Thus pleasantly passed the summer days on that lonesome Greenland ocean.
Chapter Twelve.
Among Arctic Fiords—A Strange Discovery.
If the reader happens to possess a map of the polar regions, or even a good map of the world, and will take a glance or two at the discovered lands and seas beyond the Arctic circle, he will be struck at once by their nomenclature. It would be interesting to know the why and the wherefore of many of these names, which I do not believe have, in any single instance, been given at random. The origin of some of them is evident enough—“Lady Franklin’s Sound,” for example, or “Hayes’ Inlet,” or “Peabody Bay.”
But I do not wish to be told of the exact reasons that determined these names. Knowing what I do about the Polar regions, I would rather let my imagination have a little play.
A little to the south of Spitzbergen lies Hope Isle, or Sea Horse Island; I happen to know that many walruses, sometimes called sea-horses, frequent the ice or the icy land there; but why called Hope Island? Some ship, perhaps, had been long imprisoned, north of this place, provisions exhausted, and the chances of ever getting clear small indeed; but, behold! the ice opens as if by magic, and by sawing and blasting they struggle as far south as this lone isle, where, though locked up once more in the icy embrace of King Winter, they live in hope, and are eventually rewarded.
Down the east coast of Greenland proper there is a point with an ugly name, “Cape Discord.” Was it mutiny or only mutiny threatened? did men struggle on slippery blood-bespattered decks, or was the discord confined to muttered threats, to black and angry looks and round-robins? (Note 1.)