“May 28, Wednesday. The fact of the day is the rotation of our floe. In spite of its irregular shape, it has rotated a complete circle within the past twenty-four hours. It is still turning at the same rate, wheeling us down along the inshore fields. The Rescue, early this morning, was between us and the land: the evening before, the same land was astern of us. Strange that no rupture takes place!
“May 29, Thursday. I have just been witnessing one of the oddest of Arctic freaks. We were all of us engaged in tracing out the rugged indentations on Mount Raleigh, as the floe was rolling our vessels slowly along past Cape Walsingham, when, at five o’clock in the afternoon—the thermometer at 27°, the barometer at 30.31, and the atmosphere of the usual pearly opalescence—the captain, sweeping shoreward with his glass, saw a large pyramidal hummock, with a well-defined figure projecting in front of it, evidently animated and moving. Murdaugh, looking afterward, declared it ‘a man.’ I saw it next, a large human figure, covered with a cloak, and motionless. Murdaugh took the glass again, and holding it to his eye, suddenly exclaimed, ‘It moves:’ ‘it spreads out its arms;’ ‘it is a gigantic bird!’
“The hummock was within a mile of us. The words were hardly uttered before the object had disappeared, and the white snow was without a speck. A discussion followed. The size made us at once reject the bird idea: the shape, too, was that of a cloak-covered man; the motion, as if he had opened his mantle-covered arms. Convinced that it was a human being, an Esquimaux astray upon the ice, Murdaugh and myself started off, nearing the hummock with hearts full of expectation. The traces on the soft snow would soon solve the mystery, and remove our only doubt, whether the ‘Rescues’ might not be playing us a trick.
“Whatever it was, it either did not perceive us approaching, or was willing to avoid us; for it kept itself hidden behind a crag. Reaching, however, the spot where it had stood, we found traces, coprolitic and recent, of a bird; footprints, as a learned professor would have said, of certain familiar animal processes, exaggerated and dignified by those of refraction.
“On returning to the brig, the watchers told us that we had been ourselves curiously distorted; and that, when perched on the little icy crag we had gone to scrutinize, we lengthened vertically into gigantic forms. The position of the bird, probably a glaucous gull, had been breast toward the brig: a vertical enlargement, with the white body and moving wings, explained the phenomenon.
“The ‘Rescues’ had a very large bear hovering around them all this morning. At one P.M. he came within reach of a carefully-prepared ambush, receiving four out of a half dozen balls, a number soon increased to nine. You may have some idea of the superb tenacity of life of this beast, when I tell you that he ran, thus perforated, with his skull broken and his shoulder shivered. He even attempted a charge, uttering a hissing sound, ejaculated by sudden impulse, like the ‘blowing of a whale,’ to use Captain Griffin’s comparison. He measured eight feet five inches, only three inches less than my own big trophy, which, with one exception, is the largest recorded in the stories of the Polar American hunt. What a glorious feed for the scurvy-stricken ships!
“To-day, for the first time, we had a tide, made evident by the changing phases of the shore. We made southing in the forenoon: now, at half past eight P.M., the alignment of the hills shows a northward drift. The ice is unchanged: our floe is rotating from west to south, against the sun, but not equably. We crossed the Arctic circle at some unknown hour this forenoon. To the eye every thing is as before; yet it cheats one into pleasant thoughts. I do not wish to see a midnight sun again.
“May 30. The seal are out upon the ice, one of the most certain signs of summer. They are few In number, and very cautious. We notice that they invariably select an open floe for their hole, and that they never leave it more than a few lengths. Their alertness is probably due to their vigilant enemy, the bear. Sometimes you will see them frolicking together like a parcel of swimming school-boys; sometimes they are solitary, but keenly alive always to the enjoyment of the sunshine. I have often crawled within fair eye-shot, and, seated behind a concealing lump of ice, watched their movements.
“The first act of a seal, after emerging, is a careful survey of his limited horizon. For this purpose he rises on his fore flippers, and stretches his neck in a manner almost dog-like. This maneuver, even during apparently complete silence, is repeated every few minutes. He next commences with his hind or horizontal flippers and tail a most singular movement, allied to sweeping; brushing nervously, as if either to rub something from himself or from beneath him. Then comes a complete series of attitudes, stretching, collapsing, curling, wagging; then a luxurious, basking rest, with his face toward the sun and his tail to his hole. Presently he waddles off about two of his own awkward lengths from his retreat, and begins to roll over and over, pawing on the most ludicrous manner into the empty air, stretching and rubbing his glossy hide like a horse. He then recommences his vigil, basking in the sun with uneasy alertness for hours. At the slightest advance, up goes the prying head. One searching glance; and, wheeling on his tail as on a pivot, he is at his hole, and descends head foremost.
“I have watched so many without success, that to-night I determined to try the Esquimaux plan—patience and a snow-screen. This latter, the easier portion of the formula, I have just returned from completing; it was a mile’s walk and an hour’s snow-shoveling. The other, the patience, I attempt to-morrow, ‘squat like a toad’ on the ice for an unknown series of hours, with the sun blistering my nose, and blinking my eyes the while; a sort of sport so much like fishing, that it ought to be reserved for the Piscators of our Schuylkill Club.