The Esquimau seal-spear is a curious weapon, and exhibits in a high degree the extraordinary ingenuity of the race. The handle is sometimes made of the horn of the narwal, but more frequently of wood. It has a movable head or barb, to which a long line of walrus hide or sealskin is attached. This barb is made of ivory tipped with iron, and is attached to the handle in such a way that it becomes detached from it the instant the animal is struck, and remains firmly imbedded in the wound with the line fastened to it, while the handle floats away on the water or falls on the ice, as the case may be.
When the Esquimau had approached to within a hundred yards, he lay down at full length and slowly worked himself forward. Meanwhile the seals raised their heads, but seeing, as they imagined, a companion coming towards them, they did not make for their holes, which were a few yards distant from them. Having drawn near enough to render the animals suspicious, the young giant now sprang up, rushed forward, and got between one seal and its hole just as its more active companion dived into the water. In another moment the deadly lance transfixed its side and killed it. This was a fortunate supply to the Esquimau, whose powers of endurance were fast failing. He immediately sat down on his victim, and cutting a large steak from its side, speedily made a meal that far exceeded the powers of any alderman whatsoever! It required but a short time to accomplish, however, and a shorter time to transfer several choice (junks) chunks to his wallet; with which replenished store he resumed his journey.
Although the man’s vigour was restored for a time, so that he travelled with great speed, it did not last long, owing to the wound in his head, which produced frequent attacks of giddiness, and at last compelled him, much against his will, to halt for a couple of hours’ repose. Glancing round, in order to select a suitable camping ground, he soon observed such a spot in the form of a broad, overhanging ledge of rock, beneath which there was a patch of scrubby underwood. Here he lay down with the seal blubber for a pillow, and was quickly buried in deep, untroubled slumber. In little more than two hours he awoke with a start, and, after a second application to the contents of the wallet, resumed his solitary march. The short rest seemed to have quite restored his wonted vigour, for he now stalked up the banks of the river at a rate which seemed only to accelerate as he advanced. As has been already said, these banks were both rugged and precipitous. In some places the rocks jutted out into the water, forming promontories over which it was difficult to climb; and frequently these capes terminated in abrupt precipices, necessitating a détour in order to advance. In other places the coast was indented with sandy bays, which more than doubled the distance the traveller would have had to accomplish had he possessed a kayak. Unfortunately in his hasty departure he neglected to take one with him; but he did his best to atone for this oversight by making almost superhuman exertions. He strode over the sands like an ostrich of the desert, and clambered up the cliffs and over the rocks—looking, in his hairy garments, like a shaggy polar bear. The thought of his young and pretty bride a captive in the hands of his bitterest foes, and doomed to a life of slavery, almost maddened him, and caused his dark eye to flash and his broad bosom to heave with pent-up emotion, while it spurred him on to put forth exertions that were far beyond the powers of any member of his tribe, and could not, under less exciting circumstances, have been performed even by himself. As to what were his intentions should he overtake the Indians, he knew not. The agitation of his spirits, combined with the influence of his wound, induced him to act from impulse; and the wild tumult of his feelings prevented him from calculating the consequences or perceiving the hopelessness of an attack made by one man, armed only with knife and spear, against a body of Indians who possessed the deadly gun.
Alas! for the sorrows of the poor human race. In all lands they are much the same, whether civilised or savage—virtue and vice alternately triumphing. Bravery, candour, heroism, in fierce contest with treachery, cowardice, and malevolence, form the salient points of the record among all nations, and in all ages. No puissant knight of old ever buckled on his panoply of mail, seized his sword and lance, mounted his charger, and sallied forth singlehanded to deliver his mistress from enchanted castle, in the face of appalling perils, with hotter haste or a more thorough contempt of danger than did our Esquimau giant pursue the Indians who had captured his bride; but, like many a daring spirit of romance, the giant failed, and that through no fault of his.
On arriving at the rocky platform beside the spring where we first introduced him to the reader, the Esquimau sat down, and, casting his spear on the ground, gazed around him with a look of despair. It was not a slight matter that caused this feeling to arise. Notwithstanding his utmost exertions, he had been unable to overtake the Indians up to this point, and beyond this point it was useless to follow them. The mountains here were divided into several distinct gorges, each of which led into the interior of the country; and it was impossible to ascertain which of these had been taken by the Indians, as the bare, rocky land retained no mark of their light, moccasined feet. Had the pursuer been an Indian, the well-known sagacity of the race in following a trail, however slight, might have enabled him to trace the route of the party; but the Esquimaux are unpractised in this stealthy, dog-like quality. Their habits and the requirements of their condition render it almost unnecessary; so that, in difficult circumstances, their sagacity in this respect is not equal to the emergency. Add to this the partial confusion created in the young giant’s brain by his wound, and it will not appear strange that despair at length seized him, when, after a severe journey, he arrived at a spot where, as it were, half a dozen cross-roads met, and he had not the most distant idea which he had to follow. It is true the valley of the river seemed the most probable route; but after pursuing this for a whole day without coming upon a vestige of the party, he gave up the pursuit, and, returning to the spring beside the rock, passed the night there with a heavy heart. When the sun rose on the following morning he quitted his lair, and, taking a long draught at the bubbling spring, prepared to depart. Before setting out, he cast a melancholy glance around the amphitheatre of gloomy hills; shook his spear, in the bitterness of his heart, towards the dark recesses which had swallowed up the light of his eyes, perchance for ever; then, turning slowly towards the north, with drooping head, and with the listless tread of a heart-broken man, he retraced his steps to the sea-coast, and, rejoining his comrades, was soon far away from the banks of the Caniapuscaw River.
Chapter Fifteen.
End of the voyage—Plans and prospects—Exploring parties sent out.
Three weeks alter the departure of the Esquimaux from the neighbourhood of Ungava Bay, the echoes of these solitudes were awakened by the merry song of the Canadian voyageurs, as the two canoes of Stanley and his comrades swept down the stream and approached the spring at the foot of the flat rock.