Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and Narrative of an Attempt to Reach the North Pole, Volume 1

by Sir William Edward Parry

Within a few stones, irregularly placed in a corner of each tent, was a lump of oil and moss, and over each of these was suspended a small stone vessel of an oblong shape, and broader at the top than at the bottom, containing a large mess of seahorse flesh, with a great quantity of thick gravy. Some ribs of this meat were by no means bad looking; and, but for the blood mixed with the gravy, and the dirt which accompanied the cooking, might perhaps be palatable enough. I bargained with a woman for one of the stone vessels, giving her a brass kettle in exchange. Before she gave it into my possession, she emptied the meat into another vessel, and then, with the flap of her jacket, wiped out the remains of the gravy; thus combining with what our notions of cleanliness incline us to consider a filthy act, an intention of decency and a desire to oblige us, which, however inconsistent, it was pleasing to observe. Some of their vessels are made of whalebone, in a circular form, one piece being bent into the proper shape for the sides, and another flat piece, of the same material, sewn to it for a bottom, so closely as to make it perfectly water tight. Their knives are made of the tusks of the walrus, cut or ground sufficiently thin for the purpose, and retaining the original curve of the tusk, so as to resemble the little swords which children have as toys in England. As they do not appear to have any instrument like a saw, great time and labour must be required in making one of these knives, which seem to answer most of the purposes to which they have occasion to apply them.

From the description given to us by Mr. Williamson, we found that these were the same persons who had been seen by the Lee's people; but we had several proofs of their having had some previous communication, directly or indirectly, with the civilized world; such as some light-blue beads, strung by themselves on thin leathern threads; and an instrument for chopping, very much resembling a cooper's adze, which had evidently been secured to a handle of bone for some time past, and of which the iron was part of an old file.

The short time we were among them, as well as the want of an interpreter, prevented our obtaining much of the information, which would have been interesting, respecting the language, manners, and number of this tribe of Esquimaux. They call the bear nennook, the deer tooktook, and the hare ookalik, being nearly the same words as those used on the eastern coast of Baffin's Bay. As it was considered a matter of some interest to ascertain whether they were acquainted with the musk-ox, a drawing of that animal was put before the men who were on board. The small size of it seemed, at first sight, to confound them; but, as soon as the real head and horns were produced, they immediately recognised them, and eagerly repeated the word oomingmack, which at once satisfied us that they knew the musk-ox, and that this was the animal spoken of by the Esquimaux of Greenland, under the same name, somewhat differently pronounced.

To judge by their appearance, and what is, perhaps, a better criterion, the number of their children, there could be little doubt that the means of subsistence which they possess are very abundant; but of this we had more direct proof by the quantity of seahorses and seals which we found concealed under stones along the shore of the north branch, as well as on Observation Island. Mr. Fife reported that, in sounding the north branch, he met with their winter huts above two miles above the tents on the same shore, and that they were partly excavated from a bank facing the sea, and the rest built round with stones.

We saw no appearance of disease among the seventeen persons who inhabited the tents, except that the eyes of the old couple were rather blear, and a very young infant looked pale and sickly. The old man had a large scar on one side of his head, which he explained to us very clearly to be a wound he had received from a nennook (bear). Upon the whole, these people may be considered in possession of every necessary of life, as well as of most of the comforts and conveniences which can be enjoyed in so rude a state of society. In the situation and circumstances in which the Esquimaux of North Greenland are placed, there is much to excite compassion for the low state to which human nature appears to be there reduced; a state in few respects superior to that of the bear or the seal which they kill for their subsistence. But, with these, it was impossible not to experience a feeling of a more pleasing kind: there was a respectful decency in their general behaviour, which at once struck us as very different from that of the other untutored Esquimaux, and in their persons there was less of that intolerable filth by which these people are so generally distinguished. But the superiority for which they are the most remarkable is, the perfect honesty which characterized all their dealings with us. During the two hours that the men were on board, and for four or five hours that we were subsequently among them on shore (on both which occasions the temptation to steal from us was perhaps stronger than we can well imagine, and the opportunity of doing so by no means wanting), not a single instance occurred, to my knowledge, of their pilfering the most trifling article. It is pleasing to record a fact no less singular in itself than honourable to these simple people.

Having made the necessary observations, we went to the tents to take leave of our new acquaintance. The old man seemed quite fatigued with the day's exertions; but his eyes sparkled with delight, and we thought with gratitude too, on being presented with another brass kettle to add to the stores with which we had already enriched him. He seemed to understand us when we shook him by the hand; the whole group watched us in silence as we went into the boat, and, as soon as we had rowed a few hundred yards from the beach, quietly returned to their tents.

The wind being contrary on the 8th, we made very little progress to the southward. The soundings continuing as regular as before, we stood in-shore to eleven fathoms, and put the trawl overboard for an hour or two in the afternoon, bringing up a great quantity of sea-eggs, a few very small oysters, and some marine insects, but nothing that could furnish us with a fresh meal.

The wind having fallen, we made little progress to the southeast till the morning of the 12th, when a light breeze springing up from the southwest, all sail was made to examine the state of the ice. On approaching the floes, however, we found such a quantity of bay-ice, the formation of which upon the surface had been favoured by the late calm weather, that the Hecla was soon stopped altogether; a circumstance which gave us, as usual, much trouble in extricating ourselves from it, but not very material as regarded our farther progress to the southward, the floes being found to stretch quite close in to the land, leaving no passage whatever between them. The compasses now traversed very freely, and were made use of for the purposes of navigation in the ordinary way.

The fog continued so thick on the 16th as to oblige us to keep the ships fast to the floe. In the afternoon the deep-sea clamms were sent down to the bottom with two thousand and ten fathoms of line, which were fifty-eight minutes in running out, during which time no perceptible check could be observed, nor even any alteration in the velocity with which the line ran out. In hauling it in again, however, which occupied both ships' companies above an hour and a half, we found such a quantity of the line covered with mud as to prove that the whole depth of water was only eight hundred and nine fathoms, the rest of the line having continued to run out by its own weight, after the instrument had struck the ground. I have before had occasion to remark that, on this account, it is not easy to ascertain the actual depth of the sea in the usual manner when it exceeds five or six hundred fathoms.

The ships were secured to a berg at six P.M. of the 18th, and the wind having freshened up to a gale from the N.W.b.N., with some swell, we were much annoyed during the night by the ice which drifted under the lee of it, and on which the ships were constantly striking with a heavy shock, such as no others could have long withstood. This danger is avoided by ships lying very close under the lee of a berg, but a much greater is thereby incurred from the risk of the berg's upsetting; a circumstance which is always to be apprehended in a swell, and which must be attended with certain destruction to a ship moored very near to it.