CHAPTER VII.
THE FIORD OF AUKPADLARTOK.
On our way to Upernavik we wheeled into the fiord of Aukpadlartok, to which I have hitherto made allusion, and I verily believe there never was such another wilderness of desolation—such an interminable array of islands of ice and islands of rock; and when at last we saw another house like Jensen’s, pitched like his upon just such another point of land, and reflected that these houses are dotted here and there in this dreary waste at intervals of forty and fifty miles, and that their inmates hold communication one with the other perhaps once in the winter with dog-sledge, and once in summer, and not more, with boat, it seemed as if proof was positive that life without social intercourse was really possible—a fact which I should never have believed for a moment otherwise.
The ice was so thick along the shore that we could not get within a mile of the little house and the miserable huts which surrounded it. So we had nothing to do but tie up to an iceberg, and take to a boat and pull in as best we could. The shore was reached at last, but only after we had passed through many very dangerous places, including a hole in an enormous iceberg, and then we were landed on the rocks, where we were met by the most renowned of all the Greenland hunter—a blue-eyed and fair-complexioned and most “mild-mannered man,” named Philip, who was backed up by a staff of five sons—Christian, Wilhelm, Simon, Hans, and Lars; while still farther in the rear was the wife, Caroline, with her two daughters, Christina and Maria, and the various wives and sweet-hearts and children of all her five boys, the lover of Christina, and some forty other savages and half-savages, who constituted the promiscuous population of the village of Kresarsoak—“the village beside the mountain;” and the mountain reared its great white crest five thousand feet above our heads, pushing itself away up among the clouds.
WE GO THROUGH AN ICEBERG TO CALL ON PHILIP.
PHILIP, THE HUNTER, AND HIS SONS.
The family of Philip was a very different one from that of Jensen. His wife was a full-blown Esquimaux. His half-breed children were happy and well-contented, and rejoiced in the possession of every thing needful for the hunt or domestic comfort. Christian was married, and had a small hut and seven children all to himself. Simon ditto, but he lived with his wife and baby in a seal-skin tent. Wilhelm had recently been in trouble about his lady-love, who was a thorough-bred native, she at first preferring another fellow, who was a fine hunter, and evidently the superior of Wilhelm. But then Wilhelm was the son of the “governor,” which made all the difference in the world; and so the marriage was settled upon, and was to take place as soon as the priest could come up from Upernavik to bless the nuptials. For the rest, they all lived in the paternal mansion, which had but one room, and was divided with seal-skins into a number of stalls like an oyster-cellar, and in these the different members of the family retired to rest among their bags of eider-down.
Having enjoyed the benefit of Philip’s hospitality, which was displayed chiefly in the form of seal-steaks, smoked salmon, and coffee, I strolled out with Jensen, who had told me that near by once dwelt the witch Annorasuak, who now lived at Tessuisak, and had become a Christian—that is to say, after the Greenland fashion. I accepted with alacrity his offer to guide me thither.