On the 6th and 7th of August, the two ships were again in great danger from the ice. Whilst they were in the midst of the icebergs, they were driven, by a gale of wind, so forcibly against each other, that their sterns came violently in contact, and crushed to pieces a boat that could not be removed in time; and, had not the vessels themselves been excessively strong, they must have been totally destroyed. Attempts were made to liberate them by sawing through the ice: not long after the commencement of the operation, two immense masses of ice came violently in contact, and one of them, fifty feet in height, suddenly broke. Its elevated part fell back with a terrible crash; and overwhelmed, with its ruins, the very spot which the officers had marked out as a place of safety for the ships. Soon afterwards the ice opened, and they were once more out of danger.
The gale having abated, and the weather, which of late had been snowy, having cleared up, land was seen in latitude 75 degrees 54 minutes; and on the 9th of August, the voyagers beheld, at a distance, upon the ice, some people who seemed to be hallooing to the ships. At first they were supposed to be shipwrecked sailors, whose vessel had perished in the late gale; the ships, therefore, were steered nearer to the ice, and the colours were hoisted. It was, however, now discovered, that they were natives of the country, drawn by dogs on sledges, and with wonderful velocity.
When they had approached near enough to the ships, for Sacheuse to be heard, he hailed them in his own language, and they answered him; but neither party seemed to be intelligible. For some time the strangers remained silent; but, on the ships' tacking, they set up a shout, and wheeled off, with amazing swiftness, towards the land.
On the ensuing day eight sledges were seen to approach the ships. Sacheuse volunteered his services to go on the ice, with presents: this was done in the hope of bringing the people to a parley. They halted at some distance from the ships, and by the edge of a canal or chasm in the ice, which prevented any fear or danger of attack from either party. Sacheuse soon discovered that these Indians spoke a dialect of his own language; and he invited them to approach nearer, but they replied, "No, no, go you away;" and one of them, drawing a knife out of his boot, exclaimed: "Go away; I can kill you." Sacheuse told them that he wished to be their friend; and, as a proof of it, he threw them, across the canal, some strings of beads, and a checked shirt. These were beheld with great distrust, and Sacheuse threw them a knife. They approached with caution, took up the knife, and then shouted and pulled their noses. These actions were imitated by Sacheuse, who, in return, called out, "Heigh-yaw!" pulling his nose, with the same gesture. They then pointed to the shirt, and asked him of what skin it was made; but some time elapsed before they would venture to touch it. After this they pointed to the ships, and eagerly enquired, "What are those great creatures? Do they come from the sun or the moon? Do they give us light by night or by day?" Sacheuse said that they were houses made of wood; but this, they replied, could not be the case, for the creatures were alive: they had been seen to flap their wings. Sacheuse again assured them of the truth of all he had told them, and that he was a man like themselves; then pointing towards the south, he said he came, in those houses, from a distant country in that direction. To this they replied, "No, that cannot be: there is nothing but ice there."
On Sacheuse asking these Indians who they were, they replied that they were men, and that they lived in a country towards which they pointed (in the north:) that they had there plenty of water; and that they had come to the present spot, to catch seals and sea-unicorns.
Sacheuse, wishing to become better acquainted with them, returned to the ship, for a plank, to enable him to cross over the chasm. He crossed it; but, on approaching them, they entreated that he would not touch them, as, in that case, they should certainly die. One of them, however, more courageous than the rest, ventured to touch his hand; then, pulling his own nose, he set up a loud shout, in which he was joined by Sacheuse and the other three.
The whole of the natives, eight in number, now came forward, and were met by the commanders of the vessels, and the other officers; but they were, evidently, in a state of great alarm, until the ceremony of pulling noses had been gone through by both parties, shouting, at the same time, heigh-yaw! With this people the pulling of noses is a mode of friendly salutation; and their interjection of "heigh-yaw!" is an expression of surprise and pleasure.
The officers gave to the foremost of the natives a looking-glass and a knife; and presented similar articles to the others, as they came up in succession. On seeing their faces in the glasses, their astonishment appeared extreme. They looked round in silence, for a moment, at each other, and at their visitors, and immediately afterwards set up a general shout: this was succeeded by a loud laugh, expressive of delight and surprise. Having, at length, acquired some degree of confidence, they advanced, and, in return for knives, glasses, and beads, gave their own knives, sea-unicorn's horns, and sea-horse teeth.
On approaching the ship, they halted, and were evidently much terrified; and one of the party, after surveying the Isabella, and examining every part of her with his eyes, thus addressed her, in a loud tone: "Who are you? Where do you come from? Is it from the sun or the moon?" pausing between every question, and pulling his nose with the greatest solemnity. This ceremony was repeated, in succession, by all the rest.
Sacheuse again assured them that the ships were only wooden houses; and he showed them the boat, which had been hauled on the ice, for the purpose of being repaired, explaining to them, that it was a smaller vessel of the same kind. This immediately arrested their attention: they advanced to the boat, and examined her, and the carpenter's tools and the oars, very minutely; each object, in its turn, exciting the most ludicrous ejaculations of surprise. The boat was then ordered to be launched into the sea, with a man in it, and hauled up again; at the sight of this operation there seemed no bounds to their clamour. The cable and the ice-anchor, the latter a heavy piece of iron, shaped like the letter S, excited much interest. They tried in vain to remove it; and they eagerly enquired of what skins the cable was made.