would be impossible, with mere words alone, 
 to give any adequate idea of the action of this new- 
 born child of the Arctic frosts. Think of a solid 
 mass of ice, a third of a mile deep and more than 
 half a mile in diameter, hurled like a mere toy into 
 the water, and set to rolling to and fro by the impe- 
 tus of the act as if it were Nature's merest football 
 down one side, until the huge mass was nearly cap- 
 sized ; then back again and down the other side, 
 with the same unresisting force ; and so on, up and 
 down, swashing to and fro, for hours, before it comes 
 finally to rest. The disturbance of the water was 
 inconceivably fine ; waves of enormous magnitude 
 were rolled up with great violence against the gla-
 
 Snow and Ice. 133 
 
 cier, covering it with spray ; and vast billows came 
 tearing down the fiord, their progress marked by the 
 crackling and crumbling of the ice, which was in a 
 state of wildest agitation throughout a space of 
 several miles. Over the smaller of the icebergs 
 these billows broached completely, breaking as if a 
 tempest were piling up the waters, and heaving them 
 with infuriated might against a rocky shore. Then, 
 to add to the commotion thus made, the great wal- 
 lowing iceberg that was the cause of it all, was 
 dropping fragments from its sides with each oscilla- 
 tion, the reports reaching the ear above the general 
 din and clamor. Then other bergs, as they were 
 successively set in motion by the waves, also dropped 
 pieces from their sides ; and at last, as if it were 
 the grand finale of the piece the clash of the cym- 
 bals and the big bass-drum of Nature's grand orches- 
 tra a monstrous berg, near the middle of the fiord, 
 split in two, and, during the noise of moving waters 
 and crumbling ice, filled the air with a peal that 
 rang among the bergs and crags, and echoing from 
 hill to hill, died away only in the void beyond the 
 mountain-tops ; while to the noisy rhythm the huge 
 monsters of the fiord danced their wild, ungainly 
 dance upon the waters.
 
 134 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 It was many hours before this state of wild unrest 
 was succeeded by a calm ; and when at length the 
 iceberg that I had seen born came quietly to rest, 
 and the other icebergs had ceased their revel on the 
 troubled sea, and the billows had stilled their lash- 
 ings, it seemed to me that, in beholding this birth of 
 an iceberg, I had beheld one of the most sublime 
 exhibitions of the great forces of Nature. It was 
 indeed a convulsion ! 
 
 My purpose being now accomplished, and my 
 curiosity satisfied, I left the bluff, and returned 
 down the fiord to Philip's hut, whence, after leaving 
 my guide, I proceeded to Upernavik, well content 
 with what I had seen, and feeling well repaid, halt- 
 ing by the way only long enough to inspect closely 
 one of the largest icebergs in the fiord, and around 
 which I lingered many hours. 
 
 This berg was not only remarkable for its great 
 size, but for its great variety of feature. We rowed 
 all the way around it, and measured it carefully. 
 One of its sides was nearly straight and regular, 
 having the appearance of being broken away from 
 something. It had a fracture-look. This was evi- 
 dently the side which was attached to the glacier^ 
 Facing the sun, it glistened marvelously.. This,
 
 Snow arid Ice. T 35 
 
 side was six thousand five hundred feet long. At 
 one end, it was two hundred and forty feet high, 
 rising squarely from the sea. At the center, the 
 height was less, being only a hundred and sixty feet. 
 At the farther end, it was a hundred and ninety. 
 These measurements were made with as much 
 accuracy as was possible under the circumstances, 
 and they are quite reliable within small limits. The 
 log-line and chronometer were of necessity the 
 means of determining the length. By dropping 
 the " chip " at the foot of the berg, and then row- 
 ing out a hundred fathoms, I obtained a tolerably 
 accurate base line for ascertaining the altitudes 
 a pocket sextant giving me the necessary angles. 
 By the same method I found the end of the berg 
 to which we came, after measuring the side, to be 
 eighteen hundred feet across. This terminated in a 
 rounded bluff. Turning here, we came upon a side 
 wholly different from the one we had before meas- 
 ured. It had evidently been for a long time the 
 glacier front for a period of perhaps fifteen or 
 twenty years at the least. It was most irregular. 
 In places it was cliff-like, as the other, but for the 
 most part it was worn into all sorts of irregular 
 shapes. This had been done partly by the wash-
 
 136 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 ings of the sea, and partly by the streams of melted 
 snow which, in the summer-time, poured over the 
 glacier front. Thus there were bights eaten into it 
 that were large enough to float a frigate. In one 
 place there was a considerable bay, with two islands 
 in it that were very peculiar. Around this bay we 
 pulled, and in the valley or rather gorge, at one 
 angle of it, I landed, and, with sharp spikes in my 
 heels, and a boat-hook in my hand, I climbed up to 
 the summit of the berg. Its surface was rolling, 
 uneven, and craggy. There were two conspicuous 
 hills upon it, one of which was two hundred and 
 ninety, the other two hundred and seventy feet 
 above the sea-level. Between these hills, and 
 among others less conspicuous, I discovered a wind- 
 ing lake at least a quarter of a mile long the water 
 being formed from the snows of winter, which, melt- 
 ing with the summer's sun, had trickled down the 
 icy hill-sides and gathered in the valley. Following 
 along the margin of this singular and beautiful lake, 
 I came at length to its outlet, where, through a 
 gorge, poured the superabundant crystal waters 
 over a crystal bed, in a rapid torrent, until, coming 
 at length to the side of the berg, the stream leaped 
 wildly down into the ocean, roaring like a young
 
 Snow and Ice. 137 
 
 Niagara. On every side, indeed, there were 
 streams, many of them very small, hurrying to the 
 ocean, and dropping from the roof of the iceberg 
 like the waters from a house-top on a warm day 
 following a heavy fall of snow. 
 
 I wandered about among these icy hills until 
 I really grew bewildered, and found my way to 
 the exact place of my ascent, not without embar- 
 rassment. The cause of this was thus partially ex- 
 plained : I had kept my eye upon the sun, while the 
 iceberg was turning round beneath my feet. It had 
 probably grounded on one corner, and the current 
 was slowly swinging it around upon a pivot. Before 
 this, however, I had climbed the loftiest hill. The 
 view was superb distant, as from the summit of 
 Staten Island, and over' a sea where icebergs lay 
 scattered like mammoth diamonds set in a waste of 
 lapis lazuli. Nor was the neighborhood devoid of 
 life. A flock of kittiwake gulls flew up from the 
 sea, and perched themselves upon the hill, and there 
 set up their noisy chatter ; and one old " burgo- 
 master," who had caught a fish, came there to 
 swallow it in peace ; but, to his evident surprise and 
 sad disgust, he was suddenly pounced upon by a 
 predatory " jager," who had seemingly been hover-
 
 138 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 ing round for just such a chance, and with an angry 
 scream the "burgomaster " dropped the prize. 
 
 It was altogether a strange sensation afloat at so 
 great an elevation, on an ice-mountain in the sea. 
 Yet my footstool was firm and solid as the eternal 
 hills. 
 
 If time and circumstance had permitted, I would 
 gladly have brought up my tent and camp-fixtures, 
 and have slept and lain there for a day or so, watch- 
 ing the grand panorama of the hills and sea around, 
 while the sun, like a golden wheel in the blue sky, 
 rolled round and round me, never setting, but chang- 
 ing from hour to hour the aspect of every object 
 within the range of vision now silvering an ice- 
 berg, now coloring it, now flaunting it in blue and 
 now in green ; now blazing with red the ragged 
 cliffs of the fiord, now throwing them in shadow, 
 as if they were the gloomy wall encompassing the 
 abyss of Dante's giants ; now gilding the distant 
 mountains, now robing them in purple ; now whit- 
 ening the far-off ice-sea, now making it a sea of 
 rubies, then blending it with the blue sky. 
 
 But this camp-life on an iceberg could not be, so 
 I returned to my boat, and continued my survey of 
 the floating mountain. First I explored the bay
 
 Snow and Ice. 139 
 
 where I had landed. The bottom of this bay was 
 the sloping ice, shoaling gradually as we went far- 
 ther in through a distance of a hundred yards ; and, 
 as I looked down over the side of the boat upon 
 the ice beneath, through what was at first a few 
 fathoms, but finally only a few inches of water, I 
 thought I had never seen so soft and exquisite a 
 color, or one so perfectly graduated in its various 
 tints, as the liquid green through which we sailed. 
 The islands in the bay, which I have spoken of 
 before, were but two hummocks that rose a few feet 
 above the surface as Governor's Island and Ellis 
 Island in New York harbor. 
 
 Leaving the bay, we continued our course past 
 broken-down turrets and dismantled towers and 
 ruined spires, between which lay huge clefts filled 
 with a deep cerulean light, and great caverns of 
 Cimmerian darkness, in which the slow-movmg bil- 
 lows were caught and confined, until, tired of their 
 imprisonment, their hollow voices came gurgling 
 out, as the loud breathing of some mighty monster 
 of the deep, who was exhausting his feeble efforts 
 to move the giant mountain from his path. 
 
 This side was six thousand feet in length. The 
 other end was thirty-five hundred. Thus, in mak-
 
 140 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 ing the complete circuit, we had pulled almost three 
 and a half miles. I averaged the whole altitude at 
 a hundred and eighty feet above the sea-level. This 
 would give a total average depth of fourteen hun- 
 dred and forty feet between a quarter and a third 
 of a mile. Multiply these dimensions together, and 
 we get 23,850,000,000 of cubic feet. Convert this 
 into tons, and all the ships in the known world are 
 nothing to it. Freight them all, and you would 
 hardly make an impression upon it. Convert it into 
 money, and, at the present market rates for the 
 skimmings of the Boston ponds, you have .the na- 
 tional debt and more. 
 
 It is only by such figuring that we can form any- 
 thing like an adequate idea of the enormous magni- 
 tude of this vagrant of the polar seas. Its beauties 
 are not so easily defined. A solid and a mighty, it 
 is yet a* subtle object. The light plays through it as 
 through the opal. Its side is blazed with crimson 
 a'nd gold and purple. Here we see the emerald, 
 there the chalcedony ; transparent quartz in one 
 place, sapphire and the flashing ruby in another. 
 
 These varying colors, as seen in the sunlight, are 
 due in a measure to its parallel lines of stratification, 
 which are faintly perceptible, and which, like the
 
 Snow and Ice. 141 
 
 multiplied rings of the old forest oak, during the long 
 period of years or ages through which it has gone 
 on slowly and steadily forming in the parent glacier ; 
 partly to the irregularities of the fractured surface, 
 the myriad of reflecting faces placed at all angles to 
 the sun and to the light ; partly to the sunlight, dis- 
 solving in the sharp prisms of its sides, and stealing 
 through the mist and spray of the falling waters, 
 flinging here and there the tender colors of the rain- 
 bow along the pure, clear surface of its glittering 
 walls ; and partly to the waters of the sea in which 
 it floats -sometimes green, sometimes blue, always 
 wondrously clear, and always mirroring the giant 
 that it floats its sublime proportions, its crumbling 
 ruins, its cascades, and the light which flickers round 
 it while bearing it aloft in triumph, and while the 
 laughing waves, encouraged by the sun, leap round 
 and kiss it gently, and with each touch steal away 
 the crystal particles which were theirs of old, and 
 are theirs of right. 
 
 More than this I cannot say for the floating moun- 
 tain. Words fail us utterly in the description of 
 such a mighty work of Nature fail us, as do the 
 colors of the painter. Who can paint, or who can 
 describe the leap of Niagara, or the roar that rises
 
 142 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 from the crystal abyss ? The iceberg, in its growth 
 and birth and immensity, is the nearest parallel. 
 
 And what pen can describe, or pencil paint its 
 age ? How long since its crystals were snow-flakes 
 dropped from the air upon a Greenland mountain 
 top ? It was not a few years, or even centuries ago. 
 Its existence on the earth in the great ice-sea and 
 stream has been longer than that of the whole hu- 
 man race, from the birth of Adam. 
 
 NOTE TO PAGE 123. 
 
 I have said that the icebergs come from Greenland not, 
 however, that glaciers are not found on other Arctic lands ; but, 
 so insignificant are they in comparison that they might seem 
 scarcely to deserve the name. The fragments that break 
 away from them are few in number and of trifling dimensions. 
 The large icebergs found on the Labrador coast reach there 
 from Greenland, under the pressure of easterly winds of long 
 duration, and not from any part of America, and are thus 
 thrown, early in the spring, into a strong southerly current, 
 which carries them to the Newfoundland Banks. Thus may 
 we account for their frequency or infrequency in the track of 
 ships during different years; for the current along the west 
 coast of Greenland sets north.
 
 Snow and Ice. 143 
 
 So far as observation extends, glaciers proper terminate on 
 the west or American side of Baffin Bay, at Hayes Sound, 
 which runs westward from Smith Sound, between latitude 79 
 and 79" 45', separating the Ellesmere Land of Admiral Ingle- 
 field (discovered in 1852) from Grinnell Land, of my own dis- 
 covery, in 1854, an d which I subsequently traced in 1861 to 
 latitude 82 30', without observing anything like a real glacier. 
 This may be found difficult of explanation ; but it is well 
 known that glaciers have never been observed on mountains 
 of limestone formation, of which Grinnell Land is mainly 
 composed. Spitzbergen presents a splendid array of glaciers, 
 but their discharge by iceberg is not large, and may scarcely 
 be said to exist at all, in the Greenland sense, since the gla- 
 ciers there, instead of, as in Greenland, pouring into the sea, 
 mostly reach the summit of great cliffs, where huge masses 
 tumble from them into the water. In this connection I can- 
 not do better than to quote from Lord Dufferin, who, in his 
 admirable book, Letters from High Latitudes, thus writes : 
 
 " These glaciers are the principal characteristic of the scen- 
 ery in Spitzbergen ; the bottom of every valley in every part 
 of the island is occupied, and generally completely filled by 
 them. * * We ourselves got a view though a distant one 
 of ice-rivers, which must have been most extensive ; and 
 Dr. Scoresby mentions several which actually measured forty 
 or fifty miles in length, and nine or ten in breadth, while the 
 precipice formed by their fall into the sea was sometimes up- 
 wards of 400 or 500 feet high. Nothing is more dangerous 
 than to approach these cliffs of ice. Every now and then 
 huge masses detach themselves from the face of the crystal
 
 144 Pictures of Arctic Travel. 
 
 steep, and topple over into the water ; and woe be to the 
 unfortunate ship which might happen to be passing below. 
 Scoresby himself once actually witnessed a mass of ice, the size 
 of a cathedral, thunder down into the sea from a height of 
 400 feet " a mass which, in the Greenland waters, would be 
 the merest pigmy, and would not be called an iceberg, though 
 the avalanche must have presented a grand and startling 
 spectacle. No large icebergs can be discharged in this man- 
 ner. 
 
 THE END.