Puslapio vaizdai
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MEK-A-SHAH.

the Innuits easily found the way by means of the echo.

There was always a charm in their strange melodies, and particularly at night, as they slowly rowed along the black waters among ghostly, beautiful icebergs, under the starless sky. And such melodies! They were like the sighing of the winds, low, contented, fullbreathed, yet with an undertone of sadness. But at times their songs are vehement with joy and action. Sometimes they are broken with recitative. I give the music of a few:

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On these inland hunting-trips an ominous silence reigned. We were then having alternate day and night, and the spirit of the approaching months of darkness seemed to hold the day in thrall. The weird desolation and loneliness of the great peaks; the interminable ice-caps, lustrous and cold under the gray waste of cloud; the wide, mossy stretches, thick-set with irregular boulders of many hues, and thickly starred with white, pink, purple, and yellow flowers; the absence of life; the windless hush-all these wove a web of awe about one's mental perceptions, and made the world in which we walked seem a part of strange dreams.

By October 7 the sun like a ball of orange fire rose over the great hills at 10 A. M., and disappeared behind them, on the bay's farther side, by 3 P. M. Every one was busy, the men out on hunting-trips down the bay, or carrying provisions to Moraine Camp on the ice-cap. To sketch from the studio window we had to scrape the frostwork from the window-panes every few minutes, so near was winter to us. The brook had been frozen for some time, and to obtain drinking-water it was necessary to go to a small fresh-water lake half a mile up the valley. Soon it too was frozen, as the temperature was rapidly falling even in our lower regions; on the ice-cap it was already 11° below zero. Snow-squalls frequently blew over the valley, giving some of the wildest and strangest effects that I had seen in this strange land. One came up from Inglefield Gulf, a mass of purplish gray cloud that made the water even a darker hue, and half obliterated the long range of cliffs on

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No. 5.

EL-EY-TING-WAH.

the opposite side of the bay with a translucent veil which gave them a pinkish tinge. Here and there on the cliffs were traces of strawcolor, with lilac shadows, while just above the hills the clouds cleared to a light pearly

TONG-WING-WAH.

gray, with traces of pinkish yellow. Over the yet calm waters of the bay hosts of ice-floes and icebergs were scattered, all a delicate blue-green above the grayish purple of the sea. In the foreground a large iceberg had grounded near the entrance to Falcon Harbor, and gave the highest note to the picture a light pinkish cream with shadows of greenish blue. This was at 1 P. M., and in a few moments darkness overtook the day, and snow fell thick and fast.

The studio was gradually becoming picturesque on the outside, as the eaves were decked with great pieces of reindeer meat, and the top with antlers and kayaks. At noon the lurid sun began its westering course behind the hills, giving the most beautiful effect of the day; but it moved so rapidly that one had to work with great speed to accomplish anything. I made sketches daily from the window, and then sallied forth up the valley or over the hills back of the house, which looked down upon the great glacier and Bowdoin Bay. One would need a hundred hands as well as a hundred eyes adequately to cope with the rich color harmonies of the North. I took several photographs of the glacier, and then made a quick sketch-quick perforce, for I came near freezing my fingers. Happily, the addition of some petroleum kept the colors pliable long enough to complete the sketch.

By October 18 all bird life except the ravens had deserted us. Five were counted that afternoon around the walrus cache on the rocky point that jutted out into the bay opposite the camp. This was also the resort of a number of Eskimo dogs that had never been caught since their landing from the Falcon. Some of our ice-cap party returned toward evening, leaving the others in a snow-hut. They brought tidings of severe storms and winds, which rendered it impossible to see about them for more than ten feet during the whole of their stay.

We did much entertaining, as we were continually visited by different members of the tribe of two hundred or more. They were content to sit and share the warmth and shelter of our house, and gaze on the curious things it contained. They would turn the pages of a magazine by the hour, and, holding the book upside down, ask questions about the pictures. What particularly pleased them was anything in the shape of gun, knife, or ammunition. Of eating they never tired. The amount of food they consumed was astonishing, and they particularly reveled in our coffee, biscuit, and pemmican. This love was manifested by a little ditty that they sang quite often:

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« Uh-bis-e-ken, Uh-pem-e-ken.>>

The women are very clever with the needle, and as most of us had adopted the Innuit boot of sealskin, which required frequent mending, they were always in demand. In mechanical ingenuity they are remarkable. Both men and women are carvers in ivory, and the tiny figures-human as well as animal-that they fashion in this material, although somewhat crude, show no mean ability. This skill is also to be remarked in regard to the use of the pencil. One of them, As-sey-e-yeh, drew from memory a steamer in perspective, with the reflections in the water, and that, too, in a suggestive and artistic way.

Arctic literature dwells on the monotonous life of the polar regions, but it cannot be such to a lover of nature. The beauties of nature in those high latitudes are far more varied than in any other part of the world that I have seen. On October 26 the last view of the sun's face was denied us by the rushing clouds. The winter's routine began with the setting of a day and an all-night watch. We had the moon by day-a day full of beautiful color harmonies and twilight in tone; for although the sun had disappeared, a radiance of rich orange, succeeded by yellow and yellowish blue,

merged in the blue of the heavens, which was brightest at noon. The reign of night was upon us, and with it the beginning of a series of color-poems that the art of the painter could only faintly portray. The thermometer registering 4° below zero F., and the bay having frozen over, I took daily trips in the uncertain, mysterious light that shone in the far south-an orange radiance that brooded over the rich gray of the southern hills, fad

spires very freely in these hard, steep journeys, but cools rapidly when a stop for rest or breath is taken, which adds to the discomfort. We reached the camp at last, a snow igloo at an elevation of 2500 feet. The igloo is built in two parts, through the small openings of which we crawled to the inner room. The floor of this room was strewn with hay; sleeping-bags of skin, an oil-can and a stove, and a quantity of canned goods, completed the

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ing toward the zenith successively into orange madder, lemon, and dark lilac.

About the middle of November I visited for the first time Moraine Camp, five miles away from the studio. We started in clear, calm weather, climbing all the way. On our right, rocky walls supported ice-caps from 1500 to 2500 feet in height; to the left coursed that most majestic of rivers, the glacier, cutting its way through lofty, precipitous crags of dark brown rock from the sea of ice which ran in great swells far inland. The path was very steep, and lay through deep snow, swept by an icy wind which nipped our faces and converted the hair upon them into a solid mass of icicles. One per

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furnishing. What little light the room obtained came in through a small opening in the roof and through its semi-opaque walls of snow. It was, as one may well imagine, a close and ill-smelling place, from which I was glad to escape.

In the last days of November the Innuit. arrivals were numerous, and the hospitality of Kashoo's igloo and the lodge was taxed to the utmost. The light was lessening day by day, though the beauty of this ice world did not wane. I think I never felt the strength, the glory, of silence so vividly as on the 26th of the month, standing on a rocky height above the bay. Across the heavens beautiful auroras streamed at fre

quent intervals in colors of faint orange, green, and blue, scarcely dimming the myriads of brilliant stars that glittered in the deep blue vault, which lightened to turquoise at the horizon. Majestic cliffs swept away across the bay, with its shadowy greenishblue bergs, all bathed in one shimmering veil of transparent gold from the light of the moon. In a silence that made the beating of the heart and the pulsation of the blood in the veins seem almost audible, I was suddenly attracted by a peculiar, occasional crackling sound. Presently the sound came very near, and, turning, I perceived a yellowish-white object, about three feet in length, steadily approaching. The little creature gradually

the year, was upon us. In the absence of a moon the light of the stars was so strong that on several occasions I detected shadows on the snow, while their penumbræ were full of prismatic colors. A condensation of frost had by this time completely covered the windows of the studio, and a wainscoting of the same material girded the entire room to the height of three feet. The accumulation of ice was fully an inch and a half thick on the inner door of the studio, and made it impossible to close the door completely. Every morning the door was so thoroughly frozen in the jamb that it was necessary to chop the ice away to get out. Everything in the bottom of our trunks and boxes was frozen, being covered

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AN ESKIMO AND HIS DOGS RESTING ON INGLEFIELD GULF, MAY, 1894.

darkness of midnight. Eskimo dogs, alert for food, were continually underfoot; and several burros, with carrier pigeons whose days were numbered, made it an abidingplace. The remaining portion, stored with provisions, was separated by partitions.

On December 15 I noticed innumerable foxtracks on the hills back of the camp. The south light had now grown paler and paler; a dark mass of purplish gray clouds settled over the region, leaving only a faint greenishyellow streak. At one end of the streak the light flickered fitfully, as if a storm were raging there. The hills rose dark and gray under their mantle of snow; in the valley below two dark spots showed where our dwellings stood. A thin column of smoke ascended silently from a chimney, and a little to the right a larger column arose, lighted now and then by a fitful ruddy flame from a fire built to thaw walrus-meat for the dogs. The cries of men and dogs rose on the still air-so still that the sounds echoed and reëchoed, making strange noises in the hills.

Christmas came almost before we were aware. Sports had been arranged for the occasion, and at half-past two we assembled

on the bay in front of the camp, with the stars shining overhead and the moon's light streaming over the dark hills.

A double row of ice-columns led away in dim perspective over the ice-covered bay for more than two hundred yards, reminding one of an alabaster colonnade forming the approach to an ancient Greek temple. Over these were laid bamboo poles, and at each end of the course a red torch-light was thrust into the snow. We then indulged in hurdleracing and other sports. It was a strange spectacle, with the wild figures of the Innuits and the fur-clad members of the party, now in the cold blue light of the moon, now in the bright red light from the torches, grouped about the contestants, and the towering, gloomy mass of Mount Bartlett in the background. The games were hurried through, for it was cold sport with the thermometer 24° below zero.

Now the light of the sun began visibly to return. To our vision, sharpened by the long darkness, every change, even the slightest, was noticed. What new life and joy it brought! I never knew the blessedness of light before. The dull glow seen through the

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