Such as the day was, I have, however, recorded it, leaving the reader’s imagination to supply whatever may be lacking in the sentiment of the solitude and desolation of our surroundings. He may, perhaps, fancy that women, dancing, and festivity were strange accompaniments to such a scene, as they surely were.
We did not, however, care to make the venture quite complete by sleeping on the ice. Gathering up our traps, therefore, we made our way back as we had come, and, arriving all safe on board, we picked up our anchor, and, as we steamed down the fiord, the wonderful ice-stream, which had afforded us so many adventures, melted away in the gathering twilight of the evening.
CHAPTER XIII.
BOUND FOR THE ARCTIC CIRCLE.
Having our pilot, Peter Motzfeldt, on board, we were obliged to put into Kraksimeut. After passing a few hours there, we made a direct course for the open sea. Motzfeldt, in the generosity of his heart, insisted upon it that we should rob him; but even the professional habits of our trader would not suffer a gift without a quid pro quo; and I trust that this worthy inhabitant of the solitary house on the dreary island may not have been damaged by our visit.
Passing along near the coast, we had a fine view of the mountains which rise there directly out of the sea; and, after rounding the southwestern cape of Greenland, which bears the name of Cape Desolation, we shaped our course for Arsut fiord, where the famous kryolite mine is situated, at a place called Iviktut. The entrance to this fiord is often seriously obstructed with ice-fields. We were fortunate enough to find it free, and, aided by our excellent Danish charts, we got in without trouble.
A man with a very sailor-like rig boarded us, and, addressing us in English, said he was Captain Abel Reynolds, of Boston, agent of the American Company.
THE KRYOLITE MINE AT IVIKTUT, ARSUT FIORD.
This great kryolite mine is managed after a most inconvenient fashion. In the first place, it is a monopoly of the Danish crown, which has leased it to a Danish company for a period of years, to work upon a royalty of twenty per cent. This Danish company have sold to the Pennsylvania Salt Company the exclusive right in America to the disposal of the ore, if such it may be, for convenience, called, to the extent of one-half the production of the mine. This Pennsylvania Salt Company, having no means of transportation of its own, lets out that part of its business to a company in Boston, the Messrs. Ryder & Crowley, and Captain Reynolds is their Greenland agent. Then the Danish Government has its Regjeringens Controlleur, Captain Harold Saxtorph; the company has its superintendent, Herr S. Fritz; its assistant-superintendent, Herr H. Stockfelth; and its surgeon, Herr E. C. Nobel; and a right good set of fellows they proved to be, if rather numerous for the business. The American agent made us snug as possible in the worst anchorage that ever was; the controller entertained us hospitably; while his wife treated us to the music of a Yankee sewing-machine. To the superintendent we were indebted for the offer of any amount of coals, which he had there in abundance for the use of the engines which he employs to pump the water from his mine; and personally I had to thank him for much useful information, and for the gift of the only fine specimens of kryolite crystals that I have ever seen; and to his assistant I owed more than thanks for a superb photographic plate of the mine and Arsut fiord, taken by himself, and other similar favors. Nor was the doctor lacking in the offer of his services; but luckily none of us required his professional attention, a circumstance which imposed a double share of thankful acknowledgment.