Numerous works, in English, have been written upon Iceland and the Icelanders; the most trustworthy are those by Dr. Henderson, Professor Forbes, Holland, Chambers, and Lord Dufferin. The King of Denmark visited Iceland in 1874.
CHAPTER VII.
THE ESKIMOS.
The land of the Eskimos is of very wide extent. From Greenland and Labrador they range over all the coasts of Arctic America to the extreme north-eastern point of Asia. Several of the Eskimo tribes are independent; others acknowledge the rule of Great Britain, Denmark, Russia, and more recently of the United States. The whaler meets with them on the shores of Baffin Bay, and in the icy sea beyond Behring Straits; the explorer has tracked them as far as Smith Sound, the highway to the North Pole; and while they descend as low as the latitude of Vienna, they rove as far north as the 81st and 82nd parallels. They are the aborigines of the deserts of ice and snow, the ancient masters of the Arctic wilderness, and all Polar America is their long-acknowledged domain. To a certain extent they are nomadic in their habits; compelled to migrate by the conditions of the climate in which they live, and forced to seek their scanty sustenance in a new locality when they have exhausted the capabilities of any chosen habitat. As Mr. Markham tells us, traces of former inhabitants are found throughout the gloomiest wastes of the Arctic regions, in sterile and silent tracts where now only solitude prevails. These wilds, it is known, have been uninhabited for centuries; yet they are covered with memorials of wanderers or of sojourners of a bygone age. Here and there, in Greenland, in Boothia, on the American coast, where life is possible, the descendants of former nomads are still to be found.
Arctic discovery, as yet, has stopped short at about 82° on the west coast, and 76° on the east, of Greenland. These two points are about six hundred miles apart. There have been inhabitants at both points, though they are separated by an uninhabitable interval from the settlements further south; we may conclude, then, that the terra incognita further north is also or has been inhabited. In 1818 it was discovered that a small tribe of Eskimos inhabited the bleak west coast of Greenland between 76° and 79° N. They could not penetrate to the south on account of the glaciers of Melville Bay; they could not penetrate to the north, because all progress in that direction is forbidden by the great Humboldt glacier; while the huge interior glacier of the Sernik-sook pent them in upon the narrow belt of the sea-coast. These so-called “Arctic Highlanders” number about one hundred and forty souls, and throughout the winter their precarious livelihood depends on the fish they catch in the open pools and water-ways. Under similar conditions, it is probable that Eskimo tribes may be existing still further north; or if, as geographers suppose, an open sea really surrounds the Pole, and a warmer atmosphere prevails, the conditions of their existence will necessarily be more favourable.
Before we come to speak of the characteristics of the Eskimos, we must briefly notice the Danish settlements in Greenland, which are gradually attracting no inconsiderable number of them within the bounds of civilization. These are dotted along the coast, like so many centres of light and life; but the most important, from a commercial point of view, are Upernavik, Jacobshav’n, and Godhav’n.
Upernavik is the chief town of a district which extends from the 70th to the 74th degree of north latitude, and enjoys the distinction of being the most northerly civilized region in the world. Its northern boundary represents the furthest advance of civilization in its long warfare against the Arctic climate.
UPERNAVIK, GREENLAND.