CHAPTER IX.[ToC]
A Barren Shore, and a Strange Animal, which is captured by blowing up its Den.—Palmleaf falls in with the Esquimaux, and is chased by them.—"Twau-ve!"—"A Close Shave."—An Attack threatened.—The Savages dispersed with the Howitzer.
To avoid the thick patches of heavy ice which were this afternoon driving out toward the Atlantic, we bore up quite near the mainland on the north side, and continued beating on, with the wind north all night, at the rate of—at a guess—two knots per hour. It was dull work. We turned in at twelve, and slept soundly till five, when the noisy rattling of the cable through the hawse aroused us. The wind had died out, and they had dropped the anchor in forty-three fathoms. It was a cloudy morning: every thing had a leaden, dead look. We were about half a mile from the shore; and after breakfast, having nothing better to do, fell to examining it with our glasses. Shelving ledges rose up, terrace on terrace, into dark mountains, back two and three miles from the sea. The whole landscape seemed made up of water, granite, and ice. The black, leathern lichens added to the gloomy aspect of the shore-rocks, on which the waves were beating—forever beating—with sullen plashings. Terrible must be the aspect of this coast in winter. Now the hundreds of water-fowl wheeling over it, and enlivening the crags with their cries, softened its grimness. Farther along the shore-ledges Kit presently espied a black animal of some kind, and called our attention to it.
"He seems to be eating something there," said he.
We looked at it.
"It's not an Esquimau dog, is it?" Wade asked.
"Oh, no! head don't look like a dog's," observed Kit. "Besides, their dogs are not so dark-colored as that."
"This seems from here to be almost or quite black," Raed remarked; "as black as Guard. Not quite so large, though."