ARRIVAL OF ESQUIMAUX.
The Esquimaux had disappointed me by not coming up to Etah; and, February having almost passed away without bringing reinforcements from that quarter, I had quite given up the expectation of seeing them, when a party of three arrived most opportunely. This gave me new encouragement; for, although I could not hope to replace the fine teams which I had lost, yet there was still a prospect of some much-needed assistance.
The Esquimau party comprised three individuals, all of whom I had known before. Their names were Kalutunah, Tattarat, and Myouk. Kalutunah was, in 1854, the best hunter of the tribe, and was, besides, the Angekok, or priest. He was not slow to tell me that he had since advanced to the dignity of chief, or Nalegak, an office which, however, gave him no authority, as the Esquimaux are each a law unto himself, and they submit to no control. The title is about as vague as that of "Defender of the Faith;" and the parallel is not altogether bad, for if this latter did originate in a Latin treatise about the "Seven Sacraments," it was perpetuated by a sharp sword; and so the title chief, or Nalegak as they call it, is the compliment paid to the most skillful hunter, and his title is perpetuated by skill in the use of a sharp harpoon.
ESQUIMAU TEAMS.
The excellence of Kalutunah's hunting equipments—his strong lines and lances and harpoons, his fine sledge and hearty, sleek dogs—bore ample evidence of the sagacity of the tribe. Tattarat was a very different style of person. His name signifies "The Kittiwake Gull," and a more fitting title could hardly have been bestowed upon him, for he was the perfect type of that noisy, chattering, graceful bird, thriftless to the last degree; and, like many another kittiwake gull or Harold Skimpole of society, he was, in spite of thieving and other arts, always "out at elbows." Myouk was not unlike him, only that he was worse, if possible. He was, in truth, one of Satan's regularly enlisted light-infantry, and was as full of tricks as Asmodeus himself.
The party came up on two sledges. Kalutunah drove one and Tattarat the other. Kalutunah's team was his own. Of the other team, two dogs belonged to Tattarat, one was borrowed, and the fourth was the property of Myouk. It is curious to observe how the same traits of character exhibit themselves in all peoples, and by the same evidences. While Kalutunah came in with his dogs looking fresh and in fine condition, with strong traces and solid sledge, the team of Tattarat was a set of as lean and hungry-looking curs as ever was seen, their traces all knotted and tangled, and the sledge rickety and almost tumbling to pieces. They had traveled all the way from Iteplik without halting, except for a short rest at Sorfalik. They declared that they had not tasted food since leaving their homes; and if the appetite should govern the belief, I thought that there was no ground for doubting, since they made away with the best part of a quarter of venison, the swallowing of which was much aided by sundry chunks of walrus blubber, before they rolled over among the reindeer skins of Tcheitchenguak's hut and slept.
KALUTUNAH.
Next morning I had Kalutunah brought to my cabin, thinking to treat him with that distinguished consideration due to his exalted rank. But caution was necessary. For a stool I gave him a keg, and I was particularly careful that his person should not come in contact with any thing else, for under the ample furs of this renowned chief there were roaming great droves of creeping things, for which no learned lexicographer has yet invented a polite name, and so I cannot further describe them. Nor can I adequately describe the man himself, as he sat upon the keg, his body hidden in a huge fur coat, with its great hood, and his legs and feet inserted in long-haired bear-skin,—the whole costume differing little from the hitherto described dress of the dark-faced Tcheitchenguak. He was a study for a painter. No child could have exhibited more unbounded delight, had all the toys of Nuremberg been tumbled into one heap before him. To picture his face with any thing short of a skillful brush were an impossible task. It was not comely like that of "Villiers with the flaxen hair," nor yet handsome like that of the warrior chief Nireus, whom Homer celebrates as the handsomest man in the whole Greek army, (and never mentions afterwards,) nor was it like Ossian's chief, "the changes of whose face were as various as the shadows which fly over the field of grass;" but it was bathed in the sunshine of a broad grin. Altogether it was quite characteristic of his race, although expressing a much higher type of manhood than usual. The features differed only in degree from those of Tcheitchenguak, heretofore described; the skin was less dark, the face broader, the cheek-bones higher, the nose flatter and more curved, the upper lip longer, the mouth wider, the eyes even smaller, contracting when he laughed into scarcely distinguishable slits. Upon his long upper lip grew a little hedge-row of black bristles, which did not curl gracefully nor droop languidly, but which stuck straight out like the whiskers of a cat. A few of the same sort radiated from his chin. I judged him to be about forty years old, and since soap and towels and the external application of water have not yet been introduced among the native inhabitants of Whale Sound, these forty years had favored the accumulation of a coating to the skin, which, by the unequal operation of friction, had given his hands and face quite a spotted appearance.
A DIRTY POTENTATE.
But if he was not handsome, he was not really ugly; for, despite his coarse features and dirty face, there was a rugged sort of good-humor and frank simplicity about the fellow which pleased me greatly. His tongue was not inclined to rest. He must tell me every thing. His wife was still living, and had added two girls to the amount of his responsibilities; but his face glowed with delight when I asked him about their first-born, whom I remembered in 1854 as a bright boy of some five or six summers, and he exhibited all of a father's just pride in the prospect of the lad's future greatness. Already he could catch birds, and was learning to drive dogs.