In describing life in this region of ice, and snow, and underground dwellings, I propose to do it by narrating the adventures of a mythical native, whom I will call Gamoot. He owned a brown stone front, about latitude seventy-five degrees north, longitude two hundred and fifty degrees east, where his nearest neighbor was a polar bear, and he looked out of his bay window upon a cheerful scene of icebergs, and all that sort of thing. His brown stone front was made of ice, built over a hole in the ground, and looked like one of the piles of hay that the farmers make in the field, before they drive round with the cart. The front door was a slab of ice, and, when you had rung the bell and sent up your card, you dropped on your hands and knees, and went in. The hall was twenty feet long, and about two feet high and wide; it made a couple of turns, and one of them was a sharp angle, like the corner of a dry goods box. You went inside the house, and had to twist yourself round the corner of the hall, like a big steamboat going up the Red River. You had to work your way along very much as an eel goes through a water-pipe. Gamoot did not ventilate his hall very well, and if you were a new comer, it was quite possible for you to imagine that you had mistaken the entrance, and gone into the sewer instead of the fashionable doorway.
It was inconvenient sometimes, when you were about mid-way of the hall, creeping along ever so nice, and just doubling the sharp corner,—it was inconvenient, I say, to meet one of Gamoot’s big dogs on his way out. Gamoot’s dogs were an independent lot of pups, with appetites like mill-hoppers, and teeth like cross-cut saws. When they made up their minds to go out, they generally went, and if anybody was in the way, it was healthier for him to go ashore than to stay there. Gamoot used to apologize for his dogs, and say that their conduct was owing to their breeding, as they were half wolf and the rest ugliness. I used to wish that they had been of a different breed.
But if you happened to get into Gamoot’s house without being interviewed by his dogs, you were sure to be interviewed by the whole family as soon as you reached the parlor. The grand salon was about twenty feet across, and was high enough to allow Gamoot to lie down, which he did very often. The only way you could stand erect was by sitting down on the floor, and standing in sections. By sitting down you could hold your head and body in a perpendicular position, or by lying on your back you could stick up your feet and legs. The latter position was considered ungraceful, and was not generally practised by visitors. The house was ventilated through the hall, which was always kept closed. The atmosphere was about as thick as an invalid’s gruel, and sometimes it became so tough and hard that visitors used to break off pieces of it to carry away as souvenirs. Gamoot had a pan which he used to fill with fish-oil, and then put a wick in it. This pan served as chandelier, furnace, and everything of the sort. Sometimes the children fell into it, but it did not burn them, though they soaked up a frightful lot of grease.
HYPERBOREAN ETIQUETTE.
Sometimes, when Gamoot had company that he wanted to get rid of, he used to take a bottle out of doors, and fill it with fresh air. He would then return, and hold it to the nose of each visitor. He would then point to the cheerful hall-way; the two movements were understood to mean that there was more of the same sort outside, and that the visitors had better be sniffing it. The gentle hint was generally understood, and the visitor, after looking to see that the dogs were all inside, and not likely to be met in the hall, politely bade Gamoot adieu, kissed Mrs. Gamoot, the children, and the dogs, and departed.
Gamoot was as hospitable as a Dutch uncle. He used to keep a barrel of fish-oil and a box of candles on draught in one corner of his study and smoking-room. Whenever you called, he would mix you a fish-oil punch; and O, such a punch! It is enough to make one’s mouth oil to think of it! Then he would hand you a candle, just as your Boston entertainer would hand you a cracker; and he not only handed you a candle, but he took one himself. It was a pleasure to see him, with a tin glass of oil punch in one hand and a candle in the other, and as fast as he took a sip at the candle, he took a bite at the punch; and it was not the polite thing to refuse either one or the other. Gamoot used to resent a refusal, and he had a pleasant way of taking you by the back of the neck, and squeezing you till your mouth opened. Then he would drive the candle down your throat with a mallet that he kept for the purpose, and he would pour the punch after it with a funnel. Knowing his playful eccentricities, it was always better to take your punch and candle without making a fuss.
It may be inferred that Gamoot was an uncivilized savage; but he was not. He had met white men who visited the polar regions in pursuit of whales. He had learned from these aristocrats something of the language and customs of civilization. He had no knowledge of sacred history; but, to judge from the style of his speech, he was well versed in profane history. He knew most of the parts of speech in the English language that are addressed to disobedient sailors by their captains and first and second mates; and on one occasion a shipwrecked mariner offered to educate Gamoot in English for his board and lodging. Gamoot accepted, and they went to work.
“I will teach the bloody Injin to box the compass,” said the mariner to himself.
“Come here, blame your eyes!” said the mariner to Gamoot; only he used another word, which I do not exactly recall, in place of “blame.”
NEW WAY OF BOXING THE COMPASS.