Anonymous

“ Here, he says, endless snows and ice-crusted rocks bound the horizon; Nature lies shrouded in all but perpetual winter; life is a constant conflict with privation and with the terrors of cold and hunger; the grave of Nature, containing only the bones of another world. The people, and even the snow, throw off a continual vapour; and this evaporation is instantly changed into millions of needles of ice, which make a noise in the air like the sound of torn satin or the rustle of thick silk. The reindeer take to the forest, or crowd together for heat ”

“ Night after night the sky will be free from cloud or shadow, and the radiant stars shine out with a singular intensity, seeming to cut the air like keen swords. The moonbeams are thrown back with a pale lustre by ice-floe and glacier and snow-drift, and the only relief to the brightness is where the dark cliffs throw a shadow over the [27] landscape. Gloriously beautiful look the snow-clad mountains, as the moonlight pours upon them its serene splendour, interrupted only by the occasional passage of a wreath of mist, which is soon transformed into sparkling silver. ”

“ Whoever has been overtaken by a winter night, when crossing some snowy plain, or making his way over the hills and through the valleys, in the deep drifts, and with the icicles pendent from the leafless boughs, and the white mantle overspreading every object dimly discernible in the darkness, will have felt the awe and mystery of the silence that then and there prevails. Both the sky above and the earth beneath reveal only an endless and unfathomable quiet. This, too, is the peculiar characteristic of the Arctic night. Evidence there is none of life or motion. ”

“ The death-like silence, the oppressive darkness, the sense of fear and despondency, all have passed away; [36] and earth and water echo with cheerful voices, the landscape is bathed in a glorious radiance, the human soul is conscious of a sentiment of hope and expectation. The winter is past and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come. The snow has melted from the hills, and the streams run with a merry music, and the scanty flora of the far northern world attains its full development. ”

“ Their strident clamour, the ceaseless washing of the surface, the moaning of the wind, the steely rush of the drift, the piteous wail of the dogs, and all the strange noises and voices of the storm, added to the gloom and awful melancholy of that moonless night.
We need not wonder that the Eskimos of the Arctic wilderness are as fearful of a tempest as are the Bedouins of the African desert. It overwhelms the one with a cloud of snow, and it buries the other in a cloud of sand; and each demands and receives its quota of victims. ”

“ By the light of the midnight sun, which illuminated the fantastic outlines of the bergs, the adventurers engaged in a narwhal-hunt. Nothing is more extraordinary than the effect of the rays of the midnight sun penetrating into an ocean covered with floating ice. The warm and cold tones strike against each other in all directions; the sea is orange, leaden-gray, or dark green; the reefs of ice are tinged with a delicate rose-bloom; [249] broad shadows spread over the snow, and the most varied effects of mirage are produced everywhere in the tranquil waters. ”

“ In the early spring the Eskimos resume their hunting expeditions, and their snow-covered huts are transformed into scenes of the liveliest activity. Stacks of jointed meat, chiefly walrus, are piled upon the ice-foot; the women stretch the hide for sole-leather, and the men collect a store of harpoon-lines for the winter. Tusky walrus heads stare at the spectacle from the snowbank, where they are stowed for their ivory; the dogs are tethered to the ice; and the children, each one armed with the curved rib of some big walrus or seal, play ball and bat among the snow-drifts. ”

“ Here is one star; yonder is another; and in proportion as the action continues, the ice appears to resolve itself more and more into stars, all of six rays, like snow-crystals, and resembling a beautiful flower. By moving the lens in and out, we bring new stars into sight; and while the action continues, the edge of the petals is covered with indentations like those of the leaf of a fern. Probably, few of our readers have any conception of the magical beauties concealed in a block of ice! Let them remember that prodigal Nature works in this way throughout the whole world. ”

“ The Eskimo takes his seat in his buoyant craft, with legs outstretched, and binds a sack—which is made from the intestines of the whale, or the skins of young seals—so tightly round his waist, that even in a rolling sea the boat remains water-tight. Dexterously and rapidly using his paddle, with his spear or harpoon before him, and preserving his equilibrium with marvellous steadiness, he darts over the waves like an arrow; and even if upset, speedily rights himself and his buoyant skiff. The oomiak, or woman’s boat, consists in like manner of a framework covered with seal-skins ”

“ Let the reader fancy himself—should he be reading these pages on a warm summer’s day, the fancy will not be unpleasant!—let the reader fancy himself on board a well-found, stoutly-built whaling-vessel, and rapidly approaching the coast of Greenland. But the heavy mist hangs over the legend-haunted shores, and we can but catch the sound of the clanging surf as it rolls upon them. All around us spreads the mist,—dense, impenetrable. What is that before us? The dead white mass of an iceberg, slowly drifting with the current, and almost upon us before the look-out man discovered it. ”

“ He may be overtaken by a gale; and a gale in the wild remote North, far from any shelter,—a gale which drives before it the blinding snow and pitiless icicles,—a gale which sweeps unresisted and irresistible over leagues of frozen snow,—a gale which comes down from the mountain-recesses where the glaciers take their rise,—is something so dread, so ghastly, that the dweller in temperate regions can form no idea of it. ”

“ This character they owe to the immense number of lichens with which they abound. The ground, instead of grass, is carpeted with dense tufts of the reindeer moss, white as a shower of new fallen snow; while the trunks and branches of the trees are swollen far beyond their natural dimensions with huge, dusky, funereal branches of the rock-hair, hanging down in masses, exhaling a damp earthy smell, like an old cellar, or stretching from tree to tree in long festoons, waving with every breath of wind, and creating a perpetual melancholy sound. ”

“ Colossal are those floating islands of ice, which, outrivalling the puny architecture of man, his temples, palaces, and pyramids, drift away into the wide waste of waters, as if abandoned by the Hand that called them into existence. Colossal is that vast sheet of frozen, frosty snow, shimmering with a crystalline lustre, which covers the icy plains for countless leagues, and stretches away, perhaps, to the very border of the sea that is supposed to encircle the unattained Pole. ”

“ The border of the glacier once crossed, the way becomes less difficult; for a mile and a half the level is almost perfect, and the ice but little broken up. The frozen desert, however, impresses us with an almost solemn feeling, and there is something terrible in the desolation of such a Sahara of snow!
Moreover, the traveller is irresistibly affected by the continual roar or growling of the enormous mass, which seems to stir and shake under our very feet. He would not be surprised if a vast chasm suddenly yawned before him! ”

“ Hayes a lively description of the Sermiatsialik glacier, which he thinks must at some places be more than seven hundred and fifty feet in depth, overflowing the borders of the valley like a swollen torrent. For upwards of four leagues, the icebergs which throng the fiord, or gulf, are those of the glacier itself, and terminating in a wedge-like outline, disappear in the vast sea of ice expanding to right and left above the loftiest summits, and drawing irresistibly the eye to its rippled surface,—boundless, apparently, like that of ocean. ”

“ We still read the thermometer at noonday without a light, and the black masses of the hills are plain for about five hours with their glaring patches of snow; but all the rest is darkness. Lanterns are always on the spar-deck, and the lard-lamps never extinguished below. The stars of the sixth magnitude shine out at noonday.
“Our darkness has ninety days to run before we shall get back again even to the contested twilight of to-day. Altogether, our winter will have been sunless for one hundred and forty days.” ”

“ Heimdall, who can see for fully a hundred leagues, as well by night as by day, stands sentinel upon it, prepared to sound his horn Gjallar, if intruders should attempt to cross it!
The sea is smooth as glass; not a ripple breaks the wonderful calmness of its surface. It is midnight, but in this strange Arctic world the sun still hangs close upon the northern horizon; the icebergs rear their dazzling crests around, like floating spires, and turrets, and many-towered minsters; the dark headlands are boldly outlined against the sky ”

“ In the mid-stream the roar of the waters is frequently so great that the travellers cannot make their voices audible to one another. There is the swirl of the torrent, the seething of the spray, the crunching of the floating ice, the roll of stones and boulders against the bottom,—and all these sounds combine in one confused chaotic din. Up to this point, a diagonal line, rather down stream, is cautiously followed; but when the middle is reached, the horses’ heads are turned slightly towards the current, and after much effort and many risks the opposite bank is reached in safety. ”

“ No footfall of living thing breaks on the longing ear. No cry of bird enlivens the scene; there is no tree, among the branches of which the wind may sigh and moan. And hence it is that one who had travelled much, and seen many dangers, and witnessed Nature in many phases, was led to say that he had seen no expression on the face of Nature so filled with terror as the silence of the Arctic night. ”

“ Notwithstanding the hard conditions of their life, and the dreariness of the region which they inhabit, the Eskimos are a cheerful people. They are keenly sensible of the charms of music, though their own vocalization is inconceivably melancholy; and they are partial to many rude pastimes, mostly of a gymnastic character.
Their good nature has been praised by many travellers; but they show the usual inhumanity of the savage towards the aged and infirm. Weakness is no title to the sympathy of the Eskimo; he respects strength, but he utterly disregards and cruelly oppresses the feeble. ”

“ It is its monotony which wearies the traveller, though at first he will be impressed by its fresh yet severe beauty. The forests of birch and fir seem endless, and the great lakes in their depths fatigue the eye with their wastes of cold, drear water. Occasionally, however, the traveller comes upon a smiling plain, enamelled with myosotis, and brightened by a silver-shining, music-murmuring stream. Here and there the wood is thinner, and lean cows may be seen feeding among the half-stripped stems. ”

“ Through the narrow glen, or ravine, formed by this curvature of the glacier, a kind of lateral trough or gully, bounded by the escarpment of the soil, we reach the sea. The descent is not without its dangers, for at every point crevasses open, separated by slippery projections. These deep gashes, at some points, are only a few yards apart; and they incessantly cross each other, and run into one another, so as to form a perfect labyrinth, in the windings of which the adventurous traveller is apt to feel bewildered. ”

“ It would seem impossible to surprise an animal so vigilant and so wary; and, indeed, in circumventing its prey the bear exhibits an astuteness and a skill which overpass the bounds of instinct, and approach closely to those of reason.
From its scent and by its quick strong vision the bear apprehends the position of the seal. Then it throws itself prone upon the ice, and profiting by inequalities which are invisible to human eyes, gradually steals upon its destined victim by a soft and scarcely perceptible movement of the hind feet. To hide its black muzzle, it constantly uses its fore feet ”

“ He is no less expert as a sledger. His vehicle, or pulka, is fashioned like a boat, with a convex bottom, so as to slip over the snow with all the greater ease; the prow is sharp and pointed, but the hind part flat. Perhaps it may better be compared to a punt than a boat. At all events, in this curious vehicle the Lapp is bound and swathed, like an infant in its cradle. To preserve its equilibrium, he trusts to the dexterity with which he moves his body to and fro, and from side to side, as may be needed; and he guides it by means of a stout pole. ”

“ And now, as we steadily move forward, the fog is lifted up like a curtain, and before us, like a scene in a panorama, looms the Greenland coast in all its austere magnificence: yonder are its broad ice-filled valleys, its snow-clad ravines, its noble mountains, its iron-bound range of cliffs, its general aspect of solemn desolation. ”

“ Whirlwinds of frozen snow are formidable enemies to the seaman forced to traverse the ice on foot, or in a sledge drawn by Eskimo dogs. Dense showers lash and sting the unfortunate traveller’s face, penetrate his mouth and nostrils, freeze together his very eyelids, and almost blind him. His skin assumes a bluish tint, and burns as if scarred by the keen thongs of a knout.
An optical illusion of frequent occurrence in the Polar Regions makes objects appear of dimensions much larger than they really possess. A fox assumes the proportions of a bear ”

“ At any temperature below 32° F.,—that is, freezing-point,—the movement of heat is sufficient to loosen the molecules of water from their rigid bonds of cohesion. But at 32° the movement is so diminished that the atoms lock themselves together, and unite in a solid. This act of union, however, is controlled by well-known laws. To the unintelligent eye a block of ice seems neither more interesting nor more beautiful than a sheet of glass; but to the instructed mind the ice is to the glass what an oratorio of Handel is to the scream of a ballad-singer. Ice is music, glass is noise ”

“ The ice will loose its iron grip upon the waters, and will let the wild waves play in freedom. The reindeer will skip gleefully over the mountains to welcome his return, and will look longingly to him for the green pastures. The sea-fowls, knowing that he will give them a resting-place for their feet on the rocky islands, will come to seek the moss-beds which he spreads for their nests ”

“ The deep shadows of the cliffs, towering a thousand feet above their heads, lay heavily upon them, and enhanced the midnight gloom. The patches of snow clinging to the sharp angles of the colossal wall; the white shroud lying on its lofty summit; the glaciers which here and there protruded through its clefts, brought out into striking relief the blackness of its cavernous recesses. The air was filled with clouds of drift, which sometimes completely hid the land, and swept relentlessly before the explorers, as they tottered across the frozen plain. ”

“ Leaving the river-bed just above the lake, they climbed to the summit of this hillock; and there a sight burst upon them, grand and imposing beyond the power of words adequately to describe. From the rocky bed, only a few miles in advance, a sloping wall of pure whiteness rose to a broad level plain of ice, which, apparently without limits, stretched away toward the unknown east. It was the great mer de glace of the Arctic continent. ”