The Open Polar Sea: A narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States"Hayes, I. I. (Isaac Israel)
History
The Open Polar Sea: A narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States"
Hayes, I. I. (Isaac Israel)
Arctic regions; United States (Schooner)
A few hours afterward there arrived a family of quite another
description,--Myouk and his wife of the ragged coat. They had walked
all the way up from Iteplik, the woman carrying her baby on her
back all of these hundred and fifty miles. Myouk was evidently at a
loss to find an excuse for paying me this visit; but he put a bold
front on, and, like Kalutunah, discovered a reason. "I come to show
the Nalegaksoak my wife and Daktagee," pointing to the dowdy, dirty
creature that owned him for a husband, and the forlorn being that
owned him for a father. But when he perceived that I was not likely to
pay much for the sight, he timidly remarked, with another significant
point, "_She_ made me come," and then started off, doubtless to see
what he could steal.
My arrangements were soon concluded with Kalutunah. He was to live over
in the hut at Etah, to do such hunting as he could without the aid of
his dogs, all of which he loaned to me; but, in any event, my stores
were to be his reliance, and I bound myself to supply him with all that
he required for the support of himself and his family.
On the following day the hut at Etah was cleared out and put in order,
and this interesting family took up their abode there, while Myouk, as
eager to place himself under the protection of a man high in favor as
if his skin had been white and he knew the meaning of "public office"
and lived nearer the equator, followed the great man to his new abode,
and crawled into a corner of his den as coolly as if he was a deserving
fellow, and not the most arrant little knave and beggar that ever
sponged on worth and industry.
[Sidenote: PETER'S DEAD BODY.]
Kalutunah brought a solution of the Peter mystery. As soon as the
daylight began to come back, one of the Iteplik hunters, named Nesark,
determined to travel up to Peteravik, and there try his fortunes in
the seal hunt. Arriving at the hut (these Esquimau huts are common
property) at that place, he was surprised to discover, lying on the
floor, a much emaciated corpse. It was that of an Esquimau dressed in
white man's clothing, and the description left no doubt that it was
the body of Peter. Nesark gave it Esquimau burial. And thus, after the
lapse of three months, this strange story was brought to a close; but
I was still as far as ever from an explanation of the hapless boy's
strange conduct.
I had now become the possessor of seventeen dogs, and awaited only one
principal event to set out on a preliminary journey northward. The sea
had not yet closed about Sunrise Point, and I could not get out of
the bay on that side. To travel over the land was, owing to its great
roughness, impracticable for a sledge, even if without cargo; and to
round the Point at that season of the year, through the broken ice and
rough sea, in an open boat, was, for obvious reasons, not to be thought
of.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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