R. M. Ballantyne

“ While thus undecided what to do, they were unexpectedly taught a lesson in walrus-hunting that surprised them not a little.
“Hallo! there’s a bear!” whispered Davy Butts, as a hairy object crawled out from behind an ice-hummock about two hundred yards from the place where they lay, and made toward the walrus in a sly, cat-like manner.
“More like a seal,” observed Baker.
“A seal! why, it’s a man!” said Gregory, in a low, excited whisper. ”

“ About this time, as I have said, the health of the crew had improved a little, so they were prepared to make the most of everything. Those feelings of kindliness and good-will which warm the breasts of all right-minded men at this season of the year, filled our Arctic voyagers to overflowing. Thoughts of “home” came crowding on them with a power that they had not felt at other times. Each man knew that on this day, more than any other day of that long, dark winter, the talk round a well-known hearth in Merry England would be of one who was far, far away in the dark regions of ice and snow. ”

“ There was a narrow part of the chasm which I had looked at in daylight, and wondered whether I might venture to leap across it. I had made up my mind that it was too wide and dangerous to be attempted. But it is wonderful how quickly a man changes his mind on such a point when a polar bear is roaring at his heels. I came to the gap in the ice. It was ten feet deep and thirteen or fourteen feet across. The jagged lumps of ice at the bottom lay there in horrible confusion. There was barely light enough to see where the hole was when I came within ten yards of it, but I did not hesitate. ”

“ There are some of us who will carry the marks of this winter to our graves. The bright beautiful sunshine shines now, all day and all night, cheering our hearts and inspiring hope.
“June 16th.—All is lost! How little we know what a day may bring forth! Our good little brig is gone, and we are here on the ice without a thing in the world except the clothes on our backs. I have saved my note-book, which chanced to be in my breast-pocket when the nip took place. How awfully sudden it was! We now appreciate the wise forethought of Captain Harvey in sending the large boat to Forlorn-Hope Bay. ”

“ It is like the motion of the hour hand of a watch, which cannot be perceived however closely it may be looked at. You might go to one of the valleys of Greenland and gaze at a glacier for days together, but you would see no motion whatever. All would appear solid, frozen up, and still. But notice a block of stone lying on the surface of the glacier, and go back many months after and you will find the stone lying a little further down the valley than when you first saw it. Thus glaciers are formed and thus they slowly move. But what has all this to do with ice-bergs? ”

“ Battered by the storms of the Arctic seas, her sails and cordage stiffened by the frosts, and her hull rasped and shattered by the ice of those regions, she was forced on a shore where the green grass has little chance to grow, where winter reigns nearly all the year round, where man never sends his merchandise, and never drives his plough. ”

“ But there was little heat in the sun’s rays at first, and it was not till the month of May that the ice out at sea broke up and summer could be said to have begun.
During all this long winter—during all these wonderful changes, our Arctic voyagers had a hard fight in order to keep themselves alive. Their life was a constant struggle. They had to fight the bears and the walrus; to resist the cold and the darkness; to guard against treachery from the natives; and to suffer pains, sickness, and trials, such as seldom fall to the lot of men in ordinary climates. ”

“ The brig was, therefore, blown right in among the rushing masses. The three cables that held her were snapped as if they had been pieces of packthread, and she was whirled out into the pack, where she drove helplessly, exposed to the fury of the howling storm and the dangers of the grinding ice. Captain Harvey now felt that he could do nothing to save his vessel. He believed that if God did not mercifully put forth His hand to deliver them by a miracle, he and his companions would certainly perish. In this the captain was wrong. Nothing is impossible to the Almighty. ”

“ The men roused themselves at once; for the hope of anything new turning up excited them.
“Hallo! ho!” roared the captain again, in a voice that might have started a dead walrus. “Tumble up, there!—a fox-chase! I’ll give my second-best fur-coat to the man that catches foxey!”
In one instant the whole crew were scrambling up the ladder. Even Jim Crofts, who was really ill, rolled out of his bunk and staggered on deck, saying he would have a “go after foxey if he should die for it!”
The game of fox is simple. One man is chosen to be the fox. He runs off and the rest follow. ”

“ When the dark nights drew on, little or nothing could be done outside by our voyagers, and when the ice everywhere closed up, all the animals forsook them except polar bears, so that they ran short of fresh provisions. As months of dreary darkness passed away, the scurvy, that terrible disease, began to show itself among the men, their bodies became less able to withstand the cold, and it was difficult for them at last to keep up their spirits. But they fought against their troubles bravely.
Captain Harvey knew well that when a man’s spirits go he is not worth much. ”

“ What varied fortune follows man, according as the one or the other carries the day.
“Please, sir,” said a gruff, broad-shouldered, and extremely short man, with little or no forehead, a hard, vacant face, and a pair of enormous red whispers; “please, sir, Sam Baker’s took very bad; I think it would be as well if you could give him a little physic, sir; a tumbler of Epsom, or some-think of that sort.”
“Why, Mr Dicey, there can’t be anything very far wrong with Baker,” said the captain, looking down at his second mate; “he seems to me one of the healthiest men in the ship. ”

“ Six walrus and two bears have been killed, and the whole village is wild with delight. Cooking is going on in every hut. But they have no patience. Nearly everyone is munching away at a lump of raw walrus flesh. All their faces are more or less greasy and bloody. Even Myouk’s baby—though not able to speak—is choking itself with a long, stringy piece of blubber. The dogs, too, have got their share. An Eskimo’s chief happiness seems to be in eating, and I cannot wonder at it, for the poor creatures have hard work to get food, and they are often on the verge of starvation. ”

“ The snow there is in some places a thousand feet thick! It covers all the hill-tops and fills up all the valleys, so that the country may be said to be a buried land. Since the world began, perhaps, snow has been falling on it every winter; but the summers there have been so short that they could not melt away the snow of one winter before that of another came and covered it up and pressed it down. Thus, for ages, the snow of one year has been added to that which was left of the preceding, and the pressure has been so great that the mass has been squeezed nearly as hard as pure ice. ”

“ When Mr Mansell was left in charge of the brig a heavy weight lay on his heart, and he could by no means take part in the preparations for the theatricals which occupied the rest of the crew. He felt that life or death depended on the success of the captain in his search for fresh meat. Already most of the men were ill with scurvy, and some of them were alarmingly low. Nothing could save them but fresh meat, and when the first mate thought of the difficulties and dangers of a journey on the floes in such weather, and the uncertainty of the Eskimos being discovered, his heart misgave him. ”

“ It is truly said that “necessity is the mother of invention.” These natives have no wood. Not a single tree grows in the whole land of which I am writing. There are plenty of plants, grasses, mosses, and beautiful flowers in summer—growing, too, close beside ice-fields that remain unmelted all the year round. But there is not a tree large enough to make a harpoon of. Consequently the Eskimos are obliged to make sledges of bones; and as the bones and tusks of the walrus are not big enough for this purpose, they tie and piece them together in a remarkably neat and ingenious manner. ”

“ What a winter we have had! I shudder when I think of it. But there is more cause to be anxious about what yet lies before us. A single bear will not last long. Many weeks must pass before we are free. In June we hope to be released from our ice-prison. Fresh meat we shall then have in abundance. With it strength will return, and then, if God permits, we shall attempt to continue our voyage northward. The captain is confident on the point of open water round the Pole. The men are game for anything in spite of their sad condition.”
Thus wrote Gregory at that date. ”

“ If the man had been a Jack-in-the-box he could not have leaped more quickly round. His pistol was out and cocked in a moment!
The growl was followed by a roar, which drove all the blood back into Davy’s heart, and seemed to freeze it there—solid.
The man was no coward, as was quite clear, for at first he boldly stood his ground. But he would have been more than mortal if he had not felt some strange qualms about his heart when he saw a large white bear rushing furiously toward him. The animal came this time from the interior of the small island. ”

“ The ice has been breaking up out at sea for some time past. It gave way in Refuge Harbour yesterday, and we warped out in the night. Everything is ready to push north again. We have been feeding heartily for many weeks on walrus, seals, wild-fowl, and last, but not least, on some grasses which make bad greens, but they have put scurvy to flight. All the men are well and strong and fit for hard work—though nothing like what they were when we first came here. ”

“ It was so cold that the wind cut into our very marrow. We have all had our faces frozen, more or less, but not badly. Baker will have an ugly spot on the end of his nose for some weeks to come. It is getting black now, and as the nose itself is bright red and much swelled, his appearance is not improved. I foolishly tried to eat a little snow yesterday morning, and the consequence is that my lips are sore and bloody. On Monday afternoon the dogs and sledge went head over heels into a deep rut in the ice, and it cost us two hours to get them out again. ”

“ It is seen every day and every night sweeping a complete circle in the bright blue sky. Having been so free of his light in summer, the sun seems to think he has a right to absent himself in winter, for the three months of darkness that I have spoken of are not months of partial but of total darkness—as far, at least, as the sun is concerned. ”

“ In consequence of this darkness the men were confined almost entirely to the cabin for a time. Those who had scurvy, got worse; those who were well, became gloomy. Even Pepper, who was a tremendous joker, held his tongue, and Joe Davis, who was a great singer, became silent. Jim Crofts was in his bunk “down” with the scurvy, and stout Sam Baker, who was a capital teller of stories, could not pluck up spirit enough to open his mouth. ”

“ The natives feel the heat, too, for they are all half-naked—the baby entirely so; but they seem to like it!
“What a chattering, to be sure! I am trying to take notes, and Myouk’s wife is staring at me with her mouth wide open. It is a wonder she can open her eyes at all, her cheeks are so fat. The captain is trying, by the language of signs, to get our host to understand that we are much in want of fresh meat. Sam Baker is making himself agreeable to the young people, and the plan he has hit upon to amuse them is to show them his watch, and let them hear it tick. ”

“ Winter within the Arctic circle, as I have said, is fully eight months long. During that time the land is covered with snow many feet deep, and the sea with ice of all degrees of thickness—from vast fields of ten or fifteen feet thick to bergs the size of islands and mountains—all frozen into one solid mass.
There is no sunlight there, night or day, for three out of these eight winter months, and there is not much during the remaining five. In summer there is perpetual sunlight, all night as well as all day, for about two months—for many weeks the sun never descends below the horizon. ”

“ But so much of ice and snow remains there all the summer that winter can scarcely be said to quit those regions at all.
It is difficult to imagine what the Arctic winter is. We cannot properly understand the tremendous difficulties and sufferings that men who go to the Polar seas have to fight against. Let the reader think of the following facts, and see if he does not draw his chair closer to the fire and feel thankful that he has not been born an Eskimo, and is not an Arctic seaman! ”

“ It is now hundreds of years since the North polar regions began to attract general attention. Men have long felt very inquisitive about that part of the earth, and many good ships, many noble lives have been lost in trying to force a passage through the ice that encumbers the Arctic seas, summer and winter. Britain has done more than other nations in the cause of discovery within the Arctic circle. ”

“ One corner of it struck the hull just behind the mainmast, and nearly stove in the bottom of the brig.
This lump was what Arctic voyagers term a “calf.” When masses of ice break off from the bergs far below the surface of the water, they rise with extreme violence, and ships run great risk of being destroyed by these calves when they anchor too near to the bergs. Had this calf struck the Hope a fair blow she must certainly have gone down with all on board. ”

“ Although the hut is white outside, it is by no means white inside. They cook all their food over an oil-lamp, which also serves to heat the place; and it is wonderful how warm a house of snow becomes. The cold outside is so great as to prevent the walls melting inside. Besides Myouk, our host, and his wife, there are two of the man’s sisters, two lads, two girls, and a baby in the hut. Also six dogs. The whole of them—men, women, children, and dogs, are as fat as they can be, for they have been successful in walrus-hunting of late. ”

“ The ice that has been formed in this way is called glacier; and the glaciers of Greenland cover, as I have said, the whole country, so that it can never be cultivated or inhabited by man unless the climate change. There are glaciers of this kind in many other parts of the world. We have them in Switzerland and in Norway, but not on nearly so large a scale as in Greenland.
Now, although this glacier-ice is clear and hard, it is not quite so solid as pure ice, and when it is pushed down into the valleys by the increasing masses above it, actually flows. ”

“ The tusks of the bull killed on this occasion were thirty inches long. The hide of the walrus is nearly an inch thick, and is covered with close, short hair. Beneath the skin he has a thick layer of fat, and this enables him to resist the extreme cold in the midst of which he dwells.
The walrus is of great value to the Eskimos. But for it and the seal these poor members of the human family could not exist at all in those frozen regions. As it is, it costs them a severe struggle to keep the life in their bodies. But they do not complain of what seems to us a hard lot. They have been born to it. ”