This action of the Chief Trader was the more appreciated that it was disinterested, and was uncalled for either by any official demands which were laid upon him, or by any special show of dignity or importance with which the insignificant schooner lying in the harbor could back up my claims. The State Department at Washington had, at my solicitation, requested from the Danish Government such recognition for me as had been hitherto accorded to the American and English naval expeditions; but the courteous response which came in the form of a command to the Greenland officials to furnish me with every thing in their power did not reach the settlements until the following year. The commands of his Majesty the King could not, however, have stood me in better stead than the gentlemanly instincts of Mr. Hansen.
There is little in the history of Pröven, either past or present, that will interest the readers of this narrative. What there is of it stands on the southern slope of a gneissoid spur which forms the terminus of one of the numerous islands of the vast archipelago lying between the peninsula of Svarte Huk and Melville Bay. A government-house, one story high and plastered over with pitch and tar, is the most conspicuous building in the place. A shop and a lodging-house for a few Danish employees stands next in importance. Two or three less imposing structures of the pitch and tar description, inhabited by Danes who have married native women; a few huts of stone and turf, roofed with boards and overgrown with grass; about an equal number of like description, but without the board roof, and a dozen seal-skin tents, all pitched about promiscuously among the rocks, make up the town. There is a blubber-house down by the beach, and a stunted flag-staff on the hill, from which the Danish Flag gracefully waving in the wind, gave the place a show of dignity. The dignity of civilization was further preserved by an old cannon which lay on the grass under the flag, and whose rusty throat made the welkin ring as our anchor touched the Greenland rocks.
THE SETTLEMENT.
The settlement, or Colonien, as the Danes distinguish it, dates back almost to the days of good old Hans Egede, and its name, as nearly as can be interpreted, signifies "Experiment;" and, after the Greenland fashion, a successful experiment it has been. Its people live, chiefly, by hunting the seal; and, of all the northern colonies, few have been as prosperous. The collections of oil and skins during some years are sufficient to freight a brig of three hundred tons.
The place bears ample evidence of the nature of its business. Carcasses of seals and seal's offal lay strewn along the beach, and over the rocks, and among the huts, in every stage of decomposition; and this, added to every other conceivable accumulation that could exhibit a barbarous contempt for the human nose, made the first few hours of our stay there any thing but comfortable.
ARCTIC FLORA.
A better prospect, however, greeted us behind the town. A beautiful valley lay there, nestling between the cliffs, and rich in Arctic vegetation. It was covered with a thick turf of moss and grasses, among which the Poa Arctica, Glyceria Arctica, and Alopecurus Alpinus were most abundant. In places it was, indeed, a perfect marsh. Little streams of melted snow meandered through it, gurgling among the stones, or dashing wildly over the rocks. Myriads of little golden petaled poppies (Papaver nudicaule) fluttered over the green. The dandelion (Leontodon palustre), close kindred of the wild flower so well known at home, kept it company; the buttercup (Ranunculus nivalis), with its smiling, well-remembered face, was sometimes seen; and the less familiar Potentilla and the purple Pedicularis were dotted about here and there. The saxifrages, purple, white, and yellow, were also very numerous. I captured not less than seven varieties. The birch and crowberry, and the beautiful Andromeda, the heather of Greenland, grew matted together in a sheltered nook among the rocks; and, in strange mimicry of Southern richness, the willows feebly struggled for existence on the spongy turf. With my cap I covered a whole forest of them.
VALUE OF DOGS
I had been in Pröven in 1853, and the place had not changed in the interval. The old ex-trader Christiansen was there, a little older, but not less frugal than before. He complained bitterly of Dr. Kane not having kept his promises to him, and I endeavored to mollify his wrath by assuring him that Dr. Kane had lost his vessel and could not return; but his life had been made unhappy during seven long years by visions of a barrel of American flour, and he would not be comforted. He was scarcely able to crawl about; but, when I sent ashore to him the coveted treasure, he found strength to break the head out of the cask, to feast his eyes on the long-expected gratuity. His sons, each with a brood of Esquimaux visaged, though flaxen-haired children, crowded around the present. My diary records that they were the best hunters in the settlement, and that they had the best teams of dogs; and it also mentions, with a little chagrin, that they would not sell one of them. I attributed this obstinacy, at the time, to their cross old paternal relative; but there were better reasons than this. They knew by bitter experience the risks of going into the long winter without an ample supply of dogs to carry them over the ice upon the seal hunt, and to part with their animals was to risk starvation. I offered to give them pork and beef and canned meats, and flour and beans; but they preferred the seal and the excitement of the hunt, and refused to trade.
At last the couriers had all come in, bringing unwelcome news. A half-dozen old dogs and a less number of good ones were all that I had to console myself for the delay; but the Chief Trader had returned to Upernavik, from which place I had received more encouraging accounts than from the lower stations.