Catching of the whale and seal

by Anonymous

The Esquimaux use another boat made of seal-skin, which is larger and destined to carry luggage, or to transport their families. This is called umiak or oomiak, and is made nearly square at the head and stern. Its frame is made of whalebone or wood, and the bottom is flat. The seal-skins with which the frame is covered are deprived of the hair, and are at all times transparent, but especially so when wet. Each of the boats has five or six seats or thwarts, placed as in ours, and is moved by two very clumsy oars with flat blades, which are used by the women, and steered with a similar oar by another. They vary much in size, having the sides very flat and about three feet high. Sometimes they are so large as twenty-five feet in length by eight in breadth, and are capable of containing women, boys and small children, to the number of twenty-one persons.

As I have alluded to the Esquimaux, my son, it will perhaps be interesting to you to hear something further of their mode of life. I will therefore give you a description of one of their snow villages, with an account of a visit by a large party of them to the winter quarters of captains Parry and Lyon, which is taken from the Narrative of Discovery and Adventure in the Polar Seas and Regions.

“On the morning of the 1st February, a number of distant figures were seen moving over the ice, and, when they were viewed through glasses, the cry was raised, ‘Esquimaux! Esquimaux!’ As it was of great importance to deal courteously and discreetly with these strangers, the two commanders formed a party of six, who walked in files behind each other, that they might cause no alarm. The Esquimaux then formed themselves into a line of twenty-one, advanced slowly, and at length made a full stop. In this order they saluted the strangers by the usual movement of beating their breasts. They were substantially clothed in rich and dark deer-skins, and appeared a much more quiet and orderly race than their rude countrymen of the Savage Islands. On the English producing their precious commodities, knives, nails, and needles, an active traffic was set on foot; and the females, on seeing that much importance was attached to the skins which formed their clothing, began immediately to strip off those with which their fair persons were covered. The captains felt alarm for the consequences, under a temperature more than fifty degrees below the freezing point; but were soon consoled by discerning underneath another comfortable suit. They were now cordially invited to enter their habitations, to which they agreed most readily, only that there appeared no habitations to enter. However, they were led to a hole in the snow, and instructed to place themselves on their hands and knees, in which position, having crept through a long winding passage, they arrived at a little hall with a dome-shaped roof, whence doors opened into three apartments, each occupied by a separate family. These proved to be five distinct mansions, tenanted by sixty-four men, women, and children. The materials and structure of these abodes were still more singular than their position. Snow, the chief product of the northern tempests, became here a protection against its own cold. It was formed into curved slabs of about two feet long and half a foot thick, put together by a most judicious masonry, so as to present a species of dome-shaped structures, rising six or seven feet above the ground, and about fourteen or sixteen feet in diameter. The mode of inserting the key-slab, which bound the whole together, would, it is said, have been satisfactory to the eye of a regularly-bred artist. A plate of ice in the roof served as a window, and admitted the light as through ground glass; which, when it shone on the interior mansions, in their first state of pure and beautiful transparency, produced soft and glittering tints of green and blue. But, alas! ere long, accumulated dirt, smoke, and offal, converted these apartments into a scene of blackness and stench. This little village appeared at first like a cluster of hillocks amid the snow; but successive falls filled up the vacuities, and converted it almost into a smooth surface, so that even boys and dogs were seen walking and sporting over the roofs; though, as summer and thaw advanced, a leg sometimes penetrated, and appeared to the alarmed inmates below. Then, too, the ceiling begins to drip; and the tenants, after repeatedly endeavoring to patch it with fresh slabs, and catching, of course, some severe colds, are obliged to betake themselves to a more durable covering. In each room, suspended from the roof, burns a lamp, with a long wick formed of a peculiar species of moss, fed with the oil of the seal or the walrus, and serving at once for light, heat and cookery. The family sit round the apartment, on a bench formed of snow, strewed with slender twigs and covered with skins; but this part of the dwelling must be carefully kept a good deal below the freezing-point, since a higher temperature would speedily dissolve the walls of the frail tenement.

After a cheerful and friendly visit, an invitation was given to the Esquimaux to repair to the ships, when fifty accepted it with alacrity. Partly walking, and partly dancing, they soon reached the vessels, where a striking congeniality of spirit was soon found to exist between them and the sailors; boisterous fun forming to each the chief source of enjoyment. A fiddle and drum being produced, the natives struck up a dance, or rather a succession of vehement leaps, accompanied with loud shouts and yells. Seeing the Kabloonas or Whites, as they called the strangers, engaged in the game of leap-frog, they attempted to join; but not duly understanding how to measure their movements, they made such over-leaps as sometimes to pitch on the crown of their heads: however they sprang up quite unconcerned. Their attention was specially attracted to the effects of a winch, by which one sailor forcibly drew towards him a party of ten or twelve of their number, though grinning and straining every nerve in resistance; but finding all in vain, they joined in the burst of good-humored laughter till tears streamed from their eyes. One intelligent old man followed captain Lyon to the cabin, and viewed with rational surprise various objects which were presented. The performance of a hand-organ and a musical snuff-box struck him with breathless admiration; and on seeing drawings of the Esquimaux in Hudson’s Strait, he soon understood them, and showed the difference between their dress and appearance and that of his own tribe. On seeing the sketch of a bear, he raised a loud cry, drew up his sleeves, and showed the scars of three deep wounds received in encounters with that terrible animal. The seamen sought to treat their visitors to such delicacies as their ship afforded, but were for some time at a loss to discover how their palate might be gratified. Grog, the seaman’s choicest luxury, only one old woman could be induced to taste. Sugar, sweetmeats, gingerbread, were accepted only out of complaisance, and eaten with manifest disgust; but train-oil, entrails of animals, and any thing consisting of pure fat or grease, were swallowed in immense quantities, and with symptoms of exquisite delight. This taste was first evinced by an old woman, who, having sold her oil-pot, took care previously to empty the contents into her stomach, and lick it clean with her tongue, regardless of her face becoming thus as black as soot. Capt. Lyon, being disposed to ingratiate himself with rather a handsome young damsel, presented her with a good moulded candle, six in the pound. She immediately began to eat off the tallow with every symptom of the greatest enjoyment, after which she thrust the wick into her mouth; but the captain, concerned for the consequences to this delicate virgin, insisted on pulling it out. In preference to strong liquors they drank water in the most enormous quantities, by gallons at a time, and two quarts at a draught; a supply of liquid which is perhaps necessary to dissolve their gross food, and which, being obtained only from snow artificially melted, is a scarce winter article.

The Esquimaux were attended by a large pack of wolves, which seemed to follow solely to pick up whatever might be found straggling or defenceless about their habitation. These animals continued through the whole winter ravening with hunger, and in eager watch for any victim which might come within their reach. For this purpose they took a station between the huts and the ships, ready to act against either as circumstances might dictate. They did not attack the sailors even when unarmed, though they were often seen hovering through the gloom in search of prey. Every stray dog was seized, and in a few minutes devoured. Two wolves broke into a snow-house close to the ship, and carried off each a dog larger than himself; but, being pursued, one of them was obliged to drop his booty. In the extremity of their hunger they hesitated not to tear and devour the cables and canvass found lying near the vessel. A deadly war was therefore waged against these fierce animals, of which thirteen were killed in the course of the season, and sent to be eaten by the Esquimaux,—a present which was received with much satisfaction.”

The number of seals destroyed in a single season by the regular sealers may well excite surprise; one ship has been known to obtain a cargo of four or five thousand skins and upwards of a hundred tons of oil. Whale ships have accidentally fallen in with and secured two or three thousand of these animals during the month of April. The sealing business is, however, very hazardous when conducted on the borders of the Spitzbergen ice. Many ships with all their crews are lost by the sudden and tremendous storms occurring in those seas, where the dangers are vastly multiplied by the driving of immense bodies of ice. In one storm that occurred in the year 1774 no less than five seal ships were destroyed in a few hours, and six hundred valuable seamen perished.

“One of the most affecting shipwrecks which ever occurred in the northern seas was that of the Jean, of Peterhead, in 1826. Of this we can give a full account from an interesting narrative by Mr. Cumming, the surgeon, an eye-witness and sharer of the calamity. This vessel sailed on the 15th March, having on board only twenty-eight men, but received at Lerwick a complement of twenty-three natives of Shetland; owing to which arrangement, as well as by contrary winds, she was detained till the 28th. From the evening of that day to the 1st April, the ship encountered very stormy weather, which she successfully withstood, and was then steered into those western tracts of the Greenland sea which are the most favorable for the capture of the seal. In one day the seamen killed 1138 seals, and the entire number caught in five days exceeded 3070. This scene, however, could not be contemplated without some painful impressions. The seals attacked were only the young, as they lay fearlessly reposing on the ice, before they had yet attempted to plunge into the watery element. One blow of the club stunned them completely. The view of hundreds of creatures bearing some resemblance to the human form, writhing in the agonies of death, and the deck streaming with their gore, was at once distressing and disgusting to a spectator of any feeling. However, this evil soon gave way to others of a more serious nature.

On the morning of the 18th April the sailors had begun their fishery as usual; but a breeze sprung up, and obliged them by eleven o’clock to suspend operations. The gale continually freshened, and was the more unpleasant from their being surrounded with loose ice, which a dense and heavy fog made it impossible to distinguish at any distance. The mariners took in all sail, but did not apprehend danger till six in the evening, when the wind, which had been continually increasing, began to blow with tenfold fury. All that the narrator had ever heard, of the united sounds of thunder, tempest, and waves, seemed faint when compared with the stunning roar of this hurricane. At eight the ship was borne upon a stream of ice, from which she received several severe concussions; the consequence of which was that at ten the water began to enter, and at twelve no exertion in pumping could prevent her from being gradually filled.

At one in the morning she became completely waterlogged. She then fell over on her beam-ends, when the crew, giving themselves up for lost, clung to the nearest object for immediate safety. By judiciously cutting away the main and fore masts, they happily enabled the ship to right herself, when being drifted into a stream of ice, she was no longer in danger of immediate sinking. The whole hull, however, was inundated and indeed immersed in water, except a portion of the quarter-deck, upon which the whole crew were now assembled. Here they threw up an awning of sails to shelter themselves from the cold, which had become so intense as to threaten the extinction of life. Those endowed with spirit and sense kept up the vital power by brisk movement; but the natives of Shetland, who are accused on such occasions of sinking into a selfish despondency, piled themselves together in a heap, with the view of deriving warmth from each other’s bodies. Those in the interior of the mass obtained thus a considerable temperature, though accompanied with severe pressure; and blows were given, and even knives drawn to gain and to preserve this advantageous position. On the 19th, one Shetlander died of cold, another on the 20th, and a third on the 21st,—events felt by the others as peculiarly gloomy, chiefly, it is owned, as forming a presage of their own impending fate.