And now, what with dodging first one way and then the other, and with taking the ice first on one bow and then on the other, with shaving the rocks most uncomfortably close, they managed, between the pilot and the captain, to give the Panther a pretty lively time of it, until we had finally come into a very narrow basin of water, where, in apparent danger of running our jib-boom into a solitary house, the order was given to “let go”—and we were at anchor in the harbor of Kraksimeut.
There was a great number of people about the solitary house. So far as appearances went, Kraksimeut comprised this one house only, and it was but one story high. Over it floated a Danish flag about the size of a pocket-handkerchief.
“My house,” said our pilot. “Governor’s house, Kraksimeut—me Governor.”
Our pilot was Peter Motzfeldt, already mentioned in a previous chapter; and a right noble fellow is Peter Motzfeldt, if he does live in a solitary house, and is governor of Kraksimeut.
Kraksimeut stands upon a very small island, on the very outer extremity of the dividing ridge between the fiord which we had left and the fiord for which we were bound. In order to reach it, we have sailed north-west; to reach our next halting-place in the other fiord, we are to sail north-east. It is a good half-way station, and we resolve to spend the night there.
Peter Motzfeldt invites us ashore, and ashore we go to the government-house. The people we see are like those of Julianashaab; they smell of fish exceedingly. There is not another white man except Peter Motzfeldt. His wife is there, but she is a native, and has the inevitable native boots, and seal-skin pantaloons, and short jacket, and horn-like top-knot of hair, tied about with a profuse quantity of ribbons. Peter Motzfeldt’s twenty odd children are there, including the two boat-loads heretofore mentioned, who had gone down to Julianashaab to see the sights, and have returned in anticipation of our arrival.
The scenery around this solitary house is dreary enough; there are only faint traces of vegetation in the crevasses of the rocks, and there is a glimpse of water only to be seen here and there among the icebergs and islands; but there is a golden sky above the setting sun, and golden splendors dropped from heaven upon the sparkling jewelry of the sea.
I took a walk about the island, and came back to the solitary house, after all my comrades had assembled there, to encounter a great surprise. Instead of finding this only white inhabitant of the place
“Steeped in poverty to the very lips,”
he was rejoicing in abundance. Eatables and drinkables were on the table in great profusion; pipes, tobacco, and even cigars, were circulating freely, and a livelier party than that which greeted me on my arrival would be difficult to imagine. They had literally taken possession of all there was to see of Kraksimeut, including Motzfeldt himself, whose genial face beamed upon me through the mists which arose from a steaming punch-bowl; and, as he stretched out a hand to give me welcome, he bowled down at least half a dozen bottles.