Our imaginary night has been short enough, and we are supposed to be preparing for a new start. "Look, see," says Thomas to me, and pours some water on the iron of the runners, for the sledge has meanwhile been turned upside down. Were it winter, that water would at once freeze on the iron and form a splendid smooth surface for the sledge to run on over ice or snow. "Hoo-eet." The sledge has been turned right again and repacked, and the dogs get up. No, there is nothing left behind. "Hoo-eet;" away we go. It is astonishing how widely the dogs spread themselves in pulling. However, the course of the sledge, as it follows them, depends more on the nimble drivers. See yonder dog is getting to the wrong side of that post, by way of illustrating the difficulties of travelling through a wood. Hebron is beyond the northern limit of trees, but our missionaries at Hopedale have often great trouble in passing through forests of stunted fir-trees. The front dogs also have got their traces foul of the two other posts in our forest of three trees without any branches. So we are brought to a standstill until, all the harness being cleared, we are ready for a fresh start down that slope to the right. "Owk, Owk," is the word, but at the brook our wild career is brought to a sudden stop. Our specimen sledge trip would not be complete without an accident. The bed of the little stream proves just too wide for the sledge to clear it, and the points of the runners have bored into the further bank. The thong of the sledge has broken in two places with the jerk, and the dogs who were pulling with might and main are suddenly released. Four or five have been caught by our nimble Eskimoes, but the majority are off home. Were the station three hours or three days distant and we were left in the snow it would be a bit different to the present situation. The station is about three minutes distant, and we have time for a good laugh before our dogs are caught and brought back. What has become of the passenger? Oh, he is unhurt; the shock did not even unseat him. There he sits on the sledge, which stretches like a little bridge from bank to bank. It is freed from the earth, and the dogs are again attached, after a fierce little quarrel between two or three of them, just to keep up their credit as quarrelsome creatures. Order and obedience restored, "Hoo-eet," away we go homeward, but at a more moderate pace, for it is uphill. By the mission-house the road bends to the left, "Ra, Ra, Ra." At the corner a number of women are standing and laughing, and as the sledge approaches, they ran, according to their usual custom, and throw themselves on to it, so the poor dogs finish their course with an extra load, and are quite willing to lie down in obedience to the final command, "Ah, Ah." If you were on a real journey, you would learn by experience to avoid that interjection in your conversation, for the weary animals would at once take the permission to stop and lie down.
Now the dogs are released from their harness and run away to their respective homes with glee. The sledge is unloaded, and its contents carried off by their owners. "When did you leave Ramah?" says the missionary to Thomas. "Yesterday morning," replies the good fellow, keeping up the joke with thorough appreciation. I give them my hearty thanks, "Nakungmék," for Thomas and Co. have not only given me a great pleasure, but provided interest for young friends at home, to whom I may detail my winter journey on a sunny autumn afternoon at Hebron. A real midwinter Labrador sledge journey, with the thermometer far below zero of Fahrenheit and the wind blowing hard and cold, is not so pleasant, especially if the dogs be quite invisible because of the driving snow. Should the traveller then be pitched off the sledge, and the drivers not perceive his absence at once, they may lose one another for ever. But God has watched over our travellers by sea and land, by ice and snow on many an errand of spiritual import to the settlers, or journey from station to station.
MY LAST SUNDAY IN LABRADOR.[ToC]
Sunday, September 23rd.—Morning prayers in German with the house-family. Our venerable senior missionary read the texts and the Gospel for the day, and gave out suitable hymns, which were well sung by the company of brethren, and sisters, and children assembled in the dining-room around the long table. Breakfast is enlivened with cheerful, godly converse, and shortly after we join the Eskimo congregation in the first service of the day. I like this church as well as any in the land. It is proportionate, simple, neat and light. Mr. Wirth takes his place behind the table, and, what with residents and visitors, there is a goodly row of missionary brethren and sisters to right and left of him, facing the Eskimo congregation. Among the latter the white faces of a settler family, the Metcalfs from Napartok Bay, are conspicuous. Though the language be strange, I have already grown familiar with the liturgic forms of worship and can follow either the "Church Litany," familiar to one in English and German, or the admirable responsive compilation of tests known as the Catechism Litany. The latter is chosen this morning, and it is quite possible that a negro congregation in Surinam, or a Kaffir congregation in South Africa may be using the same form of sound words, for it exists both in Negro English and in Kaffir.
At 10 we are again summoned to the house of prayer by the bell. Mr. Dam is the preacher, and is evidently moved by the thought that this may be his last sermon in Eskimo for many a day. A hymn and a prayer, fervent and brief, precede the giving out of his text, Rev. i. 12-20. The sermon is listened to attentively by old and young, of whom considerably more than a hundred are present. Old Zippora is, as ever, at her place at the end of the bench. Blind though she is, she often walks miles to church over uneven ground or hummocky ice, when away at the fishing places. She seems to take her part in the worship of the sanctuary thoroughly, whether in response or sacred song, or as listener with animated face and at times an overflowing heart. While I am looking, her fingers seek the corner of her apron, and lifting it she wipes the tears from her sightless eyes.
But the eloquent flow of words, mostly unintelligible to me, comes to a close. A hymn is sung, and the New Testament blessing pronounced. Then the procession from the missionary benches files out through the schoolroom into the mission-house and the people disperse to their homes. Mere mounds they look as I see them from my window. But they are Christian homes, whence rises prayer and praise.
I was mistaken. The congregation had not dispersed, for the choir wished to give me a specimen of their powers. I returned to the church and listened to a fair selection of sacred music, including a long piece (Psalm xcv. 6, 7), well sustained by a choir of about a dozen men and women, and two or three instrumentalists. When they ceased, I spoke a few words of thanks and farewell.
Dinner was as usual very literally "the mid-day meal." Soup was followed by a joint of reindeer venison, which was a treat to me, as beef or mutton would be to my hosts. The vegetables had been grown in the mission garden. After coffee I went over to the ship for the afternoon service aboard, rowed by four Eskimoes, Thomas, Clement, one of the organists, Daniel, and Heinrich. In their endeavour to converse with me they brought out some amusing scraps of English, and little Heinrich informed me his name in my language was "Harry."