The wonders of the world

by John Loraine Abbott

HUTS IN KAMTSCHATKA.

HUTS IN KAMTSCHATKA.

Side by side with the finished structures of animal instinct exhibited in the engraving of the ant hills above, we next give a picture of the rude huts of the uncivilized inhabitants of Kamtschatka, in their cold northern home, at the north-eastern extremity of Asia, which is one of the coldest spots on the face of the earth. It is impossible, in so severe a climate, to raise wheat, corn, or the common productions of warmer regions. The people, however, have a compensation for the scantiness of vegetable productions in the profusion of animal life which seems to fill alike the earth, the air and the water. The coasts swarm with seals and other marine animals; the rocks are covered with shell-fish; the bays abound in herrings, and the rivers with salmon and other most valuable fish. Flocks of grouse, wild geese and ducks, often darken the air. The country abounds in bears, which are fat, and greatly esteemed by the inhabitants as food. From all these sources, the people are supplied with the greatest abundance; and, as a consequence, they have sunk into a lazy and almost stupid sensuality. They are a short and copper-colored race, somewhat like the Esquimaux. Like them, they have dogs, which they use in sledges, as seen in the engraving. Their winter houses are half sunk in the earth, while those for summer are elevated on poles above it.

TAKING A WHALE.

THE WHALE.

This vast monster of the deep is one of the wonders of the world, or at least of its mighty oceans. It is found chiefly in the more northern seas, where its food, consisting of small molluscous and crustaceous animals, but chiefly of the clio borealis, is found. Whales are often found from fifty to sixty, and some of them from ninety to one hundred feet in length, and from thirty to forty feet, and even more, in circumference. The true whale is remarkable for the immense size of its head, which constitutes a full third of the entire length of the animal. The eyes are very small, and placed just above the angles of the mouth. The external opening of the ears is scarcely perceptible. The pectoral fins are of moderate size, and located about two feet behind the angles of the mouth. The tail, or, more properly, the tail fin, consists of two parts, or lobes, of immense strength, measuring, in a full-grown whale, some twenty feet across, from tip to tip. It is wielded by muscles of enormous power, and thus becomes a weapon of offense and defense for the whale, as well as its chief means of locomotion. A single blow of the tail is sufficient to cut the stoutest whaleboat in two, and to send its fragments whirling through the air. The engraving gives a view of a right whale about to be harpooned; while in the distance is another, lashed to the ship for “cutting in,” and still another, which the sailors, having killed, are towing in toward it. The whale fishery was carried on by the Biscayans as early as the twelfth century; afterward it was taken up by the Dutch and the English, and it now engages nearly a tenth of the tunnage of the United States.

LANDING OF THE PILGRIMS.

One of the most wonderful events in the history of the world, was the voluntary exile of the forefathers of New England from their native country, and their landing (December twenty-first, 1620) at Plymouth—here, in the new world, to organize a community where they might enjoy personal freedom, and liberty of conscience, and to worship God as seemed right to themselves. The engraving on the following page gives a view of them as they landed, in a howling wilderness, inhabited only by savages and wild beasts, in the depth of winter, with no place of abode, or even shelter, and no trust but in their own resources and the kind providence of God which had thus far watched over and protected them. The history of their trials, their preservation, their growth and prosperity as a people, and of the wonderful country that has sprung up, and is still growing, with a giant growth, in the broad land which they found a wilderness, is one that fills us with wonder as we ponder it, and that should fill us with deep thankfulness to the great source of all mercies, both to them and ourselves.