Pictures of Arctic Travel - Taschenbuch

TO WARREN 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 pur 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 n 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 dime extends, He had the passion and the power to roam The desert, forest, cavern, breakers foam Were unto him companionship they spake A mutual language, clearer than the tome Of his lands tongue, which he would oft forsake For Natures pages glazd by sunbeams on the lake. BYRONS CHILDE HAROLD, PICTURES OF 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 vesselsdeck at least ii 12 riciures of Arctic 1 ravel. 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 fe r straggling huts of native fishermen and hunters, with only now and then a more pretentious white mans 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 mans 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 todifferent 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...