Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and Narrative of an Attempt to Reach the North Pole, Volume 2Parry, William Edward, Sir
History
Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and Narrative of an Attempt to Reach the North Pole, Volume 2
Parry, William Edward, Sir
Arctic regions; Northwest Passage; Parry, William Edward, Sir, 1790-1855
On the morning of the 25th, while passing close to a point of land,
Toolemak suddenly stopped his sledge, and he and his wife walked to the
shore, whither I immediately followed them. The old woman, preceding her
husband, went up to a circle of stones, of which there were two or three
on the spot, and, kneeling down within it, cried most loudly and
bitterly for the space of two or three minutes, while Toolemak also shed
abundant tears, but without any loud lamentation. On inquiring presently
after, I found that this was the spot on which their tent had been
pitched in the summer, and that the bed-place on which the old woman
knelt had been that of their adopted son _Noogloo_, whose premature
death we had all so much regretted. The grief displayed on this
occasion seemed to have much sincerity in it, and there was something
extremely touching in this quiet but unaffected tribute of sorrow on the
spot, which so forcibly reminded them of the object of their parental
affection. I have much gratification in adding, in this place, another
circumstance, which, though trifling in itself, deserves to be noticed
as doing honour to these people's hearts. They had always shown
particular attachment to a dog they had sold me, and which bore the same
name as a young man, a son of their own, whom they had formerly lost. In
the course of this journey, the old woman would constantly call the dog
"Eerninga" (son), which the affectionate animal never failed to repay by
jumping up and licking her face all over, whenever his trace would allow
him; and at night, after Toolemak had fed his own dogs, he frequently
brought to our tent an extra piece of meat, expressly for
_Ann=owtalik_, to whom these poor people seemed to take a mournful
pleasure in now transferring their affection.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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