“Hi! hi!” was the first greeting of this strange-looking creature, with a voice that sounded very human “Hi! hi!” and afterwards he shouted, “Me Julianashaab pilot!” an announcement which greatly delighted us, even if the pilot did come in such very questionable shape.
He was not long in arriving alongside, and then, after getting the bight of a rope under each end of him, we hauled him in on deck, whereupon the head and shoulders speedily shook themselves out from the body, and our marine centaur stood forth with the proper complement of legs to show his affinity to man.
To see a pilot shed himself thus is not to increase one’s confidence in him. And then his looks were by no means prepossessing. A broad face that was all cheeks, except what was mouth, with the least speck of a nose, and nothing to mention in the way of eyes, might be a curious study for a naturalist, but was hardly the sort of thing one seems to stand in need of when he seeks a harbor along a very ugly coast. And then his body was all covered with hair, and was all wet, as if he had just risen from the bottom of the sea. Besides, he smelt fishy. Yet this was clearly the best we could do if we ever meant to get into port, and, disregarding his unprepossessing appearance, the captain called him aft and ordered him to point out Julianashaab.
“Eh, tyma!” he answered; and off he started for the bridge, and off soon started the Panther under his direction.
Julianashaab we found to be no easy port to make, even with a marine centaur for a pilot. The Panther was twisted and turned about so much among the islands, and our pilot spoke so strangely, and made so many strange gestures, that he fairly turned the captain’s head. The captain would indeed hardly believe that we were going anywhere at all, but were, on the contrary, whirling about for the temporary amusement of this creature whom we had fished up out of salt water.
The fact is, Julianashaab is some twenty miles from the sea, on the bank of a very long and tortuous frith or fiord, which is studded with islands. Difficult of access at all times, it is peculiarly so in July, for then the ice from the Spitzbergen side of Greenland comes drifting down with the great polar current, a branch of which sweeps around Cape Farewell into Davis’s Strait and Baffin’s Bay, and proceeds north for a while before it is deflected to the westward to join the ice-incumbered stream that chills the region of Labrador, and bathes the coast of America even to the Floridas. Cape Farewell is in latitude 59° 49´, and Julianashaab lies some eighty miles to the north and west of it; that is to say, in latitude 60° 44´, or 5° 48´ south of the Arctic circle. It is not, therefore, much nearer the North Pole than St. Petersburg, Russia, though in a very different climate.
It was fortunate that we secured even this strange pilot when we did, else we should have lain outside all the night; for there was a night, even although it was scarce deserving the name. When one can plainly see to read by the light of the sun as late as ten o’clock P.M., there is not much of a night to boast of. There was a faint twilight even at midnight, and to this was added the light of the moon, which threw its brightness on the summits of the snow-clad mountains, and trailed its silvery splendors away over the rippled waters of the fiord.
The scene as we passed on was most impressive. There is indeed in a still arctic night, whether in the winter or summer, a sublimity which one does not feel in a night elsewhere. We passed through many groups of icebergs, and in the moonlight their shapes, at all times full of strange suggestions, were converted into objects of the most fantastic description. The faces and forms of men and beasts were fashioned there in the light and shadow of the night, occasionally with wonderful distinctness. As we passed on, we were sometimes in the cold shelter of a cliff, while the icebergs before us glittered in a full blaze of light, as if they were mammoth gems; again we would pass so near a berg that it seemed but awaiting an opportunity to topple over upon and overwhelm us; and all the while no sounds disturbed the air but the monotonous pulsations of the steamer and the hollow gurgle of the waves of her making as they broke within the icy caves.
At length our pilot told us we were approaching our destination, and as the light of day began to replace the brightness of the moon, he whirled the Panther into a little bight, and a few rude habitations, a flag-staff, and the belfry of a little mission church, appeared before us on a dark rocky hill-side.
“Julianashaab!” said our pilot, pointing to it with as much pride and satisfaction as if he were overlooking the finest city of the world. Poor man, he knew no better! He little dreamed how miserable was his lot to be only a Julianashaaber, and dwell in peace! For this was indeed his home. He had gone down the fiord hunting seals and to gather the eggs of wild fowl upon the islands, and when he saw the Panther he had just begun his work.