Our spirits rose; although prisoners over whom no doubt some national parley or pow-wow would be seriously held, and although distrustful of the obsequious gestures (most decidedly so in my case) with which the “little doctors” had invited us to return with the guard to the somewhere we must be now approaching, still the winning charm of the land, the agreeable manners of the little people, and the stolid unconcern of the larger race half convinced me that our fate wouldn’t be a tragic one. Our most ominous thoughts were connected with those dreadful metal tubes!
I took occasion to study the people. The larger serving or inferior class were Mongolian in type; they resembled a taller, more slender and less intelligent Eskimo norm, but the little people presented a surprising range of individual variation. The tallest of these latter were almost four feet in height, the smallest scarcely exceeded three. Literally they were a boreal pygmy race. The dominating peculiarity among them was a tendency to macrocephalism which in the “little doctors” became exaggerated, and made them overbalanced and grotesque. In many the heads did not too obviously exceed a normal size, and the lower limbs were almost normally developed, giving them shapeliness. The women were very strikingly less afflicted with “big-headedness,” and in them too the nose, attaining among the men a preponderant magnitude was much more moderate in size. Many of the young women were very pretty, a few almost beautiful, and the becoming attire of the tunic, the loose trousers bound, in many instances, with gold anklets, the abundant black hair coiled up in coronal chignons, and sinuously decorated with the gold serpent-shaped pins, administered a piquant loveliness. Generally the men were not so attractive; an unpleasant lankiness of limb, and (because of a deficient dental development) sunken cheeks, with narrow chests, and their unusual heads, on which too in a great number of cases an extreme scantiness of hair was observable, robbed them of physical rhythm and proportion. But again among them were also striking exceptions, and these gained immensely in comeliness from the average homeliness of their associates. The older men universally affected beards, which some compensatory whim in nature made abundant. All were dark.
My greatest achievement in observation on this long march was the certain identification of the language with a Semitic tongue, and the detection among the taller people of an Eskimo dialect. This last discovery was made by the help of Goritz, whose knowledge of the eastern Eskimo dialects was extensive, although he at first questioned my conclusions. The reasons are philological and I pass over them. I hope to discuss the matter before the congress of Americanists, to be held in Philadelphia next year. It is enough for the following chapters of my narrative to say that I became proficient (reasonably so) through my intimate acquaintance with Hebrew, with the speech of the “little doctors,” and Goritz acquired a less facile mastery of the Eskimo tongue. The recognition of corruption in sound of a few consonants and a peculiar ellipsis of some vowels, in the first case, accomplished the feat for myself. When I told Hopkins of my success he was overjoyed.
“Alfred, that is dandy. If we can tell what they’re talking about, and get a line on their plans we’ll skin through all right. When the proper moment comes let ’em know you’re wise to their gibberish, and they’ll take water quick enough. Why, we might start a revolution, if they try to put it over us. The big fellows could sweep them like chaff—and then our GUNS.”
“Yes,” I curtly interjected. “And their tubes?” Spruce was silent.
We had now been five days on our march and our progress had been alternately hastened and retarded by the curiosity of the people. Hastened when messages from nearby villages along the road came to our captain urging speed, that the citizens of these country communities might inspect us a little longer; retarded by reason of this same importunity to allow the gathering countryside the gratification of the show. For literally we had become that, and had there been an enterprising manager to exploit our novelty his receipts would have been enviable. The crowds increased, the rumor of our approach spread on every side, and to meet their unappeasable wonder over our appearance we were stuck up on platforms in the squares or open places in the villages and watched, studied and applauded by the insatiable throngs. It was indeed a stupefying experience. Certainly it was abundantly ludicrous and amusing as well. Hopkins of course enjoyed it. Goritz was patient and obscurely piqued by it, the Professor regarded it as ethnologically delightful, and I took advantage of the display to note the people and their speech.
“I have served a good many purposes in my life,” said Hopkins, “but I never supposed I’d make a drawing card in a traveling circus. Our united effect is really gorgeous. I should think they might improve the show by some fresh clothes. But say—the Professor is immense. And he TAKES. The way they shout and rubberneck to get nearer to him will start something doing. If the Professor only had a little political ambition and an ounce of sense he’d organize a campaign that would land him in the presidential chair. And then! Well then we’d all be prime ministers, and hand out the dope to these babies in a manner so impressive that we’d hold the job down tight, until we could get away with the loot. We’d make Goritz treasurer and he’d come the Tammany act on ’em so strong that maybe we could leave with all the goods worth having in the country, in our jeans. Eh?
“Look at ’em, now, surveying the Professor. I feel an artistic jealousy of that red hair of his. It certainly has ’em guessing. Perhaps they think it’s a kind of halo, always on fire. He certainly must keep it on his head. It’s our salvation. Let the local barbers touch that, and find out it’s just plain scissorable wool, and we’re in the soup—and the Professor? Well, they won’t do a thing to him.”
This fifth day turned out to be the last one of our march. A memorable day it was. Larger and larger grew the crowds; they met us, streaming along evidently from some near point of population, and, as now the captain of our guard would allow no delay or halt, we assumed that our destination was almost at hand. Attaining it formed a new thrill.
We had come to a marked irregularity in the topographic monotony of the valley, a high, evenly sloped ridge curving away on either side, which might be the arc of a continuous or completed circle, or just a natural accident. The broad road ascended this hill. We had just stepped out on the summit, when one of the intermittent light flashes or sunbursts blazed on the strange scene before our eyes. We were looking into a dish-like area, for such it seemed, as we could trace north and south the circumvallation of the ridge, and it was filled with settlements which became denser in the distance, and in that distance (later we discovered it was about the center of the circular enclosure) rose the dazzling pediments, stories and wings, of a GOLD HOUSE.