I do not remember to have ever seen any thing more gloomy than the scene before us when the fog lifted in the early morning. We had been lying to for some time, not really knowing where we were; but, as good-luck would have it, we found that we were pointed fairly between two remarkable islands, known from their conformation as Cone and Wedge. Beyond was a straight passage of twenty miles, between lofty, cavernous, brownish-red, rocky islets; and beyond these, again, was to be seen, in the far distance, the cold line of the mer de glace, from which come pouring down cold glaciers to the sea. Cold icebergs lay upon the leaden waters; a cold wind was moaning from the hills; and although the sun shone out after the fog had vanished, it failed to throw any glow of warmth over the general desolation, or to dissolve the oppressive chill.
Steering south-east, we passed presently around a large iceberg which had before obstructed the view, and then we opened a low point of land, rugged as any other land in sight, and as utterly without sign or trace of vegetation; and yet a little white house stood upon the naked rock, and the white and red emblem of Danish sovereignty fluttered from a little flag-staff on the roof. This was the house we had seen and photographed on our way north—the most northern house of all the world; and in this little house, in this fearful desert, dwells a Christian family, with no other human beings within fifty miles of them save a few ignorant savages.
The head of the family met us among the ice in a boat a mile or so away. He had a swarthy crew of skin-clad men, and as he hauled in alongside of us, and stood up in the stern of his boat, I recognized at once the sturdy figure, sandy hair, and striking features of Peter Jensen. I was heartily glad to see him, and had him on board and by the hand without a minute’s loss of time. Then we steamed into a good anchorage and went ashore, and called upon his wife, and petted his children, and dined with him off venison and eider-ducks. The wife made us some capital cakes, and we had cigars and Danish pipes and excellent coffee; and we smoked and drank and chatted away the evening, and were very much surprised, when we came to think about it, that we had had a very pleasant time here in this remote and solitary place, within a thousand miles, measured as the crow flies, of the North Pole.
THE MOST NORTHERN HOUSE ON THE GLOBE.
But there was something indescribably sad to me in the dreadful isolation of this family who had entertained us. It is worse than loneliness, for the savages around, with their filth and wretchedness, and their packs of howling, vicious dogs, can not give companionship to a woman bred in Copenhagen, nor to the three little children whom she nurtured with the carefulness of a Christian mother.
These children were two pretty flaxen-haired girls—Johana Maria and Jennie Caroline—of five and seven years. But the hope of the house was Julius Christian, aged three years and some odd months.
They had all been troubled with the scurvy, and I did not wonder at it. What could these poor children do to preserve their health by outdoor exercise and outdoor pastime in a climate where the snow is on the ground nine months out of the twelve, and where the sun is not seen in winter for more than a hundred days; where the house must be banked with snow, the windows double glazed, the stoves and lamps kept burning constantly, to ward off the piercing cold, which often sinks to 50° below zero, and even lower, and where howling gales, filling the air with snow-drift, are of almost daily occurrence?
The four rooms of the house were fitted up with a reasonable degree of comfort, and with great neatness. There were some ornaments upon the walls—photographs of relatives and friends, and cheap colored prints of Danish battle-scenes, in some of which Jensen had patriotically borne a musket in the ranks before he came to Greenland, and was deservedly proud of the share he had in the war of 1848 against the hated Prussian.
For warmth they had stoves and Danish coal; and then there were huge bags of eider-down, among which the children buried themselves through the dark cold nights, piled upon the beds, and one might think the cold could never reach them when they had crawled to rest. But even children can not sleep all the time, though it may be always dark; and the loneliness of that prison-house to those three little creatures, when the winter comes, was a painful thing to contemplate. But then the wife! The children were born there, and had no other associations; but through the desolate winter do the wife’s thoughts not wander sometimes mournfully and regretfully back to the society and the changing delights and changing fashions of the world wherein she lived before she became a bride, and left it for this desert, simply that she might be with the man she loved? For surely there could be nothing else than love to tempt her there. She made no complaint; she appeared cheerful, and may have been happy. It was hard for me to think so. Hopeless, indeed, to her this life of toil, anxiety, and suffering, unless the blind god gives her some vast measure of bliss utterly beyond man’s power of appreciation. Alas, how little men really know of the sacrifices women make for them continually! Was the man ever born who was capable of such an exhibition of unselfishness as this Betty Jensen? I doubt it.