True Tales of Arctic Heroism in the New WorldGreely, A. W. (Adolphus Washington)
History
True Tales of Arctic Heroism in the New World
Greely, A. W. (Adolphus Washington)
Arctic regions
While making thorough search of every ravine or hill-top for records or
for relics, "The walking developed new tortures every day. We were
either wading through the hill-side torrents or lakes, which, frozen on
the bottom, made the footing exceedingly treacherous, or else with
seal-skin boots, soft by constant wetting, painfully plodding over sharp
stones set firmly in the ground with the edges pointed up. Sometimes as
a new method of injury, stepping and slipping on flat stones, the unwary
foot slid into a crevice that seemingly wrenched it from the body."
Under stress of hunger and in due time they came to eat the same food as
their native hunters. We are told that "In the season the reindeer are
exceedingly fat, the tallow (called by the Inuits _tudnoo_) lying in
great flakes from half an inch to two and a half inches thick along the
back and over the rump. This tallow has a most delicious flavor and is
eaten with the meat, either cooked or raw. The intestines are also
encased in a lace-work of tallow which constitutes a palatable dish.
Indeed, there is no part of any animal used for food but what is eaten
by the Eskimos and which we also have partaken of with great relish. A
dish made of the contents of the paunch, mixed with seal-oil, looks like
ice-cream and is the Eskimos' substitute for that confection." It has
none of the flavor, however, of ice-cream, but, as Lieutenant Schwatka
says, may be more likened to _locust_, _sawdust_ and _wild-honey_.
After the breaking up of the winter floes in the strait the hunters gave
much time to the pursuit of the reindeer and killed many. Too-loo-ah
gave a new instance of his courage and of his resourcefulness as a
hunter. Going to the beach to find some drift-wood for fuel he left his
gun in camp. Near the coast he came upon a she bear with her half grown
cub. Knowing that the game would escape if he went back for his rifle,
"he drove the old bear into the sea with stones and killed the cub with
a handless snow-knife." His great pleasure was in the slaughter of
reindeer, of which great herds appeared during the late summer, while
Schwatka was awaiting the coming of cold and the formation of ice on
Simpson Strait for the crossing of his heavy sledges. Too-loo-ah
indulged as a pastime in seal-hunting in these days of prosperity. When
he got a seal one of his first operations was "to make a slit in the
stomach of the still breathing animal, and cutting off some of the warm
liver with a slice or two of blubber, the hunter regaled himself with a
hearty luncheon." Now and then the keen scent of a dog or his own
hunter's instinct discovered a seal _igloo_ on the floe. This is a house
built for their young near the air-holes where the mothers come for
breathing spells. Gilder says: "Here the baby seals are born and live
until old enough to venture into the water. When a hunter finds an
occupied _igloo_ he immediately breaks in the roof in search of the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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