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Full text of "The polar and tropical worlds : a description of man and nature in the polar and equatorial regions of the globe. Two volumes in one. Embracing also an account of the expeditions of all the Arctic explorers from the discovery of Iceland ... to Hall's last expedition ... together with the wonderful discoveries, and adventures of Agassiz, Livingstone, Wallace, and other distinguished travelers in the tropical countries"

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THE POLAR & TROPICAL 


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PoLAR AND TROPICAL 
WORLDS: 


A DESCRIPTION OF MAN AND NATURE 


Polarand Equatorial Regions of the Globe. 


TWO VOLUMES IN ONE. 


BMBRACING ALSO AN ACCOUNT OF THE EXPEDITIONS OF ALL THE ARCTIC EXPLORERS FROM THE 
DISCOVERY OF ICELAND, OVER ONE THOUSAND YEARS AGO, TO HALL’S LAST EXPEDITION 
IN THE NORTHERN WORLD, TOGETHER WITH THE WONDERFUL DISCOVERIES 
AND ADVENTURES OF AGASSIZ, LIVINGS' ‘ONE, WALLACE, AND OTHER 
DISTINGUISHED TRAVELERS IN” THE TROPICAL COUNTRIES. 


Author of “The Sea ota its ving Wonders,” phe « < The Harmonies of Nature,” 


EDITED, WITH ADDITIONAL CHAPTERS, BY 


DR. A. H. GUERNSEY. 


THE WHOLE SPLENDIDLY EMBELLISHED WITH NEARLY 


TWO HUNDRED BEAUTIFUL ILLUSTRATIONS, 


TRUE TO NATURE, FROM DESIGNS FURNISHED BY ARTISTS IN THE REGIONS 
TO WHICH THEY RELATE. 


aN gap WW der a) 2 EO IN. 


’ 
WITH AN ACCOUNT OF HALL’S LAST EXPEDITION, A SUMMARY OF ARCTIC EXPLORATIONS 
AND NEW MAPS OF THE ARCTIC REGIONS. 


SOLD ONLY BY SUBSCRIPTION. 


PUBLISHED BY 
C. A. NICHOLS & CO., SPRINGFIELD, MASS.; 
HUGH HERON, CHICAGO, ILL. ; 
KING, BOLTON, AND BUCKMASTER, 
INDIANAPOLIS, IND. 
1875. 


Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by 
C. A. NICHOLS & CO., 
Ir the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 


CLARK W. BRYAN & CO., 
ELECTROTYPERS, PRINTERS AND BINDERS, 
SPRINGFIELD, MASS. 


PREFACH. 


ONE of the most noticeable of common experiences is the acknowledged - 
absence of intelligent and well-defined knowledge of the world in which we 
live. Nor is this an indication of illiteracy by any means, for in this ab- 
sorbing and engrossing age only those who live lives of scholastic study or 
abundant leisure can keep abreast of the teeming press. The very abund- 
ance of the books relating to the history of the world and its inhabitants 
discourages rather than invites investigation; for, while each writer dis- 
cusses his chosen specialty, and confines his researches to some particular 
department of travel or exploration, he who would get at the general results 
and gain from them a comprehensive view of the whole field, is appalled at 
the outset by the abundance rather than the paucity of books which claim 
his attention. The things which attract and interest one explorer are passed 
over completely by another; and so it happens that while one writer devotes 
himself to the natural history of the country, or countries, which he visits, 
another will deal with the descriptive geography and material resources, 
another with the manners and customs of the people, another with the 
physical geography and climatic conditions and limitations, and still another 
with the commercial possibilities and international relations. But the business 
or professional man, the merchant, mechanic, or farmer, has no time to follow 
each traveler or writer as he roams at will among his chosen fields of ex- 
ploration, or describes at length the results of his labors. The practical 
results he would gladly become acquainted with, but he can not search for 
them amid a mass of comparatively unimportant details, whose mastery would 
require a life-time of scholastic leisure. This work of sifting out practical 
facts and important general laws, and arranging them in the order and sequence 
in which they naturally belong, if done at all, must be done for him, and that 
is precisely what the, present work aims to do. The two forces in nature which 
more than any others, more, even, than all others, affect and determine the 
conditions of living and the range of productions, are heat and cold—the Polar 
and Tropical Worlds. A knowledge of the working of these forces furnishes. 


the key to those climatic changes which are ever going on, and shows how 


Vi PREFACE. 


we are affected in our modes of living, in our spheres of action, and even in 
our habits of thought, by the variations and extremes of temperature. The 
practical value of the climatic explorations which have been made can hardly 
be overestimated, and nothing has added so much to the world’s knowledge 
of itself as what has been accomplished in this department of investigation. 
The long roll of those whose lives have been devoted to science and scientific 
work contains no names more entitled to honorable and grateful mention than 
those who have unlocked the mysteries of the Polar and Tropical Worlds, 
and have thus brought within the reach of every one facts which have a prac- 
tical bearing upon everyday life as well as upon scientific studies. The group- 
ing together of these investigations, from the discovery of Iceland a thousand 
years ago to the present time, presents an array of facts and observations of 
thrilling interest as well as vital value, and the pages of this work will be 
found to be replete with attraction no less than instruction. Baffin, Parry, 
Ross, Franklin, Kane, Hayes and Hall 


than were theirs in exploring the Polar World, and science has had no more 


fiction records no stronger experiences 


faithful devotees than they. With almost the minuteness of preconcerted 
design, each of these men has supplemented the work of those who have pre- 
ceded him, until in the summary of their successive voyages, given here, we 
have the whole story of life and its conditions in the regions of the lower tem- 
peratures. ‘Turning from the Polar to the Tropical World, we find men who 
have braved equatorial suns as well as Arctic snows to examine and define the 
relations between excessive heat and vegetable, animal and social life. Agassiz 
and Squier in South America, and Wallace, Burton, Speke and Livingstone 
upon the eastern continent, have each and all made invaluable contributions to 
our knowledge of tropical regions; and whatever may be accomplished by 
future explorers, it is hardly possible that the secret mysteries of the Polar and 
Tropical Worlds will ever be more thoroughly revealed to us than by Captain 
Hall and Dr. Livingstone, whose recent sad and tragic fates, as martyrs to 
their chosen life-work, will never cease to be recalled with tender interest. No 
men in this generation have done more for science and for the world than they, 
and there are really no loftier places in the Temple of Fame than are occupied 
by the names and deeds of the guild of climatic explorers, whose experiences 
and discoveries are outlined and summarized in this work. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER I. 
THE ARCTIC LANDS. 


The barren Grounds or Tundri.—Abundance of animal Life on the Tundri in Summer.—Their Silence 
and Desolation in Winter.—Protection afforded to Vegetation by the Snow.—Flower-growth in 
the highest Latitudes.—Character of Tundra Vegetation.—Southern Boundary-line of the barren 
Grounds.—Their Extent.—The forest Zone.—Arctic Trees.—Slowness of their Growth.—Monotony 
of the Northern Forests. —Mosquitoes.—The various Causes which determine the Severity of an 
Arctic Climate.—Insular and Continental Position. —Currents.—Winds.—Extremes of Cold observed 
by Sir E. Belcher and Dr. Kane.—How is Man able to support the Rigors of an Arctic Winter ?— 
Proofs of a milder Climate having once reigned in the Arctic Regions.—Its Cause according to 
Dr. Oswald Heer.—Peculiar Beauties of the Arctic Regions.—Sunset.—Long lunar Nights.—The 
re NM Pe A ait sla il o/dhacy ciurolote © id,e o olale «'o  @ eicleisiehe o Siole dlele sincieulnwcnae §:RaAge.AT 


CHAPTER II. 
ARCTIC LAND QUADRUPEDS AND BIRDS. 


The Reindeer.—Structure of its Foot.—Clattering Noise when walking.—Antlers.—Extraordinary 
olfactory Powers.—The Icelandic Moss.—Present and Former Range of the Reindeer.—Its invalu- 
able Qualities as an Arctic domestic Animal.—Revolts against Oppression.—Enemies of the Rein- 
deer.—The Wolf.—The Glutton or Wolverine.—Gad-flies.—The Elk or Moose-deer.—The Musk- 
ox.—The Wild Sheep of the Rocky Mountains.—The Siberian Argali.—The Arctic Fox.—Its Bur- 
rows.—The Lemmings.—Their Migrations and Enemies.—Arctic Anatide.—The Snow-bunting.— 
The Lapland Bunting.—The Sea-eagle.—Drowned by a Dolphin........cccccccccscsssesseces 34 


CHAPTER III. 

THE ARCTIC SEAS. 

Dangers peculiar to the Arctic Sea.—Ice-fields. -Hummocks.—Collision of Ice-fields.—Icebergs.—Their 
Origin.—Their Size.—The Glaciers which give them Birth.—Their Beauty.—Sometimes useful 
Auxiliaries to the Mariner.—Dangers of anchoring to a Berg.—A crumbling Berg.—The Ice-blink. 
—Fogs.—Transparency of the Atmosphere.—Phenomena of Reflection and Refraction.—Causes 
which prevent the Accumulation of Polar Ice.—Tides.—Currents.—Ice a bad Conductor of Heat.— 
Wise Provisions of Nature............... iaslefeisicielsivicloicie’ saie/icle\s 0's s'seeclsiavicsisidenicdessiseeces, 40 


CHAPTER IV. 
ARCTIC MARINE ANIMALS. 

Populousness of the Arctic Seas. —The Greenland Whale. —The Fin Whales. — The Narwhal. — 
The Beluga, or White Dolphin.—The Black Dolphin.—His wholesale Massacre on the Faeroe Isl- 
ands.—The Orc, or Grampus.—The Seals.—The Walrus.—Its acute Smell.—History of a young 
Walrus.—Parental Affection.—The Polar Bear.—His Sagacity.—Hibernation of the She-bear.— 


ee WLNA SI tetas eice unite Leiele eee eiviecdeine eeeeveveerece eeeeoeeoeeGereceeeaeeeeeeeeeee7Ge27 028088 882803098 59 


CHAPTER V. 
ICELAND. 


Voleanic Origin of the Island.—The Klofa Jékul.—Lava-streams.—The Burning Mountains of Krisu- 
vik.—The Mud-caldrons of Reykjahlid.—The Tungo-hver at Reykholt.—The Great Geysir.—The 


Vili CONTENTS. 


Strokkr.—Crystal Pools.—The Almannagja.—The Surts-hellir.—Beautiful Ice-cave.—The Gotha 
Foss.—The Detti Foss.—Climate.—Vegetation.—Cattle.—Barbarous Mode of Sheep-sheering.— 
Reindeer.—Polar Bears.—Birds.—The LEider-duck.—Videy.—Vigr.—The Wild Swan.—The Ra- 
ven.—The Jerfalcon.—The Giant auk, or Geirfugl.—Fish.—Fishing Season.—The White Shark. — 
Mineral Kingdom.—Sulphur.—Peat.—Drift-wood...........scceeececece BRE oS see. Page 68 


CHAPTER VI. 
HISTORY OF ICELAND. 


Discovery of the Island by Naddodr in 861.—Gardar.—F loki of the Ravens.--Ingolfr and Leif.—U]Ifliot 
the Lawgiver.—The Althing.—Thingvalla.—Introduction of Christianity into the Island.—Fred- 
erick the Saxon and Thorwold the Traveller.—Thangbrand.—Golden Age of Icelandic Literature. 
—Snorri Sturleson.—The Island submits to Hakon, King of Norway, in 1254.—Long Series of Ca- 
lamities.—Great Eruption of the Skapta Jékul in 1783.—Commercial Monopoly.—Better Times in 
PLOSPCCE..«.00.0e0 > 0+e000eonea0se 000 s\n uinie ve/aia siclee cisb cue eseecnae ccccceees oc lees 5.5 ep islete nis latete ate 89 


CHAPTER VII. 
THE ICELANDERS. 


Skalholt.—Reykjavik.—The Fair.—The Peasant and the Merchant.—A Clergyman in his Cups.—-Hay- 
making.—The Icelander’s Hut.—Churches.—Poverty of the Clergy.—Jon Thorlaksen.—The Semi- 
nary of Reykjavik.— Beneficial Influence of the Clergy.—Home Education.—The Icelander’s Winter’s 
Evening.—Taste for Literature—The Language.—The Public Library at Reykjavik.—The Icelandic 
Literary Society.—Icelandic Newspapers.—Longevity.—Leprosy.—Travelling in Iceland.—Fording 
the Rivers.—Crossing of the Skeidara by Mr. Holland.—A Night’s Bivouac...........+. slavapeteraheds 98 


CHAPTER VIII. 
THE WESTMAN ISLANDS. 


The Westmans.—Their extreme Difficulty of Access\—How they became peopled.—Heimaey, — 
Kaufstathir and Ofanleyte.— Sheep-hoisting.— Egg-gathering.— Dreadful Mortality among tha 
Children. —The Ginklofi.—Gentleman John.—The Algerine Pirates.—Dreadful Sufferings of the 
Islanders...... Moipiniaiele ainieDaletein a hin apni oie © omen amas ances ameter ate oe agape elaeeete of weve eiee nae 


CHAPTER IX. 
FROM DRONTHEIM TO THE NORTH CAPE. 


Mild Climate of the Norwegian Coast.—Its Causes. —The Norwegian Peasant.—Norwegian Constitution.— 
Romantic coast Scenery.—Drontheim.—Greiffenfeld Holme and Vare.—The Sea-eagle.—The Herring- 
fisheries. —T he Lofoten Islands.—The Cod-fisheries.— Wretched Condition of the Fishermen.—Troms6. 
—Altenfiord.—The Copper Mines.—Hammerfest the most northern Town in the World.—The North 
CADE cite sccsme Biel wie'e a-asuie's aio tvola ince slaegerare ciaveratactalets oe etebnowee © oibibeve © obese 0 apiece pin alec eel ee 120 


CHAPTER X. 
SPITZBERGEN—BEAR ISLAND—JAN MEYEN. 


The west Coast of Spitzbergen.—Ascension of a Mountain by Dr. Scoresby.—His Excursion along the 
Coast.—A stranded Whale.—Magdalena Bay.—Multitudes of Sea-birds.—Animal Life.—Midnight 
Silence.— Glaciers. — A dangerous Neighborhood.— Interior Plateau.—Flora of Spitzbergen. —Its 
Similarity with that of the Alps above the Snow-line.—Reindeer.—The hyperborean Ptarmigan.— 
Fishes.—Coal.—Drift-wood.—Discovery of Spitzbergen by Barentz, Heemskerk, and Ryp.—Brilliant 
Period of the Whale-fishery.—Coffins.—Eight English Sailors winter in Spitzbergen, 1630.—Melan- 
choly Death of some Dutch Volunteers.--Russian Hunters.—Their Mode of wintering in Spitzber- 
gen.—Scharostin.—Walrus-ships from Hammerfest and Tromsé.—Bear or Cherie Island.—Bennet. 
—Enormous Slaughter of Walruses.—Mildness of its Climate-—Mount Misery.—Adventurous Boat- 
voyage of some Norwegian Sailors.—Jan Meyen.—Beerenberg....cecscocececccerccscscescers Lad 


CHAPTER XI. 
NOVA ZEMBLA. 


The Sea of Kara.—Loschkin.—Rosmysslow.—Litke.— Krotow.—Pachtussow.—Sails along the east- 
ern Coast of the Southern Island to Matoschkin Schar.—His second Voyage and Death.—Meteoro- 


CONTENTS. 1x 


logical Observations of Ziwolka.—The cold Summer of Nova Zembla.—Von Baer’s scientific Voyage 
to Nova Zembla.—His Adventures in Matoschkin Schar.—Storm in Kostin Schar.—Sea Bath and 
votive Cross,—Botanical Observations.—A natural Garden.—Solitude and Silence.—A Bird Ba- 
zar.—Hunting Expeditions of the Russians to Nova Zembla.........cssscecseccesseeeee Page 147 


CHAPTER XII. 
THE LAPPS. 


Their ancient History and Conversion to Christianity.—Self-denial and Poverty of the Lapland Clergy. 
—Their singular Mode of Preaching.—Gross Superstition of the Lapps.—The Evil Spirit of the 
Woods.—The Lapland Witches.—Physical Constitution of the Lapps.—Their Dress.—The Fjalllap- 
pars.—Their Dwellings.— Store-houses.—Reindeer Pens.— Milking the Reindeer.— Migration.— 
The Lapland Dog.—Skiders, or Skates.—The Sledge, or Pulka.—Natural Beauties of Lapland.— 
Attachment of the Lapps to their Country.—Bear-hunting.—Wolf-hunting.—Mode of Living of the 
wealthy Lapps.—How they kill the Reindeer.—Visiting the Fair.—Mammon Worship.—Treasure- 
hiding.—“ Tabak, or Braende.”—Affectionate Disposition of the Lapps.—The Skogslapp.—The 
Hisherlapp. «.cccsccncccscsvcccccesesvccconserscescne ests vescesstensacsens elo nn eile oie pio:$ 9 ahQO 


CHAPTER XIII. 
MATTHIAS ALEXANDER CASTREN. 


His Birthplace and first Studies.—Journey in Lapland, 1838.—The Iwalojoki.—The Lake of Enara.— 
The Pastor of Utzjokii—From Rowaniémi to Kemi.—Second Voyage, 1841-44.—Storm on the 
White Sea.—Return to Archangel.—The Tundras of the European Samoiedes. —Mesen.—Universal 
Drunkenness.—Sledge Journey to Pustosersk.—A Samoiede Teacher.—Tundra Storms. —Abandon- 
ed and alone in the Wilderness.—Pustosersk.—Our Traveller’s Persecutions at Ustsylmsk and Ish- 
emsk.—The Uusa.—Crossing the Ural.—Obdorsk.—Second Siberian Journey, 1845-48.—Overflow- 
ing of the Obi.—Surgut.—Krasnojarsk.—Agreeable Surprise.—Turuchansk.—Voyage down the 
Jenissei.—Castrén’s Study at Plachina.—From Dudinka to Tolstoi Noss.—Frozen Feet:—Return 
Voyage to the South.—Frozen fast on the Jenissei.—Wonderful Preservation.—Journey across the 
Chinese Frontiers, and to Transbaikalia.—Return to Finland.—Professorship at Helsingfors.—Death 
BG TE OOO cire1 ooo, < sy 5, 0'6) 6 <0 o's aie oi eie.6's, 0.0.5 dois oieioe-s.¢ Se Is rata dole loreiarele sicterelelarure Naan eierhi iota 168 


CHAPTER XIV. 
THE SAMOIEDES. 


Their Barbarism.—Num, or Jilibeambaertje.—Shamanism.—Samoiede Idols.—Sjadai.—Hahe.—The Ta- 
debtsios, or Spirits.—The Tadibes, or Sorcerers.—Their Dress.—Their Invocations.—Their conjuring 
Tricks.—Reverence paid to the Dead.—A Samoiede Oath.—Appearance of the Samoiedes.—Their 
Dress.—A Samoiede Belle.—Character of the Samoiedes.—Their decreasing Numbers.—Traditions of 
ancient Heroes..... Siterctcleia steneleiele) aici iatelelPeielctctcteVetet-forstatayel a\clerevele elerele: «sve lateielctsisrsicieiclcl ele) ois, sciateks 179 


CHAPTER XV. 
THE OSTIAKS. 


What is the Obi?—Inundations.—An Ostiak summer Yourt.—Poverty of the Ostiak Fishermen.—A 
winter Yourt.—Attachment of the Ostiaks to their ancient Customs.—An Ostiak Prince.—Archery. 
—Appearance and Character of the Ostiaks.—The Fair of Obdorsk...........0.eeeee0 reser 185 


CHAPTER XVI. . 


CONQUEST OF SIBERIA BY THE RUSSIANS—THEIR VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY ALONG THE SHORES OF THE 
POLAR SEA. 


Ivan the Terrible. —Strogonoff.—Yermak, the Robber and Conqueror.—His Expeditions to Siberia.— 
Battle of Tobolsk.—Yermak’s Death.—Progress of the Russians to Ochotsk.—Semen Deshnew.— 
Condition of the Siberian Natives under the Russian Yoke.—Voyages of Discovery in the Reign of 
the Empress Anna.—Prontschischtschew.—Chariton and Demetrius Laptew.—An Arctic Heroine. 
—Schalaurow.-—Discoveries in the Sea of Bering and in the Pacific Ocean.—The Lichow Islands.— 
Fossil Ivory.—New Siberia. —The wooden Mountains.—The past Ages of Siberia............+ 191 


x CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER XVII. 
SIBERIA—FUR-TRADE AND GOLD-DIGGINGS, 

Siberia.—Its immense Extent and Capabilities. —The Exiles.—Mentschikoff.—Dolgorozky.—Miinich.— 
The Criminals.—The free Siberian Peasant.—Extremes of Heat and Cold.—Fur-bearing Animals.— 
The Sable.—The Ermine.—The Siberian Weasel.—The Sea-otter.—The black Fox.—The Lynx.— 
The Squirrel.—The varying Hare.—The Suslik.—Importance of the Fur-trade for the Northern 
Provinces of the Russian Empire.—The Gold-diggings of Eastern Siberia.—The Taiga.—Expenses 
and Difficulties of searching Expeditions.—Costs of Produce, and enormous Profits of successful 
Speculators.—Their senseless Extravagance.—First Discovery of Goldin the Ural Mountains,— 
Jakowlew and Demidow.—Nishne-Tagilsk...... Bio Mos cas Siviarelelela'e.ceiimsiniaee «Mae eioe ie Page 204 


CHAPTER XVIII. 
MIDDENDORFF'’S ADVENTURES IN TAIMURLAND. 

For what Purpose was Middendorff’s Voyage to Taimurland undertaken ?—Difficulties and Obstacles.— 
Expedition down the Taimur River to the Polar Sea.—Storm on Taimur Lake.—Loss of the Boat.— 
Middendorff ill and alone in 75° N. Lat.—Saved by a grateful Samoiede.—Climate and Vegetation of 
Daimurland, ¢ .\. .\r0c0issisie'o tiee'e's bess sisiee oes bieleld dete coe eincivsiclsiocis assis faa ie cee on 220 


CHAPTER XIX. 
THE JAKUTS. 

Their energetic Nationality.—Their Descent.—Their gloomy Character.—Summer and Winter Dwell- 
ings.—The Jakut Horse.—Incredible Powers of Endurance of the Jakuts.—Their Sharpness of Vis- ~ 
ion.—Surprising local Memory.—Their manual Dexterity.—Leather, Poniards, Carpets. —Jakut 
Gluttons.—Superstitious Fear of the Mountain-spirit Ljeschei.—Offerings of Horse-hair.—Improvised 
Songs.—The River Jakut......... afaid bulaehis fe eleou mh ep issicice sie asia ale vi Gem n'y ove sisie empl sigue 228 


CHAPTER XxX. 
WRANGELL. 

His distinguished Services as an Arctic Explorer.—From Petersburg to Jakutsk in 1820.—Trade of 
Jakutsk.—From Jakutsk to Nishne-Kolymsk.—The Badarany.—Dreadful Climate of Nishne-Ko- 
lymsk.—Summer Plagues. —Vegetation.—Animal Life.—Reindeer-hunting.—Famine.—Inundations. 
—The Siberian Dog.—First Journeys over the Ice of the Polar Sea, and Exploration of the Coast 
beyond Cape Shelagskoi in 1821.—Dreadful Dangers and Hardships.—Matiuschkin’s Sledge-journey 
over the Polar Sea in 1822.—Last Adventures on the Polar Sea.—A Run for Life.—Return to St. 
Peters Wes sis ok icse cies jo msesoiene a Snel s Ae is. eine alm cleiniciaiableieieeieiesein siaiie ole eee oleracea onan cipeiem eee 


CHAPTER XXI. 
THE TUNGUSI. 
Their Relationship to the Mantchou. — Dreadful Condition of the outcast Nomads. — Character of 
the Tungusi.—Their Outfit for the Chase.— Bear-hunting.—Dwellings.—Diet.—A Night’s Halt with 
Tungusi in the Forest.—Ochotsk..........--.00. pete oracciehare eynelereleier are sis eta coins d's oD ERE 244 


CHAPTER XXII. 
GEORGE WILLIAM STELLER. 

His Birth.—Enters the Russian Service.—Scientific Journey to Kamchatka.—Accompanies Bering on his 
second Voyage of Discovery.—Lands on the Island of Kaiak.—Shameful Conduct of Bering.—Ship- 
wreck on Bering Island.—Bering’s Death.—Return to Kamchatka.—Loss of Property.—Persecutions 
of the Siberian Authorities.—Frozen to Death at Tjurien..... at acate Maes sietaaatee ae wateeane veces 248 


CHAPTER XXIII. 
KAMCHATKA. 
Climate.—Fertility.—Luxuriant Vegetation.—Fish.—Sea-birds. —Kamchatkan Bird-catchers.—The Bay 
of Avatscha.—Petropaylosk.—The Kamchatkans.—Their physical and moral Qualities.—The Fri- 
tillaria Sarrana.—The Muchamor.—Bears.—Dogs....-2....00¢ COCR ees Ue lelestnioe ae ciate 254 


CONTENTS. x1 


CHAPTER XXIV. 
THE TCHUKTCHI. 


The Land of the Tchuktchi.—Their independent Spirit and commercial Enterprise.—Perpetual Migra- 
tions.—The Fair of Ostrownoje. — Visit in a Tchuktch Polog. — Races. —Tchuktch Bayaderes. — 
The Tennygk, or Reindeer Tchuktchi. — The Onkilon, or Sedentary Tchuktchi.— Their Mode of 
TGs. veces es Bier siarel ciciois olcis, weiss elolote Wie ois orslovelalevats siete e's sei oteleverce Male ciaeslanislelsleles clefesioerelee's a Ace 202 


CHAPTER XXV. 
BERING SEA—THE RUSSIAN FUR COMPANY—THE ALEUTS. 


Bering Sea.—Unalaska.—The Pribilow Islands.—St. Matthew.—St. Laurence.—Bering’s Straits.—The 
Russian Fur Company.—The Aleuts.—Their Character.—Their Skill and Intrepidity in hunting the 
Sea-otter.—The Sea-bear.—W hale-chasing.—Walrus-slaughter.—The Sea-lion........0.. see - 268 


CHAPTER XXVI. 
ALASKA. 


Purchase of Alaska by the United States.—The Russian American Telegraph Scheme.—Whymper’s 
Trip up the Yukon.—Dogs.—The Start.—Extempore Water-filter.—Snow-shoes.—The Frozen Yu- 
kon.—Under-ground Houses.—Life at Nulato.—Cold Weather.—Auroras.—Approach of Summer. 
—Breaking-up of the Ice.—Fort Yukon.—Furs.—Descent of the Yukon.—Value of Goods.—Arctic 
and Tropical Life.—Moose-hunting.—Deer-corrals.—Lip Ornaments.—Canoes.—Four-post Coffin. 
—The Kenaian Indians.—The Aleuts.—Value of Alaska..... Cc ccerccr cccceccccccossccceccns Lid 


CHAPTER XXVII. 
THE ESQUIMAUX. 


Their wide Extension.— Climate of the Regions they inhabit.—Their physical Appearance.— Their 
Dress.—Snow Huts.—The Kayak, or the Baidar —Hunting Apparatus and Weapons.—Enmity be- 
tween the Esquimaux and the Red Indian.—The ‘“ Bloody Falls.”-—Chase of the Reindeer.—Bird- 
catching.— Whale-hunting.—Various Stratagems employed to catch the Seal.—The ‘“‘ Keep-kuttuk.” 
—Bear-hunting.— Walrus-hunting.— Awaklok and Myouk.—The Esquimaux Dog.—Games and 
Sports.—Angekoks.— Moral Character,— Self-reliance.—Intelligence.—Iligliuk.— Commercial Ea- 
gerness of the Esquimaux.—Their Voracity.—Seasons of Distress.........scccceccccesessscss 290 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 
THE FUR-TRADE OF THE HUDSON’S BAY TERRITORIES. 

The Coureur des Bois. —The Voyageur.—The Birch-bark Canoe.—The Canadian Fur-trade in the last 
Century.—The Hudson’s Bay Company.—Bloody Feuds between the North-west Company of Can- 
ada and the Hudson’s Bay Company.—Their Amalgamation into a new Company in 1821.—Recon- 
struction of the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1863.—Forts or Houses. —The Attihawmeg. —Influence 
of the Company on its savage Dependents.—The Black Bear, or Baribal.—The Brown Bear.—The 
Grizzly Bear. —The Raccoon. —The American Glutton. —The Pine Marten.—The Pekan, or 
Wood-shock.—The Chinga. — The Mink. — The Canadian Fish-otter. —The Crossed Fox.—The 
Black or Silvery Fox.— The Canadian Lynx, or Pishu. — The Ice-hare. — The Beaver. — The 
Musquash....... RACBOEE efoleleniols’ cleiein’olcicis\eieiure, astelelsleleielersieie sieve eieiele eicieltieiecic cciclelsid esisice Or cin c.cen DU4 


CHAPTER XXIX. 
THE CREE INDIANS, OR EYTHINYUWUK. 


The various Tribes of the Crees.—Their Conquests and subsequent Defeat.—Their Wars with the Black- 
feet.—Their Character.—Tattooing.—Their Dress. —Fondness for their Children. —The Cree Cradle.— 
Vapor Baths.—Games.—Their religious Ideas.—The Cree Tartarus and Elysium............0 319 


CHAPTER XXX. 
THE TINNE INDIANS. 


The various Tribes of the Tinné Indians.—The Dog-ribs.—Clothing.—The Hare Indians. —Degraded 
State of the Women,—Practical Socialists. —Character.—Cruelty to the Aged and Infirm....... 327 


xii CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER XXXI. 
THE LOUCHEUX, OR KUTCHIN INDIANS. 


The Countries they inhabit.—Their Appearance and Dress.—Their Love of Finery.—Condition of the 
Women.—Strange Customs.—Character.—Feuds with the Esquimaux.—Their suspicious and timo- 
rous Lives.—Pounds for catching Reindeer.—Their Lodges.........c.cccecccoscces ooses Page 331 


CHAPTER XXXII. 
ARCTIC VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY, FROM THE CABOTS TO BAFFIN. 


First Scandinavian Discoverer of America.—The Cabots.— Willoughby and Chancellor (1553-1554). — 
Stephen Burrough (1556).—Frobisher (1576-1578).—Davis (1585-1587).—Barentz, Cornelis, and 
Brant (1594).—Wintering of the Dutch Navigators in Nova Zembla (1596-1597).—John Knight 
(1606).—Murdered by the Esquimaux.—Henry Hudson (1607-1609). —Baffin (1616)......... . 335 


CHAPTER XXXIII. 
ARCTIC VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY, FROM BAFFIN TO M‘CLINTOCK. 


Buchan and Franklin.—Ross and Parry (1818).—Discovery of Melville Island.—Winter Harbor (1819 
1820).— Franklin’s first land Journey.— Dreadful Sufferings.— Parry’s second Voyage (1821-1828). 
— lligliuk.— Lyon (1824).— Parry’s third Voyage (1824).—Franklin’s second land Journey to the 
Shores of the Polar Sea.—Beechey.—Parry’s sledge Journey towards the Pole.—Sir John Ross’s 
second Journey.—Five Years in the Arctic Ocean.—Back’s Discovery of Great Fish River.—Dease 
and Simpson (1837-1839).—Franklin and Crozier’s last Voyage (1845).—Searching Expeditions.—. 
Richardson and Rae.—Sir James Ross.—Austin.—Penny.—De Haven.—Franklin’s first Winter- 
quarters discovered by Ommaney.—Kennedy and Bellot.—Inglefield.—Sir E. Belcher.—Kellett.— 
M‘Clure’s Discovery of the North-west Passage.—Collinson.—Bellot’s Death.—Dr. Rae learns the 
Death of the Crews of the ‘‘ Erebus” and ‘‘ Terror.”—Sir Leopold M‘Clintock................. 344 


CHAPTER XXXIV. 
KANE AND HAYES. 


Kane sails up Smith’s Sound in the ‘‘ Advance ” (1853).—Winters in Rensselaer Bay.—Sledge Journey 
along the Coast of Greenland. —The Three-brother Turrets.—Tennyson’s Monument.—The Great 
Humboldt Glacier.—Dr. Hayes crosses Kennedy Channel. — Morton’s Discovery of Washington 
Land.—Mount Parry.—Kane resolves upon a second Wintering in Rensselaer Bay.—Departure and 
Return of Part of the Crew.—Sufferings of the Winter.—The Ship abandoned.—Boat Journey to 
Upernavik.—Kane’s Death in the Havana (1857).—Dr. Hayes’s Voyage in 1860.—He winters at 
Port Foulke.—Crosses Kennedy Channel.—Reaches Cape Union, the most northern known Land 
upon the Globe.—Koldewey.—Plans for future Voyages to the North Pole............0...... - 365 


CHAPTER XXXV. 
NEWFOJNDLAND. 


Its desolate Aspect.—Forests.—Marshes.—Barrens.—Ponds.—Fur-bearing Animals.—Severity of Cli- 
mate.—St. John’s.—Discovery of Newfoundland by the Scandinavians.—Sir Humphrey Gilbert.— 
Rivalry of the English and French.—Importance of the Fisheries.—The Banks of Newfoundland.— 
Mode of Fishing.—Throaters, Headers, Splitters, Salters, and Packers.—Fogs and Storms.—Seal- 
CALCITE, !o cs. 5 c'e\a'e 0 oles oe Giicinsielsiale ed’ h Vache epee be weeny Sceeen ieee sieie es so see be ote 


CHAPTER XXXVI. 
GREENLAND. 


A mysterious Region.—Ancient Scandinavian Colonists.—Their Decline and Fall.—Hans Egede.—Mis 
Trials and Success.—Foundation of Godthaab.—Herrenhuth Missionaries.—Lindenow.—The Scorcs- 
bys.—Clavering.—The Danish Settlements in Greenland.—The Greenland Esquimaux.—Seal-catch- 
ing.—The White Dolphin.—The Narwhal.—Shark-fishery.—Fiskernasset.—Birds.—Reindeer-hunt- 
ing.—Indigenous Plants.—Drift-wood.—Mineral Kingdom.—Mode of Life of the Greenland Esqui. 
maux.—The Danes in Greenland. —Beautiful Scenery.—Ice Caves......0..cccecesccecescecss B02 


| hd 


CONTENTS. xu 


CHAPTER XXXVII. 
THE ANTARCTIC OCEAN. 


Comparative View of the Antarctic and Arctic Regions.—Inferiority of Climate of the former. —Its 
Causes. —The New Shetland Islands.—-South Georgia. —The Peruvian Stream.—Sea-birds.—The Gi- 
ant Petrel.—The Albatross. —The Penguin.—The Austral Whale.—The Hunchback.—The Fin-back. 
—The Grampus.—Battle with a Whale.—The Sea-elephant.—The Southern Sea-bear.—The Sea- 
leopard.—Antarctic Fishes..... Berea Atala. bibntatey Osa ore eeie cima ete eeatbinvaipia:sidineie eieies amie Wiese Page 391 


CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
ANTARCTIC VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY. 


Cook’s Discoveries in the Antarctic Ocean.—Bellinghausen.—Weddell —Biscoe.—Balleny.—Dumont 
~ d’Urville.—Wilkes.—Sir James Ross crosses the Antarctic Circle on New Year’s Day, 1841.—-Dis- 
covers Victoria Land.—Dangerous Landing on Franklin Island.—An Eruption of Mount Erebus.— 
The Great Ice Barrier.—Providential Escape.-—Dreadful Gale.—Collision.—Hazardous Passage be- 
tween two Icebergs.—Termination of the Voyage.........sesesees iYaial aia, Welolaiaieisie.eieloie siaisi crave eicleniat & 


CHAPTER XXXIX. 
THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN, 


Description of the Strait.—Western Entrance.—Point Dungeness.—The Narrows.—Saint Philip’s Bay. 
—Cape Froward.—Grand Scenery.—Port Famine.—The Sedger River.—Darwin’s Ascent of Mount > 
Tarn.—The Bachelor River.—English Reach.—Sea Reach.—South Desolation.— Harbor of Mercy.— 
Williwaws.—Discovery of the Strait by Magellan (October 20,.1521).—Drake.—Sarmiento.—Cav- 
endish.—Schouten and Le Maire.—Byron.—Bougainville.—Wallis and Carteret.—King and Fitz- 
roy.—Settlement at Punta Arenas.—Increasing Passage through the Strait.—A future Highway of 
EE ae oe sli cc sce cls roevseccecdecenceessse SRSA Hhh mA eee: 408 


CHAPTER XL. 
PATAGONIA AND THE PATAGONIANS. 


Difference of Climate between East and West Patagonia.--Extraordinary Aridity of East Patagonia.— 
Zoology.—The Guanaco.—The Tucutuco.—The Patagonian Agouti.—Vultures.—The Turkey-buz- 
zard.—The Carrancha.—The Chimango.—Darwin’s Ostrich.—The Patagonians.—Exaggerated Ac- 
counts of their Stature.—Their Physiognomy and Dress.—Religious Ideas.-—Superstitions.—Astro- 
nomical Knowledge.—Division into Tribes.—The Tent, or Toldo.—Trading Routes.—The great 
Cacique.—Introduction of the Horse.—Industry.—Amusements.—Character .....esceeeeeeses 417 


CHAPTER XLI. 
THE FUEGIANS. 


Their miserable Condition.—Degradaticn of Body and Mind.—Powers of Mimicry.—Notions of Barter. 
—Causes of their low State of Cultivation.—Their Food.—Limpets.—Cyttaria Darwint.—Constant 
Migrations.—The Fuegian Wigwam.—Weapons.—Their probable Origin. —Their Number, and va- 
rious Tribes. —Constant Feuds.—Cannibalism.—Language.— Adventures of Fuegia Basket, Jemmy 
Button, and York Minster. —Missionary Labors.—Captain Gardiner.—His lamentable End.... 426 


CHAPTER XLII. 
CHARLES FRANCIS HALL AND THE INNUITS. 


Hall’s Expedition.—His early Life.—His reading of Arctic Adventure.—His Resolve.—His Arctic Out- 
fit.—Sets sail on the ‘‘ George Henry.”—The Voyage.—Kudlago.—Holsteinborg, Greenland.—Pop- 
ulation of Greenland,—Sails for Davis's Strait.—Character of the Innuits.—Wreck of the ‘‘ Rescue.” 
—Ebierbing and Tookoolito.—Their Visit to England.—Hall’s first Exploration. —European and In- 
nuit Life in the Arctic Regions.—Building an Igloo.—Almost Starved.—Fight for Food with Dogs. 
—Ebierbing arrives with a Seal.—How he caught it.—A Seal-feast.—The Innuits and Seals.—The 
Polar Bear.—How he teaches the Innuits to catch Seals.—At a Seal-hole.—Dogs as Seal-hunters.— 
Dogs and Bears.—Dogs and Reindeers.—Innuits and Walruses.—More about Igloos.—Innuit Imple- 
ments.—Uses of the Reindeer.—Innuit Improvidence.—A Deer-feast.—A frozen Delicacy.—Whale- 
skin as Food.—Whale-gum. —How to eat Whale Ligament. —Raw Meat.—The Dress of the Innuits, 


xiv . CONTENTS. 


A pretty Style.-—Religious Ideas of the Innuits.—Their kindly Character.—Treatment 
of the Aged and Infirm.—A Woman abandoned to die.—Hall’s Attempt to rescue her.— 
The Innuit Nomads, without any form of Government.—Their Numbers Diminishing.— 
A Sailor wanders away.—Hall’s Search for him.—Finds him frozen to death.—The Ship 
free from Ice.—Preparations to return.—Reset in the Ice-pack.—Another Arctic Winter.— 
Breaking up of the Ice.—Departure for Home.—Tookoolito and her Child “ Butterfly.”— 
Death of “ Butterfly.”,—Arrival at Home.—Results of Hall’s Expedition.—Innuit Tradi- 
tions.—Discovery of Frobisher Relics.—Hall’s Second Expedition,........... Page 483 


ADDITIONAL CHAPTERS. 


CuartTer 43 —Summary of Arctic Explorations, ............. Pere ee ee 737 
CuapTerR 44.—Hall’s Last Expedition,........... Dine ni ila hn sin be lacs Me cilia see. On 
CuapTer 45.—Fate of the Polaris,..........ccceccceccscccs stich 5 wee oo woh mia hasaieraege cane 


THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


CHAPTER I. 
THE OCEAN AND ATMOSPHERE CF THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


Characteristics of the Polar and Tropical Worlds.—Geographical and Climatic Limits of the 
Zones.—Distribution of Land and Water.—Climatic Importance of the Ocean.—Currents 
of the Ocean.—The Gulf Stream.—Influence of the Gulf Stream upon the Climate of 
Europe.—The Sargasso Sea.—Columbus and the Gulf Stream.—The Pacific and Indian 
Currents.—Heat and Force.—Relative Positions of Hot and Cold Currents.—Currents of 
the Air.—The Trade Winds.—Atmospheric Currents and Climate.—The Calm Belt near 
the Equator.—Rainfall of Different Regions.—Rainy and Dry Seasons within the Tropics. 
—The Monsoons.—Winds as Regulators of Rains.—Annual Rainfall— Whirlwinds.—Their 
Rotary Motion.—Tropical Islands.—Volcanic Islands.—Coralline Islands.—Atolls and 
Reefs.—Influence of the Ocean upon Life in the Tropical Islands,.............. »» aad 


CHAPTER II. 
TABLE LANDS AND PLATEAUS OF THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


Influence of Elevation upon Climate.-—The Puna of Peru: Squier’s Description of the Puna.— 
The Soroche or Veta.—View from La Portada.—Effects of the Soroche.—The Sarumpe. 
—The Veruga Water.—Effects of the Veta on Animals.—Vegetation of the Puna.—The 
Llama.—The Huanacu.—The Alpaca.—The Vicuna.—Hunting the Vicuna.—The Hunts 
of the Ancient Incas.—Enemies of the Vicuna.—Other Native Animals.—The Ox, Horse, 
Mule and Sheep.—Waterfowl.— Warm Valleys.—Ranid Change of Climate According to 

_ Elevation.—Lake Titicaca: The Sacred Island of Titicaca.—Manco Capac, the First Inca. 
—His Journey from Lake Titicaca to Cuzco.—Fact and Myth respecting Manco Capac.— 
Extent of the Inca Empire.—Inca Civilization originated in the Puna, near Lake Titi- 
eaca.—The Sacred Rock on the Island.—Ruins and Relics on the Island.—The Hacienda 
on the Island.—The Eve of St. John.—The Bath of the Incas.—Other Sacred Islands.— 
Ruins at Tihuanico.—Some more ancient than the Incas.—Immense Monolithic Gateways 
and Hewn Stones.—Inca CivilizationThe Great Military Roads.—System of Posts and 
Post-Stations.— The Valley of Quito: Approach to the Valley from the Pacific Coast—A 
Tropical Region— Climbing the Cordillera.—Scenes by the Way.—Quito.—Climate of the 
Valley.—Astronomical Site.—Trees, Fruits, Vegetables, and Flowers.—Animals.—Birds.— 
Insects, Reptiles, and Fish.—The Population of the Valley.—Indians.—Half-Breeds.— 
Whites.—Courtesy of the People—A Polite Message.—Scenery of the Valley.—Volca- 
noes. — Imbabura.—Destruction of Otovalo.—Cayamba.—Guamani.—Antisana.—Sincho- 
lagua.—Cotopaxi.—The Inca’s Head.—Tunguragua.— Altar. —Sangai.—Its Perpetual Erup- 
tion.—Chimborazo.— Caraguarizo.—Illinza.—Corazon.—Pichincha.—Its immense Crater. 
—Descent into the Crater.—Eruptions of Pichincha.—The Table-Land of Bogoté: Voyage 


CONTENTS. xv 


up the Magdalena.—Ascent to the Plateau.—Bogotaé and the Bogotanos.—Traveling at 
Bogota.—Table-Land of Mexico: Its Extent.—The Tierra Calienta.—The Tierra Templada. 
—The Tierra Fria—The Valley of Anahuac.—The Volcanoes of Orizaba, Popocatapetl, 
Iztacihuatl, and Toluca.—The Sikkim Slope: Approach and Ascent.—Dorjiling.—The 
Sikkim Peaks.—Altitude of Kinchin-junga.—Flight of the Condor,..... ..... Page 480 


CHAPTER III. 
SAVANNAS AND DESERTS OF THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


Water and Life.—Characteristics of the Savannas.—The Llanos: The Dry Season.—Effects 
upon Vegetable Life.—Effects upon Animal Life.—Approach of the Rainy Season.—Revival 
of Vegetable and Animal Life-—Vast Migrations of Animals.—T'he Pampas: Horses and 
Cattle in the New World.—Effects of their Introduction upon the Character of the Popu- 
lation.—The Mauritia Palm.—Living in the Tree-tops——The Grand Chaco.—Its Indian 
Inhabitants.—The Guachos.—The Lasso and Bolas.—The Plains of Southern Africa: Thorny 
Bushes.—Excessive Droughts.—A Great Hunting Ground.—Species of Game.— Vegetation 
—Watery Tubers.—Escu‘er:t Gourds.—Possibility of Wells.—Water-Pits in the Kalahari.— 
Mode of Pumping Up the Water.—Livingstone’s Theory of Water-Making Ants.—More 
Probable Explanation.—Inhabitants of Southern Africa.—The Lake Region of Equatorial 
Africa: Little Known.—Explorations of Livingstone and Burton.—Speke’s Journey.—His 
Notices of the Country.—Moderate and Equable Temperature.—The Inhabitants.—Charac- 
teristics of a Real Desert.—The Atacama of Peru; Its Arid Character.—The Mule the Ship 
of this Desert.—The Australian Desert: Its Utter Desolation.—Sturt’s Exploration.— 
Leichardt.—Lost Rivers.—The Sahara: Extent and General Characteristics.—The Capital 
of Fezzan.—Perilous Adventure of Barth.—Plains and Hills.—Oases.—Luxuriant Vegeta- 
tion of the Oases.—Contrasts of Light and Shade.—The Khamsin or Simoom.—Animals 
and Reptiles—The Ostrich and its Chase.—Fluctuations of Animal and Vegetable Life 
PUNEBPHENENE SEASONS, . ss ce v's tes see tare tee ences a aMar aus cil onehel eke epereiens eos 


CHAPTER IV. 
TROPICAL FORESTS.—VALLEY OF THE AMAZON. 


Characteristics of the Tropical Forests.—Variety of Trees and Plants.x—Aspect During the 
Rainy Season.—Beauty After the Rainy Season.—A Morning Concert.—Repose at Noon.— 
Awakening at Evening.—Nocturnal Voices of the Forest.—The Amazon: Course of the 
River.—Size of its Basin.—The Tide at its Mouth.—Rising of the River.—Igaripes, or Canoe- 
Paths.—Inundations of the Amazon.—Vast Variety of its Vegetation.—Fishes.—A gassiz’s 
Specimens.—Alligators and Turtles.—Turtle-Hunting.—Insects.—Ants.—Butterflies.—S pi- 
ders.—Lizards.—Frogs and Toads.—Snakes.—Paucity of Mammalia.—The Jaguar.—Scan- 
tiness of Human Population.—Indian Tribes.—Mundurcu Tattooing.—Travelers’ Accounts 
of the Tribes.—Men with Tails.—Orton’s Summary of their Character.—His Own Expe- 
rience Favorable.—He finds them Honest and Peaceable.—A gassiz’s Notices of the Indians. 
—Their Familiarity with Animals and Plants.—Whites.—Negroes.—Mixed Breeds.—Agas- 
siz and Orton on the Capacity of Amazonia,....... Mae ale siePollct oieyeLonstecope ‘age als) e/e)'0 OLS 


CHAPTER V. 
CHARACTERISTIC FORMS OF TROPICAL VEGETATION. 


General Features of Tropical Forests—Number of Species of Plants——The Baobab.—Its 
Gigantic Size.—Age of the Great Trees.—Dragon-Trees.—The Great Dragon-Tree of 
Orotava.—The Sycamore.—The Banyan.—The Sacred Bo-Tree.—The Oldest Histori- 
cal Tree.—The Teak.—The Satin-wood.—The Sandal Tree.—The Ceiba.—The Ma- 
hogany Tree —The Mora.—The Guadua.—Bamboos.—The Aloe —The Agave.—The 
Cactus—The Screw Pine.—Mimosas.—Lianas.—Climbing Trees.—Epiphytes.— Water 
Plants.—Buttressed Trees.—Trees with Fantastic Roots.x—Mangroves.—Marsh Forests. 
—Palms.—The Cocoa Palm.—The Sago Palm.—The Saguer Palm.—The Areca Palm.— 
The Palmyra Palm.—The Talipot Palm.—Ratans.—The Date Palm.—Oil Palms.— Variety 
of Size, Form, Foliage and Fruit—¥uture Commercial Value of the Palm,........ . 525 


xvi CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER VI. 
THE CHIEF NUTRITIVE PLANTS OF THE TROPICAL WORLD. 

Rice.—Aspects of Rice-Fields at Different Seasons.—The Rice-Fields of Ceylon —Ladang 
and Sawa Rice—Rice in South Carolina.—The Rice-Bird.—Paddy.—Maize.—When first 
brought to Europe.—Appearance of the Plant.—Its Enormous Productiveness.—Freedom 
from Disease.—Wide Extent of its Cultivation.—Benjamin Franklin’s Account of Maize.— 
Millet.—The Bread-Fruit.—Its Taste.—Modes of Cooking.—The Banana and Piantain.— 
Their Great Productiveness.—The Sago Palm.—Manufacture of Sago.—Sago Bread.— 
Cheap Living.—A Siesta and Starvation—The Cassava.—Yams.—The Sweet Potato. 
— Arrow Root.—The Taro Root.—Tropical Fruits—The Chirimoya.—The Litchi.—The 
Mangosteen.—The Mango.—The Durion.—Its Taste and Smell.—Large Fruit on Tall 
Trees ,0ic', aes bie Sernceg plo ak Torin tale lie ca Scw! eto te Ge allan Ney ho el ine paramo ae na weeeee- Page 545 


CHAPTER VIL 
SUGAR—COFFEE—CHOCOLATE—COCA—SPICES. 


Sugar: Its Importance.—The Home of the Sugar-Cane.—Ancient Theories about Sugar.—The 
Introduction of the Cane into Europe and America.—Characteristics of the Plant.—Mode of 
Cultivation.— Coffee: Its Home.—introduction into Egypt and Europe, and elsewhere.— 
Present Coffee Countries.—Coffee Culture in Brazil.—Agassiz’s Description of a Coffee 
Estate—The West Indies and Ceylon.—The Coffee-Plant.—Methods of Preparing the 
Berries.—The Enemies of the Plant.—The Golunda.—The Coffee Bug.—The Coffee Moth. ~ 
—Cacao, or Chocolate: Its Culture and Preparation.—Coca: Description of the Plant.—Mode 
of its Use.—Its Effects.—Indian superstitions connected with it—Cinnamon: Known to the 
Ancients.—Cinnamon in Ceylon.—Mode of Culture and Preparation.—General Account 
of this Spice.—Nutmegs and Cloves.—Enormities of the Dutch Monopoly.—Pepper.— 
PimmentO—GiIMger, se. bee eines wns bn fells © ove 6 nce allele lee pier a ate 509 


CHAPTER VIII. 
INSECTS. 


Multitude of Tropical Insects.—Beetles.—Dragon Flies.—Leaf Moths.—The Leaf Butterfly.— 
Fire Flies.—Insect Plagues: Mosquitoes.—Chigoes, or Jiggers.—The Filaria Medinensis.— 
The Béte Rouge.—Ticks.—Land-Leeches.—The Tsetsé Fly.—The Tsalt-Salya Locusts.— 
Cockroaches.—Enemies of the Cockroach.— Useful Insects: The Silk-Worm.—The Cochineal 
Insect:—The Gum-Lac Insect.—Edible and Ornamental Beetles, ............2.02- 581 


CHAPTER IX. 
ANTS—TERMITES—ANT-EATERS—SPIDERS—SCORPIONS. 


Ants: Vast Numbers of Ants in the Tropical World.—Pain caused by their Bites —The Ponera 
Clavata.—The Black Fire-Ant.—The Dimiya of Ceylon.—The Red Ant of Angola.—The 
Vivagua of the West Indies.—The Umbrella Ant.—Household Plagues.—Troubles of Natu- 
ralists—The Ranger Ants.—The Bashikouay of Western Africa.—House-Building Ants. 
—Slaveholding Ants.—Aphides, or Plant-Lice.—Insect Cow-Keepers.— Termites : Their 
Ravages among Books and Furniture.—Their Citadels—Domestic Economy.—Defensive 
Warfare.—American Termites.—The Enemies of the Termites.—How to Catch, Cook, and 
Eat them.—The Marching Termite.—Ant-EKaters; The Great Ant-Bear.._His Mode of 
Hunting.—Mode of Defense.—Anatomical Structure.—Lesser Ant-Bears.—Manides and 
Pangolins.—The Aard-Vark.—Armadillos—The Porcupine Ant-Eater.—Spiders; Their 
Physical Structure.—Their Webs.—Means of Protection.—Mode of Catching their Prey.— 
Maternal Instinct.—Their Enemies.—Uses of Spiders.— Scorpions: Their Aspects and 
Habits:—Their’ Vernomy! 06 2270. Aa oh BS AS Oo 594 


CHAPTER X. 
SERPENTS—LIZARDS—FROGS AND TOADS. 


Serpents: Rarity of Venomous Serpents.—Habits and External Characteristics of Serpents.— 
The Labarri.—The Trigonocephalus.—Antidotes to the Poison of Serpents.—Sucking out 


CONTENTS. xvi 


the Venom.—The Poison-Fangs.—The Bush-Master—The Echidna Ocellata.—Rattle- 
snakes.—Their Enemy the Hog.—The Cobra de Capello.— The Haje.—The Cerastes.— 
Boas and Pythons.—The Boa-constrictor—The Water Boa.—Fascination by Snakes.— 
Henderson’s Argument against It.—Thorpe’s Reasons in its Favor.—Du Chaillu on the 
Subject.—Enemies of Serpents.—The Secretary Bird.—The Adjutant Bird.—The Mon- 
goos.—Serpents Eating Serpents. — The Locomotion of Serpents.— Anatomy of their 
Jaws.—A Serpentine Meal.—Pet Serpents —Tree Snakes.—Water Snakes.—Stories of 
Enormous Snakes.—Du Chaillu’s Big Snake.—Wallace’s Bigger One.—Lizards: The 
Geckoe.—Anatomy of its Feet—Their Wide Distribution—The Anolis.—Its Combative- 
ness.—The Chameleon.—Its Habits, Change of Color, and Characteristics —The Iguana.— 
The Teju.— Water Lizards—Flying Dragons.—The Basilisk.—Frogs and Toads: The Pipa 
Frog.—Tree Frogs.—Wallace’s Flying Frog.—The Bahia Toad.—The Giant Toad.—The 
area A or ody og G80 41\e sss: v in sel es) spore a6 avslinye.® wistalere, Scajie we eaves) sieve ey aee) OLO 


CHAPTER XI. 
ALLIGATORS—CROCODILES—TORTOISES AND TURTLES. 


Allijators and Crocodiles: Their Habits—Caymen, Gavials and Crocodiles.—Mode of Seizing 
their Prey.—Size of Alligators.—Alligators on the Amazon.—Alligator and Crane.—Man- 
Eating Alligators.—Their Contests.—Tenacity of Life-——Laying their Eggs.—Tenderness 
for their Young.—Their Enemies.—Torpidity in the Dry Season.—“ Playing ’Possum.”— 
Tortoises and Turtles: The Galapago Islands—The Elephantine Tortoise.—Rate of Trav- 
eling.—Marsh Tortoises.—Manufacture of Tortoise Oil.—Turtles on the Amazon.—Sea- 
Turtles.—Their Enemies.—Modes of Capturing Turtles —The Green Turtle.—The Hawks- 
bill Turtle——Barbarous Modes of Removing the Shell, and Bae the Meat.—The Cori- 
UE MISMPEIMUME ON lc gins so ices accesses meseeeese a MONS AT S eVererailed stohelaceleta as. tel s a onOoO 


CHAPTER XII. 
BIRD-LIFE IN THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


Difficulties of the Subject—Wide Range of Birds —The Toucan.—Humming-Birds.—Cotin- 
gas.—The Campanero, or Bell-Bird.—The Realejo, or Organ-Bird.—The Manakins.—The 
Cock of the Rock.—The Troopials.—The Baltimore Oriole.—The Cassiques.—The Mock. 
ing-Bird.—The Toropishu.—The 'Tunqui.—Goat-Suckers.—The Cilgero.—Flamingos.— 
The Ibis.—Spoon-Bills..—Birds of the New and the Old World.—Sun-Birds.—Honey-Eat. 
ers.— The Ocellated Turkey.— The Lyre-Bird.—Birds of Paradise.— Fables respecting 
them.—Their Character and Habits.—Their Dancing-Parties—Mode of Shooting and 
Snaring them.—The Australian Bower-Bird.—The Brush-Turkey.—The Adjutant.—The 
Copper-smith— The Indian Baya.—The Tailor-Bird—The Grosbeak.—The Korwé.— 
Parrots.—The Brazilian Love-Parrot.—Their Powers of Mimicry.—Cockatoos.—Macaws. 
—The Ara.—Paroquets.—The Ostrich. His Swiftness of Foot.—Modes of Capturing it.— 
Stratagems to Save its Young.—Its Enemies.—Its Young.—Resemblance to the Camel.— 
Its Powers of Digestion.— Uses of its Eggs.—The Rheas.—The Cassowary.—The Emu, 645 


CHAPTER XIII. 
THE CLIMBERS: BATS, SLOTHS, AND SIMIZ. 


Bats: Their Wonderful Organization —The Fox-Bat—Eaten by the Malays.—Vampire Bats 
—Their Blood-sucking Propensities—The Horseshoe Bat.—The Nycteribia—The Flying 
Squirrel The Galeopithecus.—The Anomalurus.—The Sloth: Pitiful Description given 
of Him.—His beautiful Organization for his peculiar Mode of Life——His rapid Movements 
in the Trees—His Means of Defense—His Tenacity of Life—The Unau—The Ai.— 
Gigantic Primeval Sloths.——Monkeys: Good Climbers, but bad Walkers.—Imperfectly 
known to the Ancients.—Similitudes and Differences between Man and Apes.—The Chim- 
panzee.—The Gorilla —Du Chaillu’s First Encounter with a Gorilla—The Gorilla and her 
Young.—The Orang-Utan, or Mias.—Wallace’s Accounts of Shooting the Orang.—Their 
Tenacity of Life—Size of the Orang—The Orang as a Combatant.—The Orang fighting 


XVili CONTENTS. 


the Crocodile and Python.—Habits of the Orang.—Wallace’s Young Pet Orang.—The 
Gibbons.—Monkeys of the Old and New Worlds.—The Semnopitheci—The Proboscis 
Monkey.—The Sacred Ape of the Hindus.—The Cercopitheci—The Magots.—The Cyno- 
cephali, or Baboons.—The Maimon.—The Great Baboon of Senegal.—The Derryas.—The 
Loris.—Monkeys of the New World.—Monkeys Distinguished by their Tails and Teeth._— 
The Wourali Poison.—The Indian Blow Pipe.—Mildness of American Monkeys.—The 
Howling Monkeys.—The Spider-Monkeys.—The Fox-tail Monkeys.—The Saimaris.—Noc- 
turnal Monkeys.—The Domesticated Nocturnals—The Squirrel-Monkey, ..... Page 669 


CHAPTER XIV. 
TROPICAL BEASTS AND BIRDS OF PREY. 


Variety of Carnivorous Creatures.—Birds of Prey: The Condor.—His Marvelous Flight.—His 
Cowardice.—Modes of Capturing them.—The Turkey-Buzzard, or Carrion Vulture.—The 
King of the Vultures——The Urubu.—Capable of Domestication —The Harpy Eagle.— 
The Sociable Vulture —The Bacha.—The Fishing Eagle.—The Musical Sparrow-Hawk.— 
The Secretary Eagle.—Beasts of Prey: The Lion.—Fictitious Character ascribed to him. 
—Mode of Seizing his Prey.—Lions and Giraffe-—Lion and Hottentot—Andersson and a 
Lion.—Livingstone’s narrow Escape.—Lion-Hunting in the Atlas.—By the Bushmen.—Cap- 
turing their Young.—Former and present Range of the Lion.—Lion and Rhinoceros.— 
Livingstone’s Estimate of the Lion. —The Tiger.—Their Ravages in Java.—Wide Range of 
the Tiger.—Tiger-Hunting in India.—Escape from a Tiger.—Animals announcing the Ap- 
proach of a Tiger.—Turtle-hunting Tigers.—The Panther and Leopard.—The Cheetah.— 
The Hyena.~The Spotted and Brown Hyenas.—The Felidz of New World.—The Jaguar. 
—Hunting the Jaguar.—The Cougar, or Puma.—The Ocelot.—The Jaguarandi.—The 
Tiger-Cab, G70). Pie bie ln Sate ais oo lew ald gi plieule: ede eco lle gee ss) 6 gee ee 693 


CHAPTER XV. 
THE ELEPHANT—RHINOCEROS—HIPPOPOTAMUS—CAMEL—ZEBRA. 


The Great Tropical Pachydermati.—Zhe Elephant: Difference between the tame and wild 
Elephant.—His Instinctive Timidity.—Acuteness of His Senses.—His Sagacity in Climbing 
Hills——His wonderful Trunk.—His Tusks.—Elephant Herds.—The Rogue, or Solitary Ele- 
phant.—The Asiatic and African Species.—The African Elephant tamed in Ancient Times. 
—Present Range of the African Elephant.—Native Modes of Hunting the African Elephant. 
—The Elephant and the Rifle-—Perils of Elephant-Hunters.—Elephant-Hunting in Abyssinia. 
—The Asiatic Elephant.—Elephant-Hunting in Ceylon.—The Panickeas, or Native Elephant- 
Hunters.—Elephantine Head-Work.—Obstinate Brutes.—The Rhinoceros: Range and Char- 
acter of the Rhinoceros.—T wo Species, the Black and the White.—Size of the Rhinoceros.— 
Acuteness of its Senses.—Its winged Attendant.—Its parental Affection.—Its nocturnal 
Habits.—Modes of Hunting the Rhinoceros.—The One-Horned or Indian Rhinoceros.—The 
-‘Two-Horned Rhinoceros of the Malay Archipelago.—Rhinoceros-Paths in Java.—The Hip- 
popotamus : Is the Hippopotamus the Behemoth of Job ?’—Habits of the Hippopotamus.— 
Its uncouth Aspect.—Rogue Hippopotami.—Intelligence of the Hippopotamus.—Uses of its 
Skin and Teeth.—Mode of Killing the Hippopotamus.—The Camel: Its Adaptation to the 
Tropical Sand-Wastes.—Its Physical Organization adapted to its Mode of Life.—Its Foot 
and its Stomach.—Its Desert Home.—The Camel and the Arab.—The T'wo-Humped and 
One-Humped Camels.—The Camel an immemorial Serf.—Its Aspect and Temper.—The 
Giraffe: Beauty of the Giraffe.—Its Means of Defense.—Its special Organization.—The 
Lion and the Giraffe——The Giraffe known to the Ancients.—Zebra and Quaggas: ‘Their 
Abundance in Southern Africa.—Distinction Between the Quagga and the Zebra.—Capacity 
for Domestication.—Their Union for Defense.—The Gnu, the Quagga, and the Zebra.—The 
Zebra the Tiger-Horse of the Ancients—The African Boar.—The Malayan Babirusa.— 
Finis, 00... Sev hoe eee eee se Bite fo te ke ie Ciehe ge farlo t/a; otis (a occa er eae ie ca Se a 712 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 


PAGE. 

1. Esquimaux Dog-team, ‘ ee | 
2. The Tundra of Siberia, 17 
8- Indian Summer Encampment, Alaska, 18 
4. Rocks and Ice, 1 ena a 0) 
5. Coast of Labrador, . 4 die) abut 
6. Coast of Norway, . , cull ewe ae 
7. Arctic Forest, ahi Stef ales 
8. ‘Verge of Forest Region, Si een ee 
9. Forest Conflagration, . : sella ae 
10. Arctic Clothing, has ey naieg 
11. Arctic Moonlight, Ay nec ea 
12. Aurora seen in Norway,. . «et On 
18. Aurora seen in Greenland, . yee, 2 
14. Group of ae ; ois tt BO: 
TENG 0 Oe) aa Bde is i a 
ac: The Musk- -Ox, : . rine: 10) 
a ALealL, * sits 2 otic tal 
18. The Snowy Owl, a on sities 
19. Bernide Goose, ‘ . . 4 
20. The Sea-eagle, ‘ ayn oun Ae 
21. Arctic Navigation, . : - . 46 
22. Among Hummocks, : pis oy yO 
23. Drifting on the Ice, : a, ah el 
24. Forms of Icebergs,. . . . an ayed 
25. Gothic NGAMET IS ey 2s. fe ie): 48 
26. Pinnacle Icebergs, : a 48 
27. Icebergs Aground, : 49 
28. Icebergs and Glacier, Frobisher r Bay, 51 
29. Glacier, Bute Inlet, . . . 52 
30. Scaling an Iceberg, eile ike af ee 
31. An Arctic Channel, : ify | ey oO 
32. Open Water, . : tte, tw 
33. Glacier Discharging, : ate OO 
meV GAC oe ein s/w ow fe. 80 
=o) Phe Narwhal,..« « . oy oO 
36. Walruses on the Ice, Se Bien ae: 
37. Home of the Polar Bear,. . peren (6\ 
38. The Gull, ‘ sissy Ge 
39. Lava-fields, See ar Sh abke HOES 
40. Effigy in Lava, Sah is 3 a oe 
41. The Strokkr, . Wei 
42. Entrance to the Almannagja, inde 
43. The Almannagja, ‘ ‘ 74 
44, The Hrafnagja, . . : 75 
45. The Tintron Rock, . : 75 
46. Fall of the Oxeraa, . , 76 
47. Icelandic Horses, : 81 
48. Shooting Reindeer, . : ; 82 
49. The Hider-duck, .. . : 83 
50. The Jyrfalcon, ae : 85 
51. The Giant Auk,. . 86 
52. Cathedral at Reykjavik, . 89 
53. Thingvalla, Logberg and Almannagja, 92 
54. Reykjavik, the Capital of Iceland, 98 
55. Governor’s Residence, Reykjavik, ioe 
56, Icelandic Houses, : . 103 


. Church at Thingvalla, . 
. The Pastor’s House, Thingvalla, 
. The Pastor of Thingvalla, . 
. Bridge River, Iceland, 
. Icelandic Bog, . . 
. Coast of Iceland, . 


Westman Isles, .. . 
Home of Sea-birds, 


. Fishing in Norway, . . 
. Norwegian Farm,. . 
. Steaming Along ‘the Coast, 


he Putting sles 


. The Dovrefjeld, hs : 
. Midnight Sun off Spitzbergen, ‘ 
. Magdalena Bay, Spitzbergen, . 
. Burial in Ber oncreey, 

. Arctic Fox, . . : 
. Chase of the Walrus, Salk 
. A glimpse of Jan Meyen’ S Island, 
. A Samoiede Priest, : 

. Banks of the Irtysch, 

. Group of Kirghis, 

. View of Tagilsk, . b 

. The Beach at Nicolayevsk, 
. On the Amoor, . ‘ 

. Village on the ‘Amoor, 

. ‘Koriak Yourt, 22 

. Kamchatka Sables, . . 
. Tartar Encampment, 

. Siberian faecal Sarai Wa 

>. View of ‘Irkutsky °°.) ¢ 

. A Jakut Village, . ints ‘ 
. Bering’s Monument at Petropavlosk, 248 
. Church at Petropavlosk, «20k 
. View of Petropavlosk, . 

. Dogs Fishing, . : 
. Dog-team, : 

. Dogs Towing Boat, . 
. Frame-work of Tchuktchi meee 
. Tchuktchi Canoe, . 

. Tchuktchi Pipe, 

Am, Aleuty ini. 

. View of Sitka, . ; 
Weed S286 Eh aE Si aE aR 
. Fort St. Michael, 

. The Frozen Yukon, 

. Under-ground House, 

. Fish-traps on the Yukon, 
. Aurora at Nulato, . 

. Breaking up of the Ice,. 
sMBOrty Vukom se ili 0M 
. A Deer Corral, 

. Lip Ornaments, A 
AM aardaie, | e../ leah eu aan 
. Four-post Coffin, 

; Danana Indian, . 2... 


e 


~o 


~» 


PAGE. 


. 105 
- 106 
. 107 
. 111 
. 113 
. 114 
- 115 
DET 
. 120 


- 122 
~ 123 
. 124 
« 127 
. 131 
. 184 
. 189 
« 140 

. 148 

. 145 

- 179 
- 185 
. 188 
. 191 
. 196 
LOT 
2) £98 
. 199 
. 201 
. 204 
. 207 

209 

229 


. 257 
. 259 
. 259 
. 260 
262 


xx LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
PAGE. PAGE. 

113. Winter Hut of Hunters, .. - 809 | 153. Spearing the Walrus, . . . . . 455 
114. Fort Edmonton, North Saskatche- 154. Innuit Igloos, . . 3 ie he ee 

wan,. . oe ele ie ecw tee abe WiralieS koala Tusks, os) aie ae 
115. Trader’ s Camp, - . 812 | 156. The Woman’s Knife, . . . . 457 
116. Swamp fulsical by “Deserted Beaver 157. Innuit Implements, . . . . . . 458 

Dam, . . . . 814 | 158. Finding the Dead, 6 a ara em 
117. Hunting Bison i in the Snow, . 319 | 159. Innuit Summer Village, eel’ tee eS ate 
118. Herd of Bisov, . 4 . 820 | 160. Returning to the oD, Bev 4 bs AGS 
119. Driving Bison over a Precipice, . . 821 | 161. Over the Ice, : Shes . » 464 
120. Watching for Crees,. . . . . . 822 | 162. The Frozen Sailor, - « 465 
121. A Cree Village, . . .. . . . 824] 163. Farewell of the Innuits, a - 467 
122. The Albatross,. . . . . . . . 896 | 164. Elephants Tied Up, . - 470. 
123. Strait of Magellan, . 408 | 165. Waterspout,. . sk pee . 471 
124. A Highway of Commerce, . 416 | 166. The Puna of Peru, zie . 481 
125. Patagonians, : . 417 | 167. Fountain of the Incas, : - 488 
126. Coast of Fuegia, . .. . . 425 | 168. Ascending the Andes, - » 490 
127. Fuegian Traders, . . 427 | 169. Cattle-Hunting on the Pampas, ee | 
128. A Fuegian and his Food, . 429 | 170. Natives of the Kalahari, . . . . 503 
129. Starvation Beach, . . 482 | 171. Igaripé, or Canoe-Path, . . 514 
130. Surveying in Greenland, . 483 | 172. Forest on Panama Railroad, - >. 626 
131, Hall and Companions, in Innuit C Cos- 178. Baobab Tree, with the Grave of 

tume, so: : . 484 Mrs. Livingston, fice . 528 
132, Kudlago, .« . 486 | 174. Avenue.of Palms, Rio de inches, . 589 
133. Greenland Currency, . . . . 4837 | 175. Palms on the Middle Amazon, . . 548 
134. Woman and Child. (Drawn and 176. Manufacture of Sago, . . . . . 552. 

Engraved by an Innuit,). . . 488 | 177. Siesta on the Amazon, . . . 604 
135. Festival of the ans of the King 178. Fi ae of the Malay Archipel 

of Denmark,. . : 5» 409 ; i eee . 580 
136. Preparing Boot- soles, ee - 440 | 179. Leaf ‘Butterfly, | . 588 
187. Wreck of the Rescue, . » . - . 441 | 180. Mosquito, Natural Size and Magni- 
188. The George Henry laid up for the fied, . . ee . 585 

Winter,’ ae abe Eas .. . 442) EA Termite Citadel, 7 a . 608 
139. Storm-bound, . . .. . . . . 443 | 182 Aard. Vark or Earth-Hog, ve 609 
140. Innuit Stone Lamp,. . . . 444 | 188. Rattlesnake Charming a Rabbit, 622 
141, Fighting for Food, . .. . . . 445 | 184. Snake Charming a Squirrel, 4g a 
142. Through the Snow, . .. . . 446 | 185. Killing the Snake—Central Africa, 628 
143. Waiting by a Seal-hole,. . . 447 | 186. Alligator and Crane,. . 637 
144, Looking for Seals, . . . . . . 448 | 187. Natives of Aru shooting t the _sreat 
145. Innuit Strategy to Capture a Seal, . 449 Bird of Paradise, . 654 
146. Seal-hole and Igloo, . . . 450 | 188. African Weaver-Birds, . . 660 
147. Waiting fora Blow, . . . . . . 450 | 189. Female Gorilla and Young, ico): 
148. Dog and Seal,. . . . 451 | 190. Female Orang-Outang, . . » OSE 
149, Spearing through the Snow, . - . 452 | 191. Lions Pulling Down a Giraffe, - « 699 
150. Dogs and Bear, . . » 458 | 192: An Obstinate Brute, .. 2 (. 7° @o07 ae 
151.. Barbekark and "the Reindeer, . . . 454 | 198. A Little Head-Work, o Seg Sal 
152. Head of Reindeer, . .. . . . 454 | 194. Chase of the Wild Boar, . . . . 736 

ILLUSTRATIONS OF ADDITIONAL CHAPTERS. 
PAGE. PAGE. 

Map of the “ Polaris ” Voyage, - « . . 706 | Discovery of the “ Polaris” Camp, - 780 
Officers of the “Polaris,”. . . . . 776 | Chart of the Western Arctic Region, . 784 
Map of the Western Hemisphere, . - . »- 778 | Chart of the Eastern Arctic Region, . 785 
Map of the Eastern Hemisphere, . . . 779 


THE POLAR WORLD. 


SSE 
La 
eppicigs 


THE TUNDRA OF SIBERIA. 


CHAPTER I. 
THE ARCTIC LANDS. 


The barren Grounds or Tundri.—Abundance of animal Life on the Tundri in Summer.—Their Silence 
and Desolation in Winter.—Protection afforded to Vegetation by the Snow.—Flower-growth in 
the highest Latitudes.—Character of Tundra Vegetation.—Southern Boundary-line of the barren 
Grounds.—Their Extent.—The forest Zone.—Arctic Trees.—Slowness of their Growth.—Monotony 
of the Northern Forests.—Mosquitoes.—The various Causes which determine the Severity of an 
Arctic Climate.—Insular and Continental Position.—Currents.—W inds.—Extremes of Cold observed 
by Sir E. Belcher and Dr. Kane.—How is Man able to support the Rigors of an Arctic Winter ?— 
Proofs of a milder Climate having once reigned in the Arctic Regions.—Its Cause according to 
Dr. Oswald Heer.—Peculiar Beauties of the Arctic Regions.—Sunset.—Long lunar Nights.—The 
Aurora. 

GLANCE at a map of the Arctic regions shows us that many of the 
rivers belonging to the three continents—Europe, Asia, America—dis- 
charge their waters into the Polar Ocean or its tributary bays. The terri- 
tories drained by these streams, some of which (such as the Mackenzie, the 

Yukon, the Lena, the Yenisei, and the Obi) rank among the giant rivers of 

the earth, form, along with the islands within or near the Arctic circle, the 

vast region over which the frost-king reigns supreme. 

Man styles himself the lord of the earth, and may with some justice lay 
claim to the title in more genial lands where, armed with the plough, he com- 
pels the soil to yield him a variety of fruits; but in those desolate tracts 

2 


18 THE POLAR WORLD. 


which are winter-bound during the greater part of the year, he is generally a 
mere wanderer over its surface—a hunter, a fisherman, or a herdsman—and 
but few small settlements, separated from each other by immense deserts, 
give proof of his having made some weak attempts to establish a footing. 

It is difficult to determine with precision the limits of the Arctic lands, since 
many countries situated as low as latitude 60° or even 50°, such as South 
Greenland, Labrador, Alaska, Kamchatka, or the country about Lake Baikal, 
have in their climate and productions a decidedly Arctic character, while others 
of a far more northern position, such as the coast of Norway, enjoy even in 
winter a remarkably mild temperature. But they are naturally divided into 
two principal and well-marked zones—that of the forests, and that ot the tree- 
less wastes. 


The latter, comprising the islands within the Arctic Circle, form a belt, more 
or less broad, bounded by the continental shores of the North Polar seas, and 
gradually merging toward the south into the forest-region, which encircles 
them with a garland of evergreen conifere. This treeless zone bears the 
name of the “barren grounds,” or the “barrens,” in North America, and of 
“tundri” in Siberia and European Russia. Its want of trees is caused not 
so much by its high northern latitude as by the cold sea-winds which sweep 
unchecked over the islands’or the flat coast-lands of the Polar Ocean, and 
for miles and miles compel even the hardiest plant to crouch before the blast 
and creep along the ground. , 

Nothing can be more melancholy than the aspect of the boundless morasses 
ot arid wastes of the tundri. Dingy mosses and gray lichens form the chief 


THE ARCTIC LANDS. 19 


vegetation, and a few scanty grasses or dwarfish flowers that may have found 
a refuge in some more sheltered spot are unable to refieve the dull monotony 
of the scene. 

In winter, when animal life has mostly retreated to the south or sought a 
refuge in burrows or in caves, an awful silence, interrupted only by the hooting 
of a snow-owl or the yelping of a fox, reigns over their vast expanse; but in 
spring, when the brown earth reappears from under the melted snow and the 
swamps begin to thaw, enormous flights of wild birds appear upon the scene 
and enliven it for a few months. An admirable instinct leads their winged 
legions from distant climes to the Arctic wildernesses, where in the morasses 
or lakes, on the banks of the rivers, on the flat strands, or along the fish-teem- 
ing coasts, they find an abundance of food, and where at the same time they 
can with greater security build their nests and rear their young. Some re- 
main on the skirts of the forest-region ; others, flying farther northward, lay 
their eggs upon the naked tundra. Eagles and hawks follow the traces of the 
natatorial and strand birds; troops of ptarmigans roam among the stunted 
bushes; and when the sun shines, the finch or the snow-bunting warbles his 
- merry note. ee 

“While thus the warmth of summer attracts hosts of migratory birds to the 
Arctic wildernesses, shoals of salmon and sturgeons enter the rivers in obe- 
dience to the instinct that forces them to quit the seas and to swim stream 
upward, for the purpose of depositing their spawn in the tranquil sweet wa- 
ters of the stream or lake. About this time also the reindeer leaves the 
forests to feed on the herbs and lichens of the tundra, and to seek along the 
shores fanned by the cooled sea-breeze some protection against the attacks of 
the stinging flies that rise in myriads from the swamps. Thus during several 
months the tundra presents an animated scene, in which man also plays his 
part. The birds of the air, the fishes of the water, the beasts of the earth, are 
all obliged to pay their tribute to his various wants, to appease his hunger, to 
clothe his body, or to gratify his greed of gain. 

But as soon as the first frosts of September announce the approach of win- 
ter, all animals, with but few exceptions, hasten to leave a region where the 
sources of life must soon fail. The geese, ducks, and swans return in dense 
flocks to the south; the strand-birds seek in some lower latitude a softer soil 
which allows their sharp beak to seize a burrowing prey; the water-fowl for- 
sake the bays and channels that will soon be blocked up with ice; the reindeer 
once more return to the forest, and in a short time nothing is left that can in- 
duce man to prolong his stay in the treeless plain. Soon a thick mantle of 
snow covers the hardened earth, the frozen lake, the ice-bound river, and con- 
ceals them all—seven, eight, nine months long—under its monotonous pall, 
except where the furious north-east wind sweeps it away and lays bare the 
naked rock. 

This snow, which after it has once fallen persists until the long summer’s 
day has effectually thawed it, protects in an admirable manner the vegetation 
of the higher latitudes against the cold of the long winter season. For snow 
is so bad a conductor of heat, that in mid-winter in the high latitude of 78° 


20 THE POLAR WORLD. 


tii 
t 


i 
nan 


hi, Wy uN 
“ee 


ROCKS AND ICE. 


AR 
N 


50’ (Rensselaer Bay), while the surface temperature was as low as —380°, Kane 
found at two feet deep a temperature of — 8°, at four feet. +2°, and at eight 
feet +26°, or no more than six degrees below the freezing-point of water. 
Thus covered by a warm crystal snow-mantle, the northern plants pass the long 
winter in a comparatively mild temperature, high enough to maintain their life, 
while, without, icy blasts—capable of converting mercury into a solid body— 
howl over the naked wilderness; and as the first snow-falls are more cellular 
and less condensed than the nearly impalpable powder of winter, Kane justly 
observes that no “ eider-down in the cradle of an infant is tucked in more 
kindly than the sleeping-dress of winter about the feeble plant-life of the Arc- 
tic zone.” Thanks to this protection, and to the influence of a sun which for 
months circles above the horizon, and in favorable localities calls forth the pow- 
ers of vegetation in an incredibly short time, even Washington, Grinnell Land, 
and Spitzbergen are able to boast of flowers.. Morton plucked a erucifer at 
Cape Constitution (80° 45’ N, lat.), and, on the banks of Mary Minturn River 
(78° 52’), Kane came across a flower-growth which, though drearily Arctie in 
its type, was rich in variety and coloring. Amid festuca and other tufted 
grasses twinkled the purple lychnis and the white star of the chickweed; and, 
not without its pleasing associations, he recognized a solitary hesperis—the 
Arctic representative of the wall-flowers of home. 

Next to the lichens and mosses, which form the chief vegetation of the 
treeless zone, the cruciferx, the grasses, the saxifragas, the caryophyllx, and 
the composite are the families of plants most largely represented in the barren 
grounds or tundri. Though vegetation becomes more and more uniform on 
advancing to the north, yet the number of individual plants does not decrease. 


THE ARCTIC LANDS. 21 


When the soil is moderately dry, the surface is covered by a dense carpet of 
lichens (Cornicularie), mixed in damper spots with Icelandic moss. In more 
tenacious soils, other plants flourish, not however to the exclusion of lichens, ex- 
cept in tracts of meadow ground, which occur in sheltered situations, or in the 


fi Ly 


ZA —=_ 


“kt 2 \ > = S a i | | } | YY My S Fi 
A S Heit . iit ge 


alluvial inundated flats where tall reed-grasses or dwarf willows frequently 
grow as closely as they can stand. 

It may easily be supposed that the boundary-line which separates the tun- 
dri from the forest zone is both indistinct and irregular. In some parts where 
the cold sea-winds have a wider range, the barren grounds encroack consider- 


22 THE POLAR WORLD. 


ably upon the limits of the forests; in others, where the configuration of the 
land prevents their action, the woods advance farther to the north. 

Thus the barren grounds attain their most southerly limit in Labrador, 
where they descend to latitude 57°, and this is sufficiently explained by the 
position of that bleak peninsula, bounded on three sides by icy seas, and washed 
by cold currents from the north. On the opposite coasts of Hudson’s Bay 
they begin about 60°, and thence gradually rise toward the mouth of the 
Mackenzie, where the forests advance as high as 68°, or even still farther to the 
north along the low banks of that river. From the Mackenzie the barrens 
again descend until they reach Bering’s Sea in 65° N. On the opposite or 
Asiatic shore, in the land of the Tchuktchi, they begin again more to the south, 
in 63°, thence continually rise as far as the Lena, where Anjou found trees in 
71° N., and then fall again toward the Obi, where the forests do not even reach 
the Arctic circle. From the Obi the tundri retreat farther and farther to the 
north, until finally, on the coasts of Norway, in latitude 70°, they terminate 
with the land itself. 

Hence we see that the treeless zone of Europe, Asia, and America occupies 
a space larger than the whole of Europe. Even the African Sahara, or the 
Pampas of South America, are inferior in extent to the Siberian tundri. But 
the possession of a few hundred square miles of fruitful territory on the south- 
western frontiers of his vast empire would be of greater value to the Czar than 
that of those boundless wastes, which are tenanted only by a few wretched 
pastoral tribes, or some equally wretched fishermen. 

The Arctic forest-regions are of a still greater extent than the vast treeless 
plains which they encircle. When we consider that they form an almost con- 


COAST OF NORWAY. 


THE ARCTIC LANDS. 23 


*“LSHUOT OILLOUV 


tinuous belt, stretching through three parts of the world, in a breadth of from 
15° to 20°, even the woods of the Amazon, which cover a surface fifteen times 
greater than that of the United Kingdom, shrink into comparative insignifi- 
cance. Unlike the tropicak forests, which are characterized by an immense 
variety of trees, these northern woods are almost entirely composed of conif- 
erz, and one single kind of fir or pine often covers an immense extent of 


24 THE POLAR WORLD. 


ground. The European and Asiatic species differ, however, from those which 
grow in America, 

Thus in the Russian empire and Scandinavia we find the Scotch fir (Pinus 
sylvestris), the Siberian fir and larch (Abies sibirica, Larix sibirica), the Picea 
obovata, and the Pinus cembra y while in the Hudson’s Bay territories the 
woods principally consist of the white and black spruce (Abies alba and 
nigra), the Canadian larch (Laria canadensis, and the gray pine (Pinus 
banksiana). In both continents birch-trees grow farther to the north than 
the conifers, and the dwarf willows form dense thickets on the shores of every 
river and lake. Various species of the service-tree, the ash, and the elder are 
also met with in the Arctic forests; and both under the shelter of the woods 
and beyond their limits, nature, as if to compensate for the want of fruit-trees, 
produces in favorable localities an abundance of bilberries, bogberries, cran- 
berries, etc. (impetrum, Vaccinium), whose fruit is a great boon to man and 
beast. When congealed by the autumnal frosts, the berries frequently remain 
hanging on the bushes until the snow melts in the following June, and are 
then a considerable resource to the flocks of water-fowl migrating to their 
northern breeding-places, or to the bear awakening from his winter sleep. 


VERGE OF FOREST REGION. 


THE ARCTIC LANDS. 25 


. Another distinctive character of the forests of the high latitudes is their 
apparent youth, so that generally the traveller would hardly suppose them to 
be more than fifty years, or at most a century old. ‘Their juvenile appearance 
increases on advancing northward, until suddenly their decrepit age is re- 
vealed by the thick bushes of lichens which clothe or hang down from their 
shrivelled boughs. Farther to the south, large trees are found scattered here 
and there, but not so numerous as to modify the general appearance of the 
forest, and even these are mere dwarfs when compared with the gigantic firs 
of more temperate climates. This phencmenon is sufficiently explained by the 
shortness of the summer, which, though able to bring forth new shoots, does 
not last long enough for the formation of wood. Hence the growth of trees 
becomes slower and slower on advancing to the north; so that on the banks 
of the Great Bear Lake, for instance, 400 years are necessary for the formation 
of a trunk not thicker than a man’s waist. Toward the confines of the tundra, 
the woods are reduced to stunted stems, covered with blighted buds that have 
been unable to develep themselves into branches, and which prove by their 
numbers how frequently and how vainly they have striven against the wind, 
until finally the last remnants of arboreal vegetation, vanquished by the blasts 
of winter, seek refuge under a carpet of lichens and mosses, from which their 
annual shoots hardly venture to peep forth. 

A third peculiarity which distinguishes the forests of the north from those 
of the tropical world is what may be called their harmless character. There 
the traveller finds none of those noxious plants whose juices contain a deadly 
poison, and even thorns and prickles are of rare occurrence. No venomous 
snake glides through the thicket; no crocodile lurks in the swamp; and the 
northern beasts of prey—the bear, the lynx, the wolf—are far less dangerous 
and blood-thirsty than the large felide of the torrid zone. 

The comparatively small number of animals living in the Arctic forests 
corresponds with the monotony of their vegetation. Here we should seek in 
vain for that immense variety of insects, or those troops of gaudy birds which 
in the Brazilian woods excite the admiration, and not unfrequently cause the 
despair of the wanderer; here we should in vain expect to hear the clamorous 
voices that resound in the tropical thickets. No noisy monkeys or quarrel- 
some parrots settle on the branches of the trees; no shrill cicade or melan- 
choly goat-suckers interrupt the solemn stillness of the night; the howl of the 
hungry wolf, or the hoarse screech of some solitary bird of prey, are almost 
the only sounds that ever disturb the repose of these awful solitudes. When 
the tropical hurricane sweeps over the virgin forests, it awakens a thousand 
voices of alarm; but the Arctic storm, however furiously it may blow, scarce- 
ly calls forth an echo from the dismal shades of the pine-woods of the north. 

In one respect only the forests and swamps of the northern regions vie in 
abundance of animal life with those of the equatorial zone, for the legions of 
gnats which the short polar summer calls forth from the Arctic morasses are a 
no less-intolerable plague than the mosquitoes of the tropical marshes. 

Though agriculture encroaches but little upon the Arctic woods, yet the 
agency of man is gradually working a change in their aspect. Large tracts of 


26 THE POLAR WORLD. 


forest are continually wasted by extensive fires, kindled accidentally or inten- 
tionally, which spread with rapidity over a wide extent of country, and con- 
ii 


yor 


mt 


ae 8 
—— 
= == 
———— 


Na 
C 


FOREST CONFLAGRATION 


tinue to burn until they are extinguished by a heavy rain. Sooner or later a 
new growth of timber springs up, but the soil, being generally enriched and 
saturated with alkali, now no longer brings forth its aboriginal firs, but gives 
birth to a thicket of beeches (Letula alba) in Asia, or of aspens in America, 


THE ARCTIC LANDS. 27 


The line of perpetual snow may naturally be expected to descend lower and 
lower on advancing to the pole, and hence many mountainous regions or ele- 
_ vated plateaux, such as the interior of Spitzbergen, of Greenland, of Nova 
Zembla, etc., which in a more temperate clime would be verdant with woods 
or meadows, are here covered with vast fields of ice, from which frequently 
glaciers descend down to the verge of the sea. But even in the highest north- 
ern latitudes, no land has yet been found covered as far as the water’s edge 
with eternal snow, or where winter has entirely subdued the powers of vegeta- 
tion. The reindeer of Spitzbergen find near 80° N. lichens or grasses to feed 
upon ; in favorable seasons the snow melts by the end of June on the plains of 
Melville Island, and numerous lemmings, requiring vegetable food for their sub- 
sistence, inhabit the deserts of New Siberia. As far as man has reached to the 
north, vegetation, when fostered by a sheltered situation and the refraction of 
solar heat from the rocks, has everywhere been found to rise to a considerable 
altitude above the level of the sea; and should there be land at the North Pole, 
there is every reason to believe that it is destitute neither of animal nor vege- 
table life. It would be equally erroneous to suppose that the cold of winter in- 
variably increases as we near the pole, as the temperature of a land is influ- 
enced by many other causes besides its latitude. Even in the most northern 
regions hitherto visited by man, the influence of the sea, particularly when fa- 
vored by warm currents, is found to mitigate the severity of the winter, while 
at the same time it diminishes the warmth of summer. On the other hand, 
the large continental tracts of Asia or America that shelve toward the pole 
have a more intense winter cold and a far greater summer’s heat than many 
coast-lands or islands situated far nearer to the pole. Thus, to cite but a few 
examples, the western shores of Nova Zembla, fronting a wide expanse of sea, 
have an average winter temperature of only —4°, and a mean summer temper- 
ature but little above the freezing-point of water (+-364°), while Jakutsk, sit- 
uated in the heart of Siberia, and 20° nearer to the Equator, has a winter of 
—36° 6’, and a summer of +66° 6’. ° 

The influence of the winds is likewise of considerable importance in de- 
termining the greater or lesser severity of an Arctic climate. Thus the north- 
erly winds which prevail in Baffin’s Bay and Davis’s Straits during the sum- 
mer months, and fill the straits of the American north-eastern Archipelago with 
ice, are probably the main cause of the abnormal depression of temperature in 
that quarter; while, on the contrary, the southerly winds that prevail during 
summer in the valley of the Mackenzie tend greatly to extend the forest of 
that favored region nearly down to the shores of the Arctic Sea. Even in the 
depth of a Siberian winter, a sudden change of wind is able to raise the ther- 
mometer from a mercury-congealing cold to a temperature above the freezing- 
point of water, and a warm wind has been known to cause rain to fall in Spitz- 
bergen in the month of January. 

The voyages of Kane and Belcher have made us acquainted with the low- 
est temperatures ever felt by man. On Feb. 5, 1854, while the former was 
wintering in Smith’s Sound (78° 37’ N. lat.), the mean of his best spirit-ther- 
mometer showed the unexampled temperature of —68° or 100° below the 


28 THE POLAR WORLD. 


freezing-point of water. Then chloric ether became solid, and carefully ‘pre- 
pared chloroform exhibited a granular pellicle on its surface. The exhalations 
from the skin invested the exposed or partially clad parts with a wreath of 
vapor. The air had a perceptible pungency upon inspiration, and every one, 
as it were involuntarily, breathed guardedly with compressed lips. About the 
same time (February 9 and 10, 1854), Sir E. Belcher experienced a cold of 
—55° in Wellington Channel (75° 31’ N.), and the still lower temperature of 
—62° on January 13, 1853, in Northumberland Sound (76° 52’ N.). Whym- 
per, on December 6, 1866, experienced —58 at Nulatto, Alaska (64° 42’ N.). 

Whether the temperature of the air descends still lower on advancing to- 
ward the pole, or whether these extreme degrees of cold are not sometimes 
surpassed in those mountainous regions of the north which, though seen, have 
never yet been explored, is of course an undecided question: so much is cer- 
tain, that the observations hitherto made during the winter of the Arctic re- 
gions have been limited to too short a time, and are too few in number, to en- 
able us to determine with any degree of certainty those points where the 
greatest cold prevails. All we know is, that beyond the Arctic Circle, and 
eight or ten degrees farther to the south in the interior of the continents of 
Asia and America, the average temperature of the winter generally ranges from 
—20° to —30°, or even lower, and for a great part of the year is able to con- 
vert mercury into a solid body. 

It may well be asked how man is able to bear the excessively low tempera- 
ture of an Arctic winter, which must appear truly appalling to an inhabitant 
of the temperate zone. A thick fur clothing; a hut small and low, where the 
warmth of a fire, or simply of a train-oil lamp, is husbanded in a narrow space, 
and, above all, the wonderful power of the human constitution to accommodate 
itself to every change of climate, go far to counteract the rigor of the cold. 

After a very few days the body develops an increasing warmth as the ther- 
mometer descends; for the air being condensed by the cold, the lungs inhale 
at every breath a greater quantity of oxygen, which of course accelerates: the 
internal process of combustion, while at the same time an increasing appetite, 
gratified with a copious supply of animal food, of flesh and fat, enriches the 
blood and enables it to circulate more vigorously. Thus not only the hardy 
native of the north, but even the healthy traveller soon gets accustomed to 
bear without injury the rigors of an Arctic winter. 

“The mysterious compensations,” says Kane, “by which we adapt our- 
selves to climate are more striking here than in the tropics. In the Polar zone 
the assault is immediate and sudden, and, unlike the insidious fatality of hot 
countries, produces its results rapidly. It requires hardly a single winter to 
tell who are to be the heat-making and acclimatized men. Petersen, for in- 
stance, who has resided for two years at Upernavik, seldom enters a room with 
a fire. Another of our party, George Riley, with a vigorous constitution, es- 
tablished habits of free exposure, and active cheerful temperament, has so 
inured himself to the cold, that he sleeps on our sledge journeys without a 
blanket or any other covering than his walking suit, while the outside tem- 
perature is —380°,” 


THE ARCTIC LANDS. ; 29 


There are many proofs that a milder climate once reigned in the northern 
regions of the globe. Fossil pieces of wood, petrified acorns and fir-cones 


ARCTIC CLOTHING. 


have been found in the interior of Banks’s Land by M‘Clure’s sledging-parties. 
At Anakerdluk, in North Greenland (70° N.), a large forest lies buried on a 
mountain surrounded by glaciers, 1080 feet above the level of the sea. Not 
only the trunks and branches, but even the leaves, fruit-cones, and seeds have 
been preserved in the soil, and enable the botanist to determine the species of 
the plants to which they belong. They show that, besides firs and sequoias, 
oaks, plantains, elms, magnolias, and even laurels, indicating a climate such as 
that of Lausanne or Geneva, flourished during the miocene period in a coun- 
try where now even the willow is compelled to creep along the ground. Dur- 
ing the same epoch of the earth’s history Spitzbergen was likewise covered 
with stately forests. The same poplars and the same swamp-cypress ( Zaxo- 
dium dubium) which then flourished in North Greenland have been found in 
a fossilized state at Bell Sound (76° N.) by the Swedish naturalists, who also 
discovered a plantain and a linden as high as 78° and 79° in King’s Bay—a 
proof that in those times the climate of Spitzbergen can not have been colder 


30 THE POLAR WORLD. 


than that which now reigns in Southern Sweden and Norway, eighteen degrees 
nearer to the line. : 

We know that at present the fir, the poplar, and the beech grow fifteen de- 
grees farther to the north than the plantain—and the miocene period no doubt 
exhibited the same proportion. Thus the poplars and firs which then grew 
in Spitzbergen along with plantains and lindens must have ranged as far as 
the pole itself, supposing that point to be dry land. | 

In the miocene times the Arctic zone evidently presented a very different 
aspect from that which it wears at present. Now, during the greater part of 
the year, an immense glacial desert, which through its floating bergs and drift- 
ice depresses the temperature of countries situated far to the south, it then 
consisted of verdant lands covered with luxuriant forests and bathed by an 
Open sea. 

What may have been the cause of these amazing changes of climate? The 
readiest answer seems to be—a different distribution of sea and land; but 
there is no reason to believe that in the miocene times there was less land in 
the Arctic zone than at present, nor can any possible combination of water and 
dry land be imagined sufficient to account for the growth of laurels in Green- 
land or of plantains in Spitzbergen. Dr. Oswald Heer is inclined to seek for 
an explanation of the phenomenon, not in mere local terrestrial changes, but in 
a difference of the earth’s position in the heavens. 

We now know that our sun, with his attendant planets and satellites, per- 


forms a vast circle, embracing perhaps hundreds of thousands of years, round 
another star, and that we are constantly entering new regions of space untray- 


THE ARCTIC LANDS. 31 


elled by our earth before. We come from the unknown, and plunge into the 
unknown ; but so much is certain, that our solar system rolls at present through 
a space but thinly peopled with stars, and there is no reason to doubt that it 
may once have wandered through one of those celestial provinces where, as 
the telescope shows us, constellations are far more densely clustered. But, 
as every star is a blazing sun, the greater or lesser number of these heavenly 
bodies must evidently have a proportionate influence upon the temperature of 
space; and thus we may suppose that during the miocene period our earth, 
being at that time in a populous sidereal region, enjoyed the benefit of a 
higher temperature, which clothed even its poles with verdure. In the course 
of ages the sun conducted his herd of planets into more solitary and colder 
regions, which caused the warm miocene times to be followed by the glacial 
period, during which the Swiss flat lands bore an Arctic character, and finally 


AURORA SEEN IN NORWAY. 


the sun emerged into a space of an intermediate character, which determines 
the present condition of the climates of our globe. 

Though Nature generally wears a more stern and forbidding aspect on ad- 
vancing toward the pole, yet the high latitudes have many beauties of their 


32 


THE POLAR WORLD. 


| 
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COAT 


cmc 
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ToT 


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AURORA SEEN IN GREENLAND. 


own. Nothing can exceed the magnificence of an Arctic sunset, clothing the 
snow-clad mountains and the skies with all the glories of color, or be more 


serenely beautiful than the clear star-light night, illumined by the brilliant 
moon, which for days continually circles around the horizon, never setting until 


THE ARCTIC LANDS. 30 


she has run her long course of brightness. The uniform whiteness of the land- 
scape and the general transparency of the atmosphere add to the lustre of her 
beams, which serve the natives to guide their nomadic life, and to lead them 
to their hunting-grounds. 

But of all the magnificent spectacles that relieve the monotonous gloom of 
the Arctic winter, there is none to equal the magical beauty of the Aurora. 
Night covers the snow-clad earth; the stars glimmer feebly through the haze 
which so frequently dims their brilliancy in the high latitudes, when suddenly 
a broad and clear bow of light spans the horizon in the direction where it is 
traversed by the magnetic meridian. ‘This bow sometimes remains for several 
hours, heaving or waving to and fro, before it sends forth streams of light 
ascending to the zenith. Sometimes these flashes proceed from the bow of 
light alone; at others they simultaneously shoot forth from many opposite 
parts of the horizon, and form a vast sea of fire whose brilliant waves are con- 
tinually changing their position. Finally they all unite in a magnificent crown 
or copula of light, with the appearance of which the phenomenon attains its 
highest degree of splendor. The brilliancy of the streams, which are com- 
monly red at their. base, green in the middle, and light yellow toward the 
zenith, increases, while at the same time they dart with greater vivacity through 
the skies. The colors are wonderfully transparent, the red approaching to a 
clear blood-red, the green to a pale emerald tint. On turning from the flaming 
firmament to the earth, this also is seen to glow with a magical light. The 
dark sea, black as jet, forms a striking contrast to the white snow-plain or the 
distant ice-mountain; all the outlines tremble as if they belonged to the 
unreal world of dreams. The imposing silence of the night heightens the 
charms of the magnificent spectacle. 

But gradually the crown fades, the bow of light dissolves, the streams be- 
come shorter, less frequent, and less vivid; and finally the gloom of winter 
once more descends upon the northern desert. 

3 


34 THE POLAR WORLD. 


CHAPTER II. 
ARCTIC LAND QUADRUPEDS AND BIRDS. 


The Reindeer.—Structure of its Foot.—Clattering Noise when walking.—Antlers.—Extraordinary 
olfactory Powers.—The Icelandic Moss.—Present and Former Range of the Reindeer.—Its invalu- 
able Qualities;as an Arctic domestic Animal.—Revolts against Oppression.—Enemies of the Rein- 
deer.—The Wolf.—The Glutton or Wolverine.—Gad-flies.—The Elk or Moose-deer.—The Musk- 
ox.—The Wild Sheep of the Rocky Mountains.—The Siberian Argali.—The Arctic Fox.—lts Bur- 
rows.—The Lemmings.—Their Migrations and Enemies.—Arctic Anatide.—The Snow-bunting.— 
The Lapland Bunting.—The Sea-eagle.—Drowned by a Dolphin. 

HE reindeer may well be called the camel of the northern wastes, for it is 
a no less valuable companion to the Laplander or to the Samojede than the 

“ship of the desert” to the wandering Bedouin. It is the only member of the 
numerous deer family that has been domesticated by man; but though un- 
doubtedly the most useful, it is by no means the most comely of its race. Its 
clear, dark eye has, indeed, a beautiful expression, but it has neither the noble 
proportions of the stag nor the grace of the roebuck, and its thick square-form- 
ed body is far from being a model of elegance. Its legs are short and thick, 
its feet broad, but extremely well adapted for walking over the snow or on a 
swampy ground. The front hoofs, which are capable of great lateral expansion, 
curve upward, while the two secondary ones behind (which are but slightly 
developed in the fallow deer and other members of the family) are considera- 
bly prolonged: a structure which, by giving the animal a broader base to stand 
upon, prevents it from sinking too deeply into the snow or the morass. Had 
the foot of the reindeer been formed like that of our stag, it would have been 
as unable to drag the Laplander’s sledge with such velocity over the yielding 
snow-fields as the camel would be to perform his long marches throngh the 
desert without the broad elastic sole-pad on which he firmly paces the unsta- 
ble sands. 

The short legs and broad feet of the reindeer likewise enable it to swim with 
greater ease—a power of no small importance in countries abounding in rivers 
and lakes, and where the scarcity of food renders perpetual migrations necessa- 
ry. When the reindeer walks or merely moves, a remarkable clattering sound 
is heard to some distance, about the cause of which naturalists and travellers 
by no means agree. Most probably it results from the great length of the two 
digits of the cloven hoof, which when the animal sets its foot upon the ground 
separate widely, and when it again raises its hoof suddenly clap against each 
other. 

A long mane of a dirty white color hangs from the neck of the reindeer. In 
summer the body is brown above and white beneath; in winter, long-haired 
and white. Its antlers are very different from those of the stag, having broad 
palmated summits, and branching back to the length of three or four feet. 


“ 


QUADRUPEDS AND BIRDS. 35 


<= 


Se 


SSS 


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‘HRAGNIGU FO dNOAD 


4 


Their weight is frequently very considerable—twenty or twenty-five pounds ; 
and it is remarkable that both sexes have horns, while in all other members of 
the deer race the males alone are in possession of this ornament or weapon. 
The female brings forth in May a single calf, rarely two. This is small and 
weak, but after a few days it follows the mother, who suckles her young but a 


36 THE POLAR WORLD. 


short time, as it is soon able to seek and to find its food. The reindeer gives 
very little milk—at the very utmost, after the young has been weaned, a bottle- 
ful daily; but the quality is excellent, for it is uncommonly thick and nutritious. 
It consists almost entirely of cream, so that a great deal of water can be added 
before it becomes inferior to the best cow-milk. Its taste is excellent, but the 
butter made from it is rancid, and hardly to be eaten, while the cheese is very 
good. 

The only food of the reindeer during winter consists of moss, and the most 
surprising circumstance in his history is the instinct, or the extraordinary olfac- 
tory powers, whereby he is enabled to discover it when hidden beneath the 
snow. However deep the Lichen rangiferinus may be buried, the animal is 
aware of its presence the moment he comes to the spot, and this kind of food 
is never so agreeable to him as when he digs for it himself. In his manner of 
doing this he is remarkably adroit. Having first ascertained, by thrusting his 
muzzle into the snow, whether the moss lies below or not, he begins making a 
hole with his fore feet, and continues working until at length he uncovers the 
lichen. No instance has ever occurred of a reindeer making such a cavity with- 
out discovering the moss he seeks. In summer their food is of a different na- 
ture; they are then pastured upon green herbs or the leaves of trees. Judg- 
ing from the lichen’s appearance in the hot months, when it is dry and brittle, 
one might easily wonder that so large a quadruped as the reindeer should 
make it his favorite food and fatten upon it; but toward the month of Septem- 
ber the lichen becomes soft, tender, and damp, with a taste like wheat-bran. In 
this state its luxuriant and flowery ramifications somewhat resemble the leaves 
of endive, and are as white as snow. 

Though domesticated since time immemorial, the reindeer has only partly 
been brought under the yoke of man, and wanders in large wild herds both in 
the North American wastes, where it has never yet been reduced to servitude, 
and in the forests and tundras of the Old World. : 

In America, where it is called “ caribou,” it extends from Labrador to Mel- 
ville Island and Washington Land; in Europe and Asia it is found from Lap- 
land and Norway, and from the mountains of Mongolia and the banks of the 
Ufa, as far as Nova Zembla and Spitzbergen. Many centuries ago-—probably 
during the glacial period—its range was still more extensive, as reindeer bones . 
are frequently found in French and German caves, and bear testimony to the 
severity of the climate which at that time reigned in Central Europe; for the 
reindeer is a cold-loving animal, and will not thrive under a milder sky. All 
attempts to prolong its life in our zoological gardens have failed, and even in 
the royal park at Stockholm Hogguer saw some of these animals, which were 
quite languid and emaciated during the summer, although care had been 
taken to provide them with a cool grotto to which they could retire during the 
warmer hours of the day. In summer the reindeer can enjoy health only in the 
fresh mountain air or along the bracing sea-shore, and has as great a longing for 
a low temperature as man for the genial warmth of his fireside in winter. 

The reindeer is easily tamed, and soon gets accustomed to its master, whose 
society it loves, attracted as it were by a kind of innate sympathy ; for, unlike 


THE ARCTIC LANDS. 37 


all other domestic animals, it is by no means dependent on man for its subsist- 
ence, but finds its nourishment alone, and wanders about freely in summer and 
in winter without ever being inclosed in a stable. These qualities are inesti- 
mable in countries where it would be utterly impossible to keep any domestic 
animal requiring shelter and stores of provisions during the long winter months, 
and make the reindeer the fit companion of the northern nomad, whose simple 
wants it almost wholly supplies. During his wanderings, it carries his tent and 
scanty household furniture, or drags his sledge over the snow. On account of the 
weakness of its back-bone, it is less fit for riding, and requires to be mounted with 
care, as a violent shock easily dislocates its vertebral column ; the saddle is placed 
on the haunches. You would hardly suppose the reindeer to be the same animal 
when languidly creeping along under a rider’s weight, as when, unencumbered 
by a load, it vaults with the lightness of a bird over the obstacles in its way to 
obey the call of its master. The reindeer can be easily trained to drag a sledge, 
but great care must be taken not to beat or otherwise ill-treat it, as it then be- 
comes obstinate, and quite unmanageable. When forced to drag too heavy a 
load, or taxed in any way above its strength, it not seldom turns round upon 
its tyrant, and attacks him with its horns and fore feet. To save himself from 
its fury, he is then obliged to overturn his sledge, and to seek a refuge under 
its bottom until the rage of the animal has abated. 

After the death of the reindeer, it may truly be said that every part of its 
body is put to some use. The flesh is very good, and the tongue and marrow 
are considered a great delicacy. The blood, of which not a drop is allowed to 
be lost, is either drunk warm or made up into a kind of black pudding. The 
skin furnishes not only clothing impervious to the cold, but tents and bedding; 
and spoons, knife-handles, and other household utensils are made out of the 
bones and horns; the latter serve also, like the claws, for the preparation of an 
excellent glue, which the Chinese, who buy them for this purpose of the Rus- 
sians, use as a nutritious jelly. In Tornea the skins of new-born reindeer are 
prepared and sent to St. Petersburg to be manufactured into gloves, which are 
extremely soft, but very dear. 

Thus the cocoa-nut palm, the tree of a hundred uses, hardly renders a 
greater variety of services to the islanders of the Indian Ocean than the rein- 
_ deer to the Laplander or the Samojede ; and, to the honor of these barbarians 
be it mentioned, they treat their invaluable friend and companion with a grate- 
ful affection which might serve as an example to far more civilized nations. 

The reindeer attains an age of from twenty to twenty-five years, but in its 
domesticated state it is generally killed when from six to ten years old. Its 
most dangerous enemies are the wolf, and the glutton or wolverine ( Gulo bo- 
realis or arcticus), which belongs to the bloodthirsty marten and weasel family, 
and is said to be of uncommon fierceness and strength. It is about the size 
of a large badger, between which animal and the pole-cat it seems to be inter- 
mediate, nearly resembling the former in its general figure and aspect, and 
agreeing with the latter as to its dentition. No dog is capable of mastering 
a glutton, and even the wolf is hardly able to scare it from its prey. Its feet 
are very short, so that it can not run swiftly, but it climbs with great facility 


38 ; THE POLAR WORLD. 


upon trees, or ascends even almost perpendicular rock-walls, where it also seeks 
a refuge when pursued. 

When it perceives a herd of reindeer browsing near a wood or a precipice, 
it generally lies in wait upon a branch or some high cliff, and springs down 
upon the first animal that comes within its reach. Sometimes also it steals 
unawares upon its prey, and suddenly bounding upon its back, kills it by a sin- 
gle bite in the neck. Many fables worthy of Miinchausen have been told about its 
voracity ; for instance, that it is able to devour two reindeer at one meal, and 
that, when its stomach is exorbitantly distended with food, it will press itself 
between two trees or stones to make room for a new repast. It will, indeed, 
kill in one night six or eight reindeer, but it contents itself with sucking their 
blood, as the weasel does with fowls, and eats no more at one meal than any 
other carnivorous animal of its own size. 

Besides the attacks of its mightier enemies, the reindeer is subject to the 
persecutions of two species of gad-fly, which torment it exceedingly. The 
one (Gstrus tarandt), called Hurbma by the Laplanders, deposits its glutinous 
eggs upon the animal’s back. The larve, on creeping out, immediately bore 
themselves into the skin, where by their motion and suction they cause so 
many small swellings or boils, which gradually grow to the size of an inch or 
more in diameter, with an opening at the top of each, through which the larve 
may be seen imbedded in a purulent fluid. Frequently the whole back of the 
animal is covered with these boils, which, by draining its fluids, produce ema. 
ciation and disease. As if aware of this danger, the reindeer runs wild and fu- 
rious as soon as it hears the buzzing of the fly, and seeks a refuge in the nearest 
water. ‘The other species of gad-fly (@strus nasalis) lays its eggs in the nostrils 
of the reindeer ; and the larve, boring themselves into the fauces and beneath the 
tongue of the poor animal, are a great source of annoyance, as is shown by its 
frequent sniffing and shaking of the head. 

A pestilential disorder like the rinderpest will sometimes sweep away whole 
herds. Thus in a few weeks a rich Laplander or Samojede may be reduced to 
poverty, and the proud possessor of several thousands of reindeer be ee 
led to seek the precarious livelihood of the northern fisherman. 

The elk or moose-deer (Cervus alces) is another member of the cervine race 
peculiar to the forests of the north. In size it is far superior to the stag, but it 
ean not boast of an elegant shape, the head being disproportionately large, the 
neck short and thick, and its immense horns, which sometimes weigh near fifty 
pounds, each dilating almost immediately from the base into a broad palmated 
form; while its long legs, high shoulders, and heavy upper lip hanging very 
much over the lower, give it an uncouth appearance. The color of the elk is a 
dark grayish-brown, but much paler on the legs and beneath the tail. 

We owe the first description of this gigantic deer to Julius Cesar, in whose 
time it was still a common inhabitant of the German forests. But the conquer- 
or of Gaul can hardly have seen it himself, or he would not have ascribed to it 
a single horn, placed in the middle of the forehead, or said that both sexes are 
perfectly alike, for the female is smaller and has no antlers. At present the 
elk is still found in the swampy forests of East Prussia, Lithuania, and Po- 


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ARCTIC LAND QUADRUPEDS AND BIRDS. 


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WN 


; 


Uy , 


ELKS 


40 THE POLAR WORLD. 


land, but it chiefly resides in the more northern woods of Russia, Siberia, 
and America. It is a mild and harmless animal, principally supporting itself 
by browsing the boughs of willows, asps, service-trees, and other ‘soft spe- 
cies of wood. It does not, like the reindeer, seek a refuge against -the at- 
tacks of the gad-flies, by wandering to the coasts of the sea, or retreating to 
the bare mountains, where it would soon perish for the want of adequate food, 
but plunges up to the nose into the next river, where it finds, moreover, a spe- 
cies of water-grass (/estuca jfluitans) which it likes to feed upon. Though 
aaturally mild and harmless, it displays a high degree of courage, and even fe- 
rocity when suddenly attacked ; defending itself with great vigor, not only with 
its horns, but also by striking violently with its fore feet, in the use of which 
it is particularly dexterous. It is generally caught in traps, as it is extremely 
shy and watchful, and finds an easy retreat in the swamp or the forest. The 
only time of the year when it can be easily chased is in the spring, when the 
softened snow gets covered during the night with a thin crust of ice which is 
too weak to bear the animal’s weight. | 
Though not ranging so far north as the reindeer or the elk, we find in the 
Old World the red-deer (Cervus elaphus), in the vicinity of Drontheim, in Nor- 
way, and along with the roebuck beyond Lake Baikal, in Siberia, while in 
America the large-eared deer (Cervus macrotis), and the Wapiti, or Canada stag 
(Cervus strongylo-ceras), extend their excursions beyond 55° of northern lati- 
tude. The latter is much larger and of a stronger make than the European 
red-deer, frequently growing to the height of our tallest oxen, and possessing 
great activity as well as strength. The flesh is little prized, but the hide, when 
made into leather after the Indian fashion, is said not to turn hard in drying 
after being wet—a quality which justly entitles it to a preference over almost 
every other kind of leather. | 
One of the most remarkable quadrupeds of the high northern regions is the 
musk-ox ( Ovibos moschatus), which. 
by some naturalists has been consid- 
ered as intermediate between the 
‘sheep and the ox. It is about the 
height of a deer, but of much stout- 
er proportions. The horns are very 
broad at the base, almost meeting 
on the forehead, and curving down- 
ward between the eye and ears un- 
til about the level of the mouth, 
when they turn upward. Its long 
thick brown or black hair hanging 
. down below the middle of the leg, 
THE MUSK-OX. and covering on all parts of the ani- 
mal a fine kind of soft ash-colored 
wool, which is of the finest description, and capable of forming the most beau- 
tiful fabrics manufactured, enables it to remain even during the winter beyond 
70° of northern latitude. In spring it wanders over the ice as far as Melville 


ry 


ARCTIC LAND QUADRUPEDS AND BIRDS. 41 


Island, or even Smith’s Sound, where a number of its bones were found by 
Dr. Kane. In September it withdraws more to the south, and spends the 
coldest months on the verge of the forest region. Like the reindeer, it sub- 
sists chiefly on lichens and grasses. It runs nimbly, and climbs hills and rocks 
with great ease. Its fossil remains, or those of a very analogous species, have 
been discovered in Siberia: at present it is exclusively confined to the New 
World. 

In the Rocky Mountains, from the Mexican Cordillera plateaux as far as 68° 
N. lat., dwells the wild sheep ( Ovis montana), distinguished by the almost cir- 
cular bend of its large, triangular, transversely striped horns, from its relative 


ARGALI. 


the Siberian argali ( Ovis argali), which is supposed to be the parent of our da 
mestic sheep, and far surpasses it in size and delicacy of flesh. Both the Amer- 
ican and the Asiatic wild sheep are in the highest degree active and vigorous, 
asvending abrupt precipices with great agility, and, like the wild goat, going 
over the narrowest and most dangerous passes with perfect safety. 

Among the carnivorous quadrupeds of the northern regions, many, like the 
lynx, the wolf, the bear, the glutton, and other members of the weasel tribe, 
have their head-quarters in the forests, and only occasionally roam over the tun- 


4 


42 THE POLAR WORLD. 


dras ; but the Arctic fox ( Canis lagopus) almost exclusively inhabits the treeless 
wastes that fringe the Polar Ocean, and is found on almost all the islands that lie 
buried in its bosom. This pretty little creature, which in winter grows per- 
fectly white, knows how to protect itself against the most intense cold, either by 
secking a refuge in the clefts of rocks, or by burrowing to a considerable depth 
in a sandy soil. It principally preys upon lemmings, stoats, polar hares, as 
well as upon all kinds of water-fowl and their eggs; but when pinched by 
hunger, it does not disdain the carcasses of fish, or the molluscs and crustaceans 
it may chance to pick up on the shore. Its enemies are the glutton, the snowy 
owl, and man, who, from the Equator to the poles, leaves no creature unmolested 
that can in any way satisfy his wants. 

The lemmings, of which there are many species, are small rodents, peculiar 
to the Arctic regions, both in the New and in the Old World, where they are 
found as far to the north as vegetation extends. They live on grass, roots, the 
shoots of the willow, and the dwarf birch, but chiefly on lichens. They do not 
gather hoards of provisions for the winter, but live upon what they find be- 
neath the snow. They seldom prove injurious to man, as the regions they in- 
habit are generally situated beyond the limits of agriculture. From the voles, 
to whom they are closely allied, they are distinguished by having the foot-sole 
covered with stiff hairs, and by the strong crooked claws with which their fore 
feet are armed. The best known species is the Norwegian lemming (Lemmus 
norwegicus), which is found on the high mountains of the Dovrefjeld, and 
farther to the north on the dry parts of the tundra, where it inhabits small 
burrows under stones or in the moss. Its long and thick hair is of a tawny 
color, and prettily marked with black spots. The migrations of the lemming 
have been grossly exaggerated by Olaus Magnus and Pontoppidan, to whom 
the natural history of the North owes so many fables. As they breed several 
times in the year, producing five or six at a birth, they of course multiply very 
fast under favorable circumstances, and are then forced to leave the district 
which is no longer able to afford them food. But this takes place very sel- 
dom, for when Mr. Brehm visited Scandinavia, the people on the Dovrefjeld 
knew nothing about the migrations of the lemming, and his inquiries on the 
subject proved equally fruitless in Lapland and in Finland. At all events, it is 
a fortunate circumstance that the lemmings have so many enemies, as their 
rapid multiplication might else endanger the balance of existence in the northern 
regions. The inclemencies of the climate are a chief means for keeping them 
in check. A wet summer, an early cold and snowless autumn destroy them 
by millions, and then of course years are necessary to recruit their numbers. 
With the exception of the bear and the hedgehog, they are pursued by all the 
northern carnivora. The wolf, the fox, the glutton, the marten, the ermine 
devour them with avidity, and a good lemming season is a time of unusual 
plenty for the hungry Laplander’s dog. ‘The snowy owl, whose dense plumage 
enables it to be a constant resident on the tundra, almost exclusively frequents 
those places where lemmings, its favorite food, are to be found; the buzzards 
are constantly active in their destruction ; the crow feeds its young with lem- 
mings; and even the poor Lap, when pressed by hunger, seizes a stick, and, 


ARCTIC LAND QUADRUPEDS AND BIRDS. 43 


for want of better game, goes out lemming-hunting, and rejoices when he can 
kill a sufficient number for his dinner. 

Several birds, such as the snowy owl and the ptarmigan (Lagopus albus), 
which can easily procure its food under the snow, winter in the highest lati- 
tudes; but by far the greater number are merely summer visitants of the Arc- 
tic regions. After the little bunting, the first arrivals in spring are the snow- 
geese, who likewise are the first to leave the dreary regions of the north on 
their southerly migration. The common and king eider-duck, the Brent geese, 


ANN Whi . 
eee a 
aN at 


on 
HN 


THE SNOWY OWL. 


the great northern black and red throated divers, are the next to make their 
appearance, followed by the pintail and longtail ducks (Anas caudacuta and 
glacialis), the latest visitors of the season. These birds generally take their 
departure in the same order as they arrive. The period of their stay is but 
short, but their presence imparts a wonderfully cheerful aspect to regions at 
other times so deserted and dreary. As soon as the young are sufliciently 
fledged, they again betake themselves to the southward; the character of the 
season much influencing the period of their departure. 

As far as man has penetrated, on the most northern islets of Spitzbergen, 
or on the ice-blocked shores of Kennedy Channel, the eider-duck and others 
of the Arctic anatide build their nests; and there is no reason to doubt that 
if the pole has breeding-places for them, it re-echoes with their cries. Nor 
need they fear to plunge into the very heart of the Arctic zone, for the flight 
of a goose being forty or fifty miles an hour, these birds may breed in the re- 
motest northern solitude, and in a few hours, on a fall of deep autumn snow, 
convey themselves by their swiftness of wing to better feeding-grounds. 

One of the most interesting of the Arctic birds is the snow-bunting (Plec- 
trophanes nivalis), which may properly be called the polar singing-bird, as it 
breeds in the most northern isles, such as Spitzbergen and Novaja Zemlya, or 


44 THE POLAR WORLD. 


on the highest mountains of the Dovrefjeld, in Scandinavia, where it enlivens 
the fugitive summer with its short but agreeable notes, sounding doubly sweet 
from the treeless wastes in which they are heard. It invariably builds its 
nest, which it lines with feathers and down, 
in the fissures of mountain rocks or under 
large stones, and the entrance is generally 
so narrow as merely to allow the parent 
birds to pass. The remarkably dense win- 
ter plumage of the snow-bunting especially 
qualifies it for a northern residence, and 
when in captivity it will rather bear the 
severest ccld than even a moderate degree 
of warmth. In its breeding-places it lives 
almost exclusively on insects, particularly 
gnats: during the winter it feeds on all 
sorts of seeds, and then famine frequently compels it to wander to a less rig- 
orous climate. 

The Lapland bunting (Centrophanes lapponicus), whose white and black 
plumage is agreeably diversified with red, is likewise an inhabitant of the 
higher latitudes, where it is frequently seen in the barren grounds and tundras. 
Both these birds are distinguished by the very long claw of their hind toe, a 
structure which enables them to run about with ease upon the snow. 

_ Among the raptorial birds of the Arctic regions, the sea-eagle (Halictus 

albicilla) holds a conspicuous rank. At his approach the gull and the auk 
conceal themselves in the fissures of the rocks, but are frequently dragged 
forth by their relentless enemy. The divers are, according to Wahlengren, 
more imperilled from his attacks than those sea-birds which do not plunge, for 
the latter rise into the air as soon as their piercing eye espies the universally 
dreaded tyrant, and thus escape; while the former, blindly trusting to the ele- 
ment in which they are capable of finding a temporary refuge, allow him to 
approach, and then suddenly diving, fancy 
themselves in safety, while the eagle is only 
waiting for the moment of their re-appear- 
ance to repeat his attack. ‘Twice or thrice 
they may possibly escape his claws by a rapid 
plunge, but when for the fourth time they 
dive out of the water, and remain but one 
instant above the surface, that instant seals 
their doom. The sea-eagle is equally for- 
midable to the denizens of the ocean, but 
sometimes too great a confidence in his 
strength leads to his destruction, for Kitt- 
litz was informed by the inhabitants of _Kam- 
schatka that, pouncing upon a doiphin, he is 
not seldom dragged down into the water by the diving cetacean in whose skin 
his talons remain fixed. 


. i il 
‘ 


i 


me 


hi 


BERNIDE GOOSE., 


ty \ 
RAN \h YN) 
A 


es. SN 
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THE SEA-EAGLE. 


THE ARCTIC SEAS. 45 


4 
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— q 


ov. £38 
Lassiic BARR! [ 


ARCTIC NAVIGATION. 


CHAPTER III. 
THE ARCTIC SEAS. 


Dangers peculiar to the Arctic Sea.—Ice-fields. —Hummocks.—Collision of Ice-fields.—Icebergs.—Their 
Origin.—Their Size.—The Glaciers which give them Birth.—Their Beauty.—Sometimes useful 
Auxiliaries to the Mariner.—Dangers of anchoring to a Berg.—A crumbling Berg.—The Ice-blink. 
—Fogs.—Transparency of the Atmosphere.—Phenomena of Reflection and Refraction.—Causes 
which prevent the Accumulation of Polar Ice.—Tides.—Currents.—Ice a bad Conductor of Heat.— 
Wise Provisions of Nature. 

r \HE heart of the first navigator, says Horace, must have been shielded with 

threefold brass—and yet the poet knew but the sunny Mediterranean, with 
its tepid floods and smiling shores: how, then, would he have found words to 
express his astonishment at the intrepid seamen who, to open new vistas to 
sclence or new roads to commerce, first ventured to face the unknown terrors 
of the Arctic main ? 

In every part of the ocean the mariner has to guard against the perils of 
hidden shoals and sunken cliffs, but the high northern waters are doubly and 
trebly dangerous; for here, besides those rocks which are firmly rooted to the 
ground, there are others which, freely floating about, threaten to crush his ves- 
sel to pieces, or to force it along with them in helpless bondage. 

The Arctic navigators have given various names to these movable shoals, 


46 THE POLAR WORLD. 


which are the cause of so much delay and danger. They are icebergs when they 
iower to a considerable height above the waters, and ice-fields when they have a 
vast horizontal extension. A jloe is a detached portion of a field ; pack-ice, a 
large area of floes or smaller fragments closely driven together so as to oppose a 
firm barrier to the progress of a ship; and drift-ice, loose ice in motion, but not 
so firmly packed as to prevent a vessel from making her way through its yield- 
ing masses. 

The large ice-fields which the whaler encounters in Baffin’s Bay, or on the 
seas between Spitzbergen and Greenland, constitute one of the marvels of the 
deep. There is a solemn grandeur in the slow majestic motion with which 
they are drifted by the currents to the south; and their enormous masses, as 
mile after mile comes floating by, impress the spectator with the idea of a 
boundless extent and an irresistible power. But, vast and mighty as they are, 
they are unable to withstand the elements combined for their destruction, and 
their apparently triumphal march leads them only to their ruin. 

When they first descend from their northern strongholds, the ice of which 
they are composed is of the average thickness of from ten to fifteen feet, and 
their surface is sometimes tolerably smooth and even, but in general it is cov- 
ered with numberless ice-blocks or hummocks piled upon each other in wild con- 


ne 


ae 


ee RS 
T SSss \ 


fees SS! 
STS 


iY = wv SS See 

ys A Nit 
cA a 
SV; SG 


WW SNES é S 
RES 


g sith iN S » 
|| >< \*® ae 
vi ee NS ON AWS 
ZEN WY Ne a 5 surf 
oA. eee 
/ Wek Gassing — BA BMEE 


AMONG HUMMOCKS. 


fusion to a height of forty or fifty feet, the result of repeated collisions before 
flakes and floes were soldered into fields. Before the end of June they are cov- 
ered with snow, sometimes six feet deep, which melting during the summer 
forms small ponds or lakes upon their surface. 


THE ARCTIC SEAS. 47 


DRIFTING IN THE ICE. 


Not seldom ice-fields are whirled about in rotatory motion, which causes 
their circumference to gyrate with a velocity of several miles per hour. When 
a field thus sweeping through the waters comes into collision: with another 


FORMS OF ICEBERGS. 


48 THE POLAR WORLD. 


/ 


which may possibly be revolving with equal rapidity in an opposite direction 
—when masses not seldom twenty or thirty miles in diameter, and each weigh- 


FORMS OF ICEBERGS. 


be utterly unable to resist their power. 


ing many millions of tons, clash to- 


gether, imagination can hardly con- 


celve a more appalling scene. The 
whalers at all times require unremit- 
ting vigilance to secure their safety, 
but scarcely in any situation so much 
as when navigating amidst these 
fields, which are more particularly 
dangerous in foggy weather, as their 
motions can not then be distinctly ob- 
served. No wonder that since the 
establishment of the fishery numbers 
of vessels have been crushed to pieces 
between two fields in motion, for the 
strongest ship ever built must needs 
Some have been uplifted and thrown 


upon the ice; some have had their hulls completely torn open; and others 
have been overrun by the ice, and buried beneath the fragments piled upon 


their wreck. 

The icebergs, which, as their name 
indicates, rise above the water to a 
much more considerable height than 
the ice-fields, have a very different or- 
igin, as they are not formed in the 
sea itself, but by the glaciers of the 
northern highlands. As our rivers 
are continually pouring their streams 
into the ocean, so many of the gla- 
ciers or ice-rivers of the Arctic zone, 
descending to the water-edge, are 
slowly but constantly forcing them- 
selves farther and farther into the 
sea. In the summer season, when 
the ice is particularly fragile, the 
force of cohesion is often overcome 
by the weight of the prodigious mass- 
es that overhang the sea or have been 
undermined by its waters ; and in the 
winter, when the air is probably 40° 
or 50° below zero and the sea from 
28° to 30° above, the unequal expan- 
sion of those parts of the mass ex- 


posed to so great a difference of temperature can not fail to produce the sep- 


aration of large portions. 


THE ARCTIC SEAS. 49 


Most of these swimming glacier-fragments, or icebergs, which are met with 
by the whaler in the Northern Atlantic, are formed on the mountainous west 
coast of Greenland by the large glaciers which discharge themselves into the 
fiords from Smith’s Sound to Disco Bay, as here the sea is sufficiently deep to 
float them away, in spite of the enormous magnitude they frequently attain. 
As they drift along down Baffin’s Bay and Davis’s Strait, they not seldom run 


ICEBERGS AGROUND. 


aground on some shallow shore, where, bidding defiance to the short summer, 
they frequently remain for many a year. 

. Dr. Hayes measured an immense iceberg which had stranded off the little 
harbor of Tessuissak, to the north of Melville Bay. The square wall which 
faced toward his base of measurement was 315 feet high, and a fraction over 
three-quarters of a mile long. Being almost square-sided above the sea, the 
same shape must have extended beneath it; and since, by measurements made 
two days before, Hayes had discovered that fresh-water ice floating 1n salt wa- 
ter has above the surface to below it the proportion of one to seven, this crys- 


tallized mountain must have gone aground in a depth of nearly half amile. A 
4 


50 THE POLAR WORLD. 


rude estimate of its size, made on the spot, gave in cubical contents about 27,000 
millions of feet, and in weight something like 2000 millions of tons! 

Captain Ross in his first voyage mentions another of these wrecked bergs, 
which was found to be 4169 yards long, 3689 yards broad, and 51 feet high 
above the level of the sea.. It was aground in 61 fathoms, and its weight was 
estimated by an officer of the “ Alexander” at 1,292,397,673 tons. On ascend- 
ing the flat top of this iceberg, it was found occupied by a huge white bear, 
who justly deeming “ discretion the best part of valor,” sprang into the sea be- 
fore he could be fired at. was 

The vast dimensions of the icebergs appear less astonishing when we con- 
sider that many of the glaciers or ice-rivers from which they are dislodged are 
equal in size or volume to the largest streams of continental Europe. 

Thus one of the eight glaciers existing in the district of Omenak, in Green- 
land, is no less than an English mile broad, and forms an ice-wall rising 160 
feet above the sea. Further to the north, Melville Bay and Whale Sound are 
the seat of vast ice-rivers. Here Tyndall glacier forms a coast-line of ice over 
two miles long, almost burying its face in the sea, and carrying the eye along a 
broad and winding valley, up steps of ice of giant height, until at length the 
slope loses itself in the unknown ice-desert beyond. But grand above all is the 
magnificent Humboldt glacier, which, connecting Greenland and Washington 
Land, forms a solid glassy wall 300 feet above the water-level, with an unknown 
depth below it, while its curved face extends full sixty miles in length from 
Cape Agassiz to Cape Forbes. In the temperate zone it would be one of the 
mightiest rivers of the earth; here, in the frozen solitudes of the North, it slow- 
ly drops its vast fragments into the waters, making the solitudes around re-echo 
with their fall. 

As the Polar shores of continental America and Siberia are generally flat, 
and below the snow-line, they are consequently deprived both of glaciers and 
of the huge floating masses to which these give birth. 

In a high sea the waves beat against an iceberg as against a rock; and in 
calm weather where there is a swell, the noise made by their rising and falling 
is tremendous. Their usual form is that of a high vertical wall, gradually 
sloping down to the opposite side, which is very low; but frequently they ex- 
hibit the most fantastic shapes, particularly after they have been a long time 
exposed to the corroding power of the waves, or of warm rains pelting them 
from above. | : | 

A number of icebergs floating in the sea is one of the most magnificent 
spectacles of nature, but the wonderful beauty of these crystal cliffs never ap- 
pears to greater advantage than when clothed by the midnight sun with all the 
splendid colors of twilight. | 

“The bergs,” says Dr. Hayes, describing one of these enchanting nights, 
“had wholly lost their chilly aspect, and glittering in the blaze of the brilliant 
heavens, seemed in the distance like masses of burnished metal or solid flame. 
Nearer at hand they were huge blocks of Parian marble inlaid with mammoth 
gems of pearl and opal. One in particular exhibited the perfection of the 
grand. Its form was not unlike that of the Colosseum, and it lay so far away 


D1 


SEAS. 


THE ARCTIC 


The sun, 


aters. 
and it seemed as if the 


red w 


ath the line of blood 


that half its height was buried bene 


slowly rolling along the horizon 
old Roman ruins had suddenly taken fire. 


ssed behind it, 


pa 


p) 


the 


In the shadow of the bergs 


water was a rich green, and nothing could be more soft and tender than the 


oe 
to) 


g on the sloping tongue of a berg 


vy 


radations of color made by the sea shoalin 


OY 
Ss 


52 THE POLAR WORLD. 


GLACIER, BUTE INLET. 


close beside us. The tint increased in intensity where the ice overhung the 
water, and a deep cavern near by exhibited the solid color of the malachite min- 
gled with the transparency of the emerald, while in strange contrast a.broad 
streak of cobalt blue ran diagonally through its body. The bewitching charac- 
ter of the scene was heightened by a thousand little cascades which leaped into 
the sea from these floating masses, the water being discharged from lakes of melt- 
ed snow and ice which reposed in quietude far up in the valleys separating the 
high icy hills of their upper surface. From other bergs large pieces were now 
and then detached, plunging down into the water with deafening noise, while 
the slow moving swell of the ocean resounded through their broken archways.” 

A similar gorgeous spectacle was witnessed by Dr. Kane in Melville Bay. 
The midnight sun came out over a great berg, kindling variously-colored fires 
on every part of its surface, and making the ice around the ship one great re- 
splendency of gemwork, blazing carbuncles and rubies, and molten gold. 

In the night the icebergs are readily distinguished even at a distance by 
their natural effulgence, and in foggy weather by a peculiar blackness in the 
atmosphere. As they are not unfrequently drifted by the Greenland stream 
considerably to the south of Newfoundland, sometimes even as far as the for- 
tieth or thirty-ninth degree of latitude (May, 1841, June, 1842), ships sailing 
through the north-western Atlantic require:to be always on their guard against 
them. The ill-fated “ President,” one of our first ocean-steamers, which was 
lost on its way to New York, without leaving a trace behind, is supposed to 
have been sunk by a collision with an iceberg, and no doubt many a gallant 
bark has either foundered in the night, or been hurled by the storm against 
these floating rocks, 


THE ARCTIC SEAS. 53 


But though often dangerous neighbors, the bergs occasionally prove useful 
auxiliaries to the mariner. From their greater bulk lying below the water- 
line, they are either drifted along by the under-current against the wind, or, 
from their vast dimensions, are not perceptibly influenced even by the strongest 
gale, but, on the contrary, have the appearance of moving to windward, because 
every other kind of ice is drifted rapidly past them. Thus in strong adverse 
winds, their broad masses, fronting the storm like bulwarks, not seldom afford 
protection to ships mooring under their lee. 

Anchoring to a berg is, however, not always unattended with danger, par- 
ticularly when the summer is far advanced, or in a lower latitude, as all ice be- 
comes exceedingly fragile when acted on by the sun or by a temperate atmos- 


Wr (LH 


vf a Ui ) / : is ily Mi ; 


sea h 


‘SCALING AN ICEBERG. 


phere. The blow of an axe then sometimes suffices to rend an iceberg asunder, 
and to bury the careless seaman beneath its ruins, or to hurl him into the yawn- 
ing chasm. 

Thus Scoresby relates the adventure of two sailors who were attempting to 
fix an anchor to a berg. They began to hew a hole into the ice, but scarcely 
had the first blow been struck, when suddenly the immense mass split from top 
to bottom and fell asunder, the two halves falling in contrary directions with a 
prodigious crash. One of the sailors, who was possessed of great presence of 
mind, immediately scaled the huge fragment on which he was standing, and 
remained rocking to and fro on its summit until its equilibrium was restored ; 
but his companion, falling between the masses, would most likely have been 
crushed to pieces if the current caused by their motion had not swept him 
within reach of the boat that was waiting for them. 

Frequently large pieces detach themselves spontaneously from an iceberg 


54 ) THE POLAR WORLD. 


and fall into the sea with a tremendous noise. When this circumstance, called 
“ calving,” takes place, the iceberg loses its equilibrium, sometimes turns on 
one side, and is occasionally inverted. 

Dr. Hayes witnessed the crumbling of an immense berg, resembling in its 
general appearance the British House of Parliament. First one lofty tower 
came tumbling into the water, starting from its surface an immense flock of 
gulls; then another followed; and at length, after five hours of rolling and 
crashing, there remained of this splendid mass of congelation not a fr agment 
that rose fifty feet above the water. 

One of the most remarkable phenomena of the Polar Sea is the ice-blink, or 
reflection of the ice against the sky. A stripe of light, similar to the early 
dawn of morning, but without its redness, appears above the horizon, and traces 
a complete aérial map of the ice to a distance of many miles beyond the ordi- 
nary reach of vision. To the experienced navigator the “ blink” is frequently 
of the greatest use, as it not only points out the vicinity of the drift-ice, but 
indicates its nature, whether compact or loose, continuous or open. Thus 
Seoresby relates that on the 7th of June, 1821, he saw so distinct an ice-blink, 
that as far as twenty or thirty miles all round the horizon he was able to ascer- 
tain the figure and probable extent of each ice-field. The packed ice was dis- 
tinguished from-the larger fields by a more obscure and yellow color; while 
each water-lane or open passage was indicated by a deep blue stripe or patch. 
By this means he was enabled to find his way out of the vast masses of ice in 
which he had been detained for several days, and to emerge into the open sea. 

‘The tendency of the pack-ice to separate in calm weather, so that one might 
almost be tempted to believe in a mutual repulsive power of the individual 
blocks, is likewise favorable to the Arctic navigator. The perpetual daylight 
of summer is another advantage, but unfortunately the sun is too often veiled 
by dense mists, which frequently obscure the air for weeks together, particular- 
ly in July. These fogs, which are a great impediment to the whaler’s opera- 
tions, have a very depressing influence upon the spirits; and as they are at- 
tended with a low temperature, which even at noon does not rise much above 
freezing-point, the damp cold is also physically extremely unpleasant. 

At other times the sun sweeps two or three times round the pole without 
being for a moment obscured by a cloud, and then the transparency of the air 
is such that objects the most remote may be seen perfectly distinct and clear. 
A ship’s top-gallant mast, at the distance of five or six leagues, may be discern- 
ed when just appearing above the horizon with a common perspective-glass, 
and the summits of mountains are ao at the distance of from sixty to a 
hundred miles. 

On such sunny days, the strong contrasts of light and shade between the 
glistening snow and the dark protruding rocks produce a remarkable deception 
in the apparent distance of the land, along a steep mountainous coast. When 
at the distance of twenty miles from Spitzbergen, for instance, it would be easy 
te induce even a judicious stranger to undertake a passage in a boat to the 
shore, from a belief that he was within a league of the land. At this distance 
the portions of rock and patches of snow, as well as the contour of the different 


THE ARCTIC SEAS. 05 


hills, are as distinctly marked as similar objects in many other countries, not 
having snow about them, would be at a fourth or a fifth part of the distance. 

Nothing can be more wonderful than the phenomena of the atmosphere de- 
pendent on reflection and refraction, which are frequently observed in the Arc- 
tic seas, particularly at the commencement or approach of easterly winds, They 
are probably occasioned by the commixture, near the surface of the land or sea, 
of two streams of air of different temperatures, so as to occasion an irregular 
deposition of imperfectly condensed vapor, which when passing the verge of the 
horizon apparently raises the objects there situated to a considerable distance 
above it, or extends their height beyond their natural dimensions. Ice, land, 
ships, boats, and other objects, when thus enlarged and elevated, are said to 
loom. The lower part of looming objects are sometimes connected with the 
horizon by an apparent fibrous or columnar extension of their parts; at other 
times they appear to be quite lifted into the air, a void space being seen between 
them and the horizon. 

A most remarkable delusion of this kind was observed by Scoresby while 
sailing through the open ice, far from land. Suddenly an immense amphitheatre 
inclosed by high walls of basaltic ice, so like natural rock as to deceive one of 
his most experienced officers, rose around the ship. Sometimes the refraction 
produced on all sides a similar effect, but still more frequently remarkable con- 
trasts. Single ice-blocks expanded into architectural figures of an extraordina- 
ry height, and sometimes the distant, deeply indented ice-border looked like a 
number ‘of towers or minarets, or like a dense forest of naked trees. Scareely 
had an object acquired a distinct form, when it began to dissolve into another. 

It is well known that similar causes produce similar effects in the warmer 
regions of the earth. In the midst of the tropical ocean, the mariner sees ver- 
dant islands rise from the waters, and in the treeless desert fantastic palm- 
groves wave their fronds, as if in mockery of the thirsty caravan. 

When we consider the intense cold which reigns during the greatest part of 
the year in the Arctic regions, we might naturally expect to find the whole of 
the Polar Sea covered, during the winter at least, with one solid unbroken sheet 
of ice. But experience teaches us that this is by no means the case; for the 
currents, the tides, the winds, and the swell of a turbulent ocean are mighty 
causes of disruption, or strong impediments to congelation. Both Lieutenant 
de Haven and Sir Francis M‘Clintock* were helplessly carried along,in the 
depth of winter, by the pack-ice in Lancaster Sound and Baffin’s Bay. A 
berg impelled by a strong under-current rips open an ice-field as if it were a 
thin sheet of glass; and in channels, or on coasts where the tides rise to a con- 
siderable height, their flux and reflux is continually opening crevices and lanes 
in the ice which covers the waters. That even in the highest latitudes the sea 
does not close except when at rest, was fully experienced by Dr. Hayes during 
his wintering at Port Foulke; for at all times, even when the temperature of 
the air was below the freezing-point of mercury, he could hear from the deck 
of his schooner the roar of the beating waves. From all these causes there 
has at no point within the Arctic Circle been found a firm ice-belt extending, 

* See Chapter XXXII. 


6 THE POLAR WORLD. 


AN ARCTIC CHANNEL. 


either in winter or in summer, more than from fifty to a hundred miles from 
land. And even in the narrow channels separating the islands of the Parry 
Archipelago, or at the mouth of Smith Sound, the waters will not freeze over, 
except when sheltered by the land, or when an ice-pack, accumulated by long 
continuance of winds from one quarter, affords the same protection. 

But the constant motion of the Polar Sea, wherever it expands to a consider- 


Se eS ee 


THE ARCTIC SEAS. 5? 


able breadth, would be insufficient to prevent its total congelation, if it were 
not assisted by other physical causes. A magnificent system of currents is 
continually displacing the waters of the ocean, and forcing the warm floods of 
the tropical regions to wander to the pole, while the cold streams of the frigid 
zone are as constantly migrating toward the Equator. Thus we see the Gulf 
Stream flowing through the broad gateway east of Spitzbergen, and forcing 
out a return current of cold water to the west of Spitzbergen, and through 
Davis’s Strait. 

The comparatively warm floods which, in consequence of this great law of 
circulation, come pouring into the Arctic seas, naturally require some time 
before they are sufficiently chilled to be converted into ice; and as sea-water 
has its maximum of density, or, in other words, is heaviest a few degrees above 
the freezing-point of water, and then necessarily sinks, the whole depth of the 


OPEN WATER, 


sea must of course be cooled down to that temperature before freezing can 
take place. Ice being a bad conductor of heat, likewise limits the process of 
congelation ; for after attaining a thickness of ten or fifteen feet, its growth is 
very slow, and probably even ceases altogether; for when floating fields, or 
floes, are found of a greater thickness, this increase is due to the snow that 
falls upon their surface, or to the accumulation of hummocks caused by their 
collision. 

Thus, by the combined influence of these various physical agencies, bounds 
have been set to the congelation of the Polar waters. Were it otherwise, the 
Arctic lands would have been mere uninhabitable wastes; for the existence of 
the seals, the walrus, and the whale depends upon their finding some open wa- 
ter at every season of the year; and deprived of this resource, all the Esqui- 
maux, whose various tribes fringe the coasts in the highest latitudes hitherto 
discovered, would perish in a single winter. 

If the Arctic glaciers did not discharge their bergs into the sea, or if no 
currents conveyed the ice-floes of the north into lower latitudes, ice would be 


58 


THE POLAR WORLD. 


constantly accumulating in the Polar world, and, destroying the balance of na- 


would ultimately endanger the existence of man over the whole surface 


of the globe. 


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ARCTIC MARINE ANIMALS. 59 


CHAPTER IV. 
ARCTIC MARINE ANIMALS. 


Populousness of the Arctic Seas. —The Greenland Whale. —The Fin Whales. — The Narwhal. ~ 
The Beluga, or White Dolphin.—The Black Dolphin, —His wholesale Massacre on the Faeroe Isl- 
ands.—The Ore, or Grampus.—The Seals.—The Walrus.—Its acute Smell.—History of a young 
Walrus.—Parental Affection.—The Polar Bear.—His Sagacity.—Hibernation of the She-bear.— 
Sea-birds. 

bee vast multitudes of animated beings which people the Polar Seas form 

a remarkable contrast to the nakedness of their bleak and desolate shores. 

The colder surface-waters almost perpetually exposed to a chilly air, and fre- 
quently covered, even in summer, with floating ice, are indeed unfavorable to 
the development of organic life; but this adverse influence is modified by the 
higher temperature which constantly prevails at a greater depth; for, contrary 
to what takes place in the equatorial seas, we find in the Polar Ocean an in- 
crease of temperature from the surface downward, in consequence of the 
warmer under-currents, flowing from the south northward, and passing be- 
neath the cold waters of the superficial Arctic current. 

Thus the severity of the Polar winter remains unfelt at a greater depth of 
the sea, where myriads of creatures find a secure retreat against the frost, and 
whence they emerge during the long summer’s day, either to line the shores or 
to ascend the broad rivers of the Arctic world. Between the parallels of 74° 
and 80° Scoresby observed that the color of the Greenland sea varies from the 
purest ultramarine to olive green, and from crystalline transparency to striking 
opacity—appearances which are not transitory, but permanent. This green 
semi-opaque water, whose position varies with the currents, often forming iso- 
lated stripes, and sometimes spreading over two or three degrees of latitude, 
mainly owes its singular aspect to small medusz and nudibranchiate molluscs. 
It is calculated to form one-fourth part of the surface of the sea between the 
above-mentioned parallels, so that many thousands of square miles are absolute- 
ly teeming with life. 

On the coast of Greenland, where the waters are so exceedingly clear that 
the bottom and every object upon it are plainly visible even at a depth of 
eighty fathoms, the ground is seen covered with gigantic tangles, which, togeth- 
er with the animal world circulating among their fronds, remind the spectator 
of the coral-reefs of the tropical ocean. Nullipores, mussels, alcyonians, sertu- 
larians, ascidians, and a variety of other sessile animals, incrust every stone or 
fill every hollow or crevice of the rocky ground. A dead seal or fish thrown 
into the sea is soon converted into a skeleton by the myriads of small crustaceans 
which infest these northern waters, and, like the ants in the equatorial forests, 
perform the part of scavengers of the deep. 


60 THE POLAR WORLD, 


Thus we find an exuberance of life, in its smaller and smallest forms, peo- 
pling the Arctic waters, and affording nourishment to a variety of strange and 
bulky creatures—cetaceans, walruses, and seals—which annually attract thou- 
sands of adventurous seamen to the icy ocean. 

Of these sea-mammalians, the most important to civilized man is undoubted- 
ly the Greenland whale (Balena mysticetus), or smooth-back, thus called from 
its having no dorsal fin. Formerly these whales were harpooned in considerable 
numbers in the Icelandic waters, or in the fiords of Spitzbergen and Danish 
Greenland ; then Davis’s Straits became the favorite fishing-grounds ; and more 
recently the inlets and various channeis to the east of Baffin’s Bay have been 
invaded ; while, on the opposite side of America, several hundreds of whalers 
penetrate every year through Bering’s Straits into the icy sea beyond, where 
previously they lived and multiplied, unmolested except by the Esquimaux. 


THE WHALE. 


More fortunate than the smooth-back, the rorquals, or fin-whales (Balcenop- 
tera boops, musculus, physalis, and rostratus), still remain in their ancient seats, 
from which they are not likely to be dislodged, as the agility of their move- 
ments makes their capture more difficult and dangerous ; while at the same time 
the small quantity of their fat and the shortness of their baleen render it far less 
remunerative. ‘They are of a more slender form of body, and with a more 
pointed muzzle than the Greenland whale; and while the latter attains a length 
of only sixty feet, the Balenoptera boops grows to the vast length of 100 feet 
and more. There is also a difference in their food, for the Greenland whale 
chiefly feeds upon the minute animals that crowd the olive-colored waters above 


described, or on the hosts of little pteropods that are found in many parts of | 


the Arctic seas, while the rorquals frequently accompany the herring-shoals, and 
carry death and destruction into their ranks. . 

The seas of Novaja Zemlya, Spitzbergen, and Greenland are the domain of 
the narwhal, or sea-unicorn, a cetacean quite as strange, but not so fabulous as 
the terrestrial animal which figures in the arms of England. The use of the 


ARCTIC MARINE ANIMALS. 61 


enormous spirally wound tusk projecting from its upper jaw, and from which 
it derives its popular name, has not yet been clearly ascertained, some holding 
it to be an instrument of defense, while others suppose it to be only an orna- 
ment or mark of the superior dignity of the sex to which it has been awarded. 

Among the numerous dolphins which people the Arctic and Subarctic seas, 
the beluga (Delphinus leucas), improperly called the white whale, is one of the 
most interesting. When young it has a brown color, which gradually changes 
into a perfect white. It attains a length of from twelve to twenty feet, has no 
dorsal fin, a strong tail three feet broad, and a round head with a broad trun- 
cated snout. Beyond 56° of latitude it is frequently seen in large shoals, par- 
ticularly near the estuaries of the large Siberian and North American rivers, 
which it often ascends to a considerable distance in pursuit of the salmon. A 
troop of belugas diving out of the dark waves of the Arctic Sea is said to afford 


THE NARWHAL. 


a magnificent spectacle. Their white color appears dazzling, from the con- 
trast of the sombre background, as they dart about with arrow-like velocity. 

The black dolphin ( Globicephalus globiceps) is likewise very common in 
the Arctic seas, both beyond Bering’s Straits and between Greenland and Spitz- 
bergen, whence it frequently makes excursions to the south. It grows to the 
length of twenty-four feet, and is about ten feet in circumference. The skin, 
like that of the dolphin tribe in general, is smooth, resembling oiled silk; the 
color a bluish-black on the back, and generally whitish on the belly ; the blub- 
ber is three or four inches thick. 

The full-grown have generally twenty-two or twenty-four teeth in each jaw; 
and when the mouth is shut, the teeth lock between one another, like the teeth 
of a trap. The dorsal fin is about fifteen inches high, the tail five feet broad ; 
the pectoral fins are as many, long and comparatively narrow ; so that, armed 
‘with such excellent paddles, the black dolphin is inferior to none of his relatives 
in swiftness. Of an eminently social disposition, these dolphins sometimes con- 
gregate in herds of many hundreds, under the guidance of several old expert- 


62 . THE POLAR WORLD. 


enced males, whom the rest follow like a flock of sheep—a property from which 
the animal is called in Shetland the “ ca’ing whale.” No cetacean strands more 
frequently than the black dolphin, and occasionally Jarge herds have been driven 
on the shores of Iceland, Norway, and the Orkney, Shetland and Faeroe islands, 
where their capture is hailed as a godsend. The intelligence that a shoal of 
ca’ing whales or grinds has been seen approaching the coast, creates great ex- 
citement among the otherwise phlegmatic inhabitants of the Faeroe Islands. 
The whole neighborhood, old and young, is instantly in motion, and soon numer- 
ous boats shoot off from shore to intercept the retreat of the dolphins. Slowly 
and steadily they are driven toward the coast; the phalanx of their enemies 
draws closer and closer together ; terrified by stones and blows, they run ashore, 
and lie gasping as the flood recedes. Then begins the work of death, amid the 
loud shouts of the executioners and the furious splashings of the victims. In 
this manner more than 800 grinds were massacred on August 16,1776; and 
during the four summer months that Langbye sojourned on the island in 1817, 
623 were driven on shore, and served to pay one-half of the imported corn. 
But, on the other hand, many years frequently pass without yielding one single 
black whale to the tender mercies of the islanders. 

The ferocious ore, or grampus (Delphinus orca), is the tiger of the Arctic 
seas. Black above, white beneath, it is distinguished by its large dorsal fin, 
which curves backward toward the tail, and rises to the height of two feet or 
more. Measuring no less than twenty-five feet in length and twelve or thirteen 
in girth, of a courage equal to its strength, and armed with formidable teeth, 
thirty in each jaw, the grampus is the dread of the seals, whom it overtakes in 
spite of their rapid flight ; and the whale himself would consider it as his most 
formidable enemy, were it not for the persecutions of man. The grampus gen- 
erally ploughs the seas in small troops of four or five, following each other in 
close single file, and alternately disappearing and rising so as to resemble the 
undulatory motions of one large serpentiform animal. 

‘The family of the seals has also numerous and mighty representatives in the 
Arctic waters. In the sea of Bering we meet with the formidable sea lion and 
the valuable sea-bear, while the harp-seal, the bearded seal, and the hispid seals 
(Phoca groenlandica, barbata, hispida), spreading from the Parry Islands to 
Novaja Zemlya, yield the tribute of their flesh to numerous wild tribes, and 
that of their skins to the European hunter. | 

Few Arctic animals are more valuable to man, or more frequently mentioned 
in Polar voyages than the walrus or morse (TZrichechus rosmarus), which, 
though allied to the seals, differs greatly from them by the development of the 
canines of the upper jaw, which form two enormous tusks projecting down- 
ward to the length of two feet. The morse is one of the largest quadrupeds ex- 
isting, as it attains a length of twenty feet, and a weight of from fifteen hundred 
to two thousand pounds. In uncouthness of form it surpasses even the ungain- 
ly hippopotamus. It has a small head with a remarkably thick upper lip, cov- 
ered with large pellucid whiskers or bristles ; the neck is thick and short; the 
naked gray or red-brown skin hangs loosely on the -ponderous and elongated 
trunk; and the short feet terminate in broad fin-like paddles, resembling large 


63 


On the spot where 


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ARCTIC MARINE ANIMALS, 


Its movements on land are extremely slow and 


awkward, resembling those of a huge caterpillar, but in the water it has all the 


ill-fashioned flaps of leather. 


or even surpasses them in speed. 


activity of the seals, 


WALRUSES ON THE ICE. 


Gregarious, like the seals and many of the dolphins, the walruses love to lie 


on the ice or on the sand-banks, closely huddled together. 


64 THE POLAR WORLD. 


a walrus lands, others are sure to follow ; and when the first comers block the 
shore, those which arrive later, instead of landing on a free spot farther on, 
prefer giving their friends who are in the way a gentle push with their tusks 
so as to induce them to make room. 

Timorous and almost helpless on land, where, in spite of its formidable 
tusks, it falls an easy prey to the attacks of man, the walrus evinces a greater 
degree of courage in the water, where it is able to make a better use of the 
strength and weapons bestowed upon it by nature. Many instances are known 
where walruses, which never attack but when provoked, have turned upon their 
assailants, or have even assembled from a distance to assist a wounded com- 
rade. ‘ : 

Like the seals, the walrus is easily tamed, and of a most affectionate temper. 
This was shown in a remarkable manner by a young walrus brought alive from 
Archangel to St. Petersburg in 1829. Its keeper, Madame Dennebecq, having 
tended it with the greatest care, the grateful animal expressed its pleasure 
whenever she came near it by an affectionate grunt. It not only followed her 
with its eyes, but was never happier than when allowed to lay its head in her 
lap. The tenderness was reciprocal, and Madame Dennebecq used to talk of 
her walrus with the same warmth of affection as if it had been a pet lapdog. 

That parental love should be highly developed in animals thus susceptible 
of friendship may easily be imagined. Mr. Lamont, an English gentleman 
whom the love of sport led a few years since to Spitzbergen, relates the case of 
a wounded walrus who held a very young calf under her right arm. When- 
ever the harpoon was raised against it, the mother carefully shielded it with 
her own body. The countenance of this poor animal was never to be forgot- 
ten: that of the calf expressive of abject terror, and yet of such a boundless 
confidence in its mother’s power of protecting it, as it swam along under her 
wing, and the old cow’s face showing such reckless defiance for all that could 
be done to herself, and yet such terrible anxiety as to the safety of her calf. 
This parental affection is shamefully misused by man, for it is a common 
artifice of the walrus-hunters to catch a young animal and make it grunt, in 
order tv attract a herd. 

The walrus is confined to the coasts of the Arctic regions, unless when drift- 
ice, or some other accident, carries it away into the open sea. Its chief resorts 
are Spitzbergen, Nova Zembla, North Greenland, the shores of Hudson’s and 
Baffin’s bays; and on the opposite side of the Polar Ocean, the coasts of Ber- 
ing’s Sea, and to the north of Bering’s Straits, the American and Asiatic shores 
from Point Barrow to Cape North. It has nowhere been found on the coasts 
of Siberia from the mouth of the Jenisei to the last-mentioned promontory, 
and on those of America from Point Barrow to Lancaster Sound; so that it 
inhabits two distinct regions, separated from each other by vast extents of 
coast. Its food seems to consist principally of marine plants and shell-fish, 
though Scoresby relates that he found the remains of fishes, or even of seals, in 
its stomach. ! 

As the Polar bear is frequently found above a hundred miles from the near- 
est land, upon loose ice steadily drifting into the sea, it seems but fair to assign 


ARCTIC MARINE ANIMALS. 65 


him a place among the marine animals of the Arctic zone. He hunts by scent, 
and is constantly running across and against the wind, which prevails from the 
northward,so that the same instinct which directs his search for prey also 
serves the important purpose of guiding him in the direction of the land and 
more solid ice. His favorite food is the seal, which he surprises crouching 
down with his fore paws doubled underneath, and pushing himself noiselessly 
forward with his hinder legs until within a few yards, when he springs upon 
_ his victim, whether in the water or upon the ice. He can swim at the rate of 
three miles an hour, and can dive to a considerable distance. Though he at- 
tacks man when hungry, wounded, or provoked, he will not injure him when 
food more to his liking is at hand. Sir Francis M‘Clintock relates an anecdote 
of a native of Upernavik who was out one dark winter’s day visiting his seal- 
nets. He found a seal entangled, and whilst kneeling down over it upon the 
ice to get it clear, he received a slap on the back—from his companion as he 
supposed; but a second and heavier blow made him look smartly round. He 
was horror-stricken to see a peculiarly grim old bear instead of his comrade. 
Without taking further notice of the man, Bruin tore the seal out of the net, 
and began his supper. He was not interrupted, nor did the man wait to see 
the meal finished, fearing, no doubt, that his uninvited and unceremonious guest 
might keep a corner for him. | 

Many instances have been observed of the peculiar sagacity of the Polar 
bear. Scoresby relates that the captain of a whaler, being anxious to procure 
a bear without wounding the skin, made trial of the stratagem of laying the 
noose of a rope in the snow, and placing a piece of kreng, or whale’s carcass, 
within it. A bear, ranging the neighboring ice, was soon enticed to the spot. 
- Approaching the bait, he seized it in his mouths; but his foot, at the same 
moment, by a jerk of the rope, being entangled in the noose, he pushed it off 
with the adjoining paw, and deliberately retired. After having eaten the piece 
he carried away with him, he returned. The noose, with another piece of 
kreng, being then replaced, he pushed the rope aside, and again walked tri- 
umphantly off with the kreng. A third time the noose was laid, and this time 
the rope was buried in the snow, and the bait laid in a deep hole dug in the 
centre. But Bruin, after snuffing about the place for a few minutes, scraped 
the snow away with his paw, threw the rope aside, and escaped unhurt with 
his prize. | : 

‘The she-bear is taught by a wonderful instinct to shelter her young under 
the snow. ‘Towards the month of December she retreats to the side of a rock, 
where, by dint of scraping and allowing the snow to fall upon her, she forms a 
cell in which to reside during the winter. There is no fear that she should be 
stifled for want of air, for the warmth of her breath always keeps a small pas- 
sage open, and the snow, instead of forming a thick uniform sheet, is broken 
by a little hole, round which is collected a mass of glittering hoar-frost, caused 
by the congelation of the breath. Within this strange nursery she produces 
her young, and remains with them beneath the snow until the month of March, 
when she emerges into the open air with her baby bears. As the time passes 
on, the breath of the family, together with the warmth exhaled from their 

5 


66 THE POLAR WORLD. 


bodies, serves to enlarge the cell, so that with their increasing dimensions the - 


accommodation is increased to suit them. As the only use of the snow-burrow 
is to shelter the young, the male bears do not hibernate like the females, but 
roam freely about during the winter months. Before retiring under the snow, 
the bear eats enormously, and, driven by an unfailing instinct, resorts to the 
most nutritious diet, so that she becomes prodigiously fat, thus laying in an in- 
ternal store of alimentary matter which enables her not only to support her 
own life, but to suckle her young during her long seclusion, without taking a 
morsel of food. By an admirable provision of nature, the young are of won- 
derfully small dimensions when compared with the parent ; and as their growth, 
as long as they remain confined in their crystal nursery, is remarkably slow, 
they consequently need but little food and space. : ! 

The Polar bear is armed with formidable weapons, and a proportionate 
power to use them. His claws are two inches in length, and his canine teeth, 
exclusive of the part in the jaw, about an inch and a half. Thus the hoards 
of provisions which are frequently deposited by Arctic voyagers to provide for 
some future want, have no greater enemy than the Polar bear. “The final 
cache,” says Kane, “ which I relied so much upon, was entirely destroyed. It 
had been built with extreme care, of rocks which had been assembled by very 
heavy labor, and adjusted with much aid, often, from capstan-bars as levers. 


ARCTIC MARINE ANIMALS. 67 


The entire construction was, so far as our means permitted, most effective and 
resisting. Yet these tigers of the ice seemed hardly to have encountered an 
obstacle. Not a morsel of pemmican remained, except in the iron cases, which 
being round, with conical ends, defied both claws and teeth. They had rolled 
and pawed them in every direction, tossing them about like footballs, although 
over eighty pounds in weight. An alcohol can, strongly iron-bound, was 
dashed into small fragments, and a tin can of liquor smashed and twisted 
almost into a ball. The claws of the beast had perforated the metal and torn 
it up as with a chisel. They were too dainty for salt meats; ground coffee 
they had an evident relish for ; old canvas was a favorite, for some reason or 
other; even our flag, which had been reared ‘to take possession’ of the 
waste, was gnawed down to the very staff. They had made a regular frolic of 
it; rolling our bread-barrels over the ice; and, unable to masticate our heavy 
India-rubber cloth, they had tied it up in unimaginable hard knots.” 

Numbers of sea-birds are found breeding along the Arctic shores as far as 
man has hitherto penetrated; some even keep the sea in the high latitudes all 
the winter, wherever open water exists. On the most northern rocks the razor- 
bill rears its young, and the fulmar and Ross’s gull have been seen in lanes of 
water beyond 82° lat. As the sun gains in power, enormous troops of puffins, 
looms, dovekies, rotges, skuas, burgermasters, Sabine’s gulls, kittiwakes, ivory 


THE GULL. 


gulls, and Arctic terns, return to the north. There they enjoy the long sum- 
mer day, and revel in the abundance of the fish-teeming waters, bringing life 
and animation into solitudes seldom or perhaps never disturbed by the presence 
of man, and mingling their wild screams with the hoarse-resounding surge or 
the howling of the storm. In many localities they breed in such abundance, 
that it may be said, almost without exaggeration, that they darken the sun 
when they fly, and hide the waters when they swim. 


68 THE POLAR WORLD. 


LAVA-FIELDS. 


CHAPTER V. 
ICELAND. 


Voleanic Origin of the Island.—The Klofa Jékul.—Lava-streams.—The Burning Mountains of Krisu- 
vik.—The Mud-caldrons of Reykjahlid.—The Tungo-hver at Reykholt.—The Great Geysir.—The 
Strokkr.—Crystal Pools.—The Almannagja.—The Surts-hellir—Beautiful Ice-cave-—The Gotha 
Foss.—The Detti Foss.—Climate.—Vegetation.—Cattle.—Barbarous Mode of Sheep-sheering.— 
Reindeer.—Polar Bears.—Birds.—The LEider-duck.—Videy.—Vigr.—The Wild Swan.—The Ra- 
ven.—The Jerfalcon.—The Giant auk, or Geirfugl.—Fish.—Fishing Season.—The White Shark.— 
Mineral Kingdom.—Sulphur.—Peat.—Drift-wood. 

4 Ia eaaine might as well be called Fireland, for all its 40,000 square miles 

have originally been upheaved from the depths of the waters by volcanic 
power. First, at some immeasurably distant period of the world’s history, the 
small nucleus of the future island began to struggle into existence against the 
superincumbent weight of the ocean; then, in the course of ages, cone rose 
after cone, crater was formed after crater, eruption followed on eruption, and 
lava-stream on lava-stream, until finally the Iceland of the present day was 
piled up with her gigantic “jékuls,” or ice-mountains, and her vast promon- 
tories, stretching like huge buttresses far out into the sea, 

In winter, when an almost perpetual night covers the wastes of this fire-born 
land, and the waves of a stormy ocean thunder against its shores, imagination 
can hardly picture a more desolate scene; but in summer the rugged nature 
of Iceland invests itself with many a charm. Then the eye reposes with de: 


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i 
< 
Py 
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ICELAND. 69 


light on green valleys and crystal lakes, on the purple hills or snow-capped 
mountains rising in Alpine grandeur above the distant horizon, and the stran- 
ger might almost be tempted to exclaim with her patriotic sons, “ Iceland is the 
best land under the sun.” That it is one of the most interesting—through its 
history, its inhabitants, and, above all, its natural curiosities—no one can doubt. 
It has all that can please and fascinate the poet, the artist, the geologist, or the 
historian; the prosaic utilitarian alone, accustomed to value a country merely 
by its productions, might turn with some contempt from a land without corn, 
without forests, without mineral riches, and covered for about two-thirds of its 
surface with bogs, lava-wastes, and glaciers. | 

The curse of sterility rests chiefly on the south-eastern and central parts of 
the island. Here nothing is to be seen but deserts of volcanic stone or im- 
mense ice-fields, the largest of which—the Klofa Jékul—alone extends over 
more than 4000 square miles. The interior of this vast region of névé and 
glacier is totally unknown. The highest peaks, the most dreadful volcanoes of 
the island, rise on the southern and south-western borders of this hitherto inac- 
cessible waste; the Oraefa looking down from a height of 6000 feet upon all 
its rivals—the Skaptar, a name of dreadful significance in the annals of Iceland, 
and farther on, like the advanced guards of this host of slumbering fires, the 
Katla, the Myrdal, the Eyjafjalla, and the Hecla, the most renowned, though 
not the most terrible, of all the volcanoes of Iceland. 

As the ice-fields of this northern island far surpass in magnitude those of 
the Alps, so also the lava-streams of Altna or Vesuvius are insignificant when 
compared with the enormous masses of molten stone which at various periods 
have issued from the craters of Iceland. From Mount Skjaldebreith, on hoth 
sides of the lake of Thingvalla as far as Cape Reykjanes, the traveller sees an 
uninterrupted lava-field more than sixty miles long, and frequently from twelve 
to fifteen broad; and lava-streams of still more gigantic proportions exist in 
many other parts of the island, particularly in the interior. In general, these 
lava-streams have cooled down into the most fantastic forms imaginable. “It 
is hardly possible,” says Mr. Holland, “to give any idea of the general appear- 
ance of these once molten masses. Here a great crag has toppled over into 
some deep crevasse, there a huge mass has been upheaved above the fiery 
stream which has seethed and boiled around its base. Here is every shape 
and figure that sculpture could design or imagination picture, jumbled to- 
gether in grotesque confusion, whilst everywhere myriads of horrid spikes and 
sharp shapeless irregularities bristle amidst them.” 

By the eruptions of the Icelandic volcanoes many a fair meadow-land has. 
been converted into a stony wilderness; but if the subterranean fires have fre- 
quently brought ruin and desolation over ae island, they have also endowed it 
with many natural wonders. 

In the “burning mountains” of Krisuvik, on the south-western coast, a 
whole hill-slope, with a deep narrow gorge at its foot, is covered with innumer- 
able boiling springs and fumaroles, whose dense exhalations, spreading an in- 
tolerable stench, issue out of the earth with a hissing noise, and completely hide 
the view. 


70 THE POLAR WORLD. 


EFFIGY IN LAVA. 


The Namar, or boiling mud-caldrons of Reykjahlid, situated among a range 
of mountains near the Myvatn (Gnat-Lake), in one of the most solitary spots in 
the north of the island, on the border of enormous lava-fields and of a vast un- 
known wilderness, exhibit volcanic power on a still more gigantic scale. There 
are no less than twelve of these seething pits, all filled with a disgusting thick 
slimy gray or black liquid, boiling or simmering with greater or less vehemence, 
and emitting dense volumns of’ steam strongly impregnated with sulphurous 
gases. Some sputter furiously, scattering their contents on every side, while in 
others the muddy soup appears too thick to boil, and after remaining quiescent 
for about half a minute, rises up a few inches in the centre of the basin, emits 
a puff of steam, and then subsides into its former state. The diameter of the 
largest of all the pits can not be less than fifteen feet; and it is a sort of mud 
Geysir, for at intervals a column of its black liquid contents, accompanied with 
a violent rush of steam, is thrown up to the height of six or eight feet. Pro- 
fessor Sartorius von Waltershausen, one of the few travellers who have visited 
this remarkable spot, says that the witches in J/acbeth could not possibly have 
desired a more fitting place for the preparation of their infernal gruel than the 
mud-caldrons of Reykjahlid. 

Among the hot or boiling springs of Iceland, which in hundreds of places 
gush forth at the foot of the mountains, some are of a gentle and even flow, and 
can be used for bathing, washing, or boiling, while others of an intermittent na- 
ture are mere objects of curiosity or wonder. One of the most remarkable of 
the latter is the Tungo-hver, at Reykholt, in the “ valley of smoke,” thus named 
from the columns of vapor emitted by the thermal springs which are here scat- 
tered about with a lavish hand. It consists of two fountains within a yard of 
each other—the larger one vomiting a column of boiling water ten feet high for 
the space of about four minutes, when it entirely subsides, and then the smaller 
one operates for about three minutes, ejecting a column of about five feet. 
The alternation is perfectly regular in time and force, and there are authentic ac- 
counts of its unfailing exactitude for the last hundred years. 

But of all the springs and fountains of Iceland there is none to equal, either 
in grandeur or renown, the Great Geysir, which is not merely one of the curi- 


ICELAND. 71 


osities of the country, but one of the wonders of the earth, as there is nothing 
to compare to it in any other part of the world. 

At the foot of the Laugafjall hill, in a green plain, through which several 
rivers meander like threads of silver, and where chains of dark-colored mount- 
ains, overtopped here and there by distant snow-peaks, form a grand but mel- 
ancholy panorama, dense volumes of steam indicate from afar the site of a 
whole system of thermal springs congregated on a small piece of ground which 
does not exceed twelve acres. In any other spot, the smallest of these boiling 
fountains would arrest the traveller’s attention, but here his whole mind ig ab- 
sorbed by the Great Geysir. In the course of countless ages this monarch of 
springs has formed, out of the silica it deposits, a mound which rises to about 
thirty feet above the general surface of the plain, and slopes on all sides to the 
distance of a hundred feet or thereabouts from the border of a large circular 
basin situated in its centre, and measuring about fifty-six feet in the greatest 
diameter and fifty-two,feet in the narrowest. In the middle of this basin, 
forming as it were a gigantic funnel, there is a pipe or tube, which at its open- 
ing in the basin is eighteen or sixteen feet in diameter, but narrows consider- 
ably at a little distance from the mouth, and then appears to be not more than 
ten or twelve feet in diameter. It has been probed to a depth of seventy feet, 
but it is more than probable that hidden channels ramify farther into the bow- 
els of the earth. The sides of the tube are smoothly polished, and so hard that 
it is not possible to strike off a piece of it with a hammer. 

Generally the whole basin is found filled up to the brim with sea-green wa- 
ter as pure as crystal, and of a temperature of from 180° to 190°. Astonished 
at the placid tranquillity of the pool, the traveller can hardly believe that he is 
really standing on the brink of the far-famed Geysir; but suddenly a subterra- 
nean thunder is heard, the ground trembles under his feet, the water in the ba- 
sin begins to simmer, and large bubbles of steam rise from the tube and burst 
on reaching the sarface, throwing up small jets of spray to the height of sev- 
eral feet. Every instant he expects to witness the grand spectacle which has 
chiefly induced him to visit this northern land, but soon the basin becomes tran- 
quil as before, and the dense vapors produced by the ebullition are wafted away 
by the breeze. These smaller eruptions are regularly repeated every eighty or 
ninety minutes, but frequently the traveller is obliged to wait a whole day, or 
even longer, before he sees the whole power of the Geysir. A detonation loud- 
er than usual precedes one of these grand eruptions; the water in the basin is 
violently agitated ; the tube boils vehemently ; and suddenly a magnificent col- 
umn of water, clothed in vapor of a dazzling whiteness, shoots up into the 
air with immense impetuosity and noise to the height of seventy or eighty 
feet, and, radiating at its apex, showers water and steam in every direction, A 
second eruption and a third rapidly follow, and after a few minutes the fairy 
“spectacle has passed away like a fantastic vision. The basin is now completely 
dried up, and on looking down into the shaft, one is astonished to see the water 
about six feet from the rim, and as tranquil as in an ordinary well. After 
about thirty or forty minutes it again begins to rise, and after a few hours 
reaches the brim of the basin, whence it flows down the slope of the mound 


72 : THE POLAR WORLD. 


into the Hvita, or White River. Soon the subterraneous thunder, the shaking of 
the ground, the simmering above the tube, and the other phenomena which at- 
tend each minor eruption, begin again, to be followed by a new period of rest, 
and thus this wonderful play of nature goes on day after day, year after year, 
and century after century. The mound of the Geysir bears witness to its im- 
mense antiquity, as its water contains but a minute portion of silica. 

After the Geysir, the most remarkable fountain of these Phlegriean fields is 
the great Strokkr, situated about four hundred feet from the former. Its tube, 


THE STROKKR. 


the margin of which is almost even with the general surface, the small mound 


and basin being hardly discernible, is funnel-shaped, or resembling the flower of 
a convolvulus, having a depth of forty-eight feet, and a diameter of six feet at 
the mouth, but contracting, at twenty-two feet from the bottom, to only eleven 


inches. The water stands from nine to twelve feet under the brim, and is gen: . 


erally in violent ebullition. A short time before the beginning of the erup- 
tions, which are more frequent than those of the Great Geysir, an enormous 
mass of steam rushes from the tube, and is followed by a rapid succession of jets, 
sometimes rising to the height of 120 or 150 feet, and dissolving into silvery 
mist. A peculiarity of the Strokkr is that it can at any time be provoked to an 
eruption by throwing into the orifice large masses of peat or turf; thus chok- 
ing the shaft, and preventing the free escape of the steam. After the lapse ot 
about ten minutes, the boiling fluid, as if indignant at this attempt upon its 


liberty, heaves up a column of mud and water, with fragments of peat, as black 


as ink, 


ICELAND. 73 


About 150 paces from the Great Geysir are several pools of the most beau- 
tifully clear water, tinting with every shade of the purest green and blue the 
fantastical forms of the silicious travertin which clothes their sides. The slight- 
est motion communicated to the surface quivers down to the bottom of these 
erysta! grottoes, and imparts what might be called a sympathetic tremor of the 
water to every delicate incrustation and plant-like efflorescence. “ Aladdin’s 
Cave could not be more beautiful,” says Preyer; and Mr. Holland remarks that 
neither description nor drawing is capable of giving a sufficient idea of the sin- 
gularity and loveliness of this spot. In many places it is dangerous to approach 
within several feet of the margin, as the earth overhangs the water, and is hol- 
low underneath, supported only by incrustations scarcely a foot thick. A 
plunge into waters of about 200° would be paying rather too dearly for the 
contemplation of their fairy-like beauty. 


ENTRANCE TO THE ALMANNAGJA. 


The gigantic chasm of the Almannagja is another of the volcanic wonders 
of Iceland. After along and tedious ride over the vast lava-plain which extends 
between the Skalafell and the lake of Thingvalla, the traveller suddenly finds 
himself arrested in his path by an apparently insurmountable obstacle, for the 


74 THE POLAR WORLD. 


enormous Almannagja, or Allman’s Rift, suddenly gapes beneath his feet—a 
colossal rent extending above a mile in length, and inclosed on both sides by 
abrupt walls of black lava, frequently upward of a hundred feet high, and sep- 
arated from about fifty to seventy feet from each other. 


THE ALMANNAGJA. 


A corresponding chasm, but of inferior dimensions, the Hrafnagja, or Ra- 
ven’s Rift, opens its black rampart to the east, about eight miles farther on ; 
and both form the boundaries of the verdant plain of Thingvalla, which by a 
grand convulsion of nature has itself been shattered into innumerable small 
parallel crevices and fissures fifty or sixty feet deep. : 

Of the Hrafnagja Mr. Ross Browne says: “ A toilsome ride of eight diiles 
brought us to the edge of the Pass, which in point of rugged grandeur far 
surpasses the Almannagja, though it lacks the extent and symmetry which give 
the latter such a remarkable effect. Here was a tremendous gap in the earth, 
over a hundred feet deep, hacked and shiyered into a thousand fantastic shapes ; 
the sides a succession of the wildest accidents; the bottom a chaos of broken 
lava, all tossed about in the most terrific confusion. It is not, however, the ex- 
traordinary desolation of the scene that constitutes its principal interest. The 
resistless power which had rent the great lava-bed asunder, as if touched with 
pity at the ruin, had also flung from the tottering cliffs a causeway across the 
gap, which now forms the only means of passing over the great Hrafnagja. 
No human hands could have created such a colossal work as this; the imagt- 
nation is lost in its massive grandeur; and when we reflect that miles of an 
almost impassable country would otherwise have to be traversed in order to 


ICELAND. 7A 


THE HRAFNAGJA. 


reach the opposite side of the gap, the conclusion is irresistible that in the bat. 
tle of the elements Nature still had a kindly remembrance of man. 


THE TINTRON ROCK. 


76 THE POLAR WORLD. 


“Five or six miles beyond the Hrafnagja, near the summit of a dividing 
ridge, we came upon a very singular volcanic formation, called the Tintron. 
It stands, a little to the right of the trail, on a rise of scoria and burnt earth, 
from which it juts up in rugged relief to the height of twenty or thirty feet. 
This is, strictly speaking, a huge clinker, not unlike what comes out of a grate 
—hard, glassy in spots, and seraggy all over. The top part is shaped like a 
shell; in the centre is a hole about three feet in diameter, which opens into a 
vast subterranean cavity of unknown depth. Whether the Tintron is an ex- 
tinct crater, through which fires shot out of the earth in by-gone times, or an 
isolated mass of lava, whirled through the air out of some distant volcano, is 
a question that geologists must determine. The probability is that it is one 
of those natural curiosities so common in Iceland which defy research. The 
whole country is full of anomalies—bogs where cne would expect to find dry 
land, and parched deserts where it would not seem strange to see bogs; fire 
where water ought to be, and water in the place of fire.” 

“ Ages ago,” says Lord Dufferin, “some vast commotion shook the foun- 
dations of the island; and bubbling up from sources far away amid the inland 
hills, a fiery deluge must have rushed down between their ridges, until, esca- 
ping from the narrower gorges, it found space to spread itself into one broad 
sheet of molten stone over an entire district of country, reducing its varied 
surface to one vast blackened level. One of two things then occurred; either, 


the vitrified mass contracting as it 
cooled, the centre area of fifty square 
miles (the present plain of Thingvalla) 
burst asunder at either side from the 
adjoining plateau, and sinking down to 
its present level, left two parallel gjas, 
: or chasms, which form its lateral bound- 
aries, to mark the limits of the disruption; or else, while the pith or marrow of 
the lava was still in a fluid state, its upper surface became solid, and formed a 


FALL OF THE OXERAA. 


“Sa 


ICELAND. 17 


roof, beneath which the molten stream flowed on to lower levels, leaving a vast 
cavern into which the upper crust subsequently plumped down.” In the lapse 
of years, the bottom of the Almannagja has become gradually filled up to an 
even surface, covered with the most beautiful turf, except where the river 
Oxeraa, bounding in a magnificent cataract from the higher plateau over the 
precipice, flows for a certain distance between its walls. At the foot of the 
fall the waters linger for a moment in a dark, deep, brimming pool, hemmed 
in by a circle of ruined rocks, in which anciently all women convicted of 
capital crimes were immediately drowned. Many a poor crone, accused of 
witchcraft, has thus ended her days in the Almannagja. As may easily be im- 
agined, it is rather a nerve-trying task to descend into the chasm over a rugged 
lava-slope, where the least false step may prove fatal; but the Icelandic horses 
are so sure-footed that they can safely be trusted. From the bottom it is 
easy to distinguish on the one face marks and formations exactly correspond- 
ing, though at a different level, with those on the face opposite, and evidently 
showing that they once had dovetailed into each other, before the igneous 
mass was rent asunder. : 

Two leagues from Kalmanstunga, in an immense lava-field, which probably 
originated in the Bald Jékul, are situated the renowned Surts-hellir, or caves 
of Surtur, the prince of darkness and fire of the ancient Scandinavian mytholo- 
gy. The principal entrance to the caves is an extensive chasm formed by the 
falling in of a part of the lava-roof; so that, on descending into it, the visitor 
finds himself right in the mouth of the main cavern, which runs in an almost 
straight line, and is nearly a mile in length. Its average height is about forty, 
and its breadth fifty feet. The lava-crust which forms its roof is about twelve 
feet thick, and has the appearance of being stratified and columnar, like basaltic 
pillars, in its formation. Many of the blocks of lava thus formed have become 
detached and fallen into the cavern, where they lie piled up in great heaps, and 
heavily tax the patience of the traveller, who has to scramble over the rugged 
stones, and can hardly avoid slipping and stumbling into the holes between 
them, varied by pools of water and masses of snow. But after having toiled 
and plodded to the extremity of this dismal cavern, his perseverance is amply 
rewarded by the sight of an ice-grotto, whose fairy beauty appears still more 
charming, in contrast with its gloomy vestibule. From the crystal floor rises 
group after group of transparent pillars tapering to a point, while from the 
roof brilliant icy pendants hang down to meet them. Columns and arches of 
ice are ranged along the crystalline walls, and the light of the candles is reflect 
ed back a hundred-fold from every side, till the whole cavern shines with aston- 
ishing lustre. Mr. Holland, the latest visitor of the Surts-hellir, declares he 
never saw a more brilliant spectacle; and the German naturalist, Preyer, pro- 
nounces it one of the most magnificent sights in nature, reminding him of the 
fairy grottoes of the Arabian Nights’ Tales. 

From the mountains and the vast plateau which occupies the centre of the 
island, numerous rivers descend on all sides, which, fed in summer by the melt- 
ing glaciers, pour enormous quantities of turbid water into the sea, or convert 
large alluvial flats into morasses. Though of a considerable breadth, their 


beg 


78 THE POLAR WORLD. 


course is frequently very short, particularly along the southern coast, where 
the jokuls from which they derive their birth are only separated from the 
sea by a narrow foreland. In their impetuous flow, they not seldom bear huge 
blocks of stone along with them, and cut off all communication between the 
inhabitants of their opposite banks. 

The chief rivers of Iceland are, in the south, the Thiorsa and the Hvita, 
which are not inferior in widta to the Rhine in the middle part of its course; 
. in the north, the Skjalfandafijot and the Jékulsa and the Jékulsa i Axarfirdi, 
large and rapid streams above a hundred miles long; and in the east the La- 
garfliot. As may be expected in a mountainous country, containing many 
glacier-fed rivers, Iceland has numerous cascades, many of them rivalling or 
surpassing in beauty the far-famed falls of Switzerland. 

One of the most celebrated of these gems of nature is the Goda-foss, in the 
northern part of the island, formed by the deep and rapid Skjalfandafljot, as it 
rushes with a deafening roar over rocks fifty feet high into the caldron below; 
but it is far surpassed in magnificence by the Dettifoss, a fall of the Jokulsa i 
Axarfirdi. 

“In some of old earth’s convulsions,” says its discoverer, Mr. Gould,—for 
from its remote situation, deep in the northern wilds of Iceland, it had escaped 
the curious eye of previous travellers—“ the crust of rock has been rent, and a 
frightful fissure formed in the basalt, about 200 feet deep, with the sides co- 
Jumnar and perpendicular. The gash terminates abruptly at an acute angle, 
and at this spot the great river rolls in. The wreaths of water sweeping 
down ; the frenzy of the confined streams where they meet, shooting into each 
other from either side at the apex of an angle; the wild rebound when they 
strike a head of rock, lurching out half way Sosa the fitful gleam of battling 
torrents, obtained through a veil of eddying vapor; the Geysir-spouts which 
blow up about seventy feet from holes whence basaltic columns have been shot 
by the force of the descending water; the blasts of spray which rush upward 
and burst into fierce showers on the brink, feeding rills which plunge over the 
edge as soon as they are born; the white writhing vortex below, with now and 
then an ice-green wave tearing through the foam to lash against the walls; the 
thunder and bellowing of the water, which make the rock shudder under foot, 
are all stamped on my mind with a vividness which it will take years to efface. 
The Almannagja is nothing to this chasm, and Schaffhausen is dwarfed by 
Dettifoss.” . 

The ocean-currents which wash the coasts of Iceland from opposite direc- 
tions have a considerable influence on its climate. The south and west coasts, 
fronting the Atlantic, and exposed to the Gulf Stream, remain ice-free even in 
winter, and enjoy a comparatively mild temperature, while the cold Polar cur- 
rent, flowing in a south-western direction from Spitzbergen to Jan Mayen and 
Iceland, conveys almost every year to the eastern and northern shores of the 
island large masses of drift-ice, which sometimes do not disappear before July 
or even August. According to Dr. Thorstensen, the mean annual temperature 
of the air at Reykjavik is +40°, and that of the sea +42°, while according to 
Herr von Scheele the mean annual temperature at Akureyre, on the north coast, 


ICELAND. 79 


is only +33°, though even this shows a comparatively mild climate in so high 
a latitude. But if Iceland, thanks to its insular position and to the influence 
of the Gulf Stream, remains free from the excessive winter cold of the Arctic 
continents, its summer, on the other hand, is inferior in warmth to that which 
reigns in the interior of Siberia, or of the Hudson’s Bay territories. 

The mean summer temperature at Reykjavik is not above +54°; during 

many years the thermometer never rises a single time above +80°; sometimes 
even its maximum is not higher than +59°; and, on the northern coast, snow _ 
not seldom falls even in the middle of summer. Under such circumstances, the — 
cultivation of the cereals is of course impossible; and when the drift-ice re- 
mains longer than usual on the northern coasts, it prevents even the growth of 
the grass, and want and famine are the consequence. 

The Icelandic summer is characterized by constant changes in the weather, 
rain continually alternating with sunshine, as with us in April. The air is but 
seldom tranquil, and storms of terrific violence are of frequent occurrence. 
Towards the end of September winter begins, preceded by mists, which finally 
descend in thick masses of snow. Travelling over the mountain-tracks is at 
this time particularly dangerous, although cairns or piles of stone serve to 
point out the way, and here and there, as over the passes of the Alps, small huts 
have been erected to serve as a refuge for the traveller. 

In former times Iceland could boast of forests, so that houses and even ships 
used to be built of indigenous timber; at present it is almost entirely destitute 
of trees, for the dwarf shrubberies here and there met with, where the birch 
hardly attains the height of twenty feet, are not to be dignified with the name 
of woods. A service-tree (Sorbus ancuparia) fourteen feet high, and measur- 
ing three inches in diameter at the foot, is the boast of the governor’s garden 
at Reykjavik ; it is, however, surpassed by another at Akureyre, which spreads 
a full crown twenty feet from the ground, but never sees its clusters of berries 
ripen into scarlet. 

The damp and cool Icelandic summer, though it prevents the successful cul- 
tivation of corn, is favorable to the growth of grasses, so that in some of the 
better farms the pasture-grounds are hardly inferior to the finest meadows in 
England. About one-third of the surface of the country is covered with vege- 
tation of some sort or other fit for the nourishment of cattle; but, as yet, art 
has done little for its improvement—ploughing, sowing, drainage, and levelling 
being things undreamt of. With the exception of the grasses, which are of 
paramount importance, and the trees, which, in spite of their stunted propor- 
tions, are of great value, as they supply the islanders with the charcoal needed 
for shoeing their horses, few of the indigenous plants of Iceland are of any use 
to man. The Angelica archangelica is eaten raw with butter; the matted 
roots or stems of the Menyanthes trifoliata serve to protect the backs of the 
horses against the rubbing of the saddle; and the Icelandic moss, which is fre- 
quently boiled in milk, is likewise an article of exportation. The want of bet- 
ter grain frequently compels the poor islanders to bake a kind of bread from 
the seeds of the sand-reed (Llymus arenarius), which on our dunes are merely 
picked by the birds of passage ; and the oarweed or tangle (Laminaria sac- 


80 THE POLAR WORLD. 


charina) is prized as a vegetable in a land where potatoes and turnips are but 
rarely cultivated. | | 

When the first settlers came to Iceland, they found but two indigenous 
land-quadrupeds: a species of field-vole (Arvicola ceconomus) and the Arctic 
fox; but the seas and shores were no doubt tenanted by a larger number of 
whales, dolphins, and seals than at the present day. 

The ox, the sheep, and the horse which accompanied the Norse colonists to 
their new home, form the staple wealth of their descendants; for the number 
of those who live by breeding cattle is as three to one, compared with those 
who chiefly depend on the sea for their subsistence. Milk and whey are almost 


the only beverages of the Icelanders. Without butter they will eat no fish; 


and curdled milk, which they eat fresh in summer and preserve in a sour state 
during the winter, is their favorite repast. ‘Thus they set the highest value on 
their cattle, and tend them with the greatest care. In the preservation of their 
sheep, they are much hampered by the badness of the climate, by the scantiness 
of winter food, and by the attacks of the eagles, the ravens, and the foxes, more 
particularly at the lambing season, when vast numbers of the young animals 
are carried off by all of them. The wool is not sheared off, but torn from the 
animal’s back, and woven by the peasantry, during the long winter evenings, into 
a kind of coarse cloth, or knit into gloves and stockings, which form one of the 
chief articles of export. 


“While at breakfast,” says Mr. Shepherd, “ we witnessed the Icelandic meth- 


od of sheep-shearing. Three or four powerful young women seized, and easily 
threw on their backs the struggling victims. The legs were then tied, and the 
wool pulled off by main force. It seemed, from the contortions of some of the 
wretched animals, to be a cruel method; but we were told that there is a period 
in the year when the young wool, beginning to grow, pushes the old out before 
it, so that the old coat is easily pulled out.” The number of heads of cattle in 
the island is about 40,000, that of the sheep 500,000. 

The horses, which number from 50,000 to 60,000, though small, are very ro- 
bust and hardy. There being no wheel carriages on the island, they are mere- 
ly used for riding and as beasts of burden. Their services are indispensable, 
as without them the Icelanders would not have the means of travelling and car- 
rving their produce to the fishing villages or ports at which the annual supplies 
arrive from Copenhagen. In winter the poor animals must find their own food, 
and are consequently mere skeletons in spring; they, however, soon recover in 
summer, though even then they have nothing whatever but the grass and small 
plants which they can pick up on the hills. 

The dogs are very similar to those of Lapland and Greenland. Like them, 
they have long hair, forming a kind of collar round the neck, a pointed nose, 
pointed ears, and an elevated curled tail, with a temper which may be charac- 
terized as restless and irritable. Their general color is white. 

In the year 1770 thirteen reindeer were brought from Norway. Ten of 
them died during the passage, but the three that survived have multiplied so 


fast that large herds now roam over the uninhabited wastes. During the win- 


ter, when hunger drives them into the lower districts, they are frequently shot; 


—- *- 


ICELAND. 81 


ICELANDIC HORSES. 


but no attempts have been made to tame them; for, though indispensable to the 
Laplander, they are quite superfluous in Iceland, which is too rugged and too 
much intersected by streams to admit of sledging. They are, in fact, generally 
considered as a nuisance, as they eat away the Icelandic moss, which the island- 
ers would willingly keep for their own use. 

The Polar bear is but a casual visitor in Iceland. About a dozen come 
drifting every year with the ice from Jan Mayen, or Spitzbergen, to the north- 
ern shores. Ravenous with hunger, they immediately attack the first herds 
they meet with; but their ravages do not last long, for the neighborhood, aris- 
ing in arms, soon puts an end to their existence. 

In Iceland the ornithologist finds a rich field for his favorite study, as there 
are no less than eighty-two different species of indigenous birds, besides twenty- 
one that are only casual visitors, and six that have been introduced by man. 

The swampy grounds in the interior of the country are peopled with legions 
of golden and king plovers, of snipes and red-shanks; the lakes abound with 
swans, ducks, and geese of various kinds; the snow-bunting enlivens the soli- 
tude of the rocky wilderness with his lively note, and, wherever grass grows, 
the common pipit (Anthus pratensis) builds its neat little nest, well lined with 
horsehair. Like the lark, he rises singing from the ground, and frequently 
surprises the traveller with his melodious warbling, which sounds doubly sweet 
in the lifeless waste. 

The eider-duck holds the first rank among the useful birds of Iceland. Its 
chief breeding-places are small flat islands on various parts of the coast, where 
it is safe from the attacks of the Arctic fox, such as Akurey, Flatey, and Videy, 

6 


THE POLAR WORLD. 


vicinity to Reykjavik, is frequently visited by travellers. 
laces are private property, and several have been for centuries 


All 


UHHaGNIGY ONILOOHS 


hah pe. 


: 


Whoever kills one is obliged to pay a 


which, from its 
these breeding-p 


82 


\\\ a | : A = 


Y 
[= 


at 
ME 


in the possession of the same families, which, thanks to the birds, are among the 
wealthiest of the land. It may easily be imagined that the eider-ducks are 


guarded with the most sedulous care. 


ICELAND. 83 


fine of thirty dollars; and the secreting of 

an egg, or the pocketing of a few downs, is 

punished with all the rigor of thelaw. The 

>, chief occupation of Mr. Stephenson, the aged 

in proprietor of Videy, who dwells alone on the 

Mi / n islet, is to examine through his telescope all 
a 


ia 
Whe 
Za oF | the boats that approach, so as to be sure that 
ick \) \ there are no guns on board. During the 
3 \ a 
= 


AK breeding season no one is allowed to land 
Fm ye without his special permission, and all noise, 
shouting, or loud speaking is strictly prohib- 
ited. But, in spite of these precautions, we 
are informed by recent travellers that latterly the greater part of the ducks of 
Videy have been tempted to leave their old quarters for the neighboring Engey, 
whose proprietor hit upon the plan of laying hay upon the strand, so as to afford 
them greater facilities for nest-building. The eider-down is easily collected, as the 
birds are quite tame. The female having laid five or six pale greenish-olive eggs, 
in a nest thickly lined with her beautiful down, the collectors, after carefully re- 
moving the bird, rob the nest of its contents, after which they replace her. She 
then begins to lay afresh, though this time only three or four eggs, and again 
has recourse to the down on her body. But her greedy persecutors once more 
rifle her nest, and oblige her to line it for the third time. Now, however, her 
own stock of down is exhausted, and with a plaintive voice she calls her mate to 
her assistance, who willingly plucks the soft feathers from his breast to supply 
the deficiency. If the cruel robbery be again repeated, which in former times 
was frequently the case, the poor eider-duck abandons the spot, never to return, 
and seeks for a new home where she may indulge her maternal instinct undis- 
turbed. 

Mr. Shepherd thus describes his visit to Vigr, in the Isafjardardjup, one of 
the head-quarters of the eider-duck in the north of Iceland: “As the island 
was approached, we could see flocks upon flocks of the sacred birds, and could 
hear their cooings at a great distance. We landed on a rocky wave-worn shore, 
against which the waters scarcely rippled, and set off to investigate the island. 
The shore was the most wonderful ornithological sight conceivable. The ducks 
and their nests were everywhere in a manner that was quite alarming. Great 
brown ducks sat upon their nests in masses, and at every step started up from 
under our feet. It was with difficulty that we avoided treading on some of 
the nests. The island being but three-quarters of a mile in width, the oppo- 
site shore was soon reached. On the coast was a wall built of large stones, 
just above the high-water level, about three feet in height, and of considerable 
thickness. At the bottom, on both sides of it, alternate stones had been left 
out, so as to form a series of square compartments for the ducks to make their 
nests in. Almost every compartment was occupied; and, as we walked along 
the shore, a long line of ducks flew out one after another. The surface of the 
water also was perfectly white with drakes, who welcomed their brown wives 
with loud and clamorous cooing. When we arrived at the farmhouse we were 


Ni \ YY AA By +7 
i ——— 


“title - 
i 


EIDER-DUCK. 


84 THE POLAR WORLD. 


cordially welcomed by its mistress. The house itself was a great marvel. 
The earthern wall that surrounded it and the window embrasures were occu- 
pied by ducks. On the ground, the house was fringed with ducks. On the 
turf-slopes of the roof we could see ducks; and a duck sat in the scraper. 

“A grassy bank close by had been cut into square patches like a chess- 
board (a square of turf of about eighteen inches being removed, and a hollow 
made), and all were filled with ducks. A windmill was infested, and so were 
all the outhouses, mounds, rocks, and crevices. The ducks were everywhere. 
Many of them were so tame that we could stroke them on their nests; and the 
good lady told us that there was scarcely a duck on the island which would 
not allow her to take its eggs without flight or fear. When she first became 
possessor of the island, the produce of down from the ducks was not more 
than fifteen pounds’ weight in the year, but, under her careful nurture of twenty 
years, it had risen to nearly one hundred pounds annually. It requires about 
one pound and a half to make a coverlet for a single bed, and the down is 
worth from twelve to fifteen shillings per pound. Most of the eggs are taken 
and pickled for winter consumption,.one or two only being left to hatch.” 

Though not so important as the eider, the other members of the duck 
family which during the summer season enliven the lakes and swamps of Ice- 
land are very serviceable. On the Myvatn, or Gnat Lake, one of their chief 
places of resort, the eggs of the long-tailed duck, the wild duck, the scoter, the 
common goosander, the red-breasted merganser, the scaup-duck, etc., and other 
anserines are carefully gathered and preserved in enormous quantities for the 
winter, closely packed in a fine gray volcanic sand. 

The wild swan is frequently shot or caught for his feathers, which bring in 
many a dollar to the fortunate huntsman. This noble bird frequents both the 
salt and brackish waters along the coast and the inland lakes and rivers, where 
it is seen either in single pairs or congregated in large flocks. To build its 
nest, which is said to resemble closely that of the flamingo, being a large 
mound, composed of mud, rushes, grass, and stones, with a cavity at top lined 
with soft down, it retires to some solitary, uninhabited spot. Much has been 
said in ancient times of the singing of the swan, and the beauty of its dying 
notes; but, in truth, the voice of the swan is very loud, shrill, and harsh, though 
when high in the air, and modulated by the winds, the note or whoop of an 
assemblage of them is not unpleasant to the ear. It has a peculiar charm in 
the unfrequented wastes of Iceland, where it agreeably interrupts the profound 
silence that reigns around. 

The raven, one of the commonest lJand-birds in Iceland, is an object of aver- 
sion to the islanders, as it not only seizes on their young lambs and eider-ducks, 
but also commits great depredations among the fishes laid out to dry upon the 
shore. Poles to which dead ravens are attached, to serve as a warning to the 
living, are frequently seen in the meadows; and the Icelander is never so hap- 
py as when he has succeeded in shooting a raven. This, however, is no easy 
task, as no bird is more cautious, and its eyes are as sharp as those of the eagle. 
Of all Icelandic birds, the raven breeds the earliest, laying about the middle of 
March its five or six pale-green eggs, spotted with brown, in the inaccessible 


. ICELAND. 85 


crevices of rocks. Towards the end of June, Preyer saw many young ravens 
grown to a good size, and but little inferior to the old ones in cunning. 

In the gloomy Scandinavian mythology the raven occupies a rank equal to 
that of the eagle in the more cheerful fables of ancient Greece. It was dedi- 
cated to Odin, who, as the traditional history of Iceland informs us, had two 
ravens, which were let loose every morning to gather tidings of what was go- 
ing on in the world, and which on returning in the evening perched upon Odin’s 
shoulders to whisper the news in his ear; the name of one was Hugin, or 
spirit; of the other, MZwmin, or memory. Even now many superstitious no- 
tions remain attached to the raven; for the Icelanders believe this bird to be 
not only acquainted with what is going on at a distance, but also with what is 
to happen in future, and are convinced that it foretells when any of the family 
is about to die, by perching on the roof of the house, or wheeling round in the 
air with a continual cry, varying its voice in a singular and melodious manner. 

The white-tailed sea-eagle is not uncommon in Iceland, where he stands in 
evil repute asa kidnapper of lambs and eider-ducks. He is sometimes found 
dead in the nets of the fishermen; for, pouncing upon a haddock or salmon, he 
gets entangled in the meshes, and is unable to extricate himself. The skins of 
the bird, which seems to attain a larger size than in Great Britain, most likely 
from being less disturbed by man, are sold at Reykjavik and Akureyre for from 
three to six rix-dollars. 

The jyrfalcon (alco gyrfalco), generally 
considered as the boldest and most beauti- 
ful of the falcon tribe, has its head-quarters 
in Iceland. As long as the noble sport of 
falconry was in fashion, for which it was 
highly esteemed, the trade in falcons was 
worth from 2000 to 3000 rix-dollars annually 
to the islanders, and even now high prices 
are paid for it by English amateurs. 

The rarest bird of Iceland, if not entirely 
extinct, is the Giant-auk, or Geirfugl. The 
last pair was caught about seventeen years 
ago near the Geirfuglaskers, a group of sol- 
itary rocks to the south of the Westman 
Isles, its only known habitat besides some 
similar cliffs on the north-eastern coast. 
Since that time it is said to have been seen 
by some fishermen ; but this testimony is extremely doubtful, and the question 
of its existence can only be solved by a visit to the Geirfuglaskers themselves 
—an undertaking which, if practicable at all, is attended with extreme difficulty 
and danger, as these rocks are completely isolated in the sea, which even in 
calm weather breaks with such violence against their abrupt declivities that 
for years it must be absolutely impossible to approach them. 

In 1858 two English naturalists determined at least to make the attempt, 
and settled for a season in a small hamlet on the neighboring coast, eager to 


THE JYRFALCON. 


86 THE POLAR WORLD. 


Z ON 
od : ] 


THE GIANT-AUK. 


seize the first opportunity for storming the Geirfugl’s stronghold. They wait- 
ed for several months, but in vain, the stormy summer being more than usually 
unfavorable for their undertaking ; and they were equally unsuccessful in the 
north, whither they had sent an Icelandic student specially instructed for the 
purpose. The giant-auk is three feet high, and has a black bill four inches and 
a quarter long, both mandibles being crossed obliquely with several ridges and 
furrows. Its wings are mere stumps, like those of the Antarctic penguins. 
Thirty pounds have been paid for its egg, which is larger than that of any 
other European bird; and there is no knowing the price the Zoological Society 
would pay for a live bird, if this truly “ rara avis ” could still be found. 

The waters of Iceland abound with excellent fish, which not only supply the 
islanders with a great part of their food and furnish them with one of their 
chief articles of exportation, but also attract a number of foreign seamen. 
Thus about 300 French, Dutch, and Belgian fishing-sloops, manned with crews 
amounting in all to 7000 men, annually make their appearance on the southern 
and western coasts of Iceland, particularly those of the Guldbringe Syssel, or 
gold-bringing country: thus named, not from any evidence of the precious 
metal, but from the golden cod-harvests reaped on its shores. Between thirty 
and forty English fishing-smacks yearly visit the northern coast. When they 
have obtained a good cargo they run to Shetland to discharge it, and return 
again for more. 

The Icelandic fishing-season, which begins in February and ends in June, 
occupies one-half of the male inhabitants of the island, who come flocking to 
the west, even from the remotest districts of the north and east, to partake of 
the rich harvest of the seas. Many thus travel for more than 200 miles in the 
midst cf winter, while the storm howls over the naked waste, and the pale sun 
scarcely dispels for a few hours the darkness of the night. In every hut where 
they tarry on the road they are welcome, and have but rarely to pay for their 


Pn 
ia, 
if 
e 
i 
ie 


ICELAND. 87 ? 


entertainment, for hospitality is still reckoned a duty in Iceland. On reaching 
the fishing-station, an agreement is soon made with the proprietor of a boat. 
They usually engage to assist in fishing from February 12 to May 12, and re- 
ceive in return a share of the fish which they help to catch, besides forty 
pounds of flour and a daily allowance of sour curds, or “ skier.” 

All the men belonging to a boat generally live in the same damp and nar- 
row hut. At daybreak they launch forth, to brave for many hours the inclem- 
 encies of the weather and the sea, and while engaged in their hard day’s work 
their sole refreshment is the chewing of tobacco or a mouthful of skier. On 
returning to their comfortless hut, their supper consists of the fishes of inferior 
quality they may have caught, or of the heads of the cod or ling, which are too 
valuable for their own consumption. These are split open and hung upon lines, 
or exposed on the shore to the cold wind and the hot sun; this renders them 
perfectly hard, and they keep good for years. In this dried state the cod is 
called stockfish. About the middle of May the migratory fishermen return to 
’ their homes, leaving their fish which are not yet quite dry to the care of the 
fishermen dwelling on the spot. Towards the middle of June, when the horses 
have so far recovered from their long winter’s fast as to be able to bear a load, 
they come back to fetch their stockfish, which they convey either to their own 
homes for the consumption of their own families, or to the nearest port for the 
purpose of bartering it against other articles. Haddocks, flatfish, and herrings 
are also very abundant in the Icelandic seas; and along the northern and north- 
western coasts the basking shark is largely fished for all the summer. Strong 
hooks baited with mussels or pieces of fish, and attached to chains anchored at 
a short distance from the shore, serve for the capture of this monster, which is 
scarcely, if at all, inferior in size to the white shark, though not nearly so for- 
midable, as it rarely attacks man. The skin serves for making sandals; the 
coarse flesh is eaten by the islanders, whom necessity has taught not to be over- 
nice in their food; and the liver, the most valuable part, is stewed for the sake 
of its oil. 

“We had observed,” says Mr. Shepherd, “that the horrible smell which in- 
fested Jsa-fjordr varied in intensity as we approached or receded from a cer- 
tain black-looking building at the northern end of the town. On investigating 
this building, we discovered that the seat of the smell was to be found in a 
mass of putrid sharks’ livers, part of which were undergoing a process of stew- 
ing in a huge copper. It was a nvisome green mass, fearful to contemplate. 
The place was endurable only for a few seconds; yet dirty-looking men stirred 
up the mass with long poles, and seemed to enjoy the reeking vapors.” 

The salmon of Iceland, which formerly remained undisturbed by the phleg- 
matic inhabitants, are now caught in large numbers for the British market. A 
small river bearing the significant name of Laxaa, or Salmon River, has been 
rented for the trifling sum of £100 a year by an English company, which sends 
every spring its agents to the spot well provided with the best fishing appara- 
tus. The captured fish are immediately boiled, and hermetically packed in tin 
boxes, so that they can be eaten in London almost as fresh as if they had just 
been caught. 


88 THE POLAR WORLD. 


The mineral kingdom contributes but little to the prosperity of Iceland. It 
affords neither metals, nor precious stones, nor rock-salt, nor coal; for the seams 
of “surturbrand,” or “lignite,” found here and there, are too unimportant to 
be worked. The solfataras of Krisuvik and Husavik, though extremely inter- 
esting to the geologist, likewise furnish sulphur in too impure a condition or 
too thinly scattered to afford any prospect of being worked with success, not 
to mention the vast expense of transport over the almost impassable lava-tracks 
that separate them from the nearest ports. In 1839-40, when, in consequence 
of the monopoly granted by the Neapolitan Government to a French company, 
sulphur had risen to more than three times its usual price, Mr. Knudsen, an en- 
terprising Danish merchant, undertook to work the mines of Krisuvik, but even 
then it would not answer. 

In 1859, a London company, founded by Mr. Bushby,—who having explored 
the sulphur districts, had raised great expectations on what he considered their 
dormant wealth,—renewed the attempt, but after a year’s trial it was aban- 
doned as perfectly hopeless. The “ solfataras of Iceland,” says Professor Sar- 
torius of Waltershausen, “can not compete with those of Sicily, where more 
sulphur is wantonly wasted and trodden under foot than all Iceland possesses. 
While the “ Namars” of the north, which are far richer than those of Krisuvik, 
annually furnish scarcely more than ten tons, the sulphur mines of Sicily pro- 
duce at least 50,000, and, if necessary, could easily export double the quantity.” 

As coal is too expensive a fuel for any but the rich in the small sea-port 
towns, and peat, though no doubt abundantly scattered over the island, is dug 
only in a few places, the majority of the people make use of singular substi- 
tutes. The commonest is dried cow’s and sheep’s dung; but many a poor 
fisherman lacks even this “spicy” material, and is fain to use the bones of 
animals, the skeletons of fishes or dried sea-birds, which, with a stoical con- 
tempt for his olfactory organs, he burns, feathers and all. There is, however, 
no want of fuel in those privileged spots where drift-wood is found, and here 
the lava hearth of the islander cheerfully blazes either with the pine conveyed 
to him by the kindly Polar currents from the Siberian forests, or with some 
tropical trunk, wafted by the Gulf Stream over the Atlantic to his northern 
home. 


HISTORY OF ICELAND. 89 . 


We 
i mg 
EDN 
ih a | 


i } 


I 


CATHEDRAL AT REYRJAVIK. 


CHAPTER VI. 
HISTORY OF ICELAND. 


Discovery of the Island by Naddodr in 861.—Gardar.—Floki of the Ravens.--Ingolfr and Leif.—Ulfliot 
the Lawgiver.—The Althing.—Thingvalla.—Introduction of Christianity into the Island.—Frederick 
the Saxon and Thorwold the Traveller.—Thangbrand.—Golden Age of Icelandic Literature.—-Snorri 
Sturleson.—The Island submits to Hakon, King of Norway, in 1254.—Long Series of Calamities.— 
Great Eruption of the Skapta Jokul in 1783.—Commercial Munopoly.—Better Times in Prospect. 

‘ f ‘HE Norse vikings were, as is well known, the boldest of navigators. They 

possessed neither the sextant nor the compass; they had neither charts 
nor chronometers to guide them; but trusting solely to fortune, and to their 
own indomitable courage, they fearlessly launched forth into the vast ocean. 
Many of these intrepid corsairs were no doubt lost on their adventurous expe- 
ditions, but frequently a favorable chance rewarded their temerity, either with 
some rich booty or some more glorious discovery. 
Thus in the year 861, Naddodr, a Norwegian pirate, while sailing from his 
native coast to the Faeroe Islands, was drifted by contrary winds far to the 


90 THE POLAR WORLD. 


north. For several days no land was visible—nothing but an interminable 
waste of waters; when suddenly the snow-clad mountains of Iceland were seen 
to rise above the mists of the ocean. Soon after Naddodr landed with part of 
his crew, but discovered no traces of man in the desert country. The viking 
tarried but a short time on this unpromising coast, on which he bestowed the 
appropriate name of Snowland. 

Three years later, Gardar, another northern freebooter, while sailing to the 
Hebrides, was likewise driven by stormy weather to Iceland. He was the first 
circumnavigator of the island, which he called, after himself, Gardar’s holm, or 
the island of Gardar. On his return to his native port, he gave his countrymen 
so flattering an account of the newly-discovered land, that Floki, a famous vi- 
king, resolved to settle there. Trusting to the augury of birds, Floki took with 
him three ravens to direct him on his way. Having sailed a certain distance 
beyond the Faeroe Islands, he gave liberty to one of them, which immediately 
returned to the land. Proceeding onward, he loosed the second, which, after 
circling for a few minutes round the ship, again settled on its cage, as if terri- 
fied by the boundless expanse of the sea. The third bird, on obtaining his lib- 
erty a few days later, proved at length a faithful pilot, and flying direct to the 
north, conducted Floki to Iceland. As the sea-king entered the broad bay 
which is bounded on the left by the huge Snafells Joékul, and on the right by 
the bold promontory of the Guldbringe Syssel, Faxa, one of his companions, re- 
marked that a land with such noble features must needs be of considerable ex- 
tent. To reward him for this remark, which flattered the vanity or the ambi- 
tion of his leader, the bay was immediately named Faxa Fiord, as it is still call- 
ed to the present day. The new colonists, attracted by the abundance of fish 
they found in the bay, built their huts on the borders of a small outlet, still 
bearing the name of Rafna Fiord, or the Raven’s Frith; but as they neglected 
to make hay for the winter, the horses and cattle they had brought with them 
died of want. Disappointed in his expectations, Floki returned home in the sec- 
ond year, and, as might naturally have been expected from an unsuccessful settler, 
gave his countrymen but a dismal account of Iceland, as he definitely named it. 

Yet, in spite of his forbidding description, the political disturbances which 
took place about this time in Norway led to the final colonization of the island. 
Harold Haarfager, or the Fair-haired, a Scandinavian yarl, having by violence 
and a successful policy reduced all his brother-yarls to subjection, first consoli- 
dated their independent domains into one realm, and made himself absolute mas- 
ter of the whole country. Many of his former equals submitted to his yoke ; 
but others, animated by that unconquerable love of liberty innate in men who 
for many generations have known no superior, preferred seeking a new home 
across the ocean to an ignominious vassalage under the detested Harold. In- 
golfr and his cousin Leif were the first of these high- gta ar nobles that emi- 
grated (869-870) to Iceland. 

On approaching the southern coast, Ingolfr cast the sacred pillars belonging 
to his former dwelling into the water, and vowed to establish himself on the 
spot to which they should be wafted by the waves. His pious intentions were 


for the time frustrated, as a sudden squall separated him from his penates, and 


HISTORY OF ICELAND. 91 


forced him to locate himself on a neighboring promontory, which to this day 
bears the name of Ingolfrshofde. Here he sojourned three years, until the fol- 
lowers he had sent out in quest of the missing pillars at length brought him the 
joyful news that they had been found on the beach of the present site of Reyk- 
javik, whither, in obedience to what he supposed to be the divine summons, he 
instantly removed. Ingolfr’s friend and relative Leif was shortly after assas- 
‘sinated by some Irish slaves whom he had captured in a predatory descent on 
the Hibernian coast. The surviving chieftain deplored the loss of his kinsman, 
lamenting “that so valiant a man should fall by such villains,” but found conso- 
lation by killing the murderers and annexing the lands of their victim. When, 
in course of time, he himself felt his end approaching, he requested to be bur- 
ied on a hill overlooking the fiord, that from that elevated site his spirit might 
have a better view of the land of which he was the first inhabitant. 

Such are the chronicles related in the “‘ Landnama Bok,” or “ Book of Occu- 
pation,” one of the earliest records of Icelandic history. 

Ingolfr and his companions were soon followed by other emigrants desirous 
of escaping from the tyranny of Harold Haarfager, who at first favored a move- 
ment that removed far beyond the sea so many of his turbulent opponents, but 
subsequently, alarmed at the drain of population, or desirous of profiting by the 
exodus, levied a fine of four ounces of silver on all who left his dominions to 
settle in Iceland. Yet such were the attractions which the island at that time 
presented, that, in spite of all obstacles, not half a century elapsed before all its 
inhabitable parts were occupied, not only by Norwegians, but also by settlers 
from Denmark and Sweden, Scotland and Ireland. 

The Norwegians brought with them their language and idolatry, their cus- 
toms and historical records, which the other colonists, but few in numbers, were 
compelled to adopt. At first the udal, or free land-hold system of their own 
country, was in vigor, but every leader of a band of emigrants being chosen, by 
force of circumstances, as the acknowledged chief of the district occupied by 
himself and companions, speedily paved the way for a demi-feudal system of 
vassalage and subservience. As the arrival of new settlers rendered the pos- 
session of the land more valuable, endless contests between these petty chiefs 
arose for the better pastures and fisheries. ‘To put an end to this state of an- 
archy, so injurious to the common weal, Ulfliot the Wise was commissioned to 
frame a code of laws, which the Icelanders, by a single simultaneous and peace- 
ful effort, accepted as their future constitution. 

The island was now divided into four provinces and twelve districts. Each 
district had its own judge, and its own popular “ Thing,” or assembly; but the 
national will was embodied and represented by the “ Althing,” or supreme 
parliament of Iceland, which annually met at Thingvalla, under an elective pres- 
ident, or “ Logmathurman,” the chief magistrate of this northern republic. 

On the banks of the river Oxeraa, where the rapid stream, after forming a 
magnificent cascade, rushes into the lake of Thingvalla, lies the spot where, for 
many a century, freemen met to debate, while despotic barbarians still reigned 
over the milder regions of Europe. Isolated on all sides by deep volcanic 
chasms, which some great revolution of nature has rent in the vast lava-field 


92 THE POLAR WORLD. 


THINGVALLA, LOGBERG, AND ALMANNAGJA, 


around, and embosomed in a wide circle of black precipitous hills, the situation 
of Thingvalla is extremely romantic, but the naked dark-colored rocks, and the 
traces of subterranean fire visible on every side, impart a stern melancholy to 
the scene. The lake, the largest sheet of water in the island, is about thirty 
miles in circumference; its boundaries have undergone many changes, especial- 
ly during the earthquakes of the past century, when its northern margin col- 
lapsed, while the opposite one was raised. The depth of its crystal waters is 
very great, and in its centre rise two small crater-islands, the result of some un- 
known eruption. The mountains on its south bank have a picturesque appear- 
ance, and large volumes of steam issuing from several hot sources on their 
sides prove that, though all be tranquil now, the volcanic fires are not extinct. 
Only a few traces of the ancient Althing are left—three small mounds, where 
sat in state the chiefs and judges of the land—for as the assembly used to pitch 
their tents on the borders of the stream, and the deliberations were held in the 
Open air, there are no imposing ruins to bear witness to a glorious past. But 
though all architectural pomp be absent, the scene hallowed by the recollections 
of a thousand years is one of deep interest to the traveller. The great features 
of nature are the same as when the freemen of Iceland assembled to settle the 
affairs of their little world; but the raven now croaks where the orator appealed 
to the reason or the passions of his audience, and the sheep of the neighboring 
pastor crop undisturbed the grass of desecrated Thingvalla. 

Mr. Ross Browne thus describes the scene: “ After a slight repast I walked 
out to take a look at the Légberg, or Rock of Laws, which is situated about 


i 
i 


er as 


et, ae 


—= 


oes Lee 


HISTORY OF ICELAND. 93 


half a mile from the church. This is, perhaps, of all the objects of historical 
association in Iceland, the most interesting. It was here the judges tried crim- 
inals, pronounced judgments, and executed their stern decrees. On a small pla- 
teau of lava, separated from the general mass by a profound abyss on every 
side, save a narrow neck barely wide enough for a foothold, the famous “ Thing” 
assembled once a year, and, secured from intrusion in their deliberations by the 
terrible chasm around, passed laws for the weal or woe of the people. It was 
only necessary to guard the causeway by which they entered; all other sides 
were well protected by the encircling moat, which varies from thirty to forty 
feet in width, and is half filled with water. The total depth to the bottom, 
which is distinctly visible through the crystal pool, must be sixty or seventy 
feet. Into this yawning abyss the unhappy criminals were cast, with stones 
around their necks, and many a long day did they lie beneath the water, a 
ghastly spectacle for the crowd that peered at them over the precipice. 
All was now as silent as the grave. Eight centuries had passed, and yet 
the strange scenes that had taken place here were vividly before me. I 
could imagine the gathering crowds, the rising hum of voices; the pause, 
the shriek, and plunge; the low murmur of horror, and then the stern warn- 
ing of the lawgivers and the gradual dispersing of the multitude. The di- 
mensions of the plateau are four or five hundred feet in length by an aver- 
age of sixty or eighty in width. The surface is now covered with a fine 
coating of sod and grass, and furnishes good pasturage for the sheep belong- 
ing to the pastor.” 

Christianity was first preached in Iceland about the year 981, by Friedrich, a 
Saxon bishop, to whom Thorwald the traveller, an Icelander, acted as inter- 
preter. Thorwald having been treated with great severity by his father, Ko- 
dran, had fled to Denmark, where he had been converted by Friedrich. He 
returned with the pious bishop to his paternal home, where the solemn service 
of the Christians made some impression on Kodran, but still the obstinate pa- 
gan could not be prevailed upon to renounce his ancient gods. “ He must be- 
lieve,” said he, “ the word of his own priest, who was wont to give him excel- 
lent advice.” ‘“ Well, then,” replied Thorwald, “ this venerable man whom I 
have brought to thy dwelling is weak and infirm, while thy well-fed priest is 
full of vigor. Walt thou believe in the power of our God if the bishop drives 
him hence?” Friedrich now cast afew drops of holy water on the priest, which 
immediately burnt deep holes into his skin, so that he fled; uttering dreadful 
curses. After this convincing proof, Kodran adopted the Christian faith. But 
persuasion and miracles acted too slowly for the fiery Thorwald, who would 
willingly have converted all Iceland at once with fire and sword. His sermons 
were imprecations, and the least contradiction roused him to fury. Unable to 
bear so irascible an associate, the good bishop Friedrich, giving up his mission- 
ary labors, returned to Saxony. As to Thorwald, his restless disposition led 
him to far-distant lands. He visited Greece and Syria, Jerusalem and Constan- 
tinople, and ultimately founded a convent in Russia, where he died in the odor 
of sanctity. 

Soon after Thangbrand was sent by the Norwegian king, Olaf Truggeson, as 


94 THE POLAR WORLD. 


missionary to Iceland. His method of conversion appears to have been very 
like that of his erratic predecessor; for while he held the cross in one hand, he 
grasped the sword with the other. “ Thangbrand,” says an ancient chronicler, 
“was a passionate, ungovernable person, and a great manslayer, but a good 
scholar and clever. He was two years in Iceland, and was the death of three 
men before he left it.” 

Other missionaries of a more evangelical character took his place, and proved 
by their success that mild reasoning is frequently a far more effectual means of 
persuasion than brutal violence. They made a great number of proselytes, and 
the whole island was now divided into two factions ready to appeal to the 
sword for the triumph of Christ or of Odin. But before coming to this dread- 
ful extremity, the voice of reason was heard, and the contending parties agreed 
to submit the question to the decision of the Althing. 

The assembly met, and the momentous debate was proceeding, when sud- 
denly a loud crash of subterranean thunder was heard, and the earth shook un- 
der their feet. “ Listen!” exclaimed a follower of Odin,“ and beware of the 
anger of our gods: they will consume us with their fires, if we venture to ques- 
tion their authority.” The Christian party hesitated ; but their confidence was 
soon restored by the presence of mind of their chief orator, Thorgeir, who, 
pointing to the lava-fields around, asked with whom the gods were angry when 
these rocks were melted: a burst of eloquence which at once decided the ques- 
tion in favor of the Cross. 

The new faith brought with it a new spirit of intellectual development, which 
attained its highest splendor in the twelfth century. Classical studies were 
pursued with the utmost zeal, and learned Icelanders travelled to Germany and 
France to extend their knowledge in the schools of Paris or Cologne. The 
Icelandic bards, or scalds, were renowned throughout all Scandinavia; they fre- 
quented the courts of Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, and were everywhere 
received with the highest honors. 

The historians, or sagamen, of Iceland were no less renowned than its scalds. 
They became the annalists of the whole Scandinavian world, and the simplicity 
and truth by which their works are distinguished fully justify their high repu- 
tation. Among the many remarkable men who at that time graced the litera- 
ture of the Arctic isle, Simund Frode, the learned author of the “ Voluspa” 
(a work on the ancient Icelandic mythology) and the “Havamal” (a general 
chronicle of events from the beginning of the world); Are Thorgilson, whose 
“TLandnama Bok” relates with the utmost accuracy the annals of his native 
land ; and Gissur, who about the year 1180 described his voyages to the distant 
Orient, deserve to be particularly mentioned ; but great above all in genius and 
fame was Snorri Sturleson, the Herodotus of the North, whose eventful life and 
tragic end would well deserve to be recounted at greater length. 

Gifted with the rarest talents, and chief of the most powerful family of the 
island, Snorri was elected in 1215 to the high office of Logmathurman ; but dis- 
gusting his sturdy countrymen by his excessive haughtiness, he was obliged to 
retire to the court of Hakon, king of Norway. During this exile he collected 
the materials for his justly celebrated “ Heimskringla,’ or Chronicle of the 


q 


HISTORY OF ICELAND. — 95 


Kings of Norway. Returning home in 1221, he was again named Logmathur- 
man; but as he endeavored to pave the way for the annexation of his native 
country to the Norwegian realm, his foreign intrigues caused a rising against 
his authority, and he was once more compelled to take refuge in Norway. 
Here he remained several years, until the triumph of his own faction allowed 
him to return to his family estate at Reikholt, where he was murdered on a 
dark September night in the year 1241. Thus perished the most remarkable 
_man Iceland ever has produced. The republic itself did not long survive his 
fall; for, weary of the interminable feuds of their chiefs, the people voluntarily 
submitted to Hakon in 1254, and the middle of the thirteenth century was 
signalized by the transfer of the island to the Norwegian crown, after three 
hundred and forty years of a turbulent but glorious independence. 

From that time the political history of the Icelanders offers but little inter- 
est. With their annexation to a European monarchy perished the vigor, rest- 
lessness, and activity which had characterized their forefathers ; and though 
the Althing still met at Thingvalla, the national spirit had fled. It was still 
further subdued by a long chain of calamities—plagues, famines, volcanic erup- 
tions, and piratical invasions-—which, following each other in rapid succession, 
devastated the land and decimated its unfortunate inhabitants. 

In 1402 that terrible plague, the memory of which is still preserved under 
the name of the “ Black Death,” carried off nearly two-thirds of the whole pop- 
ulation, and was followed by such an inclement winter that nine-tenths of the 
cattle in the island died. The miseries of a people suffering from pestilence 
and famine were aggravated by the English fishermen, who, in spite of the re- 
monstrances of the Danish government, frequented the defenseless coast in con- 
siderable numbers, and were in fact little better than the old sea-robbers who 
first colonized the island, plundering and burning on the main, and holding the 
wealthy inhabitants to ransom. Their predatory incursions were frequently re- 
peated during the seventeenth century, and even the distant Mediterranean sent 
its Algerine pirates to add to the calamities of Iceland. 

The eighteenth century was ushered in by the small-pox, which carried off 
sixteen thousand of the inhabitants. In the middle of the century—severe win- 
ters following in rapid succession—vast numbers of cattle died, inducing a fam- 
ine that again swept away ten thousand inhabitants. 

Since the first colonization of Iceland, its numerous volcanoes had frequently 
brought ruin upon whole districts—twenty-five times had Hecla, eleven times 
Kotlugia, six times Trélladyngja, five times Oraefa, vomited forth their tor- 
rents of molten stone, without counting a number of submarine volcanic explo- 
sions, or where the plain was suddenly rent and flames and ashes burst out of 
the earth; but the eruption of Skaptar Jékul in 1783 was the most frightful 
visitation ever known to have desolated the island. The preceding winter and 
spring had been unusually mild, and the islanders looked forward to a prosper- 
ous summer; but in the beginning of June repeated tremblings of the earth, 
increasing in violence from day to day, announced that the subterranean powers 
that had long been slumbering under the icy mantle of the Skaptar were ready 
to awake. All the neighboring peasants abandoned their huts and erected 


96 | THE POLAR WORLD. 


tents in the open field, anxiously awaiting the result of these terrific warnings. 
On the 9th, immense pillars of smoke collected over the hill country toward the 
north, and, rolling down in a southerly direction, covered the whole district of 
Sitha with darkness. Loud subterranean thunders followed in rapid succession, 
and innumerable fire-spouts were seen leaping and flaring through the dense 
canopy of smoke and ashes that enveloped the land, The heat raging in the 
interior of the volcano melted enormous masses of ice and snow, which caused 
the river Skapta to rise to a prodigious height; but on the 11th torrents of 
fire usurped the place of water, for a vast lava-stream breaking forth from the 
mountains, flowed down in a southerly direction, until reaching the river, a tre- 
mendous conflict arose between the two hostile elements. Though the channel 
was six hundred feet deep and two hundred feet wide, the lava-flood pouring 
down one fiery wave after another into the yawning abyss, ultimately gained 
the victory, and, blocking up the stream, overflowed its banks. Crossing the 
low country of Medalland, it poured into a great lake, which after a few days 
was likewise completely filled up, and having divided into two streams, the un- 
exhausted torrent again poured on, overflowing in one direction some ancient 
lava-fields, and in another re-entering the channel of the Skapta and leaping 
down the lofty cataract of Stapafoss. But this was not all, for while one lava- 
flood had chosen the Skapta for its bed, another, descending in a different direc- 
tion, was working similar ruin along the banks of the Hverfisfliot. "Whether 
the same.crater gave birth to both, it is impossible to say, as even the extent 
of the lava-flow can only be measured from the spot where it entered the in- 
habited districts. ‘The stream which followed the direction of Skapta is calcu- 
lated to have been about fifty miles in length by twelve or fifteen at its great- 
est breadth; that which rolled down the Hverfisfliot, at forty miles in length 
by seven in breadth. 

Where it was inclosed between the precipitous banks of the Skapta, the 
lava is five or six hundred feet thick, but as soon as it spread out into the plain 
its depth never exceeded one hundred feet. The eruption of sand, ashes, 
pumice, and lava continued till the end of August, when at length the vast sub- 
terranean tumult subsided. 

But its direful effects were felt for a long time after, not only in its imme- 
diate vicinity, but over the whole of Iceland, and added many a mournful page 
to her long annals of sorrow. For a whole year a dun canopy of cinder-laden 
clouds hung over the unhappy island. Sand and ashes, carried to an enormous 
height into the atmosphere, spread far and, wide, and overwhelmed thousands 
of acres of fertile pasturage. The Faeroes, the Shetlands, and the Orkneys 
were deluged with volcanic dust which perceptibly contaminated even the skies 
of England and Holland. Mephitic vapors obscured the rays of the sun, and 
the sulphurous exhalations tainted both the grass of the field and the waters 
of the lake, the river, and the sea, so that not only the cattle died by thousands, 
but the fish also perished in their poisoned element. The unhealthy air, and 
the want of food—for hunger at last drove them to have recourse to untanned 
hides and old leather—gave rise to a disease resembling scurvy among the un- 
fortunate Icelanders. The head and limbs began to swell, the bones seemed 


HISTORY OF ICELAND. 97 


to be distending. Dreadful cramps forced the patient to strange contortions. 
The gums loosened, the decomposed blood oozed from the mouth and the ulcer- 
ous skin, and a few days of torment and prostration were followed by death. 

In many a secluded vale whole families were swept away, and those that es- 
caped the scourge had hardly strength sufficient to bury the dead. 

So great was the ruin caused by this one eruption that in the short space of 
two years no less than 9336 men, 28,000 horses, 11,461 cattle, and 190,000 
sheep—a large proportion of the wealth and population of the island—were 
swept away. 

After this dreadful catastrophe followed a long period of volcanic rest, for 
the next eruption of the Eyjafialla did not take place before 1821. A twelfth 
eruption of Koétlugja occurred in 1823, the twenty-sixth of Hecla in 1845-46 ; 
and ultimately the thirteenth of Kétlugja in 1860. Since then there has been 
repose ; but who knows what future disasters may be preparing beneath those 
icy ridges and fields of snow of Skapta and his frowning compeers, where no 
human foot has ever wandered, or how soon they may awaken their dormant 
thunders ? 3 

Besides the sufferings caused by the elements, the curse of monopoly 
weighed for many a long year upon the miserable Icelanders. The Danish 
kings, to whom on the amalgamation of the three Scandinavian monarchies the 
allegiance of the people of Iceland was passively transferred, considered their 
poor dependency as a private domain, to be farmed out to the highest bidder. 
In the 16th century the Hanseatic Towns purchased the exclusive privilege of 
trading with Iceland; and in 1594 a Danish company was favored with the 
monopoly, for which it had to pay the paltry sum of 16 rix-dollars for each of 
the ports of the island. 

In the year 1862 a new company paid 4000 dollars for the Icelandic mo- 
nopoly; but at the expiration of the contract, each of the ports were farmed out 
to the highest bidder—a financial improvement which raised the revenue to 
16,000 dollars a year, and ultimately to 22,000. The incalculable misery pro- 
duced by the eruption of the Skapta had at least the beneficial consequence 
that it somewhat loosened the bonds of monoply, as it now became free to 
every Danish merchant to trade with the island; but it is only since April, 1855, 
that the last restrictions have fallen and the ports of Iceland been opened to 
the merchants of all nations. It is to be hoped that the beneficial effects of 
free trade will gradually heal the wounds caused by centuries of neglect and 
misfortune; but great progress must be made before Iceland can attain the de- 
gree of prosperity which she enjoyed in the times of her independence. 

Then she had above a hundred thousand inhabitants, now she has scarcely 
half that number; then she had many rich and powerful families, now medioc- 
rity or poverty is the universal lot; then she was renowned all over the North 
as the seat of learning and the cradle of literature, now, were it not for her re- 
markable physical features, no traveller would ever think of landing on her 
rugged shores. 

i 


98 THE POLAR WORLD. 


CHAPTER VII. 
THE ICELANDERS. 


"— §kalholt.—Reykjavik.— The Fair.—The Peasant - 
and the Merchant.—A Clergyman in his Cups. 
—-Hay-making.—The Icelander’s Hut.—Church- 
LS dase es.—Poverty of the Clergy.—Jon Thorlaksen. 
9 j —The Seminary of Reykjavik.— Beneficial Influ- 
ence of the Clergy.—Home Education.—The Ice- 
lander’s Winter’s Evening.—Taste for Literature. 
—The Language.—The Public Library at Reyk- 
javik.—The Icelandic Literary Society.—Icelandic Newspapers.—Lon gevity.—Leprosy.—Travelling 
in Iceland.—Fording the Rivers.—Crossing of the Skeidara by Mr. Holland.—A Night’s Bivouac. 


REYKJAVIK, THE CAPITAL OF ICELAND. 


EXT to Thingvalla, there is no place in Iceland so replete with historical 
interest as Skalholt, its ancient capital. Here in the eleventh century was 
founded the first school in the island; here was the seat of its first bishops ; 
here flourished a succession of great orators, historians, and poets ; Isleif, the 
oldest chronicler of the North; Gissur, who in the beginning of the twelfth 
century had visited all the countries of Europe and spoke all their languages; 
the philologian Thorlak, and Finnur Johnson, the learned author of the “ Ee- 
clesiastical History of Iceland.” The Cathedral of Skalholt was renowned far 
and wide for its size, and in the year 1100, Latin, poetry, music, and rhetoric, 
the four liberal arts, were taught in its school, more than they were at that time © 


THE ICELANDERS. 99 


in many of the large European cities. As a proof how early the study of the 
ancients flourished in Skalholt, we find it recorded that in the twelfth century 
a bishop once caught ascholar reading Ovid’s “ Art of Love;” and as the story 
relates that the venerable pastor flew into a violent passion at the sight of the 
unholy book, we may without injustice conclude that he must have read it him- 
self in some of his leisure hours, to know its character so well. 

Of all its past glories, Skalholt has retained nothing but its name, The 
school and the bishopric have been removed, the old church has disappeared, 
and been replaced by a small wooden building, in which divine service is held 
once a'month ; three cottages contain all the inhabitants of the once celebrated 
city, and the extensive churchyard is the only memorial of its former impor- 
tance. Close by are the ruins of the old school-house, and on the spot where the 
bishop resided a peasant has erected his miserable hovel. 

But the ever-changing tide of human affairs has not bereft the now lonely 
place of its natural charms, for the meadow-lands of Skalholt are beautifully im- 
bedded in an undulating range of hills, overlooking the junction of the Bruara 
and Huita, and backed by a magnificent theatre of mountains, among which 
Hecla and the Eyjafialla are the most prominent. 


GOVERNOR’S RESIDENCE, REYKJAVIK. 


Reykjavik, the present capital of the island, has risen into importance at the 
expense both of Skalholt and Thingvalla. At the beginning of the present cen- 
tury the courts of justice were transferred from the ancient seat of legislature 
to the new metropolis, and in 1797 the bishoprics of Hoolum and Skalholt, 
united into one, had their seats likewise transferred to Reykjavik. The ancient 
school of Skalholt, after having first migrated to Bessestadt, has also been 


100 THE POLAR WORLD. 


obliged to follow the centralizing tendency, so powerful in our times, and now 
contributes to the rising fortunes of the small sea-port town. | 

But in spite of all these accessions, the first aspect of Reykjavik by no means 
corresponds to our ideas of a capital. “The town,” says Lord Dufferin, “ con- 
sists of a collection of wooden sheds, one story high—rising here and there into 
a gable end of greater pretensions—built along the lava-track, and flanked at 
either end by a suburb of turf huts. On every side of it extends a desolate 
plain of lava that once must have boiled up red-hot from some distant gateway 
of hell, and fallen hissing into the sea. No tree or bush relieves the dreariness 
of the landscape, and the mountains are too distant to serve as a background to 
the buildings; but before the door of each merchant’s house facing the sea 
there flies a gay little pennon; and as you walk along the silent streets, whose 
dust no carriage-wheel has ever desecrated, the rows of flower-pots that peep out 
of the windows, between curtains of white muslin, at once convince you that, 
notwithstanding their unpretending appearance, within each dwelling reign the 
elegance and comfort of a woman-tended home.” 

Twenty years since, Reykjavik was no better than a wretched fishing-village, 
now it already numbers 1400 inhabitants, and free-trade promises it a still 
greater increase for the future. It owes its prosperity chiefly to its excellent 
port, and to the abundance of fish-banks in its neighborhood, which have induced 
the Danish merchants to make it their principal settlement. Most of them, how- 
ever, merely visit it in summer like birds of passage, arriving in May with small 
cargoes of foreign goods, and leaving it again in August, after having disposed 
of their wares. Thus Reykjavik must be lonely and dreary enough in winter, 
when no trade animates its port, and no traveller stays at its solitary inn; but 
the joy of the inhabitants is all the greater when the return of spring re-opens 
their intercourse with the rest of the world, and the delight may be imagined 
with which they hail the first ship that brings them the long-expected news from 
Europe, and perhaps some wealthy tourist, eager to admire the wonders of the 
Geysirs. 

The most busy time of the town is, however, the beginning of July, when the 
annual fair attracts a great number of fishermen and peasants within its walls. 
From a distance of forty and fifty leagues around, they come with long trains 
of pack-horses; their stock-fish slung freely across the animals’ backs, their 
more damageable articles close pressed and packed in boxes or skin bags. 

The greater part of the trade in this and other small sea-ports—such as 
Akreyri, Hafnafjord, Eyrarbacki, Berufjord, Vapnafjord, Isafjord, Grafaros, Bu- 
denstadt, which, taken all together, do not equal Reykjavik in traffic and pop- 
ulation—is carried on by barter.* 

Sometimes the Icelander desires to be paid in specie for part of his produce, 
but then he is obliged to bargain for a long time with the merchant, who of 
course derives a double profit by an exchange of goods, and is loth to part with 


* In 1855, Iceland imported, among others, 635,712 pieces of timber, 148,038 Ibs. of iron, 37,700 Ibs. 
hemp, 15,179 fishing-lines, 20,342 Ibs. salt, 6539 tons of coal. 

The chief exportations of the same year were, tallow, 932,906 Ibs., wool, 1,569,323 Ibs., 69,305 pairs of 
stockings, 27,109 pairs of gloves, 12,712 salted sheepskins, 4116 Ibs. eider-downs, 25,000 Ibs. other feath- 
ers, 244 horses, and 24,079 ship’s pounds (the ship’s pound =320 lbs.) salt fish. 


. 


THE ICELANDERS. 101 


his hard cash. The dollars thus acquired are either melted down, and worked 
into silver massive girdles, which in point of execution as well as design are said, 
on good authority,* to be equal to any thing of the kind fashioned by English 
jewellers, or else deposited in a strong-box, as taxes and wages are all paid in 
produce, and no Icelander ever thinks of investing his money in stocks, shares, 
or debentures. 

He is, however, by no means so ignorant of mercantile affairs as to strike at 
once a bargain with the Danish traders. Pitching his tent before the town, he 
first pays a visit to all the merchants of the place. After carefully noting their 
several offers (for as each of them invariably treats him to a dram, he with 
some justice mistrusts his memory), he returns to his caravan and makes his 
calculations as weil as his somewhat confused brain allows him. | If he is ac- 
companied by his wife, her opinion of course is decisive, and the following 
morning he repairs with all his goods to the merchant who has succeeded in 
gaining his confidence. 

_ After the business has been concluded, the peasant empties one glass to the 
merchant’s health, another to a happy meeting next year, a third to the king, a 

‘fourth because three have been drunk already. At length, after many embraces 
and protestations of eternal friendship, he takes his leave of the merchant. For- 
tunately there is no thief to be found in all Iceland ; but in consequence of these 
repeated libations, one parcel has not been well packed, another negligently at- 
tached to the horse, and thus it happens that the poor peasant’s track is not un- 
frequently marked with sugar, coffee-beans, salt, or flour, and that when he 
reaches home, he finds some valuable article or other missing. 

It would, however, be doing the Icelanders an injustice to regard them as 
generally intemperate; for though within the last twelve years the population 
has increased only ten per cent., and the importation of brandy thirty, yet the 
whole quantity of spirits consumed in the island amounts to less than three bot- 
tles per annum for each individual, and, of this allowance, the people of Reykja- 
vik and of the other small sea-ports have more than their share, while many of 
the clergy and peasantry in the remoter districts hardly ever taste spirituous 
liquors. Dr. Hooker mentions the extraordinary effect which a small portion 
of rum produced on the good old incumbent of Middalr, whose stomach had 
been accustomed only to a milk-diet and a little coffee. “ He begged me,” 
says the doctor,} “to give him some rum to bathe his wife’s breast; but hay- 
ing applied a portion of it to that purpose, he drank the rest without being at 
all aware of its strength, which, however, had no other effect than in causing 
this clerical blacksmith,{ with his lame hip, to dance in the most ridiculous man- 
ner in front of the house. The scene afforded a great source of merriment to 
all his family except his old wife, who was very desirous of getting him to bed, 
while he was no less anxious that she should join him in the dance.” 

Dr. Hooker justly remarks that this very circumstance is a convincing pr roof 
how unaccustomed this priest was to spirituous liquors,as the quantity taken 
could not have exceeded a wine-glass full. 


* Barrow, ‘‘ Visit to Iceland,” 1834. + ‘* Journal of a Tour in Iceland,” p. 110. 
+ All the clergymen are blacksmiths, for a reason that will be stated hereafter. 


102 THE POLAR WORLD. 


After his visit to the fair, the peasant sets about hay-making, which is to him 
the great business of the year, for he is most anxious to secure winter fodder for 
his cattle, on which his whole prosperity depends. The few potatoes and tur- 
nips about the size of marbles, or the cabbage and parsley, which he may chance 
to cultivate, are not worth mentioning ; grass is the chief, nay, the only produce 
of his farm, and that Heaven may grant clear sunshiny days for hay-making is 
now his daily prayer. 

Every person capable of wielding a scythe or rake is pressed into the work. 
The best hay is cut from the “ tin,” a sort of paddock comprising the lands ad- 
joining the farm-house, and the only part of his grounds on which the peasant 
bestows any attention, for, in spite of the paramount importance of his pasture- 
land, he does but little for its improvement, and a meadow is rarely seen, where 
the useless or less nutritious herbs are not at least as abundant as those of a 
better quality. The “tin” is encircled by a turf or stone wall, and is seldom 
more than ten acres in extent, and generally not more than two or three. Its 
surface is usually aseries of closely-packed mounds, like graves, most unpleasant 
to walk over, the gutter, in some places, being two feet in depth between the 
mounds. After having finished with the “tin,” the farmer subjects to a proc- 
ess of cutting all the broken hillsides and boggy undrained swamps that lie 
near his dwelling. The blades of the scythes are very short. It would be im- 
possible to use a long-bladed scythe, owing to the unevenness of the ground. 

The cutting and making of hay is carried on, when the weather will permit, 
through all the twenty-four hours of the day. "When the hay is made it is tied 
in bundles by cords and thongs, and carried away by ponies to the earthen 
houses prepared for it, which are similar to and adjoin those in which the cattle 
are stalled. “It is a very curious sight,” says Mr. Shepherd, “to see a string 
of hay-laden ponies returning home. Each pony’s halter is made fast to the 
tail of the preceding one, and the little animals are so enveloped in their bur- 
dens that nothing but their hoofs and the connecting ropes are visible, and they 
look as though a dozen huge haycocks, feeling themselves sufficiently made, 
were crawling off to their resting-places.” 

When the harvest is finished the farmer treats his family and laborers to a 
substantial supper, consisting of mutton, and a soup of milk and flour; and 
although the serious and taciturn Icelander has perhaps of all men the least 
taste for music and dancing, yet these simple feasts are distinguished by a plac- 
id serenity, no less pleasing than the more boisterous mirth displayed at a 
southern vintage. 

Almost all labor out-of-doors now ceases for the rest of the year. A thick 
mantle of snow soon covers mountain and vale, meadow and moor; with every 
returning day, the sun pays the cold earth a decreasing visit, until, finally, he 
hardly appears above the horizon at noon; the wintry storm howls over the 
waste, and for months the life of the Icelander is confined to his hut, which 
frequently is but a few degrees better than that of the filthy Lap. 

Its lower part is built of rude stones to about the height of four feet, and 
between each row layers of turf are placed with great regularity, to serve in- 
stead of mortar, and keep out the wind. A roof of such wood as can be pro- 


a 


THE ICELANDERS. 103 


ICELANDIC HOUSES. 


cured rests upon these walls, and is coverea with turf and sods. On one side 
(generally facing the south) are several gable ends and doors, each surmounted 
with a weather-cock. These are the entrances to the dwelling-house proper, to 
the smithy, store-room, cow-shed, etc. A long narrow passage, dark as pitch, 
and redolent of unsavory odors, leads to the several apartments, which are sep- 
arated from each other by thick walls of turf, each having also its own roof, so 
that the peasant’s dwelling is in fact a conglomeration of low huts, which some- 
times receive their light through small windows in the front, but more frequent- 
ly through holes in the roof, covered with a piece of glass or skin. The floors 
are of stamped earth ; the hearth is made of a few stones clumsily piled togeth- 
er; a cask or barrel, with the two ends knocked out, answers the purpose of a 
chimney, or else the smoke is allowed to escape through a mere hole in the roof. 

The thick turf walls, the dirty floor, the personal uncleanliness of the inhab- 
itants, all contribute to the pollution of the atmosphere. No piece of furniture 
seems ever to have been cleaned since it was first. put into use; all is disorder 
and confusion. Ventilation is utterly impossible, and the whole family, fre- 
quently consisting of twenty persons or more, sleep in the same dormitory, as 
well as any strangers who may happen to drop in. On either side of this 


apartment are bunks three or four feet in width, on which the sleepers range ' 


themselves. 

Such are in general the dweilings of the farmers and clergy, for but very 
few of the more wealthy inhabitants jive in any way according to our notions of 
comfort, while the cots of the poor fisherman are so wretched that one can 
hardly believe them to be tenanted by human beings. 


104 THE POLAR WORLD. 


The farm-houses are frequently isolated, and, on account of their grass-cover- 
ed roofs and their low construction, are not easily distinguished from the neigh- 
boring pasture-grounds , where four or five of them are congregated in a grassy 
plain, they are dignified with the name of a village, and become the residence 
of a Hrepstior, or parish constable. 

Then also a church is seldom wanting, which however is distinguished from 
the low huts around merely by the cross planted on its roof. An Icelandic 
house of prayer is generally from eight to ten feet wide, and from eighteen to 
twenty-four long ; but of this about eight feet are devoted to the altar, which is 
divided off by a partition stretching across the church, and against which stands 
the pulpit. A small wooden chest or cupboard, placed at the end of the build- 
ing, between two very small square windows not larger than a common-sized 
pane of glass, constitutes the communion-table, over which is generally a miser- 
able representation of the Lord’s Supper painted on wood. The height of the 
walls, which are wainscoted, is about six feet, and from them large wooden 
beams stretch across from side to side. On these beams are placed in great 
disorder a quantity of old Bibles, psalters, and fragments of dirty manuscripts. 
The interior of the roof, the rafters of which rest on the walls, is also lined with 
wood. On the right of the door, under which one is obliged to stoop consider- 
ably on entering, is suspended a bell, large enough to make an intolerable noise 
in so small a space. A few benches on each side the aisle, so crowded together 
as almost to touch one another, and affording accommodation to thirty or forty 
persons when squeezed very tight, leave room for a narrow passage. , 

These churches, besides their proper use, are also made to answer the pur- 


pose of the caravanseras of the East, by affording a night’s lodging to foreign 


tourists. ‘They are indeed neither free from dirt, nor from bad smells; but 
the stranger is still far better off than in the intolerable atmosphere of a peas- 
ant’s hut. ; 

Mr. Ross Browne thus describes the church and parsonage at Thingvalla; 
“The church is of modern construction, and, like all I saw in the interior, is 
made of wood, painted a dark color, and roofed with boards covered with sheets 
of tarred canvas. It is a very primitive little affair, only one story high, and 
not more than fifteen by twenty feet in dimensions. From the date on the 


- weather-cock it appears to have been built in 1858. The congregation is sup-. 


plied by the tew sheep-ranches in the neighborhood, consisting at most of half 
a dozen families. These unpretending little churches are to be seen in the 
vicinity of every settlement throughout the whole island. Simple and homely 
as they are, they speak well.for the pious character of the people. . 

“ The pastor of Thingvalla and his family reside in a group of sod-covered 
huts close by the church. These cheerless little hovels are really a curiosity, 
none of them being over ten or fifteen feet high, and all huddled together with- 
out the slightest regard to latitude or longitude, like a parcel of sheep in a 
storm. Some have windows in the roof, and some have chimneys; grass and 
weeds grow all over them, and crooked by-ways and dark alleys run among 
them and through them. At the base they are walled up with big lumps of 
lava, and two of them have board fronts, painted black, while the remainder are 


THE ICELANDERS. 105 


CHURCH AT THINGVALLA. 


patched up with turf and rubbish of all sorts, very much in the style of a stork’s 
nest. A low stone wall encircles the premises, but seems to be of little use as a 
barrier against the encroachments of live-stock, being broken up in gaps every 
few yards. In front of the group some attempt has been made at a pavement, 
which, however, must have been abandoned soon after the work was com- 
menced. It is now littered all over with old tubs, pots, dish-cloths, and other 
articles of domestic use. 

“The interior of this strange abode is even more complicated than one 
would be led to expect from the exterior. Passing through a dilapidated door- 
way in one of the smaller cabins, which you would hardly suppose to be the 
main entrance, you find yourself in a long dark passage-way, built of rough 
stone, and roofed with wooden rafters and brushwood covered with sod. The 
sides are ornamented with pegs stuck in the crevices between the stones, upon 
which hang saddles, bridles, horse-shoes, bunches of herbs, dried fish, and various 
articles of cast-off clothing, including old shoes and sheepskins. Wide or nar- 
row, straight or crooked, to suit the sinuosities of the different cabins into 
which it forms the entrance, it seems to have been originally located upon the 
track of a blind boa-constrictor. The best room, or rather house—for every 
room is a house—is set apart for the accommodation of travellers. Another 
cabin is occupied by some members of the pastor’s family, who bundle about 
like a lot of rabbits. The kitchen is also the dog-kennel, and occasionally the 
sheep-house. A pile of stones in one corner of it, upon which a few twigs or 
scraps of sheep-manure serve to make the fire, constitute the cooking apartment. 
The floor consists of the original lava-bed, and artificial puddles composed of 


106 THE POLAR WORLD. 


slops and offal of diverse unctuous kinds. Smoke fills all the cavities in the air 
not already occupied by foul odors, and the beams, and posts, and rickety old 
bits of furniture are dyed to the core with the dense and variegated atmosphere 
around them. This isa fair specimen of the whole establishment, with the ex- 
ception of the travellers’ room. The beds in these cabins are the chief arti- 
cles of luxury.” 

The poverty of the clergy corresponds with the meanness of their churches. 
The best living in the island is that of Breide’-Bolstadr, where the nominal 
stipend amounts to 180 specie dollars, or about £40 a year; and Mr. Hol- 
land states that the average livings do not-amount to more than £10 for each 
parish in the island. The clergymen must therefore depend almost entirely 
for subsistence on their glebe land, and a small pittance to which they are 
entitled for the few baptisms, marriages, and funerals that occur among their 
parishioners. The hishop himself has only 2000 rix-dollars, or £200, a year, 
a miserable pittance to make a decent appearance, and to exercise hospitality 
to the clergy who visit Reykjavik from distant parts, 

It can not be wondered at that pastors thus miserably paid are generally 
obliged to perform the hardest work of day laborers to preserve their families 
from starving, and that their external appearance corresponds less with the dig- 
nity of their office than with their penury. Besides hay-making and tending the 
cattle, they may be frequently seen leading a train of pack-horses from a fishing- 
station to their distant hut. They are all blacksmiths also from necessity, and 
the best shoers of horses on the island. The feet of an Iceland horse would be 
cut to pieces over the sharp rock and lava, if not well shod. The great resort 
of the peasantry is the church ; and should any of the numerous horses have lost 
a shoe, or be likely to do so, the priest puts on his apron, lights his little char- 
coal fire in his smithy (one of which is always attached to every parsonage), 
and sets the animal on his legs again. The task of getting the necessary char- 


THE PASTOR’S HOUSE, THINGVALLA. 


THE ICELANDERS. 107 


coal is not the least of his labors, for 
whatever the distance may be to the 
nearest thicket of dwarf-birch, he must 
go thither to burn the wood, and to 
bring it home when charred across his 
horse’s back. His hut is scarcely bet- 
ter than that of the meanest fisherman ; 
a bed, a rickety table, a few chairs, and 
a chest or two, are all his furniture. 
This is, as long as he lives, the condi- 
tion of the Icelandic clergyman, and 
learning, virtue, and even genius are 
but too frequently buried under this 
squalid poverty. 

But few of my readers have proba- 
bly ever heard of the poet Jon Thor- 
lakson, but who can withhold the trib- 
ute of his admiration from the poor 
priest of Backa, who with a fixed in- 
come of less than £6 a year, and con- 
demned to all the drudgery which I 


\ 
oi\\ 
rah 


; a mbt ee 7 a AEE 
have described, finished at seventy 4 Sas RN 


_ = as 
ee ee a ae toa. SS 


years of age a translation of Milton’s 
“Paradise Lost,” having previously 
translated Pope’s “ Essay on Man.” 

Three of the first books only of the “ Paradise Lost” were printed by the 
Icelandic Literary Society, when it was dissolved in 1796, and to print the rest 
at his own expense was of course impossible. In a few Icelandic verses, Thor- 
lakson touchingly alludes to his penury :—“ Ever since I came into this world 
I have been wedded to Poverty, who has now hugged me to her bosom these 
seventy winters, all but two ; and whether we shall ever be separated here below 
is only known to Him who joined us together.” 

As if Providence had intended to teach the old man that we must hope to 
the last, he soon after received the unexpected visit of Mr. Henderson, an agent 
of the British and Foreign Bible Society, who thus relates his interview : 

“Like most of his brethren at this season of the year, we found him in the 
meadow assisting his people in hay-making. On hearing of our arrival, he 
made all the haste home which his age and infirmity would allow, and bidding 
us welcome to his lowly abode, ushered us into the humble apartment where he 
translated my countrymen into Icelandic. The door is not quite four feet in 
height, and the room may be about eight feet in length by six in breadth. At 
the inner end is the poet’s bed, and close to the door, over against a small win- 
dow, not exceeding two feet square, is a table where he commits to paper the 
effusions of his Muse. On my telling him that my countrymen would not have 
forgiven me, nor could I have forgiven myself, had I passed through this part 
of the island without paying him a visit, he replied that the translation of Mil- 


THE PASTOR OF THINGVALLA. 


108 THE POLAR WORLD. 


ton had yielded him many a pleasant hour, and often given him occasion to 
think of England.” | 

This visit was followed by agreeable consequences for the venerable bard. 
The Literary Fund soon afterwards sent him a present of £30,a modest sum 
according to our ideas, but a mine of wealth in the eyes of the poor Icelandic 
priest. His life, however, was now near its close, as it is stated in a short 
view “ Of the Origin, Progress, and Operations of the Society,” dated March 
3d, 1821, that “the poet of Iceland is now in his grave; but it is satisfactory 
to know that the attention, in this instance, of a foreign and remote society to 
his gains and his fortunes was highly gratifying to his feelings, and contrib- 
uted not immaterially to the comfort of his concluding days.” 

He wrote a letter in very elegant Latin, expressing his heartfelt gratitude 
for the kindness and generosity of the Society, so accordant with the character 
of the British nation, and accompanied it with a MS. copy of his translation. 
The latter was first printed in Iceland in 1828, but his own original poems did 
not appear before 1842. 

The school where most of the Icelandic clergymen, so poor and yet gener- 
ally so respectable in their poverty, are educated, is that of Reykjavik, as few 
only enjoy stipends which enable them to study at Copenhagen. There they 
live several years under a milder sky, they become acquainted with the splen- 
dor of a large capital, and thus it might be supposed that the idea of returning: 
to the dreary wastes of their own land must be intolerable. Yet this is their 
ardent desire, and, like banished exiles, they long for their beloved Iceland, 
where privation and penury await them.. 

In no Christian country, perhaps with the sole exception of Lapland, are the 
clergy so poor as in Iceland, but in none do they exert a more beneficial in- 
fluence. : 

Though the island has but the one public school at Reykjavik, yet perhaps 
in no country is elementary education more generally diffused. Every mother 
teaches her children to read and write, and a peasant, after providing for the 
wants of his family by the labor of his hands, loses no opportunity, in his lei- 
sure hours, of inculcating a sound morality. In these praiseworthy efforts the 
parents are supported by the pastor. 

He who, judging from the sordid condition of an Icelandic hut, might imag- 
ine its inhabitants to be no better than savages, would soon change his opin- 
ion were he introduced on a winter evening into the low, ill-ventilated room 
where the family of a peasant or a small landholder is assembled. Vainly 
would he seek a single idler in the whole company. The women and girls 
spin or knit; the men and boys are all busy mending their agricultural imple- 
ments and household utensils, or else chiselling or cutting with admirable skill 
ornaments or snuff-boxes in silver, ivory, or wood. By the dubious light of a 
tallow lamp, just making obscurity visible, sits one of the family, who reads 
with a loud voice an old “saga” or chronicle, or maybe the newest number of 
the “ Northurfari,” an Iceland literary almanac, published during the last few — 
years by Mr. Gisle Brinjulfsson. Sometimes poems or whole sagas are repeat- 
ed from memory, and there are even itinerant story-tellers, who, like the trouba- 


THE ICELANDERS. 109 


dours and trouvéres of the Middle Ages, wander from one farm to another, and 
thus gain a scanty livelihood. In this manner the deeds of the ancient Ice- 
landers remain fixed in the memory of their descendants, and Snorre Sturleson, 
Samund, Frodi, and Eric Rauda are unforgotten. Nine centuries have elapsed ; 
but every Icelander still knows the names of the proud yarls who first peopled 
the fiords of the island; and the exploits of the brave vikings who spread ter- 
ror and desolation along all the coasts of Europe still fill the hearts of the 
peaceful islanders of our days with a glow of patriotic pride. 

Where education is so general, one may naturally expect to find a high de- 
gree of intellectual cultivation among the clergy, the public functionaries, and 
the wealthier part of the population. Their classical knowledge is one of the 
first things that strike the stranger with astonishment. He sees men whosé 
appearance too frequently denotes an abject poverty conversant with the great 
authors of antiquity, and keenly alive to their beauties. Travelling to the Gey- 
sirs, he is not seldom accosted in Latin by his guide, and stopping at a farm, 
his host greets him in the same language. 

I have specially named Jon Thorlakson, but Iceland has produced and still 
produces many other men who, without the hope of any other reward but that 
which proceeds from the pure love of literature, devote their days and nights 
to laborious studies, and live with Virgil and Homer under the sunny skies ol. 
Italy and Greece. In the study of the modern languages, the Icelanders are 
as far advanced as can be expected from their limited intercourse with the rest 
of the world. 

The English language, in which they find so many words of their own and 
so many borrowed from the Latin, is cultivated by many of the clergy. The 
German they find still more easy; and as all the Scandinavian languages pro- 
ceed from the same root, they have no difficulty in understanding the Danish 
and the Norwegian tongues. Of all the modern languages or dialects which 
have sprung from the ancient Norse, spoken a thousand years ago all over 
Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, none has undergone fewer changes than the Ice- 
landic. In the sea-ports it is mixed up with many Danish words and phrases, 
but in the interior of the island it is still spoken as it was in the times of In- 
golfr and Eric the Red, and in the whole island there is no fisherman or day 
laborer who does not perfectly understand the oldest writings. 

It may easily be imagined that among a people so fond of literature, books 
must be in great request. Too poor to be constantly increasing their small col- 
lections of modern publications, or of old “ sagas” or chronicles, by new acqui- 
sitions, one assists the other. When the peasant goes on Sundays to church, 
he takes a few volumes with him, ready to lend his treasures to his neighbors, 
and, on his part, selects from among those which they have brought for the 
Same purpose. When he is particularly pleased with a work, he has it copied 
at home, and it may be here remarked that the Icelanders are frequently most 
excellent calligraphists. 

The foundation of a public library at Reykjavik in 1821, at the instigation 
of the learned Professor Rafn of Copenhagen, was a great boon to the people. 
It is said to contain about 12,000 volumes, which are kept under the roof of the 


110 THE POLAR WORLD. 


cathedral. Books are freely lent for months, or even for a whole year, to the 
inhabitants of remote districts. This liberality is, of course, attended with 
some inconvenience, but it has the inestimable advantage of rendering a num- 
ber of good works accessible to numerous families too poor to purchase them. 

Another excellent institution is the New Icelandic Literary Society, founded 
in 1816. It has two seats, one in Copenhagen, the other in Reykjavik, and its 
chief object is the publication of useful works in the language of the country. 
Besides an annual grant of 100 specie dollars (£24) awarded to it by the 
Danish Government, its income is confined to the yearly contributions of its 
members,* and with this scanty means it has already published many excellent 
works. 

Though remote from the busy scenes of the world, Iceland has three news- 
papers, the Zhyodtholfr and the Islendingur, which appear at Reykjavik, and 
the Morthri, which is published at Akreyri, on the borders of the Polar Ocean. 
The Islendingur is said to contain many excellent articles, but it would sorely 
task the patience of those who are accustomed to the regular enjoyment of the 
“Times ” at breakfast ; as it sometimes appears but once in three weeks, and then 
again, <s if to make up for lost time, twice in eight days. , 

In spite of their ill-ventilated dwellings and the hardships entailed upon 
them by the severity of the climate, the Icelanders frequently attain a good old 
age. Of the 2019 persons who died in 1858, 25 had passed the age of ninety, 
and of these 20 belonged to the fair sex. The mortality among the child’ en is; 
however, very considerable; 993, or nearly one-half of the entire number havy- 
ing died before the age of five in the year above-mentioned. Cutaneous affec- 
tions are very common among Icelanders, as may easily be supposed from their 
sordid woollen apparel and the uncleanliness of their huts; and the northern 
leprosy, or “ likthra,” is constantly seeking out its victims among them. This 
dreadful disease, which is also found among the fishermen in Norway, in Green- 
-land, in the Faeroes, in Lapland, and, in short, wherever the same mode of life 
exists, begins with a swelling of the hands and feet. The hair falls off; the 
senses become obtuse. Tumors appear on the arms and legs, and on the face, 
which soon loses the semblance of humanity. Severe pains shoot through the 
joints, an eruption covers the whole body, and finally changes into open sores, 
ending with death. He whom the leprosy has once attacked is doomed, for it 
mocks all the efforts of medical art. Fortunately the victims of this shocking 
complaint are rather objects of pity than of disgust, and as it is not supposed 
to be contagious, they are not so cruelly forsaken by their relations as their fel- 
low-sufferers in the East. In the hut of the priest of Thingvalla, Marmier saw 
a leper busy grinding corn. Some of the poorest and most helpless of these 
unfortunate creatures find a refuge in four small hospitals, where they are pro- 
- vided for at the public expense. 

Since a regular steam-boat communication has been opened between Ice- 
land, Denmark, and Scotland, the number of tourists desirous of viewing the 


* Their number in 1860 was 991. During his voyage to Iceland in 1850 Prince Napoleon was named 
honorary president, a distinction he shares with the Bishop of Reykjavik. Among the 46 honorary 
members I find the name of Lord Dufferin. 


THE ICELANDERS. Li 


matchless natural wonders of the island has considerably increased. But trav- 
elling in the island itself is still attended with considerable difficulties and no 
trifling expense, to say nothing of the want of all comforts; so that most of its 
visitors are content with a trip to Thingvalla and the Geysir, which are but a 
couple of days’ journey from Reykjavik, and very few, like Mr. Holland, make 
the entire circuit of the island, or, like Mr. Shepherd, plunge into the terra in- 
cognita of its north-western peninsula. The only mode of travelling is on 
horseback, as there are no roads, and therefore no carriages in Iceland. The 
distances between the places are too great, the rivers are too furious, and the 
bogs too extensive to allow of a walking tour being made. Even the tourist 
with the most modest pretensions requires at least two riding horses for him- 
self, two for his guide, and two packhorses ; and when a larger company travels, 
it always forms a cavalcade of from twenty to thirty horses, tied head to tail, 
the chief guide mounted on the first and leading the string, the other accelerat- 
ing its motions by gesticulation, sundry oaths, and the timely application of 
the whip. The way, or the path, lies either over beds of lava, so rugged that 
the horses are allowed to pick their way, or over boggy ground, where it is 
equally necessary to avoid those places into which the animals might sink up 
to their belly, but which, when left to themselves, they are remarkably skillful 
in detecting. With the solitary exception of a few planks thrown across the 
Bruera, and a kind of swing bridge, or £ldéfr, contrived for passing the rapid 
Jodkulsa, there are no bridges over the rivers, so that the only way to get across 
is to ride through them—a feat which, considering the usual velocity of their 
current, is not seldom attended with considerable danger, as will be seen by the 
following account of the crossing of the Skeidara by Mr. Holland. 


BRIDGE RIVER, ICELAND. 


112 THE POLAR WORLD. 


“ Our guide,” says this intrepid traveller, “ urged on his horse through the 
stream, and led the way towards the mid-channel. We followed in his wake, 
and soon were all stemming the impetuous and swollen torrent. In the course 
of our journey we had before this crossed a good many rivers more or less 
deep, but all of them had been mere child’s play compared to that which we 
were now fording. The angry water rose high against our horses’ sides, at 
times almost coming over the tops of their shoulders. The spray from their 
broken crests was dashed up into our faces. The stream was so swift that it 
was impossible to follow the individual waves as they rushed past us, and it 
almost made us dizzy to look down at it. Now, if ever, is the time for firm 
hand or rein, sure seat, and steady eye; not only is the stream so strong, but 
the bottom is full of large stones, that the horse can not see through the murky 
waters ; if he should fall, the torrent will sweep you down to the sea—its white 
breakers are plainly visible as they run along the shore at scarcely a mile’s dis- 
tance, and they lap the beach as if they waited for their prey. Happily, they 
will be disappointed. Swimming would be of no use, but an Icelandic water- 
horse seldom makes a blunder or a false step. Not the least of the risks we 
ran in crossing the Skeidara was from the masses of ice carried down by the 
stream from the Jékul, many of them being large enough to knock a horse 
over. 

“Fortunately we found much less ice in the centre and swiftest part of the 
river, where we were able to see and avoid it, than in the side channels. How 
the horses were able to stand against such a stream was marvellous; they 
could not do so unless they were constantly in the habit of crossing swift 
rivers. The Icelanders who live in this part of the island keep horses known 
for their qualities in fording difficult rivers, and they never venture to cross a 
dangerous stream unless mounted on a tried water-horse. The action of the 
Icelandic horses when crossing a swift river is very peculiar. They lean all 
their weight against the stream, so as to resist it as much as possible, and 
move onward with a peculiar side-step. This motion is not agreeable. It 
feels as if your horse were marking time without gaining ground, and the prog- 
ress made being really very slow, the shore from which you started seems to 
recede from you, whilst that for which you are making appears as far as ever. 

“When we reached the middle of the stream, the roar of the waters was so 
great that we could scarcely make our voices audible to one another; they 
were overpowered by the crunching sound of the ice, and the bumping of large 
stones against the bottom. Up to this point a diagonal line, rather down 
stream, had been cautiously followed; but when we came to the middle, we 
turned our horses’ heads a little against the stream. As we thus altered our 
course, the long line of baggage-horses appeared to be swung round altogether, 
as if swept off their legs. None of them, however, broke away, and they con- 
tinued their advance without accident, and at length we all reached the shore 
in safety.” 

After a day’s journey in Iceland, rest, as may well be supposed, is highly 
acceptable. Instead of passing the night in the peasant’s hut, the traveller, 


when no church is at hand, generally prefers pitching his tent near a running | 


(! 


THE ICELANDERS. 113 


stream on a grassy plain; but sometimes, in consequence of the great distance 
from one habitable place to another, he is obliged to encamp in the midst of a 
bog where the poor horses find either bad herbs, scarcely fit to satisfy their 
hunger, or no food at all. After they have been unloaded, their fore legs are 
bound together above their hoofs, so as to prevent them straying too far, 
while their masters arrange themselves in the tent as comfortably as they can. 


ICELANDIC BOG. 


8 


114 THE POLAR WORLD. 


CHAPTER VIII 
THE WESTMAN ISLANDS. 


The Westmans.—Their extreme Difficulty of Access.—How they became peopled.—Heimaey. — 
Kaufstathir and Ofanleyte.— Sheep-hoisting.— Egg-gathering.— Dreadful Mortality among the 
Children. —The Ginklofi.—Gentleman John.—The Algerine Pirates.—Dreadful Sufferings of the 
Islanders. 

| ae eae abruptly from the sea to a height of 916 feet, the small Westman 

Islands are no less picturesque than difficult of access. Many a traveller 
while sailing along the south coast of Iceland has admired their towering rock- 
walls, but no modern tourist has ever landed there. For so stormy a sea rolls 
between them and the mainland, and so violent are the currents, which the 

slightest wind brings forth in the narrow channels of the archipelago, that a 

landing can be effected only when the weather 1s perfectly calm. The Dri- 

fanda foss, a cascade on the opposite mainland, rushing from the brow of the Eya- 
fyalla range in acolumn of some 800 or 900 feet in height, is a sort of barometer, 
which decides whether a boat can put off with a prospect of gaining the West- 
mans. In stormy weather the wind eddying among the cliffs converts the fall, 
though considerable, into a cloud of spray, which is dissipated in the atmos- 
phere, so that no cascade is visible from the beach. In calm weather the 


column is intact, and if it remains so two days in succession, then the sea is — 


usually calm enough to allow boats to land, and they venture out. As thelIce- 
landers, through stormy weather, are frequently cut off from Europe, so the in- 
habitants of the Westmans are still more frequently cut off from Iceland, and 
it is seldom more than once a year that the mails are landed direct. The few 
letters from Denmark (for the correspondence is in all probability not very 
active) are landed in Iceland at Reykjavik, and thence forwarded to the islands 
by boat, as chance may offer, for, during the whole winter and the greater part 


THE WESTMAN ISLANDS. 115 


of the summer, communication is impossible. It will now be understood why 

tourists are so little inclined to visit the Westmans, despite the magnificence 
of their coast scenery, for who has the patience to tarry in a miserable hut on 
the opposite mainland till the cascade informs him that they are accessible, or 
is inclined to run the risk of being detained by a sudden change of the weather 
for weeks or even months on these solitary rocks ? 

_ Mr. Ross Browne thus describes the general aspect of the coast of Iveland : 
* Nothing could surpass the desolate grandeur of the coast as we approached 
the point of Reykjaness. It was of an almost infernal blackness. The whole 
country seemed uptorn, rifted, shattered, and scattered about in a vast chaos 
of ruin. Huge cliffs of lava split down to their bases toppled over the surf. 
Rocks of every conceivable shape, scorched and blasted with fire, wrested 
‘ from the main and hurled into the sea, battled with the waves, their black 
scragey points piercing the mist like giant hands upthrown to smite or sink in 
a fierce death-struggle. The wild havoc wrought in the conflict of elements 
was appalling. Birds screamed over the fearful wreck of matter. The surf 
from the inrolling waves broke against the charred and shattered desert of ruin 
with a terrific roar. Columns of spray shot up over the blackened fragments 
of lava, while in every opening the lashed waters, discolored by the collision, 
seethed and surged as in a huge caldron.” 


WESTMAN ISLES. 


Of the Westman Islands, he says: “Towards noon we made the West- 
man Isles, a small rocky group some ten miles distant from the main island. 
A fishing and trading establishment, owned by a company of Danes, is located 


116 THE POLAR WORLD. 


on one of these islands. The Arcturus touches twice a year to deliver and re- 
ceive a mail. On the occasion of our visit, a boat came out with a hardy-look- 
ing crew of Danes to receive the mail-bag. It was doubtless a matter of great 
rejoicing to them to obtain news from home. I had barely time to make a 
rough outline of the islands as we lay off the settlement. The chief interest at- 
tached to the Westman group is, that 1t is supposed to have been visited by 
Columbus in 1477, fifteen years prior to his voyage of discovery to the shores 
of America.” 

The puffin, or the screeching sea-mew, seem the only inhabitants for which 


nature has fitted the Westmans, and yet they have a history which leads us ~ 


back to the times when Iceland itself first became known to man. 

About 875, a few years after Ingolfr followed his household gods to Reyk- 
javik, a Norwegian pirate, perchance one of the associates of that historical 
personage, landed on the coast of Ireland, attacked with fire and sword the de- 
fenseless population, captured forty or fifty persons, men, women, and children, 
and carried them off as slaves. The passage must have been any thing but 
pleasant, for it gave the Hibernians such a foretaste of the wretchedness that 
awaited them in Iceland, their future abode, that, taking courage from despair, 
they rose on their captors, threw them overboard, and went ashore on the first 
land they met with. 

A day of rare serenity must have witnessed their arrival on the Westmans, 
a spot which of all others seemed most unlikely to become their home. Why 
they remained there, is a secret of the past; most likely they had no other al- 
ternative, and freedom on a rock was, at all events, better than slavery under a 
cruel viking. 

Thus these weather-beaten islets were first peopled by men from the west, 
whence they derive their name, and it is supposed that the present inhabitants 
are the descendants of those children of Erin. No one will be inclined to envy 
them the heritage bequeathed to them by their fathers. 

The Westmans are fourteen in number; but of these only one, called Hei- 
maey, or Home Island, isinhabited. It is fifteen miles from the coast of Iceland, 
and forty-five from Hecla. Though larger than all the others put together, its 
entire surface is not more than ten square miles. It is almost surrounded with 
high basaltic cliffs, and an otherwise iron-bound shore; its interior is covered 
with black ashy-looking cones, bearing undoubted evidence of volcanic action ; 
in fact, the harbor, which lies on its north-east side, and is only accessible to 
small craft, is formed out of an old crater, into which the sea has worn an en- 
trance. The inhabitants are located in two villages; Kaufstathir, on a little 
grassy knoll near the landing-place, and Ofanleyte, on the grassy platform of the 
island. Only three of the other islets produce any vegetation or pasturage, and 
it is said that on one of these the sheep are hoisted with a rope out of the 
boats by an islander, who, at the risk of his neck, has climbed to the top of the 
precipitous rock, The others are mere naked cliffs or basaltic pillars, the abode 
of innumerable sea-birds, which, when accessible, are a precious resource to the 
islanders. For, as may well be supposed, the scanty grass lands afford nourish- 
ment but to a few cows and sheep; and as the unruly waters too often prevent 


THE WESTMAN ISLANDS. 117 


their fishing-boats from putting to sea, they depend in a great measure for 
their subsistence upon the sea-birds, in whose capture they exhibit wonderful 
courage and skill. In the egg-season they go to the top of the cliff, and, put- 
ting a rope round a man’s waist, let him down the side of the perpendicular 
rock, one, two, or three hundred feet; on arriving at the long, narrow, hori- 
zontal shelves, he proceeds to fill a large bag with the brittle treasures depos- 
ited by the birds. When his bag is full, he and his eggs are drawn to the top 
by his companions. If the rope breaks, or is cut off by the sharp corners of 
the rock, which, however, happens but seldom, nothing can save the luckless 
fowler, who is either precipitated into the sea, or dashed to pieces on the 
rocks below. 


== 


HOME OF SEA-BIRDS. 


f 

At a later period in the season they go and get the young birds, and then 
they have often desperate battles with the old ones, who will not give up fight- 
ing for their offspring till their necks are broken, or their brains knocked out 
with a club. Where the cliffs are not accessible from the top, they go round 
the bottom in boats, and show a wonderful agility and daring in scaling the 
most terrible precipices. 

In summer they get the eggs and the fresh meat of the young birds, which 
they also salt for the winter. The feathers form their chief article of export, 
besides dried and salted codfish, and with these they procure their few nec- 
essaries and luxuries, consisting principally of clothing, tobacco and snuff, spir- 
its, fish-hooks and lines, and salt. As there is no peat on these islands, nor 
dried fish-bones in sufficient quantity, they also make use of the tough old 
sea-birds as fuel. For this purpose they split them open, and dry them on the 
rocks. 

The Westmans form a separate Syssel, or county, and they have a church, 
and usually two clergymen. Their church was rebuilt of stone, at the expense 
of the Danish Government, in 1774, and is said to be one of the best in Iceland. 


118 THE POLAR WORLD. 


Unfortunately the two clergymen to whom the spiritual care of the islanders is 
confided seem to have but a very indifferent flock, for their neighbors on the 
mainland give rather a bad character to the inhabitants of Heimaey, describing 
them as great sluggards and drunkards. : | 

~The population, which was formerly more considerable, amounts to about 
200 souls, but even this is more than might be expected from the dreadful mor- 
tality which reigns among the children. The eggs and the oily flesh of sea-birds 
furnish a miserable food for infants, particularly when weaned, as is here cus- 
tomary, at a very early age; but the poor islanders have nothing else to give 
them, except some fish, and avery insufficient quantity of cow’s or sheep’s milk. 
This unhealthy diet, along with the boisterous air, gives rise to an incurable in- 
fantile disease, called Ginklofi (¢etanus). Its first symptoms are squinting and 
rolling of the eyes, the muscles of the back are seized with incipient cramps and 
become stiff. After a day or two lock-jaw takes place, the back is bent like a 
bow, either backward or forward. The lock-jaw prevents swallowing, and the 
cramps become more frequent and prolonged until death closes the scene. The 
same disease is said to decimate the children on St. Kilda in consequence of a 
similar mode of life. 

The only means of preserving the infants of Heimaey from the Ginklofi, is to 
send them as soon as possible to the mainland to be reared, and thus a long con- 
tinuance of bad weather is a death-warrant to many. 

Who would suppose that the Westman Islanders, doubly guarded by their 
poverty and almost inaccessible cliffs, could ever have become the prey of free- 
booters? and yet they have been twice attacked and pillaged, and well-nigh ex- 
terminated by sea-rovers. | 

I have already mentioned, in a previous chapter, that before the discovery of 
the banks of Newfoundland, the English cod-fishers used to resort in great num- 
bers to the coasts of Iceland, where some of them—now and then—appeared 
also in the more questionable character of corsairs. One of these worthies, who, 
like Paul Clifford, or Captain Macheath, so effectually united the swaviter in 
modo with the fortiter in re, as to have merited the name of “Gentleman John,” 
came to the Westmans in 1614 and set the church on fire, after having previous- 
ly removed the little that was worth taking. After this exploit he returned to 
Great Britain, but King James I. had him hung, and ordered the church orna- 
-. ments which he had robbed to be restored to the poor islanders. It was, how- 

» ever, written in the book of fate that they were not to enjoy them long, for in 
1627, a vessel of Algerine pirates, after plundering several places on the eastern 
and southern coasts of Iceland, fell like a thunderbolt on Heimaey. These mis- 
creants, compared with whom John was a “ gentleman ” indeed, cut down every 
man who ventured to oppose them, plundered and burnt the new-built church, 


and every hovel of the place, and carried away about 400 prisoners—men, ~ 


women, and children. One of the two clergymen of the island, Jon Torsteinson, 
was murdered at the time. This learned and pious man had translated the 
Psalms of David and the Book of Genesis into Icelandic verse, and is spoken 
of as the “ martyr” in the history of theland. The other clergyman, Olaf Egil- 


he 
4 
q 
; 
i 
, 


THE WESTMAN ISLANDS. 119 


son, with his wife and children, and the rest of the prisoners, was sold into 
slavery in Algiers. The account of his sufferings and privations, which he 
wrote in the Icelandic language, was afterwards translated and published in 
Danish. ! 

It was not until 1636, nine years after their capture, that the unfortunate 
Heimaeyers were released, and then only by being ransomed by the King of 
Denmark. Such was the misery they had endured from their barbarous task- 
masters, that only thirty-seven of the whole number survived, and of these but 
thirteen lived to return to their native island. 


jo 


120 THE POLAR WORLD. 


FISHING IN NORWAY. 


SHAPTER IX. : 
FROM DRONTHEIM TO THE NORTH CAPE. 


Mild Climate of the Norwegian Coast.—Its Causes.—The Norwegian Peasant.—Norwegian Constitution.— 
Romantic coast Scenery. —Drontheim.—Greiffenfeld Holme and Vare.—The Sea-eagle.—The Herring- 
fisheries. —The Lofoten Islands.—The Cod-fisheries.— Wretched Condition of the Fishermen.—Tromso- 
—Altenfiord.—The Copper Mines.—Hammerfest the most northern Town in the World.—The North 
Cape. 

F all the lands situated either within or near the Arctic Circle none enjoys 
a more temperate climate than the Norwegian coast. Here, and nowhere > 
else throughout the northern world, the birch and the fir-tree climb the mount- © 


ain-slopes to a height of 700 or 800 feet above the level of the sea, as far as the 


Pru 


a 
Vee =o 


= 


te et eee ee 


ESS 


FROM DRONTHEIM TO THE NORTH CAPE. 121 


70th degree of latitude; here we still find a flourishing agriculture in the inte- 
rior of the Malanger Fjord in 69°. On the opposite side of the Polar Ocean 
extends the inaccessible ice belt of East Greenland; Spitzbergen and Nova 
Zembla are not 400 miles distant from Talvig and Hammerfest, and yet these 
ports are never blocked with ice, and even in the depth of winter remain con- 
stantly open to navigation. What are the causes which in this favored region 
_ banish the usual rigors of the Arctic zone? How comes it that the winter even 
at the North Cape (mean temperature + 22°) is much less severe than at Que- 
bec (mean temperature +14°), which is situated 25° of latitude nearer to the 
equator ? 

The high mountain chains which separate Norway from Sweden and Fin- 
land, and keep off the eastern gales issuing from the Siberian wastes, while its 
coasts lie open to the mild south-westerly winds of the Atlantic, no doubt ac- 
count in some measure for the comparative mildness of its climate; but the 
main cause of this phenomenon must no doubt be sought for in the sea. Flow- 
ing into the Atlantic Ocean between Florida and Cuba, the warm Gulf Stream 
traverses the sea from west to east, and although about the middle of its course 
it partly turns to the south, yet a considerable portion of its waters flows on- 
ward to the north-east, and streaming through the wide portal between Iceland 
and Great Britain, eventually reaches the coasts of Norway. Of course its 
warmth diminishes as it advances to the north, but this is imparted to the 
winds that sweep over it, and thus it not merely brings the seeds of tropical 
plants from Equatorial America to the coasts of Norway, but also the far more 
important advantages of a milder temperature. 

The soil of Norway is generally rocky and sterile, but the sea amply makes 
up for the deficiencies of the land, and with the produce of their fisheries, of 
their forests, and their mines, the inhabitants are able to purchase the few for- 
eign articles which they require. Though poor, and not seldom obliged to reap 
the gifts of nature amidst a thousand hardships and dangers, they envy no other 
nation upon earth. | 

‘The Norwegian peasant is a free man on the scanty bit of ground which he 
has inherited from his fathers, and he has all the virtues of a freeman—an open 
character, a mind clear of every falsehood, a hospitable heart for the stranger. 
His religious feelings are deep and sincere, and the Bible is to be found in every 
hut. He is said to be indolent and phlegmatic, but when necessity urges he sets 
vigorously to work, and never ceases till his task is done. His courage and his 
patriotism are abundantly proved by a history of a thousand years. 

Norway owes her present prosperity chiefly to her liberal constitution. The 
press is completely free, and the power of the king extremely limited. All 
privileges and hereditary titles are abolished. The Parliament, or the “ Stor- 
thing,” which assembles every three years, consists of the “Odelthing,” or Up- 
per House, and of the “ Logthing,” or Legislative Assembly. Every new law re- 
quires the royal sanction; but if the Storthing has voted it in three successive 
sittings, it is definitively adopted in spite of the royal veto. Public education 
is admirably cared for. There is an elementary school in every village, and 
where the population is too thinly scattered, the schoolmaster may truly be said 


r 


122 THE POLAR WORLD. 


to be abroad, as he wanders from farm to farm, so that the most distant fami- 
lies have the benefit of his instruction. very town has its public library, and 
in many districts the peasants annually contribute a dollar towards a collection 
of books, which, under the care of the priest, is lent out to all subscribers. No 
Norwegian is confirmed who does not know how to read, and no Norwegian is 
allowed to marry who has not been confirmed. He who attains his twentieth 
year without having been confirmed has to fear the House of Correction. Thus 
ignorance is punished as a crime in Norway, an excellent example for far richer 
and more powerful nations. 

The population of Norway amounts to about 1,350,000, but these are very 
unequally distributed ; for while the southern province of Aggerhuus has 513,000 
inhabitants on a surface of 35,200 square miles, Nordland has only 59,000 on 
16,325, and Finmark, the most northern province of the land, but 38,000 on 
29,925, or hardly more than one inhabitant to every square mile. But even this 
scanty population is immense when compared with that of Eastern Siberia or 
of the Hudson s Bay territories, and entirely owes its existence to the mildness 
of the climate and the open sea, which at all seasons affords its produce to the 
fisherman. 

It is difficult to imagine a more secluded, solitary life than that of the “ bond- 
ers,” or peasant proprietors, along the northern coasts of Norway. The farms, 
confined to the small patches of more fruitful ground scattered along the fjords, 
at the foot or on the sides of the naked mountains, are frequently many miles 
distant from their neighbors, and the stormy winter cuts off all communication 


NORWEGIAN FARM. 


FROM DRONTHEIM TO THE NORTH CAPE. 123 


a 


STEAMING ALONG THE COAST. 


between them. Thus every family, reduced to its own resources, forms as it were 
a small commonwealth, which has but little to do with the external world, and 
is obliged to rely for its happiness on internal harmony, and a moderate com- 
petency. Strangers seldom invade their solitude, for they are far from the or- 
dinary tracks of the tourist, and yet a journey from Drontheim to Hammerfest 
and the North Cape affords many objects of interest well worthy of a visit. 
The only mode of communication is by sea, for the land is everywhere inter- 
sected by deep fjords, bounded by one continuous chain of precipitous cliffs and 
rocks, varying from one thousand to four thousand feet in height. Formerly, 
even the sea-voyage was attended with considerable difficulties, for the misera- 
ble “ yoegt,” or Scandinavian sloop, the only means of conveyance at the dis- 
posal of the traveller, required at the best of times at least a month to perform 
the voyage from Drontheim to Hammerfest, and in case of stormy weather, or 
contrary wind, had often to wait for weeks in some intermediate port. Now, 
however, a steamer leaves the port of Drontheim every week, and conveys the 
traveller in five or six days to the remote northern terminus of his journey. 

_ Innumerable isles of every size, from a few yards in diameter to as many 
miles, stud the line of coast, and between these and the mainland the steamer 
ploughs its way. Sometimes the channel is as narrow as the bed of a river, at 
others it expands into a mighty lake, and the ever-varying forms of the isles, of 
the fjords, and of the mountains, constantly open new and magnificent prospects 
to the view. One grand colossal picture follows upon another, but unfortu- 
nately few or none show the presence of man. From time to time only some 
fishing-boat makes its appearance on the sea, or some wooden farm-house rises 


124 THE POLAR WORLD. 


on the solitary beach. On advancing farther to the north, the aspect of nature 
becomes more and more stern, vegetation diminishes, man is more rarely seen, 
and the traveller feels as if he were on the point of entering the gloomy re- 
gions of perpetual death. 

With the sole exception of Archangel, Drontheim is the most populous and 
important town situated in so high a latitude as 63° 24’. Although the cradle 
of ancient Scandinavian history, and the residence of a long line of kings, it looks 
as if it had been built but yesterday, as its wooden houses have frequently been 
destroyed by fire. The choir of its-magnificent cathedral, built in the eleventh 
century, and once the resort of innumerable pilgrims who came flocking to the 
shrine of St. Olave from all Scandinavia, is the only remaining memorial of the 
old Tronyem of the Norse annalists and scalds. The modern town has a most 
pleasing and agreeable appearance, andthe lively colors with which the houses 
are painted harmonize with the prosperity of its inhabitants, which is due in a 
ereat measure to its thriving fisheries, and to the rich iron and copper mines in 
its neighborhood. The tall chimneys of many smelting-huts, iron foundries, 
and other manufactories, bear evidence that modern industry has found its way 
to the ancient capital of Norway. In point of picturesque beauty, the bay, on a 
peninsula of which the town is situated, does not yield to that of Naples. Up 
and down, in every direction, appear the villas of the merchant, and ships of 
all burden riding at anchor in the bay, and boats passing and repassing. In a 
small island of the bay, fronting the town, is the celebrated castle of Munkholm, 
where in former times many a prisoner of state has bewailed the loss of his 
liberty. Here, among others, Greiffenfeld, who had risen from obscurity to the 
rank of an all-powerful minister, was incarcerated for eighteen years (1680—98.) 

At Hildringen, where the potato is still cultivated with success, and barley 
ripens every four or five years, begins the province of Nordland, which extends 
from 65° to 69° 30’ N. lat. The mostly uninhabited isles along the coast are 


called “Holme,” when rising like steep rocks out of the water, and “ Vare” — 


when flat and but little elevated above the level of the sea. The latter are the 
breeding-places of numberless sea-fowls, whose 
eggs yield a welcome harvest to the inhabitants 
of the neighboring mainland or of the larger 
islands. .A well-stocked egg-var is a valuable 
addition to a farm, and descends from father 
to son, along with the pasture-grounds and the 
herds of the paternal land. When the propri- 
etor comes to plunder the nests, the birds re- 
main quiet, for they know by experience that 
only the superfluous eggs are to be removed. 
But not unfrequently strangers land, and leave 
not a single egg behind. Then all the birds, 
several thousands at once, rise from their nests 
and fill the air with their doleful cries. If such 
disasters occur repeatedly they lose courage, and, abandoning the scene of their 
misfortunes, retire to another var. Most of these birds are sea-gulls (Maasfugl, 


THE PUFFIN. 


FROM DRONTHEIM TO THE NORTH CAPE. 12% 


or Maage), their eggs are large, and of a not disagreeable taste. The island of 
Lovunnen is the favorite breeding-place of the puffin, which is highly esteemed 
on account of its feathers. This silly bird is very easily caught. The fowler 
lets down an iron hook, or sends a dog trained on purpose into the narrow 
clefts or holes of the rock, where the puffins sit crowded together. The first 
‘bird being pulled out, the next one bites and lays hold of his tail, and thus in 
succession, till the whole family, clinging together like a chain, is dragged to 
light. 

This rocky coast is also much frequented by the sea-eagle, who is very much 
feared over the whole province, as he not only carries away lambs and other 
small animals, but even assails and not seldom overpowers the Norwegian oxen. 
His mode of attack is so singular that if Von Buch had not heard it so posi- 
tively and so circumstantially related in various places, situated at great dis- 
tances from each other, he would willingly have doubted its truth. The eagle 
darts down into the waves, and then rolls about with his wet plumage on the 
beach until his wings are quite covered with sand. Then he once more rises 
into the air and hovers over his intended victim. Swooping down close to him, 
he claps his wings, flings the sand into the eyes of the unfortunate brute, and 
thoroughly scares it by repeated blows of his pinions. The blinded ox rushes 
away to avoid the eagle’s attacks, until he is completely exhausted or tumbles 
down some precipitous cliff. 

The sea-coast from Alsten to Rodoé, which is crossed by the Arctic Circle, 
is particularly rich in herrings, as it furnishes more than one-half of the fish ex- 
ported to Bergen. 

In respect of the capital invested, the cod-fishery must be regarded as the 
most important of the Norwegian deep-sea fisheries, but in the number of 
hands employed, the herring-fishery takes precedence The number of men 
actually engaged in the latter is not less than 60,000, and considerably more 
than double that number are directly or indirectly interested in the result of 
their operations. The herrings taken in 1866 filled 750,000 barrels, each weigh- 
ing 224 lbs., the largest catch ever taken on the Norwegian coast, at least in 
recent years. As the movements of the fish are extremely erratic, large shoals 
being found one year in a part of the coast where none will be seen the year 
following, the fishermen are forced to move from place to place, and formerly 
the herrings frequently escaped altogether for want of hands to capture them. 
Now this difficulty is in a great measure removed. Telegraph stations are 
erected at different places on the coast, from which the movements of the 
shoals are carefully watched ; and field telegraphs are kept in readiness to be 
joined on to the main line, so as to summon the fishermen from every part of . 
the country on the first appearance of the fish at any new point. The best 
time for the herring-fishery 1s from January to March, and in 1866, 200,000 
barrels, or more than one-fourth of the total catch, were caught between Feb- 
vuary 11th and 14th. 

_ At the northern extremity of the province of Nordland, between 68° and 
69° N. lat., are situated the Lofoten Islands, or Vesteraalen Oerne, which are 
Separated from the mainland by the Vestfjord. This broad arm of the sea is 


126 THE POLAR WORLD. 


remarkable both for its violent currents and whirlpools, among which the Mael- 
strom has attained a world-wide celebrity, and also from its being the most 
northerly limit where the oyster has been found. But it is chiefly as the re- 
sort of the cod that the Vestfjord is of the highest importance, not only to 
Nordland, but to the whole of Norway. No less than 6000 boats from all 
parts of the coast, manned probably by more than half of the whole adult male 
population of Nordland, annually assemble at Vaage, on the island of Ost Vaa- 
goe, and besides these, more than 300 yoegts, or larger fishing-sloops, from 
Bergen, Christiansand, and Molde, appear upon the scene. The banks of New- 
foundland hardly occupy more hands than the fishing-grounds of the Vestf- 
jord, which, after the lapse of a thousand years, continue as prolific as.ever ;* 
nor is there an instance known of its having ever disappointed the fisherman’s 
hopes. In Harold Haarfagr’s times, Vaage was already renowned for its fish- 
eries, and several yarls had settled in this northern district, to reap the rich 
harvest of the seas. At a later period, under the reign of Saint Olave (1020), 
the annual Parliament of Nordland was held at Vaage, and, in 1120, the benev- 
olent King Eystein, brother of Sigurd the Crusader, caused a church to be 
erected here in honor of his saintly predecessor, along with a number of huts, 
to serve as a shelter to the poor fishermen, a deed which he himself prized 
more highly than all his chivalrous brother’s warlike exploits in the East, for 
“these men,” said he, “ will still remember in distant times that a King Ey- 
stein once lived in Norway.” 

The reason why the fish never cease visiting this part of the coast is that 
the Lofoten Isles inclose, as it were, an inland or mediterranean sea, which only 
communicates with the ocean by several narrow channels between the islands, 
and where the fish find the necessary protection against stormy weather. They 
assemble on three or four banks well known to the fishermen, seldom arriving 
before the middle of January, and rarely later than towards the end of Febru- 
ary. ‘They remain in the sheltered fjord no longer than is necessary for spawn- 
ing, and in April have all retired to the deeper waters, so that the whole of 
the fishing season does not last longer than a couple of months. The fish are 
either caught by hooks and lines, or more frequently in large nets about twen- 
ty fathoms long and seven or eight feet broad, buoyed with pieces of light 
wood, and lested with stones, so as to maintain a vertical position when let 
down in the water. The fish, swimming with impetuous speed, darts into the 
meshes, which effectually bar his retreat. The nets are always spread in the 
evening, and hauled up in the morning; for as long as it is daylight, the fish 
sees and avoids them, even at a depth of sixty or eighty fathoms. A single 
haul of the net frequently fills half the boat, and the heavy fish would undoubt- 
edly tear the meshes if they were not immediately struck with iron hooks, and 
flung into the boat as soon as they are dragged to the surface. 

Claus Niels Sliningen, a merchant of Borgund, first introduced the use. of 
these nets in the year 1685, an innovation which more than doubled the total 


* In 1866 the total catch of cod was 21,000,000, about 12,000,000 of which were salted (clip fish), and 
the remainder dried (stock-fish); each fish making on an average 2 Ibs. of clip-fish, and one-fourth less 
of stock-fish. 


FROM DRONTHEIM TO THE NORTH CAPE. 127 


produce of the fisheries. But (as with all useful inventions) loud complaints 
were raised against him in Norway, and as late as 1762 no nets were allowed 
at Drontheim, “ to prevent the ruin of the poor people who had not the capital 
to provide themselves with them.” 

The life of a fisherman is everywhere full of privations and dangers, but no- 
where more so than at the Lofoten Islands. Here, after toiling on the stormy 
sea for many hours, he has nothing but the miserable shelter of a damp, filthy, 
over-crowded hut, which affords him neither the rest nor the warmth needed 
after his fatiguing day’s work. Even the iron-framed sons of the North are 
frequently unable to resist such continuous hardships, and bring home with 
them the seeds of contagion and death. Malignant fevers have frequently dec- 
imated the population of Norway, and their origin may generally be traced to 


THE DOVREFJELD. 


the fishing-grounds. “The Arab and the Persian,” says Leopold von Buch, 
“build caravanseras for the wayfarers through the desert; the inhabitants of 
the Alps have founded ‘hospices’ on the summits of the mountain passes 3 and 
the Norwegian has erected houses of refuge on Dovrefjeld, but none for the 
fishermen of Lofoten. Near Rodoé there is a large hospital for the sick of 
Nordland; would it not be as well to build houses in Lofoten, so as not to 
crowd the hospitals and churchyards?’ This was written at the beginning of 
the present century, but the poor fishermen are still as neglected as ever, for a 
more recent traveller, Marmier, beheld with pity the wretched huts in which 
they spend three winter months far from their families. 

In the channel between Hvalé and the mainland lies, in 69° 45’ N. lat., the 


128 THE POLAR WORLD. 


smali island of Tromsd, where about fifty years since only a few fishermen re- 

sided, whose huts have gradually expanded into a thriving little town of about | 
3000 inhabitants, along the shore opposite the mainland. Its staple exports 
are dried and salted cod, and train-oil. The livers.of the cod are put in open > 
barrels and placed in the sun, and the melted portion which rises to the sur-— 
face is skimmed off, being the purest oil. The coarse refuse is boiled in great. 
iron pots by the side of the sea, and yields the common “ train-oil.” The mus- 

cular matter which remains is collected into barrels and exported as a powerful 

manure; some of it is sent to England. 

The town consists mainly of one long straggling street, following the wind- 
ings of the shore, and has a picturesque appearance from the harbor. The 
houses are all of wood painted with lively colors, and the roofs, mostly covered 
with grass, diversified with bright clusters of yellow and white flowers, look 
pretty in summer. Tromsé has a Latin school, and even boasts of a news- 
paper, the Zromsé, Tidende et Blan for Nordland og Finmarken (“The 
Tromsé Gazette, a paper for Nordland and Finmark”). This paper is publish- 
ed twice a week; and as only one mail arrives at Troms6 every three weeks, 
the foreign news is given by instalments, spreading over six successive num- 
bers, until a fresh dispatch arrives. 

_ The island of Tromsé is beautifully situated, being on all sides environed 
by mountains, so that it seems to lie in the midst of a huge salt lake. Its sur- 
face rises in gentle slopes to a tolerable elevation, and no other Arctic isle con- 
tains richer pasturage, or dwarf plantations of greater luxuriance. Many 
meadows are yellow with buttercups and picturesque underwood, and the 
heathy hills are covered with shrubs, bearing bright berries of many hues. 
The pride of the Tromsdites in their island and town, and their profound at- 
tachment to it, are remarkable. No Swiss can be more enthusiastically bound 
to his mountains and vales, than they are to their circumscribed domain. 

To the north of Tromsé lies the broad and deep Altenfjord, whose borders 
are studded with numerous dwellings, and where the botanist meets with a 
vegetation that may well raise his astonishment in so high a latitude. Here 
the common birch-tree grows 1450 feet, and the Vaccinium myrtillus 2030 
feet above the level of the sea; the dwarf birch (Betula nana) still vegetates 
at a height of 2740 feet, and the Arctic willow is even found as high as 3500 
feet, up to the limits of perennial snow. 3 

Alten is moreover celebrated through its copper-mines. A piece of ore hay- 
ing been found by a Lap-woman in the year 1825, accidentally fell into the hands 
of Mr. Crowe, an English merchant in Hammerfest. This gentleman immediate- 
ly took measures for obtaining a privilege from Government for the working of 
the mines, and all preliminaries being arranged, set off for London, where he 
founded a company, with a capital of £75,000. When Marmier visited the Al- 
tenfjord in 1842, more than 1100 workmen were employed in these most north- 
erly mining-works of the world, and not seldom more than ten English vessels 
at a time were busy unloading coals at Kaafjord for the smelting of the ores. 
New copper-works had recently been opened on the opposite side of the bay at 
Raipass, and since then the establishment has considerably increased. 


FROM DRONTHEIM TO THE NORTH CAPE, 129 


Hammerfest, the capital of Finmark, situated on the west side of the island 
of Hvalé, in 70° 39’15”, is the most northern town in the world. Half a centu- 
ry since, it had but 44 inhabitants; at present its population amounts to 1200. 
As at Troms, very many of the houses, forming one long street winding round 
the shore, have grass sown on their roofs, which gives the latter the appearance 
of little plots of meadows. With us the expression, “he sleeps with grass above 
his head,” is equivalent to saying “he is in his grave;” but here it may only 
mean that he sleeps beneath the verdant roof of his daily home. Many large 
warehouses are built on piles projecting into the water, with landing-quays be- 
fore them; and numerous ranges of open sheds are filled with reindeer skins, 
wolf and bear skins, walrus tusks, reindeer horns, train-oil, and dried fish, ready 
for exportation. The chief home traftic of Hammerfest consists in barter with 
the Laps, who exchange their reindeer skins for brandy, tobacco, hardware, and 
cloth. Some enterprising merchants annually fit out vessels for walrus and 
seal hunting at Spitzbergen and Bear Island, but the principal trade is with 
Archangel, and is carried on entirely in “ lodjes,” or White Sea ships, with three 
single upright masts, each hoisting a huge try-sail. These vessels supply Ham- 
merfest with Russian rye, meal, candles, etc., and receive stock-fish and train-oil 
in exchange. Sometimes, also, an English ship arrives with a supply of coals. 

The fishing-grounds off the coast of Finmark, whose produce forms the sta- 
ple article of the merchants of Hammerfest, are scarcely inferior in importance to 
those of Lofoten, the number of cod taken here in 1866 amounting to 15,000,000. 
A great part of the fish is purchased by the Russians as it comes out of the 
water. Of the prepared cod, Spain takes the largest quantity, as in 1865 up- 
wards of 44,000,000 lbs. of clip-fish (nearly the whole yield for the year) was 
consigned to that country. Of the dried variety, 10,000,000 lbs. were exported 
to the Mediterranean, and upwards of 4,000,000 Ibs. more to Italy. Sweden 
and Holland come next in order, the supply in each case being over 5,000,000 
Ibs. Great Britain takes scarcely any stock-fish, but 1,500,000 lbs. of clip-fish, 
and the large export to the West Indies is almost entirely composed of the lat- 
ter article. 

The winter, though long and dark, has no terrors for the jolly Hammerfest- 
ers, for all the traders and shopkeepers form a united aristocracy, and rarely a 
night passes without a feast, a dance, and a drinking-bout. The day when the 
sun re-appears is one of general rejoicing; the first who sees the great luminary 
proclaims it with a loud voice, and every body rushes into the street to exchange 
congratulations with his neighbors. The island of Hvalé has a most dreary, ster- 
le aspect, and considerable masses of snow fill the ravines even in summer. 
The birch, however, is still found growing 620 feet above the sea, but the fir 
has disappeared. 

It may well be supposed that no stranger has ever sojourned in this interest- 
ing place, the farthest outpost of civilization towards the Pole, without visiting, 
or at least attempting to visit, the far-famed North Cape, situated about sixty 
miles from Hammerfest, on the island of Mageré, where a few Norwegians live 
in earthen huts, and still manage to rear a few heads of cattle. The voyage to 
this magnificent headland, which fronts the sea with a steep rock-wall nearly a 

9 


130 aah. THE POLAR WORLD. 


thousand feet high, is frequently difficult and precarious, nor can it be scaled 
without considerable fatigue; but the view from the summit amply rewards 
the trouble, and it is no small satisfaction to stand on the brink of the most 
northern promontory of Europe. 

“It is impossible,” says Mr. W. Hurton, “adequately to dorama thse emo- 
tion experienced by me as I stepped up to the dizzy verge. I only know that I 
devoutly returned thanks to the Almighty for thus permitting me to realize one 
darling dream of my boyhood. Despite the wind, which here blew violently 
and bitterly cold, I sat down, and wrapping my cloak around me, long contem- 
plated the spectacle of Nature in one of her sublimest aspects. I was truly 
alone. Not a living object was in sight; beneath my feet was the boundless 
expanse of ocean, with a sail or two on its bosom at an immense distance; 
above me was the canopy of heaven, flecked with fleecy cloudlets; the sun was 
Turidly gleaming over a broad belt of blood-red mist; the only sounds were the 
whistling of the wandering winds and the occasional plaintive scream of the 
hovering sea-fowl. The only living creature which came near me was a bee, 
which hummed merrily by. What did the busy insect seek there? Not a 
blade of grass grew, and the only vegetable matter on this point was a cluster 
of withered moss at the very edge of the awful precipice, and this I gathered, at 
considerable risk, as a memorial of the visit.” 


SPITZBERGEN—BEAR ISLAND—JAN MEYEN. 131 


MIDNIGHT SUN OFF SPITZBERGEN. 


CHAPTER X. 
SPITZBERGEN—BEAR ISLAND—JAN MEYEN. 


The west Coast of Spitzbergen.— Ascension of a Mountain by Dr. Scoresby.—His Excursion along the 
Coast.—A stranded Whale.—Magdalena Bay.—Multitudes of Sea-birds.—Animal Life.—Midnight 
Silence.— Glaciers.— A dangerous Neighborhood.— Interior Plateau.—Flora of Spitzbergen. —Its 
Similarity with that of the Alps above the Snow-line.—Reindeer.—The hyperborean Ptarmigan.— 
Fishes.—Coal.—Drift-wood.—Discovery of Spitzbergen by Barentz, Heemskerk, and Ryp.—Brilliant 
Period of the Whale-fishery.—Coffins.—Eight English Sailors winter in Spitzbergen, 1630.—Melan- 
choly Death of some Dutch Volunteers.—Russian Hunters.—Their Mode of wintering in Spitzber- 
gen.—Scharos in.—Walrus-ships fron Hammerfest and Troms6.—Bear or Cherie Island.—Bennet. 
—-Enormous Slanghtcr of Walruses.—Mildness of its Climate.-—Mount Misery.—Adventurous Boat- 
voyage of some Norwegian Sailors.—Jan Meyen.—Beerenberg. 


HE archipelago of Spitzbergen consists of five large islands: West Spitz- 
bergen, North-east Land; Stans Foreland, Barentz Land, Prince Charles 
Foreland ; and of a vast number of smaller ones, scattered around their coasts. 
Its surface is about equal to that of two-thirds of Scotland; its most southern 
point (76° 30’ N. lat.) lies nearer to the Pole than Melville Island; and Ross 
Islet, at its northern extremity (80° 49’ N. lat.), looks out upon the unknown 
ocean, which perhaps extends without interruption as far as the Straits of 
Bering. 
Of all the Arctic countries that have hitherto been discovered, Grinnell 


132 - - THE POLAR WORLD. 


Land and Washington alone lie nearer to the Pole; but while these ice-block- 
ed regions can only be reached with the utmost difficulty, the western and 
north-western coasts of Spitzbergen, exposed to the mild south-westerly winds, 
and to the influence of the Gulf Stream, are frequently visited, not only by 
walrus-hunters and Arctic explorers, but by amateur travellers and sportsmen. 

The eastern coasts are far less accessible, and in parts have never yet been 
accurately explored. As far as they are known, they are not so bold and in- 
dented as the western and north-western coasts, which, pr ojecting in mighty 
capes or opening a passage to deep fjords, have been gnawed into every varie- 
ty of fantastic form by the corroding power of an eternal winter, and justify, 
by their endless succession of jagged spikes and break-neck acclivities, the 
name of Spitzbergen, which its first Dutch discoverers gave to this land of 
“serrated peaks.” 

The mountains on the west coast are very steep, many of them inaccessible, 
and most of them dangerous to climb, either from the smooth hard snow with 
which they are encrusted even in summer, or from the looseness of the disin- 
tegrated stones which cover the parts deauded by the sun, and give way un- 
der the slightest pressure of the foot. 

More than one daring seaman has paid dearly for his temerity in venturing 
to scale these treacherous heights. The supercargo, or owner, of the very first 
Dutch whaler that visited Spitzbergen (1612) broke his neck in attempting to 
climb a steep mountain in Prince Charles Foreland, and Barentz very nearly 
lost several of his men under similar circumstances. Dr. Scoresby, who in the 
course of his whaling expeditions touched at Spitzbergen no less than seven- 
teen times, was more successful in scaling a mountain 3000 feet high, near 
Mitre Cape, though the approach to the summit was by a ridge so narrow that 
he could only advance by sitting astride upon its edge. But the panorama 
which he beheld, after having attained his object, amply repaid him for the 
danger and fatigue of clambering for several hours over loose stones, which at 
every step rolled with fearful rapidity into the abyss beneath. | 

“ The prospect,” says the distinguished naturalist, “ was most extensive and 
grand. A fine sheltered bay was seen to the east of us; an arm of the same 
on the north-east ; and the sea, whose glassy surface was unruffled by a breeze, 
formed an immense expanse on the west; the icebergs, rearing their proud crests 
almost to the tops of the mountains between which they were lodged, and de. 
fying the power of the solar beams, were scattered in vatious directions about 
the sea-coast and in the adjoining bays. Beds of snow and ice, filling extensive 
hollows and giving an enamelled coat to adjoining valleys, one of which, com- 
mencing at the foot of the mountain where we stood, extended in a continued 
line towards the north as far as the eye could reach; mountain rising above 
mountain, until by distance they dwindled into insignificance ; the whole con- 
trasted by a cloudless canopy of deepest azure, and enlightened by the rays of 
a blazing sun, and the effect aided by a feeling of danger—seated, as we were, 
on the pinnacle of a rock, almost surrounded by tremendous precipices ; all 
united to constitute a picture singularly sublime. 4 

“Our descent we found really a very hazardous, and in some instances a 


SPITZBERGEN—BEAR ISLAND—JAN MEYEN. 133 


painful undertaking. Every movement was a work of deliberation. Having, 
by much care and with some anxiety, made good our descent to the top of the 
secondary hills, we took our way down one of the steepest banks, and slid for- 
ward with great facility in a sitting posture. Towards the foot of the hill an 
expanse of snow stretched across the line of descent. This being loose and 
soft, we entered upon it without fear, but on reaching the middle of it, we 
came to a surface of solid ice, perhaps a hundred yards across, over which we 
launched with astonishing velocity, but happily escaped without injury. The 
men, whom we left below, viewed this latter movement with astonishment and 
fear.” 

After this perilous descent, Scoresby continued his excursion on the flat land 
next the sea, where he found scattered here and there many skulls and other 
bones of sea-horses, whales, narwhals, foxes, and seals. Two Russian lodges, 
formed of logs of pine, with a third in ruins, were also seen; the former, from 
a quantity of fresh chips about them and other appearances, gave evidence of 
having been recently inhabited. These huts were built upon a ridge of shingle 
adjoining the sea. Among the boulders heaped upon the shore, numerous sea- 
birds had built their nests or laid their eggs, which they defended with loud 
cries and determined courage against the attacks of gulls. The only insect he 
perceived was a small green fly, but the water along the coast was filled with 
medusze and shrimps. The strong north-west winds had covered the strand 
with large heaps of Fucus vesiculosus and Laminaria saccharina, the same 
which the storms also cast out upon our shores. 

The view of this high northern life was extremely interesting, but Dr. 
Scoresby was still further rewarded by the discovery of a dead whale, found 
stranded on the beach, which, though much swollen and not a little putrid, 
proved a prize worth at least £400. By a harpoon found in its body, it appear- 
ed to have been struck by some of the fishers on the Elbe, and having escaped 
from them, it had probably stranded itself on the spot where it was found. 
When the first incision was made, the oil gushed forth like a fountain. It was 
a slow and laborious work to transport the blubber to the ship, which on ac- 
count of the dangerous nature of the coast was obliged to remain two miles 
off at sea. After five boat-loads had safely been brought on board, the wind 
suddenly changed, so that the ship was driven far out to sea, and the boat 
reached her with great difficulty. 

Of the numerous fjords of Spitzbergen, once the busy resort of whole fleets 
of whalers, and now but rarely visited by man, none has been more accurately 
described by modern Arctic voyagers than the magnificent harbor of Magda- 
lena Bay. Here the Dorothea and the Trent anchored in 1818, on their way 
to the North Pole; here also the French naturalists, who had been sent out in 
the corvette La Recherche (1835-36) to explore the high northern latitudes, 
sojourned for several weeks. 

The number of the sea-birds is truly astonishing. On the ledges of a high 
rock at the head of the bay Beechey saw the little auks (Arctica alle) extend 
in an uninterrupted line full three miles in length, and so closely congregated 
that about thirty fell at a single shot. He estimated their numbers at about 


134 | THE POLAR WORLD. : 


4,000,000. When they took flight they darkened the air; and at the distance 
of four miles their chorus could distinctly be heard. | 
On a fine summer’s day, the bellowing of the walruses and the hoarse bark 


—— 


— 


yf 
ay, 
J 


MAGDALENA BAY, SPITZBERGEN, 


of the seals are mingled with the shrill notes of the auks, divers, and gulls. 
Although all these tones produce a by no means harmonious concert, yet they 
have a pleasing effect, as denoting the happy feelings of so many creatures. 


SPITZBERGEN—BEAR ISLAND—JAN MEYEN. 135 


When the sun verges to the pole, every animal becomes mute, and a silence 
broken only by the bursting of a glacier reigns over the whole bay—a remark- 
able contrast to the tropical regions, where Nature enjoys her repose during 
the noonday heat, and it is only after sunset that life awakens in the forest 
and the field. 
_ Four glaciers reach down this noble inlet: one, called the Wagon Way, is 
7000 feet across at its terminal cliff, which is 300 feet high, presenting a mag- 
nificent wall of ice. But the whole scene is constructed on so colossal a scale 
that it is only on a near approach that the glaciers of Magdalena Bay appear 
in all their imposing grandeur. In clear weather the joint effect of the ice un- 
der the water, and the reflection of the glacier-wall above, causes a remarkable 
optical delusion. ‘The water assumes a milk-white color, the seals appear to 
gambol in a thick cream-like liquid, and the error only becomes apparent when, 
on leaning over the side of the boat, the spectator looks down into the trans- 
parent depth below. 

It is extremely dangerous to approach these cliffs of ice, as every now and 
then large blocks detach themselves from the mass, and frequently even a con- 
cussion of the air is enough to make them fall. 

During the busy period of Spitzbergen history, when its bay used to be fre- 
quented by whalers who anchored under the glacier-walls, these ice-avalanches 
often had disastrous consequences. Thus, in the year 1619, an English ship 
was driven by a storm into Bell Sound. While it was passing under a preci- 
pice of ice, a prodigious mass came thundering down upon it, broke the masts, 
and threw the ship so violently upon one side that the captain and part of the 
crew were swept into the sea. The captain escaped unhurt, but two sailors 
were killed and several others wounded. 

One day a gun was fired from a boat of the Trent when about half a mile 
from one of the glaciers of Magdalena Bay. Immediately after the report of 
the musket, a noise resembling thunder was heard in the direction of the ice- 
stream, and in a few seconds more an enormous mass detached itself from. its 
front, and fell into the sea. The men in the boat, supposing themselves to be 
beyond the reach of its influence, were tranquilly contemplating the magnificent 
sight, when suddenly a large wave came sweeping over the bay, and cast their 
little shallop to a distance of ninety-six feet upon the beach. 

Another time, when Franklin and Beechey had approached one of these ice- 
walls, a huge fragment suddenly slid from its side, and fell with a crash into 
the sea. At first the detached mass entirely disappeared under the waters, cast- 
ing up clouds of spray, but soon after it shot up again at least 100 feet above 
the surface, and then kept rocking several minutes to andfro. When at length 
the tumult subsided, the block was found to measure no less than 1500 feet in 
circumference ; it projected 60 feet above the water, and its weight was calcu- 
lated at more than 400,000 tons. 

Besides the glaciers of Magdalena Bay, Spitzbergen has many others that 
protrude their crystal walls down to the water’s edge; and yet but few ice- 
bergs, and the largest not to be compared with the productions of Baffin’s Bay, 
are drifted from the shores of Spitzbergen into the open sea. The reason is 


136 - THE POLAR WORLD. 


that the glaciers usually terminate where the sea is shallow, so that no very 
large mass if dislodged can float away, and they are at the same time so fre- 
quently dismembered by heavy swells that they can not attain any great size. 

The interior of Spitzbergen has never been explored. According to the 
Swedish naturalists,* who climbed many of the highest mountains in various 
parts of the coast, all the central regions of the archipelago form a level ice- 
plateau, interrupted only here and there by denuded rocks, projecting like isl- 
ands from the crystal sea in which they are imbedded. The height of this pla- 
teau above the level of the ocean is in general from 1500 to 2000 feet, and from its 
frozen solitudes descend the various glaciers above described. During the sum- 
mer months, the radiation of the sun at Spitzbergen is always very intense, the 
thermometer in some sheltered situations not seldom rising at noon to 62°, 67°, 
or even 73°. Even at midnight, at the very peak of the high mountain ascend- 
ed by Scoresby, the power of the sun produced a temperature several degrees 
above the freezing-point, and occasioned the discharge of streams of water from 
the snow-capped summit. Hence, though even in the three warmest months the 
temperature of Spitzbergen does not average more that 344°, yet in the more 
southern aspects, and particularly where the warmth of the sun is absorbed and 
radiated by black rock-walls, the mountains are not seldom bared at an eleva- 
tion nearly equal to that of the snow-line of Norway, and various Alpine plants 
and grasses frequently flourish, not only in sheltered situations at the foot of 
the hills, but even to a considerable height, wherever the disintegrated rocks 
lodge and form a tolerably good soil. 

The Flora of Spitzbergen consists of about ninety-three species of flowering 
or phenogamous plants, which generally grow in isolated tufts or patches; but 
the mosses which carpet the moist lowlands, and the still more hardy lichens, 
which invest the rocks with their thin crusts or scurfs as far as the last limits 
of vegetation, are much more numerous. Some of the plants of Spitzbergen 
are also found on the Alps beyond the snow-line, at elevations of from 9000 to 
10,000 feet above the level of the sea. According to Mr. Martins, nothing can 
give a better idea of Spitzbergen than the vast circus of névé, in the centre of 
which rises the triangular rock known to the visitors of Chamouny as the Jardin 
or the Courtil. Let the tourist, placed on this spot at a time when the sun 
rises but little above the horizon, or better still, when wreaths of mist hang 
over the neighboring mountains, fancy the sea bathing the foot of the amphi- 
theatre of which he occupies the centre, and he has a complete Spitzbergen 
prospect before him. Supposing’him to be a botanist, the sight of the Ranuncu- 
lus glacialis, Cerastium. alpinum, Arenaria biflora, and Hrigeron unifiorus 
will still further increase the illusion. 

The only esculent plant of Spitzbergen is the Cochlearia fenestrata, which 
here loses its acrid principles, and can be eaten as a salad. The grasses which 

* Within the last few years, no less than three scientific expeditions have been sent out to Spitz 
bergen at the expense of the Swedish Government. During the summer of 1858, Messrs. Otto Torell, 
Guennerstedt, and Nordenskjold visited the western parts of the archipelago. In 1861 the whole coast, 
from Ice Sound to Dove Bay in North-east Land was accurately investigated by Messrs. Torell, Maim- 


gren, Chydenius, etc., and in 1864 Messrs. Nordenskjold, Duner, and Malmgren visited the southern 
shores and Wjde Jan’s Water. A fourth expedition has just left the port of Gothenburg (June, 1868) 


SPITZBERGEN—BEAR. ISLAND—JAN MEYEN. 137 


Keilhau found growing near some Russian huts in Stans Foreland are during 
the summer a precious resourze for the reindeer, which, though extremely shy, 
make their appearance from time to time in every part of the land from the 
Seven Islands to South Cape, and are more abundant than could have been ex: 
pected. The Polar bears are probably their only native enemies on these isl- 
ands, and their fleetness furnishes them with ample means of escape from a 
pursuer so clumsy on land. Lord Mulgrave’s crew killed fifty deer on Vogel- 
sang, a noted hunting-place, and on Sir Edward Parry’s polar expedition about 
seventy deer were shot in Treurenberg Bay by inexperienced deer-stalkers, and 
without the aid of dogs. During the winter these large herbivora live on the 
Icelandic moss which they scent under the snow, but it may well be asked where 
they find shelter in a naked wilderness without a single tree. In May and 
June they are so thin as scarcely to be eatable, but in July they begin to get 
fat, and then their flesh would everywhere be reckoned a delicacy. 

Besides the reindeer, the only land-quadrupeds of Spitzbergen are the Polar 
bear, the Arctic fox, and a small field-mouse, which in summer has a mottled, 
and in winter a white fur. 

Of the birds, the hyperborean ptarmigan (Lagopus hyperborea), which 
easily procures its food under the snow, undoubtedly winters in Spitzbergen, 
and probably also the lesser red-pole, which perhaps finds grass seeds enough 
for its subsistence during the long polar nights, while the snow-bunting (Plec- 
trophanes nivalis), and the twenty species of water-fowl and waders that fre- 
quent the shores of the high northern archipelago during the summer, all mi- 
grate southward when the long summer’s day verges to its end. 

Until very lately the Spitzbergen waters were supposed to be poor in fishes, 
though the numerous finbacks, which towards the end of summer frequent the 
southern and south-western coasts, and, unlike the large smooth-back whales, 
chiefly live on herrings, as well as the troops of salmon-loving white dolphin 
seen about the estuaries of the rivers, sufficiently proved the contrary, not to 
mention the herds of seals, and the hosts of ichthyophagous sea-birds that breed 
on every rocky ledge of the archipelago. Phipps and Scoresby mention only 
three or four species of fishes occurring in the seas of Spitzbergen, while the 
Swedish naturalist Malmgren, the first who seems to have paid real attention to 
this interesting branch of zoology, collected no less than twenty-three species in 
1861 and 1864. The northern shark (Scymnus microcephalus) is so abundant 
that of late its fishery has proved highly remunerative. The first ship which 
was fitted out for this purpose in 1863 by Hilbert Pettersen, of Tromsé, returned 
from Bell and Ice Sounds with a full cargo of sharks’ livers, and in 1865 the 
same enterprising merchant sent out no less than five shark-ships to Spitzbergen. 
The cod, the common herring, the shell-fish, the halibut have likewise been 
caught in the waters of the archipelago, and there is every reason to believe 
that their fishery, which has hitherto been entirely neglected, might be pursued 
with great success. | 

The mineral riches of Spitzbergen are, of course, but little known. Coal of 
an excellent quality, which might easily be worked, as it nearly crops out on 
the surface at a short distance from the sea, has, however, been discovered 


138 . i THE POLAR WORLD. 


lately by Mr. Blomstrand in King’s Bay, and similar strata exist in various parts 
of Bell Sound and Ice Sound. Large quantities of drift-wood, probably from 
the large Siberian rivers, are deposited by the currents, particularly on the 
north coasts of North-east Land, and on the southern coasts of Stans Fore- 
land. In English Bay Lord Dufferin saw innumerable logs of unhewn tim- 
ber, mingled with which lay pieces of broken spars, an oar, a boat’s flagstaff, 
and a few shattered fragments of some long-lost vessel’s planking. 

Most probably the Norwegians had their attention directed at a very early 
period to the existence of a land lying to the north of Finmarken by the troops 
of migratory birds which they saw flying northward in spring, and by the 
casual visits of sea-bears, which the drift-ice carried to the south. 'There can 
be no doubt that they were the first discoverers of Spitzbergen, but their his- 
tory contains no positive records of the fact, and it was not before the sixteenth 
century that Europe first became acquainted with that desolate archipelago. 
Sir Hugh Willoughby may possibly have seen it in 1559, but it is certain that 
on June 19, 1596, Barentz, Heemskerke,.and Ryp, who had sailed in two ships 
from Amsterdam to discover the north-eastern passage to India, landed on its 
western coast, and gave it the name it bears to the present day. In the year 
1607 it was visited by the unfortunate Henry Hudson, and four years later the 
first English whalers were fitted out by the Russia Company in London to fish. 
in the bays of Spitzbergen, or East Greenland, as it was at that time called, 
being supposed to be the eastern prolongation of that vast island. Here our 
countrymen met with Dutchmen, Norwegians, and Biscayans from Bayonne 
and the ports of Northern Spain, and commercial rivalry soon led to the usual 
quarrels. In the year 1613 James I. granted the Russia Company a patent, 
giving them the exclusive right to fish in the Spitzbergen waters, and seven 
ships of war were sent out to enforce their pretensions. The Dutch, the Nor- 
wegians, and the Biscayans were driven away; a cross with the name of the 
King of England was erected on the shore, and Spitzbergen received the name 
of “ King James his Newland.” This triumph, however, was but of short du- 
ration, and after a struggle,in which none of the combatants gained any decis- 
ive advantage, all parties came at last to an amicable agreement. The English 
received for their share the best stations on the south-western coast, along with 
English Bay and Magdalena Bay. The Dutch were obliged to retreat to the 
_ north, and chose Amsterdam Island, with Smeerenberg Bay, as the seat of their 
operations. The Danes or Norwegians established their head-quarters on 
Dane’s Island; the Hamburgers, who also came in for their share, in Ham- 
burg Bay ; and the French or Biscayans on the north coast, in Red Bay. At 
present a right or smooth-backed whale rarely shows itself in the Spitzbergen 
waters, but at that time it was so abundant that frequently no less than forty 
whalers used to anchor in a single bay, and send out their boats to kill these 
cetaceans, who came there for the purpose of casting their young in the shel- 
tered friths and channels. The fat of the captured whales was immediately 
boiled in large kettles on the shore, and the bays of Spitzbergen presented a 
most animated spectacle during the summer season. 

Numerous coffins—an underground burial being impossible in this frost 


SPITZBERGEN—BEAR ISLAND—JAN MEYEN. 139 


BURIAL IN SPITZBERGEN. 


hardened earth—still bear witness to those busy times, and also to the great 
mortality among the fishermen, caused doubtless by their intemperate habits. 
They are particularly abundant at Smeerenberg, where Admiral Beechey saw 
upwards of one thousand of them; boards with English inscriptions were 
erected over a few, but the greater number were Dutch, and had been deposited 
in the eighteenth century. Some coffins having been opened, the corpses were 
found in a state of perfect preservation, and even the woollen caps and stock- 
ings of the mariners, who might perhaps have rested for more than a century 
on this cold earth, were still apparently as new as if they had been but recently 
put on. 

In the seventeenth century the English and the Dutch made several at- 
tempts to establish permanent settlements in Spitzbergen. The Russia Com- 
pany tried to engage volunteers by the promise of a liberal pay, and as none 
came forward, a free pardon was offered to criminals who would undertake to 
winter in Bell Sound. <A few wretches, tired of confinement, accepted the pro- 
posal, but when the fleet was about to depart, and they saw the gloomy hills, 
and felt the howling north-eastern gales, their hearts failed them, and they en- 
treated the captain who had charge of them to take them back to London and 
let them be hanged. Their request to be taken back was complied with, but 
the company generously interceded for them, and obtained their pardon. 

Some time after, in the year 1630, an English whaler landed eight men in 
Bell Sound to hunt reindeer. They remained on shore during the night, but 
meanwhile a storm had arisen, and on the following morning their ship had 


140 . THE POLAR WORLD. 


vanished out of sight. It was towards the end of August, and they had no hope 
of rescue at this advanced period of the year. | | 

Their despair may be imagined, but they soon recovered their courage, and 
wisely determined to make preparations for the impending winter, instead of 
losing time in useless lamentations. ‘Their first care was to lay in a stock of 
food, and in a short time they had killed nineteen reindeer and four bears. 
Fortunately they found in Bell Sound the necessary materials for the erection 
of a hut. A large shed fifty feet long and thirty-eight broad had been built 
as a workshop for the men of the Russia Company, and they very judiciously 
constructed their small hut of stones and thick planks within this inclosed 
space. They thus gained a better protection against the icy wind and room 
for exercise during stormy weather, one of the best preservatives against the 
scurvy. They made their beds and winter dresses of the skins of the animals 
they had killed, sewing them together with needles made of bone splinters, and 
using disentangled rope-ends as-thread. 

Their hut was ready by September 12, and to preserve their supply of meat 
as long as possible, they lived four days of the week on the offal of whales’ fat 
which lay scattered. about in great plenty. From October 26 to February 15 
they saw no sun, and from the 13th to the 31st of December no twilight. The 
new year began with excessive cold: every piece of metal they touched stuck 
to their fingers like glue, and their skin became blistered when exposed to the 
air. The re-appearance of the sun was as a resurrection from death. To in- 
crease their joy, they saw two bears on the ice, one of which they killed, but 
they found, what has since been frequently experienced by others, that the 


——— 
—— 


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AD \ 
es yy 


ARCTIC FOX. 


SPITZBERGEN—BEAR ISLAND—JAN MEYEN. 141 


liver of the animal has poisonous qualities, or is at least very unwholesome, for, 
after eating it, they were all attacked with a kind of eruptive fever, and their 
skin peeled off. Towards the middle of March their provisions were well-nigh 
exhausted, but the Polar bears appearing more frequently, replenished their 
stock. Soon also the migratory birds arrived from the south, the foxes crept 
out of their burrows, and many were caught in traps. On June 5 the ice be- 
gan to break up, and on the following morning one-half of the bay was open. 
A gale forced them to seek the shelter of their hut. There, seated round the 
fire, they spoke of their approaching delivery, when suddenly a loud halloo 
was heard. They immediately rushed out into the open air, and hardly be- 
lieved their eyesight, for they were greeted by their comrades of the previ- 
ous summer, and saw their own well-known ship at anchor in the bay. Thus 
were these brave-hearted men rescued after a ten months’ exile in the lati- 
tude of 77°. 

‘The possibility of wintering in Spitzbergen having thus been proved, some 
volunteers belonging to the Dutch fleet were induced by certain emoluments 
to attempt the same enterprise on Amsterdam Island; but, less fortunate than 
their predecessors, they all fell victims to the scurvy. A diary which they 
left behind recorded the touching history of their sufferings. “Four of us,” 
these were its last words, “are still alive, stretched out flat upon the floor, and 
might still be able to eat if one of us had but the strength to rise and fetch 
some food and fuel, but we are all so weak, and every movement is so painful, 
that we are incapable of stirring. We constantly pray to God soon to release 
us from our sufferings, and truly we can not live much longer without food 
and warmth. None of us is able to help the others, and each must bear his 
burden as well as he can.” 

Since that time both the English and the Dutch have given up the idea of 
forming permanent settlements in Spitzbergen, but scarcely a year passes that 
some Russians and Norwegians do not winter in that high northern land. As 
far back as the seventeenth century, the former used to send out their clumsy 
but strongly-built “lodjes ” of from 60 to 160 tons from the ports of Archan- 
gel, Mesen, Onega, Kola, and other places bordering the White Sea, to chase 
the various animals of Spitzbergen, the reindeer, the seal, the beluga, but. chief- 
ly the walrus, the most valuable of all. These vessels leave home in July, or 
as soon as the navigation of the White Sea opens, and as the shortness of the 
season hardly allows them to return in the same year, they pass the winter in 
some sheltered bay. Their first care on landing is to erect a large cross on the 
shore, a ceremony they repeat on leaving, and such is their religious faith that 
under the protection of that holy symbol they mock all the terrors of the Arec- 
tic winter. Near the place where their vessels are laid up, they build a large 
hut from twenty to twenty-five feet square, which is used as a station and mag- 
azine ; but the huts used by the men who go in quest of skins, and which are 
erected at distances of from ten to fifty versts along the shore, are only seven or 
eight feet square. The smaller huts are usually occupied by two or three men, 
who take care to provide themselves from the store-house with the necessary 
provisions for the winter. Scoresby visited several of these huts, some con- 


142 THE POLAR WORLD. 


structed of logs, others of deal two inches in thickness. They are of the same 
kind as those used by the peasants in Russia, and, being taken out in pieces, 
are erected with but little trouble in the most convenient situation. The stoves 
are built with bricks, or with clay found in the country. During the stay of 
the hunters, they employ themselves in killing seals or walruses in the water, 
and bears, foxes, deer, or whatever else they meet with on land. Each ship is 
furnished with provisions for eighteen months, consisting of rye flour for bread, 
oatmeal, barley-meal, peas, salt beef, salt cod, and salt halibut, together with 
curdled milk, honey, and linseed oil; besides which, they enjoy the flesh of the 
animals which they kill. Their drink consists chiefly of guas, a national bey- 
erage made from rye flour and water; malt or spirituous liquors being entirely 
forbidden, to prevent drunkenness, as, when they were allowed it, they drank 
so immoderately that their work was often altogether neglected. Their fuel 
for the most part is brought with them from Russia, and drift-wood is used 
for the same purpose. 

The hunters, seldom travelling far in winter, make their short excursions on 
foot on snow-skates, and draw their food after them on hand-sledges. Not sel- 
dom they are overtaken by terrific snowstorms, which force them to throw 
themselves flat upon the ground, and sometimes even cost them their lives. 
Their best preservation against the scurvy is bodily exercise; they also use the 
Cochlearia fenestrata, which grows wild in the country, either eating it without 
any preparation, or drinking the liquor prepared from it by infusion in water. 
Yet, in spite of all their precautions, they often fall a prey to this terrible 
scourge. In the year 1771, Mr. Steward, of Whitby, landed in King’s Bay to 
gather drift-wood, and found a Russian hut. After having vainly called for ad- 
mittance, they opened it, and found a corpse stretched out on the ground, its 
face covered with green mould. Most likely the unfortunate man, having bur- 
ied all his comrades, had, as the last survivor, found no one to perform the same 
kind office for himself. Generally the Russian hunters, after spending the win- 
ter in Spitzbergen, return home in the following August or September; but 
their stop is often prolonged during several years; and Scharostin, a venerable 


Russian, who died in 1826 in Ice Sound, is deservedly remarkable for having 


spent no less than thirty-two winters of his long life in that high northern land, 
where he once remained during fifteen consecutive years. Surely this man 
ought to have been crowned king of Spitzbergen— 


On a throne of rocks, in a robe of clouds, 
With a diadem of snow! 


Every year, at the beginning of summer, about a dozen vessels leave the ports 
of Hammerfest and Tromsé for Spitzbergen. Formerly it was a very common 
thing for them to procure three cargoes of walrus and seals in a season, and less 
than two full cargoes was considered very bad luck indeed; now, however, it is 
a rare thing to get more than one cargo in a season, and many vessels return 
home after four months’ absence only half full. Yet, in spite of this diminution, 
the numbers of walruses still existing in that country are very considerable, par- 
ticularly on the northern banks and skerries, which are only accessible in open 


SPITZBERGEN—BEAR ISLAND—JAN MEYEN. 143 


seasons, or perhaps once in every three or four summers, when the persecuted 
animals get a little time to breed and replenish their numbers. 


1) 
hh 
ML 


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He EAA 
ii Hil Hill ili i 


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SSS 


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“SOUTIVM BDHL JO ASVHO 


About midway between Hammerfest and Spitzbergen lies Bear Island, orig. 
inally discovered by Barentz on June 9, 1596. Seven years later, Stephen Ben- 


144 .THE POLAR WORLD. 


net, a shipmaster in the service of the Muscovy Company, while on a voyage of 
discovery in a north-easterly direction, likewise saw Bear Island on August 16. 
Ignorant of its previous discovery by Barentz, he called it Cherie Island, after 
Sir Francis Cherie, a member of the company, and to this day both names are 
used. 

Bennet found some walruses on its desert shores, and returned in the fol- 
lowing year with a vessel fitted out by a merchant of the name of Welden, to wage 
war with these sea-monsters. His first operations were not very successful. 
Of a herd of at least a thousand walruses, he killed no more than fifteen, and a 
later attack upon an equally enormous troop raised the entire number of his 
victims to no more than fifty. Their tusks alone were brought away, and along 
with some loose ones collected on the beach formed the chief produce of the ex- 
pedition. At first the unwieldy creatures were fired at, but as the bullets made 
no great impression on their thick hides, grapeshot was now discharged into 
their eyes, and the blinded animals were finally killed with axes. 

In the following year Welden himself proceeded to Bear Island, and the art 
of walrus-killing gradually improving by practice, this second expedition 
proved far more profitable than the first. Care had also been taken to provide 
large kettles and the necessary fuel to boil their fat on the spot, so that besides 
the tusks a quantity of oil was gained. In 1606 Bennet again appeared on the 
field of action, and the dexterity of the walrus-hunters had now become so great 
that in less than six hours they killed more than 700, which yielded twenty-two 
tons of oil. During the following voyage, Welden, who seems to have acted in 
partnership with Bennet, each taking his turn, killed no less than 1000 walruses 
in seven hours. Thus Bear Island proved a mine of wealth to these enterpris- 
ing men, and though the walruses are not now so abundant as in the good old 
times, yet they are still sufficiently numerous to attract the attention of specula- 
tors. Every year several expeditions proceed to its shores from the Russian 
and Norwegian ports, and generally some men pass the winter in huts erected 
on its northern and south-eastern coasts. 

Considering its high northern latitude of 75°, the climate of Bear Island is un- 
commonly mild. According to the reports of some Norwegian walrus-hunters, 
who remained there from 1824 to 1826, the cold was so moderate during the 
first winter that, until the middle of November, the snow which fell in the night 
melted during the daytime, It rained at Christmas, and seventy walruses were 
killed during Christmas week by the light of the moon and that of the Aurora, 
Even in February the weather was so mild that the men were able to work in 
the open air under the same latitude as Melville Island, where mercury is a solid 
body during five months of the year. The cold did not become intense be- 
fore March, and attained its maximum in April, when the sea froze fast round 
the island, and the white bears appeared which had been absent during the 
whole winter. The second winter was more severe than the first, but even then 
the sea remained open until the middle of November—evidently in consequence 
of the prevailing south-westerly winds. The greater part of Bear Island is a 
desolate plateau raised about 100 or 200 feet above the sea. Along its western 
shores rises a group of. three‘mountains, supposed to be about 200 feet high, 


SPITZBERGEN—BEAR ISLAND—JAN MEYEN, 145 


and towards the south it terminates in a solitary hill to which the first discov- 
erers gave the appropriate name of Mount Misery. At the northern foot. of 
this terrace-shaped elevation the plateau is considerably depressed, and forms 
a kind of oasis, where grass (Poa pratensis), enlivened with violet cardamines 
and white polygonums and saxifragas, grows to half a yard in height. The 
general character of the small island is, however, a monotony of stone and mo- 
rass, with here and there a patch of snow, while the coasts have been worn by 
the action of the waves into a variety of fantastic shapes, bordered in some parts 
by a flat narrow strand, the favorite resort of the walrus, and in others afford- 
ing convenient breeding-places to hosts of sea-birds. In Coal Bay, four parallel 
seams of coal, about equidistant from each other, are visible on the vertical rock- 
walls, but they are too thin to be of any practical use. 

Bear Island has no harbors, and is consequently a rather dangerous place to 
visit. During the first expedition sent out from Hammerfest, it happened that 
some of the men who had been landed were abandoned by their ship, which was 
to have cruised along the coast while they were hunting on shore. But the 
current, the wind, and a dense fog so confused the ignorant captain that, leaving 
them to their fate, he at once returned to Hammerfest. When the men became 
aware of their dreadful situation, they determined to leave the island in their 
boat, and taking with them a quantity of young walrus flesh, they luckily reach- 
ed Northkyn after a voyage of eight days. It seems almost incredible that 
these same people immediately after revisited Bear Island in the same ship, and 


A GLIMPSE OF JAN MEYEN’S ISLAND. 


19 


146 THE POLAR WORLD. 


were again obliged to return to Norway in the same boat. The ship had an. 


chored in the open bay of North Haven, and having taken in its cargo, consist- 


ing of 180 walruses, which had all been killed in a few days, was about to leave, 
when a storm arose, which cast her ashore and broke her to pieces. The Rus- 
sians had built some huts in the neighborhood, and the provisions might probably 
have been saved, but rather than winter in the island the crew resolved to ven- 
ture home again in the boat. This was so small that one-half of them were 
obliged to lie down on the bottom while the others rowed ; the autumn was al- 
ready far advanced, and they encountered so savage a storm that an English 
ship they fell in with at the North Cape vainly endeavored to take them on 
board. After a ten days’ voyage, however, they safely arrived at Mageré, thus 


proving the truth of the old saying that “ Fortune favors the bold.” The dis- 


tance from Bear Island to North Cape is about sixty nautical miles. 


In a straight line between Spitzbergen and Iceland lies Jan Meyen, which, 
exposed to the cold Greenland current, almost perpetually veiled with mists, and 
surrounded by drift ice, would scarcely ever be disturbed in its dreary solitude 
but for the numerous walrus and seal herds that frequent its shores. The ice- 
bears and the wild sea-birds are its only inhabitants ; once some Dutchmen at- 
tempted to winter there, but the scurvy swept them all away. Its most remark- 
able features are the volcano Esk and the huge mountain Beerenberg, towering 
to the height of 6870 feet, with seven enormous glaciers sweeping down its 
sides into the sea. 


a 


NOVA ZEMBLA. 147 


CHAPTER XL 
NOVA ZEMBLA. 


The Sea of Kara.—Loschkin.—Rosmysslow.—Litke. —Krotow.—Pachtussow.—Sails along the east- 
ern Coast of the Southern Island to Matoschkin Schar.—His second Voyage and Death.—Meteoro- 
logical Observations of Ziwolka.—The cold Summer of Nova Zembla.—Von Baer’s scientific Voyage 
to Nova Zembla.—His Adventures in Matoschkin Schar.—Storm in Kostin Schar.—Sea Bath and 
votive Cross.—Botanical Observations.—A natural Garden.—Solitude and Silence.—A Bird Ba- 
zar.—Hunting Expeditions of the Russians to Nova Zembla. 

HE sea of Kara, bounded on the west by Nova Zembla, and on the east by 

the vast peninsula of Tajmurland, is one of the most inhospitable parts of 
the inhospitable Polar Ocean. For all the ice which the east-westerly marine 
currents drift during the summer along the Siberian coasts accumulates in that 
immense land-locked bay, and almost constantly blocks the gate of Kara, as 
the straits have been named that separate Nova Zembla from the island of 

Waigatz. 

The rivers Jenissei and Obi, which remain frozen over until late in June, 
likewise discharge their vast masses of ice into the gulf of Kara, so that we 
can not wonder that the eastern coast of Nova Zembla, fronting a sea which 
opposes almost insuperable obstacles to the Arctic navigator, has remained al- 
most totally unknown until 1833, while the western coast, exposed to the Gulf 
Stream, and bathed, in summer at least, by a vast open ocean, has long been 
traced in all its chief outlines on the map. 

The walrus-hunter Loschkin is indeed said to have sailed along the whole 
eastern coast of Nova Zembla in the last century, but we have no authentic 
records of his voyage, and at a later period Rosmysslow, who, penetrating 
through Mathew’s Straits, or Matoschkin Schar, found Nova Zembla to consist 
of two large islands, investigated but a small part of those unknown shores. 
From 1819 to 1824 the Russian Government sent out no less than five expedi- 
tions to the sea of Kara; the famous circumnavigator Admiral Ltitke en- 
deavored no less than four times to advance along the eastern coast of Nova 
Zembla, but all these efforts proved fruitless against the superior power of a 
stormy and ice-blocked sea. Yet in spite of these repeated failures, two enter- 
prising men—Klokow, a chief inspector of forests, and Brandt, a rich merchant 
of Archangel—fitted out three ships in 1832 for the purpose of solving the 
mysteries of the sea of Kara. 

One of these vessels, commanded by Lieutenant Krotow, was to penetrate 
through Mathew’s Straits, and, having reached their eastern outlet, to sail thence 
across the sea to the mouth of the Obi and the Jenissei; but nothing more 
was heard of the ill-fated ship after her first separation from her companions at 
Kanin Nos. | 

The second ship, which was to sail along the western coast of Nova Zem- 
bla, and, if possible, to round its northern extremity, was more fortunate, for 


148 THE POLAR WORLD. 


though it never reached that point, it returned home with a rich cargo of wal- 
rus-teeth. 

The third ship, finally, under Pachtussow’s command, was to penetrate 
through the gate of Kara, and from thence to proceed along the eastern coast. 
When Pachtussow, according to his instructions, had reached the straits, all 
his efforts to effect a passage proved ineffectual. It was in vain he more than 
once steered to the east; the stormy weather and large masses of drift ice con- 
stantly threw him back, the short summer approached its end, and thus he was 
obliged to put off all further attempts to the next year, and to settle for the 
winter in Rocky Bay within the gate of Kara. A small hut was built out of 
the drift-wood found on the spot, and joined by means of a gallery of sail-cloth 
to a bathing-room, that indispensable comfort of a Russian. The laying of 
traps, in which many Arctic foxes were caught, and the carrying of the wood, 
which had sometimes to be fetched from a distance of ten versts, occupied the 
crew during fair weather. In April a party under Pachtussow’s command 
set out for the purpose of exploring the western coast. On this expedition 
they were overtaken on the twenty-fourth day of the month by a terrible snow- 
storm, which obliged them to throw themselves flat upon the ground to avoid 
being swept away by the wind. They remained three days without food under 
the snow, as it was impossible for them to reach the dépét of provisions buried 
a few versts off. 

On June 24 the gate of Kara was at length open, and Pachtussow would 
gladly have sailed through the passage, but his ship was fast in the ice. He 
therefore resolved, in order to make the best use of his time, to examine the 
eastern coast in a boat, and reached in this manner the small Sawina River, 
where he found a wooden cross with the date of 1742. Most likely it had 
been placed there by Loschkin, his predecessor on the path of discovery. He 
now returned with his boat to the ship, which, after an imprisonment of 297 
days, was at length, July 11, able to leave the bay. 

On Stadolski Island, near Cape Menschikoff, they found a wretched hut, 
which proved that they were not the first to penetrate into these deserts. But 
the hut was tenantless,and a number of human bones were strewn over the 
ground. One of Pachtussow’s companions now related that in 1822 a Samo- 
jede, named Mawei, had gone with his wife and children to Nova Zembla, and 
had never returned. On gathering the bones, they were found to compose the 
skeletons of two children and of a woman, but no remains could be discovered 
of the man. Most likely the unfortunate savage had been surprised by a snow- 
storm, or had fallen a prey to a hungry ice-bear, on one of his excursions, and 
his family, deprived of their support, had died of hunger in the hut. 

_ On July 19 they reached the river Stawinen, and on the 21st Liitke’s Bay, 
where a number of white dolphins and seals of an unknown species were found. 
Here contrary winds arrested the progress of the navigators during eighteen 
days. On August 13 Pachtussow entered Matoschkin Schar, and reached its 
western mouth on the 19th, Thus he succeeded at least in circumnavigating 
the southern island, which no one had achieved before him, and as his exhaust- 
ed provisions did not allow him to spend a second winter in Nova Zembla, he 


NOVA ZEMBLA. 149 


resolved to return at once to Archangel. But contrary winds drove him to 
the island of Kolgujew, and thence to the mouth of the Petschora, where, on 
September 3, a dreadful storm at length shattered his crazy vessel. ‘The crew 
found refuge in a hut, but this also was filled by the water; so that they had 
to wade several versts before they could reach the dry land. 

Pachtussow now travelled by way of Archangel and Onega to St. Peters- 
burg, where he communicated the results of his journey to the Minister of 
Marine, who gave him a most flattering reception, well merited by his ability 
and courage. ‘The success he had already obtained encouraged the hope that 
a second expedition would be able to complete the undertaking, and consequent- 
ly, by an imperial order, the schooner Krotow and a transport were fitted out, 
with which Pachtussow once more sailed from the port of Archangel on 
August 5. His instructions were to winter in Mathew’s Straits, and thence to 
attempt in the following summer the exploration of the eastern coast of the 
northern island. The winter hut he built at the western entrance of the straits 
was ready for his reception by October 20. It was of stately dimensions, for a 
Nova Zembla residence—25 feet long, 21 broad, 8 feet high in the centre, 5 at 
the sides, and consisted of two compartments, one for the officers and the other 
for the crew. They found the cold very endurable, but were rather incom- 
moded by the smoke, which did not always find a ready passage through the 
opening in the roof. Sometimes the snow accumulated in such masses, or the 
storm raged so furiously round the hut, that they could not leave it for eight 
days running, and frequently the hole in the roof had to serve them for a door. 

Eleven white bears were killed about the hut during the winter; one on the 
roof, another in the passage. Pachtussow, well aware that occupation is the 
best remedy against melancholy, kept his crew in constant activity. They 
were obliged to fetch wood from distances of ten or eleven versts, not seldom 
during a cold of —36°, which, thanks to their thick fur dresses, they bore re- 
markably well, particularly as a temperature lower than —25° never occurred, 
unless during perfectly calm weather. He also made them lay fox-traps at 
considerable distances from the hut, and amused them with shooting at a mark 
and gymnastic exercises. By this means he succeeded in preserving their 
health, and warding off the attacks of the scurvy. 

As early as April the indefatigable Pachtussow fitted out two sledge-parties, 
for the exploration of the eastern coast. The one, consisting of seven men, he 
commanded in person; the other was led by the steersman Ziwolka. Both 
parties travelled in company as far as the eastern entrance of the straits, where 
one of the huts in which Rosmysslow had wintered seventy years before was 
still found in a good condition. 

Pachtussow now returned for the purpose of accurately surveying the straits, 
while Ziwolka proceeded along the east coast, with a small tent and provisions 
fora month. All his men had Samojede dresses, but they were already so 
hardened that they did not wear the upper coat with the hood even during the 
night, although snow-storms not seldom occurred. Once their boots were 
frozen so hard that they could not pull them off before they had been previous- 
ly thawed, and as drift-wood was nowhere to be found, they were obliged te 


150 THE POLAR WORLD. 


burn the poles of their tent, and to keep their feet over the fire until the leather 
became soft. On May 18, the thirty-fourth day of his journey, Ziwolka re- 
turned to his commander, after having explored the east coast northward to a 
distance of 150 versts. 

Meanwhile Pachtussow had been busy building a boat eighteen feet long, 
with which he intended to proceed along the western coast to the northern ex- 
tremity of the island, and, the elements permitting, to return to the straits 
along its eastern shores. About the beginning of June the migratory birds 
made their appearance, and introduced a very agreeable change in the monoton- 


ous fare of the navigators, who, a few weeks later, enjoyed the sight of bloom. 


ing flowers, and gathered antiscorbutic herbs in large quantities. 

Thus the high northern land had assumed its most friendly aspect, and looked 
as cheerfully as it possibly could, when, on July 11, Pachtussow and Ziwolka 
set out for the north with the boat and the transport, the schooner being left 
behind in the straits with the surgeon and a few invalids. At first the wind 
and weather favored their course, but on July 21 the boat was smashed be- 
tween two pieces of ice, so that they had hardly time to escape upon the land 
with the nautical instruments, a sack of flour, and some butter. 

In this unpleasant situation they were obliged to remain for thirteen days, 
until at last a walrus-hunter appeared, who took the shipwrecked explorers 
on board, and brought them safely back to their winter-quarters on August 22. 

Thus this first attempt ended in complete disappointment, and the season was 
already too far advanced to permit of its renewal. Yet Pachtussow, resolving 
with praiseworthy zeal to make the most of the last days of the short summer, 


set out again on August 26 for the eastern entrance of the straits, and proceeded — 


along the coast, until he was stopped by the ice at some distance beyond the 
small islands which bear his name. 

Convinced of the fruitlessness of all further efforts, Pachtussow bade adieu 
with a sorrowful heart to the coast, which still stretched out before him in un- 
discovered mystery, and sailed back again to Archangel on September 20. Soon 
after his return he fell ill, and four weeks later his mourning friends carried him 
to his grave. 

The Arctic Ocean is so capricious that in the following year the walrus- 
hunter Issakow, of Kem, who had no discoveries in view, was able to round 
without difficulty the north-eastern extremity of Nova Zembla, but, fearful of 
encountering the dangers of that dreadful coast, he almost immediately returned. 

During the two winters he spent in Nova Zembla, the steersman Ziwolka 
had daily consulted the thermometer, and the result of his observations gave 
to the western entrance of Mathew’s Straits a mean annual temperature 
(Os at i hone 

Thus Nova Zembla is colder than the west coast of Spitzbergen, which, al- 
though still farther to the north, is more favorably situated with regard to the 
winds and currents, and from five to ten degrees warmer than the high north- 
ern parts of Siberia and continental America, which sustain a comparatively 
numerous population, while Nova Zembla is uninhabited. Hence’this want, 
and the circumstance that the vegetation of these islands scarcely rises a span 


—— 


NOVA ZEMBLA. 153 


above the ground, while the forest region still penetrates far within the con- 
fines of the colder continental regions above mentioned, are to be ascribed not 
to the low mean annual temperature of Nova Zembla, but to the unfavorable 
distribution of warmth over the various seasons of the year. For although 
high Northern Siberia and America have a far colder winter, they enjoy a con- 
siderably warmer summer, and this it is which in the higher latitudes determines 
the existence or the development of life on the dry land. .During the winter 
the organic world is partly sheltered under the snow, or else it migrates, or it 
produces within itself sufficient warmth to defy the cold—and thus a few de- 
grees more or less at that time of the year are of no material consequence, while 
the warmth of summer is absolutely indispensable to awaken life and determine 
its development. 

The comparatively mild winter of Nova Zembla (no less than thirty-three Hs 
grees warmer than that of Jakutsk) is therefore of but little benefit to vegetable 
life, which on the other hand suffers considerably from a summer inferior even 
to that of Melville Island and Boothia Felix. A coast where the sun, in spite of 
a day of several months’ continuance, generates so small a quantity of heat, and 
where yet some vegetation is able to flourish, must necessarily be well worthy 
the attention of botanists, or rather of all those who take an interest in the 
geographical distribution of plants. For if in the primitive forests of Brazil 
the naturalist admires the effects of a tropical sun and an excessive humidity in 
producing the utmost exuberance of vegetation, it is no less interesting for him 
to observe how Flora under the most adverse circumstances still wages a suc- 
cessful war against death and destruction. 

Thus a few years after Pachtussow’s expedition, the desire to explore a land 
so remarkable in a botanical point of view, and to gather new fruits for science 
in the wilderness, induced Herr von Baer, though already advanced in years, to 
undertake the journey to Noya Zembla. 

Accompanied by two younger naturalists, Mr. Lehmann and Mr. Réder, the 
celebrated Petersburg academician arrived on July 29, 1837, at the western en- 
trance of Mathew’s Straits, sailed through them the next day in a boat, and 
reached the sea of Kara, where he admired a prodigious number of jelly-fishes 
(Pleurobrachia pileus) swimming about in the ice-cold waters, and displaying 
a marvellous beauty of coloring in their ciliated ribs. This excursion might, 
however, have had very disagreeable consequences, for a dreadful storm, blow- 
ing from the west, prevented their boat from returning, and forced them to pass 
the night with some walrus-hunters, whom they had the good-fortune to meet 
with. On the following day the storm abated, so that the return could be at- 
tempted ; they were, however, obliged to land on a small island in the Beluga 
Bay, where, wet to the skin, and their limbs shaking with cold, they fortunately 
found a refuge in the ruins of a hut in which Rosmysslow had wintered in 1767. 
Meanwhile the wind had veered to the east, accompanied by a very disagreeable 
cold rain, which on the mountains took the form of snow; they were now, how- 
ever, able to make use of their sail, and arrived late at night at the spot where 
their ship lay at anchor, completely wet, but in good health and spirits. 

“We could esteem ourselves happy,” says Von Baer, “in having paid so 


152 THE POLAR WORLD. 


slight a penalty for neglecting the precaution, so necessary to all travellers in 
Nova Zembla, of providing for a week when you set out for a day’s excursion.” 

On August 4, after a thorough botanical examination of the straits, the party 
proceeded along the west coast. The wind, blowing from the north, brought 
them to the Kostin Schar, a maze of passages between numerous islets, where 
the walrus-hunters in Nova Zembla chiefly assemble. 

On August 9 an excursion was made up the river Nechwatowa, where they 
rested ina hut which had been erected by some fisherman employed in catching 
“ golzi,” or Arctic salmon. On returning to the ship, a dreadful storm arose from 
the north-east, which lasted nine days, and, very fortunately for the botanists, 
caught them in the Kostin Schar, and not on the high sea. Although they were 
anchored in a sheltered bay, the waves frequently swept over the deck of their 
vessel, and compelled them to remain all the time in their small, low cabin. 
Only once they made an attempt to land, but the wind was so strong that they 
could hardly stand. Their situation was rendered still more terrible and anxious, 
as part of the crew which had been sent out hunting before the storm began 
had not yet returned. | 

When at last the storm ceased, winter seemed about to begin in good earn- 
est. Every night ice formed.in the river, and the land was covered with snow, 
which had surprised the scanty vegetation in its full bloom. At length the 
hunters retuyned, after having endured terrible hardships, and now preparations 
were made for a definitive departure. A general bath was taken, without which 
no anchorage in Nova Zembla is ever left, and, according to ancient custom, a 
votive cross was likewise erected on the strand,as a memorial of the expedi- 
tion. 

On August 28 the anchors were weighed, but they were soon dropped again 
in the Schar, to examine on a small island the vegetable and animal products of 
the land and of the shore. The former offered but few objects of interest, but 
they were astonished at the exuberance of marine life. After having been de- 
tained by a thick fog in this place for several days, they at length sailed towards 
the White Sea, where they were obliged by contrary winds to run into Tri Os- 
trowa. Dreary and desolate as the tundras at this extreme point of Lapland 
had appeared to them on their journey outward, they were now charmed with 
their green slopes, a sight of which they had been deprived in Nova Zembla. 

On September 11 they at length reached the port of Archangel, with the 
agreeable prospect of passing the winter in a comfortable study at St. Peters- 
burg instead of spending it, like Barentz and his associates, as might easily have 
happened, in a wretched hut beyond the 70th degree of northern latitude. 

Having thus briefly sketched Von Baer’s adventures, I will now notice some 
of the most interesting scientific results of his journey. 

The rocky west coast of Nova Zembla has about the same appearance as the 
analogous part of Spitzbergen, for here also the mountains, particularly in the 
northern island, rise abruptly to a height of three or four thousand feet from 
the sea, while the eastern coast is generally flat. In both countries, angular 
blocks of stone, precipitated from the summits, cover the sides of the hills, and 
frequently make it impossible to ascend them. In fact, no rock, however hard 


NOVA ZEMBLA. 153 


or finely grained, is able to withstand the effects of a climate where the sum- 
mer is so wet and the winter so severe. Nowhere in Nova Zembla is a grass- 
‘covered spot to be found deserving the name of a meadow. Even the folia- 
ceous lichens, which grow so luxuriantly in Lapland, have here a stunted ap- 
pearance; but, as Von Baer remarks, this is owing less to the climate than to 
the nature of the soil, as plants of this description thrive best on chalky ground. 
- The crustaceous lichens, however, cover the blocks of augite and porphyry with 
a motley vesture, and the dingy carpet with which Dryas octopetala invests 
here and there the dry slopes, formed of rocky detritus, reminds one of the 
tundras of Lapland. 

The scanty vegetable covering which this only true social plant of Nova 
Zembla affords is, however, but an inch thick, and can easily be detached like 
a cap from the rock beneath. 

On a clayey ground in moist and low situations, the mosses afford a pro- 
tection to the polar willow (Salix polaris), which raises but two leaves and a 
catkin over the surface of its covering. 

Even the most sparing sheet of humus has great difficulty to form in Nova 
Zembla, as in a great number of the plants which grow there the discolored 
leaf dries on the stalk, and is then swept away by the winds, so that the land 
would appear still more naked if many plants, such as the snow ranunculus 
(Ranunculus nivalis), were not so extremely abstemious as to require no hu- 
mus at all, but merely a rocky crevice or some loose gravel capable of retaining 
moisture in its interstices. 

But even in Nova Zembla there are some more favored spots. ‘Thus when 
Von Baer landed at the foot of a high slate mountain fronting the south-west, 
and reflecting the rays of the sun, he was astonished and delighted to see a gay 
mixture of purple silenes, golden ranunculuses, peach-colored parryas, white 
cerastias, and blue palemones, and was particularly pleased at finding the well- 
known forget-me-not among the ornaments of this Arctic pasture. Between 
these various flowers the soil was everywhere visible, for the dicotyledonous 
plants of the high latitudes produce no more foliage than is necessary to set 
off the colors of the blossoms, and have generally more flowers than leaves. 

The entire vegetation of the island is confined to the superficial layer of the 
soil and to the lower stratum of the air. Even those plants which in warm 
climates have a descending or vertical root have here a horizontal one, and 
none, whether grasses or shrubs, grow higher than a span above the ground. 

In the polar willow, a single pair of leaves sits on a stem about as thick es 
a straw, although the whole plant forms an extensive shrub with numerous ram- 
ifications. Another species of willow (Salix Janata) attains the considerable 
height of a span, and is a perfect giant among the Nova Zembla plants, for the 
thick subterranean trunk sometimes measures two inches in diameter, and can 
be laid bare for a length of ten or twelve feet without finding the end. Thus 
in this country the forests are more in than above the earth. 

This horizontal development of vegetation is caused by the sun principally 
heating the superficial sheet of earth, which imparts its warmth to the stratum 
of air immediately above it, and thus confines the plants within the narrow 


1654 © THE POLAR WORLD. 


limits which best suit their growth. Hence also the influence of position on 
vegetation is so great that, while a plain open to the winds is a complete des- 
ert, a gentle mountain slope not seldom resembles a garden. 

The absence of all trees or shrubs, or even of all vigorous herbage, imparts 
a character of the deepest solitude to the Nova Zembla landscape, and inspires 
even the rough sailor with a kind of religious awe. “It is,” says Von Baer, 
“as if the dawn of creation had but just begun, and life were still to be called 
into existence.” The universal silence is but rarely broken by the noise of an 
animal. . But neither the cry of the sea-mew, wheeling in the air, nor the rus- 
tling of the lemming in the stunted herbage are able to animate the scene. No 
voice is heard in calm weather. The rare land-birds are silent as well as the 
insects, which are comparatively still fewer in number. This tranquillity of 
nature, particularly during serene days, reminds the spectator of the quiet of 
the grave; and the lemmings seem like phantoms as they glide noiselessly 
from burrow to burrow. In our fields even a slight motion of the air becomes 


visible in the foliage of the trees or in the waving of the corn; here the low: 


plants are so stiff and immovable that one might suppose them to be painted. 
The rare sand-bee (Andrena), which on sunny days and in warm places flies 
about with languid wings, has scarcely the spirit to hum, and the flies and 
gnats, though more frequent, are equally feeble and inoffensive. 

As a proof of the rarity of insects in Nova Zembla, Von Baer mentions that 
not a single larva was to be found in a dead walrus which had been lying at 
least fourteen days on the shore. The hackneyed phrase of our funeral ser- 


mons can not therefore be applied to these high latitudes, where even above ~ 


the earth the decay of bodies is extremely slow. 

However poor the vegetation of Nova Zembla may be, it still suffices to 
nourish a number of lemmings, which live on leaves, stems, and buds, but not 
on roots. The slopes of the mountains are often undermined in all directions 
by their burrows. Next to these lemmings, the Arctic foxes are the most nu- 
merous quadrupeds, as they find plenty of food in the above-mentioned little 
rodents, as well as in the young birds, and in the bodies of the marine animals 
which are cast ashore by the tides. White bears are scarcely ever seen during 
the summer, and the reindeer seems to have decreased in numbers, at least on 
the west coast, where they are frequently shot by the Russian morse-hunters. 

The hosts of sea-birds in some parts of the coast prove that the waters are 
far more proiitic than the land. The foolish guillemots ( Uria troile), closely 
congregated in rows, one above the other, on the narrow ledges of vertical 
rock-walls, make the black stone appear striped with white. Such a breeding- 
place is called by the Russians a bazar. Dn the summit of isolated cliffs, and 
suffering no other bird in his vicinity, nestles the large gray sea-mew (Larus 
glaucus), to whom the Dutch whale-catchers have given the name of “ burgh- 
ermaster.” While the ice-bear is monarch of the land animals, this gull appears 
as the sovereign lord of all the sea-birds around, and no guillemot would ven- 
ture to dispute the possession of a dainty morsel claimed by the imperious 
burghermaster. 

This abundance of the sea has also attracted man to the desert shores of 


NOVA ZEMBLA. 155 


Nova Zembla. Long before Barentz made Western Europe acquainted with 
the existence of Nova Zembla (1594-96), the land was known to the Russians 
as a valuable hunting or fishing ground; for the Dutch discoverer met with a 
large number of their vessels on its coast. Burrough, who visited the port of 
Kola in 1556, in search of the unfortunate Willoughby, and thence sailed as 
far as the mouth of the Petschora, likewise saw in the gulf of Kola no less than 
thirty lodjes, all destined for walrus-hunting in Nova Zembla. 

Whether, before the Russians, the adventurous Norsemen ever visited these 
desolate islands, is unknown, but so much is certain, that ever since the times 
of Barentz the expeditions of the Muscovites to its western coast have been 
uninterruptedly continued. As is the case with all fishing speculations, their 
success very much depends upon chance. The year 1834 was very lucrative, 
so that in the following season about eighty ships, with at least 1000 men on 
board, sailed for Nova Zembla from the ports of the White Sea, but this time 
the results were so unsatisfactory that in 1836 scarce half the number were 
fitted out. In 1837 no more than twenty vessels were employed, and Von 
Baer relates that but one of them which penetrated into the sea of Kara made 
a considerable profit, while all the rest, with but few exceptions, did not pay 
one-half of their expenses. 

_The most valuable animals are the walrus and the white dolphin, or beluga. 
Among the seals, the Phoca albigena of Pallas distinguishes itself by its size, 
the thickness of its skin, and its quantity of fat; Phoca greenlandica and Phoca 
hispida rank next in estimation. The Greenland whale never extends his ex- 
cursions to the waters of Nova Zembla, but the fin-back and the grampus are 
frequently seen. 

The Alpine salmon (Salmo alpinus), which towards autumn ascends into 
the mountain-lakes, is caught in incredible numbers; and, finally, the bean- 
goose (Anser segetum) breeds so frequently, at least upon the southern island, 
that the gathering of its quill-feathers is an object of some importance. 


156 THE POLAR WORLD, 


CHAPTER XII. 
THE LAPPS. 


Their ancient History and Conversion to Christianity.—Self-denial and Poverty of the Lapland Clergy. 
—Their singular Mode of Preaching.—Gross Superstition of the Lapps.—The Evil Spirit of the 
Woods.—The Lapland Witches.—Physical Constitution of the Lapps.—Their Dress.—The Fjalllap- 
pars.—Their Dwellings.— Store-houses.—Reindeer Pens.— Milking the Reindeer.— Migration.— 
The Lapland Dog.—Skiders, or Skates.—The Sledge, or Pulka.—Natural Beauties of Lapland.— 
Attachment of the Lapps to their Country.—Bear-hunting.—Wolf-hunting.—Mode of Living of the 
wealthy Lapps.—How they kill the Reindeer.—Visiting the Fair.—Mammon Worship.—Treasure- 
hiding.—“‘ Tabak, or Braende.”—Affectionate Disposition of the Lapps.—The Skogslapp.—The 
Fisherlapp. 

A nation of the Lapps spreads over the northern parts of Scandinavia 

and Finland from about the 63d degree of latitude to the confines of 
the Polar Ocean; but their number, hardly amounting to more than twenty 
thousand, bears no proportion to the extent of the vast regions in which they 
are found. Although now subject to the crowns of Russia, Sweden, and Nor- 
way, they anciently possessed the whole Scandinavian peninsula, until the sons 
of Odin drove them farther and farther to the north, and, taking possession of 
the coasts and valleys, left them nothing but the bleak mountain and the deso- 
late tundra. In the thirteenth century, under the reign of Magnus Ladislas, 

King of Sweden, their subjugation was completed by the Birkarls, a race 

dwelling on the borders of the Bothnian Gulf. These Birkarls had to pay the 

crown a slight tribute, which they wrung more than a hundred-fold from the 

Lapps, until at length Gustavus I. granted the persecuted savages the protec- 

tion of more equitable laws, and sent missionaries among them to relieve them 

at the same time from the yoke of their ancient superstitions. In 1600 Charles 

IX. ordered churches to be built in their country, and, some years after, his son 

and successor, the celebrated Gustavus Adolphus, founded a school for the 

Lapps at Pitea, and ordered several elementary works to be translated into 

their language. In the year 1602, Christian IV., King of Denmark and Nor- 

way, while on a visit to the province of Finmark, was so incensed at the gross 
idolatry of the Lapps that he ordered their priests or sorcerers to be persecuted 
with bloody severity. A worthy clergyman, Eric Bredal, of Drontheim, used 
means more consonant with the spirit of the Gospel, and, having instructed 
several young Lapps, sent them back again as missionaries to their families. 
These interpreters of a purer faith were, however, received as apostates and 
traitors by their suspicious countrymen, and cruelly murdered, most likely at 
the instigation of the sorcerers. In 1707 Frederic IV. founded the Finmark 
mission, and in 1716 Thomas Westen, a man of rare zeal and perseverance, 
preached the Gospel in the wildest districts of the province. Other mission- 
aries and teachers followed his example, and at length succeeded in converting 
the Lapps, and in some measure conquering their ancient barbarism. Nothing 


THE LAPPS. 157 


can be more admirable than the self-denial and heroic fortitude of these minis- 
ters of Christ, for to renounce all that is precious in the eyes of the world to 
follow nomads little better than savages through the wilds of an Arctic country 
surely requires a courage not inferior to that of the soldier 


Who seeks preferment at the cannon’s mouth. 


The Lapland schoolmaster enjoys an annual salary of twenty-five dollars, 
and receives besides half a dollar for every child instructed. But the priest 
is not much better off, as his stipend amounts to no more than thirty dollars 
in money, and to about 150 dollars in produce. Among this miserably paid 
clergy there are, as in Iceland, men worthy of a better lot. The famous Lé- 
stadius was priest at Karesuando, seventy-five leagues from Tromsé, the near- 
est town, and a hundred leagues from Tornea. His family lived upon rye bread 
and fishes, and but rarely tasted reindeer flesh. Chamisso mentions another 
Lapland priest who had spent seven years in his parish, which lay beyond the 
limits of the forest region. In the summer he was completely isolated, as then 
the Lapps wandered with their herds to the cool shores of the icy sea; and in 
the winter, when the moon afforded light, he travelled about in his sledge, fre- 
quently bivouacking at the temperature of freezing mercury, to visit his Lapps. 
During all that time his solitude had been but twice broken by civilized man ; 
a brother had come to see him, and a botanist had strayed to his dwelling. He 
well knew how to appreciate the pleasure of such meetings, but neither this 
pleasure nor any other, he said, was equal to that of seeing the sun rise again 
above the horizon after the long winter's night. 

It is a singular custom that the pastors preaching to the Lapps deliver their 
harangues in a tone of voice as elevated as if their audience, instead of being 
assembled in a smail chapel, were stationed upon the top of a distant mount- 
ain, and labor as if they were going to burst a bloodvessel. Dr. Clarke, who 
listened to one of these sermons, which lasted one hour and twenty minutes, 
ventured to ask the reason of the very loud tone of voice used in preaching. 
The minister said he was aware that it must appear extraordinary to a 
stranger, but that, if he were to address the Laplanders in a lower key, they 
would consider him as a feeble and impotent missionary, wholly unfit for his 
office, and would never come to church; that the merit and abilities of the 
preacher, like that of many a popular politician, are always estimated by the 
strength and power of his lungs. 

Though the Lapps (thanks to the efforts of their spiritual guides) hardly 
even remember by name the gods of their fathers—Aija, Akka, Tuona—they 
still pay a secret homage to the Saidas, or idols of wood or stone, to whom they 
were accustomed to sacrifice the bones and horns of the reindeer. They are in 
fact an extremely superstitious race, faithfully believing in ghosts, witchcraft, 
and above all in Stallo, or Troller, the evil spirit of the woods. 

Many of them, when about to go hunting, throw a stick into the air, and 
then take their way in the direction to which it points. The appearance of 
the Aurora borealis fills them with terror,as they believe it to be a sign of 
divine wrath, and generally shout and howl during the whole duration of 


158 THE POLAR WORLD. 


the grand phenomenon, which their ignorance connects with their own petty ex- 
istence. 

The pretended gift of being able to predict future events is common among 
the Laplanders. The sorcerers fall into a magic sleep, during which their soul 
wanders. In this state, like the somnambules of more polished nations, they re- 
veal things to come or see what passes at a distance. Men and women affect 
the power of fortune-telling by the common trick of palmistry, or by the inspec- 
tion of a cup of liquor ; and this, to insure the greatest possible certainty, must 
be a cup of brandy, which at once explains the whole business of the prophecy. 
The Lapland witches pretended, or perhaps still pretend, to the power of still- 
ing the wind or causing the rain to cease, and such was their reputation that 
English seamen trading to Archangel made it a point to land and buy a wind 
from these pvor creatures. 

The Lapps are a dwarfish race. On an average, the men do not exceed five 
feet in height, many not even reaching four, and the women are considerably 
less. Most of them are, however, very robust, the circumference of their chest 
nearly equalling their height. Their complexion is more or less tawny and 
copper-colored, their hair dark, straight, and lank, its dangling masses adding 
much to the wildness of their aspect. They have very little beard, and as its 
want is considered a beauty, the young men carefully eradicate the scanty sup- 
ply given them by nature. ; 

Their dark piercing eyes are generally deep sunk in their heads, widely sep- 
arated from each other, and, like those of the Tartars or Chinese, obliquely slit 
towards the temples. The cheek-bones are high, the mouth pinched close, but 
wide, the nose fiat. The eyes are generally sore, either in consequence of the 
biting smoke of their huts or of the refraction from the snow, so that a Lapp 
seldom attains a high age without becoming blind. Their countenances gener- 
ally present a repulsive combination of stolidity, low cunning, and obstinacy. 
Hogeguer, who dwelt several months among them, and saw during this time at 
least 800 Lapps, found not twenty who were not decidedly ugly; and Dr. Clarke 
says that many of them, when more advanced in years, might, if exhibited in a 
menagerie of wild beasts, be considered as the long-lost link between man and 
ape. 

Their legs are extremely thick and clumsy, but their hands are as small and 
finely shaped as those of any aristrocrat. The reason for this is that from gen- 
eration to generation they never perform any manual labor, and the very trifling 
work which they do is necessarily of the lightest kind. Their limbs are singular- 
ly flexible, easily falling into any posture, like all the Oriental nations, and their 
hands are constantly occupied in the beginning of conversation with filling a 
short tobacco-pipe, the head being turned over one shoulder to the person ad- 


dressed. Such are the traits by which the whole tribe is distinguished from | 


the other inhabitants of Europe, and in which they differ from the other natives 
of the land in which they live. 

The summer garb of the men consists of the “ poesk,” a sort of tunic, gener- 
ally made of a very coarse light-colored woollen cloth, reaching to the knees, and 
fastened round the waist with a belt or girdle. Their woollen caps are shaped 


THE LAPPS. 159 


precisely like a night-cap, or a Turkish fez, with a red tassel and red worsted 
band round the rim, for they are fond of lively hues strongly contrasted. 
Their boots or shoes are made of the raw skin of the reindeer, with the hair 
outward, and have a peaked shape. Though these shoes are very thin, and the 
Lapp wears no stockings, yet he is never annoyed by the cold or by striking 
against stones, as he stuffs them with the broad leaves of the Carex vesicaria, 
or cyperus grass, which he cuts in summer and dries. This he first combs and 
rubs in his hands, and then places it in such a manner that it covers not only 
his feet but his legs also, and, being thus guarded, he is quite secure against 
the intense cold. With this grass, which is an admirable non-conductor of heat, 
he likewise stuffs his gloves in order to preserve his hands. But as it wards 
off the cold in winter, so in summer it keeps the feet cool, and is consequently 
used at all seasons. The women’s apparel differs very little from that of the 
other sex, but their girdles are more ornamented with rings and chains. In 
winter both sexes are so packed up in skins as to look more like bears than 
human beings, and, when squatting according to the fashion of their country, 
exhibit a mound of furs, with the head resting upon the top of it. 

According to their different mode of life, the Lapps may be aptly subdivided 
into Fjalllappars, or Mountain Lapps; Skogslappars, or Wood Lapps; and 
Fisherlapps. 

The Fjalllappars, who form the greater and most characteristic part of the 
nation, lead an exclusively pastoral life, and are constantly wandering with their 
herds of reindeer from place to place, for the lichen which forms the chief food 
of these animals during the greater part of the year is soon cropped from the 
niggard soil, and requires years for its reproduction. For this reason, also, this 
people do not herd together, and never more than three or four families pitch 
their huts, or tuguria, upon the same spot. Of course the dwelling of the no- 
mad Lapp harmonizes with his vagrant habits; a rude tent, which can easily 
be taken to pieces, and as easily erected, is all he requires to shelter his family 
and chattels. It consists of flexible stems of trees, placed together in a conical 
form, like a stack of poles for hops, and covered in the summer with a coarse 
cloth, in winter with additional skins, to be better fenced against the inclemencies 
of the climate. To form the entrance, a part of the hanging, about eighteen 
inches wide at the bottom, and terminating upward in a point, is made to turn 
back as upon hinges. The hearth, consisting of several large stones, is in the 
centre, and in the roof immediately above it is a square opening for the escapa 
of smoke and the admission of rain, snow, and air. All the light which the den 
receives when the door is closed comes from this hole. The diameter of one 
of these conical huts generally measures at its base no more than six feet; its 
whole circumference, of course, does not exceed eighteen feet, and its extreme 
height may be about ten feet. The floor is very nearly covered with reindeer 
skins, on which the inmates squat during the day and sleep at nights, contract- 
ing their limbs together and huddling round their hearth, so that each individ- 
ual of this pigmy race occupies scarcely more space than a dog. Onthe side of 
the tent are suspended a number of pots, wooden bowls, and other household 
utensils ; and a small chest contains the holiday apparel of the family. Such 


160 THE POLAR WORLD. 


are the dwellings of those among the Laplanders who are called wealthy, and 
who sometimes possess very considerable property. 

Near the tent is the dairy or store-house of the establishment. It consists of 
nothing more than a shelf or platform, raised between two trees, so as to be 
out of the reach of the dogs or wolves. The means of ascent to this treasury 
of curds, cheese, and dried reindeer flesh, is simply a tree stripped of its 
branches, but presenting at every foot or so knobs, which serve the same pur- 
pose as staves on a ladder, the tree being obliquely reared against the platform. 

Another characteristic feature of a Lapp encampment is found in the inclos- 
ures in which the reindeer are penned during the night or for the purpose of 
milking. ‘These are circus-like open places, each of a diameter of about one 
hundred and fifty feet, and are formed by stumps of trees and poles set upright 
on the ground, and linked together by horizontal poles. Against the latter are 
reared birch poles and branches of trees, varying from six to ten feet in height, 
without the slightest attempt at neatness, the whole being as rude as well can 
be—a sufficient security against the wolves being all that its builders desire. 
The milking of a herd of reindeer presents a most animated scene. When 
they have been driven within the inclosure, and all outlets are secured, a Lapp, 
selecting a long thong or cord, takes a turn of both ends round his left hand, 
and then gathers what sailors call the bight in loose folds, held in hisright. He 
now singles out a reindeer, and throws the bight with unerring aim over the 
antlers of the victim. Sometimes the latter makes no resistance, but in general 
the moment it feels the touch of the thong it breaks away from the spot, and 
is only secured by the most strenuous exertions. Every minute may be seen 
an unusually powerful deer furiously dragging a Lapp round and round the in- 
closure, and sometimes it fairly overcomes the restraint of the thong, and leaves 
its antagonist prostrate on the sod. This part of the scene is highly exciting, 
and it is impossible not to admire the trained skill evinced by all the Lapps, 
women as well as men. The resistance of the deer being overcome, the Lapp 
takes a dexterous hitch of the thong round his muzzle and head, and then fastens 
him to the trunk of a prostrate tree, many of which have been brought within 
the level inclosure for that especial purpose. Men and women are indiscrimi- 
nately engaged both in singling out milch reins and in milking them. Every 
one is fully occupied, for even the little children are practising the throwing of 
the lasso, in which they evince great dexterity, although their strength is insuf- 
ficient to hold the smallest doe. 

When the pasture in the neighborhood is fully exhausted, which generally 
takes place in about a fortnight, the encampment is broken up, to be erected 


again on some other spot. In less than half an hour the tent is taken to pieces, 


and packed with all the household furniture upon the backs of reindeer, who by 
long training acquire the capacity of serving as beasts of burden. On the 
journey they are bound together, five and five, with thongs of leather, and led 
by the women over the mountains, while the father of the family precedes the 
march to select a proper place for the new epcampment, and his sons or serv- 
ants follow with the remainder of the herd. 

Towards the end of spring the Lapps descend from the mountains to the 


THE LAPPS. 161 


sea. When they approach its borders, the reindeer, sniffing the sea air from a 
distance, rush tumultuously to the fjord, where they take long draughts of the 
salted water. ‘This, as the Lapps believe, is essential to their health. As the 
summer advances, and the snow melts, they ascend higher and higher into the 
mountains. At the approach of winter they retreat into the woods, where, 
with the assistance of their dogs and servants, they have enough to do to keep 
off the attacks of the wolves. The reindeer dog is about the size of a Scotch 
terrier, but his head bears a wonderful resemblance to that of the lynx. His 
color varies considerably, but the hair is always long and shaggy. Invaluable 
as are his services, he is nevertheless treated with great cruelty. 

For their winter journeys the Lapps use sledges or skates. One of their 
skates, or “ skiders,” is usually as long as the person who wears it; the other is 
about a foot shorter. The feet stand in the middle,and to them the skates 
are fastened by thongs or withes. The skiders are made of fir-wood, and cov- 
ered with the skins of young reindeer, which obstruct a retrograde movement 
by acting like bristles against the snow—the roots pointing towards the fore 
part of the skate, and thus preventing their slipping back. With these skiders, 
the Lapp flies like a bird over the snow, now scaling the mountains by a tortu- 
ous ascent, and now darting down into the valley: 


Ocior cervis et agente nimbos 
Ocior Euro. 


Such is the rapidity of his course that he will overtake the swiftest wild 
beasts ; and so violent the exercise that, during the most rigorous season of the 
year, when earnestly engaged in the chase, he will divest himself of his furs. 
A long pole with a round ball of wood near the end, to prevent its piercing too 
deep in the snow, serves to stop the skater’s course when he wishes to rest. 
The Laplander is no less expert in the use of the sledge, or “ pulka,” which is 
made in the form of a small boat with a convex bottom, that it may slide all 
the more easily over the snow ; the prow is sharp and pointed, but the sledge is 
flat behind. The traveller is swathed in this carriage like an infant in a cradle, 
with a stick in his hand to steer the vessel, and disengage it from the stones or 
stumps of trees which it may chance to encounter in the route. He must also 
balance the sledge with his body, to avoid the danger of being overturned. 
The traces by which this carriage is fastened to the reindeer are fixed to a col- 
lar about the animal’s neck, and run down over the breast between the fore and 
hind legs, to be connected with the prow of the sledge; the reins managed by 
the traveller are tied to the horns, and the trappings are furnished with little 
bells, the sound of which the animal likes. With this draught at his tail, the 
reindeer will travel sixty or seventy English miles in a day; often persevering 
fifty miles without intermission, and without taking any refreshment, except 
occasionally moistening his. mouth with the snow. His Lapland driver knows 
how to find his way through the wilderness with a surprising certainty ; here a 
rock, there a fir-tree, is impressed as a landmark on his faithful memory, and 
thus, like the best pilot, he steers his sledge to the distant end of his journey. 
Frequently the Aurora lights him on his way, illumining the snow-covered 
11 


162 THE POLAR WORLD. 


landscape with a magic brilliancy, and investing every object with a dream-like, 
supernatural beauty. 

But even without the aid of this mysterious coruscation, Lapland is rich in 
grand and picturesque features, and has all the romance of the mountain and 
the forest. In summer countless rivulets meander through valleys of alpine 
verdure, and broad pellucid rivers rush down the slopes in thundering cataracts, 
embracing islands clothed with pine-trees of incomparable dignity and grace. 
Whoever has grown up in scenes like these, and been accustomed from infancy 
to the uncontrolled freedom of the nomad state, receives impressions never to 
be erased ; and thus we can not wonder that the wild Laplander believes his 
country to be a terrestrial paradise, and feels nowhere happy but at home. 

In the year 1819 a Scotch gentleman attempted to acclimatize the reindeer 
in Scotland, and induced two young Laplanders to accompany the herd which 
he had bought for that purpose. The reindeer soon perished, and the Lap- 
landers would have died of nostalgia if they had not been sent home by the first 
opportunity. Prince Jablonowsky, a Polish nobleman, who travelled about 
thirty years since through a part of Russian Lapland, took a Lapp girl with 
him to St. Petersburg. He gave her a superior education, and she was well 
treated in every respect. She made rapid progress, and seemed to be perfectly 
reconciled to her new home. About two years after her arrival, it happened 
that a Russian gentleman, who possessed extensive estates near the capital, 
bought a small herd of reindeer, which arrived under the guidance of a Lapp 
family. As it was winter-time, and these people had brought with them their 
tents, their sledges, and their snow-shoes, they soon became objects of curiosity, 
and crowds of fashionable visitors flocked to their encampment ; among others, 
the good-natured prince, who imprudently conducted his pupil, the young Lap- 
land girl, to see her countrymen, an interview which he supposed would give 
her great pleasure. But from that moment she became an altered being; she 
lost her spirits and her appetite, and, in spite of every care and attention, her 
health declined from day to day. One morning she disappeared, and it was 
found on inquiry that she had returned to her family, where she remained ever 
after. 

Another very remarkable instance of the Laplanders’ love of their country 
is related by Hogstrém. During the war of Gustavus III. with Russia, a 
young Laplander enlisted in a regiment which was passing through Tornea, 
He served in several campaigns as a common soldier, was made a sergeant in 
consequence of his good conduct and courage; and having given himself the 
greatest trouble to improve his education and acquire military knowledge, at 
length, after twenty years of service, attained the rank of captain in the Swedish 
army. After this long time spent in the civilized world, and having become ac- 
customed to all its enjoyments and comforts, he felt a strong desire to revisit 
his family and his country. Scarcely had he seen his native mountains, and 
spent a few days among his countrymen and the reindeer, than he at once athe 
ted the service, and resumed the nomad life of his youth. 

The Laplander’s chief desire is for peace and tranquillity. Exposed to all 
the privations of a vagrant life, and to every inclemency of weather, he endures 


THE LAPPS. 163 


the greatest hardships with equanimity, desiring only not to be disturbed in the 
enjoyment of the little that is his—not to be interfered with in his old customs 
and habits. 

Yet this same peaceful Laplander, who has so easily submitted to a foreign 
yoke, is one of the boldest hunters, and not only pursues the elk or the wild 
reindeer, but engages in single combat with the bear. Like all the other Arctic 
nations of Russia and Siberia, he has strange notions about this animal, which 
in his opinion is the most cunning and gifted of all created beings. Thus he 
supposes that the bear knows and hears all that is said about him, and for this 
reason he takes good care never to speak of him disrespectfully. It may seem 
strange that he should venture to slay an animal which ranks so high in his es- 
teem; but the temptation is too strong, as its flesh has an excellent flavor, and 
its fur, though not near so valuable as that of the American black bear, is still 
worth from fifteen to twenty dollars. * 

At the beginning of winter, the bear, as is well known, retires either into a 
rocky cave, or under a cover of branches, leaves, and moss, and remains there 
without food, and plunged in sleep until the next spring recalls him to a more 
active existence. After the first fall of snow, the Lapp hunters go into the for- 
est and look out for traces of the bear. Having found them, they carefully 
mark the spot, and returning after a few weeks disturb the slumbering brute, 
and excite him to an attack. It is not considered honorable to shoot him 
while sleeping ; and in many parts of Lapland the hunter who would kill a bear 
with any other weapon but a lance would be universally despised. Hogguer 
accompanied two Lapps, well-armed with axes and stout lances with barbed 
points, on one of these bear-hunts. When about a hundred paces from the 
lair the company halted, while one of the Lapps advanced shouting, telling his 
comrades to make as much noise as they could. When about twenty paces 
from the cavern, he stood still and flung several stones into it. For some time 
all was quiet, so that Hogeuer began to fear that the lair was deserted, when 
suddenly an angry growl was heard. The hunters now redoubled their clamor, 
until slowly, like an honest citizen disturbed in his noonday slumbers, the bear 
came out of his cavern. But this tranquillity did not ldst long, for the brute, as 
soon as he perceived his nearest enemy, uttered a short roar and rushed upon 
him. The Lapp coolly awaited the onset with his lance in rest, until the bear, 
coming quite near, raised himself on his haunches and began to strike at him 
with his fore paws. The hunter bent down to avoid the strokes, and then sud- 
denly rising, with a sure eye and with all his might, plunged his lance into the 
heart of the bear. During this short conflict the Lapp had received a slight 
wound on the hand, but the marks of the bear’s teeth were found deeply im- 
pressed upon the iron of the lance. According to an ancient custom, the wives 
of the hunters assemble in the hut of one of them; and as svon as they hear the 
returning sportsmen, begin chanting or howling a song in praise of the bear. 
When the men, laden with the skin and flesh of the animal, approach, they are re- 
ceived by thie women with opprobrious epithets, and forbidden ingress through 
the door; so that they are obliged to make a hole in the wall, through which 
they enter with their spoils. This comedy) which is meant to pacify the manes 


164 THE POLAR WORLD. 


of the victim, is still acted, though not so frequently as formerly; but the cus- 
tom of begging the bear’s pardon with many tears is completely out of date. 
The animal’s interment, however, still takes place with all the ancient honors 
and ceremonies. After having been skinned, and its flesh cut off, the body is 
buried in anatomical order—the head first, then the neck, the fore paw, ete. This 
is done from a belief in the resurrection of the bear, who having been decently 
buried, will, it is hoped, allow himself to be killed a second time by the same 
Lapp; while a neglect of the honors due to him would exasperate the whole 
race of bears, and cause them to wreak a bloody vengeance on the disrespectful 
hunter. 

The wolf is treated with much less ceremony. Many a wealthy Lapp, the 
owner of a thousand reindeer, has been reduced to poverty by the ravages of this 
savage beast, which is constantly prowling about the herds. Hence one of the 
first questions they put to each other when they meet is, * Lekor rauhe?” “Is 
it peace ?”—which means nothing more than, “ Have the wolves molested you ?” 
Such is their detestation of these animals that they believe them to be creatures 
of the devil, contaminating all that touches them while alive. Thus they will 
never shoot a wolf, as the gun that killed him would ever after be accursed. 

At the first alarm that wolves have appeared, the neighbors assemble, and 
the chase begins. For miles they pursue him over hills and valleys on their 
“ skiders,” and kill him with clubs, which they afterwards burn. They will not 
even defile themselves with skinning him, but leave his hide to the Finnish or 
Russian colonists, who, being less scrupulous or superstitious, make a warm 
cloak of it, or sell it for a few dollars at the fair. 

Among the Fjall Lapps there are many rich owners of 1000 or 1500 rein- 
deer, 300 of which fully suffice for the maintenance of a family. In this case 
the owner is able to kill as many as are necessary for providing his household 
with food and raiment, while the sale of the superfluous skins and horns enables 
him to purchase cloth, flour, hardware, and other necessary articles—not to for- 
get the tobacco or the brandy in which he delights. The price of the entire 
carcass of a reindeer, skin and all, varies from one to three dollars Norsk (four 
shillings and sixpence to thirteen shillings and sixpence). A fine skin will al- 
ways sell for one dollar in any part of the North. It will thus be seen that a 
Lapp possessing a herd of 500 or 1000 deer is virtually a capitalist in every 
sense of the word, far richer than the vast majority of his Norwegian, Swedish, 
or Russian fellow-subjects, although they all affect to look upon him with su- 
preme contempt. 

The daily food of the mountain Laplanders consists of the fattest reindeer 
venison, which they boil, and eat with the broth in which it has been cooked. 
Their summer diet consists of cheese and reindeer-milk. The rich also eat 
, bread baked upon hot iron plates. 

Their mode of killing the reindeer is the method used by the butchers in the 
South of Italy—the most ancient and best method of slaying cattle, because it 
is attended with the least pain to the animal, and the greatest profit to its pos- 
sessor. They thrust a sharp-pointed knife into the back part of the head be- 
tween the horns, so as to divide the spinal marrow from the brain. The beast 


THE LAPPS. 165 


instantly drops, and dies without a groan or struggle. As soon as it falls, and 
appears to be dead, the Laplander plunges the knife dexterously behind the off- 
shoulder into the heart; then opening the animal, its blood is found in the stom- 
ach, and ladled out into a pot. Boiled with fat and flour, it is a favorite dish. 
An important epoch in the life of the Fjall Lapp is his annual visit to one 
of the winter fairs held in the chief towns or villages which the more industri- 
ous Swedes, Norwegians, or Fins have founded on the coasts here and there, or 
in the well-watered valleys of his fatherland, and which he attends frequently 
from an immense distance. After a slight duty to Government has been paid, 
business begins ; but as every bargain is ratified with a full glass of brandy, his 
thoughts get confused before the day is half over—a circumstance which the 
cunning merchant does not fail to turn to account. On awaking the next morn- 
ing, the vexation of the nomad at his bad bargains is so much the greater, as no 
people are more avowed mammon-worshippers than the Lapps, or more inclined 
to sing, with our Burns :— 


O wae on the siller, it is sae prevailin’! 


Their sole object seems to be the amassing of treasure for the sole purpose of 
hoarding it. The avarice of a Lapp is gratified in collecting a number of silver 
vessels or pieces of silver coin; and being unable to carry this treasure with 
him on his journeys, he buries the whole, not even making his wife acquainted 
with the secret of its deposit, so that when he dies the members of his family 
are often unable to discover where he has hidden it. Some of the Lapps pos- 
sess a hundred-weight of silver, and those who own 1500 or 1000 reindeer have 
much more; in short, an astonishing quantity of specie is dispersed among 
them. Silver plate, when offered to them for sale, must be in a polished state, 
or they will not buy it; for such is their ignorance, that when the metal, by 
being kept buried, becomes tarnished, they conceive that its value is impaired, 
and exchange it for other silver, which being repolished, they believe to be 
new. ‘The merchants derive great benefit from this traffic. 

Brandy and tobacco are the chief luxuries of the Lapps. The tobacco-pipe 
is never laid aside except during meals; it is even used by the women, who 
also swallow spirits as greedily as the men; in fact, both sexes will almost part 
with lite itself for the gratification of dram-drinking. If you walk up toa 
Lapp, uncouthly squatted before his tent, his very first salutation is made by 
stretching forth a tawny hand and demanding, in a whining tone, “ Tabak” or 
“Braendi.” Dr. Clarke relates an amusing instance of their propensity for 
spirituous liquors. On his very first visit to one of their tents, he gave the fa- 
ther of the family about a pint of brandy, thinking he would husband it with 
great care, as he had seen him place it behind him upon his bed near the skirt- 
ing of the tent. The daughter now entered, and begged for a taste of the 
brandy, as she had lost her share by being absent. The old man made no an- 
swer, but when the request was repeated, he slyly crept round the outside of the 
tent until he came to the spot where the brandy was, when, thrusting his arm 
beneath the skirting, he drew it out, and swallowed the whole contents of the 
bottle at a draught. 


166 THE POLAR WORLD. 


The practice of dram-drinking is so general that mothers pour the horrid 
dose down the throats of their infants. Their christenings and funerals be- 
come mere pretexts for indulging in brandy. But their mild and pacific dis- 
position shows itself in their drunkenness, which is manifested only in howling, 
jumping, and laughing, and in acraving for more drams with hysteric screams 
until they fall senseless on the ground—while at the same time they will suffer 
kicks, cuffs, blows, and provocations of any kind without the smallest irasci- 
bility. When sober they are as gentle as lambs, and the softness of their lan- 
guage, added to their effeminate shrill tone of voice, remarkably corresponds 
with their placable disposition. An amiable trait in the character of the Lapp 
is the warmth of his affection towards his wife, his children, and his depend- 
ents. Nothing can exceed the cordiality of their mutual greetings after sep- 
arations, and it is to be feared that but few married men in England could 
match the Lapp husband who assured Castrén that during thirty years of wed- 
lock no worse word had passed between himself and his wife than “ Loddad- 
sham,” or “ My little bird.” 

In spite of his fatiguing life, and the insufficient shelter afforded him by his 
hut, the Fjall Lapp is generally vigorous and healthy, and not seldom lives to 
a hundred years age. Continual exercise in the open air braces his constitu- 
tion, his warm clothing protects him against the cold of winter, and his gen- 
erous meat diet maintains his strength. To prevent the scurvy, he eats the 
berries of the Hmpetrum nigrum or Rubus chamcmorus, and mixes the stems 
of the Angelica among his food. But his chief remedy against this and every 
other bodily evil is warm reindeer-blood, which he drinks with delight as a 
universal panacea. 

The Skogs Lapp, or Forest Lapp, occupies an intermediate grade between 
the Fjall Lapp and the Fisher Lapp, as fishing is his summer occupation, and 
hunting and the tending of his reindeer that of the winter months. His herds 
not being so numerous as those of the Fjall Lapp, he is not driven to constant 
migration to procure them food; but they require more care than his divided 
pursuits allow him to bestow upon them, and hence he inevitably descends to 
the condition of the Fisher Lapp. Listadius describes his life as one of the 
happiest on eartl:i—as a constant change between the agreeable pastime of fish- 
ing and the noble amusement of the chase. He 1s not, like the Mountain Lapp, 
exposed to all the severity of the Arctic winter, nor so poor as the Fisher — 
Lapp. He is often heard to sing under the green canopy of the firs. 

The villages of the Fisher Lapps—as they are found, for instance, on the 
banks of Lake Enara-—afford a by no means pleasing spectacle. 

About the miserable huts, which are shapeless masses of mingled earth, 
stones, and branches of trees, and scarcely equal to the dwellings of the 
wretched Fuegians, heaps of stinking fish and other offal caint the air with 
their pestilential odors. When a stranger approaches, the inmates come pour- 
ing out of their narrow doorway so covered with dirt and vermin as to make 
him recoil with disgust. Not in the least ashamed, however, of their appear- 
ance, they approach the stranger and shake his hand according to the code of 
Lapp politeness. After this preliminary, he may expect me following ques- 


THEO PARES. 167 


tions: “Is peace in the land? How is the emperor, the bishop, and the cap- 
tain of the district ?” The more inquisitive of the filthy troop then ask after 
the home of the stranger, and being told that it is beyond the mountains, they 
further inquire if he comes from the land where tobacco grows. For as our 
imagination loves to wander to the sunny regions, 

Where the citron and olive are fairest of fruit, 

And the voice of the nightingale never is mute; 
so the fancy of the Lapp conceives no greater paradise than that which pro- 
duces the weed that, along with the brandy-bottle, affords him his highest 
luxury. 


168 | THE POLAR WORLD. 


CHAPTER XIII. } 
MATTHIAS ALEXANDER CASTREN. 


His Birthplace and first Studies.—Journey in Lapland, 1838.—The Iwalojoki.i—The Lake of Enara,.— 
The Pastor of Utzjokii—From Rowaniémi to Kemi.—Second Voyage, 1841-44.—Storm on the 
White Sea.—Return to Archangel.—The Tundras of the European Samoiedes.—Mesen.—Universal 
Drunkenness.—Sledge Journey to Pustosersk.—A Samoiede Teacher.—Tundra Storms.—Abandon- 
ed and alone in the Wilderness.—Pustosersk.—Our Traveller’s Persecutions at Ustsylmsk and Ish- 
emsk.—The Uusa.—Crossing the Ural.—Obdorsk.—Second Siberian Journey, 1845—48.—Overflow- 
ing of the Obi.—Surgut.—Krasnojarsk.—Agreeable Surprise.—Turuchansk.—Voyage down the 
Jenissei.—Castrén’s Study at Plachina.—From Dudinka to Tolstoi Noss.—Frozen Feet.—Return 
Voyage to the South.—Frozen fast on the Jenissei.—Wonderful Preservation.—Journey across the 
Chinese Frontiers, and to Transbaikalia.—Return to Finland.—Professorship at Helsingfors.—Death 
of Castrén, 1855. 


Mere ALEXANDER CASTREN, whose interesting journeys form 
J the subject of the present chapter, was born in the year 1813, at Rowani- 
émi, a Finland village situated about forty miles from the head of the Gulf of 
Bothnia, immediately under the Arctic Circle; so that, of all men who have 
attained celebrity, probably none can boast of a more northern birthplace. 
While still a scholar at the Alexander’s College of Helsingfors, he resolved to 
devote his life to the study of the nations of Finnish origin (Fins, Laplanders, 
Samoiedes, Ostiaks, etc.) ; and as books gave but an insufficient account of 
them, each passing year strengthened his desire to visit these tribes in their 
own haunts, and to learn from themselves their languages, their habits, and 
their history. 

We may imagine, therefore, the joy of the enthusiastic student, whom poy- 
erty alone had hitherto prevented from carrying out the schemes of his youth, 
when Dr. Ehrstrom, a friend and medical fellow-student, proposed to take him 
as a companion, free of expense, on a tour in Lapland. No artist that ever 
crossed the Alps on his way to sunny Italy could feel happier than Castrén at 
the prospect of plunging into the wildernesses of the Arctic zone. 

On June 25, 1838, the friends set out, and arrived on the 30th at the small 
town of Muonioniska, where they remained six weeks—a delay which Castrén 
put to good account in learning the Lapp language from a native catechist. 
At length the decreasing sun warned the travellers that it was high time to 
continue their journey, if they wished to see more of Lapland before the winter 
set in; and after having, with great difficulty, crossed the mountain ridge 
which forms the water-shed between the Gulf of Bothnia and the Polar Sea, 
they embarked on the romantic Iwalojoki, where for three days and nights the 
rushing waters roared around them. In spite of these dangerous rapids, they 
were obliged to trust themselves to the stream, which every now and then 
threatened to dash their frail boat to pieces against the rocks. Armed with 
long oars, they were continually at work during the daytime to guard against 


MATTHIAS ALEXANDER CASTREN., 169 


this peril ; the nights were spent near a large fire kindled in the open air, with- 
out any shelter against the rain and wind. 

The Iwalo River is, during the greater part of its course, encased between 
high rocks; but a few miles before it discharges itself into the large Lake of 
Enara, its valley improves into a fine grassy plain. Small islands covered with 
trees divide the waters, which now flow more tranquilly ; soon also traces of 
culture appear, and the astonished traveller finds in the village of Kyrdé, not 
wretched Lapland huts, but well-built houses of Finnish settlers, with green 
meadows and cornfields. 

The beautiful Lake of Enara, sixty miles long and forty miles broad, is so 
thickly studded with islands that they have never yet been counted. After the 
travellers had spent a few days among the Fisher Lapps who sojourn on its 
borders, they proceeded northward to Utzjoki, the limit of their expedition, and 
one of the centres of Lapland civilization, as it boasts of a church, which is 
served by a man of high character and of no little ability. On accepting his 
charge, this self-denying priest had performed the journey from Tornea in the 
depth of winter, accompanied by a young wife and a female relation of the lat- 
ter, fifteen years of age. He had found the parsonage, vacated by his predeces- 
sor, a wretched building, distant some fifteen miles from the nearest Lapp habi- 
tation. After establishing himself and his family in this dreary tenement, he 
had returned from a pastoral excursion to find his home destroyed by a fire, from 
which its inmates had escaped with the loss of all that they possessed. A miser- 
able hut, built for the temporary shelter of the Lapps who resorted thither for 
divine service, afforded the family a refuge for the winter. He had since con- 
trived to build himself another dwelling, in which our party found him, after 
five years’ residence, the father of a family, and the chief of a happy household. 
Gladly would the travellers have remained some time longer under his hospita- 
ble roof, but the birds of passage were moving to the south, warning them to 
follow their example. 

Thus they set out,on August 15, for their homeward voyage, which proved 
no less difficult and laborious than the former. At length, after wandering 
through deserts and swamps—frequently wet to the skin, and often without 
food for many hours—they arrived at Rowaniémi, where they embarked on the 
Kemi River. 

“With conflicting feelings,” says Castrén, “I descended its stream ; for every 
cataract was not only well-known to me from the days of my earliest childhood, 
but the cataracts were even the only acquaintances which death had left me in 
the place of my birth, Along with the mournful impressions which the loss of 
beloved relations made upon my mind, it was delightful to renew my inter- 
course with the rapid stream and its waterfalls—those boisterous playfel- 
lows, which had often brought me into peril when a boy. Now, as before, it 
was a pleasant sport to me to be hurried along by their tumultuous waters, 
and to be wetted by their spray. The boatmen often tried to persuade 
me to land before passing the most dangerous waterfalls, and declared that 
they could not be answerable for my safety. But, in spite of all their remon- 
strances, I remained in the boat, nor had I reason to repent of my boldness, for 


170 THE POLAR WORLD. 


He who is the steersman of all boats granted us a safe arrival at Kemi, where 
our Lapland journey terminated.”* 

In 1841 Castrén published a metrical translation, into the Swedish language, 
of the “ Kalewala,” a cycle of the oldest poems of the Fins ; and at the end of 
the same year proceeded on his first great journey to the land of the European 
Samoiedes, and from thence across the northern Ural Mountains to Siberia. In 
the famous convent of Solovetskoi, situated on a small island in the White Sea, 
he hoped to find a friendly teacher of the Samoiede language in the Archiman- 
drite Wenjamin, who had labored as a missionary among that savage people, 
but the churlish dignitary jealously refused him all assistance; and as the tun- 
dras of the Samoiedes are only accessible during the winter, he resolved to turn 
the interval to account by a journey among the Terski Lapps, who inhabit the 
western shores of the White Sea. With this view, in an evil hour of the 27th 
June, 1842, though suffering at this time from illness severe enough to have de- 
tained any less persevering traveller, he embarked at Archangel in a large corn- 
laden vessel, with a reasonable prospect of being landed at Tri Ostrowa in some 
twenty-four hours; but a dead calm detained him eight days, during which he 
had no choice but to endure the horrible stench of Russian sea-stores in the 
cabin or the scorching sun on deck. At length a favorable wind arose, and 
after a few hours’ sailing nothing was to be seen but water and sky. Soon the 
Terski coast came in view, with its white ice-capped shore, and Castrén hoped 
soon to be released from his floating prison, when suddenly the wind changed, 
and, increasing to a storm, threatened to dash them on the cliffs of the Solovet- 
skoi Islands. 

“ Both the captain ae the ship’s company began to despair of their cme : 
and prayers having been resorted to in vain, to conjure the danger, general 
drunkenness was the next resource. The captain, finding his own brandy too 
weak to procure the stupefaction he desired, left me no peace till I had given 
him a bottle of rum. After having by degrees emptied its contents, he at length 
obtained his end, and fell asleep in the cabin. The crew, following his example, 
dropped down one by one into their cribs, and the ship was left without guidance 
to the mercy of the winds and waves. I alone remained on deck, and gioomily 
awaited the decisive moment. But I soon discovered that the wind was veer- 
ing to the east, and, awaking the captain from his drunken lethargy, sent him on 
deck, and took possession of his bed. Exhausted by the dreadful scenes of the 
day, I soon fell into a deep slumber ; and when I awoke the following morning, 
I found myself again on the eastern coast of the White Sea, at ihe foot of a 
high sheltering rock-wall.” 

Continued bad weather and increasing illness now forced Castrén to give up 
his projected visit to the Lapps, and when he returned to Archangel, both his 
health and his purse were in a sad condition. He had but fifteen roubles in his 
pocket, but fortunately found some Samoiede beggars still poorer than himself, 
one of whom, for the reward of an occasional glass of brandy, consented to be- 
come at once his host, his servant, and his private tutor in the Samoiede lan- 


* Reisen in Lappland, ete. 


MATTHIAS ALEXANDER CASTREN. 171 


guage. In the hut and society of this savage he passed the remainder of the 
summer, his health improved, and soon also his finances changed wonderfully 
for the better—the Government of Finland having granted him a thousand sil- 
ver roubles for the prosecution of his travels. With a light heart he continued 
his linguistic studies until the end of November, when he started with renewed 
enthusiasm for the land of the European Samoiedes, ‘These immense tundras 
extend from the White Sea to the Ural Mountains, and are bounded on the 
north by the Polar Sea, and on the south by the region of forests, which here 
reaches as high as the latitudes of 66° and 67°. 

The large river Petschora divides these dreary wastes into two unequal 
halves, whose scanty population, as may easily be imagined, is sunk in the deep- 
est barbarism. It consists of nomadic Samoiedes, and of a few Russians, who 
inhabit some miserable settlements along the great stream and its tributary 
rivers. 

To bury himself for a whole year in these melancholy deserts, Castrén left 
Archangel in November, 1842. As far as Mesen, 345 versts north of Archan- 
gel, the scanty population is Russ and Christian. At Mesen civilization ceases, 
and farther north the Samoiede retains for the most part, with his primitive 
habits and language, his heathen faith—having, in fact, borrowed nothing from 
occasional intercourse with civilized man but the means and practice of drunk- 
enness. Castrén’s first care, on his arrival at Mesen, was to look for a Samoiede 
interpreter and teacher; but he was as unsuccessful here as at Somsha, a village 
some forty versts farther on, where drunkenness was the order of the day. He 
took the most temperate person he could find in all Somsha into his service, 
but even this moderate man would, according to our ideas, have been accounted 
a perfect drunkard. He now resolved to try the fair sex, and engaged a female 
teacher, but she also could not remain sober. At length a man was introduced 
to him as the most learned person of the tundra, and at first it seemed as if he 
had at length found what he wanted; but after a few hours the Samoiede be- 
gan to get tired of his numerous questions, and declared himself ill. He threw 
himself upon the floor, wailed and lamented, and begged Castrén to have pity 
on him, until at length the incensed philologist turned him out-of-doors. Soon 
after he found him lying dead drunk in the snow before the “Elephant and 
Castle ” of the place. 

Thus obliged to look for instruction elsewhere, Castrén resolved to travel, in 
the middle of winter, to the Russian village of Pustosersk, at the mouth of the 
Petschora, where the fair annually attracts a number of Samoiedes. During 
this sledge-journey of 700 versts, he had to rest sometimes in the open air on the 
storm-beaten tundra, and sometimes in the rickety tent of the Samoiede, or in 
the scarcely less wretched hut of the Russian colonist—where the snow pene- 
trated through the crevices of the wall, where the flame of the light flickered in 
the wind, and a thick cloak of wolf-skin afforded the only protection against the 
piercing cold of the Arctic winter. 

For this arduous tour, two sledges, with four reindeer attached to each, were 
employed—the traveller’s sledge, which was covered, being attached to an un- 
covered one occupied by the guide. The Kanin Tundra stretched out before 


172 THE POLAR WORLD. 


them, as they flew along, almost as naked as the sea, of which they saw the 
margin in the east; and had not the wind here and there driven away the snow 
which Heaven in its mercy strews over this gloomy land, they might have been 
in doubt on which element they were travelling. Daily, from time to time, some 
dwarf firs made their appearance, or clumps of low willows, which generally de- 
note the presence of some little brook slowly winding through the flat tundra. 

The village of Ness, on the north coast, was the first halting-place, and here 
Castrén flattered himself he had at length found what his heart desired, in the 
person of a Samoiede teacher who knew Russian, and was gifted with a clear- 
er head than is usually possessed by his race. 

“The man was conscious of his superiority, and while acting as a professor 
looked down with contempt upon his weaker brethren. Once, some other Samo- 
iedes venturing to correct one of his translations, he commanded them to be si- 
lent, telling them they were not learned. I tried by all possible means to se- 
cure the services of this Samoiede phenomenon. I spoke kindly with him, I 
paid him well, gave him every day his allowance of brandy, and never once for- 
bade him to get drunk when he felt inclined to do so. Yet, in spite of all my 
endeavors to please, he felt unhappy, and sighed for the liberty of the tundra. 
‘Thou art kind, and I love thee,’ said he one day to me, ‘but I can not endure 
confinement. Be therefore merciful, and give me my freedom.’ 

“TI now increased his daily pay and his rations of brandy, sent for his wife 
and child, treated his wife also with brandy, and did all I could to dispel the 
melancholy of the Samoiede. By these means I induced him to remain a few 
days longer with me. 

* While I was constantly occupying him, the wife was busy sewing Samoiede 
dresses, and sometimes assisted her husband in his translations. I often heard 
her sighing deeply, and having asked for the reason, she burst into tears, and 
answered that she grieved for her husband, who was thus imprisoned in a room. 
‘Thy husband, was my reply, ‘is not worse off than thyself. Tell me, what 
do you think of your own position?’ ‘I do not think of myself—I am sorrow- 
ful for my husband,’ was her ingenuous reply. At length both the husband 
and the wife begged me so earnestly to set them at liberty that I allowed them 
to depart.” 

On the way from Pjoscha to Pustosersk, after Castrén had once more vainly 
endeavored to discover that rara avis, a Samoiede teacher, he became thorough- 
ly acquainted with the January snow-storms of the tundra: “The wind arose 
about noon, and blew so violently that we could not see the reindeer before our 
sledges. The roof of my vehicle, which at first had afforded me some protec- 
tion, was soon carried away by the gale. Anxious about my fate, I questioned 
my guides, whenever they stopped to brush off the snow which had accumulated 
upon me, and received the invariable answer,.‘ We do not know where we are, 
and see nothing.’ We proceeded step by step, now following one direction, 
now another, until at length we reached a river well known to the guides, The 
leader of the first sledge hurried his reindeer down the precipitous bank, and 
drove away upon the ice to seek a more convenient descent; but as he did not 
return, the other guide likewise left me to look after his companion, and thus I 


te 


i 

; 

Af 
/ 


Sex: 


reget Fe 


MATTHIAS ALEXANDER CASTREN. 173 


was kept waiting for several hours on the tundra, without knowing where my 
guides had gone to. 

“ At first I did not even know that they had left me, and when I became 
aware of the fact, I thought that they had abandoned me to my fate. I will 
not attempt to describe my sensations; but my bodily condition was such, that 
when the cold increased with the approach of night, I was seized with a violent 
fever. I thought my last hour was come, and prepared for my journey to an- 
other world.” 

The re-appearance of the guides relieved Castrén of his anxiety, and when the 
little party reached some Samoiede huts, the eldest of the guides knelt down at 
the side of our traveller’s sledge and expressed his joy in a prayer to God, beg- 
ging Castrén to join him in his thanksgivings, “for He, and not I, has this night 
saved thee.” 

The next morning,.as the weather seemed to improve, and the road (along 
the Indiga River) to the next Russian settlement was easy to find, Castrén re- 
_ solved to pursue his journey. “ But the storm once more arose, and became so 
‘dreadfully violent that I could neither breathe nor keep my eyes open against 
the wind. The roaring of the gale stupefied my senses. The moist snow 
wetted me during the day, and the night converted it into ice. Half frozen, I 
arrived after midnight at the settlement. The fatigues of the journey had been 
such that I could scarcely stand; I had almost lost my consciousness, and my 

sight had suffered so much from the wind that I repeatedly ran with my fore- 
head against the wall. The roaring of the storm continually resounded in my 
ears for many hours after.” 

A few days later Castrén arrived-at Pustosersk, undoubtedly one of the 
dreariest places in the world. With scarcely a trace of arboreal vegetation, the 
eye, during the greater part of the year, rests on an interminable waste of snow, 
where the cold winds are almost perpetually raging. The storms are so violent 
as not seldom to carry away the roofs of the huts, and to prevent the wretched 
inhabitants from fetching water and fuel. In this Northern Eden our inde- 
fatigable ethnologist tarried several months, as it afforded him an excellent op- 
portunity for continuing his studies of the language, manners, and religion of the 
Samoiedes, who come to the fair of Pustosersk during the winter, to barter their 
reindeer skins for flour and other commodities, and at the same time to indulge 
in their favorite beverage—brandy. At length the Samoiedes retired, the busy 
season of the place was evidently at an end, and Castrén, having no further in- 
ducement to remain at Pustosersk, left it for the village of Ustsylmsk, situated 
150 versts higher up the Petschora, where he hoped still to find some straggling 
Samoiedes. The road to Ustsylmsk leads through so desolate a region, that, 
according to the priests of the neighborhood, it can not have been originally 
created by God with the rest of the world, but must have been formed after 
the Deluge. Near Ustsylmsk (65° 30’ N. lat.) the country improves, as most of 
the northern trees grow about the piace; but, unfortunately, a similar praise 
can not be awarded to its inhabitants, whom Castrén found to be the most 
brutal and obstinate Raskoiniks (or sectarians) he had ever seen. Without in 
the least caring for the Ten Commandments, and indulging in every vice, these 


174 THE POLAR WORLD. 


absurd fanatics fancied themselves better than the rest of mankind, because they 
made the sign of the cross with the thumb and the two last fingers, and stood 


for hours together before an image in stupid contemplation. Our homeless. 


traveller soon became the object of their persecutions; they called him “ wiz- 


ard,” “a poisoner of rivers and wells,” and insulted him during his walks. At _ 


length they even attempted to take his life, so that he thought best to retreat 
to Ishemsk, on the Ishma, a hundred versts farther to the south. But, unfor- 
tunately, his bad reputation had preceded him, and although the Isprawnik 
(or parish official) and his wife warmly took his part, the people continued to 
regard him with suspicion. 

Towards the end of June Castrén ascended the Petschora and its chief trib- 
utary, the Uusa, as far as the village of Kolwa, where he spent the remainder of 
the summer, deeply buried as usual in Samoiede studies. Beyond Kolwa, which 
he left on September 16 for Obdorsk, there is not a single settlement along the 
Uusa and its tributaries. 

As he ascended the river, the meadows on its low banks appeared colored 
with the gray tints of autumn. Sometimes a wild animal started from its lair, 
but no vestige of man was to be seen. Countless flocks of wild ducks and 
geese passed over the traveller’s head, on their way southward. 

After many a tedious delay, caused by storms and contrary winds, Castrén 
reached (on September 27) a wretched hut, about forty versts from the Ural, 
where he was obliged to wait a whole month, with fourteen other persons, 
until the snow-track over the mountains became practicable for sledges. 

The total want of every comfort, the bad company, the perpetual rain, and 
the dreary aspect of the country, made his prolonged stay in this miserable ten- 
ement almost unbearable. At length, on October 25, he was able to depart, and 
on November 3 he saw the Ural Mountains raising their snow-capped summits 
to the skies. ‘The weather is mild,” said his Samoiede driver, “and thou art 
fortunate, but the Ural can be very different.” He then described the dreadful 
storms that rage over the boundary-chain which separates Europe from Asia, 
and how they precipitate stones and rocks from the mountain-tops. 

This time the dreaded pass was crossed in safety, and on November 9, 1843, 
Castrén arrived at Obdorsk, on the Obi, exhausted in strength and shattered in 
health, but yet delighted to find himself in Asia, the land of his early dreams, 


Obdorsk—the most northerly colony in Western Siberia, and, as may easily 


be imagined, utterly deficient in all that can be interesting to an ordinary 
traveller—was as much as a university to the zealous student, for several 
thousands of Samoiedes and Ostiaks congregate to its fair from hundreds of 
versts around. 

No better place could possibly be found for the prosecution of his research- 
es; but the deplorable condition of his health did not allow him to remain as 
long as he would have desired at this fountain-head of knowledge. He was thus 
obliged to leave for Tobolsk, and to return in March, 1844, by the shortest road 
to Finland. | 

In the following summer (1845) we again find him on the banks of the 
Irtysch and the Obi, plunged in Ostiak studies with renewed energy and enthu- 


ie! 


melt 

t 

= 4 
eet | 
ee 
ag 
h oa 


MATTHIAS ALEXANDER CASTREN. 175 


siasm. After having sojourned for several weeks at Toropkowa, a small island. 
at the confluence of these two mighty streams, he ascended the Obi in July as 
far as Surgut, where he arrived in the beginning of August. 

In consequence of the overflowing of its waters, the river had spread into a 
boundless lake, whose monotony was only relieved, from time to time, by some 
small wooded island or some inundated village. The rising of the stream had 
spread misery far and wide, for many Ostiak families had been obliged to aban- 
don their huts, and to seek a refuge in the forests. Those who had horses 
and cows had the greatest difficulty to keep them alive; andas all the meadows 
were under water, and the autumn, with its night-frosts, was already approach- 
ing, there was scarcely any hope of making hay for the winter. 

As Castrén proceeded on his journey, the low banks of the river rose above 
the waters, and appeared in all their wild and gloomy desolation. ‘The number 
of inhabitants along the Obi is utterly insignificant when compared with the 
Wide extent of the country ; and as hunting and fishing are their chief occupa- 
tions, nothing is done to subdue the wilderness. ‘The weary eye sees but a dull 
succession of moors, willow bushes, dry heaths, and firs on the higher grounds. 
Near every flourishing tree stands another bearing the marks of decay. The 
young grass is hemmed in its growth by that of the previous year, which even 
in July gives the meadow a dull ash-gray color. Cranes, wild ducks, and geese 
are almost the only living creatures to be seen. From Siljarski to Surgut, a 
distance of 200 versts, there are but three Russian villages; and the Ostiaks, 
who form the main part of the population, generally live along the tributary 
rivers, or erect their summer huts on the smaller arms of the Obi, where they 
can make a better use of their very imperfect fishing implements than on the 
principal stream. 

Surgut, once a fortress, and the chief town of the Cossack conquerors of Si- 
beria, is now reduced to a few miserable huts, scattered among the ruins of re- 
peated conflagrations. 

Here Castrén remained till September 24, occupied with the study of the va- 
rious dialects of the neighboring Ostiak tribes, and then ascended the Obi as far 
as Narym, a distance of 800 versts. Most of the fishermen had already retired 
from the banks of the river, and a death-like stillness, rarely interrupted by an 
-Ostiak boat rapidly shooting through the stream, reigned over its waters. 

Fortunately the weather was fine, at least during the first days of the journey; 
and the green river-banks, the birds singing in the trees, and the sunbeams 
glancing over the wide mirror of the Obi, somewhat enlivened the monotony 
of the scene. | 

After having enjoyed at Narym a remarkably mild Siberian winter, as no 
crows had been frozen to death, and having increased his knowledge of the Os- 
tiak dialects, Castrén proceeded in the following spring, by way of Tomsk, to 
Krasnojarsk, on the Jenissei, where he arrived in April, 1846, and was welcomed 
in a most agreeable and unexpected manner. It will be remembered that dur- 
ing his stay at Ishemsk, in the tundra of the Samoiedes, he found warm-hearted 
friends and protectors against the insane bigotry of the Raskolniks in the Is- 
prawnik and his young and amiable wife. Of the latter it might truly be said 


176 THE POLAR WORLD. 


that she was hike a flower born to blush unseen in the desert. Remar kably elo- 
quent, she was no less talented in expressing her thoughts by writing ; and yet 
she was only the daughter of a serf who had been exiled to Krasnojarsk, and 
had spent a great part of a small property, acquired by industry and economy, 
in the education of his gifted daughter. The Isprawnik, a young Pole of insin- 
ating manners, having gained her affections, she had accompanied him to Ish- 
emsk as his wife. 

From what Castrén had told her three years since about his future plans, she 
knew that he would probably arrive about this time at Krasnojarsk, and had 
written a letter, which reached its destination only a few hours before him. It 
was to her father, earnestly begging him to pay every attention to the homeless 
stranger. The feelings of Castrén may easily be imagined when the old man 
knocked at his door, and brought him these friendly greetings from a distance 
of 6000 versts.* 

But his stay at Krasnojarsk was not of iong duration, for he was impatient 
to proceed northward, for the purpose of becoming acquainted with the tribes 
dwelling along the Jenissei, after having studied their brethern of the Obi. From 
June till the end of July, his literary pursuits detained him at Turuchansk, 
where, in the vicinity of the Arctic Circle, he had much to suffer from the heat 
and the mosquitoes. In the beginning of August the signs of approaching 
winter made their appearance, the cold north wind swept away the leaves from 
the trees, the fishermen retired to the woods, and the ducks and geese prepared 
to migrate to the south. And now Castrén also took leave of Turuchansk—not 
however, like the birds, for a more sunny region, but to bury himself still deep- 
er in the northern wilds of the Jenissei. Below Turuchansk the river begins to 
flow so languidly, that when the wind is contrary, the boat must be dragged 
along by dogs, and advances no more than from five to ten versts during a 
whole day. ‘Thus the traveller has full time to notice the willows on the left 
bank, and the firs on the right; the ice-blocks, surviving memorials of the last 
winter, which the spring inundations have left here and there on the banks of 
the vast stream; and the countless troops of wild birds that fly with loud 
clamor over his head. 

About 365 versts below Turuchansk is situated Plachina, the fishing-station 
of a small tribe of Samoiedes, among whom Castrén tarried three weeks. He 
had taken possession of the dest of the three huts of which the place consisted, 
but even this would have been perfectly intolerable to any one but our zealous 
ethnologist. Into his study the daylight penetrated so sparingly through a 
small hole in the wall, that he was often obliged to write by the light of a resi- 
nous torch in the middle of the day. 

The flame flickering in the wind, which blew through a thousand crevices, af- 
fected his eyes no less severely than the smoke, which at the same time render- 
ed respiration difficult. Although the roof had been repaired, yet during every 
strong rain—and it rained almost perpetually—he was obliged to pack up his 
papers, and to protect himself from the wet as if he had been in the open air. 
From this delightful residence, Castrén, still pursuing his study of the Samoi- 

« The verst is about three-fifths of a mile. 


, 


MATTHIAS ALEXANDER CASTREN. 17? 


ede dialects, proceeded down the river to Dudinka, and finally, in November, to 
Tolstoi Noss, whose pleasant climate may be judged of by the fact that it is sit- 
uated in the latitude of 71°. This last voyage was performed in a “ balok,” or 
close sledge, covered with reindeer skins. The tediousness of being conveyed 
like a corpse in a dark and narrow box, induced him to exchange the “ balok ” 
for an open sledge; but the freezing of his feet, of his fingers, and of part of his 
face, soon caused him to repent of his temerity. As soon as this accident was 
discovered at the next station, Castrén crept back again into his prison, and was 
heartily glad when, after a nine days’ confinement, he at length arrived at Tolstoi 
Noss, which he found to consist of four wretched huts. Here again he spent 
several weeks studying by torchlight, for the sun had made his last appearance 
in November, and the day was reduced to a faint glimmering at noon. In Jan- 
uary we find him on his return-voyage to Turuchansk, a place which, though not 
very charming in itself, appeared delightful to Castrén after a six months’ resi- 
dence in the tundras beyond the Arctic Circle. 

Turuchansk can boast at least of seeing some daylight at all seasons of the 
year, and this may be enjoyed even within-doors, for Turuchansk possesses no 
less than four houses with glass windows. Longing to reach this comparative- 
ly sunny place, Castrén, against his usual custom, resolved to travel day and 
night without stopping, but his impatience well-nigh proved fatal to him. His 
Samo ede guide had not perceived in the dark that the waters of the Jenissei, 
over which they were travelling, had oozed through fissures in the ice, and in- 
undated the surface of the river far and wide. Thus he drove into the water, 
which of course was rapidly congealing; the reindeer were unable to drag the 
sledge back again upon the land, and Castrén stuck fast on the river, with the 
agreeable prospect of being frozen to death. From this imminent danger he 
was rescued by a wonderful circumstance. Letters having arrived from the 
Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg, a courier had been dispatched from Turu- 
chansk to convey them to Castrén. This courier fortunately reached him while 
he was in this perilous situation, helped him on land, and conducted him to a 
Samoiede hut, where he was able to warm his stiffened limbs. 

After such a journey, we can not wonder that, on arriving at Turuchansk, 
he was so tormented with rheumatism and toothache as to be obliged to rest 
there several days. With sore joints and an aching body, he slowly proceeded 
to Jeniseisk, where he arrived on April 3, 1847,in a wretched state of health, 
which however had not interrupted his Ostiak studies on. the way. I rapidly 
glance over his subsequent travels, as they are but a repetition of the same 
privations and the same hardships, all cheerfully sustained for the love of knowl- 
edge. Having somewhat recruited his strength at Jeniseisk, he crossed the 
Sajan Mountains to visit some Samoiedes beyond the Russian frontier—a jour- 
ney which, besides the usual fatigues, involved the additional risk of being ar- 
rested as a spy by the Chinese authorities; and the year after he visited Trans- 
baikalia, to make inquiries among the Buriat priests ebout the ancient history 
of Siberia. 

Having thus accomplished his task, and thoroughly investigated the wild na- 
tions of the Finnish race from the confines of the Arctic Sea to the Altai—a task 
f 12 


t78 THE POLAR WORLD. 


which cost him his health, and the best part of his energies—he longed to 
breathe the air of his native country. But neither the pleasures of home, nor 
a professorship at the University of Helsingfors, richly earned by almost super- 
numan exertions, were able to arrest the germs of disease, which journeys such 
as these could scarcely fail to plant even in his originally robust constitution. 
After lingering some years, he died in 1855, universally lamented by his coun- 
trymen, who justly mourned his early death as a national loss. 


THE SAMOIEDES. 179 


———— 


A SAMOIEDE PRIEST. 


CHAPTER XIV. 
THE SAMOIEDES. 


Their Barbarism.—Num, or Jilibeambaertje.—Shamanism.—Samo‘ede Idols.—Sjadai.—Hahe.—The Ta- 
debtsios, or Spirits. —The Tadibes, or Sorcerers.—Their Dress.—Their Invocations.—Their conjuring 
Tricks.—Reverence paid to the Dead.—A Samojede Oath.—Appearance of the Samoiedes.—Their 
Dress.—A Samoiede Belle.—Character of the Samoiedes.—Their decreasing Numbers.—Traditions of 
ancient Heroes. 


is ean Samoiedes, the neighbors of the Laplanders, are still farther removed 

from civilized society, and plunged in even deeper barbarism. The wildest 
tundras and woods of Northern Russia and Western Siberia are the home of 
the Samoiede. With his reindeer herds he wanders over the naked wastes, 
from the eastern coast of the White Sea to the banks of the Chatanga, or hunts 
in the boundless forests between the Obi and the Jenissei. His intercourse with 
the Russians is confined to his annual visit at the fairs of such miserable settle- 
ments as Obdorsk and Pustosersk, where, far from improving by their compa- 
ny, he but too often becomes the prey of their avarice, and learns to know them 
merely as cheats and oppressors. Protestant missionaries have long since 
brought instruction to the Laplander’s hut, but the majority of the less fortu- 
nate Samoiedes still adhere to the gross superstitions of their fathers. They 
believe in a Supreme Being—Num, or Jilibeambaertje—who resides in the air, 
and, like the Jupiter of old, sends down thunder and lightning, rain and snow ; 
and as a proof that something of a poetic fancy is to be found even among the 
most savage nations, they call the rainbow “ the hem of his garment.” As this 
deity, however, is too far removed from them to leave them any hope of gain- 


180 THE POLAR WORLD. 


ing his favor, they never think of offering him either prayer or sacrifice. But, 
besides Num, there are a great many inferior spirits, or idols, who directly in- 
terfere in human concerns—capricious beings, who allow themselves to be in- 
fluenced by offerings, or yield to magical incantations; and to these, therefore, 
the Samoiede has recourse when he feels the necessity of invoking the aid or 
averting the wrath of a higher Power. 

The chief of all Samoiede idols is in the island of Waygatz—a cold and me- 
ancholy Delos—where it was already found by old Barentz. This idol is a mere 
block of stone, with its head tapering to a point. It has thus been fashioned, 
not by a mortal artist, but by a play of nature. After this original the Samo- 
iedes have formed many idols of stone or wood of various sizes, which they call 
“ Sjadzi,” from their possessing a human physiognomy (sja). These idols they 
dress in reindeer skins, and ornament them with all sorts of colored rags. But 
a resemblance to the human form is not the necessary attribute of a Samoiede 
idol; any irregularly-shaped stone or tree may be thus distinguished. If the 
object is small, the savage carries it everywhere about with him, carefully wrap- 
ped up; if too cumbersome to be transported, it is reserved as a kind of nation- 
al deity. As with the Ostiaks, each Samoiede tribe has in its train a peculiar 
sledge—-the Hahengan—in which the household idols (or Hahe) are placed. 
One of these Penates protects the reindeer, another watches over the health of 
his worshjppers, a third is the guardian of their connubial happiness, a fourth 
takes care to fill their nets with fish. Whenever his services are required, the 
Hahe is taken from his repository, and erected in the tent or on the pasture- 
ground, in the wood or on the river’s bank. His mouth is then smeared with 
oil or blood, and a dish with fish or flesh is set before him, in the full expecta- 
tion that his good offices will amply repay the savory repast. When his aid 
is no longer necessary, he is put aside without any further ceremony, and as lit- 
tle noticed as the Madonna of the Neapolitan fisherman after the storm has 
ceased. 

The Hahe, or idols, are very convenient objects of reverence to the Samoiede, 
as he can consult them, or ask their assistance, without being initiated in the 
secrets of magic; while the Tadebtsios, or invisible spirits, which everywhere 
hover about in the air, and are more inclined to injure than to benefit man, can 
only be invoked by a Tadibe, or sorcerer, who, like the Cumzan Sibyl, works 
himself into a state of ecstatic frenzy. When his services are required, the 
first care of the Tadibe is to invest himself with his magical mantle—a kind of 
shirt made of reindeer leather, and hemmed with red cloth. The seams are 
covered in a similar manner, and the shoulders are decorated with epaulettes of 
the same gaudy material. A piece of red cloth veils the eyes and face—for the 
Tadibe requires no external organs of sight to penetrate into the world of spirits 
—and a plate of polished metal shines upon his breast. 

Thus accoutred, the Tadibe seizes his magical drum, whose sounds summon 
the spirits to his will. Its form is round, it has but one bottom, made of rein- 
deer skin, and is more or less decorated with brass rings and other ornaments, 
according to the wealth or poverty of its possessor. During the ceremony of 
invocation, the Tadibe is generally assisted by a disciple, more or less initiated 


THE SAMOIEDES. | 181 


in the magic art. They either sit down, or walk about in a circle. The chief 
sorcerer beats the drum, at first slowly, then with increasing violence, singing at 
the same time a few words to a mystic melody. The disciple immediately falls 
in, and both repeat the same monotonous chant. 

At length the spirits appear, and the consultation is supposed to begin; the 
Tadibe from time to time remaining silent, as if listening to their answers, and 
but gently beating his drum, while the assistant continues to sing. Finally, this 
mute conversation ceases, the song changes into a wild howling, the drum 1s 
violently struck, the eye of the Tadibe glows with a strange fire, foam issues 
from his lips—when suddenly the uproar ceases, and the oracular sentence is 
pronounced. The Tadibes are consulted not only for the purpose of recovering 
a strange reindeer, or to preserve the herd from a contagious disorder, or to 
obtain success in fishing; the Samoiede, when a prey to illness, seeks no other 
medical advice; and the sorcerer’s drum either scares away the malevolent 
spirits that cause the malady, or summons others to the assistance of his patient. 

The office of Tadibe is generally hereditary, but individuals gifted by nature 
with excitable nerves and an ardent imagination not seldom desire to be initia- 
ted in these supernatural communications. No one can teach the candidate. 
His morbid fancy is worked upon by solitude, the contemplation of the gloomy 
aspect of nature, long vigils, fasts, the use of narcotics and stimulants, until he 
becomes persuaded that he too has seen the apparitions which he has heard of 
from his boyhood. He is then received as a Tadibe with many ceremonies, 
which are held in the silence of the night, and invested with the magic drum. 
Thus the Tadibe partly believes in the visions and fancies of his own overheated 
brain. Besides dealing with the invisible world, he does not neglect the usual 
arts of an expert conjuror, and knows by this means to increase his influence 
over his simple-minded countrymen. One of his commonest tricks is similar to 
that which has been practised with so much success by the Brothers Daven- 
port. He sits down, with his hands and feet bound, on a reindeer skin stretched 
out upon the floor, and, the light being removed, begins to summon the minis- 
tering spirits to his aid. Strange unearthly noises now begin to be heard— 
bears growl, snakes hiss, squirrels rustle about the hut. At length the tumult 
ceases, the audience anxiously awaits the end of the spectacle, when suddenly 
the Tadibe, freed from his bonds, steps into the hut—no one doubting that the 
spirits have set him free. 

As barbarous as the poor wretches who submit to his guidance, the Tadibe 
is incapable of improving their moral condition, and has no wish to do so. 
Under various names--Schamans among the Tungusi, Angekoks among the 
Esquimaux, medicine-men among the Crees and Chepewyans, etc.—we find sim- 
lar magicians or impostors assuming a spiritual dictatorship over all the Arc- 
tic nations of the Old and the New World, wherever their authority has not 
been broken by Christianity or Buddhism; and this dreary faith still extends 
its influence over at least half a million of souls, from the White Sea to the ex- 
tremity of Asia, and from the Pacific to Hudson’s Bay. 

Like the Ostiaks and other Siberian tribes, the Samoiedes honor the memory 
of the dead by sacrifices and other ceremonies. They believe that their de- 


182 THE POLAR WORLD. 


ceased friends have still the same wants, and pursue the same occupations, as 
when in the land of the living; and thus they place in or about their graves a 
sledge, a spear, a cooking-pot, a knife, an axe, etc., to assist them in procuring 
and preparing their food. At the funeral, and for several years afterwards, the 
relations sacrifice reindeer over the grave. When a person of note, a prince, a 
Starschina, the proprietor of numerous herds of reindeer, dies (for even among 
the miserable Samoiedes we find the social distinctions of rich and poor), the 
nearest relations make an image, which is placed in the tent of the deceased, 
and enjoys the respect paid to him during his lifetime. At every meal the im- 
age is placed in his former seat, and every evening it is undressed and laid 
down in his bed. During three years the image is thus honored, and then 
buried ; for by this time the body is supposed to be decayed, and to have lost 
all sensation of the past. The souls of the Tadibes, and of those who have died 
a violent death, alone enjoy the privilege of immortality, and after their terres- 
trial life hover about in the air as unsubstantial spirits. 

Yet in spite of this privilege, and of the savory morsels that fall to their 


share at every sacrificial feast, or of the presents received for their services, the 


Tadibes are very unhappy beings. The ecstatic condition into which they so 
frequently work themselves shatters their nerves and darkens their mind. Wild 
looks, bloodshot eyes, an uncertain gait, and a shy manner, are among the ef- 
fects of this periodical excitement. 

Like the Ostiaks, the Samoiedes consider the taking of an oath as an action 
of the highest religious importance. When a crime has been secretly commit- 
ted against a Samoiede, he has the right to demand an oath from the suspected 
person. 

If no wooden or stone Hahe is at hand, he manufactures one of earth or 
snow, leads his opponent to the image, sacrifices a dog, breaks the image, and 
then addresses him with the following words :—“ If thou hast committed this 
crime, then must thou perish like this dog.” The ill consequences of perjury 
are so much dreaded by the Samoides—who, though they have but very faint 
ideas of a future state, firmly believe that crime will be punished in this life, 
murder with violent death, or robbery by losses of reindeer—that the true 
eriminal, when called upon to swear, hardly ever submits to the ceremony, but 
rather at once confesses his guilt and pays the penalty. 

The most effectual security for an oath is that it should be solemnized over 
the snout of a bear—an animal which is highly revered by all the Siberian tribes, 
from the Kamchatkans to the Samoiedes, as well as by the Laplanders. Like 
the Laplanders, they believe that the bear conceals under his shaggy coat a hu- 
man shape with more than human wisdom, and speak of him in terms of the 
highest reverence. Like the Lapps also, when occasion offers, they will drive 


an arrow or a bullet through his skin; but they preface the attack with so 


many compliments that they feel sure of disarming his anger. 

The appearance of the Samoiedes is as wild as the country which they in- 
habit. The dwarfish stature of the Ostiak, or the Lapp, thick lips, small eyes, 
a low forehead, a broad nose so much flattened that the end is nearly upon a 
level with the bone of the upper jaw (which is strong and greatly elevated), 


THE SAMOIEDES. 183 


raven-black shaggy hair, a thin beard, and a yellow-brown complexion, are their 
characteristic features, and in general they do nothing to improve a form which 
has but little natural beauty to boast of. The Samoiede is satisfied if his heavy 
reindeer dress affords him protection against the cold and rain, and cares little 
if it be dirty or ill-cut; some dandies, however, wear furs trimmed with cloth 
of a gaudy color. The women, as long as they are unmarried, take some pains 
with their persons; and when a Samoiede girl, with her small and lively black 
eyes, appears in her reindeer jacket tightly fitting round the waist, and trim- 
med with dog-skin, in her scarlet moccasins, and her long black tresses orna- 
mented with pieces of brass or tin, she may well tempt some rich admirer to 
offer a whole herd of reindeer tor her hand. For among the Samoiedes no 
father ever thinks of bestowing a portion on his daughter: on the contrary, he 
expects from the bridegroom an equivalent for the services which he is about 
to lose by her marriage. The consequence of this degrading custom is that the 
husband treats his consort like a slave, or as an inferior being. A Samoiede, 
who had murdered his wife, was quite surprised at being summoned before a 
court of justice for what he considered a trifling offense; “he had honestly 
paid for her,” he said, “and could surely do whai he liked with his own.” 

The senses and faculties of the Samoiedes correspond to their mode of life 
as nomads and hunters. They have a piercing eye, delicate hearing, and a 
steady hand: they shoot an arrow with great accuracy, and are swift runners. 
On the other hand, they have a gross taste, generally consuming their fish or 
their reindeer flesh raw ; and their smell is so weak that they appear quite in- 
sensible to the putrefying odors arising from the scrapings of skins, stinking 
fish, and other offal which is allowed to accumulate in and about their huts. 

The Samoiede is good-natured, melancholy, and phlegmatic. He has, in- 
deed, but indistinct notions of right and wrong, of good and evil; but he pos- 
sesses a grateful heart, and is ready to divide his last morsel with his friend. 
Cruelty, revenge, the darker crimes that pollute so many of the savage tribes 
of the tropical zone, are foreign to his character. Constantly at war with a 
dreadful climate, a prey to ignorance and poverty, he regards most of the 
things of this life with supreme indifference. A good meal is of course a 
matter of importance in his eyes; but even the want of a meal he will bear 
with stoical apathy, when it can only be gained by exertion, for he sets a still 
higher value on repose and sleep. 

A common trait in the character of all Samoiedes is the gloomy view which 
they take of life and its concerns; their internal world is as cheerless as that 
which surrounds them. True men of ice and snow, they relinquish, without a 
murmur, a life which they can hardly love, as it imposes upon them many 
privations, and affords them but few pleasures in return. 

They are suspicious, like all oppressed nations that have much to suffer from 
their more crafty or energetic neighbors. Obstinately attached to their old 
customs, they are opposed to all innovations; and they have been so often de- 
ceived by the Russians, that they may well be pardoned if they look with a 
mistrustful eye upon all benefits coming from that source. 

The wealth of the Samoiedes consists in the possession of herds of reindeer, 


184 THE POLAR WORLD. 


and P. von Krusenstern, in 1845, calculated the number owned by the Samo: 
iedes of the Lower Petschora, near Pustosersk, at 40,000 head—a much small- 
er number than what they formerly had, owing to a succession of misfortunes. 
The Russian settlers along that immense stream and its tributaries gradually 
obtain possession of their best pasture-grounds, and force them to recede within 
narrower and narrower limits. Thus many have been reduced to the wretch- 
ed condition of the Arctic fisherman, or have been compelled to exchange their 
ancient independence for a life of submission to the will of an imperious master. 

The entire number of the European and Asiatic Samoiedes is estimated at 
no more than about 10,000, and this number, small as it is when compared to 
the vast territory over which they roam, is still decreasing from year to year. 
Before their subjugation by the Russians, the Samoiedes were frequently at war 
with their neighbors, the Ostiaks, the Woguls, and the Tartars, and the rude 
poems which celebrate the deeds of the heroes of old are still sung in the tents 
of their peaceful descendants. The minstrel, or trowbadour—if I may be al- 
lowed to use these names while speaking of the rudest of mankind—is seated 
in the centre of the hut, while the audience squat around. His gesticulations 
endeavor to express his sympathy with his hero. His body trembles, his voice 
quivers, and during the more pathetic parts of his story, tears start to his eyes, 
and he covers his face with his left hand, while the right, holding an arrow, di- 
rects its point to the ground. The audience generally keep silence, but their 
groans accompany the hero’s death; or when he soars upon an eagle to the 
vlouds, and thus escares the inalice of his enemies, they express their delight 
\y a triumphant shout. 


f 


THE OSTIAKS. 185 


BANKS OF THE IRTYSCH. 


CHAPTER XV. 
THE OSTIAKS. 
What is the Obi?—Inundations.—An Ostiak summer Yourt.—Poverty of the Ostiak Fishermen.—A 


winter Yourt.—Attachment of the Ostiaks to their ancient Customs.—An Ostiak Prince.—Archery. 
—Appearance and Character of the Ostiaks.—The Fair of Obdorsk. 

HAT is the Obi ?—“ One of the most melancholy rivers on earth,” say 

the few European travellers who have ever seen it roll its turbid waters 

through the wilderness, “ its monotonous banks a dreary succession of swamps 


and dismal pine-forests, and hardly a living creature to be seen, but cranes, 


wild ducks, and geese.” If you address the same question to one of the few 
Russians who have settled on its banks, he answers, with a devout mien, “ Obi 
is our mother ;” but if you ask the Ostiak, he bursts forth, in a laconic but en- 
ergetic phrase, “ Obi is the god whom we honor above all our other gods.” 

To him the Obi is a source of life. With its salmon and sturgeon he pays 
his taxes and debts, and buys his few luxuries; while the fishes of inferior 
quality which get entangled in his net he keeps for his own consumption and 
that of his faithful dog, eating them mostly raw, so that the perch not seldom 
feels his teeth as soon as it is pulled out of the water. In spring, when the 
Obi and its tributaries burst their bonds of ice, and the floods sweep over the 
plains, the Ostiak is frequently driven into the woods, where he finds but little 
to appease his hunger; at length, however, the waters subside, the flat banks 


186 THE POLAR WORLD. 


of the river appear above their surface, and the savage erects his summer hut 
close to its stream. This hovel has generally a quadrangular form, low walls, 
and a high pointed roof, made of willow-branches covered with large pieces of 
bark. These, having first been softened by boiling, are sewn together, so as to 
form large mats or carpets, easily rolled up and transported. The hearth, a 
mere hole inclosed by a few stones, is in the centre, and the smoke escapes 
‘ threugh an aperture at the top. Close to the hut there is also, generally, a 
small store-house erected on high poles, as in Lapland ; for the provisions must 
be secured against the attacks of the glutton, the wolf, or the owner’s dogs. 

Although the Obi and its tributaries—the Irtysch, the Wach, the Wasju- 
gan—abundantly provide for the wants of the Ostiaks, yet those who are ex- 
clusively fishermen vegetate in a state of the greatest poverty, in indolence, 
drunkenness, and vice. The wily Russian settlers have got them completely 
in their power, by advancing them goods on credit, and thus securing the prod- 
uce of their fisheries from year to year. During the whole summer Russian 
speculators from Obdorsk, Beresow, and Tobolsk sail about on the Obi, to re- 
ceive from their Ostiak debtors the salmon and sturgeon which they have 
caught, or to fish on their own account, which, as having better nets and more 
assistance, they do with much greater success than the poor savages. 

The Russian Government has, indeed, confirmed the Ostiaks in the posses- 
sion of almost all the land and water in the territories of the Lower Obi and 
Irtysch, but the Russian traders find means to monopolize the best part of the 
fisheries ; for ignorance and stupidity, in spite of all laws in their favor, are 
nowhere a match for mercantile cunning. 

At the beginning of winter the Ostiaks retire into the woods, where they 
find at least some protection against the Arctic blasts, and are busy hunting 
the sable or the squirrel; but as fishing affords them at all times their chief 
food, they take care to establish their winter huts on some eminence above the 
reach of the spring inundations, near some small river, which, through holes 
made in the ice, affords their nets and anglers a precarious supply. Their 
winter yourt is somewhat more solidly constructed than their summer resi- 
dence, as it is not removed every year. It is low and small, and its walls are 
plastered with clay. Light is admitted through a piece of ice inserted in the 
wall or on the roof. In the better sort of huts, the space along one or several 
of the walls is hung with mats made of sedges, and here the family sits or 
sleeps. Sometimes a small antechamber serves to hang up the clothes, or is 
used as a repository for household utensils. Besides those who live solely upon 
fishes and birds of passage, there are other Ostiaks who possess reindeer herds, 
and wander in summer to the border of the Polar sea, where they also catch 
seals and fish. When winter approaches, they slowly return to the woods. 
Finally, in the more southerly districts, there are some Ostiaks who, having 
entirely adopted the Russian mode of life, cultivate the soil, keep cattle, or earn 
their livelihood as carriers. 

In general, however, the Ostiak, like the Samoiede, obstinately withstands 
all innovations, and remains true to the customs of his forefathers. He has 
been so often deceived by the Russians that he is loth to receive the gifts of 


THE OSTIAKS. 187 


civilization from their hands. He fears that if his children learn to read and 
write, they will no longer be satisfied to live like their parents, and that the 
school will deprive him of the support of his age. He is no less obstinately at- 
tached to the religion of his fathers, which in all essential points is identical 
with that of the Samoiedes. In some of the southern districts, along the Ir- 
tysch, at Surgut, he has indeed been baptized, and hangs up the image of a 
saint in his hut, as his Russian pope or priest has instructed him to do; but 
his Christianity extends no farther. Along the tributaries of the Obi, and be- 
low Obdorsk, he is still plunged in Schamanism. 

Like the Samoiedes, the Ostiaks, whose entire number amounts to about 
25,000, are subdivided into tribes, reminding one of the Highland clans. Each 
tribe consists of a number of families, of a common descent, and sometimes 
comprising many hundred individuals, who, however distantly related, con- 
sider it a duty to assist each other in distress. The fortunate fisherman di- 
vides the spoils of the day with his less fortunate clansman, who hardly thanks 
him for a gift which he considers as his due. In cases of dispute the Star- 
schina, or elder, acts as a judge; if, however, the parties are not satisfied with 
his verdict, they appeal to the higher authority of the hereditary chieftain or 
prince—a title which has been conferred by the Empress Catherine II. on the 
Ostiak magnates, who, from time immemorial, have been considered as the 
heads of their tribes. These princes are, of course, subordinate to the Russian 
officials, and bound to appear, with the Starschinas, at the fairs of Beresow or 
Obdorsk, as they are answerable for the quantity and quality of the various 
sorts of furs which the Ostiaks are obliged to pay as a tribute to Government. 
Their dignity is hereditary, and, in default of male descendants, passes to the 
nearest male relation. It must, however, not be supposed that these princes 
are distinguished from the other Ostiaks by their riches or a more splendid 
appearance ; for their mode of life differs in no way from that of their inferiors 
in rank, and, like them, they are obliged to fish or to hunt for their daily sub- 
sistence. 

On entering the hut of one of these dignitaries, Castrén found him in a 
ragged jacket, while the princess had no other robe of state but a shirt. The 
prince, having liberally helped himself from the brandy-bottle which the trav- 
eller offered him, became very communicative, and complained of the suffer- 
ings and cares of the past winter. He had exerted himself to the utmost, but 
without success. Far from giving way to indolence in his turf-hut, he had been 
out hunting in the forest, after the first snow-fall, but rarely pitching his bark- 
tent, and frequently sleeping in the open air. Yet, in spite of all his exertions, 
he had often not been able to shoot a single ptarmigan. His stores of meal 
and frozen fishes were soon exhausted, and sometimes the princely family had 
been reduced to eat the flesh of wolves. 

The Ostiaks are excellent archers, and, like all the other hunting tribes of 
Siberia, use variously constructed arrows for the different objects of their chase. 
Smaller shafts, with a knob of wood at the end, are destined for the squirrels 
and other small animals whose fur it is desirable not to injure; while large ar- 
rows, with strong triangular iron points, bring down the wolf, the bear, and 


188 THE POLAR WORLD. 


sometimes the fugitive exile. For, to prevent the escape of criminals sentenced 
to banishment in Siberia, the Russian Government allows the Ostiaks to shoot 
any unknown person, not belonging to their race, whom they may meet with on 


their territory. Although well aware of this danger, several exiles have at- 
tempted to escape to Archangel along the border of the Arctic sea; but they 


either died of hunger, or were devoured by wild beasts, or shot by the Ostiaks. 


There is but one instance known of an exile who, after spending a whole year 


on the journey, at length reached the abodes of civilized man, and he was par- 
doned in consideration of the dreadful sufferings he had undergone. 

The Ostiaks are generally of a small stature, and most of them are dark-com- 
plexioned, with raven-black hair like the Samoiedes; some of them, however, 
have a fairer skin and light-colored hair. They have neither the oblique eyes 
nor the broad projecting cheek-bones of the Mongols and Tungus, but bear a 
greater resemblance to the Finnish, Samoiede, and Turkish cast of countenance. 
They are a good-natured, indolent, honest race; and though they are extremely 
dirty, yet their smoky huts are not more filthy than those of the Norwegian or 
Icelandic fisherman. As among the Samoiedes, the women are in a very de- 
graded condition, the father always giving his daughter in marriage to the 
highest bidder. The price is very different, and rises or falls according to the 
circumstances of the parent; for while the rich man asks fifty reindeer for his 
child, the poor fisherman is glad to part with his daughter for a few squirrel- 
skins and dried sturgeon. 

Before taking leave of the Ostiaks, we will still tarry a moment at the small 
town of Obdorsk, which may be considered as the capital of their country, and 
entirely owes its existence to the trade carried on between them and the Rus- 
sians. Formerly the merchants from Beresow and Tobolsk used merely to visit 
the spot, but the difficulties of the journey soon compelled them to establish 
permanent dwellings in that dreary region. A certain number of exiles serves 
to increase the scanty population, which consists of a strange medley of various 
nations, among whom Castrén found a Calmuck, a Kirghis, and a Polish cook, 


GROUP OF KIRGHIS. 


THE OSTIAKS. 189 


who bitterly complained that he had but few opportunities of showing his skill 
in a town where people lived @ Ja Ostiak. In fact, most of the Russian in- 
habitants of the place have in so far adopted the Ostiak mode of life, as to 
deem the cooking of their victuals superfluous. When Castrén, on his arrival 
at Obdorsk, paid a visit to a Tobolsk merchant, who had been for some time 
settled in the place, he found the whole family lying on the floor, regaling on 
raw fish, and the most civilized person he met with told him that he had tasted 
neither boiled nor roast flesh or fish for half a year. Yet fine shawls and 
dresses, and now no doubt the crinoline and the chignon, are found amidst all 
this barbarism. Edifices with the least pretensions to architectural beauty it 
would of course be vain to look for in Obdorsk. The houses of the better sort 
of Russian settlers are two-storied, or consisting of a ground-floor and garrets ; 
but as they are built of wood, and are by no means wind-tight, the half-fam- 
ished Ostiaks, who have settled in the town, are probably more comfortably 
housed in their low turf-huts than the prosperous Russian inhabitants of 
the place. The latter make it their chief occupation to cheat the Ostiaks in 
every possible way; some of them, however, add to this profitable, if not 
praiseworthy occupation, the keeping of reindeer herds, or even of cows and 
sheep. 

The fair lasts from the beginning of winter to February, and during this 
time the Ostiaks who assemble at Obdorsk pitch their vark-tents about the 
town. With their arrival a new life begins to stir in the wretched place. 
Groups of the wild sons and daughters of the tundra, clothed in heavy skins, 
make their appearance, and stroll slowly through the streets, admiring the high 
wooden houses, which to them seem palaces. But nothing is to be seen of the 
animation and activity which usually characterize a fair. Concealing some cost- 
ly fur under his wide skin mantle, the savage pays his cautious visit to the trad- 
er, and makes his bargain amidst copious libations of brandy. He is well aware 
that this underhand way of dealing is detrimental to his interests ; that his tim- 
orous disposition shrinks from public sales, and frequently he is not even in the 
situation to profit by competition; for among the thousands that flock to the 
fair, there are but very few who do not owe to the traders of Obdorsk much 
more than they possess, or can ever hope to repay. Woe to the poor Ostiak 
whose creditor should find him dealing with some other trader !—for the seizure 
of all his movable property, of his tent and household utensils, would be the 
least punishment which the wretch turned adrift into the naked desert would 
have to expect. The fair is not opened before Government has received the 
furs which are due to it, or at least a guarantee for the amount from the mer- 
chants of the place. Then the magazines of the traders gradually fill with furs 
—with clothes of reindeer skin ready made, with feathers, reindeer flesh, frozen 
sturgeon, mammoth tusks, etc. For these goods the Ostiaks receive flour, 
baked bread, tobacco, pots, kettles, knives, needles, brass buttons and rings, glass 
pearls, and other trifling articles. An open trade in spirits is not allowed; but 
brandy may be sold as a medicine, and thus many an Ostiak takes advantage of 
the fair for undergoing a cure the reverse of that which is recommended by hy- 
dropathic doctors. 


190 THE POLAR WORLD. 


Towards the end of February, when the Ostiaks have retired into the woods 
—where they hunt or tend their reindeer herds until the opening of the fishing- 
season recalls them to the Obi—the trader prepares for his journey to Irbit, 
where he hopes to dispose of bis furs at an enormous profit, and Obdorsk is 
once more left until the following winter to its death-like solitude. 


CONQUEST OF SIBERIA BY THE RUSSIANS. . 191 


CHAPTER XVI. 


* CONQUEST OF SIBERIA BY THE RUSSIANS—THEIR VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY ALONG 
THE SHORES OF THE POLAR SEA. 


Ivan the Terrible-—Strogonoff.—Yermak, the Robber and Conqueror.—His Expeditions to Siberia. —- 
Battle of Tobolsk.—Yermak’s Death.—Progress of the Russians to Ochotsk.—Semen Deshnew.— 
‘Condition of the Siberian Natives under the Russian Yoke.—Voyages of Discovery in the Reign of 
the Empress Anna.—Prontschischtschew.—Chariton and Demetrius Laptew.—An Arctic Heroine. 
—Schalaurow.—Discoveries in the Sea of Bering and in the Pacific Ocean.—The Lichow Islands.-— 
Fossil Ivory.—New Siberia.—The wooden Mountains.—The past Ages of Siberia. 


a the beginning of the thirteenth century, the now huge Empire of Russia 

was confined to part of her present European possessions, and divided into 
several independent principalities, the scene of disunion and almost perpetual 
warfare. Thus when the country was invaded, in 1236, by the Tartars, under 
Baaty Khan, a grandson of the famous Gengis Khan, it fell an easy prey to its 
conquerors. The miseries of a foreign yoke, aggravated by intestine discord, 
lasted about 250 years, until Ivan Wasiljewitsch I. (1462-1505) became the 
deliverer of his country and laid the foundations of her future greatness. This 
able prince subdued, in 1470, the Great Novgorod, a city until then so powerfui 
as to have maintained its independence, both against the Russian grand princes 
and the Tartar khans; and, ten years later, he not only threw off the yoke of the 
Khans of Khipsack, but destroyed their empire. The conquest of Constanti- 
nople by the Turks placed the spiritual diadem of the ancient Czsars on his 


192 THE POLAR WORLD. 


head, and caused him, as chief of the Greek orthodox Church, to exchange his 
old title of Grand Prince for the more significant and imposing one of Czar. 

His grandson, Ivan Wasiljewitsch II.,a cruel but energetic monarch, con- 
- quered Kagan in 1552, and thus completely and permanently overthrew the do- 
minion of the Tartars. Two years later he subdued Astrakhan, and planted the 
Greek cross on the borders of the Caspian Sea, where until then only the Cres- 
cent had been seen. 

In spite of the inhuman cruelty that disgraced his character, and earned for 
him the name of Zerrible, Ivan sought, like his illustrious successor, Peter the 
Great, to introduce the arts and sciences of Western Europe into his barbarous | 
realm, and to improve the Russian manufactures by encouraging German artists 
and mechanics to settle in the country. It was in his reign that Chancellor dis- 
covered the passage from England to the White Sea, and Ivan gladly seized 
the opportunity thus afforded. Soon after this the port of Archangel was built, 
and thus a new seat was opened to civilization at the northern extremity of 
Europe. 

After the conquest of Kasan, several Russians settled in that province; among 
others, a merchant of the name of Strogonoff, who established some salt-works 
on the banks of the Kama, and opened a trade with the natives. Among these 
he noticed some strangers, and having heard that they came from a country 
ruled by a Tartar Khan, who resided in a capital called Sibir, he sent some of 
his people into their land. These agents returned with the finest sable skins, 
which they had purchased for a trifling sum; and Strogonoff, not so covetous 
as to wish to keep all the advantage of his discovery to himself, immediately in- 
formed the Government of the new trade he had opened. He was rewarded 
with the gift of considerable estates at the confluence of the Kama and Tschin- 
sova, and his descendants, the Counts Strogonoff, are, as is well known, reckoned 
among the richest of the Russian nobility. 

Soon after Ivan sent some troops to Siberia, whose prince, Jediger, acknowl- 
edged his supremacy, and promised to pay him an annual tribute of a thousand 
sable skins. But this connection was not of long duration, for a few years after 
_Jediger was defeated by another Tartar prince, named Kutchum Khan; and 
thus, after Russian influence had taken the first step to establish itself beyond the 
Ural, it once more became doubtful whether Northern Asia was to be Christian 
or Mohammedan. The question was soon after decided by a fugitive robber. 

The conquests of Ivan on the Caspian Sea had called into life a considerable 
trade with Bokhara and Persia, which, however, was greatly disturbed by the 
depredations of the Don Cossacks, who made it their practice to plunder the 
caravans. But Ivan,not the man to be trifled with by a horde of freebooters, 
immediately sent out a body of troops against the Don Cossacks, who, not ven- 
turing to meet them, sought their safety in flight. At the head-of the fugitives, 
whose number amounted to no less than 6000 men, was Yermak Timodajeff, 
a man who, like Cortez or Pizarro, was destined to lay a new empire at the feet 
of his master. But while the troops of the Czar were following his track, Yer- 
mak was not yet dreaming of future conquests; his only aim was to escape the 
executioner; and he considered himself extremely fortunate when, leaving his 


CONQUEST OF SIBERIA BY THE RUSSIANS.. 193 


pursuers far behind, he at length arrived on the estates of Strogonoff. Here he 
was well received—better, no doubt, than if he had come single-handed and de- 
fenseless; and Strogonoff having made him acquainted with Siberian affairs, 
he at once resolved to try his fortunes on this new scene of action. As the tyr- 
anny of Kutchum Khan had rendered him odious to his subjects, he hoped it 
would be an easy task to overthrow his power; the prospect of a rich booty of 
sable skins was also extremely attractive; and, finally, there could be no doubt 
that the greatest dangers were in his rear, and that any choice was better than 
to fall into the hands of Ivan the Terrible. Strogonoff, on his part, had excel- 
lent reasons for encouraging the adventure. If it succeeded, a considerable 
part of the profits was likely to fall to his share; if not, he at least was rid of 
his unbidden guest. 

Thus Yermak, in the summer of 1578, advanced with his Cossacks along the 
banks of the Tschinsova into Siberia. But, either from a want of knowledge 
of the country, or from not having taken the necessary precautions, he was 
overtaken by winter before he could make any progress; and when spring ap- 
peared, famine compelled him to return to his old quarters, where, as may easi- 
ly be imagined, his reception was none of the most cordial. But, far from losing 
courage from this first disappointment, Yermak was firmly resolved to perse- 
vere. He had gained experience—his self-confidence was steeled by adversity ; 
and when Strogonoff attempted to refuse him further assistance, he pointed to 
his Cossacks with the air of a man who has the means of enforcing obedience 
to his orders. This time Yermak took better measures for insuring success; 
he compelled Strogonoff to furnish him with an ample supply of provisions and 
ammunition, and in the June of the following year we again find him, with 
his faithful Cossacks, on the march to Siberia. But such were the impediments 
which the pathless swamps and forests, the severity of the climate, and the hos- 
tility of the natives opposed to his progress, that towards the end of 1580 his 
force (now reduced to 1500 men) had reached no farther than the banks ‘of the 
Tara. The subsequent advance of this little band was a constant succession 
of hardships and skirmishes, which caused it to melt away like snow in the 
sunshine; so that scarcely 500 remained when, at the confluence of the Tobol 
and the Irtysch, they at length reached the camp of Kutchum Khan, whose over- 
whelming numbers seemed to mock their audacity. 

But Yermak felt as little fear at sight of the innumerable tents of the Tar- 
tar host, as the wolf when meeting a herd of sheep. He knew that his Cossacks, 
armed with their -matchlocks, had long since disdained to count their enemies, 
and, fully determined to conquer or to die, he gave the order to attack. A 
dreadful battle ensued, for though the Tartars only fought with their bows and 
arrows, yet they were no less brave than their adversaries, and their vast supe- 
riority of numbers made up for the inferior quality of their weapons. The 
struggle was long doubtful—the Tartars repeating attack upon attack like the 
waves of a storm-tide, and the Cossacks receiving their assaults as firmly and 
immovably as rocks; until, finally, the hordes of Kutchum Khan gave way to 
their stubborn obstinacy, and his camp and all its treasures fell into the hands 


of the conquerors. 
13 


194 THE POLAR WORLD. 


The subsequent conduct of Yermak proved that he had all the qualities of 
a general and a statesman, and that his talents were not unequal to his fortunes. 
- Without losing a single moment, he, immediately after this decisive battle, sent 
part of his small band to occupy the capital of the vanquished Kutchum, for he 
well knew that a victory is but half gained if one delays to reap its fruits. 
The Cossacks found the place evacuated, and soon after Yermak made his tri- 
umphal entry into Sibir. His weakness now became a source of strength, for, 
daunted by the wonderful success of this handful of strangers, the people far 
and wide came to render him homage. ‘The Ostiaks of the Soswa freely con- 
sented to yield an annual tribute of 280 sable skins, and other tribes of the same 
nation, who were more backward in their submission, were compelled by his 
menaces to pay him a tax, or jassak, of eleven skins for every archer. 

It was not without reason that Yermak thus sought to collect as many of 
these valuable furs as he possibly could, for his aim was to obtain from Ivan a 
pardon of his former delinquencies, by presenting him with the richest spoils 
of his victories, and he well knew that it would be impossible for him to main- 
tain his conquests without further assistance from the Czar. Great was Ivan’s 
astonishment when an envoy of the fugitive robber brought him the welcome 
gift of 2400 sable skins, and informed him that Yermak had added a new prov- 
ince to his realm. He at once comprehended that the hero who with small 
means had achieved such great successes, was the fittest man to consolidate or 
enlarge his acquisitions; he consequently not only pardoned all his former of- 
fenses, but confirmed him in the dignity of governor and commander-in-chief 
in the countries which he had subdued. Thus Yermak’s envoy, having been 
received with the greatest distinction at Moscow, returned to his fortunate mas- 
ter with a robe of honor which had been worn by the Czar himself, and the 
still more welcome intelligence that re-enforcements were on the march to join 
him. 

Meanwhile Yermak had continued to advance into the valley of the Obi be- 
yond its confluence with the Irtysch; and when at length his force was aug- 
mented by the arrival of 500 Russians, he pursued his expeditions with increas- 
ing audacity. On his return from one of these forays, he encamped on a small 
island in the Irtysch. The night was dark and rainy, and the Russians, fatigued 
by their march, relied too much upon the badness of the weather or the terror 
of their name. But Kutchum Khan, having been informed by his spies of their 
want of vigilance, crossed a ford in the river, and falling upon the unsuspecting 
Russians, killed them all except one single soldier, who brought the fatal intel- 
ligence to Sibir. Yermak, when he saw his warriors fall around him like grass 
before the scythe, without losing his presence of mind for a moment, cut his 
way through the Tartars, and endeavored to save himself in a boat. But in 
the medley he fell into the water and was drowned. 

By the orders of Kutchum, the body of the hero was exposed to every indig- 
nity which the rage of a barbarian can think of; but after this first explosion 
of impotent fury, his followers, feeling ashamed of the ignoble conduct of their 
chief, buried his remains with princely pomp, and ascribed miraculous powers 
to the grave in which they were deposited. The Russians have also erected a 


CONQUEST OF SIBERIA BY THE RUSSIANS. 195 


monument to Yermak in the town of Tobolsk, which was built on the very spot 
where he gained his first decisive victory over Kutchum. It is inscribed with 
the dates of that memorable event, and of the unfortunate day when he found 
his death in the floods of the Irtysch. His real monument, however, is all Sibe- 
ria from the Ural to the Pacific; for as long as the Russian nation continues: 
to exist, it will remember the name of Yermak Timodajeff. The value of the 
man became at once apparent after his death, for scarcely had the news of the 
disaster arrived, when the Russians immediately evacuated Sibir, and left the 
country. But they well knew that this retreat was to be but temporary, and 
that the present ebb of their fortunes would soon be followed by a fresh tide 
of success. After afew years they once more returned, as the definitive masters 
of the country. Their first settlement was Tjumen, on the Tara, and before 
the end of 1587 Tobolsk was founded. They had, indeed, still many a conflict 
with the Woguls and Tartars, but every effort of the natives to shake off the 
yoke proved fruitless. 

As gold had been the all-powerful magnet which led the Spaniards from His- 
paniola to Mexico and Peru, so a small fur-bearing animal (the sable) attracted 
the Cossacks farther and farther to the east; and although the possession of 
fire-arms gave them an immense advantage over the wild inhabitants of Sibe- 
ria, yet it is as astonishing with what trifling means they subdued whole nations, 
and perhaps history affords no other example of such a vast extent of territory 
having been conquered by so small a number of adventurers. 

As they advanced, small wooden forts (or ostrogs) were built in suitable 
places, and became in their turn the starting-posts for new expeditions. The 
following dates give the best proof of the uncommon rapidity with which the 
tide of conquest rolled onward to the east. Tomsk was founded in 1604; and 
the ostrog Jeniseisk, where the neighboring nomads brought their sable skins 
to market, in 1621. The snow-shoes of the Tunguse, which they sometimes 
saw ornamented with this costly fur, induced the Cossacks to follow their 
hordes, of which many had come from the middle and inferior Tunguska, and 
thus, in 1630, Wassiljew reached the banks of the Lena. In 1636 Jelissei Busa 
was commissioned to ascend that mighty river, and to impose jassak on all the 
natives of those quarters. He reached the western mouth of the Lena, and 
after navigating the sea for twenty-four hours came to the Olekma, which he 
ascended. In 1638 he discovered the Tana, on whose banks he spent another 
winter; and in 1639, resuming his voyage eastward by sea, he reached the 
Tchendoma, and wintering for two years among the Jukahirs, made them also 
tributary to Russia. 

In that same year another party of Cobeanies crossed the Altai Mountains, 
and, traversing forests and swamps, arrived at the coasts of the inhospitable 
Sea of Ochotsk ; while a third expedition discovered the Amoor, and built a 
strong ostrog, called Albasin, on its left bank. The report soon spread that the 
river rolled over gold-sand, and colonists came flocking to the spot, both to col- 
lect these treasures, and to enjoy the fruits of a milder climate and of a more 
fruitful soil. But the Chinese destroyed the fort in 1680, and carried the gate 
rison prisoners to Peking. E 


196 THE POLAR WORLD. 


Albasin was soon after rebuilt; but as Russia at that time had no inclina- 
tion to engage in constant quarrels with the Celestial Empire about the posses- 
sion of a remote desert, all its pretensions to the Amoor were given up by the 
treaty of Nertschinsk (1689). This agreement, however, like so many others, 
was doomed to last no longer than it pleased the more powerful of the con- 
tracting parties to keep it, and came to nothing as soon as the possession of the 
Amoor territory became an object of importance, and the increasing weakness 
of China was no longer able to dispute its possession. Thus, when Count 
Nicholas Mourawieff was appointed Governor-general of Eastern Siberia in 
1847, one of his first cares was to appropriate or annex the Amoor. He imme- 
diately sent a surveying expedition to the mouth of the river, where, in 1851, 
regardless of the remonstrances of the Chinese Government, he ordered the sta- 


THE BEACH AT NICOLAYEVSK. i 


tions of Nicolayevsk and Mariinsk to be built; and in 1854 he himself sailed 
down the Amoor, with a numerous flotilla of boats and rafts, for the purpose 
of personally opening this new channel of intercourse with the Pacific. Other 
expeditions soon followed, and the Chinese, finding resistance hopeless, ceded to 
Russia in the year 1858, by the treaty of Aigun, the left bank of the Amoor as 
far as the influx of the Ussuri, and both its banks below the latter river. Thus 
the Czar found some consolation for the losses of the Crimean campaign in the 
acquisition of a vast territory in the distant East, which, though at present a 
mere wilderness, may in time become a flourishing colony. 

In 1644,a few years after the discovery of the Amoor, the Cossack Michael 
Staduchin formed a winter establishment on the delta of the Kolyma, which has 


CONQUEST OF SIBERIA BY THE RUSSIANS. 197 


ON THE AMOOR. 


expanded into the town of Nishnei-Kolymsk, and afterwards navigated the sea 
eastward to Cape Schelagskoi, which may be considered as the north-eastern 
cape of Siberia. 

In 1648 Semen Deschnew sailed from the Kolyma with the intention of 
reaching the Anadyr by sea, and by this remarkable voyage—which no one else, 
either before or after him, has ever performed—discovered and passed through 
the strait, which properly should bear his name, instead of Bering’s, who, sailing 
from Kamchatka northward in 1728, did not go beyond East Cape, being sat- 
isfied with the westerly trending of the cape beyond the promontory. Some 
of Deschnew’s companions subsequently reached Kamchatka, and were put to 
death by the people of that peninsula, which was conquered, in 1699, by Atlas- 
soff, a Cossack officer who came from Jakutsk. 

After having thus rapidly glanced at the progress of the Russian dominion 
from the Ural to the Sea of Ochotsk, it may not be uninteresting to inquire 
whether the natives had reason to bless the arrival of their new masters, or to 
curse the day when they were first made to understand the meaning of the 
word jassak, or tribute. Unfortunately, history tells us that, while the con- 


198 THE POLAR WORLD. 


querors of Siberia were fully as bold and persevering as the companions of 
Cortez and Pizarro, they also equalled them in avarice and cruelty. Under their 
iron yoke whole nations, such as the Schelagi, Aniujili, and Omoki, melted away ; 
others, as the Woguls, Jukahires, Koriaks, and Italmenes, were reduced to a 
scanty remnant. 

The history of the subjugation of the Italmenes, or natives of Kamchatka, 
as described by Steller, may suffice to show how the Cossacks made and how 
they abused their conquests. 

When Atlassoff, with only sixteen men, came to the river of Kamchatka, 
the Italmene chieftain inquired, through a Koriak interpreter, what they want- 
ed, and whence they came; and received for answer that the powerful sove- 
reign, to whom the whole land belonged, had sent them to levy the tribute which 
they owed him as his subjects. The chieftain was naturally astonished at this 
information, and offering the strangers a present of costly furs, he requested 
them to leave the country, and not to repeat their visit. But the Cossacks 
thought proper to remain, and built a small wooden fort, Verchnei Ostrog, 
whence they fell on the neighboring villages, robbing or destroying all they 
could lay hands upon. Exasperated by these acts, the Italmenes resolved to 
attack the fort; but as the wary Cossacks had kept up a friendly intercourse 
with some of them, and had moreover ingratiated themselves with the women, 
the plans of their enemies were always revealed to them in proper time, and 
led to a still greater tyranny. At length the savages appeared before the os- 
trog in such overwhelming numbers that the Cossacks began to lose courage ; 


it 
jen 
ui 


nil 


| 


VILLAGE ON THE AMOOR. 


CONQUEST OF SIBERIA BY THE RUSSIANS. 199 


KORIAK YOURT. 


yet by their superior tactics they finally managed to gain a complete victory, 
and those who escaped their bullets were either drowned or taken prisoners, 
and then put to death in the most cruel manner. 

Convinced that a lasting security was impossible as long as the natives re- 
tained their numbers, the Cossacks lost no opportunity of goading them to re- 
volt, and then butchering as many of them as they could. Thus, in less than 
forty years, the Kamchatkans were reduced to a twelfth part of their original 
numbers ; and the Cossacks, having made a solitude, called it peace. 

In former times the nomads of the North used freely to wander with their 
reindeer herds over the tundra, but after the conquest they were loaded with 
taxes, and confined to certain districts. The consequence was that their rein- 
deer gradually perished, and that a great number of wandering herdsmen were 
now compelled to adopt a fisherman’s life—a change fatal to many. 

It would, however, be unjust to accuse the Russian Government of having 
willfully sought the ruin of the aboriginal tribes; on the contrary, it has con- 
stantly endeavored to protect them against the exactions of the Cossacks, and 
in order to secure their existence, has even granted them the exclusive posses- 
sion of the districts assigned to them. Thus the Ostiaks and Samoiedes, the 
Koriaks and the Jakuts, have their own land, their own rivers, forests, and tun- 
dri. But if it is a common saying in European Russia “ that heaven is high, 
and the Czar distant,” it may easily be imagined that beyond the Ural the weak 
indigenous tribes found the law but a very inefficient barrier against the rapac- 
ity of their conquerors. 

Thus, in spite of the Government, the jassak was not unfrequently raised, 
under various pretenses, to six or ten times its original amount ; and the natives 
were, besides, obliged to bring the best of their produce, from considerable dis- 
tances, to the ostrog. 


200 THE POLAR WORLD. 


Nor could the Government prevent the accumulation of usurious debts, nor 
the leasing of the best pasturages or fishing-stations for a trifling sum quite out 
of proportion to their value; so that the natives no longer had the means of 
feeding their herds, and sank deeper and deeper into poverty. 

And if we consider, finally, of what elements Yermak’s band was originally 
composed, we can easily conceive that, under such masters, the lot of the Sibe- 
rian natives was by no means to be envied. 


The year 1734 opens a new epoch in the history of Siberian discoveries. 
Until then they had been merely undertaken for purposes of traffic; bold Cos- 
sacks and Promyschlenniki (or fur-hunters) had gradually extended their ex- 
cursions to the Sea of Bering ; but now, for the first time, scientific expeditions 
were sent out, for the more accurate investigation of the northern coasts of 
Siberia. 

Prontschischtschew, who sailed westward from the Lena to circumnavigate 
the icy capes of Taimurland, was accompanied by his youthful wife, who win- 
tered with him at the Olenek, in 72° 54’ of latitude, and in the following sum- 
mer took part in his fruitless endeavors to double those most northerly points 
of Asia. He died in consequence of the fatigues he had to undergo, and a few 
days after she followed him to the grave. A similar example of female devo- 
tion is not to be met with in the annals of Arctic discovery. 

After Prontschischtschew’s death, Lieutenant Chariton Laptew was ap- 
pointed to carry out the project in which the former had failed. Having been 
repulsed by the drift-ice, he was obliged to winter on the Chatanga (1739-40) ; 
but renewed the attempt in the following summer, which however exposed him 
to still severer trials. The vessel was wrecked in the ice; the crew reached 
the shore with difficulty, and many of them perished from fatigue and famine 
before the rivers were sufficiently frozen to enable the feeble survivors to return 
to their former winter-station at Chatanga. Notwithstanding the hardships 
which he and his party had endured, Laptew prosecuted the survey of the 
promontory in the following spring. 

Setting out with a sledge-party across the Tundra on April 24, 1741, he 
reached Taimur Lake on the 30th; and following the Taimur River, as it flows 
from the lake, ascertained its mouth to be situated in lat. 75° 36’ N. On Au- 
gust 29 he safely returned to Jeniseisk, after one of the most difficult voyages 
ever performed by man. The resolution with which he overcame difficulties, 
and his perseverance amid the severest distresses, entitle him to a igh, rank 
among Arctic discoverers. 

While Chariton Laptew was thus gaining distinction in the wilds of .Tai- 
murland, his brother, Dimitri Laptew, was busy extending geographical knowl- 
edge to the east of the Lena. He doubled the Sviatoi-noss, wintered on the 
banks of the Indigirka, surveyed the Bear Islands, passed a second winter on 
the borders of the Kolyma, and in a fourth season extended his survey of the 
coast to the Baranow Rock, which he vainly endeavored to double during two 
successive summers. After having passed seven years on the coasts of the 
Polar Ocean, he returned to Jakutsk in 1743. 


CONQUEST OF SIBERIA BY THE RUSSIANS. 201 


Fourteen years later, Schalaurow, a merchant of Jakutsk, who sailed from 
the Jana in a vessel built at his own expense, at length succeeded in doubling 
the Baranow Rock, and proceeded eastward as far as Cape Schelagskoi, which 
prevented his farther progress. After twice wintering on the dreary Kolyma, 
he resolved, with admirable perseverance, to make a third attempt, but his crew 
would no longer follow him. From a second sea-journey, which he undertook 
in 1764 to that cape, he did not return. “ His unfortunate death is the more to 
be lamented,” says Wrangell, “as he sacrificed his property and life to a disin- 
terested aim, and united intelligence and energy in a remarkable degree.” On 
his map, the whole coast from the Jana to Cape Schelagskoi is marked, with 
an accuracy which does him the greatest honor. In 1785 Billings and Sa- 
rytchew were equally unsuccessful in the endeavor to sail round the cape 
which had defeated all Schalaurow’s endeavors; nor has the voyage been ac- 
complished to the present day. 

As the sable had gradually led the Russian fur-hunters to Kamchatka, so 
the still more valuable sea-otter gave the chief impulse to the discovery of 
the Aleutic chain and the opposite con- 
tinent of America. When Atlassow 
and his band arrived at Kamchatka by 
the end of the seventeenth century, 
they found the sea-otter abounding on 
its coasts; but the fur-hunters chased 
it so eagerly that, before the middle of 
the eighteenth century, they had entire- 
ly extirpated it in that country. On 
Bering’s second voyage of discovery 
(1741-42), it was again found in con- 
siderable numbers. Tschirigowis said 
to have brought back 900 skins, and 
on Bering’s Island 700 sea-otters— 
whose skins, according to present pri- 
ces, would be worth about £20,000—were killed almost without trouble. These 
facts, of course, encouraged the merchants of Jakutsk and Irkutsk to undertake 
new expeditions. 

Generally, several of them formed an association, which fitted out some 
hardly seaworthy vessel at Ochotsk, where also the captain and the crew, con- 
sisting of fur-hunters and other adventurers, were hired. The expenses of such 
an expedition amounted to the considerable sum of about 30,000 roubles, as 
pack-horses had to transport a great part of the necessary outfit all the dis- 
tance from Jakutsk, and the vessel generally remained four or five years on the 
voyage. Passing through one of the Kurile Straits, these expeditions sailed at 
first along the east coast of Kamchatka, bartering sables and sea-otters for rein- 
deer skins and other articles; and as the precious furs became more rare, ven- 
tured out farther into the Eastern Ocean. Thus Michael Nowodsikoff discovered 
the Western Aleuts in 1745 ; Paikoff the Fox Islands in 1759; Adrian Tolstych 
almost all the islands of the central group, which still bear his name, in 1760; 


7 
Woy OY 
Ss fi “4 4) 


KAMCHATKA SABLES. 


202 THE POLAR WORLD. 


Stephen Glottoff the island of Kadiak in 1763, and Krenitzin the peninsula of 
Aljaska in 1768. When we consider the scanty resources of these Russian 
navigators, the bad condition of their miserable barks, their own imperfect nau- 
tical knowledge, and the inhospitable nature of the seas which they traversed, 
we can not but admire their intrepidity. 

In the Polar Sea there are neither sables nor otters, and thus the islands “a 
ing to the north of Siberia might have remained unknown till the present day, 
if the search after mammoth-teeth had not, in a similar manner, led to their dis- 
covery. 

In March, 1770, while a merchant of the name of Lichow was busy colleet- 
ing fossil ivory about Cape Sviatoinoss, he saw a large herd of deer coming over 
the ice from the north. Resolute and courageous, he at once resolved to follow 
their tracks, and after a sledge-journey of seventy versts, he came to an island, 
and twenty versts farther reached a second island, at which, owing to the rough- 
ness of the ice, his excursion terminated. He saw enough, however, of the rich- 
ness of the two islands in mammoth-teeth, to show him that another visit would — 
be a valuable speculation; and on making his report to the Russian Govern- 
ment, he obtained an exclusive privilege to dig for mammoth-bones on the isl- 
ands which he had discovered, and to which his name had been given. In the 
summer of 1773 he consequently returned, and ascertained the existence of a 
third island, much larger than the others, mountainous, and having its coasts 
covered with drift-wood. He then went back to the first island, wintered there, 
and returned to Ustjansk in spring with a valuable cargo of mammoth-tusks. 

There hardly exists a more remarkable article of commerce than these re- 
mains of an extinct animal. In North Siberia, along the Obi, the Jenissei, the 
Lena, and their tributaries, from lat. 58° to 70°, or along the shores of the Polar 
Ocean as far as the American side of Bering Strait, the remains of a species of 
elephant are found imbedded in the frozen soil, or become exposed, by the an- 
nual thawing and crumbling of the river-banks. Dozens of tusks are frequently 
found together, but the most astonishing deposit of mammoth-bones occurs in 
the Lichow Islands, where, in some localities, they are accumulated in such 
quantities as to form the chief substance of the soil. Year after year the tusk- 
hunters work every summer at the cliffs, without producing any sensible dim- 
inution of the stock. The solidly-frozen matrix in which the bones he thaws 
to a certain extent annually, allowing the tusks to drop out or to be quarried. 
In 1821, 20,000 lbs. of the fossil ivory were procured from the island of New 
Siberia. 

The ice in which the mammoth remains are imbedded sometimes preserves 
their entire bodies, in spite of the countless ages which must have elapsed since 
they walked on earth. In 1799 the carcass of a mammoth was discovered so 
fresh that the dogs ate the flesh for two summers. The skeleton is preserved 
at St. Petersburg, and specimens of the woolly hair—proving that the climate 
of Siberia, though then no doubt much milder than at present, still required 
the protection of a warm and shaggy coat—were presented to the chief muse- 
ums of Europe. 

The remains of a rhinoceros, very similar to the Indian species, are likewise 


CONQUEST OF SIBERIA BY THE RUSSIANS. 203 


found in great numbers along the shores, or on the steep and sandy river-banks 
of Northern Siberia, along with those of fossil species of the horse, the musk- 
ox, and the bison, which have now totally forsaken the Arctic wilds. 

The Archipelago of New Siberia, situated to the north of the Lichow Isl- 
ands, was discovered by Sirowatsky in 1806, and since then scientifically ex- 
plored by Hedenstrém in 1808, and Anjou in 1823. These islands are remark- 
abie no less for the numerous bones of horses, buffaloes, oxen, and sheep scat- 
tered over their desolate shores, than for the vast quantities of fossil-wood im- 
bedded in their soil. The hills, which rise to a considerable altitude, consist 
of horizontal beds of sandstone, alternating with bituminous beams or trunks 
of trees. On ascending them, fossilized charcoal is everywhere met with, in- 
crusted with an ash-colored matter, which is so hard that it can scarcely be 
scraped off with a knife, On the summit there is a long row of beams resem- 
bling the former, but fixed perpendicularly in the sandstone. The ends, which 
project from seven to ten inches, are for the most part broken, and the whole 
has the appearance of a ruinous dike. Thus a robust forest vegetation once 
flourished where now only hardy lichens can be seen; and many herbivorous 
animals feasted on grasses where now the reindeer finds but a scanty supply of 
moss, and the polar bear is the sole lord of the dreary waste. 


204 THE POLAR WORLD. 


TARTAR ENCAMPMENT. 


CHAPTER XVII. 
SIBERIA—FUR-TRADE AND GOLD-DIGGINGS. 
Siberia.—Its immense Extent and Capabilities.—The Exiles.—Mentschikoff.—Dolgorouky.—Miinich.— 


The Criminals.—The free Siberian Peasant.—Extremes of Heat and Cold.—Fur-bearing Animals.— 
The Sable.—The Ermine.—The Siberian Weasel.—The Sea-otter.—The black Fox.—The Lynx.— 
The Squirrel.—The varying Hare.—The Suslik.—Importance of the Fur-trade for the Northern 
Provinces of the Russian Empire.—The Gold-diggings of Eastern Siberia.—The Taiga.—Expenses 
and Difficulties of searching Expeditions.—Costs of Produce, and enormous Profits of successful 
Speculators.—Their senseless Extravagance.—First Discovery of Gold in the Ural Mountains,— 
Jakowlew and Demidow.—Nishne-Tagilsk. 
IBERIA is at least thirty times more extensive than Great Britain and Ire- 
land, but its scanty population forms a miserable contrast to its enormous 
size. Containing scarcely three millions of inhabitants, it is comparatively 
three hundred times less peopled than the British Islands. This small popula- 
tion is, moreover, very unequally distributed, consisting chiefly of Russians and 
Tartars, who have settled in the south or in the milder west, along the rivers 
and the principal thoroughfares which lead from the territory of one large 
stream to the other. In the northern and eastern districts, as far as they are 
occupied, the settlements are likewise almost entirely confined to the river- 
banks; and thus the greater part of the enormous forest-lands, and of the in- 
terminable tundras, are either entirely uninhabited by man, or visited only by 
the huntsman, the gold-digger, or the migratory savage. 
And yet Siberia has not been so niggardly treated by Nature as not to be 


SIBERIA—FUR-TRADE AND GOLD-DIGGINGS. 205 


able to sustain a far more considerable population. In the south there are 
thousands of square miles fit for cultivation; the numbers of the herds and 
flocks might be increased a hundred-fold, and even the climate would become 
milder after the labor of man had subdued the chilling influences of the forest 
and the swamp. But it is easier to express than to realize the wish to see Si- 
beria more populous, for its reputation is hardly such as to tempt the free col- 
onists to settle within its limits; and thus the Russian Government, which 
would willingly see its more temperate regions covered with flourishing towns 
and villages, can only expect an increase of population from the slow growth 
of time, aided by the annual influx of the involuntary emigrants which it sends 
across the Ural to the East. 

Many a celebrated personage has already been doomed to trace this mel- 
ancholy path, particularly during the last century, when the all-powerful favor- 
ite of one period was not seldom doomed to exile by the next palace revolu- 
tion. This fate befell, among others, the famous Prince Mentschikoff. In a 
covered cart, and in the dress of a peasant, the confidential minister of Peter 
the Great, the man who for years had ruled the vast Russian Kmpire, was con- 
veyed into perpetual banishment. His dwelling was now a simple hut, and 
the spade of the laborer replaced the pen of the statesman. Domestic misfor- 
tunes aggravated his cruel lot. His wife died from the fatigues of the jour- 
ney; one of his daughters soon after fell a victim to the smallpox; his two 
other children, who were attacked by the same malady, recovered. He him- 
self died in the year 1729, and was buried near his daughter at Beresow, the 
seat of his exile. Like Cardinal Wolsey, after his fall he remembered God, 
whom he had forgotten during the swelling tide of his prosperity. He con- 
sidered his punishment as a blessing, which showed him the way to everlasting 
happiness. He built a chapel, assisting in its erection with his own hands, 
and after the services gave instruction to the congregation. The inhabitants 
of Beresow still honor his memory, and revere him as a saint. They were 
confirmed in this belief by the circumstance that his body, having been disin- 
terred in 1821, was found in a state of perfect preservation, after a lapse of 
ninety-two years. 

One day, as his daughter walked through the village, she was accosted by 
a peasant from the window of a hut. This peasant was Prince Dolgorouky, 
her father’s enemy—the man who had caused his banishment, and was now, in 
his turn, doomed to taste the bitterness of exile. Soon after the princess and 
her brother were pardoned by the Empress Anna, and Dolgorouky took pos- 
session of their hut. Young Mentschikoff was finally reinstated in all the hon- 
ors and riches of his father, and from him descends, in a direct line, the fa- 
mous defender of Sebastopol. 

Marshal Miinich, the favorite of the Empress Anna, was doomed, in his six- 
tieth year, to a Siberian exile, when Elizabeth ascended the throne. His prison 
consisted of three rooms—one for his guards or jailers, the second for their 
kitchen, the third for his own use. A wall twenty feet high prevented him 
from enjoying the view even of the sky. The man who had once governed 
Russia had but half a rouble daily to spend; but the love of his wife—who, 


206 THE POLAR WORLD. | 


although fifty-five years old, had the courage and the self-denial to accompany 
him in his banishment—alleviated the sorrows of his exile. The venerable 
couple spent twenty-one years in Siberia, and on their return from exile, fifty- 
two children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, were assembled to meet 
them at Moscow. The revolution which placed Catherine the Second on the 
throne had nearly once more doomed the octogenarian statesman to banish- 
ment, but he fortunately weathered the storm, and died as governor of St. 
Petersburg. 

In this century, also, many an unfortunate exile, guiltless at least of ignoble 
crimes, has been doomed to wander to Siberia. There many a soldier of the 
grande armée has ended his life; there still lives many a patriotic Pole, ban- 
ished for having loved his country “not wisely but too well;” there also the 
conspirators who marked with so bloody an episode the accession of Nicholas, 
have had time to reflect on the dangers of plotting against the Czar. 

Most of the Siberian exiles are, however, common criminals—such as in our 
country would be hung or transported, or sentenced to the treadmill: the as- 
sassin, the robber—to Siberia; the smuggler on the frontier, whose free-trade 
principles injure the imperial exchequer—to Siberia; even the vagabond who 
is caught roaming, and can give no satisfactory account of his doings and in- 
tentions, receives a fresh passport—to Siberia. 

Thus the annual number of the exiles amounts to about 12,000, who, ac- 
cording to the gravity of their offenses, are sent farther and farther eastward. 
On an average, every week sees a transport of about 300 of these “ unfortu- 
nates,” as they are termed by popular compassion, pass through Tobolsk. 
About one-sixth are immediately pardoned, and the others sorted. Murderers 
and burglars are sent to the mines of Nertschinsk, after having been treated in 
Russia, before they set out on their travels, with fifty lashes of the knout. In 
former times their nostrils used to be torn off, a barbarity which is now no 
longer practised. 

According to Sir George Simpson’s “ Narrative of a Journey Round the 
World” (1847), Siberia is the best penitentiary in the world. Every exile who 
is not considered bad enough for the mines—those black abysses, at whose en- 


trance, as at that of Dante’s hell, all hope must be left behind—receives a piece 


of land, a hut, a horse, two cows, the necessary agricultural implements, and 
provisions for a year. The first three years he has no taxes to pay, and, dur- 
ing the following ten, only the half of the usual assessment. Thus, if he choose 
to exert himself, he has every reason to hope for an improvement in his condi- 
tion, and at the same time fear contributes to keep him in the right path; for 
he well knows that his first trespass would infallibly conduct him to the mines, 
a by no means agreeable prospect. Under the influence of these stimulants, 
many an exile attains a degree of prosperity which would have been quite be- 
yond his reach had he remained in European Russia. 

Hofmann gives a less favorable account of the Siberian exiles. In his opin- 
ion, the prosperity and civilization of the country has no greater obstacle than 
the mass of criminals sent to swell its population. In the province of Tomsk, 
which seems to be richly stocked with culprits of the worst description, all the 


Ke NEF peed 


SIBERIA—FUR-TRADE AND GOLD-DIGGINGS. 207 


wagoners belong to this class. They endeavored to excite his compassion by 
hypocrisy. “It was the will of God !” is their standing phrase, to which they 
tried to give a greater emphasis by turning up the whites of their eyes. But, 
in spite of this pious resignation to the Divine will, Hofmann never met with a 
worse set of drunkards, liars, and thieves. 


As to the free Siberian peasant, who is generally of exile extraction, all 


SIBERIAN PEASANT. 


travellers are agreed in his praise. ‘“ As soon as one crosses the Ural,” says 
Wrangell, “one is surprised by the extreme friendliness and good-nature of 
the inhabitants, as much as by the rich vegetation, the well-cultivated fields, 
and the excellent state of the roads in the southern part of the government of 
Tobolsk. Our luggage could be left without a guard in the open air. ‘ Ne- 
boss!’ ‘Fear not!’ was the answer when we expressed some apprehension ; 


208, THE POLAR WORLD. 


‘there are no thieves among us.’ This may appear strange, but it must be re- 
membered that the Tomsk wagoners, described above, are located far more to 
the east, and that every exiled criminal has his prescribed circuit, the bounds 
of which he may not pass without incurring the penalty of being sent to the 
mines. 

According to Professor Hansteen, the Siberian peasants are the finest men 
of all Russia, with constitutions of iron. With a sheepskin over their shirt, 
and their thin linen trowsers, they bid defiance to a cold of 30° and more. They 
have nothing of the dirty avarice of the European Russian boor; they have as 
much land as they choose for cultivation, and the soil furnishes all they require 
for their nourishment and clothing. Their cleanliness is exemplary. Within 
the last thirty years the gold-diggings have somewhat spoilt this state of prim- 
itive simplicity, yet even Hofmann allows that the West-Siberian peasant has 
retained much of the honesty and hospitality for which he was justly celebrated. 

Besides agriculture, mining, fishing, and hunting, the carriage of merchan- 
dise is one of the chief occupations of the Siberians, and probably, in propor- 
tion to the population, no other country employs so large a number of wagon- 
ers and carriers. The enormous masses of copper, lead, iron, and silver pro- 
duced by the Altai and the Nertschinsk mountains, have to be conveyed from 
an immense distance to the Russian markets. The gold from the East-Siberian 
diggings is indeed easier to transport, but the provisions required by the thou- 
sands of workmen employed during the summer in working the auriferous 
sands, have to be brought to them, frequently from a distance of many hundred 
versts. 

The millions of furs, from the squirrel to the bear, likewise require consider- 
able means of transport; and, finally, the highly important caravan-trade with 
China conveys thousands of bales of tea from Kiachta to Irbit. Siberia has in- 
deed many navigable rivers, but a glance at the map shows us at once that they 
are so situated as to afford far less facilities to commerce than would be the 
case in a more temperate climate. They all flow northward into an inhospita- 
ble sea, which is forever closed to navigation, and are themselves ice-bound dur- 
ing the greater part of the year. Enormous distances separate them from each 
other, and there are no navigable canals to unite them. 

On some of the larger rivers steam-boats have indeed been introduced, and 
railroads are talked of; but there can be no doubt that, for many a year to 
come, the cart and the sledge will continue to be the chief means of transport 
in a country which, in consequence of its peculiar geographical position, is even 
in its more southern parts exposed to all the rigors of an Arctic winter. 

Thus at Jakutsk (62° N. lat.), which is situated but six degrees farther to 
the north than Edinburgh (55° 58’), the mean temperature of the coldest month 
is —40°, and mercury a solid body during one-sixth part of the year; while at 
Irkutsk (52° 16’ N. lat.), situated but little farther to the north than Oxford 
(51° 46’), the thermometer frequently falls to —30°, or even —40° ; tempera- 
tures which are of course quite unheard of on the banks of the Isis. For these 
dreadful winters in the heart of Siberia, and under comparatively low degrees 
of latitude, there are various causes. The land is, in the first place, an immense 


SIBERIA—FUR-TRADE AND GOLD-DIGGINGS. 


209 


plain slanting to the north; moreover, it is situated at such a distance from the 
Atlantic, that beyond the Ural the western sea-winds, which bring warmth to 


our winters, assume the character of 
cold land-winds; and, finally, it merges 
in the south into the high Mongoli- 
an plateau, which, situated 4000 feet 
above the level of the sea, has of 
course but little warmth to impart 
to it in winter; so that, from what- 
ever side the wind may blow at that 
season, it constantly conveys cold. 


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But in summer the scene undergoes | 
a total change. Under the influence | | 
of the sun circling for months round | 
the North Pole, floods of warmth are ik AVE i | 
poured into Central Siberia, and rap- 
idly cause the thermometer to rise; in 
no neighboring sea refreshes the air \\ 
with a cooling breeze; whether the A eee 
wind come from the heated Mongolian 
deserts, or sweep over the Siberian 
plains, it imbibes warmth on every 
side. Thus the terrible winter of Ja- 
kutsk is followed by an equally im- 
moderate sammer (58° 3’), so that rye 
and barley are able to ripen on a soil 
which a few feet below the surface is 
perpetually frozen. 

The boundless woods of Siberia 
harbor a number of fur-bearing an- 
imals whose skins form one of the 
chief products of the country. Among 
these persecuted denizens of the for- 
est, the sable (Martes zibellina), which 
closely resembles the pine- marten 
(Martes abietum) in shape and size, TAL i 
deserves to be particularly noticed, Vit Sle Oe i] 
both for the beauty~of its pelt, and its i 
importance in the fur-trade. Sleeping il 
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night; but though he chiefly relish- Wie 
es animal food, such as hares, young i" Wiece 
birds, mice, and eggs, he also feeds on 
eee. and the tasteful seeds of the Pinus cembra. His favorite abode is near 
the banks of some river, in holes of the ear th, or beneath the roots of trees. In- 
_ cessant persecution has ‘adually driven him into the most inaccessible forests ; 
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210 THE POLAR WORLD. 


the days are no more when the Tunguse hunter willingly gave for a copper 
kettle as many sable skins as it would hold, or when the Kamchatkan trapper, 
could easily catch seventy or eighty sables in one winter; but Von Baer still esti- 
mates the annual produce of all Siberia at 45,000 skins. The finest are caught 
in the forests between the Lena and the Eastern Sea, but Kamchatka furnishes the 
greater number. A skin of the finest quality is worth about forty roubles on 
the spot, and at least twice as much in St. Petersburg or Moscow, particularly 
when the hair is long, close, and of a deep blackish-brown, with a thick brown 
underwool. Skins with long dark hair tipped with white are highly esteemed, 
but still more so those which are entirely black—a color to which the Russians 
give the preference, while the Chinese have no objection to reddish tints. In 
consequence of this difference of taste, the sables from the Obi, which are gen- 
erally larger but of a lighter color, are sent to Kiachta, while the darker skins, 
from Eastern Siberia, are directed to St. Petersburg and Leipsic, 

The chase of the sable 1s attended with many hardships and dangers. The 
skins are in the highest perfection at the commencement of the winter; accord- 
ingly, towards the end of October, the hunters assemble in small companies, and 
proceed along the rivers in boats, or travel in sledges to the place of rendez- 
- yous—taking with them provisions for three or four months. In the deep and 
solitary forest they erect their huts, made of branches of trees, and bank up the 
snow round them, as a further protection against the piercing wind. They now 
roam and seek everywhere for the traces of the sable, and lay traps or snares 
for his destruction. These are generally pitfalls, with loose boards placed over 
them, baited with fish or flesh ; fire-arms or cross-bows are more rarely used, as 
they damage the skins. The traps must be frequently visited, and even then 
the hunter often finds that a fox has preceded him, and left but a few worth- 
less remnants of the sable in the snare. Or sometimes a snow-storm over- 
takes him, and then his care must be to save his own life. Thus sable-hunt- 
ing is a continual chain of disappointments and perils, and at the end of the 
season it is frequently found that the expenses are hardly paid. Until now 
the sable has been but rarely tamed. One kept in the palace of the Arch- 
bishop of Tobolsk was so perfectly domesticated, that it was allowed to stroll 
about the town as it liked. It was an arch-enemy of cats, raising itself furi- 

ously on its hind-legs as soon as it saw one, and showing the greatest desire 
to ficht it. | 

In former times the ermine (Mustela erminea) ranked next to the sable as 
the most valuable fur-bearing animal of the Siberian woods; at present the skin 
is worth no more than from five to eight silver kopeks at Tobolsk, so that the 
whole produce of its chase hardly amounts to 200,000 roubles. This little ani- 
mal resembles in its general appearance the weasel, but is considerably larger, 
as it attains a length of from twelve to fourteen inches. Its color, which is red- 
dish-brown in summer, becomes milk-white during the winter in the northern 
regions, with the exception of the tip of the tail, which always remains black. 
Its habits likewise greatly resemble those of the weasel; it is equally alert in 
all its movements, and equally courageous in defending itself when attacked. 
It lives on birds, poultry, rats, rabbits, leverets, and all kinds of smaller animals, 


SIBERIA—-FUR-TRADE AND GOLD-DIGGINGS. 211 


and will not hesitate to attack a prey of much greater size than itself. Although 
various species of ermine are distributed over the whole forest region of the 
north, yet Siberia produces the finest skins. The largest come from the Kolyma, 
or are brought to the fair of Ostrownoje by the Tchutchi, who obtain them 
from the coldest regions of America. 

The Siberian weasel ( Viverra siberica), which is much smaller than the er- 
mine, is likewise hunted for its soft and perfectly snow-white winter dress—the 
tip of the tail not being black, as in the latter. 

The sea-otter, or kalan (Hnhydris lutris), the most valuable of all the Rus- 
sian fur-bearing animals, as 110 silver roubles is the average price of a single 
skin, is nearly related to the weasel tribe. The enormous value set upon the 
glossy, jet-black, soft, and thick fur of the kalan sufficiently explains how the 
~ Russian hunters have followed his traces from Kamchatka to America, and 
almost entirely extirpated him on many of the coasts and islands of Bering’s 
Sea and the Northern Pacific, where he formerly abounded. His habits very 
much resemble those of the seal; he haunts sea-washed rocks, lives mostly in 
the water, and loves to bask in the sun. His hind feet have a membrane skirt- 
ing the outside of the exterior toe, like that of a goose, and the elongated form 
of his flexible body enables him to swim with the greatest celerity. The love 
of the sea-otters for their young is so great that they reckon their own lives as 
nothing to protect them from danger; and Steller, who had more opportunities 
than any other naturalist for observing their habits, affirms that, when deprived 
of their offspring, their grief is so strong that in less than a fortnight they waste 
away to skeletons. On their flight they carry their young in their mouths, or 
drive them along before them. If they succeed in reaching the sea, they begin 
to mock their baffled pursuer, and express their joy by a variety of antics. 
Sometimes they raise themselves upright in the water, rising and falling with 
the waves, or holding a fore paw over their eyes, as if to look sharply at him; | 
or they throw themselves on their back, rubbing their breast with their fore 
paws; or cast their young into the water, and catch them again, like a mother 
playing with her infant. The sea-otter not only surpasses the fish-otter by the 
beauty of his fur, but also in size, as he attains a length of from three to four 
feet, exclusive of the tail. His food consists of small fishes, molluscs, and crus- 
taceous animals, whose hard calcareous covering his broad grinders are well 
adapted to crush. j } 

Next to the sea-otter, the black fox, whose skin is of a rich and shining 
black or deep brown color, with the longer or exterior hairs of a silvery-white, 
furnishes the most costly of all the Siberian furs. The average price of a sin- 
gle skin amounts to 60 or 70 silver roubles, and rich amateurs will willingly 
pay 300 roubles, or even more, for those of first-rate quality. The skin of the 
Siberian red fox, which ranks next in value, is worth no more than 20 roubles; 
the steel-gray winter dress of the Siberian crossed fox (thus named from the 
black cross on his shoulders), from 10 to 12 roubles; and that of the Arctic 
fox, though very warm and close, no more than 6 or 8. \ 

The bear family likewise furnishes many skins to the Siberian furrier. That 
of the young brown bear (Ursus arctos) is highly esteemed for the trimming 


212 THE POLAR WORLD. 


of pelisses ; but that of the older animal has little value, and is used, like that 


of the polar bear, as a rug or a foot-cloth in sledges. 


The lynx is highly prized for its very thick, soft, rust-colored winter dress, | 


striped with darker brown. It attains the size of the wolf, and is distinguished 
from all other members of the cat tribe, by the pencils of long black hair which 
tip its erect and pointed ears. It loves to lie in ambush for the passing rem- 
deer or elk, on some thick branch at a considerable distance from the ground. 
With one prodigious bound it leaps upon the back of its victim, strikes its tal- 
ons into its flesh, and opens with its sharp teeth the arteries of its neck. 

Though singly of but little value, as a thousand of its skins are worth no 
more than one sea-otter, the squirrel plays in reality a far more important part 
in the Siberian fur-trade than any of the before-mentioned animals, as the total 
value of the gray peltry which it furnishes to trade is at least seven times 
greater than that of the sable. Four millions of gray squirrel skins are, on an 
average, annually exported to China, from two to three millions to Europe, 
and the home consumption of the Russian Empire is beyond all doubt still 
more considerable, as it is the fur most commonly used by the middle classes. 
The European squirrels are of inferior value, as the hair of their winter dress 
is still a mixture of red and gray; in the territory of the Petschora, the gray 
first becomes predominant, and increases in beauty on advancing towards the 
east. ‘The squirrels are caught in snares or traps, or shot with blunted arrows. 
Among the fur-bearing animals of Siberia, we have further to notice the vary- 
ing hare, whose winter dress is entirely white, except the tips of the ears, 
which are black; the Baikal hare; the ground-squirrel, whose fur has fine 
longitudinal dark-brown stripes, alternating with four light-yellow ones; and 
the suslik, a species of marmot, whose brown fur, with white spots and stripes, 
fetches a high price in China. It occurs over all Siberia as far as Kamchatka. 
Its burrows are frequently nine feet deep; this, however, does not prevent its 
being dug out by the hunters, who likewise entrap it in spring when it awakes 
from its winter sleep. 

Summing together the total amount of the Russian fur-trade, Von Baer es- 
timates the value of the skins annuaily brought to the market by the Russian 
American Fur Company at half a million of silver roubles, the produce of Eu- 
ropean Russia at a million and a half, and that of Siberia at three millions. As 
agriculture decreases on advancing to the north, the chase of the fur-bearing 
animals increases in importance. Thus, in the most northern governments of 
European Russia—W)jatka, Wologda, Olonez, and Archangel—it is one of the 
chief occupations of the inhabitants. In Olonez about four hundred bears are 
killed every year, and the immense forests of Wologda furnish from one hun- 
dred to two hundred black foxes, three hundred bears, and three millions of 
squirrels. 

Although the sable and the sea-otter are not so numerous as in former times, 
yet, upon the whole, the Russian fur-trade is in a very flourishing condition ; 
nor is there any fear of its decreasing, as the less valuable skins—such as those 
of the squirrels and hares, which from their numbers weigh most heavily in 
the balance of trade—are furnished by rodents, which multiply very rapidly, 


SIBERIA—FUR-TRADE AND GOLD-DIGGINGS. 213 


and find an inexhaustible supply of food in the forests and pasture-grounds of 
Siberia. | 

The chase of the fur-bearing animals affords the North-Siberian nomads— 
such as the Ostiaks, Jakuts, Tungusi, and Samoiedes—the only means of pro- 
curing the foreign articles they require; hence it taxes all their ingenuity, and 
takes up a great deal of their time. On the river-banks and in the forests 
they lay innumerable snares and traps, all so nicely adapted to the size, strength, 
and peculiar habits of the various creatures they are intended to capture, that 
it would be almost impossible to improve them. An industrious Jakut will 
lay about five hundred various traps as soon as the first snow has fallen; these 
he visits about five or six times in the course of the winter, and generally finds 
some animal or other in every eighth or tenth snare. 

The produce of his chase he brings to the nearest fair, where the tax-gath- 
erer is waiting for the jassak, which is now generally paid in money (five pa- 
per roubles=four shillings). With the remainder of his gains he purchases 
iron kettles, red cloth for hemming his garments, powder and shot, rye-meal, 
glass pearls, tobacco, and brandy—which, though forbidden to be sold publicly, 
is richly supplied to him in private—and then retires to his native wilds. 
From the smaller fairs, the furs are sent by the Russian merchants to the 
larger staple places, such as Jakutsk, Nertschinsk, Tobolsk, Kiachta, Irbit, 
Nishne-Novgorod, and finally St. Petersburg and Moscow; for by repeatedly 
sorting and matching the size and color of the skins, their value is increased. 

About thirty years ago firs were still the chief export article of Siberia—to 
China, European Russia, and Western Europe—but since then the discovery 
of its rich auriferous deposits has made gold its most important produce. The 
precious metal is found on the western slopes of the Ural chain and in West 
Siberia; but the most productive diggings are situated in East Siberia, where 
they give occupation to many thousands of workmen, and riches to a few suc- 
cessful speculators. 

The vast territory drained by the Upper Jenissei and its tributaries, the Su- 
perior and the Middle Tunguska, consists for the greater part of a dismal and 
swampy primeval forest, which scarcely thirty years since was almost totally 
unknown. <A few wretched nomads and fur-hunters were the only inhabitants 
of the Taiga—as those sylvan deserts are called—and squirrel skins seemed all 
they were ever likely to produce. A journey through the Taiga is said to be 
one of the most fatiguing and tedious tours which it is possible to make. Up- 
hill and down-hill, a narrow path leads over a swampy ground, into which the 
horses sink up to their knees. The rider is scarcely less harassed than the 
patient animal which carries him over this unstable soil. No bird enlivens the 
solitary forest with its song; the moaning of the wind in the crowns of the 
trees alone interrupts the gloomy silence. The eternal sameness of the scene 
—day after day one constant succession of everlasting larches and fir-trees—is 
as wearying to the mind as the almost impassable road to the body. 

But suddenly the sound of the axe or the creaking of the water-wheel is 
heard ; the forest opens, a long row of huts extends along the banks of a riy- 
ulet, and hundreds of workmen are seen moving about as industrious as a hive 


214 : THE POLAR WORLD. 


of bees. What is the cause of all this activity—of this sudden change from a 
death-like quiet to a feverish life? These are the gold-fields; the sands of 
these swampy grounds are mixed, like those of the Pactolus, with gold, and 
their fortunate possessors would not exchange them for the finest meadows, 
cornfields, or vineyards. ! 

Fedor Popow, a hunter of the province of Tomsk, is said to have been 
the first discoverer of gold in Siberia; and Government having granted per- 
mission to private persons to search for the precious metal, a few enterprising 
men directed their attention to the wild spurs of the Sajan Mountains. A bril- 
liant success rewarded their endeavors. In the year 1836 an exploring-party, 
sent out by a merchant named Jakin Resanow, discovered a rich deposit of 
auriferous sand near the banks of the Great Birussa; and in 1839-40, similar 
deposits were found along several of the tributaries of the Upper Tunguska, 
and still farther to the north, on the Oktolyk, a rivulet that flows into the Pit. 

The expenses of a searching-party amount, on an average, to 3000 silver 
roubles (£600); and as very often no gold whatever is found, these hazardous 
explorations not seldom put both the purse and the perseverance of their under- 
takers to a severe trial. Thus Nikita Maesnikow had spent no less than 260,000 
silver roubles (£52,000) in fruitless researches, when he at length discovered the 
rich gold-field on the Peskin, which, as we shall presently see, amply remuner- 
ated him for his previous losses. 

Of the difficulties which await the gold-searchers, a faintidea may be formed, 
on considering that the whole of the auriferous region, which far surpasses in 
size most of the European kingdoms, consists of one vast forest like that above 
described. Patches of grass-land on which horses can feed are of very rare oc- 
currence, and damp moss is the only bed the Taiga affords. As the gold-search- 
ers are very often at work some hundreds of versts from the nearest village, they 
are obliged to carry all their provisions along with them. Their clothes are 
almost constantly wet, from their sleeping in the damp forest, from the frequent 
rains to which they are exposed, and from their toiling in the swampy ground. 
Scarcely have they dug a few feet deep when the pit fills with water, which 
they are obliged to pump out as fast as it gathers, and thus standing up to their 
knees in the mud, they work on until they reach the solid rock, for then only 
can they be certain that no auriferous layer has been neglected in their search. 
When we consider, moreover, that all this labor is very often totally useless, 
their perseverance can not but be admired; nor is it to be wondered at that 
exploring-parties have sometimes encamped on the site of rich gold-deposits 
without examining the spot, their patience having been exhausted by repeated 
failures in the vicinity. When the winter, with its deep snowfalls, suddenly 
breaks in upon the searchers, their hardships become dreadful. The frost and 
want of food kill their horses, their utensils have to be left behind; and drag- 
ging their most indispensable provisions along with them on small sledges, they 
are not seldom obliged to wade for weeks through the’ deep snow before they 
reach some inhabited place. : 

But even the severity of a Siberian winter does not prevent the sending out 
of exploring-parties. Such winter explorations are only fitted out for the more 


SIBERIA—FUR-TRADE AND GOLD-DIGGINGS. 215 


accurate examination of very swampy auriferous grounds that have been dis- 
covered in the previous year, and where it is less difficult to work in the frozen 
‘soil than to contend with the water in summer. A winter-party travels with- 
-out horses, the workmen themselves transporting all that they require on light 
sledges. They are obliged to break up the obdurate soil with pickaxes, and the 
sand thus loosened has to be thawed and washed in warm water. After their 
day’s work, they spend the night in huts made of the branches of trees, where 
they sleep on the hard ground. It requires the iron constitution of a Siberian 
to bear such hardships, to which many fall a prey, in spite of their vigorous 
health. | 

A gold-deposit having been found, the fortunate discoverer obtains the grant 
of a lot of ground, 100 sashens (600 feet) broad, and 2500 sashens (or 5 versts) 
long. ‘Two adjoining lots are never granted to the same person, but a subse- 
quent purchase or amalgamation is permitted. At first Government was satis- 
fied with a moderate tax of 15 per cent. of the produce; subsequently, however, 
this was doubled, until within the last few years, when, the gold production 
having been found to decrease, the primitive impost was returned to, or even 
reduced to 5 per cent. for the less productive mines. Besides this tax, from four 
to eight gold roubles per pound of gold, according to the richness of the dig- 
gings, have to be paid for police expenses. Only a twelve years’ lease is granted, 
after which the digging reverts to the crown, and a new lease has to be pur- 
chased. As the severe climate of the Taiga limits the working-time to four 
months (from May to September), the period of the concession is thus in reality 
not more than four years. 

The first care of the lessee is, of course, to collect the necessary provisions 
and working apparatus. The distant steppe of the Kirghese furnishes him 
with dried or salted meat; his iron utensils he purchases in the factories of the 
Ural; the fairs of Irbit and Nishne-Novgorod supply him with every other arti- 
cle; and rye-meal and fishes he easily obtains from the Siberian peasants or 
traders. By water and by land, all these various stores have to be transported 
in summer to the residence or establishment of the gold-digger on the border 
of the Taiga. The transport through the Taiga itsclf takes place during the 
winter, on sledges, at a very great cost; and the expense is still more increased 
if time has been lost through inattention, as then all that may still be wanting 
has to be conveyed to the spot on the backs of horses. 

Most of the men that are hired for working in the diggings are exiles—the 
remainder generally free peasants, who have been reduced in their circum- 
stances by misfortunes or misconduct. The procuring of the necessary work- 
men is an affair of no small trouble and expense. Before every summer cam- 
paign the agents of the gold-diggers travel about the country like recruiting- 
sergeants, and after giving many fair words and some hand-money, they take 
the passport of the man engaged as a security for his appearance. But although 
a passport is an indispensable document in Siberia, yet it not seldom happens 
that the workman finds means to obtain a new one under some other name, 
and, engaging himself to a new master, defrands the first of his hand-money. 

It may be easily imagined that, as the workmen only consist of the refuse 


216 THE POLAR WORLD. 


of society, the greatest discipline is necessary to keep them in order. The sys- 
tem of a secret police,so cherished by all arbitrary governments, is here ex- 
tended to its utmost limits; scarcely has a suspicious word fallen among the 
workmen, when the director is immediately informed of it, and takes his meas- 
ures accordingly. Every man knows that he is watched, and is himself a spy 
upon his companions. 

Hofmann relates an instance of a plot singularly nipped in the bud. In one 
of the gold-diggings on the Noiba, the workmen, at the instigation of an under- 
overseer, had refused to perform a task assigned to them. It was to be feared 
that the spirit of insubordination would gain ground, and extend over all the 
neighboring diggings. ‘The director, consequently, sent at once for military as- 
sistance ; this, however, proved to be unnecessary, for when the Cossacks arrived 
at the Noiba, a thunder-storm arose, and at the very moment they came riding 
up to the digging a flash of lightning killed the ringleader in the midst of the 
mutineers. As soon as the men recovered from the first shock of their surprise 
and terror, they all exclaimed, “This is the judgment of God!” and, without 
any further hesitation, at once returned to their duty. 

Besides free rations, the ordinary wages of a common workman are 15 rou- 
bles banco, or 12 shillings a month, but more experienced hands receive 50 or 
even 60 roubles. The pay dates from the day when the workman makes his 
appearance at the residence, and thenceforward, also, his rations are served out 
to him. They consist ofa pound of fresh or salt meat, or an equivalent portion 
of fish on fasting-days, cabbage and groats for soup, besides fresh rye-bread 
and quas (the favorite national beverage) ad libitum. The whole number of 
workmen employed in a gold-digging subdivide themselves into separate socie- 
ties, or artells. Each of these elects a chief, or head-man, to whom the provis- 
ions for his artell are weighed out, and to whom all the other common interests 
are intrusted. The sale of spirituous liquor is strictly forbidden, for its use would 
render it impossible to maintain order; and, according to law, no gin-shop is 
allowed to be opened within. 60 versts of a digging. 

The pay and the liberal rations received would alone be insufficient to allure 
workmen to the diggings, for, as we have seen, the voyage there and back is 
extremely irksome, and the labor very fatiguing. An excellent plan has conse- 
quently been devised for their encouragement. The contract of each workman 
distinctly specifies the quantity of his daily work, consisting of a certain number © 
of wheelbarrows of sand—from 100 to 120, according to the distance from the 
spot where it is dug to the place where it is washed out—each reckoned at three 
pouds,* which one party has to fill, another to convey to the wash-stands, and 
a third to wash. 

The task is generally completed by noon, or early in the afternoon. For the 
labor they perform during the rest of the day, or on Sundays and holidays, 
they receive an extra pay of two or three roubles for every solotnik of gold 
they wash. Every evening the workmen come with the produce of their free 
labor to the office, the gold is weighed in their presence, and the artell credited 
for the amount of its share. This free-work is as advantageous for the mas- 

* The poud is equal to 40 pounds. The poud is divided into 96 solotniks. 


SIBERIA—FUR-TRADE AND GOLD-DIGGINGS. 217 


ters as the laborers. The former enjoy a net profit of eight or ten roubles per 
solotnik, and all the working expenses are of course put to the charge of the 
contract labor; and the latter earn a great deal of money, according to their in- 
dustry or good-luck, for when fortune favors an artell, its share may amount to 
a considerable sum. During Hofmann’s stay at the Birussa, each workman of 
a certain artell earned in one afternoon 72 roubles, and the Sunday’s work of 
another of these associations gave to each of its members 105 roubles, or £4. 
The artisans-—who, though employed in a gold-mine, are not engaged in dig- 
ging or washing the auriferous sand—are also rewarded from time to time 
by a day’s free-labor in places which are known to be rich. On one of these 
occasions a Cossack on the Oktolyk received 300 roubles for his share of the 
gold that was washed out of 49 wheelbarrows of sand. These of course are 
extraordinary cases, but they show how much a workman may gain; and be- 
ing of course exaggerated by report, are the chief inducements which attract 
the workmen, and keep them to their duty. 

If the free-labor is unproductive, many of the workmen desert or give up 
free-labor altogether, and in both cases the master is a loser. To prevent this, 
it is customary, in many of the diggings, to pay the workmen a fixed sum for 
their extra work. 

At the end of the season the workmen are paid off, and receive provisions 
for their home-journey. Generally, the produce of their summer’s labor is 
spent, in the first villages they reach, in drinking and gambling; so that, to be 
able to return to their families, they are obliged to bind themselves anew for 
the next season, and to receive hand-money from the agent, who, knowing their 
weakness, is generally on the spot to take advantage of it. After spending a 
long winter full of want and privations, they return to the Taiga in spring, and 
thus, through their own folly, their life is spent in constant misery and hard 
labor. 

During the winter the digging is deserted, except by an under-overseer and 
a few workmen, who make the necessary preparations for the next campaign, 
receive and warehouse the provisions as they arrive, and guard the property 
against thieves or wanton destruction. The upper-overseer or director, mean- 
while, is fully occupied at the residence in forwarding the provisions and stores 
that have arrived there during the summer to the mine, in making the neces- 
sary purchases for the next year, in sending his agents about the country to 
engage new workmen; and thus the winter is, in fact, his busiest time. . With 
the last sledge transport he returns to the digging, to receive the workmen as 
they arrive, and to see that all is ready for the summer. As his situation is 
one of great trust and responsibility, he enjoys a considerable salary. Maes- 
nikow, for instance, paid his chief director 40,000 roubles a year; and 6000 or 
8000 roubles, besides free station, and a percentage of the gold produced, is 
the ordinary emolument. | 

It is thus evident that the expenses of a Siberian gold-mine are enormous, 
but when fortune favors the undertaker he is amply rewarded for his outlay ; 
an annual produce of 10, 15, or 20 pouds of gold is by no means uncommon. 
In the year 1845, 458 workmen employed in the gold-mine of Mariinsk, be- 


218 THE POLAR WORLD. 


longing to Messrs. Golubdow and Kusnezow, produced 81 pouds 193 Ibs. of 
the much-coveted metal; in the year 1843 the mine of Olginsk, belonging to 
Lieutenant Malewinsky, yielded 82 pouds 374 lbs.; and in 1844, the labor of 
1014 workmen, employed in the mine of Kresdowosdwishensk, belonging to 
Messrs. IXusnezow and Schtschegolow, produced no less than 87 pouds 14 Ibs. 
of gold. But even Kresdowosdwishensk has been distanced by the mine of 
Spasky, situated near the sources of the Peskin, which, in the year 1842, 
yielded its fortunate possessor, the above-mentioned Counsellor Nikita Maes- 
nikow (one of the few men who were already extremely rich before the Sibe- 
rian auriferous deposits were discovered), the enormous quantity of 100 pouds 
of gold! From 1840 to 1845, Maesnikow extracted from this mine no less 
than 348 pouds 6 lbs. of gold, worth 4,135,174 silver roubles, or about £640,000. 
Still more recently, in 1860, the Gawrilow mine, belonging to the house of Rja- 
sanow, produced 1024 pouds of pure gold. 

But in Siberia, as elsewhere, mining operations are frequently doomed to 
end in disappointment, particularly if the space destined to be worked in the 
following summer has not been carefully examined beforehand, as the ore is 
often very unequally distributed. A speculator, having discovered a gold-mine, 
examined four or five samples of the sand, which gave a highly satisfactory re- 
sult. Delighted with his good-fortune, he made his arrangements on a grand 
scale, and collected provisions for 500 workmen; but when operations began, 
it was found that he had, unfortunately, hit upon a small patch of auriferous 
sand, the vicinity of which was totally void of gold, so that his 500 workmen 
produced no more than a few pounds of ore, and he lost at least £10,000 by 
his adventure. 

The entire gold produce of East Siberia amounted, in 1845, to 848 pouds 
36 lbs., and in 1856 to about 1100 pouds; but latterly, in consequence of the 
increasing wages and dearness of provisions, which has caused many of the 
less productive mines to be abandoned, it has somewhat diminished. In 1860, 
31,796 men, 919 women, and 8751 horses and oxen, were employed in the Si- 
berian gold-mines. | 

As may easily be imagined, the discovery of these sources of wealth in the 
desert has caused a great revolution in the social state of Siberia. The riches 
so suddenly acquired by a few favorites of fortune, have raised luxury to an 
unexampled height, and encouraged a senseless prodigality. Some _ sterlets* 
having been offered for 300 roubles to a miner suddenly raised from penury 
to wealth, “ Fool!” said the upstart, with the superb mien of a conquering 
hero, to the fish-dealer, “ wilt thou sell me these excellent sterlets so cheap ? 
Here are a thousand roubles; go, and say that thou hast dealt with me /” 

The small town of Krasnojarsk, romantically situated on the Jenissei, is the 
chief seat of the rich miners. Here may be seen the choicest toilettes, the 
most showy equipages, and champagne (which in Siberia costs at least £1 a 
bottle) is the daily beverage of the gold aristocracy. Unfortunately, Krasno- 
jarsk had, until very recently, not a single bookseller’s shop to boast of; and 


* A species of sturgeon highly esteemed by epicures. 


* 


SIBERIA—FUR-TRADE AND GOLD-DIGGINGS. 219 


while thousands were lavished on vanity and sensual enjoyments, not a rouble 
was devoted to the improvement of the mind. 

Less rich in gold than the province of Jeniseisk, but richer in copper and 
iron, and above all in platina, is the Ural, where mining industry was first intro- 
duced by Peter the Great, in the last years of the seventeenth century, and has 
since acquired a colossal development. Though gold was discovered in the Ura- 
lian province of Permia as early as 1745, yet its production on a large scale is of 
more modern date. In the year 1816 the whole quantity of gold furnished by 
- the Ural amounted only to 5 pouds 35 lbs., while in 1834 it had increased to 
405 pouds. 

The discovery of the precious metals on the estates of the large mine-propri- | 
etors of the Ural, who already before that time were among the wealthiest men 
of the empire, has increased their riches to an enormous extent, and given a 
European celebrity to the names of Jakowlew and Demidoff. Werch Issetsk 
and Werchne Tagilsk, in the province of Permia, belonging to the Jakowlew 
family, have an extent of more than three millions of acres, with a population 
of 11,000 souls. Besides iron and copper, their chief produce, these estates 
yielded, in 1834, 58 pouds of gold. 

Nishne-Tagilsk, belonging, since 1725, to the Demidoffe, is a still more mag- 
nificent possession ; for it may truly be said, that perhaps nowhere in the world 
are greater mineral riches congregated in one spot than here, where, besides 
vast quantities of iron and copper, the washing of the sands produced, in 1834 
no less than 29 pouds of gold, and 113 pouds 3 lbs. of platina. The estate ex- 
tends over.four millions of acres, and its population, in 1834, amounted to 
20,000 souls. 

The town of Nishne-Tagilsk has about 15,000 inhabitants, and Helmersen 
(“Travels in the Ural”) praises the Demidoffs for their zeal in carrying the 
civilization of Europe to the wilds of the Ural. In an excellent elementary 
school, 150 boys are clothed, fed, and educated at their expense. Those pupils 
who distinguish themselves by their abilities are then sent to a higher school, 
such as the Demidoff Lyceum in Jaroslaw, or the University of Moscow, and 
after the termination of their studies obtain a situation on the estates of the 
family. The palace of the Demidoffs has a fine collection of paintings by the 
first Italian masters; but it is seldom if ever inhabited by the proprietors, who 
prefer Florence and Paris to the Ural. The founder of the family was an em- 
inent gunsmith of the town of Tula, whose abilities gained him the favor of 
Peter the Great, and the gift of the mines on which the colossal fortune of his 
descendants has been raised. 


220 THE POLAR WORLD. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 
MIDDENDORFF’S ADVENTURES IN TAIMURLAND. 


. For what Purpose was Middendorff’s Voyage to Taimurland undertaken ?— Difficulties and Obstacles.— 
Expedition down the Taimur River to the Polar Sea.—Storm on Taimur Lake.—Loss of the Boat.— 
Middendorff ill and alone in 75° N. Lat.—Saved by a grateful Samoiede.—Climate and Vegetation of 
Taimurland. 

N following the contours of the Siberian coast, we find to the east of Nova 
Zembla a vast tract of territory projecting towards the Pole, and extend- 

ing its promontories far into the icy sea. This country—which, from its prin- 
cipal river, may be called Taimurland—is the most northern, and, I need hardly 
add, the most inhospitable part of the Old World. The last huts of the Rus- 
sian fishermen are situated about the mouth of the Jenissei, but the whole terri- 
tory of the Taimur River, and the regions traversed by the lower course of the 

Chatanga and the Pasina, are completely uninhabited. 

Even along the upper course of these two last-named rivers, the population 
is exceedingly scanty and scattered ; and the few Samoiedes who migrate dur- 
ing the summer to the banks of the Taimur, gladly leave them at the approach 
of winter, the cold of which no thermometer has ever measured. As may easi- 
ly be imagined, Taimurland has but few attractions for the trader or the fur- 
hunter, but for the naturalist it is by no means without interest. 

We have seen in a former chapter how Von Baer, prompted by the disinter- 
ested love of science, travelled to Nova Zembla to examine the productions of 
a cold insular summer beyond the 70th degree of latitude. The instructive re- 
sults of his journey rendered it doubly desirable to obtain information about 
the effects of summer in a continental climate, situated if possible still farther 
to the north; and as no region could be better suited to this purpose than the 
interior of the broad mass of Taimurland, the Academy of Sciences of St. Peters- 
burg resolved to send thither a scientific expedition. Fortunately for the suc- 
cess of the undertaking, Von Middendorff, the eminent naturalist, whose offer 
of service was gladly accepted, was in every respect the right man in the right 
place ; for to the most untiring scientific zeal, and an unwavering determination, 
he joined a physical strength and a manual dexterity rarely found united with 
learning. In the Lapland moors he had learned to bivouac for nights together, 
while chasing the waterfowl, and on foot he was able to tire the best-trained 
walrus-hunter. He understood how to construct a boat, and to steer it with his 
own hand, and every beast or bird was doomed that came within reach of his 
unerring ball. In one word, no traveller ever plunged into the Arctic wilds 
more independent of baggage, followers, or the means of transport. 

On April 4 we find Middendorff, accompanied by Mr. Brandt, a Danish for- 
ester, and a single servant, on the ice of the Jenissei between Turuchansk and 


MIDDENDORFF’S ADVENTURES IN TAIMURLAND. 221 


Dudino. Here his companions were attacked by measles; but as it was high 
time to reach the Chatanga before the melting of the snow, the patients were 
carefully packed up in boxes lined with skins, and the whole party—whose num- 
bers, meanwhile, had been increased by the addition of a topographer and of 
three Cossacks—emerged from the region of forests on April 13, having to face 
a cold of —36°, and a storm that almost overturned their sledges. With 
Tunguse guides they traversed the tundra in a north-easterly direction as far as 
the Pisina, and thence passing on from one Samoiede horde to another, at length 
reached Koronnoie Filippowskoi (71° 5’ lat.) on the Boganida, an affluent of the 
Cheta, which is itself a tributary of the Chatanga. Here a halt was made, 
partly because all the party except Middendorff were by this time attacked with 
the reigning epidemic, and partly to wait for the Samoiedes, whom they intend- 
ed to join on their summer migration to the north. During this interval Mid- 
dendorff made an excursion to the Chatanga, for the purpose of gathering in- 
formation about the voyage down that river, and to make the necessary prepara- 
tions. In the village of Chatangsk, however, he found nearly all the inhabitants 
suffering from the measles ; and as no assi=tance was to be expected from them, 
he resolved to alter his route, and to proceed as soon as possible to the River 
Taimur, which would in all probability afford him the best means for penetrat- 
ing to the extreme confines of continental Asia. As this most northerly river 
of the Old World lies far beyond the boundaries of arboreal growth, a boat-frame 
of twelve feet on the keel had to be made at Koronnoie before setting out. 
Brandt was left behind with part of the company, to make a prolonged series 
or meteorological observations, and to gather as complete a collection as possible 
of the animals and plants of the country, while Middendorff started on his ad- 
venturous tour (May 19) with sixty-eight reindeer, under the guidance of afew 
Samoiedes on their progress to the north, and accompanied only by the topog- 
rapher, an interpreter, and two Cossacks. The difficulties of this journey, since 
a boat-frame, fuel, provisions, physical instruments, apparatuses for the preser- 
vation of objects of natural history, forming altogether a load for many sledges, 
had to be transported along with the travellers, would have been great at all 
times, but were now considerably increased by the epidemic having also seized 
the tribe of Samoiedes which Middendorff expected to find near the small River 
Nowaia, and which was to guide him farther on to the Taimur. At length, 
after a search of three days, he found the remnant of the horde, which had been 
decimated and reduced to a deplorable condition by the epidemic. In vain he 
sought for the well-known faces of the chief personages of the horde, with whom 
he had negotiated on the Boganida—“ they were all dead.” Of thirty-five per- 
sons, one only was completely healthy; asecond could hardly crawl about ; but 
the others lay prostrate in their tents, coughing and groaning under their skin 
coverings. Leaving seven corpses on the road, they had advanced by slow jour- 
neys to join Middendorff, until they broke down, so that instead of receiving 
aid at their hands, he was now obliged to help them in their distress—an assist- 
ance which they amply repaid, as we shall see in the sequel. 

Unfortunately the illness had prevented the Samoiede women from sewing 
together, as they had promised, the skins that were necessary to complete the 


( 
oo THE POLAR WORLD. 


covering of the travellers’ tent, so that they had much to suffer during a violent 
snow-storm, which raged from May 27 to 30. Thus after another long delay 
and an irreparable loss of time, considering the extreme shortness of the sum- 
mer, Middendorff was not able to start from the Nowaia before May 31. The 
softening of the snow rendered the advance of the sledges extremely difficult, 
so that it was not before June 14 that he reached the Taimur at a considerable 
distance above the point where the river discharges its waters into the lake. 
Encamping on a steep declivity of its bank, Middendorff now set about build- 
ing his boat. On June 30 the ice on the river began to break up, and on July 
& the navigation of the stream was free. By the light of the midnight sun the 
boat was launched, and christened “ The Tundra,” to commemorate the diffi- 
culties of its construction in the deserts of 74° N.lat. Constant north winds 
retarded the voyage down the river and over the lake, beyond which the Taimur, 
traversing a hilly country, is inclosed within steep and picturesque rocks. The 
increasing rapidity of the stream now favored the travellers, and the storms 
were less troublesome between the mighty rock-walls; but unfortunately Mid- 
dendorff, instead of being able, as he had expected, to fill his nets with fish as 
he advanced, and to establish dépéts for his return journey, found himself 
obliged to consume the provisions he had taken with him in the boat. On Au- 
gust 6 the first night-frost took place, and from that time was regularly repeat- 
ed. Yet in spite of these warnings, Middendorff continued his jeurney down 
the river, and reached the sea on August 24, in 76° N. lat. But now it was 
high time to return. 

“The fear of leaving my undertaking half unfinished,” says Middendorff, 
“had hitherto encouraged me to persevere. The great distance from any hu- 
man habitation, the rapid stream, against which we had now to contend, and the 
advanced season, with its approaching dark nights and frosts, made our return 
an imperative necessity, and I could have but little reliance on our remaining 


strength. The insufficient food and the fatigues of our journey, often prolong- | 


ed to extreme exhaustion, had reduced our vigor, and we all began to feel the 
effects of our frequent wading through cold water, when, as often happened, 
our boat had grounded upon a shallow, or when the flat mud-banks of the riv- 
er gave us no other alternative for reaching thedry land. It was now also the 
second month since we had not slept under a tent, having all the time passed 
the nights behind a screen erected on the oars of the boat, as a shelter against 
the wind. Provided with a good load of drift-wood, collected on the shore of 
the Polar Ocean, we began our return voyage on August 26. The borders of 
the river were already incrusted with ice. Wading became extremely irksome, 


the river having meanwhile fallen above six feet, and the shallows frequently 


forcing us to step into the water and pull the boat along. 

‘“ Fortunately the wind remained favorable, and thus by rowing to the utmost 
of our strength, and with the assistance of the broad sails of our‘ Tundra,’ we 
surmounted two rapids which, encased between abrupt rocks, seemed to defy 
our utmost efforts. | 

“On the 31st, a malicious gust of wind, bursting out of a narrow gorge, 
threw our boat against the rocks and broke the rudder. The frost and wet, 


MIDDENDORFF’S ADVENTURES IN TAIMURLAND. 223 


together with the shortness of our provisions, tried us sorely. Not a day pass- 
ed without sleet and snow. 

“On September 5, while endeavoring to double during a violent storm a 
rocky island at the northern extremity of Lake Taimur, one wave after another 
dashed into the boat, which I could only save by letting her run upon a sand-. 
bank. The violent wind, with a temperature of only +27° at noon, covered 
our clothes with solid ice-crusts. We were obliged to halt four days till the 
storm ceased; our nets and my double-barrelled gun proved daily more and 
more unsuccessful, so that hunger combined with cold to render our situation 
almost intolerable. On the 8th, while on the lookout for ptarmigan, I saw 
through my telescope a long stripe of silver stretching over the lake, and, re- 
turning to my comrades, informed them that we must absolutely set off again 
the next morning, regardless of wind and weather. 

“ On the following day the ominous indications of the telescope rendered it 
necessary to approach the more open west side of the lake; which I followed 
until stopped by the ice, along whose borders I then sailed in order to reach the 
river, which must still be open. Meanwhile the wind had completely fallen, and, 
to our astonishment, we saw the water in our wake cover itself with a thin 
crust of ice as soon as we passed. The danger of freezing fast in the middle 
of the lake was evident.” 

Unfortunately, while endeavoring to reach the river, the boat was crushed 
between two ice floes, and was with great difficulty dragged on shore. The 
only chance of rescue now was to meet with some Samoiedes on the upper 
course of the river, for these nomads never wander northward beyond the south- 
ern extremity of the lake, and from this our travellers were still at a great 
distance. 

“ We made a large hand-sledge,” continues Middendorff, “ and set off with- 
out loss of time on the 10th, in spite of the rainy weather, which had complete- 
ly dissolved the sparing snow upon the hills. The sharp stones cut into our 
sledge-runners like knives, and after having scarcely made three versts, the ve- 
hicle fell to pieces. The bad weather forced us tc stop for the night. The fa- 
tigues of our boat-journey, the want of proper food, and mental anxiety, had 
for several weeks been undermining my health: a total want of sleep destroyed 
the remainder of my strength, so that, early on the 11th, I felt myself quite 
unable to proceed.” 

In this extremity Middendorff adopted with heroic self-denial the best and 
only means for his own preservation and that of his comrades. If, by depart- 
ing without loss of time, they were fortunate enough to reach the Samoiedes 
before these nomads had left the Taimur country for the south, he also might 
be rescued ; if they found them very late, they at least might expect to save 
their lives; if the Samoiedes could not be found, then of course the whole party 
was doomed. Thus Middendorff resolved to separate at once from his com- 
rades. A remnant of flesh extract, reserved for extreme cases, was divided into 
five equal portions; the naturalist’s dog, the faithful companion of all his pre- 
vious journeys, was killed, though reduced to a mere skeleton, and his scanty 
flesh similarly distributed among the party. The blood and a soup made of the 


224 THE POLAR WORLD. 


bones served for the parting repast. Thus of his own free-will, the winter hav: 
ing already set in, Middendorff, ill and exhausted, remained quite alone in the 
icy desert, behind a sheltering rock, in 75° N. lat., several hundred versts from 
all human dwellings, almost without fuel, and with a miserable supply of food. 
The three first days he was stillable to move. He saw the lake cover itself com- 
pletely with ice, and the last birds depart for the south. Then his strength ut- 
terly failed him, and for the next three days he was unable to stir. When he was 
again able to move, he felt an excessive thirst. He crawled to the lake, broke 
the ice, and the water refreshed him. But he was not yet free from disease, and 
this was fortunate, as want of appetite did not make him feel the necessity of 
food. Now followed a succession of terrible snow-storms, which completely 
imprisoned the solitary traveller, but at the same time afforded him a better 
shelter against the wind. 


“My companions,” he writes in a letter to a relation, “had now left me | 


twelve days; human assistance could no longer be expected; I was convinced 
that I had only myself to rely upon, that I was doomed, and as good as number- 
ed with the dead. And yet my courage did not forsake me. Like our squir- 
rels, I turned myself according to the changes of the wind. During the long 
sleepless nights fancy opened her domains, and I forgot even hunger and thirst. 
Then Boreas broke roaring out of the gullies as if he intended to sweep me 
away into the skies, and in ashort time I was covered with a comfortable snow- 
mantle. Thus I lay three days, thinking of wretches who had been immured 
alive, and grown mad in their dreadful prison. An overwhelming fear of in- 
sanity befell me—it oppressed my heart-—it became insupportable. In vain I 
attempted to cast it off—my weakened brain could grasp no other idea. And 
now suddenly—like a ray of light from heaven—the saving thought flashed 
upon me. 

“My last pieces of wood were quickly lighted—some water was thawed and 
warmed—lI poured into it the spirits from a flask containing a specimen of nat- 
ural history, and drank. A new life seemed to awaken in me; my thoughts re- 
turned again to my family, to the happy days I had spent with the friends of 
my youth. Soon I fell into a profound sleep—how long it lasted I know not— 
but on awakening I felt like another man, and my breast was filled with grati- 
tude. Appetite returned with recovery, and I was reduced to eat leather and 
birch-bark, when a ptarmigan fortunately came within reach of my gun. Hay- 
ing thus obtained some food for the journey, I resolved, although still very fee- 
ble, to set out and seek the provisions we had buried. Packing some articles of 
dress, my gun and ammunition, my journal, etc., on my small hand-sledge, I pro- 
ceeded slowly, and frequently resting. At noon I saw, on a well-known decliv- 
ity of the hills, three black spots which I had not previously noticed, and as they 
changed their position, I at once altered my route to jointhem. We approach- 
ed each other—and, judge of my delight, it was Trischun, the Samoiede chief- 
tain, whom I had previously assisted in the prevailing epidemic, and who now, 
guided by one of my companions, had set out with three sledges to seek me. 
Eager to serve his benefactor, the grateful savage had made his reindeer wander 
without food over a space of 150 versts where no moss grew. 


oe —— 


MIDDENDORFF’S ADVENTURES IN TAIMURLAND. 225 


“T now heard that my companions had fortunately reached the Samoiedes 
four days after our separation; but the dreadful snow-storms had prevented the 
nomads from coming sooner to my assistance, and had even forced them twice 
to retrace their steps. ey 

“On September 30 the Samoiedes brought me to my tent, and on October 
9 we bade the Taimur an eternal farewell. After five months we hailed with 
delight, on October 20, the verge of the forest, and on the following day we 
reached the smoky hut on the Boganida, where we had left our friends.” 

Having thus accompanied Middendorff on his adventurous wanderings 
through Taimuria, I will now give a brief account of his observations on the 
climate and natural productions of this northern land. 

The remark of Saussure that the difference of temperature between light and 
shade is greatest in summer, and in the high latitudes, was fully confirmed by 
Middendorff. While the thermometer marked —37° in the shade, the hillsides 
exposed to the sun were dripping with wet, and towards the end of June, though 
the mean temperature of the air was still below the freezing-point of water, the 
snow had already entirely disappeared on the sunny side of the Taimur River. 
Torrents came brawling down the hills; the swollen rivers rose forty or sixty 
feet above their winter level, and carried their icy covering along with them to 
the sea. 

On August 3,in the very middle of the short Taimurian summer, in 74° 15! 
ot latitude, Middendorff hunted butterflies under the shelter of a hill, bare-foot: 
ed and in light under-clothes. The thermometer rose in the sun to +68°, and 
close to the ground to +86°, while at a short distance on a spot exposed to the 
north-eastern air-current it fell at once to +27°. 

The moisture of the air was very remarkable. In May thick snow-fogs al- 
most perpetually obscured the atmosphere, so that it was impossible to ascer- 
tain the position of the sun. It appeared only in the evening, or about midnight, 
and then regularly a perpendicular column of luminous whiteness descended from 
its orb to the earth, and, widening as it approached the horizon, took the form 
and the appearance of a colossal lamp-flame, such as the latter appears when 
seen through the mists of a vapor bath. From the same cause parhelia and 
halos were very frequent. 

During the daytime the snow-fogs, in perpetual motion, either entirely veil- 
ed the nearest objects, or magnified their size, or exhibited them in a dancing 
motion. In June the snow-fog became a vapor-fog, which daily from time to 
time precipitated its surplus of moisture in form of a light rain, but even then 
the nights, particularly after eleven o’clock, were mostly serene. 

Experience proved, contrary to Arago’s opinion, that thunder-storms take 
place within the Arctic zone. The perpetual motion of the air was very re- 
markable. The sun had merely to disappear behind a cloud to produce at once 
agust of wind. Towards the end of August, the southern and the northern air- 
currents, like two contending giants, began to strive for the mastery, until finally 
the storms raged with extreme violence. But in these treeless deserts their fury 
finds nothing to destroy. 

It is impossible to form any thing like a correct estimate of the quantity of 

15 


226 THE POLAR WORLD. 


snow which annually falls in the highest latitudes. So much is certain that it 
can not be small, to judge by the violence and swelling of the rivers in spring. 
The summits of the hills, and the declivities exposed to the reigning winds, are 
constantly deprived of snow, which, however, fills up the bottom of the valleys 
to a considerable height. Great was Middendorff’s astonishment, while travel- 
ling over the tundra at the end of winter, to find it covered with no more than 
two inches, or at the very utmost half a foot, of snow; the dried stems of the 
Arctic plants everywhere peeping forth above its surface. This was the natu- 
ral consequence of the north-easterly storms, which, sweeping over the naked 
plain, carry the snow along with them, and form the snow-waves, the compass of 
the northern nomads. 

It is extremely probable that, on advancing towards the pole, the fall of snow 
gradually diminishes, as in the Alps, where its quantity likewise decreases on 
ascending above a certain height. 

On measuring the thickness of the ice, Middendorff was very much surprised 
to find it nowhere, both in the lakes and on the river, thicker than eight feet, and 
sometimes only four and a half; its thickness being constantly proportionate to 
the quantity of snow with which it was covered. At first he could hardly be- 
lieve that this simple covering could afford so efficacious a protection against the 
extreme cold of winter in the 74th degree of latitude, but the fact is well known 
to the Samoiedes, who, whenever they require water, always make the hole 
where the snow lies deepest. 

The tundras of Taimuria were found to consist principally of arid plateaux 
and undulating heights, where the vegetation can not conceal the boulders and 
the sand of which the crust of the earth is formed. 

The withered tips of the grasses scarcely differ in color from the dirty yel- 
low-brown moss, and the green of the lower part of the stalks appears as through 
aveil. Nothing can be of a more dreary monotony than this vegetation when 
spread over a wide surface; but in the hardly perceptible depressions of the 
plains where the spring water is able to collect, a fresher green gains the upper 
hand, the stalks are not only longer, but stand closer together, and the grass, 
growing to a height of three or even four inches, usurps the place of the moss. 
Here and there small patches of Dryas octopetala, or Cassiope tetragona, and 
much more rarely a dwarf ranunculus, diversify the dingy carpet, yet without 
being able to relieve its wearisome character. But very different, and indeed 
truly surprising, is the aspect of the slopes which, facing the Taimur lake or 
river, are protected against the late and early frosts. Here considerable patches 
of ground are covered with a lively green, intermingled with gayly-colored flow- 
ers, such as the brilliant yellow Sieversia, the elegant Oxytropis, the blue and 
white Saxifragas, the red Armeria alpina, and a beautiful new species of Del- 
phinium. All these various flowers are not dwarfs of stunted growth, for Pole- 
mones, Sisymbrias, Polygonums, and Papavers above a foot high decorate the 
slopes, and Middendorff found an islet in the Taimur covered like a field with a 
Senecio, of which some of the most conspicuous specimens were more than a foot 
and a half high, and bore no less than forty flowers above an inch in diameter. 

The progress of vegetation is uncommonly rapid, so that, as Middendorff re- 


MIDDENDORFF’S ADVENTURES IN TAIMURLAND. 227 


marks, if any one wishes to see the grass grow, he must travel to the Taimur. 
Scarcely do the first leaves peep forth when the blossoms also appear, as if, con- 
scious of the early approach of autumn, they felt the necessity of bringing their 
seeds to a rapid maturity under this wintry sky. 

With regard to the animal creation, the general law of polar uniformity was 
fully confirmed in Taimurland. The same lemmings were found which peo- 
ple the whole north of Asia and America, and as high as 75° N. lat. they found 
the traces of the snow-hare, which inhabits the complete circle of the Arctic re- 
gions of the globe. The Arctic fox, everywhere at home in the treeless wastes, 
is here also pursued by the northern glutton; and following the herds of the 
reindeer, the wolves, and the Samoiedes, roams up and down the tundra. The 
ptarmigan, which in Scandinavia and on Melville Island feeds on berries and 
buds, appears also as a summer visitor at the mouth of the Taimur in 75° 4’ N, 
lat., and the ivory gull of the northern European seas likewise builds its nest 
on the rocks of that distant shore. 

The more vigorous vegetation on the sheltered declivities of the Taimur pro- 
vides food for a comparatively greater number of insects than is found on the 
coasts of Nova Zembla. Bees, hornets, and three different species of butterflies, 
buzzed or hovered round the flowers, and caterpillars could be gathered by 
dozens on the tundra, but their mortal enemies had pursued them even here; 
and ichneumon flies crept out of most of them. Two spiders, several flies, 
gnats, and tipul, a curculio, and half a dozen carabi completed Middendorff’s 
entomological list, to which, no doubt, further researches would have consid- 
erably added. 

_ Thus, at the northern extremity of Asia, as in every other part of the world, 
the naturalist finds the confirmation of the general law that, where the means 
of life are given, life is sure to come forth. 


228 THE POLAR WORLD. 


CHAPTER XIX. 
THE JAKUTS. 


Their energetic Nationalitv.—Their Descent.—Their gloomy Character.—Summer and Winter Dwelk 
ings.—The Jakut Horse.—Incredible Powers of Endurance of the Jakuts.—-Their Sharpness of Vis- 
ion.—Surprising local Memory.--Their manual Dexterity.—Leather, Poniards, Carpets. —Jakut 
Gluttons.—Superstitious Fear of the Mouniain-spirit Ljeschei.—Offerings of Horse-hair.—Improvised 
Songs.—The River Jakut. 

dinar Jakuts are a remarkably energetic race, for though subject to the Mus- 

covite yoke, they not only successfully maintain their language and man- 
ners, but even impose their own tongue and customs upon the Russians who 
have settled in their country. Thus in Jakutsk, or the “ capital of the Jakuts,” 
as with not a little of national pride and self-complacency they style that dreary 
city, their language is much more frequently spoken than the Russian, for al- 
most all the artisans are Jakuts, and even the rich fur-merchant has not seldom 

a Jakut wife, as no Russian now disdains an alliance with one of that nation. 
At Amginskoie, an originally Russian settlement, Middendorff found the 

greatest difficulty in procuring a guide able to speak the Russian language, and 

all the Tunguse whom he met with between Jakutsk and Ochotsk understood 
and spoke Jakut, which is thus the dominant language from the basin of the 

Lena to the extreme eastern confines of Siberia. In truth, no Russian workman 

can compete with the Jakuts, whose cunning and effrontery would make it diffi- 

cult even for a Jew to prosper among them. | 

Though of a Mongolian physiognomy, their language, which is said to be 
intelligible at Constantinople, distinctly points to a Turk extraction, and their 
traditions speak of their original seats as situated on the Baikal and Angora, 
whence, retreating before more powerful hordes, they advanced to the Lena, 
where in their turn they dispossessed the weaker tribes which they found in 
possession‘of the country. At present their chief abode is along the banks of 
that immense river, which they occupy at least as far southward as the Aldan. 
Kastward they are found on the Kolyma, and westward as far as the Jenissei. 
Their total number amounts to about 200,000, and they form the chief part of 
the population of the vast but almost dezert province of Jakutsk. 

They are essentially a pastoral people, and their chief wealth consists in 
horses and cattle, though the northern portion of their nation is reduced to the 
reindeer and the dog. Besides the breeding of horses, the Russian fur-trade 
has developed an industrial form of the hunter’s state, so that among the 
Jakuts property accumulates, and we have a higher civilization than will be 
found elsewhere in the same latitude, Iceland, Finland, and Norway alone ex- 
cepted. Of an unsocial and reserved disposition, they prefer a solitary settle- 
ment, but at the same time they are very hospitable, and give the stranger who 


wa 


THE JAKUTS. 229 


claims their assistance a friendly welcome. Villages consisting of several huts, 
or yourts, are rare, and found only between Jakutsk and the Aldan, where the 
population is somewhat denser. Beyond the Werchojansk ridge the solitary 
huts are frequently several hundred versts apart, so that the nearest neighbors 
sometimes do not see each other for years. 

In summer the Jakut herdsmen live in wrossy, light conical tents fixed on 
poles and covered with birch rind, and during the whole season they are per- 
petually employed in making hay for the long winter. 

In 62° N. lat., and in a climate of an almost unparalleled severity, the rearing 
of their cattle causes them far more trouble than is the case with any other pas- 
toral people. Their supply of hay is frequently exhausted before the end of 
the winter, and from March to May their oxen must generally be content with 
willow and birch twigs or saplings. 


it 


<i 


ras 
= 


— 


—_S 


A JAKUT VILLAGE. 


At the beginning of the cold season the Jackut exchanges his summer tent 
for his warm winter residence, or yourt,a hut built of beams or logs, in the 
form of a truncated pyramid, and thickly covered with turf and clay. Plates 
of ice serve as windows, and are replaced by fish-bladders or paper steeped in 
oil, as soon as the thaw begins. The earthen floor, for it is but rarely boarded, 
is generally sunk two or three feet below the surface of the ground. The seats 
and sleeping berths are ranged along the sides, and the centre is occupied by 
the tschwwal, or hearth, the smoke of which finds its exit through an aperture in 
the roof. Clothes and arms are suspended from the walls, and the wholé premi- 


230 THE POLAR WORLD. 


ses exhibit a sad picture of disorder and filth. Near the yourt are stables for 
the cows, but when the cold is very severe, these useful animals are received 
into the family room. As for the horses, they remain night and day without 
a shelter, at a temperature when mercury freezes, and are obliged to feed on 
the withered autumnal grass which they find under the snow. These creatures, 
whose powers of endurance are almost incredible, change their hair in summer 
like the other quadrupeds of the Arctic regions. They keep their strength, 
though travelling perhaps for months through the wilderness without any other 
food than the parched, half-rotten grass met with on the way. They retain 
their teeth to eld age, and remain young much longer than our horses. “ He 
who thinks of improving the Jakut horse,” says Von Middendorff, “ aims at 
something like perfection. Fancy the worst conceivable roads, and for nourish- 
ment the bark of the larch and willow, with hard grass-stalks instead of oats; 
or merely travel on the post-road to Jakutsk, and see the horses that have 
just run forty versts without stopping, and are covered with perspiration and 
foam, eating their hay in the open air without the slightest covering, at a tem- 
perature of —40°.” } 

But the Jakut himself is no less hardened against the cold than his faithful 
horse. “On December 9,” says Wrangell, “we bivouacked round a fire, at a 
temperature of —28°, on an open pasture-ground, which afforded no shelter 
against the northern blast. Here I had an excellent opportunity for admiring 
the unparalleled powers of endurance of our Jakut attendants. On the long- 
est winter journey they take neither tents nor extra covering along with them, 
not even one of the larger fur-dresses. While travelling, the Jakut contents 
himself with his usual dress; in this he generally sleeps in the open air; a 
horse rug stretched out upon the snow is his bed, a wooden saddle his pillow. 
With the same fur jacket, which serves him by daytime as a dress, and which 
he pulls off when he lies down for the night, he decks his back and shoulders, 
while the front part of his body is turned towards the fire almost without any 
covering. He then stops his nose and ears with small pieces of skin, and cov- 
ers his face so as to leave but a small opening for breathing—these are all the 
precautions he takes against the severest cold. Even in Siberia the Jakuts are 
called ‘men of iron.’ Often have I seen them sleeping at a temperature of 
—4° in the open air, near an extinguished bivouac fire, and with a thick ice- 
rind covering their almost unprotected body.” ~ 

Most of the Jakuts have an incredible sharpness of vision. One of them 
told Lieutenant Anjou, pointing to the planet Jupiter, that he had often seen 
yonder blue star devour a smaller one, and then after a time cast it out again.* 
Their local memory is no less astonishing; a pool of water, a large stone, a 
solitary bush imprints itself deeply into their remembrance, and guides them 
after a lapse of years through the boundless wilderness. In manual dexterity 
they surpass all other Siberian nations, and some of their articles, such as their 
poniards and their leather, might figure with credit in any European exhibi- 
tion. Long before the Russian conquest they made use of the iron ore on the 


* Humboldt likewise mentions an artisan of Breslau whose sight was so sharp as to enable him te 
point out the position of Jupiter’s satellites. 


THE JAKUTS. 231 


Wilui to manufacture their own knives and axes, which, either from the excel- 
lence of the material or of the workmanship, rarely break, even in the severest 
cold—a perfection which the best Sheffield ware does not attain. Since time 
immemorial they have been acquainted with the art of striking fire with flint 
and steel, an invention unknown even to the ancient Greeks and Romans. 
Their leather is perfectly water-tight, and the women make carpets of white 
and colored skins, which are even exported to Europe. It is almost superfiu- 
ous to mention that a people so capable of bearing hardships, so sharp-witted, 
and so eager for gain as the Jakuts must needs pursue the fur-bearing ani- 
mals with which their forests abound with untiring zeal and a wonderful dex- 
terity. 

The horse renders the Jakut services not less important than those of the 
reindeer to the Samoiede or the Lapp. Besides using it for carrying or riding, 
the Jakut makes articles of dress out of its skin, and fishing-nets of its hair; 
boiled horse-meat is his favorite food, and sour mare’s milk, or kumyss, his 
chief beverage. Of the latter he also makes a thick porridge, or salamat, by 
mixing it with rye-flour, or the inner rind of the larch or fir tree, to which he 
frequently adds dried fish and berries, and, to render it perfect, a quantity of 
rancid fat, of which he is immoderately fond. He is in fact a gross feeder, 
and some professional gluttons are capable of consuming such astonishing mass- 
es as to shame the appetite even of an Esquimaux. During his stay at Ja- 
kutsk, Sir George Simpson put the abilities of two distinguished artists to the 
test, by setting two pouds of boiled beef and a poud of melted butter before 
them. Each of them got a poud of meat for his share; the butter they were 
allowed to ladle out and drink ad libitum. The one was old and experienced, 
the other young and full of zeal. At first the latter had the advantage. “ His 
teeth are good,” said the elder champion, “ but with the assistance of my saint 
(crossing himself), I will soon come up to him.” 

When about half of their task was finished, Sir George left his noble guests 
to the care and inspection of his secretary, but when he returned a few hours 
after, he was informed that all was consumed, while the champions, stretched 
out on the floor, confirmed the secretary’s report, and expressed their thanks 
for the exorbitant meal they had enjoyed by respectfully kissing the ground. 
After one of these disgusting feats, the gorged gluttons generally remain for 
three or four days plunged in a torpid state like boa snakes, without eating or 
drinking, and are frequently rolled about on the ground to promote digestion. 
It may also be noticed, as a proof of the low state of intellectual culture among 
the Jakuts, that at every wedding among the richer class two professed virtuosi. 
in the art of gormandizing are regularly invited for the entertainment of the 
guests. One of them is treated at the bridegroom’s expense, the other at that 
of the bride, and the party whose champion gains the victory considers it as a 
good omen for the future. 

The Jakuts, besides being a pre-eminently pastoral people, are also the uni- 
versal carriers to the east of the Lena. For beyond Jakutsk, the only roads are 
narrow paths leading through swamps, dense forests, or tangled bushes, so 
that the horse affords the only means of reaching the more even and lower 


232 THE POLAR WORLD. 


countries where reindeer or dogs can be attached to sledges. Without the 
Jakut and his horse, the Russian would never have been able to penetrate to 
the Sea of Ochotsk, and from thence to the Aleutian chain ; but for him, they 
never would have settled on the Kolyma, nor have opened a commercial inter- 
course with the Tchuktchi and the western Esquimaux. 

Before the possession of the Amoor had opened a new road to commerce, 
thousands of pack-horses used annually to cross the Stanowoi hills on the way 
to Ochotsk ; and when we consider the dreadful hardships of the journey, we 
can not wonder that the road was more thickly strewn with the skeletons of 
fallen horses than the caravan routes through the desert with the bones of fam- 
ished camels. But the Jakut fears neither the icy cold of the bivouac nor the 
pangs of hunger, which, in spite of his wolfish voracity, he is able to support 
with stoical fortitude. He fears neither the storm on the naked hill, nor the 
gloom of the forest, nor the depth of the morass; and, bidding defiance to 
every thing else, fears only the invisible power of “ Ljeschei,” the spirit of the 
mountain and the wood. The traveller wonders when he sees on an eminence 
crowned with firs an old tree from whose branches hang bunches of horse-hair. 
The Jakut who leads the caravan soon explains the mystery. He dismounts, 
and plucking a few hairs from the mane of his horse, attaches them with a great 
show of respect to a branch, as an offering to propitiate the favor of Ljeschei 
on the journey. Even those Jakuts who pass for Christians still pay this mark 
of respect to the dethroned divinity of their fathers; and there can be no 
doubt that they still retain the old belief in Schamanism, and an abject fear of 
all sorts of evil spirits. 

While travelling they sing almost perpetually melancholy tunes, correspond- 
ing with the habitual gloom of their national character. The text has more 
variety and poetry, and generally celebrates the beauties of nature, the stately 
growth of the pine, the murmuring of the brook, or the grandeur of the mount- 
ain. The singers are mostly improvisatores, and to conciliate the favor of Lje- 
schei, they praise the desert through which they pass as if it were a paradise. 

Like the impoverished Samoiede or Lapp, the indigent Jakut, who possess- 
es neither cattle nor horses, settles near some stream. His only domestic ani- 
mal is his dog, who carries the fish on a light sledge from the river-bank to his 
hut, or follows him into the woods on his hunting expeditions. With the skins 
of fur-bearing animals he pays his jassak, and is glad if the surplus allows him 
tc indulge from time to time in the luxury of a pipe of Circassian tobacco. 


\ 
\ 


WRANGELL. 233 


CHAPTER XxX. 
WRANGELL. 


His distinguished Services as an Arctic Explorer.—From Petersburg to Jakutsk in 1820.—Trade of 
Jakutsk.—From Jakutsk to Nishne-Kolymsk.—The B .darany.—Dreadful Climate of Nishne-Ko- 
lymsk.—Summer Plagues.—Vevgetation.—Animal Life.—Reindeer-hunting.—Famine.—Inundations. 
—The Siberian Dog.—First Journeys over the Ice of the Polar Sea, and Exploration of the Coast 
beyond Cape Shelagskoi in 1821.—Dreadful Dangers and Hardships.—Matiuschkin’s Sledze-journey 
over the Polar Sea in 1822.—Last Adventures on the Polar Sea.—A Run for Life.—Return to St. 
Petersburg. 

a expeditions which had been sent out during the reign of the Empress 

Anna for the exploration of the Arctic shores of Eastern Siberia, had per- 
formed their task so badly as to leave them still almost totally unknown. To 
fill up this blank in geography, the Emperor Alexander ordered two new ex- 
peditions to be fitted out in 1820 for the purpose of accurately ascertaining 
the limits of these extreme frontiers of his immense empire. Of the one which, 
under Lieutenant Anjou, commenced its operations from the mouth of the 

Jana, and comprised within its range New Siberia and the other islands of the 

Lichow group, but little has been communicated to the public, all his papers 

having been accidentally burned ; but the travels of Lieutenant von Wrangell, 

the commander of the second expedition, have obtained a world-wide celebrity. 

Starting from the mouths of the Kolyma, he not only rectified the errors of the 

coast-line of Siberia, from the Indigirka in the west to Koliutschin Island in 

the east, but more than once ventured in a sledge upon the Polar Ocean, in 
the hopes of discovering a large country supposed to be situated to the north- 
ward of Kotelnoi and New Siberia. 

Wrangell left St. Petersburg on March 23, 1820, and experiencing in his 
journey of 3500 miles repeated alternations of spring and winter, arrived at 
Irkutsk, where the gardens were in full flower, on May 20. 

After a month’s rest, a short journey brought him to the banks of the Lena, 
on which he embarked on June 27, to descend to Jakutsk, which he reached 
on July 27. This small town of 4000 inhabitants bears the gloomy stamp of 
the frigid north, for though it has a few good houses, its dwellings chiefly con- 
sist of the winter yourts of the Jakuts, with turf-covered roofs, doors of skins, 
and windows of tale or ice. The only “sight” of this dreary place is the old 
ruinous ostrog or wooden fort built by the Cossacks, the conquerors of the 
country, in 1647. Jakutsk is the centre of the interior trade of Siberia. To 
this place are brought, in enormous quantities, furs of all kinds, walrus-teeth, 
and mammoth-tusks, from distances of many thousand versts, to an amount of 
half a million pounds. 

The commercial sphere of the Jakutsk merchants is of an immense extent. 
During a cold of ten and twenty degrees they set out for the Lichow Isles, for 


234 THE POLAR WORLD. 


the fair of Ostrownoje, for Ochotsk, or Kjachta., Jakutsk merchants were the 
first who ventured in crazy ships across the Sea of Kamchatka, and discovered 
the island of Kadjiak, eighty degrees of longitude from their home. 

On September 12 Wrangell left Jakutsk, where regular travelling ends, as 
from thence to Kolymsk, and generally throughout Northern Siberia, there are 
no beaten roads. The utmost that can be looked for are foot or horse tracks 
leading through morasses or tangled forests, and over rocks and mountains. 
Travellers proceed on horseback through the hilly country, and, on reaching 
the plains, use sledges drawn either by reindeer or dogs. 

In this manner Wrangell crossed from the basin of the Lena to that of the 
Yana, never experiencing a higher temperature than + 2°, and frequently en- 
during a cold of more than —12°, during the journey over the intervening 
hills, and then turning eastward, traversed the Badarany, a completely unin- 
habited desert, chiefly consisting of swamps. These Badarany never entirely 
dry up, even after the longest summer-drought. At that time a solid crust is 
formed, through which the horses frequently break, but they are preserved 
from totally sinking in the mire by the perpetually frozen underground. Noth- 
ing can be more dismal and dreary than the Badarany. As far as the eye 
reaches, nothing is to be seen but a covering of dingy moss, relieved here and 


there on some more elevated spots by wretched specimens of dwarf-larches. | 


The winter is the only season for traversing this treacherous waste, but woe to 
the traveller should he be overtaken by a snow-storm, as for miles and miles 
there is no shelter to be found but that of some ruinous powarni, or post-station. 

At length, fifty-two days after leaving Jakutsk, Wrangell arrived on No- 
vember 2 at Nishne-Kolymsk, the appointed head-quarters of the expedition, 
where he was welcomed with a cold of —40°, or 72° below the freezing-point 
of water. 

Even in Siberia the climate of this place is ill-reputed for its severity, which 
is as much due to its unfavorable position as to its high latitude (68° N.). 
The town stands on a low swampy island of the Kolyma, having on the west 
the barren tundra, and on the north the Arctic Ocean, so that the almost con- 
stant north-west winds have full scope for their violence, and cause frequent 
snow-storms even in summer. 

The mean temperature of the whole year is only +14°. The river at Nishne- 
Kolymsk freezes early in September, but lower down, where the current is less 
rapid, loaded horses can sometimes cross on the ice as early as August 20, sor 
does the ice ever melt before June. 

Although the sun remains fifty-two days above the horizon, the light, ob- 
scured by almost perpetual mists, is accompanied with little heat, and the solar 
disc, compressed by refraction into an elliptical form, may be looked at with 
the naked eye without inconvenience. In spite of the constant light, the com- 
mon order of the parts of the day is plainly discernible. When the sun sinks 
down to the horizon, all nature is mute; but when, after a few hours, it rises 
in the skies, every thing awakens, the few little birds break out in feeble twit- 
ter, and the shrivelled flowers venture to open their petals. 

Although winter and summer are in reality the only seasons, yet the inhab- 


ae a 


WRANGELL. 235 


itants fancy they have spring when about noon the rays of the sun begin to 
make themselves felt, which generally takes place about the middle of March, 
but this so-called spring has frequent night-frosts of twenty degrees. Their 
autumn is reckoned from the time when the rivers begin to freeze over, that is, 
from the first days of September, when a cold of thirty degrees is already by 
no means uncommon. As may easily be supposed in a climate like this, the 
vegetation of summer is scarcely more than a struggle for existence. 

In the latter end of May the stunted willow-bushes put out little wrinkled 
leaves, and those banks which slope towards the south become clothed with a 
semi-verdant hue; in June the temperature at noon attains 72°; the flowers 
show themselves, and the berry-bearing plants blossom, when sometimes an icy 
blast from the sea destroys the bloom. The air is clearest in July, and the 
temperature is usually mild, but then a new plague arises for the torment of 
man. Millions and millions of mosquitoes issue from the swamps of the tun- 
dra, and compel the inhabitants to seek refuge in the dense and pungent smoke 
of the “ dymokury, ’ or large heaps of fallen leaves and damp wood, which are 
kindled near the dwellings and on the pasture-grounds, as the only means of 
keeping off those abominable insects. 

These tormentors, however, are not without use, for they compel the rein- 
deer to migrate from the forests to the sea-shore and the ice, thus exposing 
them to the attack of the hunters, and they also prevent the horses from stray- 
ing in the plains, and wandering beyond the protection of the smoke. 

Scarcely is the mosquito plague at an end, when the dense autumn fogs rising 
from the sea spoil the enjoyment of the last mild hours which precede the nine 
months’ winter. In January the cold increases to —45°; breathing then be- 
comes difficult; the wild reindeer, the indigenous inhabitant of the Polar region, 
withdraws to the thickest part of the forest, and stands there motionless, as if 
deprived of life. 

With the 22d November begins a night of thirty-eight days, relieved in some 
degree by the strong refraction and the white of the snow, as well as by the 
moon and the aurora. On the 28th December the first pale glimmering of dawn 
appears, which even at noon does not obscure the stars. With the re-appear- 
ance of the sun the cold increases, and is most intense in February and March 
at the rising of the sun. Even in winter completely clear days are very rare, 
as the cold sea-wind covers the land with mists and fogs. 

The character of the vegetation corresponds with that of the climate. Moss, 
_ Stunted grass, dwarfish willow-shrubs, are all that the place produces. The 
neighboring valleys of the Aniuj, protected by mountains against the sea-wind, 
have a somewhat richer flora, for here grow berry-bearing plants, the birch, the 
poplar, absinthe, thyme, and the low-creeping cedar. This poverty, however, 
of the vegetable world is strongly contrasted with the profusion of animal life 
over these shores and on the Polar Sea. Reindeer, elks, bears, foxes, sables, 
and gray squirrels fill the upland forests, while stone-foxes burrow in the low 
grounds. Enormous flights of swans, geese, and ducks arrive in spring, and 
seek deserts where they may moult and build their nests in safety. Eagles, 
owls, and gulls pursue their prey along the sea-coast ; ptarmigan run in troops 


236 THE POLAR WORLD. | 


among the bushes; little snipes are busy among the brooks, In the morasses 
the crows gather round the huts of the natives; and when the sun shines in 
spring, the traveller may even sometimes hear the note of the finch, and in au- 
tumn that of the thrush. But the landscape remains dreary and dead; all de- 
notes that here the limits of the habitable earth are passed,and one asks with 
astonishment what could induce human beings to take up their abode in so 
comfortless a region ? 

In the district of Kolymsk, which surpasses in size many a European king- 
dom, the population, at the time of Wrangell’s visit, consisted of 325 Russians, 
1034 Jakuts, and 1139 Jukahires of the male sex, of whom 2173 had to pay the 
jussak, consisting of 808 fox and 28 sable skins, worth 6704 roubles, besides 
which they were taxed to the amount of 10,847 roubles in money Thus the 
Russian double-eagle made, and no doubt still makes, the peor people of Kolymsk 
pay rather dear for the honor of living under the protection of its talons. 

The Cossacks, in virtue of their descent from the original conquerors of 
the country, enjoy the enviable privilege of being tax free; they are, however, 
obliged to render military service when required. They form the small gar- 
rison of Nishne-Kolymsk, and every year twenty-five of them repair to the faiz 
of Ostrownoje, to keep the wild Tchuktchi in check. The Russians are chiefly 
the descendants of fur-hunters or of exiles; and though they have adopted the 
native clothing and mode of life, they are still distinguishable by their more 
muscular frame. The women, who are somewhat better-looking than the fe- 
male Jakuts and Jukahires, are fond of music, and their traditional songs 
dwell on the beauties of nature—the rustling brook, the flowery mead, the 
nightingale’s note—all things belonging to a world of which they have no idea. 

The dwellings of the Russians are hardly to be distinguished from the youris 
of the native tribes. They are made of drift-wood, and, as may easily be im- 
agined, are very small and low. The interstices are carefully stopped up with 
moss, and the outside is covered with a thick layer of clay. An external mud 
wall rises to the height of the roof to keep off the wind. In a hut like tnis 
Wrangell spent many a winter month, but when the cold was very intense, he 
was not able to lay aside any part of his fur clothing, though sitting close to a 
large fire. When he wanted to write he had to keep the inkstand in hot water ; 
and at night, when the fire was allowed to go out for a short time, his bedclothes 
were always covered with a thick snow-like rime. 

The existence of the people of Kolymsk depends upon fishing and hunting, 
in which they are assisted by their dogs. These faithful, but cruelly-treated 
animals, are said to resemble the wolf, having long, pointed, projecting noses, 
sharp and upright ears, and long bushy tails. Their color is black, brown, 
reddish-brown, white, and spotted, their howling that of a wolf. In summer 
they dig holes in the ground for coolness, or lie in the water to escape the mos. 
quitoes ; in winter they burrow in the snow, and lie curled up, with their noses 
covered with their bushy tails. The preparation of these animals for a journey 
must be carefully attended to; for a fortnight at least they should be put on a 
small allowance of hard food, to convert their superfluous fat into firm flesh ; 
they must also be driven from ten to twenty miles daily, after which they haye 


WRANGELL. 237 


heen known to travel a hundred miles a day without being injured by it. A 
team consists commonly of twelve dogs, and it is of importance that they should 
be accustomed to draw together. The quick and steady going of the team, 
as well as the safety of the traveller, mainly depends on the docility and sa- 
gacity of the foremost dog or leader. No pains are therefore spared in his edu- 
cation, so that he may understand and obey his master’s orders, and prevent the 
rest from starting off in pursuit of the stone-foxes or other animals that may 
chance to cross their path. Their usual food is frozen fish, and ten good her- 
rings are said to be a proper daily allowance for each dog while on duty. 
When not actively employed, they are obliged to content themselves with offal, 
and towards spring, when the winter’s provisions are generally exhausted, they 
suffer the keenest hunger. 

This season is also a hard time for the wandering tribes of the neighbor- 
hood. Then they flock to Nishne-Kolymsk, and to the other Russian settle- 
ments on the Kolyma, but here also famine stares them in the face. There is, 
indeed, a public corn magazine, but the price of flour is raised by the cost of 
transport to such an exorbitant height, as to be completely beyond the reach of 
the majority of the people. Three such dreadful springs did Wrangell pass at 
Kolymsk, witnessing scenes of misery never to be forgotten. 

But when the distress of the people has reached its highest point, relief is 
generally at hand. Troops of migratory birds come from the south, and fur- 
nish some food for the despairing population. The supply is increased in June, 
when the ice breaks on the Kolyma, for in spite of the faultiness of the nets 
and the want of skill of the fishermen, the river is the principal source of plenty 
during the summer, and supplies, moreover, the chief provisions for the follow- 
ing winter. But with these gifts the Kolyma brings the plague of inundations, . 
so that during the summer of 1822 Wrangell was obliged to spend a whole 
week on the flat roof of his hut. 

The chief resource of the Jukahires of the River Aniuj is the reindeer chase, 
the success of which mainly decides whether famine or some deeree of comfort 
is to be their lot during the coming winter. The passage of the reindeer takes 
place twice a year; in springy when the mosquitoes compel them to seek the 
sea-shore, where they feed on the moss of the tundra, and in autumn, when the 
increasing cold forces them to retire from the coast. The spring migration, 
which begins about the middle of May, is not very profitable, partly because 
the animals are meagre, and their furs in bad condition, and partly because it 
is more difficult to kill them as they pass the frozen rivers. The chief hunting 
is in August and September, when the herds, consisting each of several thou- 
sand deer, return to the forests. They invariably cross the river at a particular 
spot, where a flat sandy bank makes their landing easier; and here they press 
more closely together, under the guidance of the strongest animals of the herd. 

The passage takes place after some hesitation, and in a few minutes the 
river is covered with swimming reindeer. The hunters, hidden in creeks or 
behind stones and bushes, now shoot forth in their small boats and wound as 
many as they can. While they are thus busy, they run some risk of being over- 
turned in the turmoil, for the bucks defend themselves with their horns, their 


238 THE POLAR WORLD. 


teeth, and their hind legs, while the roes generally attempt to spring with their 
fore feet upon the edge of the boat. When the hunter is thus overset, his only 
chance of safety is to cling to a strong animal, which safely brings him to the 
shore. But the dexterity of the hunters renders such accidents rare. <A good 
hunter will kill a hundred reindeer and more in half an hour. In the mean 
time the other boats seize the killed animals, which become their property, 
while those that are merely wounded and swim ashore belong to the hunters, 
who, in the midst of the tumult, where all their energies are taxed to the ut- 
most, direct their strokes in such a manner as only severely to wound the larger 
animals. The noise of the horns striking against each other, the waters tinged 
with blood, the cries of the hunters, the snorting of the affrighted animals, form 
a scene not to be described. 

The people of the Aniuj were already suffering great distress when, on 
September 12, 1821, the eagerly-expected reindeer herds made their appear- 
ance on the right bank of the river. Never had such a multitude been seen; 
they covered the hills, and their horns might have been mistaken at a distance 
for a moving forest. In a short time numbers of the Siberian tribes had as- 
sembled, ready to destroy them. But the wary animals, alarmed by some cir- 
cumstance or other, took another road, and, leaving the banks of the river, van- 
ished on the mountains. The despair of the people may be imagined; some 
lamented aloud and wrung their hands, others threw themselves upon the 
ground and scratched up the snow, others stood motionless like statues—a 
dreadful image of the universal misery. The later fishing-season likewise failed 
in this deplorable year, and many hundreds died in the following winter. 

While the men of Kolymsk are busily employed during the short summer 
in hunting, fishing, and hay-making, the women wander over the country, par- 
ticularly in the mountains, to gather edible roots, aromatic herbs, and. berries 
of various kinds, which latter, however, do not every year arrive at maturity. 
The berry-gathering here, like the vintage elsewhere, is a time of merriment. 
The younger women and girls go together in large parties, passing whole days 
and nights in the open air. When the berries are collected, cold water is 
poured over them, and they are preserved in a frozen state for a winter treat. 
Social parties are not unknown at Kolymsk, and are perhaps not less entertain- 
ing than in more refined communities. Floods of weak tea (for the aromatic 
leaves “ which cheer, but not inebriate,” are very dear at Kolymsk) form the 
staple of the entertainment; and as sugar is also an expensive article, every 
guest takes a lump of candy in his mouth, lets the tea which he sips flow by, 
and then replaces it upon the saucer. It would be considered very unmannerly 
were he to consume the whole piece, which thus is able to do duty at more 
* than one soirée. Next to tea, brandy is a chief requisite of a Kolymsk party. 

The busiest time at Kolymsk is in February, when the caravan from Ja- 
kutsk arrives on its way to the fair of Ostrownoje. It consists of about twen- 
ty merchants, each of whom leads from ten to forty sumpter horses. This is 
the time not only for sale and purchase, but also for hearing the last news from 
the provincial capital Jakutsk, and receiving intelligence six months old from 
Moscow and St. Petersburg. 


WRANGELL. 239 


From this short account of Kolymsk life it may well be imagined what a 
sensation 1% must have made in so secluded a place when Wrangell arrived 
there in November, and informed the people that he was come to spend the 
better part of the next three years among them. 

The winter was passed in preparation for the next spring expeditions, for 
during the long Arctic night the darkness prevents travelling, and the snow 
acquires a peculiar hardness or sharpness from the extreme cold, so that ther 
four times the number of dogs would be needed. But as in summer the thaw- 
ing is likewise a hindrance, Wrangell had in reality only about ten weeks every 
year, from March till the end of May, for the accomplishment of 118 task. 

As may easily be supposed, it was no easy matter to make the necessary 
arrangements for an expedition requiring some hundreds of dogs, and provis- 
ions for several weeks; but such was the energy displayed by Wrangell and 
his colleagues, that on February 19, 1821, they were able to start on their first 
journey over the ice of the Polar Sea, which they reached on the 25th. Nine 
sledges, with the usual team of twelve dogs to each, were provided for the 
present excursion, six of which were to carry provisions and stores, to be dis- 
tributed in different dépdts, and then to return. The provisions for the dogs 
consisted of 2400 fresh herrings, and as much “ jukola” as was equivalent to 
8150 dried herrings. The increasing cold and the violence of the wind made 
travelling very difficult. To guard the dogs from being frozen, the drivers 
were obliged to put clothing on their bodies, and a kind of boots on their 
feet, which greatly impeded their running. At times the frost was so intense 
that the mercury congealed while Wrangell was making his observations. He 
thus describes the manner in which he passed the nights on the Polar Sea in 
his tent :— 

“‘ Between tea and supper the sledge-drivers went out to attend and feed 
their dogs, which were always tied up for the night, lest they should be tempt- 
ed away by the scent of some wild animal. Meanwhile, we were engaged in 
comparing our observations, and in laying down on the map the ground which 
we had gone over in the course of the day; the severe cold, and the smoke 
which usually filled the tent, sometimes made this no easy task. Supper always 
consisted of a single dish of fish or meat soup, which was boiled for us all in 
the same kettle, out of which it was eaten. Soon after we had finished our 
meal, the whole party lay down to sleep. On account of the cold we could 
not lay aside any part of our travelling-dress, but we regularly changed our 
boots and stockings every evening, and hung those we had taken off, with our 
fur caps and gloves, on the tent-poles to dry. This is an essential precaution, 
particularly in respect to stockings, for with damp clothing there is the great- 
est risk of the part being frozen. We always spread the bear-skins between 
the frozen ground and ourselves, and the fur coverings over us, and, being well 
tired, we usually slept very soundly. As long as all the sledge-drivers contin- 
ued with us, we were so crowded that we had to place ourselves like-the spokes 
of a wheel, with our feet towards the fire and our heads against the tent wall. 
In the morning we generally rose at six, lit the fire, and washed ourselves be- 
fore it with fresh snow; we then took tea, and immediately afterwards dinner 


240 THE POLAR WORLD. 


(which was similar to the supper of the night before). The tent was then 
struck, and every thing packed and stowed on the sledges, and at nine we usually 
took our departure.” 

The chief impediments to journeying on the ice were found to be the hum- 
mocks, often eighty feet high, which lie in ridges at certain distances, parallel 
perhaps to the shore. Along the line or lines where the ice is periodically 
broken, it is forced by pressure and the tossing of a tempestuous sea into those 
irregular ridges through which Wrangell had sometimes to make a way with 
crowbars for half a mile. The “polinyas,”’ or spaces of open water in the 
midst of the ice, offered less hindrance, as they might be avoided ; but in this 
neighborhood, and sometimes even where no hole in the ice was visible, layers 
of salt were met with, which cut the dogs’ feet, and at the same time increased 
the labor of the draft, the sledges moving over the salt with as much difficulty 
as they would over gravel. 

In spite of all these hindrances, Wrangell extended his exploration of the 
coast fifty versts beyond Cape Shelagskoi, where the want of fuel and provis- 
ions compelled him to return. The dépdts which he had made as he ad- 
vanced, were found partly devoured by the stone-foxes and gluttons, so that 
the party was compelled to fast during the two last days of the journey. Aft- 
er an absence of three weeks Nishne-Kolymsk appeared like a second Capua 
to Wrangell, but time being precious he allowed himself but a few days’ rest, 
and started afresh, on March 26, for Cape Shelagskoi, with the intention of pen 
etrating as far as possible to the north on the ice of the Polar Sea. The car 
avan consisted of twenty-two sledges, laden with fuel and provisions for thirty 
days, including food for 240 dogs. So imposing a train had certainly never 
heen seen before in these desolate regions, for the part of the coast between 
the Kolyma and Cape Shelagskoi is wholly uninhabited; on one side the oc- 
casional excursions of the Russians terminate at the Baranow rocks, and on 
the other the Tchuktchi do not cross the larger Baranow River. The interven- 
ing eighty versts of coast are never visited by either party, but considered as 
neutral ground. On April 1 Wrangell reached the borders of the Polar Sea, 
and proceeding northward to 71° 31’, found the thickness of the ice, which he 
measured by means of a hole, to be about a foot, very rotten, and full of salt ; 
the soundings, twelve fathoms, with a bottom of soft green mud. The wind 
increasing in violence, he heard the sound of the water beneath, and felt the 
undulatory motion of the thin crust of ice. 

“Our position,” says the bold explorer, “was at least an anxious one; the 
more so as we could take no step to avoid the impending danger. I believe 
few of our party slept, except the dogs, who alone were unconscious of the 
great probability of the ice being broken up by the force of the waves. Next 
day, the wind having fallen, I had two of the best sledges emptied, and placed 
in them provisions for twenty-four hours, with the boat and oars, some poles 
and boards, and proceeded northward to examine the state of the ice; directing 
M. von Matiuschkin, in case of danger, to retire with the whole party as far az 
might be needful, without awaiting my return. After driving through th¢ 
thick brine with much difficulty for seven versts, we came to a number of large 


WRANGELL. 241 


fissures, which we passed with some trouble by the aid of the boards which we 
had brought with us. At last the fissures became so numerous and so wide 
that it was hard to say whether the sea beneath us was really still covered by 
a connected coat of ice, or only by a number of detached floating fragments, 
haying everywhere two or more feet of water between them. A single gust 
of wind would have been sufficient to drive these fragments against each other, 
and being already thoroughly saturated with water, they would have sunk in 
a few minutes, leaving nothing but sea on the spot where we were standing. 
It was manifestly useless to attempt going farther; we hastened to rejoin our 
companions, and to seek with them a place of greater security. Our most 
northern latitude was 71° 43’ at a distance of 215 versts in a straight line from 
the lesser Baranow rock.” After rejoining his companions, and while still on 
the frozen sea, so thick a snow-storm came on that those in the hindmost 
sledge could not see the leading ones. Unable either to pitch their tent or to 
light a fire, they were exposed during the night to the whole fury of the storm, 
with a temperatere of + 7°, without tea or soup, and with nothing to quench 
their thirst or satisfy their hunger but a few mouthfuls of snow, a little rye 
biscuit, and a half-spoilt fish. On April 28 they arrived at Nishne-Kolymsk, 
after an absence of thirty-six days, during which they had travelled above 800 
miles with the same dogs, men and animals having equally suffered from cold, 
hunger, and fatigue. 

Neither discomfort, however, nor danger prevented Wrangell from under- 
taking a third excursion in the following spring. He had great difficulty in 
procuring the necessary dogs, a disease which raged among them during the 
winter having carried off more than four-fifths of these useful animals. At 
length his wants were supplied by the people of the Indigirka, where the sick- 
ness had not extended, and on March 14, 1822, he again set out for the borders 
of the Polar Sea. During this expedition a large extent of coast was accu- 
rately surveyed by Wrangell, who sent out his worthy assistant Matiuschkin, 
with two companions, in an unloaded sledge, to see if any farther advance 
could be made to the north. Having accomplished ten versts, Matiuschkin 
was stopped by the breaking up of the ice. Enormous masses, raised by the 
waves into an almost vertical position, were driven against each other with a 
dreadful crash, and pressed downward by the force of the billows to re-appear 
again on the surface covered with the torn-up green mud which here forms the 
bottom of the sea. It would tire the reader were I to relate all the miseries of 
their return voyage; suffice it to say that, worn out with hunger and fatigue, 
they reached Nishne-Kolymsk on May 5, after an absence of fifty-seven days. 
Such sufferings and perils might have excused all further attempts to discover 
the supposed land in the Polar Sea, but nothing daunted by his repeated fail- 
ures, Wrangell determined on a fourth expedition in 1823, on which he resolved 
to start from a more easterly point. On reaching the coast, the obstacles were 
found still greater than on his previous visits to that fearful sea. The weather 
was tempestuous, the ice thin and broken. It was necessary at times to cross 
wide lanes of water on pieces of ice; at times the thin ice bent beneath the 


weight of the sledges, which were then saved only by the sagacity of the dogs, 
16 


242 THE POLAR WORLD. 


who, aware of the danger, ran at their greatest speed until they found a solid 
footing. At length, about sixty miles from shore, they arrived at the edge 
of an immense break in the ice, extending east and west farther than the eye 
could reach. 

“We climbed one of the loftiest hummocks,” says Wrangell, “whence we 
obtained an extensive view towards the north, and whence we beheld the wide 
ocean spread before our gaze. It was a fearful and magnificent, but to us a 
melancholy spectacle! Fragments of ice of enormous size floated on the sur- 
face of the water, and were thrown by the waves with awful violence against 
the edge of the ice-field on the farther side of the channel before us. The col- 
lisions were so tremendous that large masses were every instant broken away, 
and it was evident that the portion of ice which still divided the channel from 
the open ocean would soon be completely destroyed. Had we attempted to 
ferry ourselves across upon one of the floating pieces of ice, we should not have 
found firm footing upon our arrival. Even on our own side fresh lines of water 
were continually forming, and extending in every direction in the field of ice 
behind us. We could go no farther. With a painful feeling of the impossi- 
bility of overcoming the obstacles which nature opposea to us. our last hope 
vanished of discovering the land, which we yet believed to exist. We saw 
ourselves compelled to renounce the object for which we had striven through 
three years of hardships, toil,and danger. We had done what honor and duty 
demanded; further attempts would have been absolutely hopeless, and I de- 
cided to return.” 

They turned, but already the track of their advance was scarcely discernible, 
as new lanes of water had been formed, and fresh hummocks raised by the sea. 
To add to their distress, a storm arose, which threatened every moment to 
swallow up the ice island, on which they hoped to cross a wide space of water 
which separated them from a firmer ground. 

“We had been three long hours in this position, and still the mass of ice 
beneath us held together, when suddenly it was caught by the storm, and hurled 


against a large field of ice; the crash was terrific, and the mass beneath us 


was shattered into fragments. At that dreadful moment, when escape seemed 
impossible, the impulse of self-preservation, implanted in every living being, 
saved us. Instinctively we all sprang at once on the sledges, and urged the 
dogs to their full speed. They flew across the yielding fragments to the field 
on which we had been stranded, and safely reached a part of it of firmer charac- 
ter, on which were several hummocks, where the dogs immediately ceased run- 
ning, conscious, apparently, that the danger was past. We were saved! We 
joyfully embraced each other, and united in thanks to God for our preservation 
from such imminent peril.” 

But their misfortunes did not end here; they were cut off from the deposit 
of their provisions ; they were 360 versts from their nearest magazines, and the 
food for the dogs was now barely sufficient for three days. Their joy may be 
imagined when, after a few versts’ travelling, they fell in with Matiuschkin and 
his party, bringing with them an abundant supply of provisions of all kinds. 

To leave nothing undone which could possibly be effected, Wrangell ad- 


4 


WRANGELL, 243 


vanced to the eastward along the coast, past Cape North, seen in Cook’s last 
voyage, and proceeded as far as Koliutschin Island, where he found some Tchuk- 
tchi, who had come over from Bering’s Straits to trade. 

With this journey terminated Wrangell’s labors on the coasts, or on the sur- 
face of the Polar Sea, and, at the beginning of the following winter, we find 
him taking a final leave of Nishne-Kolymsk. On January 10, 1824, he arrived 
at Jakutsk, and a few months later at Petersburg. If we consider the diffi- 
culties he had to encounter, and his untiring zeal and courage in the midst of 
privations and dangers, it is only fair to admit that his name deserves to be 
ranked among the most distinguished explorers of the Arctic world. 


244 THE POLAR WORLD. 


CHAPTER XXII. 
THE TUNGUSI. 


Their Relationship to the Mantchou. — Dreadful Condition of the outcast Nomads. — Character of 
the Tungusi.—Their Outfit for the Chase.— Bear-hunting.— Dwellings.—Diet.—A Night’s Halt with 
Tungusi in the Forest.—Ochotsk. 

HOUGH both belonging to the same stock, the fate of the Tungusi and 
Mantchou has been very different ; for at the same time when the latter 
conquered the vast Chinese Empire, the former, after having spread over the - 
greatest part of Kast Siberia, and driven before them the Jakuts, the Jukahiri, 
the Tchuktchi, and many other aboriginal tribes, were in their turn subjugated 
by the mightier Russians. In the year 1640 the Cossacks first encountered 
the Tungusi, and in 1644 the first Mantchou emperor mounted the Chinese 
throne. ‘The same race which here imposes its yoke upon millions of subjects, 
there falls a prey to a small number of adventurers. However strange the 
fact, it is, however, easily explained, for the Chinese were worse armed and less 
disciplined than the Mantchou, while the Tungusi had nothing but bows and 
arrows to oppose to the Cossack fire-arms ; and history (from Alexander the 

Great to Sadowa) teaches us that victory constantly sides with the best 

weapons. ; 

In their intellectual development we find the same difference as in their 
fortunes between the Mantchou and the Siberian Tungusi. Two hundred and 
fifty years ago the former were still nomads, like their northern kinsfolk, and 
could neither read nor write, and already they have a rich literature, and their 
language is spoken at the court of Peking; while the Tungusi, oppressed and 
sunk in poverty, are still as ignorant as when they first encountered the Cos- 
sacks. 

According to their occupations, and the various domestic animals employed 
by them, they are distinguished by the names of Reindeer, Horse, Dog, For- 
est, and River Tungusi; but although they are found from the basins of the 
Upper, Middle, and Lower Tunguska to the western shores of the Sea of 
Ochotsk, and from the Chinese frontiers and the Baikal to the Polar Ocean, 
their whole number does not amount to more than 30,000, and diminishes from 
year to year, in consequence of the ravages of the small-pox and other epidem- 
ic disorders transmitted to them by the Russians. Only a few rear horses and 
cattle, the reindeer being generally their domestic animal; and the impover- 
ished Tunguse, who has been deprived of his herd by some contagious disor- 
der or the ravages of the wolves, lives as a fisherman on the borders of a river, 
assisted by his dog, or retires into the forests as a promyschlenik, or hunter. 
Of the miseries which here await him, Wrangell relates a melancholy instance. 
In a solitary hut in one of the dreariest wildernesses imaginable, he found a 


THE TUNGUSI. 245 


Tunguse and his daughter. While the father, with his long snow-shoes, was 
pursuing a reindeer for several days together, this unfortunate girl remained 
alone and helpless in the hut—which even in summer afforded but an imperfect 
shelter against the rain and wind—exposed to the cold, and frequently to hun- 
ger, and without the least occupation. No wonder that the impoverished 
Tungusi not seldom sink into cannibalism. Neither the reindeer nor the dogs, 
nor the wives and children of their more fortunate countrymen, are secure from 
the attacks and voracity of these outcasts, who, in their turn, are treated like 
wild beasts, and destroyed without mercy. A bartering trade is, however, 
carried on with them, but only at a distance, and by signs; each party depos- 
iting its goods, and following every motion of the other with a suspicious eye. 

The Russian Government, anxious to relieve the misery of the impoverished 
nomads, has given orders to settle them along the river-banks, and to provide 
them with the necessary fishing implements; but only extreme wretchedness 
can induce the Tunguse to relinquish the free life of the forest. His careless 
temper, his ready wit, and sprightly manner, distinguish him from the other 
Siberian tribes—the gloomy Samoiede, the uncouth Ostiak, the reserved Jakut 
—but he is said to be full of deceit and malice. His vanity shows itself in the 
quantity of glass beads with which he decorates his dress of reindeer leather, 
from his small Tartar cap to the tips of his shoes. When chasing or travelling 
on his reindeer through the woods, he of course lays aside most of his finery, 
and puts on large water-tight boots, or sari, well greased with fat, to keep off 
the wet of the morass. His hunting apparatus is extremely simple. A small 
axe, a kettle,a leathern bag containing some dried fish, a dog, a short gun, or 
merely a bow and a sling, is all he requires for his expeditions into the forest. 
With the assistance of his long and narrow snow-shoes, he flies over the daz- 
zling plain, and protects his eyes, like the Jakut, with a net made of black 
horse-hair. He never hesitates to attack the bear single-handed, and generally 
masters him. The nomad Tunguse naturally requires a movable dwelling. 
His tent is covered with leather, or large pieces of pliable bark, which are easi- 
ly rolled up and transported from place to place. The yourt of the sedentary 
Tunguse resembles that of the Jakut, and is so small that it can be very 
quickly and thoroughly warmed by a fire kindled on the stone hearth in the 
centre. In his food the Tunguse is by no means dainty. One of his favorite 
dishes consists of the contents of a reindeer’s stomach mixed with wild berries, 
and spread out in thin cakes on the rind of trees,to be dried in the air or in 
the sun. Those who have settled on the Wiluj and in the neighborhood of 
Nertschinsk, likewise consume large quantities of brick tea, which they boil 
with fat and berries into a thick porridge, and this unwholesome food adds no 
doubt to the yellowness of their complexion. 

But few of the Tungusi have been converted to Christianity, the majority 
being still addicted to Shamanism. They do not like to bury their dead, but 
place them, in their holiday dresses, in large chests, which they hang up be- 
tween two trees. The hunting apparatus of the deceased 1s buried beneath 
the chest. No ceremonies are used on the occasion, except when a Shaman 
happens to be in the neighborhood, when a reindeer is sacrificed, on whose 


246 THE POLAR WORLD. 


flesh the sorcerer and the relations regale themselves, while the spirits to 
whom the animal is supposed to be offered are obliged to content themselves 
with the smell of the burnt fat. As among the Samoiedes or the Ostiaks, 
woman is a marketable ware among the Tungusi. The father gives his daugh- 
ter in marriage for twenty or a hundred reindeer, or the bridegroom is obliged 
to earn her hand by a long period of service. 

In Kast Siberia the Tungusi divide with the Jakuts the task of conveying 
goods or travellers through the forests, and afford the stranger frequent op- 
portunities for admiring their agility and good-humor. On halting after a 
day’s journey, the reindeer are unpacked in an instant, the saddles and the 
goods ranged orderly on the ground, and the bridles collected and hung on 
branches of trees. The hungry animals soon disappear in the thicket, where 
they are left to provide for themselves. ‘The men, who meanwhile have been 
busy with their axes, drag a larch-tree or two to the place of encampment. 
The smaller branches are lopped off and collected to serve as beds or seats 
upon the snow, while the resinous wood of the larger trunks is soon kindled 
into a lively fire. The kettle, filled with snow, is suspended from a strong 
forked branch placed obliquely in the ground over the fire, and in a few min- 
utes the tea is ready—for the Tungusi proceed every evening according to the 
same method, and are consequently as expert as long and invariable practice 
can makethem. Comfortably seated on his reindeer saddle, the traveller may 
now amuse himself with the dances, which the Tungusi accompany with an 
agreeable song; or if he choose to witness their agility in athletic exercises, it 
only costs him a word of encouragement, and a small donation of brandy. Two 
of the Tungusi hold a rope, and swing it with all their might, so that it does 
not touch the ground. Meanwhile a third Tunguse skips over the rope, picks 
up a bow and arrow spans the bow and shoots the arrow, without once touch- 
ing the rope. Some particularly bold and expert Tungusi will dance over a 
sword which a person lying on his back on the ground is swinging about 
with the greatest rapidity. Should our traveller be a friend of chess, the Tun- 
gusi are equally at his service, as they are passionately fond of this noblest of 
games, especially in the Kolymsk district. Like all other Siberian nomads, 
they visit at least once a year the various fairs which are held in the small 
towns scattered here and there over their immense territory—such as Kirensk, 
Olekminsk, Bargusin, Tschita, and Ochotsk, which, before the opening of the 
Amoor to trade, was the chief port of East Siberia. 

Ochotsk is one of the dreariest places imaginable; at least no traveller who 
ever visited it has a word to say in its favor. Not a single tree grows for 
miles and miles around, and the wretched huts of which the town is composed 
lie in the midst of a swamp, which in summer is a fruitful source of malaria 
and pestilence. The River Ochota, at whose mouth Ochotsk is situated, does 
not break up before the end of May, and the ice-masses continue to pass the 
town till the 15th or 20th of June. Soon after begins the most unpleasant time 
of all the year, or “ buss” of the Siberians, characterized by thick fog and a per- 
petual drizzling rain. The weather clears up in July, but as early as August 
the night-frosts cover the earth with rime. Salmon, of which no less than 


peal 


THE TUNGUSLI. 247 


fourteen different species live in the Sea of Ochotsk, are the only food which the 
neighborhood affords; all other necessaries of life come from Jakutsk, and are 
of course enormously dear. Meat appears only from time to time on the ta- 
bles of the wealthier merchants, and bread is an article of luxury. No won- 
der that the scurvy ravages every winter a place so ill-provisioned, and that 
at the time when the first caravan of pack-horses is expected to cross the Al- 
dan Mountains, the people of Ochotsk, unable to restrain their impatience, go 
out along way to meetit. As the former trade of the place has now no doubt 
been transferred to the settlements on the Amoor, it may well be supposed 
that Ochotsk has lost most of its former inhabitants, who can only be con- 
gratulated on their change of residence. 


248 THE POLAR WORLD. 


BERING’S MONUMENT AT PETROPAULOVSK. 


CHAPTER XXII. 
GEORGE WILLIAM STELLER. 


His Birth.—Enters the Russian Service.—Scientific Journey to Kamchatka.—Accompamies Bering on his 
second Vovage of Discovery.—Lands on the Island of Kaiak.—Shameful Conduct of Bering.—Ship- 
wreck on Bering Island.—Bering’s Death.—Return to Kamchatka.—Loss of Property.—Persecutions 
of the Siberian Authorities.—Frozen to Death at Tjumen. 


EORGE WILLIAM STELLER, one of the most distinguished natural. 
ists of the past century, was born at Winsheim, a small town in Fran- 
conia, in the year 1709. After completing his studies at the universities of 
Wittenberg and Halle, he turned his thoughts to Russia, which, since the re- 
forms of Czar Peter the Great, and the protection which that monarch and his 
successors afforded to German learning, had become the land of promise for 
all adventurous spirits. 

Having been appointed surgeon in the Russian army, which at that time was 
besieging Danzig, he went with a transport of wounded soldiers, after the sur- 
render of that town, to St. Petersburg, where he arrived in 1734. Here his 
talents were soon appreciated; after a few years he was named a member of 
the Imperial Academy of Sciences, and sent by Government, in 1738, to exam- 
ine the natural productions of Kamchatka. The ability and zeal with which 
he fulfilled this mission is proved by the valuable collections which he sent to 
the Academy, and by his numerous memoirs, which are still read with interest 
in the present day. | | 

In 1741 he accompanied Bering on his second voyage of discovery, the ob- 
ject of which was to determine the distance of America from Kamchatka, and 
to ascertain the separation or the junction of both continents in a higher 


GEORGE WILLIAM STELLER. 249 


latitude — a question which his first voyage had left undecided. Nothing 
could be more agreeable to a man like Steller, than the prospects held out 
to him by an expedition to unknown regions; and we can easily imagine the 
delight with which the naturalist embarked on board of the “Saint Peter,” 
commanded by Bering in person. Accompanied by the “Saint Paul,” under 
Tschirigow, they sailed on June 4 from the Bay of Avatscha. 

The expedition had cost ten years of preparation, and brought misery and 
ruin upon many of the wild Siberian tribes, for all that was necessary for the 
outfit had to be conveyed by compulsory labor from the interior of the conti- 
nent over mountains and rivers, through dense forests and pathless wilds, and 
it seemed from the very beginning of the voyage as if the curses of the unfor- 
tunate natives clung to it. Much valuable time had been lost, for the ships 
ought to have sailed at least a month earlier, and Bering, who from illness con- 
stantly kept to his cabin, was by no means a fit commander for a scientific ex- 
pedition. 

After a few days a dense fog separated the vessels, which were never to meet 
again; and as the “St. Peter” held her course too much to the south, the Aleu- 
tic chain remained undiscovered, and the first land was only sighted after four 
weeks in the neighborhood of Bering’s Bay. During the whole of this passage 
Steller had to endure all the vexations which arrogant stupidity could inflict 
upon aman anxious to do his duty. It was in vain that he repeatedly pointed 
out the signs which indicated the presence of land not far to the north, in vain 
that he entreated the commander to steer but one day in that direction. At 
last, on July 15, the high mountains of America were seen to rise above the 
horizon, and the vessel anchored on the 19th near to the small island of Kaiak. 

On the following day a boat was sent out to fetch some fresh water, but it 
was with the utmost difficulty that Steller could obtain permission to join the 
party. All assistance was obstinately denied him, and accompanied by his 
only servant, a Cossack, he landed on the unknown shore, eager to make the 
most of the short time allotted him for his researches. He immediately di- 
rected his steps towards the interior, and had scarcely walked a mile when 
he discovered the hollowed trunk of a tree, in which, a few hours before, 
the savages had boiled their meat with red-hot stones. He also found several 
pots filled with esculent herbs, and a wooden instrument for making fire, like 
those which are used by the inhabitants of Kamchatka. Hence he conjectured 
that the aborigines of this part of the American coast must be of the same ori- 
gin as the Kamchatkans, and that both countries must necessarily approach 
each other towards the north, as the inhabitants could not possibly traverse 
such vast extents of ocean in their rudely-constructed boats. 

Pursuing his way, Steller now came to a path which led into a dense and 
shady forest. Before entering, he strictly forbade his Cossack to act without 
commands, in case of a hostile encounter. The Cossack had a gun, with a knife 
and hatchet; Steller himself only a Jakut poniard, which he had taken with 
him to dig out plants or stones. After half an hour’s walking, they came toa 
place strewn with grass. This was immediately removed, and a root or plat- 

+ form discovered, consisting of strips of bark laid upon poles and covered with 


250 THE POLAR WORLD. 


stones. This platform opened into a cellar containing a large quantity of 
smoked fishes, and a few bundles of the inner bark of the larch or fir tree, 
which, in case of necessity, serves as food throughout all Siberia. There were 
also some arrows, dyed black and smoothed, of a size far superior to those 
used in Kamchatka. 

After Steller, in spite of the danger of being surprised by the savages, had 
accurately examined the contents of the cellar, he sent his Cossack back again 
to the place where the boatmen were watering. He gave him specimens of 
the various articles which he had found, ordering him to take them to Cap- 
tain Bering, and to request that two or three men might be sent to him for 
further assistance. In the mean time, though quite alone, he continued his 
Investigations of the strange land, and having reached the summit of a hill, 
he saw smoke rising from a forest at some distance. Overjoyed at the sight, 
for he now could hope to meet with the natives and to complete his knowl- 
edge of the island, he instantly returned to the landing-place with all the 
eagerness of a man who has something important to communicate; and as 
the boat was just about to leave, told the sailors to inform the captain of his 
discovery, and to beg that the small pinnace, with a detachment of armed 
men, might be sent out to him. 

Meanwhile, exhausted with fatigue, he sat down on the beach, where he 
described in his pocket-book some of the more delicate plants he had collect- 
ed, which he feared might speedily wither, and regaled himself with the ex- 
cellent water. After waiting for about an hour, he at length received an an- 
swer from Bering, telling him to return immediately on board, unless he chose 
to be left behind; and we can easily imagine the indignation of the disap- 
pointed naturalist at this shameful command. 

On the morning of July 21, Bering, contrary to his custom, appeared on 
deck, ordered the anchors to be weighed, and gave directions to sail back 
again on the same course. The continent he had discovered was not even 
honored with a single visit, so that Steller could not help telling the Russians 
they had merely come thus far for the purpose of carrying American water to 
Asia, Any conscientious commander would have continued to sail along the 
unknown shore, or, considering that the season was already far advanced, would 
have determined to winter there,and to pursue his discoveries next spring ; 
but, unfortunately for Bering and his companions, the course he adopted 
proved as disastrous as it was dishonorable. 

Three months long the ship was tossed about by contrary winds and 
storms ; the islands of the Aleutic chain, though frequently seen through the 
mists, were but seldom visited ; the scurvy broke out among the dispirited, 
ill-fed crew, their misery increased from day to day, and their joy may be im- 
agined when at length, on November 5, a land was seen which they firmly 
believed to be Kamchatka—though in reality it was merely the desert of 
Bering’s Island, situated a hundred miles from that peninsula. Even those 
who were nearly half dead crept upon deck to enjoy the welcome sight ; every 
one thanked God, and the ignorant officer, convinced that they were at the 
entrance of the Bay of Avatscha, even named the several mountains; but 


ra 


GEORGE WILLIAM STELLER. 251 


their mistake soon became apparent when, on rounding a small promontory, 
some well-known islets were missed. As they had no doubt, however, that 
the land was really Kamchatka, and the bad weather and the small number 
of hands fit to do duty rendering it difficult to reach the Gulf of Avatscha, 
it was resolved to run into the bay that lay before them, and to send notice 
from thence to Nishne-Kamchatsk of their safe arrival. 

Steller was among the first to land, and probably the very first of the 

party who discovered the mistake of the excellent navigators to whom the 
expedition had been intrusted. Sea-otters came swimming to him from the 
land, and he well knew that these much-persecuted animals had long since 
disappeared from the coast of Kamchatka. The number of Arctic foxes, too, 
who showed no fear at his approach, and the sea-cows gambolling in the 
water, were sure signs that the foot of man had not often trodden this shore. 
Steller was also the first to set the good example of making the best of a 
bad situation, instead of uselessly bewailing his misfortunes. He began to 
erect a hut for the following winter, and formed an association with several 
of the crew, who, whatever might await them, promised to stand by each 
other. : 
During the following days the sick were gradually conveyed on shore. 
Some of them died on board as soon as they were brought into the open air, 
others in the boat, others as soon as they were landed. “On all sides,” says 
Steller, in his interesting account of this ill-fated voyage, “nothing was to be 
seen but misery. Before the dead could be buried, they were mangled by the 
foxes, who even ventured to approach the helpless invalids who were lying 
without cover on the beach. Some of these wretched sufferers bitterly com- 
plained of the cold, others of hunger and thirst—for many had their gums so 
swollen and ulcerated with the scurvy as to be unable to eat.” 

“On November 13,” continues the naturalist, “I went out hunting for the 
first time with Messieurs Plenisner and Betge; we killed four sea-otters, and 
did not return before night. We ate their flesh thankfully, and prayed to 
God that He might continue to provide us with this excellent food. The 
costly skins, on the other hand, were of no value in our eyes; the only ob- 
jects which we now esteemed were knives, needles, thread, ropes, etc., on 
which before we had not bestowed a thought. We all saw that rank, sci- 
ence, and other social distinctions were now of no avail, and could not in any 
_ way contribute to our preservation: we therefore resolved, before we were 
forced to do so by necessity, to set to work at once. We introduced among 
us five 2 community of goods, and regulated our housekeeping in such a man- 
ner as not to be in want before the winter was over. Our three Cossacks 
were obliged to obey our orders, when we had decided upon something in 
common; but we began to treat them with greater politeness, calling them 
by their names and surnames, and we soon found that Peter Maximowitsch 
served us with more alacrity than formerly Petrucha (a diminutive of Peter). 

“ Nov. 14.—The whole ship’s company was formed into three parties. The 
one had to convey the sick and provisions from the ship; the second brought 
wood ; the third, consisting of a lame sailor and myself, remained at home— 


252 THE POLAR WORLD. 


the former busy making a sledge, while I acted as cook. As our party was 
the first to organize a household, I also performed the duty of bringing warm 


soup to some of our sick, until they had so far recovered as to be able to help 


themselves. 

“The barracks being this day ready to receive the sick, many of them 
were transported under roof; but for want of room, they lay everywhere on 
the ground, covered with rags and clothes. No one could assist the other, 
and nothing was heard but lamentations and curses—the whole affording so 
wretched a sight, as to make even the stoutest heart lose courage. On 
November 15 all the sick were at length landed. We took one of them, 
named Boris Sand, into our hut, and by God’s help he recovered within three 
months. 

“The following days added to our misery, as the messengers we had sent 
out brought us the intelligence that we were on a desert island, without any 
communication with Kamchatka. We were also in constant fear that the 
stormy weather might drive our ship out to sea, and along with it all our 
provisions, and every hope of ever returning to our homes. Sometimes it was 
impossible to get to the vessel for several days together, so boisterous was 
the surge; and about ten or twelve men, who had hitherto been able to work, 
now also fell ill. Want, nakedness, frost, rain, illness, impatience, and de- 
spair, were our daily companions.” | 

Fortunately the stormy sea drove the ship upon the strand, better than it 
could probably have been done by human efforts. Successively many of the 
scorbutic patients died, and on December 8 the unforaes commander of 
the expedition paid his debt to nature. 

Titus Bering, by birth a Dane, had served thirty-six years with distinc- 
tion in the Russian navy, but age and infirmities had completely damped his 
energies, and his death is a warning to all who enter upon undertakings 
above their strength. 

In the mean time the whole ship’s company eel established itself for the 
winter in five subterranean dwellings; the general health was visibly im- 
proving, merety by means of the excellent water, and by the fresh meat fur- 
nished by sea-otters, seals, and manatees; and the only care now was to gain 
sufficient strength to be able to undertake the work of deliverance in spring. 

In April the shipwrecked mariners began to build a smaller ship out of the 
timbers of the “St. Peter,” and, such was the alacrity with which all hands 
set to work, that on August 13 they were able to set out. 

“When we were all embarked,” says Steller, “we first perceived how 
much we should be inconvenienced for want of room; the water-casks, pro- 
visions, and baggage taking up so much space, that our forty-two men (the 
three ship’s officers and myself were somewhat better off in the cabin) could 
hardly creep between them and the deck. A great quantity of the bedding 
and clothing had to be thrown overboard. Meanwhile we saw the foxes 
sporting about our deserted huts, and greedily devouring remnants of fat 


and meat. 
“On the 14th, in the morning, we weighed anchor, and steered out of the 


GEORGE WILLIAM STELLER. | 253 


bay. The weather being beautiful, and the wind favorable, we were all in 
good spirits, and, as we sailed along the island, pointed out to each other the 
well-known mountains and valleys which we had frequently visited in quest 
of game or for the purpose of reconnoitring. ‘Towards evening we were op- 
posite the farthest point of the island, and on the 15th, the wind continuing 
favorable, we steered direct towards the Bay of Avatscha. About midnight, 
however, we perceived, to our great dismay, that the vessel began to fill with 
water from an unknown leak, which, in consequence of the crowded and 
overloaded state of the vessel, it was extremely difficult to find out. The 
pumps were soon choked by the shavings left in the hold, and the danger 
rapidly increased, as the wind was strong and the vessel badly built. The 
sails were immediately taken in; some of the men removed the baggage to 
look for the leak, others kept continually pouring out the water with kettles, 
while others again cast all superfluous articles overboard. At length, after 
the lightening of the ship, the carpenter succeeded in stopping the leak, and 
thus we were once more saved from imminent danger. . . . On the 17th we 
sighted Kamchatka, but as the wind was contrary, we did not enter the har- 
bor before the evening of the 27th. 

“In spite of the joy we all felt at our deliverance, yet the news we heard 
on our arrival awakened in us a host of conflicting emotions. We had been 
given up for lost, and all our property had passed into other hands, and been 
mostly carried away beyond hope of recovery. Hence joy and sorrow alter- 
nated within a few moments in our minds, though we were all so accustomed 
to privation and misery, as hardly to feel the extent of our losses.” 

In the year 1744 Steller was ordered to return to St. Petersburg; but his 
candor had made him powerful enemies. Having reached Novgorod, and re- 
joicing in the idea of once more mixing with the civilized world, he was sud- 
denly ordered to appear before the imperial court of justice at Irkutsk, on the 
charge of having treacherously sold powder to the enemies of Russia. Thus 
obliged to return once more into the depths of Siberia, he was at length dis- 
missed by his judges, after waiting a whole year for their verdict. 

Once more on his way to St. Petersburg, he had already reached Moscow, 
when he was again summoned to appear without delay before the court of 
Irkutsk. A journey to Siberia is, under all circumstances, an arduous under- 
taking ; what, then, must have been Steller’s feelings when, instead of enjoy- 
ing the repose he had so well merited, he saw himself obliged to retrace his 
steps for the fourth time, for the purpose of vindicating his conduct before a 
rascally tribunal? On a very cold day his Cossack guards stopped to re- 
fresh themselves with some brandy at an inn by the road-side, and Steller, 
who remained in the sledge waiting for their return, fell asleep, and was 
frozen to death. 

He lies buried near the town of Tjumen, and no monument apprises the 
naturalist, whom the love of knowledge may lead into the Siberian wilds, that 
his unfortunate predecessor was thus basely requited after years of exertion 
in the interests of science. 


254 THE POLAR WORLD. 


ZZ ZAAEZ 4 


CHURCH AT PETROPAVLOSK. 


CHAPTER XXIIL 
KAMCHATKA. 


Climate.—Fertility.—Luxuriant Vegetation.—Fish.—Sea-birds.—Kamchatkan Bird-catchers.—The Bay 
of Avatscha.—Petropaylosk.—The Kamchatkans.—Their physical and moral Qualities.—The Fri- 
tillaria Sarrana.—The Muchamor.—Bears.—Dogs. 

HE peninsula of Kamchatka, though numbering no more than 6000 or 7000 
inhabitants, on a surface equalling Great Britain in extent, has so many 
natural resources that it could easily maintain a far greater number. The cli- 
mate is much more temperate and uniform than that of the interior of Siberia, 
being neither so excessively cold in winter, nor so intensely hot in summer ; 
and though the late and early night-frosts, with the frequent fogs and rains, 
prevent the cultivation of corn, the humid air produces a very luxuriant herba- 
ceous vegetation. Not only along the banks of the rivers and lakes, but in the 
forest glades, the grass grows to a height of more than twelve feet, and many 
of the Composite and Umbelliferz attain a size so colossal that the Heraclium 
dulce and the Senecio cannabifolius not seldom overtop the rider on horseback. 

The pasture-grounds are so excellent that the grass can generally be cut thrice 

during the short summer, and thus a comparatively small extent of land affords 

the winter supply for all the cattle of a hamlet. Though the cold winds pre- 
vent the growth of trees along the coast, the more inland mountain slopes and 
valleys are clothed with woods richly stocked with sables and squirrels. 


KAMCHATKA. 255 


No country in the world has a greater abundance of excellent fisheries. In 
spring the salmon ascend the rivers in such amazing numbers, that on plunging 
a dart into the stream one is almost sure to strike a fish; and Steller affirms 
that the bears and dogs of Kamchatka catch on the banks more fish with their 
paws and mouths than man in other countries, with all his cunning devices of 
net or angle. As the various birds of passage do not all wander at the same 
time to the north, so also the various kinds of fishes migrate, some sooner, 
others later, and consequently profusion reigns during the whole of the summer, 
Ermann was astonished at this incalculable abundance of the Kamchatkan riv- 
ers, for in one of them, when the water was only six inches deep, he saw multi- 
tudes of Chaekos (Slagocephalus) as long as his arm partly stranded on the 
_ banks, partly still endeavoring to ascend the shallow stream. As the waters 
contain such an incredible multitude of fishes, we can not wonder that the 
rocky coasts of the peninsula swarm with sea-fowl, whose breeding and roosting 
places are as densely peopled as any others in the world. At the entrance of the 
Avatscha Bay lies a remarkable labyrinth of rocks, separated from each other 
by narrow channels of water, like the intricate streets of an old-fashioned city. 
The flood has everywhere scooped out picturesque cavities and passages in 
these stupendous masses of stone, and the slightest wind causes the waves to 
beat with terrific violence against their feet. Every ledge, platform, and pro- 
jection, every niche, hollow, and crevice is peopled with sea-birds of strange 
and various forms. In the capture of these birds the Kamchatkans display an 
intrepidity equal to that of the islanders of St. Kilda or Feroe, and trust solely 
to their astonishing agility in climbing. Barefooted, without ropes or any 
other assistance, they venture down the steepest declivities, which are frequent- 
ly only accessible from the top, as the foaming breakers cut off all access from 
below. The left arm clasps a basket, which they fill with eggs as they advance, 
while the right hand grasps a short stick with an iron hook to drag the birds 
from the crevices of the rock. When a bird is caught, a dexterous grip wrings 
its neck, and it is then attached to the girdle of the fowler. In this manner an 
expert climber will kill in one day from seventy to eighty birds, and gather 
above a hundred eggs. 

Thus the population of Kamchatka is quite out of proportion to the riches 
of its pastures and waters. Its scanty inhabitants are moreover concentrated 
on a few spots along the chief rivers and bays, so that almost the whole penin- 
sula is nothing but an uninhabited wilderness. 

Before the conquest of the country by the Russians it had at least twenty 
times its present population, but the cruelty of the Cossacks and the ravages of 
the small-pox caused it to melt away almost as rapidly as that of Cuba or Hayti 
_ after the arrival of the Spaniards. At that time the sable and the sea-otter 
were considered of far greater importance than man; and unfortunately Rus- 
sia has too many deserts to people, before she can think of repairing past er- 
rors and sparing inhabitants for this remotest corner of her vast Asiatic em- 
pire. | 

As the peninsula is too distant from the highways of the world to attract 
the tide of emigration, it is also seldom visited by travellers. The few stran- 


256 THE POLAR WORLD. 


gers, however, who have sailed along the coasts, or made excursions into the in- 
terior of the country, speak with enthusiasm of the boldness of its rocky prom- 
ontories, the magnificence of its bays and mountains, and only regret that 
during the greater part of the year an Arctic winter veils the beauties of the 
landscape under mists and snow. 

Throughout its whole length Kamchatka is traversed - an Mle chain 
rising in some of its peaks to a height of 14,000 or 16,500 feet, and numbering 
no less than 28 active volcanoes along with many others whose fires are extinct. 
A land thus undermined with subterranean fires must be possessed of many 
mineral riches, but as yet no one has ever thought of seeking for them or put- 
ting them to use. 

Owing to the great humidity of the climate and the quantities. of rain at- 
tracted by the mountains, Kamchatka abounds in springs. In the lowlands 
they gush forth in such numbers as to render it very difficult to travel any dis- 
tance on foot.or horseback, even in winter, as they prevent the rivers from 
freezing. No doubt many a mineral spring—cold, tepid, or warm—that would 
make the fortune of a German spa, here flows unnoticed into the sea. ' 

Kamchatka has many excellent harbors, and the magnificent Bay of Avatscha 
would alone be able to afford room to all the navies of the world. Its steep 
rocky shores are almost everywhere clothed with a species of beech (Betula 
EHrmanni), intermingled with luxuriant grasses and herbs, and the higher slopes 
are generally covered with a dense underwood of evergreens and shrubs of de- 
ciduous foliage, whose changes of color in autumn tinge the landscape with yel- 
low, red, and brown tints. But the chief beauty of the Bay of Avatscha is the 
prospect of the distant mountains, forming a splendid panorama of fantastic 
peaks and volcanic cones, among which the Streloshnaja Sopka towers pre-emi- 
nent to the height of 14,000 feet. Close to this giant, but somewhat nearer to 
the coast, rises the active volcano of Avatscha, which frequently covers the 
whole country with ashes. 

The vast Bay of Avatscha forms several minor creeks: among others the ha- 
ven of St. Peter and Paul, one of the finest natural harbors in the world, where 
the Russians have established the seat of their government in the small town of 
Petropavlosk, which hardly numbers 500 inhabitants, but has acquired some 
celebrity from the unsuccessful attack of the English and French forces in 1854. 

Mr. Knox thus describes Petropavlosk: “To make a counterfeit Petro- 
pavlosk, take a log village in the backwoods of a western state in America, 
and place it near a little harbor, where the ground slopes gently to the water. 
Arrange most of the houses along a single unpaved street, and drop the rest in 
a higgledy-piggledy fashion on the sloping hillside. All buildings must be but 
one story high, and those of the poorer sort thatched with grass. The better 
class may have iron or board roofs painted for preservation. The houses of the 
officials and the foreign merchants may be commodious, and built of hewn tim- 
ber, but the doors of all must be low, and heavily constructed, to exclude the 
winter cold. Every dwelling must contain a brick stove that presents a side to 
each of two or three rooms. In winter this stove will maintain a temperature 
of about 68 degrees in all the rooms it is intended to warm.” 


KAMCHATKA, — 257 


PETROPAVLOSK. 


Besides some Jakut immigrants, the chief stock of the scanty population of 
the country consists of the descendants of the primitive Kamchatkans, who, ia 
spite of frequent intermarriages with their conquerors the Cossacks, have still 
retained many of their ancient manners. They are of a small stature, but broad- 
shouldered, their cheek-bones are prominent, their jaws uncommonly broad and 
projecting, their noses small, their lips very full, their hair black. The color of 
the men is dark brown, or sometimes yellow; the women have fairer complex- 
ions, which they endeavor to preserve by means of bears’ guts, stuck upon their 
faces in spring with fresh lime, so as not to be burned by the sun. They also 
paint their cheeks with a sea-weed, which, when rubbed upon them with fat, 
gives them a beautiful red color. 

The Kamchatkans are a remarkably healthy race. Many of them attain an 
age of seventy or eighty years, and are able to walk and to work until their 

nig 


258 THE POLAR WORLD. 


death. Their hair seldom turns gray before their sixtieth year, and even the 
oldest men have a firm and elastic step. The weight of their body is greater 
than that of the Jakuts, though the latter live on milk and flesh, while fish is 
the almost exclusive food of the Kamchatkans. The round tubercles of the 
fritillaria sarrana, a species of lily with a dark purple flower, likewise play 
an important part in their diet, and serve them instead of bread and meal, 
“Tf the fruits of the bread-fruit tree,” says Kittlitz—who has seen both plants 
in the places of their growth—“ are pre-eminent among all others, as affording 
man a perfect substitute for bread, the roots of the Sarrana, which are very 
similar in taste, rank perhaps immediately after them. The collecting of these 
tubers in the meadows is an important summer occupation of the women, and 
one which is rather troublesome, as the plant never grows gregariously, so that 
each root has to be sought and dug out separately with a-knife. Fortunately 
the wonderful activity of the Siberian field-vole facilitates the labor of gather- 
ing the tubers. These remarkable animals burrow extensive winter nests, with 
five or six store-houses, which they fill with various roots, but chiefly with those 
of the Sarrana. To find these subterranean treasures, the Kamchatkans use 
sticks with iron points, which they strike into the earth. The contents of three 
of these nests are as much as a man can carry on his back. <A species of fun- 
gus, called muchamor, affords a favorite stimulant. It is dried and eaten raw. 
Besides its exhilarating effects, it is said to produce, like the Peruvian Coca, a 
remarkable increase of strength, which lasts for a considerable time. 

Fishing and hunting supply all the wants of the Kamchatkans, for they have 
not yet learned to profit in any degree worth mentioning by the luxuriance of 
their meadow-lands. They pay their taxes and purchase their foreign luxuries 
—meal and tea, tobacco and brandy—with furs. The chase of the costly sea- 
otter (which from excessive persecution had at one time almost become extinct) 
has latterly improved. Besides the fur animals, they also hunt the reindeer, the 
argali, the wolf, and the bear, whose skins supply them with clothing. 

Bears abound in Kamchatka, as they find a never-failing supply of fishes 
and berries, and Ermann assures us that they would long since have extirpated 
the inhabitants, if (most probably on account. of the plenty in which they live) 
they were not of a more gentle disposition than any others in the world. In 
spring they descend from the mountains to the mouths of the rivers, to levy 
their tribute on the migratory troops of the fishes, frequently eating only the 
heads. Toward autumn they follow the fishes into the interior of the country 
as they ascend the streams. 

The most valuable domestic animal in Kamchatka is the dog, who has the 
usual characters of the Esquimaux race. He lives exclusively on fish, which he 
catches very dexterously. From spring to autumn he is allowed to roam at lib- 
erty, no one troubling himself about him; but in October, every proprietor col- 
lects his dogs, binds them to a post, and lets them fast for a time, so as to de- 
prive them of their superfluous fat, and to render them more fit for running. 
During the winter they are fed with dried fish every morning and evening, but 
while travelling they get nothing to eat, even though they run for hours, ‘Their 
strength is wonderful. Generally no more than five of them are harnessed to a 


KAMCHATKA, © 259 


X }i 
; SONS SN Rl 
aw RS: N \G N\\ Kf R \ 
LS ENG Sl AA NED 
— 3s SSW AVIS 
LWW 
EN, SSN 


DOGS FISHING. 


sledge, and will drag with ease three full-grown persons, and sixty pounds’ 
weight of luggage. When lightly laden, such a sledge will travel from 30 to 
40 versts in a day over bad roads and through the deep snow; on even roads, 
from 80 to 140. The horse can never be used for sledging, on account of the 
deep snow, into which it would sink, and of the numerous rivers and sources, 
which are either never frozen, or merely covered with a thin sheet of i ice, un- 
able to bear the weight of so large an animal. 


a: 


Wy 


DOG-TEAM. 


Travelling with dogs is, however, both dangerous and difficult. Instead of 
the whip, the Hat chadkars use a crooked stick with iron rings, which, by 
their jingling, give the leader of the team the necessary signals. When the 
dogs do not sufficiently exert themselves, the stick is cast among them to rouse 
them to greater speed; but then the traveller must be dexterous enough to 


260 : THE POLAR WORLD. 


pick it up again while the sledge shoots along. During a snow-storm the dogs 
keep their master warm, and will lie quietly near him for hours, so that he has 
merely to prevent the snow from covering him too deeply and suffocating him. 
The dogs are also excellent weather prophets, for when, while resting, they dig 
holes in the snow, a storm may with certainty be expected. te 

The sledge-dogs are trained to their future service at a very early period. 
Soon after birth they are placed with their mother in a deep pit,so as to see 
neither man nor beast, and, after having been weaned, they are again condemn: 
ed to solitary confinement in a pit. After six months they are attached to a 
sledge with other older dogs, and, being extremely shy, they run as fast as 
they can. On returning home, they are again confined in their pit, where they 


DOGS TOWING BOATS. 


remain until they are perfectly trained, and able to perform a long journey. 
Then, but not before, they are allowed their summer liberty. This severe edu- 
cation completely sours their temper, and they constantly remain gloomy, shy, 
quarrelsome, and suspicious. 

To return to the Kamchatkans: travellers praise their good-nature, their 
hospitality, and their natural wit. Of a sanguine disposition, they are happy 
and content in their poverty, and have no cares for the morrow. Being ex- 
tremely indolent, they never work unless when compelled. They readily adopt 
strange manners, and no doubt education might produce valuable results in so 
pliable and sharp-witted a race. Unfortunately the Russians and Cossacks 
who have settled among them do not afford them the best examples. They 


a 
wen 


KAMCHATKA. 261 


have long since been converted to the Greek Church, but it is supposed that bap- 
tism has not fully effaced all traces of Shamanism. Formerly they had many 
gods, the chief of whom was Kutka, the creator of heaven and earth. But far 
from honoring Kutka, they continually ridiculed him, and made him the con- 
stant butt of their satire. Kutka, however, had a wife,Chachy, who was en- 
dowed with all the intelligence in which her spouse was supposed to be defi- 
cient, and who, as is the case in many mortal housekeepings, was constantly ex- 
erting her ingenuity in repairing the blunders of her lord and master. 


262 - THE POLAR WORLD. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 
THE TCHUKTCHI. 


The Land of the Tchuktchi.—Their independent Spirit and commercial Enterprise.—Perpetual Migra- 
tions.—The Fair of Ostrownoje.—Visit in a Tchuktch Polog.—Races.—Tchuktch Bayaderes.—The 
Tennygk, or Reindeer Tchuktchi.—The Onkilon, or Sedentary Tchuktchi.—Their Mode of Life. 

T the extreme north-eastern point of Asia, bounded by the Polar Ocean 
on one side and the Sea of Bering on the other, lies the land of the 

Tchuktchi. The few travellers who have ever visited that bleak promontory 

describe it as one of the dreariest regions of the earth. The climate is dread- 

fully cold, as may be expected in a country confined between icy seas. Before 

July 20th there is no appearance of summer, and winter already sets in about 

August 20th. The lower grounds shelving to the north are intersected with 

numerous streams, which, however, enjoy their liberty but a short time of the 

year; the valleys are mostly swampy and filled with small lakes or ponds; 
while on the bleak hill-slopes the Vaccinium and the dwarf birch or willow 
sparingly vegetate under a carpet of mosses and lichens. The eastern, north- 
eastern, and partly also the southern coasts abound with walruses, sea-lions, 
and seals, while the reindeer, the argali, the wolf, and the Arctic fox occupy 
the land. During the short summer, geese, swans, ducks, and wading-birds 
frequent the marshy grounds; but in winter the snow-owl and the raven alone 
remain, and constantly follow the path of the nomadic inhabitants. In this 
desolate nook of the Old World lives the only aboriginal people of North Asia 
which has known how to maintain its liberty to the present day, and which, 
proud of its independence, looks down with sovereign contempt upon its re- 
lations, the Korjaks, who, without offering any resistance, have yielded to the 
authority of Russia. | | " a 


THE TCHUKTCHI. 263 


The rulers of Siberia have indeed confined the Tchuktchi within narrow 
limits, but here at least they obey no foreign ruler, and wander, unmolested 
by the stranger, with their numerous reindeer herds, over the naked tundras. 
A natural distrust of their powerful neighbors has rendered them long unwil- 
ling to enter into any commercial intercourse with the Russians, and to meet 
them at the fair of Ostrownoje, a small town, situated not far from their fron- 
tiers, on a small island of the Aniuj, in 68° N. lat. 

This remotest trading-place of the Old World is not so unimportant as 
might be supposed, from the sterile nature of the country, for the Tchuktchi 
are not satisfied, like the indolent Lapps or Samoiedes, with the produce of 
their reindeer herds, but strive to increase their enjoyments or their property 
by an active trade. From the East Cape of Asia, where, crossing Bering’s 
Straits in boats covered with skins, they barter furs and walrus-teeth from the 
natives of America, the Tchuktchi come with their goods and tents drawn on 


TCHUKTCHI CANOE. 


sledges to the fair of Ostrownoje. Other sledges laden with lichens, the food 
of the reindeer, follow in their train, as in their wanderings, however circuitous, 
_ they not seldom pass through regions so stony and desert as not even to afford 
these frugal animals the slightest repast. Thus regulating their movements 
by. the wants of their herds, they require five or six months for a journey 
which, in a direct line, would not be much longer than a thousand versts, and 
are almost constantly wandering from place to place, though, as they always 
carry their dwellings along with them, they at the same time never leave home. 
One of these snail-like caravans generally consists of fifty or sixty families, and 
one fair is scarcely at an end when they set off to make their arrangements for 
the next. | 

_ Tobacco is the primum mobile of the trade which centres in Ostrownoje. 
Their pipes are of a peculiar character, larger at the stem than the bowl, which 
holds a very small quantity of tobacco. In smoking, they swallow the fumes 
of the tobacco, and often, after six or eight whiffs, fall back completely intoxi- 


264 THE POLAR WORLD. 


Cae. 
“ wah 


TCHUKTCHI PIPE. 


cated for the time. The desire to procure a few of its narcotic leaves induces 
the American Esquimaux, from the Icy Cape to Bristol Bay, to send their prod- 
uce from hand to hand as far as the Gwosdew Islands in Bering’s Straits, 
where it is bartered for the tobacco of the Tchuktchi, and these again princi- 
pally resort to the fair of Ostrownoje to purchase tobacco from the Russians. 
Generally the Tchuktchi receive from the Americans as many skins for half a 
poud, or eighteen pounds, of tobacco-leaves as they afterwards sell to the Rus- 
sians for two pouds of tobacco of the same quality. These cost the Russian 
merchant about 160 roubles at the very utmost, while the skins which he obtains 
in barter are worth at least 260 at Jakutsk, and are more than double that sum 
at St. Petersburg. 

The furs of the Tchuktchi principally consist of bilge and silver-gray foxes, 
stone-foxes, gluttons, lynxes, otters, beavers, and a fine species of marten which 
does not occur in Siberia, and approaches the sable in value. They also bring 
to the fair bear-skins, walrus-thongs and teeth, sledge-runners of whale-ribs, and 
ready-made clothes of reindeer skin. The American furs are generally packed 
in sacks of seal-skin, which are made in an ingenious manner by extracting the 
bones and flesh through a small opening made in the abdomen. 

The Russian traders on their part bring to the fair, besides tobacco, iron- 
- ware—particularly kettles and knives—for the Tchuktchi, and tea, sugar, and 
various stuffs for their countrymen who have settled along the Kolyma. 

But Ostrownoje attracts not only Tchuktchi and Russians; a great num- 
ber of the Siberian tribes from a vast circuit of 1000 or 1500 versts—Juka- 
hires, Lamutes, Tungusi, Tschuwanzi, Koriaks—also come flocking in their 
sledges, drawn partly by dogs, partly by horses, for the purpose of bartering 
their commodities against the goods of the Tchuktchi. Fancy this barbarous 
assembly meeting every year during the intense cold and short days of the be- 
ginning of March. Picture to yourself the fantastic illumination of their red 
watch-fires blazing under the starry firmament, or mingling their ruddy glare 
with the Aurora flickering through the skies, and add to the strange sight the 
hollow sound of the Shaman’s drum, and the howling of several hundreds of 
- hungry dogs, and you will surely confess that no fair has a more original char- 
acter than that of Ostrownoje. A government commissary, assisted by some 
Cossacks, superintends the fair, and receives the inconsiderable market-tax 
which the Tchuktchi pay to the Emperor. — | oY 


THE TCHUKTCHI. 265 


All preliminaries having been arranged, the orthodox Russians repair to 
the chapel for the purpose of hearing a solemn mass, after which, the hoisting 
of a flag on the tower of the ostrog announces the opening of the market. 
At this welcome sign, the Tchuktchi, completely armed with spears, bows, and 
arrows, advance with their sledges, and form a wide semicircle round the 
fort, while the Russians, and the other visitors of the fair, ranged opposite to 
them, await in breathless silence the tolling of the bell, which is to begin the 
active business of the day. At the very first sound, each trader, grotesquely 
laden with packages of tobacco, kettles, knives, or whatever else he supposes 
best able to supply some want, or to strike some fancy of the Tchuktchi, rush- 
es as fast as he can towards the sledges, and in the jumble not seldom knocks 
down a competitor, or is himself stretched at full length on the snow. But, 
unmindful of the loss of cap and gloves, which he does not give himself time 
to pick up, he starts afresh, to make up for the delay by redoubled activity. 
- Before he reaches the first Tchuktch, his eloquence breaks forth in an inter- 
minable flow, and in a strange jargon of Russian, Tchuktch, and Jakute, he 
praises the excellence of his tobacco or the solidity of his kettles. The imper- 
turbable gravity of the Tchuktch forms a remarkable contrast with the greedy 
eagerness of the Russian trader; without replying to his harangue, he merely 
shakes his head if the other offers him too little for his goods, and never for 
~/an instant loses his self-possession: while the Russian, in his hurry, not sel- 
dom hands over two pouds of tobacco for one, or pockets a red fox instead of 
a black one. Although the Tchuktch have no scales with them, it is not easy 
to deceive them in the weight, for they know exactly by the feeling of the 
hand whether a quarter of a pound is wanting to the poud. The whole fair 
seldom lasts longer than three days, and Ostrownoje, which must have but very 
few stationary inhabitants indeed (as it is not even mentioned in statistical ac- 
- counts, which cite towns of seventeen souls), is soon after abandoned for many 
months to its ultra-Siberian solitude. rt 

But before we allow the Tchuktchi to retire to their deserts, we may learn 
something more of their habits by accompanying Mr. Matiuschkin—Wrangell’s 
companion—on a visit to the ladies of one of their first chiefs. ‘“ We enter the 
outer tent, or ‘namet,’ consisting of tanned reindeer skins supported on a slen- 
- der frame-work. An opening at the top to let out the smoke, and a kettle in 
_ the centre, announce that antechamber and kitchen are here harmoniously blend- 
ed into one. But where are the inmates? Most probably in that large sack 
made of the finest skins of reindeer calves, which occupies, near the kettle, the 
centre of the ‘namet.’ To penetrate into this ‘sanctum sanctorum’ of the 
Tchuktch household, we raise the loose flap which serves as a door, creep on all 
fours through the opening, cautiously re-fasten the flap by tucking it under the 
floor-skin, and find ourselves in the reception or withdrawing room—the ‘ polog.’ 
_ Asnug box no doubt for a cold climate, but rather low, as we can not stand up- 
right in it, and not quite so well ventilated as a sanitary commissioner would 
approve of, as it has positively no opening for light or air. A suffocating 
“smoke meets us on-entering, we rub our eyes, and when they have at length got 
accustomed to the biting atmosphere, we perceive, by the gloomy light of a 


266 : THE POLAR WORLD. 


train-oil lamp, the worthy family squatting on the floor in a state of almost 
complete nudity. Without being in the least embarrassed, Madame Leiitt and : 
her daughter receive us in their primitive costume: but to show us that the 
Tchuktchi know how to receive company, and to do honor to their guests, they. 
immediately insert strings of glass beads in their greasy hair. Their hospitali- 
ty equals their politeness; for, instead of a cold reception, a hot dish of boiled 
reindeer-flesh, copiously irrigated with rancid train-oil by the experienced hand 
of the mistress of the household, is soon after smoking before us. Unfortunate- 
ly our effeminate taste is not up to the haut godt of her culinary art, and while 
Mr. Leiitt does ample justice to the artistic talent of his spouse, by rapidly bolt- 
ing down pieces as large as a fist, we are hardly able to swallow a morsel.” | 

During his visit at Ostrownoje, Matiuschkin had a favorable opportunity .of 
becoming acquainted with the sports of the Tchuktchi, the chieftain, Makomol, 
having set out prizes for a race. These consisted of a valuable silver fox, a 
first-rate beaver skin, and two fine walrus-teeth. Nothing can be more ad- 
mirable than the fleetness of the reindeer or the dexterity of their drivers ; 
and the agility displayed in the foot-race by the Tchuktchi, running at full 
speed, in their heavy winter dresses, over a distance of fifteen versts, gives a 
high idea of their muscular powers. After the races, the spectators are treated 
to a grand choregraphic display. The Arctic bayaderes, muffled from head 
to foot in their stiff skin garments, form a narrow circle, slowly moving their 
feet backward and forward, and fiercely gesticulating with their hands, whilst 
their faces are distorted into a thousand horrible grimaces. The singing that 
accompanies the ballet has no doubt its charm for native ears, but to strangers 
it seems no better than a kind of grunt. The representation is closed by three 
first-rate artistes executing a particularly favorite dance. The faces of their 
countrymen express the same intense admiration with which a European dilet- 
tante follows the graceful pirouettes of a Taglioni, while the Russian guests 
see only three greasy monsters alternately rushing towards each other and 
starting back, until at length they stop from sheer exhaustion. As a token of 
their satisfaction, the Russians regale the fair performers with a cup of brandy. 
and a roll of tobacco, and both parties take leave of each other with mutual 
protestations of satisfaction and friendship. 7 

Though most of the Reindeer or nomadic Tchuktchi have been baptized, yet 
Wrangell supposes the ceremony to have been a mere financial speculation on 
their part, and is convinced that the power of the Shamans is still as great as 
ever. An epidemic had carried off a great number of persons, and also whole 
herds of reindeer. In vain the Shamans had recourse to their usual conjura- 
tions, the plague continued. They consulted together, and directed that one of 
their most respected chiefs, named Kotschen, must be sacrificed, to appease the 
irritated spirits. Kotschen was willing to submit to the sentence, but none 
could be found to execute it, until his own son, prevailed on by his father’s ex- 
hortations, and terrified by his threatened curse, plunged a knife into his heart, 
and gave his body to the Shamans. 

Polygamy is general among the Tchuktchi, and they change their wives as 
often as they please. Still, though the women are certainly slaves, they are al- 


THE TCHUKTCHI. 267 


lowed more influence, and are subjected to less labor than among many sav- 
ages. Among other heathenish and detestable customs, is that of killing all 
deformed children, and all old people as soon as they become unfit for the 
hardships and fatigues of a nomad life. Two years before Wrangell’s arri- 
val at Kolyma there was an instance of this in the case of one of their richest 
chiefs. Waletka’s father became infirm and tired of life, and was put to death 
at his own express desire by some of his nearest relations. . 

Besides the wandering, or Réindeer Tchuktchi, who call themselves Tennygk, 
there are others, dwelling in fixed habitations along the borders of the sea at 
Bering’s Straits and the Gulf of Anadyr, who differ considerably from the 
former in appearance and language. ‘These Onkilon, or stationary Tchuktchi, 
belong to the wide-spread Esquimaux family, and, like most of their race, sub- 
sist by hunting the whale, the walrus, and the seal. They live in a state of 
abject dependence on the nomad Tchuktchi, and are poor, like all fishermen, 
while some of the Tennygk chieftains possess several thousands of reindeer, 
and are continually adding to their wealth by trade. Of course there is an 
active exchange of commodities between the two; the Onkilon furnishing 
thongs of walrus hide, walrus-teeth, train-oil, etc., and receiving reindeer skins, 
or ready-made clothes of the same material, in return. 

They live in small settlements or villages spread along the coast; their huts, 
raised on frame-works of whale-rib and covered with skins, resemble a large 
irregular cone reposing on its side, with the apex directed to the north, and 
the base shelving abruptly to the south. Here is the small opening, closed by 
a flap of loose skin, which serves as a door, while the smoke escapes and the 
light enters through a round hole in the roof. At the farther or northern end 
of this structure is a second low square tent, covered with double reindeer 
skins, the polog, which in winter serves both as the dining and bed room of 
the family. 

The Onkilon catch seals in a kind of net made of leather straps, which they 
spread out under the ice, and in which the animal entangles itself with the 
head or flippers. When the walrus, which is particularly abundant about — 
Koliutschin Island, creeps on shore, they steal upon it unawares, cut off its re- 
treat, and kill it with their spears. Like the Esquimaux, they use dogs to drag 
their sledges. 

The number of the Tchuktchi is greater than one might expect to find in 
so sterile a country. According to the Russian missionaries, there were, some 
years back, 52 ulusses or villages of the Onkilon, with 1568 tents, and 10,000 
inhabitants; and Wrangell tells us that the Tennygk are at least twice as nu- 
merous, so that the entire population of the land of the Tchuktchi may possi- 
bly amount to 30,000. 


268 THE POLAR WORLD. 


Sar 


AN ALEUT. 


CHAPTER XXyV. 
BERING SEA—THE RUSSIAN FUR COMPANY—THE ALEUTS. 


Bering Sea.—Unalaska.—The Pribilow Islands.—St. Matthew.—St. Laurence.—Bering’s Straits,—The 
Russian Fur Company.—The Aleuts.—Their Character.—Their Skill and Intrepidity in hunting the 
Sea-otter.—The Sea-bear.—Whale-chasing.—Walrus-slaughter.—The Sea-lion. 

ERING SEA is extremely interesting in a geographical point of view, as 
the temperature of its coasts and islands exhibits so striking a contrast 
with that part of the Arctic Ocean which extends between Greenland, Iceland, 

Norway, and Spitzbergen, and affords us the most convincing proof of the 

benefits we owe to the Gulf Stream, and to the mild south-westerly winds 

which sweep across the Atlantic. While through the sea between Iceland 
and Scotland, a part of the warmth generated in the tropical zone penetrates 
by means of marine and aérial currents as far as Spitzbergen and the western 
coast of Nova Zembla, the Sea of Bering is completely deprived of this advan- 
tage. The long chain of mountainous islands which bounds it on the south 
serves as a barrier against the mild influence of the Pacific, and instead of 
warm streams mixing with its waters, many considerable rivers and deep bays 
yearly discharge into it enormous masses of ice. Thus as soon as the naviga- 
tor enters Bering Sea he perceives at once a considerable fall in the tempera- 
ture, and finds himself suddenly transferred from a temperate oceanic region 
to one of a decidedly Arctic character. In spite, therefore, of their compara- 
tively southerly position (for the Straits of Bering do not even reach the Are- 
tic Circle, and the Andrianow Islands are ten degrees farther to the south than 


BERING SEA—THE ALEUTS. 269 


the Feroés), those frigid waters are, with regard to climate, far less favorably 
situated than the seas of Spitzbergen. 

The same gradual differences of temperature and vegetation which we 
find in Unalaska, the Pribilow Islands, St. Laurence, and the Straits of Be- 
ring, within 10° of latitude, occur in the Shetland Islands, Iceland, Bear Island, 
and Spitzbergen at distances of almost 20°; so that in the Sea of Bering the 
increase of cold on advancing to the north is about twice as rapid as in the 
waters between North Europe-and North America. | 

The long and narrow peninsula of Aliaska, which forms the south-eastern 
boundary of this inhospitable sea, shows us its influence in a very marked de- 
gree, for while the climate of the northern side of that far-projecting land- 
tongue has a decidedly Arctic character, its southern coasts fronting the Pa- 
cific enjoy a temperate climate. The mountain-chain which, rising to a height 
of five or six thousand feet, forms the backbone of the peninsula, serves as the 
boundary of two distinct worlds, for while the northern slopes are bleak and 
treeless like Iceland, the southern shores are covered from the water’s edge 
with magnificent forests. While on the northern side the walrus extends his 
excursions down to 56° 30’ N. lat., on the southern exposure the humming- 
bird is seen to flit from flower to flower as high as 61°, the most northerly 
point it is known to attain. 

The Feroé Islands (64° N. lat.) have undoubtedly a no very agreeable cli- 
mate to boast of, but they may almost be said to enjoy Italian skies when 
compared with Unalaska (54° N. lat.), the best known of the Aleutian chain. 

The Scandinavian archipelago is frequently obscured with fogs, but here 
they are perpetual from April to the middle of July. From this time till the 
end of September the weather improves, as then the southerly winds drive the 
foggy region more to the north, and enable the sun to shine during a few se- 
rene days upon the bleak shores of Unalaska. But soon the Polar air-streams 
regain the supremacy, and a dismal veil once more shrouds the melancholy isl- 
and. Of Sitka, the chief town of Aliaska, Mr. Whymper says: “It enjoys the 
unenviable position of being about the most rainy place in the world. Rain 
ceases only when there is a good prospect of snow.” Snow generally begins 
to fall early in October, and snow-storms occur to the very end of May. There 
are years in which it rains continually during the whole winter. Inthe Feroés 
some service-trees are to be seen twelve feet high or more, while nothing like 
a tree ever grewin Unalaska. The difference between the temperatures of the 
summer and winter, which in the Feroés is confined to very narrow limits, 1s 
much more considerable in Unalaska, though here also the moderating influ- 
ence of the sea makes itself felt. Thus in summer the thermometer rarely 
rises above 66°, but on the other hand in winter it still more rarely falls be- 
low —2°. | 

Of course no corn of any kind can possibly ripen in a climate like this, but 
the damp and cool temperature favors the growth of herbs. In the moist low- 
lands the stunted willow-bushes are stifled by the luxuriant grasses; and even 
on the hills, the vegetation, which is of a decidedly Alpine character, covers 
the earth up to the line of perpetual snow; while several social plants, such 


270 THE POLAR WORLD. 


as the Lupinus nootkeanus and the Rhododendron kamtschadalicum, decorate 
these dismal regions with their brilliant color. The lively green of the mead- 
_ ows reminds one of the valley of Urseren, so well known to all Alpine tourists, 


= 


—————— 


SITKA. 


The mosses and lichens begin already at Unalaska to assume that predomi- 
nance in the Flora which characterizes the frigid zone. 
A few degrees to the north of the Aleutian chain, which extends in a long 


I } ‘i 


BERING SEA—THE ALEUTS. 271 


line from the promontory of Aliaska to Kamchatka, are situated the Pribilow 
Tslands, St. George and St. Paul, which are celebrated in the history of the fur- 
trade, the former as the chief breeding-place of the sea-bear, the latter as that 
of the sea-lion. Chamisso was struck with their wintry aspect, for here no 
sheltered valleys and lowlands promote, as at Unalaska, a more vigorous veg- 
etation. The rounded backs of the hills and the scattered rocks are covered 
with black and gray lichens ; and where the melting snows afford a sufficient 
moisture, sphagnum, mosses, and a few weeds occupy the marshy ground. The 
frozen earth has no springs, and yet these desolate islands have a more south- 
erly situation than the Orkneys, where barley grows to ripeness. Before 
these islands were discovered by the Russians they had been tor ages the un- 
disturbed home of the sea-birds and the large cetacean seals. Under Russian 
superintendence, some Aleuts have now been settled on both of them. The 
innumerable herds of sea-lions, which cover the naked shores of St. George 
as far as the eye can reach, present a strange sight. The guillemots have 
taken possession of the places unoccupied by their families and fly fearlessly 
among them, or nestle in the crevices of the wave-worn rock-walls, or between 
the large boulders which form a bank along the strand. 

Still farther to the north lies the uninhabited island of St. Matthew (62° 
N. lat.). A settlement was once attempted; but as the animals which had 
been reckoned upon for the winter supply of food departed, the unfortunate 
colonists all died of hunger. 

Fogs are so frequent about the island of St. Laurence that navigators have 
often passed close by it (65° N. lat.) without seeing it. Chamisso was sur- 
prised at the beauty and the numbers of its dwarfish flowering herbs, which 
reminded him of the highlands of Switzerland, while the neighboring St. 
Laurence Bay, in the land of the Tchuktchi, was the image of wintry desola- 
tion.. In July the lowlands were covered with snow-fields, and the few plants 
bore the Alpine character in the most marked degree. Under this inclement 
sky, the mountains, unprotected by vegetation, rapidly fall into decay. Every 
winter splits the rocks, and the summer torrents carry the fragments down to 
their feet. The ground is everywhere covered with blocks of stone, unless 
where the sphagnum, by the accumulation of its decomposed remains, has 
formed masses of peat in the swampy lowlands. 

On sailing through Bering’s Straits, the traveller may see, in clear weather, 
both the Old and the New World. On both sides rise high mountains, pre- 
cipitously from the water’s edge in Asia, but separated from the sea by a 
broad alluvial belt on the American side. The sea is deepest on the Asiatic 
border, where the current, flowing from the south with considerable rapidity, 
has also the greatest force. Here also whales may be often seen, and large 
herds of walruses. 

In former times the baidar of the Esquimaux was the only boat ever seen 
in the straits, and since Semen Deshnew, who first sailed round the eastern 
point of Asia, European navigators had but rarely passed them to explore the 
seas beyond; but recently this remotest part of the world has become the 
acene of an active whale-fishery. 


272 THE POLAR WORLD. 


A BAIDAR. 


The shores of Bering Sea are naked and bleak, and the numerous volca- 
noes of the Aleutian chain pour out their lava-streams over unknown wilder- 
nesses. But the waters of the sea are teeming with life. Gigantic alge, such 
as are never seen in the torrid zone, form, round the rocky coasts, vast sub- 
marine forests. A host of fishes, whales, walruses, and seals, fill the sea and . 
its shores, and innumerable sea-birds occupy the cliffs. But these treasures 
of the ocean, which for ages furnished the Aleuts and other wild tribes with 
the means of existence, have also been the cause of their servitude. Had the 
sea-otter not existed, the wild children of the soil might possibly still be in 
possession of their ancient freedom; and but for the sea-bear and the walrus, 
the whale and the seal, the banners of the Czar would scarcely have met the 
flag of England on the continent of America. 

As the whole fur-trade of the Hudson’s Bay Territory is cansengeaboael in 
the hands of one mighty company, thus also one powerful association enjoys 
the exclusive commerce of the eastern possession of Russia. The regions un- 
der the authority of the Russian I'ur Company* occupy an immense space, as 
they comprise not only all the islands of Bering Sea, but also the American 
coasts down to 55° N. lat. The extreme points of this vast territory are situ- 
ated at a greater distance from each other than London from Tobolsk, but the 
importance of its trade bears no proportion to its extent. 

The company, which was founded in the year 1799, under the Emperor 
Paul, had, in 1839, thirty-six hunting settlements on its own territory (the 
Kurile Islands, the Aleutic chain, Aliaska, Bristol Bay, Cook’s Inlet, Norton 
Sound, ete.), besides a chain of agencies from Ochotsk to St. Petersburg. Its 
chief seat is New Archangel, on Sitka, one of the many islands of King 
George III.’s Archipelago, first accurately explored by Vancouver. The mag- 
nificent Bay of Norfolk, at the head of which the small town is situated, 
greatly resembles a Norwegian fjord, as we here find the same steep rock- 


* Since last year [1867] the Russian Government has sold her American possessions to the United 
States, but as itis not yet known how far the interests of the Kussian Fur Company have been affected 
by the change, I may be allowed to speak of her in the present tense. 


BERING SEA—THE ALEUTS. 273 


walls bathing their precipitous sides in the emerald waters, and clothed with 
dense pine forests wherever a tree can grow. 

A number of islets scattered over the surface of the bay add to the beauty 
of the scene. The furs collected by the company are chiefly those of sea- 
bears, sea-otters, foxes, beavers, bears, lynxes, American martens, etc., and are 
partly furnished by the subjects of its own territory (Aleuts, Kadjacks, Ke- 
naizes, Tchugatchi, Aliaskans), who are compelled to hunt on its account, and 
partly obtained by barter from the independent tribes of the mainland, or 
from the Hudson’s Bay Company. The greater part is sent to Ochotsk or 
the Amoor, and from thence through Siberia to St. Petersburg ; the rest to the 
Chinese ports, where the skins of the young sea-bear always find a ready 
market. fn 

Of all the aboriginal tribes which inhabit the vast territory of Russian 
America, the most worthy of notice is that of the Aleuts. Less fortunate 
than their independent relatives, the Esquimaux of the north—who in the 
midst of privations maintain an imperturbable gayety of temper—these isl- 
anders have been effectually spirit-broken under a foreign yoke. In 1817 
the cruel treatment of their masters had reduced them to about a thousand ; 
since that time their number has somewhat increased, the company having at 
length discovered that man is, after all, the most valuable production of a 
land, and that if depopulation increased still further, they would soon have 
no more hunters to supply them with furs. 

Every Aleut is bound, after his eighteenth year, to serve the company 
three years ; and this forced labor-tax does not seem at first sight immode- 
rate, but if we consider that the islanders, to whom every foreign article is 
supplied from the warehouses of the company, are invariably its debtors, we 
can not doubt that as long as the Aleut is able to hunt, he is obliged to do so 
for the wages of a slave. The Bishop Ivan Weniaminow, who resided ten 
years at Unalaska, draws a picture of this people which exhibits evident 
marks of a long servitude. They never quarrel among each other, and their 
patience is exemplary. Nothing can surpass the fortitude with which they 
endure pain. On the other hand, they never show excessive joy; it seems 
impossible to raise their feelings to the pitch of delight. Even after a long 
fast, a child never grasps with eagerness the proffered morsel, nor does it on 
any occasion exhibit the mirth so natural to its age. 

In hunting the marine animals, the Aleuts exhibit a wonderful skill and in- 
trepidity. To catch the sea-otter, they assemble in April or May at an ap- 
pointed spot, in their light skin boats, or baidars, and choose one of their most 
_ respected chiefs for the leader of the expedition, which generally numbers 
from fifty to a hundred boats. Such hunting-parties are annually organized 
from the Kurile Islands to Kadjack, and consequently extend their operations 
over a line of 3000 miles. On the first fine day the expedition sets out and 
proceeds to a distance of about forty versts from the coast, when the baidars 
form into a long line, leaving an interval of about 250 fathoms from boat to 
boat, as far as.a sea-otter diving out of the water can be seen, so that a row 
of thirty baidars occupies a space of from ten to twelve versts. When the 

18 


274 THE POLAR WORLD. 


number of the boats is greater, the intervals are reduced. Every man now 
looks upon the sea with great attention. Nothing escapes the eye of the 
Aleut ; in the smallest black spot appearing but one moment over the surface 
of the waters, he at once recognizes a sea-otter. The baidar which first sees 
the animal rows rapidly towards the spot where the creature dived, and now 
the Aleut, holding his oar straight up in the air, remains motionless on the 
spot. Immediately the whole squadron is on the move, and the long, straight 
line changes into a wide circle, the centre of which is occupied by the baidar 
with the raised oar. The otter, not being able to remain long under water, re- 
appears, and the nearest Aleut immediately greets him with an arrow. This 
first attack is seldom mortal; very often the missile does not even reach its 
mark, and the sea-otter instantly disappears. Again the oar rises from the 
next baidar; again the circle forms, but this time narrower than at first; the 
fatigued otter is obliged to come oftener to the surface, arrows fly from all 
sides, and finally the animal, killed by a mortal shot, or exhausted by repeat- 
ed wounds, falls to the share of the archer who has hit it nearest to the head. 
If several otters appear at the same time, the boats form as many rings, pro- 
vided their number be sufficiently great. : 

The boldest of all hunters, the Aleuts of the Fox Islands, pursue the sea-ot- 
ter also in winter. If, during the summer chase, the rapidity and regularity 
with which all the movements are performed, and the sure eye and aim of the 
archers command the spectator’s admiration, this winter chase gives him occa- 
sion to wonder at their courage. During the severest winter-storms the otter 
shelters himself on the shore of some small uninhabited island or on a solitary 
rock, and after having carefully ascertained that no enemy is near, coils himself 
up and falls asleep. While the storm still rages, two Aleuts approach the rock 
in two single baidars from the leeward. The hunter in the foremost baidar . 
stands upright,a gun or a club in his hand, and waits in this position till a 
wave brings him near to the summit of the rock. He now springs on land, 
and while his companion takes care of the baidar, approaches the sleeping otter 
and shoots it or kills it with his club. With the assistance of his companion 
who has remained on the water, he springs back into his baidar as soon as the 
crest of a wave brings it within his reach. 

The sea-bear is nearly as valuable as the sea-otter to the fur company, as the 
woolly skin of the young animal is the only one of the whole seal tribe which 
is reckoned among the finer peltry. The sea-bears are chiefly killed on the 
Commodore and Pribilow islands, particularly on St. Paul, where they are 
hunted by a certain number of Aleuts located there under Russian superin- 
tendence. The chase begins in the latter part of September, on a cold, foggy 
day, when the wind blows from the side where the animals are assembled on 
the rocky shore. The boldest huntsmen open the way, then follow the older 
people and the children, and the chief personage of the band comes last, to be 
the better able to direct and survey the movements of his men, who are all 
armed with clubs. The main object is to cut off the herd as quickly as possi- 
ble from the sea. All the grown-up males and females are spared and allowed 
to escape, but most of the young animals are sentenced to death. Those 


BERING SEA—THE ALEUTS. 275 


which are only four months old (their furs being most highly prized) are 
doomed without exception; while of the others that have attained an age of 
one, two, or three years, only the males are killed. For several days after the 
massacre, the mothers swim about the island, seeking and loudly wailing for 
‘their young. 

From October 5 St. Paul is gradually deserted by the sea-bears, who then 
migrate to the south and re-appear towards the end of April, the males arriving 
first. Each seeks the same spot on the shore which he occupied during the 
preceding year, and lies down among the large stone blocks with which the flat 
beach is covered. About the middle of May the far more numerous females 
begin to make their appearance, and the sea-bear families take full possession 
of the strand. Each male is the sultan of a herd of females, varying in number 
according to his size and strength; the weaker brethren contenting themselves 
with half a dozen, while some of the sturdier and fiercer fellows preside over 
harems 200 strong. Jealousy and intrusion frequently give rise to terrible bat. 
tles. The full-grown male sea-bear, who is about four or five times larger than 
the female, grows to the length of eight feet, and owes his name to his shaggy 
blackish fur, and not to his disposition, which is far from being cruel or savage. 

Armed with a short spear, a single Aleut does not hesitate to attack the co- 
lossal whale. Approaching cautiously from behind in his baidar until he reach- 
es the head, he plunges his weapon into the animal’s flank under the fore fin, 
and then retreats as fast as his oar can carry him. If the spear has penetrated 
into the flesh, the whale is doomed ; it dies within the next two or three days, 
and the currents and the waves drift the carcass to the next shore. Each 
spear has its peculiar mark by which the owner is recognized. Sometimes the 
baidar does not escape in time, and the whale, maddened by pain, furiously 
lashes the water with his tail, and throws the baidar high up into the air, or 
sinks it deep into the sea. The whale-fishers are highly esteemed among the 
Aleuts, and their intrepidity and skill well deserve the general admiration. Of 
course many of the whales are lost. In the summer of 1831, 118 whales were 
wounded near Kadjack, of which only forty-three were found. The others 
may have been wafted far out into the sea to regale the sharks and sea-birds, 
or driven to more distant shores, whose inhabitants no doubt gladly welcomed 
their landing. Wrangell informs us that since 1833 the Russians have intro- 
duced the use of the harpoon, and engaged some English harpooners to teach 
the Aleuts a more profitable method of whale-catching, but we are not told 
bow the experiment has succeeded. 

The company, besides purchasing a great quantity of hate us-teeth from the 
Tchuktchi of the Bering’s Straits and Bristol Bay, send every year a detach- 
ment of Aleuts to the north coast of Aliaska, where generally a large number 
of young walruses, probably driven away by the older ones, who prefer the vi- 
cinity of the polar ice, spend the summer months. 

The walruses herd on the lowest edge of the coast which is within reach of 
the spring tides. When the Aleuts prepare to attack the animals, they take 
leave of each other as if they were going to face death, being no less afraid of 
the tusks of the walruses than of the awkwardness of their own companions. 


276 THE POLAR WORLD. 


Armed with lances and heavy axes, they stealthily approach the walruses, and 
having disposed their ranks, suddenly fall upon them with loud shouts, and en- 
deavor to drive them from the sea, taking care that none of them escape into 
the water, as in that case the rest would irresistibly follow and precipitate the 
huntsmen along with them. As soon as the walruses have been driven far 
enough up the strand, the Aleuts attack them with their lances, striking at 
them in places where the hide is not so thick, and then pressing with all their 
might against the spear, to render the wound deep and deadly. The slaughter- 
ed animals tumble one over the other and form large heaps, whilst the hunts- 
men, uttering furious shouts and intoxicated with carnage, wade through the 
bloody mire. They then cleave the jaws and extract the tusks, which are the 
chief objects of the slaughter of several thousand walruses, since neither their 
flesh nor their fat is made use of in the colony. The carcasses are left on the 
shore to be washed away by the spring tides, which soon efface the mark of the 
massacre, and in the following year the inexhaustible north sends new victims 
to the coast. 

Sir George Simpson, in his “ Overland Journey round the World,” relates 
that the bales of fur sent to Kiachta are covered with walrus hide; it is then 
made to protect the tea-chests which find their way to Moscow, and after all 
these wanderings, the far-travelled skin returns again to New Archangel, where, 
cut into small pieces and stamped with the company’s mark, it serves as a me- 
dium of exchange. 

The skin of the sea-lion (Otaria Steller) has but little value in the fur- 
trade, as its hair is short and coarse, but in many other respects the unwieldy 
animal is of considerable use to the Aleut. Its hide serves to cover his bai- 
dar; with the entrails he makes his water-tight kamleika, a wide, long shirt 
which he puts on over his dress to protect himself against the rain or the 
spray; the thick webs of its flippers furnish excellent soles for his boots, and 
the bristles of its lip figure as ornaments in his head-dress. 


27% 


FORT ST. MICHAEL. 


CHAPTER XXVI. 
ALASKA. 


Purchase of Alaska by the United States.—The Russian American Telegraph Scheme.—Whymper’s 
Trip up the Yukon.—Dogs.—The Start.—Extempore Water-filter.—Snow-shoes.—The Frozen Yu- 
kon.—Under-ground Houses.—Life at Nulato.—Cold Weather.—-Auroras.—-Approach of Summer. 
—Breaking-up of the Ice.—Fort Yukon.—Furs,—Descent of the Yukon.—Value of Goods.—Arctic 
and Tropical Life.—Moose-hunting.—Deer-corrals.—Lip Ornaments.—Canoes.—Four-post Coffin. 
—The Kenaian Indians.—The Aleuts.—Value of Alaska. 

N 1867 the Russian Government sold to the United States all of its posses- 
sions in America, comprising an area of more than 500,000 square miles, equal 

in extent to France, Germany, and Great Britain, stretching from 54° 40’ north 
latitude to the Arctic Ocean. The sum paid was about seven and a quarter 
millions of dollars. In this purchase is included Mount St. Elias, the highest 
peak in North America, rising to a height of more than 18,000 feet, and one of 
the loftiest single peaks on the globe. The real value of this new acquisition 
was quite unknown to both buyer and seller. In the southern part, and on the 
islands, there is considerable vegetation and forests of large trees; and it is 
said that there is some mineral wealth. But the greater part of the territory 
is essentially Arctic. It now bears the designation of the Territory of Alaska, 
an abbreviation of Aliaska, the name of the peninsula stretching into the North 

Pacific Ocean. 

Little information has as yet been gained of this region. The most impor- 
tant is the result of a journey up the River Yukon, performed in 1866 by Mr. 
Frederick Whymper, an artist connected with the Telegraph Expedition. This 
telegraph enterprise was undertaken in the confident expectation that the ca- 


278 THE POLAR WORLD. 


bles laid directly across the Atlantic would fail, and that telegraphic communica- 
tions between London and New York must be mainly by land. The proposed 


line, starting from the mouth of the Amoor, to which point it was already con-- 


structed, should bend around the head of the Sea of Okotsch, thence run east- 
ward and northward through Kamchatka to the 63d degree of north lati- 
tude, then cross the narrow Strait of Bering, and run southward through what 
was then Russian America, British Columbia, Washington Territory, and Ore- 
gon, to San Francisco; thence across the American continent to New York. 
A dispatch from London to New York by this route would travel something 
more than 25,000 miles, while the distance in a straight line across the Atlantic 
was about 3000 miles. The company undertaking this enterprise had survey- 
ed a considerable part of the distance, and expended some millions of dollars, 
when it was announced that the Atlantic cable was a success, and the work was 
abandoned. 

In the mean while Mr. Whymper undertook a trip up the great River Yu- 
kon. This is essentially an Arctic river, though its mouth is far southward of 
- the Arctic Circle. Itis probably the greatest of the Arctic rivers, and in length 
and volume of water is exceeded by not more than six rivers of the globe. 

The party of which Mr. Whymper was one consisted of six Europeans and 
three Indians. In October, 1865, they started from Unalachleet, on Norton 
Sound. <A trip of 200 miles would bring them to Nulato, a Russian trading- 
post 700 miles from the mouth of the river, which here runs almost parallel 
with the coast. 

They were to travel on foot over frozen rivers and through deep snow. To 
convey their supplies they had four sledges, each drawn by five dogs. Such a 
team will draw about 350 pounds. The dogs of this region are not of a good 
class. Mr. Whymper thinks they have in them quite as much of the wolf as of 
the dog. Their usual food is fish; their regular daily allowance in winter is a 
dried salmon a day: in summer they are expected to fish for themselves. They 
will, however, eat almost any thing, and, if they can get enough, will grow fat 
upon it. They even took kindly to beans, provided they were boiled soft—a 
thing which Kane could never induce his Esquimaux dogs to undertake. 

They set out on the 27th of October at 11 o’clock—that is, just after sun- 


rise—the thermometer standing at 30° below freezing-point.. Their trip was. 


begun a little too early, for the deep snow had not become packed hard, and a 
bit of thaw would transform it into slush; and the streams which they had to 
cross were not all frozen over. Fortunately, they had a light skin boat, which 
not only stood them in good stead now, but served them afterwards for more 
than a thousand miles of winter travel. Whenever they came to a frozen 
stream, the Indians would break a hole through the ice to get a draught of 
water. They always filled up the hole with loose snow, through which they 
sucked the water. This they said was to filter out the little red worms with 
which they said the water was infested. 

The travellers wore snow-shoes ; the use of which, although indispensable in 
going over the soft snow, is very fatiguing, obliging the wearers to lift a dozen 
pounds of snow at every step. Sometimes they had to break a path for the 


Rist 


279 


ALASKA. 


The men would go on ahead for a space, then return and start on 


sledges. 


Often they could not accom- 


again, thus traversing the distance three times. 


plish more than ten miles a day. 


THE FROZEN YUKON. 


er 
Ag 


At noon on the 11th of November, a fortnight after starting, they caught 
in the distance a glimpse of a faint bluish streak, varying the white monotony 


280 THE POLAR WORLD. 


of the scene. This they knew marked the course of the great river towards 
which they were tending. Pushing eagerly on, at sunset they broke out of the 
woods, shot down a steep bank, and stood on an immense plain of snow-covered 
ice. It was the Yukon, frozen solidly over as far as the eye could reach, except 
that here and there was a faint streak of open water. From bank to bank the 
distance was more than a mile, and this they afterwards found was the normal 
breadth of the river for seven hundred, miles below, and a thousand miles above. 
Not unfrequently it spread out into broad lagoons four or five miles wide. The 
Yukon is one of the great rivers of the globe. In length and volume of water 
it is exceeded only by the Amazon, the Mississippi, and perhaps the Plata. It 
exceeds the Nile, the Ganges, the Volga, the Amoor, and has affluents to which 
the Rhine and Rhone are but brooks. It rises far within the British Posses- 
sions, and its head-waters almost interlock with those of the Mackenzie, which 
empties into the Arctic Ocean. A portage of only eighty miles intervenes be- 
tween these rivers at points where each is navigable for boats forty feet long, 
and drawing two feet of water. . Over this portage the Hudson’s Bay Company 
transport upon men’s backs the goods for trading with the Indians on the Up- 
per Yukon. Mr. Whymper thinks that a flat-bottomed stern-wheel steamer, 
like those used on the Upper Mississippi, could ascend the Yukon for eighteen 
hundred miles, and tap the whole fur-bearing region. But as the river is frozen 
solid for eight months out of the twelve, the steamer could hardly make more 
than one trip a year. 

The travellers stopped two days at the Indian winter village of Coltog. The 
houses were built mainly under-ground. First, a little shanty is put up, under 
which a hole like a well is dug; thence a branch like a sewer runs some yards, 
along which one must crawl on hands and knees to reach the proper dwelling, 


W\! Levelof groun Le 


UNDER-GROUND HOUSE. 


which is a square hole in the earth, over which is raised a low dome-shaped 
roof, with a hole in the top to let out the smoke of the fire, which is built di- 
rectly underneath. When the fire gets low the smoke-hole is covered with a 
skin, which keeps in not only the heat but the manifold scents engendered by 
the crowded occupancy. The slight heat from below makes the roof a favorite 
trysting-place for the dogs, and every now and then one comes tumbling down 
through the smoke-hole upon the tire below, adding the odor of singed hair to 
those arising from stale fish, old skin garments, and other unnamable abomina- 
tions. Coltog is arather favorable sample of an Indian winter village in Alaska. 

From Coltog the travellers proceeded up the river two days’ journey to Nu- 
lato, the most northern and most inland of the Russian Company’s fur-posts, 


ALASKA, | 281 


It stands in latitude 65°, and longitude 158°, upon a level slip of land bounded 
on two sides by the great river and one of its main branches. Notwithstand- 
ing the high latitude, trees of considerable size grow there, and during the brief 
summer the grass is luxuriant, and berries abound. The post isa little fortress, 
surrounded by a picket, which is closed at night to exclude the Indians, who 
camp around in large numbers. The house appropriated to the travellers was 
built of logs, forming one side of the little square. The windows were of seal- 
gut instead of glass; and as there is during the winter only two or three hours 
of daylight, the light was never any of the best. By caulking the floor with 
moss, and carpeting it with skins, the main room was kept comfortably warm, 
except near the floor. If one hung a dainp garment from the rafters it would 
steam at the top, while frozen stiff at the bottom. The temperature at the 
roof was sometimes 65°, while near the floor it was 4°. Water for daily use 
was hauled on a sledge from the river. To get at it, they were obliged to 
break through solid ice four feet thick. Nevertheless, the Indians contrive to 
catch immense quantities of fish by constructing a weir of wicket-work, and 
keeping holes open in the ice. 


PISH-TRAPS ON TIE YUKON. 


Winter fairly set in soon after the party had taken up their abode at Nulato. 
On the 2d of November the thermometer indicated the moderate temperature of 
2° above zero. It suddenly fell to 20° below zero, and kept on steadily falling 
until the 5th of December, when it sunk to 58° below zero, that is, ninety de- 
grees below the freezing-point of water. This was the coldest day, but there 
were during December and January eleven days when the thermometer sunk 
below the freezing-point of mercury. It is to be noted that after a certain 
point the human system seems to take little additional note of the temperature 
as indicated by the thermometer. When the mercury froze, 72° below the 
freezing-point of water, it did not seem very cold, provided there was no wind; 
while one day when the thermometer was 44° higher, we find this note: “A 
north wind blew, and made us feel the cold very decidedly. It is wonderful 
_how searching the wind is in this northern climate; each little seam, slit, or 


THE POLAR WORLD. 


282 


One day when 


tear in your fur or woollen clothing makes you aware of its existence, and 


one’s nose, ears, and angles generally are the special sufferers.” 


During the winter Mr. Whymper made many capital sketches out-of-doors, 


when it was at 32°, a half-clad Indian came to the post with his child, no better 
while the temperature was sixty degrees below freezing-point. 


clad, bringing some game; he did not seem to think the day remarkably cold. 


The shortest day of the winter was December 21, when the sun was an hour 


the thermometer stood at 10°, an expedition started off for the coast: and once 
and fifty minutes above the horizon. 


Among these 


Bis, 


283 


ALASKA. 


It was not the con- 


kable aurora borealis on the 21st of December. 
ventional arch, but a graceful, undulating, ever-changing snake of pale electric 


1s a remar 


= 


" NUE HN 
ny Wi y ‘i 


BREAKING UP OF THE ICE. 


light; evanescent colors, pale as those of a lunar rainbow, ever and again flit. 
ting through it, and long streamers and scintillations moving upward to the 


bright stars, which shone distinctly through its hazy ethereal form. The night 


284 : THE POLAR WORLD. 


was beautifully calm and clear; cold, but not intensely so, the thermometer 
standing at +16°. 

So passed the long winter months. Early in April there came signs of sum- 
mer—ior in the Arctic regions there is properly no spring or autumn. On the 
9th flies made their appearance. Next day the willows were seen budding. 
But for another fortnight the weather was variable. On the 28th the first 
goose put in his appearance. But for another fortnight the ice in the river re- 
mained unbroken. The first sign of breaking up was on the 12th of May. 
That day mosquitoes showed themselves. Next day came swallows and wild 
geese in abundance. Still another fortnight, during which a steady stream of 
broken ice came down, bearing with it whole trees torn up from the banks. 
On the 24th of May the river was tolerably clear of ice. 

The Russians had already got ready for a trading-excursion up the Yukon 
to an Indian trading-place 240 miles above, the farthest point ever visited by 
them. They had a huge skin boat, fitted with mast and sail, manned by eight 
men, carrying, besides men and provisions, two tons of goods. The Americans 
went with them, though meaning to go far beyond. They had their own little 
boat, laden with six or seven hundred pounds of stores of all kinds. The river 
was still full of ice and drift-wood. A large tree would sometimes pass under 
the bow of the Russian boat, and fairly lift it out of the water. These skin 
boats seem to be the best of all for this kind of navigation. They give way 
without harm to a blow which would break through a bark canoe. 

One can scarcely conceive the rapidity with which summer comes on in 
these regions. On the 27th of May the river was yet full of ice. Ten days 
after they had to lie by during the noontide heat, the thermometer standing at 
80° in the shade. 

The Americans reached Fort Yukon on the 9th of June, having, in twenty- 
nine days, rowed and tracked six hundred miles. A few weeks later, with the 
current in their favor, they descended the same space in seven days. Fort Yu- 
kon lies a little within what was formerly Russian America, and the Hudson’s 
Bay Company paid a small sum for the privilege of its occupancy. Here the 
Americans remained a month, being hospitably entertained. The fort had 
quite a civilized Jook. There were freshly-plastered walls, glazed windows, 
open fireplaces, magazines, store-houses, and a great fur-room. Camped 
around were Indians of many tribes, locally designated as ‘‘ Foolish Folks,” 
“ Wood Folks,” “ Birch-bark Folks,” “ Rat Folks,” “ Hill Folks,” and the like. 
Some wore their native costumes; others were tricked out in the odds and 
ends of civilized attire. The fur-room was a rare sight. From the beams 
hung marten-skins by the thousand, while ‘the cheaper sorts were lying in huge 
heaps on the floor. Skins are here the regular currency. The beaver is the 
unit, estimated at about half a dollar. Two martens count as one beaver, and 
so on by a recognized scale. Fox-skins are numerous. The most valuable is 
that of the black fox, worth twenty times more than any other. There is a story 
that an unlucky employé of the company once bought the skin of a white fox, 
which the Indian seller had cunningly dyed black, paying for it more pounds 
than he should have paid shillings. The overplus was deducted from his salary. 


ALASKA. Ns 285 


On the 8th of July the travellers started on their return journey, under a 
salute from their hospitable hosts. They canoed down the river day and night, 
only stopping two or three times a day to prepare their tea and cook their fish. 
It was a holiday excursion, the current sweeping them along at the rate of four 


Ne 


“NOMNXA LHOT 


miles an hour. Once, by aid of rowing, they made forty-five miles in seven 
hours. They followed the river clear to its mouth. For the seven hundred 
miles below Nulato, near where they had struck the river on their upward 
journey, the region is comparatively poor. It lies out of the way of traders; 
fish are plenty and cheap enough. Five needles were considered a fair price 


286 THE POLAR WORLD. 


for a thirty-pound salmon; and, says Mr. Whymper, “tobacco went. farther 
than we had ever known it to do before.” On the 23d of July they reached 
the mouth of the river, whence two days’ sailing up the coast brought them to 
St. Michael’s. The whole voyage of 1300 miles between Fort Yukon and St. 


A DEER CORRAL. 


Michael’s had taken fifteen and a half days. At St. Michael’s they were told 
that the telegraphic enterprise had been abandoned, and that all employed ‘in it 
were to return to California. 

The result of this expedition adds considerably to our knowledge of the 


“7 


ALASKA. 287 


Arctic regions. It confirms what has been told us by Richardson, Kane, Hall, 
and all other Arctic explorers as to the superabundance of animal life existing 
in certain seasons in the northern regions. Strange as it may seem, tropical 
and semi-tropical countries are almost bare of living creatures. Strain and his 
party wandered for weeks through the thick forests of Central America, never 
seeing an animal, and rarely a bird, and the river appeared to be almost destitute 
of fish. But life abounds in the Arctic regions. The rivers swarm with fish 
almost begging to be caught. The Kamchatdales have reindeer by the thou- 
sand. Whymper and his friends, during their brief stay at Nulato, bought 
the skins of eight hundred white hares with which to cover their blankets ; the 
Indians had used the flesh for food. Moose-meat, varied by beaver, is the 
standing food of those who have got tired of salmon. The delicacies are a 
moose’s nose and a beaver’s tail. So abundant are the moose on the Yukon 
that the natives think it hardly worth while to waste powder and shot in kill- 
ing them. When an Indian in his canoe comes upon a moose swimming in 
the water, he gives chase until the creature is fatigued, and then stabs it to the 
heart with his knife. They have also an ingenious way of corralling deer. 
They build a long elliptical inclosure of stakes upon a trail made by the deer. 
Between each pair of stakes is a slip-noose. A herd of deer is driven into this 
inclosure; they try to run out be- 
tween the stakes, get caught by the 
nooses, and so fall a ready prey to the 
guns of the hunters. 

The native population of Alaska 
is estimated at about 60,000. From 
the southern boundary up to Mount 
St. Elias and on the islands live the 
‘IXoloschians, estimated at 20,000. 
They are of middling stature, of 
copper-colored complexion, with round 
faces, thick lips, and black hair. The 
men wear various ornaments in their 
ears and noses; the women, when 
young, insert a piece of ivory in a slit 
made in the under lip, increasing it in 
size from year to year, until at last the 
ornament gets to be four inches wide, 

rs: projecting six inches from the side of 

the face. The baidars or canoes of 

the Koloschians are dug out of a single tree, and will carry from twelve to 

fifty persons. They are usually propelled by paddles, though upon long voy- 

ages they are rigged with two or more masts and sails of matting or canvas. 

They, and indeed all of the tribes, do not bury their dead, but deposit their 

remains in an oblong box raised upon posts, with the canoe and other pos- 
sessions of the deceased over the box. 

Next northward of the Koloschians come the Kenaians, who stretch almost 


288 THE POLAR WORLD. 


A BAIDAR. 


across the continent to Hudson’s Bay. Those living upon the Yukon call them 
Co-yukons, that is, People of the Great River, “ Yukon” in their language sig- 
nifying river. They are much feared by the surrounding tribes, and have often 


FOUR-POST COFFIN.. 


given no little trouble to their Russian masters. Many of these wear a bone 
ornament stuck through the septum of the nose. 


ALASKA. 289 


TANANA INDIAN, 


The Aleuts, who inhabit the Aleutian Islands are, to a considerable extent, of 
mixed blood, Russian and Koloschian. They have advanced in civilization far 
beyond any other of the Esquimaux race. Not a few of them have received a 
fair education, and among the priests of the Greek Church there are not a few 
who go through the service of the church in the Greek language, with a full 
understanding of the words of the service. 

Quite nine-tenths of the whole territory of Alaska is purely Arctic, and is 
not only uninhabited but uninhabitable. The other tenth is now sparsely in- 
habited, and there is little reason to suppose that the population will ever be 
greatly beyond its present number. Except in special cases, the possible popu- 
lation of a country is measured by its agricultural capacity. Leaving out of 
‘view the extreme northern parts of Alaska, the best accounts as yet accessible 
show that at St. Michael’s lettuce, parsnips, and turnips can be raised by sowing 
them in beds. At Fort Yukon potatoes not much larger than cherries can be 
raised. At Sitka potatoes will grow a little larger. On some of the islands 
the inhabitants can even venture upon barley. The forest-trees, which flourish 
‘in isolated parts, will soon be exhausted, as far as any profitable use of them is 
concerned. Fish and furs constitute almost the sole value of Alaska. The 
fisheries are among the most valuable in the world. The furs will soon be ex- 
hausted, unless prompt measures are taken to prevent the capture of fur-bearing 
animals in the breeding season. 

19 


290 THE POLAR WORLD. 


CHAPTER XXVII. 
THE ESQUIMAUX. 


Their wide Extension.— Climate of the Regions they inhabit— Their physical Appearance.— Their 
Dress.—Snow Huts.—The Kayak, or the Baidar.—Hunting Apparatus and Weapons.—Enmity be- 
tween the Esquimaux and the Red Indian.—The ‘‘ Bloody Falls. ’’—Chase of the Reindeer.—Bird- 
catching.— Whale-hunting.—Various Stratagems employed to catch the Seal.—The ‘‘ Keep-kuttuk.” 
—Bear-hunting.— Walrus-hunting.— Awaklok and Myouk.—The Esquimaux Dog.—Games and 
Sports.—Angekoks.— Moral Character.— Self-reliance.—Intelligence.—Iligliuk.— Commercial Ea- 
gerness of the Esquimaux.—Their Voracity.—Seasons of Distress. 

F all the uncivilized nations of the globe none range over a wider space 
than the Esquimaux, whose various tribes extend from Greenland and 

Labrador, over all the coasts of Arctic America, to the Aleutic chain and the ex- 
treme north-eastern point of Asia. Many are independent, others subject to 
the Russian, Danish, or British rule. In Baffin’s Bay and Lancaster Sound they 
accost the whale-fisher; they meet him in the Icy Sea beyond Bering’s Straits ; 
and while their most southerly tribes dwell as low as the latitude of Vienna, 
others sojourn as high as the 80th degree of northern latitude, and probably 
roam even still higher on the still undiscovered coasts beyond—a nearness to 
the pole no other race is known to reach. 

The old Scandinavian settlers in Greenland expressed their dislike for them 
in the contemptuous name of Skraelingers (screamers or wretches) ; the seamen 
of the Hudson’s Bay ships, who trade annually with the natives of Northern Lab- 
rador and the Savage Islands, have long called them “Seymos” or “ Sucke- 
mos,” names evidently derived from the cries of “Seymo,” or “'Teymo,” with 
which they greet the arrival of the ships; they speak of themselves simply as 
*Tnuit,” or men. 

With few exceptions the whole of the vast region they inhabit lies beyond 
the extremest limits of forest growth, in the most desolate and inhospitable 
countries of the globe. The rough winds of the Polar Sea almost perpetually 
blow over their bleak domains, and thus only a few plants of the hardest na- 
ture—lichens and mosses, grasses, saxifragas, and willows—are able to subsist 
there, and to afford a scanty supply of food to a few land animals and birds. 
Ill indeed would it fare with the Esquimaux, if they were reduced to live upon 
the niggardly produce of the soil; but the sea, with its cetaceans and fishes, 
amply provides for their wants. Thus they are never found at any considera- 
ble distance from the ocean, and they line a considerable part of the coasts 
of the Arctic seas without ever visiting the interior. 

It may easily be supposed that a race whose eastern branches have for sey- 
eral centuries been under the influence of the Danes and English, while in the 
extreme west it has long been forced to submit to Russian tyranny, and whose 
central and northern tribes rarely come into contact with Europeans, must 


THE ESQUIMAUX. 291 


show some variety in its manners and mode of life, and that the same descrip- 
tion is not applicable in all points to the disciples of the Moravian brothers in 
Labrador or Greenland, to the Greek-Catholic Aleuts, and to the far more nu- 
merous heathen Esquimaux of continental America, or of the vast archipelago 
beyond its northern shores. Upon the whole, however, it is curious to observe 
how exactly, amidst all diversity of time and place, these people have preserved 
unaltered their habits and manners. The broad, flat face, widest just below the 
eyes, the forehead generally narrow and tapering upward ; the eyes narrow and 
more or less oblique; all indicate a Mongol or Tartar type, differing greatly 
from the features of the conterminous Red Indian tribes. Their complexion, 
when relieved from smoke and dirt, also approaches more nearly to white than 

that of their copper-colored neighbors. Most of the men are rather under the 
‘medium English size, but they can not be said to be a dwarfish race. Thus 
Simpson saw in Camden Bay three Esquimaux who measured from five feet 
ten inches to six feet; and among the natives of Smith Strait, Kane, a rather 
short man, met with one a foot taller than himself. The females, however, are 
all comparatively short. The Esquimaux are all remarkably broad-shouldered, 
and though their muscles are not so firm as those of the European seamen, yet 
they surpass in bodily strength all the other natives of America. In both sexes 
the hands and feet are remarkably small and well-formed. From exercise in 
hunting the seal and walrus, the muscles of the arms and back are much devel- 
oped in the men, who are moreover powerful wrestlers. When young, the Ks- 
quimaux looks cheerful and good-humored, and the females exhibit, when laugh- 
ing, a set of very white teeth. Could they be induced to wash their faces, 
many of these savage beauties would be found to possess a complexion scarcely 
a shade darker than that of a deep brunette; but though disinclined to ablu- 
tions, for which the severity of their climate may serve as an excuse, they are 
far from neglecting the arts of the toilette. 

Unlike the Hare Indian and Dog-Rib females, in whom the hard rule of their 
lords and masters has obliterated every trace of female vanity, the Esquimaux 
women tastefully plait their straight, black, and glossy hair; and hence we may 
infer that greater deference is paid to them by the men. They also generally 
tattoo their chin, forehead, and cheeks, not, however, as in the South Sea Isl- 
ands, with elaborate patterns, but with a few simple lines, which have a not un- 
pleasing effect. 

From Bering’s Straits eastward as far as the Mackenzie, the males pierce 
the lower lip near each angle of the mouth, and fill the apertures with labrets 
of blue or green quartz, or of ivory resembling buttons. Many also pierce the 
septum of the nose, and insert a dentalium shell or ivory needle. Like the Red 
Indians, they are fond of beads, but their most common ornament consists in 
strings of teeth of the fox, wolf, or musk-ox—sometimes many hundreds in 
number—which are either attached to the lower part of the jacket, or fastened 
as a belt round the waist. 

Their dress is admirably adapted to the severity of their climate. With 
their two pair of breeches made of reindeer or seal skin, the outer one having 
the hair outside and the inner one next the body, and their two jackets—of 


292 THE POLAR WORLD. 


which the upper one is provided with a great hood—with their water-tight 
seal-skin boots, lined with the downy skins of birds, and their enormous gloves, 
they bid defiance to the severest cold, and even in the hardest weather pursue 
their occupations in the open air whenever the moon is in the sky, or during 
the doubtful meridian twilight. ‘The women are perfect in the art of making 
water-tight shirts, or “kamleikas,” of the entrails of the seal or walrus, which 


in summer serve to replace their heavy skin jackets. They also sew their boots — 


so tight that not the slightest wet can penetrate, and with a neatness of which 
the best shoemaker in Europe might be proud. The dress of the two sexes is 
much alike, the outer jacket having a pointed skirt before and behind, but that 
of the females is a little longer. ‘The women also wear larger hoods, in which 
they carry their children; and sometimes (as in Labrador) the inner boot has 
in front a long, pointed flap to answer the same purpose. 

The Esquimaux are equally expert in the construction of their huts. As 

soon as the lengthening days induce the tribes about Cape Bathurst and the 
mouth of the Mackenzie to move seaward on the ice to the seal-hunt, a marvel- 
lous system of architecture comes into use, unknown among any other Ameri- 
can nations. ‘The fine pure snow has by that time acquired, under the action 
of the winds and frosts, sufficient coherence to form an admirable light build- 
ing material, which the Esquimaux skillfully employ for the erection of most 
comfortable dome-shaped houses. A circle is first traced on the smooth sur- 
face of the snow, and slabs for raising the walls cut from within, so as to clear 
a space down to the ice, which is to form the floor of the dwelling, and whose 
evenness was previously ascertained by probing. The slabs for the dome are 
cut from some neighboring spot. The crevices between the slabs are plugged 
up, and the seams closed, by throwing a few shovelfuls of loose snow over the 
fabric. Two men generally work together, and when the dome is completed 
the one within cuts a low door and creeps out. The walls being only three or 
four inches thick, admit a very agreeable light, which serves for ordinary pur- 
‘poses; if more is required, a window of transparent ice is introduced. The 
proper thickness of the walls is of some importance; one of a few inches ex- 
cludes the wind, yet keeps down the damp so as to prevent dripping from the 
interior. The furniture of this crystal hut is also formed of snow (the seats, 
the table, the sleeping-places), and, when covered with skins, is very comfort- 
able. By means of antechambers and porches, with the opening turned to lee- 
ward, warmth is insured, and social intercourse facilitated by contiguous build- 
ing, doors of communication, and covered passages. By constant practice the 
Esquimaux can raise such huts almost as quickly as we could pitch a tent. 
When M‘Clintock for a few nails hired four Esquimaux to build a hut for his 
party, they completed it in an hour, though it was eight feet in diameter and 
five and a half feet high. 

In spite of its fragile materials, this snow-house is durable, for the wind has 
little effect on its dome-like form, and it resists the thaw until the sun acquires 
a very considerable power. Of course a strong fire could not possibly be made 
within, but such is not needed by the Esquimaux. The train-oil lamp suffices 
to dry his wet clothes and boots when he returns from hunting; and the crowd: 


THE ESQUIMAUX. 293 


ing of the inmates engenders a sufficiently high temperature to keep him 
warm. Having also a decided predilection for raw flesh and fat, he requires 
no great expenditure of fuel to cook his dinner. The lower part of his dwell- 
ing being under the surface of the snow, likewise promotes its warmth. 

But of whatever materials the hut of the Esquimaux may be constructed— 
of snow, as I have just described, or, as is frequently the case, of stones, or 
earth, or drift-wood—everywhere, from Bering’s Straits to Smith Sound, it is 
equally well adapted to the climate and to circumstances. Thus when Dr. 
Scoresby landed in 1822 on the eastern coast of Greenland, he discovered some 
deserted Esquimaux huts, which gave proof both of the severity of the cli- 
mate, and of the ingenuity evinced in counteracting its rigors. A horizontal 
tunnel about fifteen feet long, and so low as to render it necessary to creep 
through on hands and feet, opens with one end to the south, and leads through 
the other into the interior of the hut. This rises but little above the surface 
of the earth, and, as it 1s generally overgrown with moss or grass, is scarcely 
to be distinguished from the neighboring soil. The floor of the tunnel is fre- 
quently on a level with that of the hut, but often also it is made to slant down- 
ward and upward, so that the colder, and consequently heavier, air without is 
still more effectually kept off from the warmer air within ; and thus the Esqui- 
maux, without ever having studied physics, make a practical use of one of its 
fundamental laws. But their most ingenious invention is unquestionably that 
of the one-seated boat, the “ kayak,” or the “baidar.” <A light, long, and nar- 
row frame of wood, or seal or walrus bone, is covered water-tight with seal- 
skin, leaving but one circular hole in the middle. In this the Esquimaux sits 
with outstretched legs, and binds a sack (which is formed of the intestines of 
the whale, or of the skins of young seals, and fits in the opening) so tightly 
round his middle, that even in a heavy sea not a drop of water can penetrate 
into the boat. Striking with his light oar (which is paddled at each extrem- 
ity) alternately to the right and to the left, his spear or harpoon before him, 
and maintaining his equilibrium with all the dexterity of a rope-dancer, he flies 
like an arrow over the water; and should a wave upset him, he knows how to 
right himself by the action of the paddle. The “ oomiak,” or women’s boat, 
likewise consists of a frame-work covered with seal-skins, and is roomy enough 
to hold ten or twelve people, with benches for the women who row or paddle. 
The mast supports a triangular sail made of the entrails of seals, and easily 
distended by the wind. The men would consider it beneath their dignity to 
row in one of these omnibus boats ; they leave this labor entirely to the women, 
who, to the tact of a monotonous song, slowly propel the oomiak through the 
water. Judging of foreign customs by their own, the Esquimaux between the 
Mackenzie and Coppermine rivers made the strange mistake, as Sir John Rich- 
ardson relates, of supposing that the English sailors whom they saw rowing in 
company were women. One of them even asked whether all white females had 
beards. 

The weapons of the Esquimaux, and their various fishing and hunting im- 
plements, likewise show great ingenuity and skill. Their oars are tastefully 
inlaid with walrus-teeth ; they have several kinds of spears or darts, adapted to 


294 . THE POLAR WORLD. 


the sizeof the various animals which they hunt; and their elastic bows, 
strongly bound with strings of seal-gut, drive a six-foot arrow with unerring 
certainty to a distant mark. To bring down a larger animal, the shaft is 
armed with a sharp flint or a pointed bone; if intended to strike a bird, it is 
smaller, and blunted. 

The harpoons and lances used in killing whales or seals have long shafts of 
wood or of the narwhal’s tooth, and the barbed point is so constructed that, 
when the blow takes effect, it is left sticking in the body of the animal, while 
the shaft attached to it by a string is disengaged from the socket, and becomes 
a buoy of wood. Seal-skins, blown up like bladders, are likewise used as buoys 
for the whale-spears, being adroitly stripped from the animal so that all the nat- 
ural apertures are easily made air-tight. 

With equal industry and skill the Esquimaux put to use almost every part 
of the land and marine animals which they chase. Knives, spear-points, and 
fish-hooks are made of the horns and bones of the deer. The ribs of the whale 
are used in roofing huts or in the construction of sledges, where drift-timber is 
scarce. Strong cord is made from strips of seal-skin hide, and the sinews of 
musk-oxen and deer furnish bow-strings, or cord to make nets or snares. In 
default of drift-wood, the bones of the whale are employed for the construction 
of their sledges, in pieces fitted to each other with neatness, and firmly sewed 
together. 

During the long confinement to their huts or “igloos” in the dark winter 
months, the men execute some very fair figures in bone, and in walrus or fossil 
ivory, besides making fish-hooks, knife-handles, and other instruments neatly of 
these materials, or of metal or wood. 

Thus in all these respects the Esquimaux are as superior to the Red Indians 
as they are in strength and personal courage; and yet no Norwegian can more 
utterly despise the filthy Lapp, and no orthodox Mussulman look down with 
ereater contempt upon a “ giaour,” than the Loucheux or Cheppewayan upon 
the Esquimaux, who in his eyes is no better than a brute, and whom he ap- 
proaches only to kill. 

In his “ Voyage to the Coppermine River” Hearne relates a dreadful instance 
of this bloodthirsty hatred. The Indians who accompanied him having heard 
that some Esquimaux had erected their summer huts near the mouth of that 
river, were at once seized with a tiger-like fury. Hearne, the only European of 
the party, had not the power to restrain them, and he might as well have at- 
tempted to touch the heart of an ice-bear as to move the murderous band to 
pity. As craftily and noiselessly as serpents they drew nigh, and, when the 
midnight sun verged on the horizon, with a dreadful yell they burst on the huts 
of their unsuspecting victims. Not one of them escaped, and the monsters de- 
lighted to prolong the misery of their death-struggle by repeated wounds. An 
old woman had both her eyes torn out before she received the mortal blow. A 
young girl fled to Hearne for protection, who used every effort to save her, 
but in vain. In 1821 some human skulls lying on the spot still bore testimony 
to this cruel slaughter, and the name of the “ Bloody Falls,” given by Hearne to 
the scene of the massacre, will convey its memory to distant ages. No wonder 


THE ESQUIMAUX. 295 


that the hate of the Esquimaux is no less intense, and that they also pursue the 
Indians, wherever they can, with their spears and arrows, like wild beasts. 

“Year after year,” says Sir John Richardson, “sees the Esquimaux on the 
Polar coast of America occupied in a uniform circle of pursuits. When the 
rivers open in spring, they proceed to the rapids and falls to spear the salmon, 
which at that season come swimming stream upward. At the same time, or 
earlier in more southern localities, they hunt the reindeer, which drop their 
young on the coasts and islands while the snow is only partially melted. Where 
the open country affords the huntsman no opportunity of approaching his game 
unperceived, deep pits are dug in the snowy ravines, and superficially covered 
with snow-tablets. The wind soon effaces the traces of the human hand, and 
thus many reindeer are snared.” 

In summer the reindeer are killed partly by driving them from islands or — 
narrow necks of land into the sea, and then spearing them from their kayaks, 
and partly by shooting them from behind heaps of stones raised for the purpose 
of watching them, and imitating their peculiar bellow or grunt. Among the 
various artifices which they employ for this purpose, one of the most ingenious 
consists in two men walking directly from the deer they wish to kill, when the 
animal almost always follows them. As soon as they arrive at a large stone, 
one of the men hides behind it with his bow, while the other, continuing to 
walk on, soon leads the deer within range of his companion’s arrows. 

The multitudes of swans, ducks, and geese resorting to the morasses of the 
northern coasts to breed, likewise aid in supplying the Esquimaux with food 
during their short but busy summer of two months. For their destruction a 
very ingenious instrument has been invented. Six or eight small balls made of 
walrus-tooth and pierced in the middle are separately attached to as many 
thongs of animal sinew, which are tied together at the opposite end. When 
east into the air the diverging balls describe circles—like the spokes of a wheel 
—and woe to the unfortunate bird that comes within their reach. 

On the coasts frequented by whales, the month of August is devoted to the 
pursuit of these animals; a successful chase insuring a comfortable winter to 
a whole community. Their capture requires an association of labor; hence 
along the coasts of the Polar Sea the Esquimaux unite their huts into villages, 
for whose site a bold point of coast is generaily chosen, where the water is 
deep enough to float a whale. 

When one of these huge creatures is seen lying on the water, a dozen kay- 
aks or more cautiously paddle up astern of him, till a single canoe, preceding 
the rest, comes close to him on one quarter, so as to enable the men to drive 
the spear into the animal with all the force of both arms. This spear has a 
long line of thong and an inflated seal-skin attached to it. The stricken whale 
immediately dives ; but when he re-appears after some time, all the canoes again 
paddle towards him, some warning being given by the seal-skin buoy ficating 
on the surface. Each man being furnished like the first, they repeat the blow 
as often as they find an opportunity, till perhaps every line has been thus em- 
ployed. After chasing him in this manner sometimes for half a day, he is at 
length so wearied by the resistance of the buoys and exhausted by loss of 


296 THE POLAR WORLD. 


blood as to be obliged to rise more and more often to the surface, and is itt 
killed and towed ashore. 

Though in many parts seals are caught at every season of the year, yet the 
great hunt takes place in spring, when they play in the open lanes near the 
coasts, or come out on the ice to bask in the sun. In spite of their wariness, 
they are no match for the Esquimaux, who have carefully studied all their 
habits from infancy. Sometimes the hunter approaches them by imitating 
their forms and motions so perfectly that the poor animals are not undeceived 
until one of them is struck with his lance; or else, by means of a white screen 
pushed forward on a sledge, the hunter comes within range and picks out the 
best-conditioned of the band. As the season draws near midsummer, the seals 
are more approachable; their eyes being so congested by the glare of the sun 
that they are sometimes nearly blind. In winter they are assaulted whiie 
working at their breathing-holes or when coming up for respiration. 

If an Esquimaux has any reason to suppose that a seal is busy gnawing bes 
neath the ice, he immediately attaches himself to the place, and seldom leaves 
it, even in the severest frost, till he has succeeded in killing the animal. For 
this purpose he first builds a snow-wall about four feet in height, to shelter him 
from the wind, and seating himself under the lee of it, deposits his spears, lines, 
and other implements upon several little forked sticks inserted into the snow, 
in order to prevent the smallest noise being made in moving them when want- 
ed. But the most curious precaution consists in tying his own knees together 
with a thong so securely as to prevent any rustling of his clothes, which might 
otherwise alarm the animal. In this situation a man will sit quietly sometimes 
for hours together, attentively listening to any noise made by the seal, and 
sometimes using the “ keep-kuttuk” in order to ascertain whether the animal 
is still at work below. This simple little instrument—which affords another 
striking proof of Esquimaux ingenuity—is merely a slender rod of bone (as 
delicate as a fine wire, that the seal may not see it), nicely rounded, and having 
a point at one end and a knob at the other. It is inserted into the ice, and 
the knob remaining above the surface, informs the fisherman by its motion 
whether the seal is employed in making his hole; if not, it remains undis- 
turbed, and the attempt is given up in that place. When the hunter supposes 
the hole to be nearly completed, he cautiously lifts his spear (to which the line 
has been previously attached), and as soon as the blowing of the seal is distinctly 
heard—and the ice consequently very thin—he drives it into him with the force of 
both arms and then cuts away with his “panna,” or well-sharpened knife, the 
remaining crust of ice, to enable him to repeat the wounds and get him out. 
The “neituk” (Phoca hispida), being the smallest seal, is held, while struggling, 
either simply by hard, or by putting the line round a spear with the point stuck 
into the ice. For the “ oguke” (Phoca barbata), the line is passed round the 
man’s lee or arm; and for a walrus, round his body, his feet being at the same 
time firmly set against a hummock of ice, in which position these people can, 
from habit, hold against a very heavy strain. A boy of fifteen is equal to the 
killing of a “neituk,” but it requires a full-grown person to master either of the 
larger animals. This sport is not without the danger which adds to the ex- 


THE ESQUIMAUX. 297 


eitement of success, particularly if the creature struck by the hunter be a large 
seal or walrus ; for woe betide him if he does not instantly plant his feet firmly 
in the ice, and throw himself in such a position that the strain on the line is as 
nearly as possible brought into the direction of the length of the spine of his 
back and axis of his lower limbs. A transverse pull from one of these power- 
ful animals would double him up across the air-hole, and perhaps break his back ; 
or if the opening be large, as it often is when the spring is advanced, he 
would be dragged under water and drowned. 

As the Polar bear is as great a seal-hunter as the Esquimaux, one of the 
usual methods employed by the latter to catch these bears is to imitate the mo- 
tions of the seal by lying flat on the ice until the bear approaches sufficiently 
near to insure a good aim; but a gun is necessary to practise this stratagem 
with success. Seeman (“ Voyage of the Herald”) mentions another ingenious 
mode of capturing the bear by taking advantage of the well-known voracity of 
the animal, which generally swallows its food without much mastication. A 
thick and strong piece of whalebone, about four inches broad and two feet long, 
is rolled up into a small compass, and carefully enveloped in blubber, forming 
around ball. It is then placed in the open air at a low temperature, where it 
soon becomes hard and frozen. The natives, armed with their knives, bows, and 
arrows, together with this frozen bait, proceed in quest of the bear. As soon 
as the animal is seen, one of the natives discharges an arrow at it; the monster, 
smarting from this assault, chases the party, then in full retreat, until, meeting 
with the frozen blubber dropped in his path, he greedily swallows it, and con- 
tinues the pursuit—doubtless fancying that there must be more where that 
came from. The natural heat of the body soon causes the blubber to thaw, 
when the whalebone, thus freed, springs back, and frightfully lacerates the 
stomach. The writhing brute falls down in helpless agony, and the Esquimaux, 
hurrying to the spot, soon put an end to his sufferings. 

The Esquimaux of Smith Sound hunt the bear with the assistance of their 
dogs, which are carefully trained not to engage in contest with the bear, but to 
retard his flight. While one engrosses his attention ahead, a second attacks 
him in the rear, always alert, and each protecting the other; and thus it rarely 
happens that they are seriously injured, or that they fail to delay the animal un- 
til their masters come up. If there be two hunters, the bear is killed easily ; 
for one makes a feint of thrusting a spear at the right side, and as the animal 
turns with his arms towards the threatened attack, the left is unprotected, and 
receives the death-wound. But if the hunter is alone, he grasps the lance firm- 
ly in his hands, and provokes the animal to pursue him by moving rapidly 
across its path, and then running as if to escape. But hardly is its long, un- 
wieldy body extended for the chase, than, with a rapid jump, the hunter doubles 
on his track, and runs back towards his first position. The bear is in the act 
of turning after him again, when the lance is plunged into the left side below 
the shoulder. So dexterously has this thrust to be made, that an unpractised 
hunter has often to leave his spear in the side of his prey and run for his life; 
but even then, if well-aided by the dogs, a cool, skillful man seldom fails to kill 
his adversary. | 


298 THE POLAR WORLD. 


While the seal, narwhal, and white whale furnish the staple food of the 
more southern Greenlander, the walrus is the chief resource of the Smith 
Sound Esquimaux. The manner of hunting this animal depends much on the 
season of the year. In spring, or the breeding-season, when the walrus is in 
his glory, he is taken in two ways. Sometimes he has risen by the side of an 
iceberg, where the currents have worn away the floe, or through a tide crack, 
and, enjoying the sunshine too long, finds his retreat cut off by the freezing up 
of the opening; for like the seal, the walrus can only work from below at his 
breathing-hole. When thus caught, the Esquimaux, who with keen hunter- 
craft are scouring the floes, scent him out by their dogs and spear him. Fre- 
quently the female and her calf, accompanied by the grim-visaged father, are 
seen surging, in loving trios, from crack to crack, and sporting in the openings. 
While thus on their tour, they invite their vigilant enemies to the second meth- 
od of capture. This also is by the Jance and harpoon; but it often becomes a 
regular battle, the male gallantly fronting the assault, and charging the hunters 
with furious bravery. In the fall, when the pack is but partially closed, the 
walrus are found in numbers, hanging around the neutral region of mixed ice 
and water, and,as this becomes solid with the advance of winter, following it 
more and more to the south. 

The Esquimaux at this season approach them over the young ice, and as- 
sail them in cracks and holes with harpoon and line. This fishery, as the sea- 
son grows colder, darker, and more tempestuous, is fearfully hazardous. Kane 
relates how, during a time of famine, two of his Esquimaux friends, Awaklok 
and Myouk, determined to seek the walrus on the openice. They succeeded in 
killing a large male, and were returning to their village, when a north wind 
broke up the ice, and they found themselves afloat. The impulse of a Euro- 
pean would have been to seek the land; but they knew that the drift was al- 
ways most dangerous on the cvast, and urged their dogs towards the nearest 
iceberg. They reached it after a struggle, and, by great efforts, made good 
their landing, with their dogs and the half-butchered carcass of the walrus. It 
was at the close of the last moonlight of December, and a complete darkness 
settled around them. They tied the dogs down to knobs of ice,to prevent 
their losing their foothold, and prostrated themselves, to escape being blown 
off by the violence of the wind. At first the sea broke over them, but they 
gained a higher level, and built a sort of screen of ice. On the fifth night af- 
terwards, so far as they could judge, one of Myouk’s feet was frozen, and 
Awakiok lost his great toe by frost bite. But they did not lose courage, and 
ate their walrus-meat as they floated slowly to the south. It was towards the 
close of the second moonlight, after a month’s imprisonment, such as only 
these iron men could endure, that they found the berg had grounded. They 
liberated their dogs as soon as the young ice could bear their weight, and at- 
taching long lines to them, which they cut from the hide of the dead walrus, 
they succeeded in hauling themselves through the water-space which always 
surrounds an iceberg, and reaching safe ice. They returned to their village 
like men raised from the dead, to meet a welcome, but to meet famine along 
with it. 


THE ESQUIMAUX. 299 


In the form of their bodies, their short pricked ears, thick furry coat, and 
bushy tail, the dogs of the Esquimaux so nearly resemble the wolf of these 
regions, that when of a light or brindled color, they may easily at a little dis- 
tance be mistaken for that animal; but an eye accustomed to both, perceives 
that the wolf always keeps his head down and his tail between his legs in run- 
ning, whereas the dogs almost always carry their tails handsomely curled over 
the back. Their hair in the winter is from three to four inches long; but be- 
sides this nature furnishes them during this rigorous season with a thick un- 
der-coating of close, soft wool, which enables them to brave the most inclement 
weather. They do not bark, but have a long melancholy howl, like that of the 
wolf. When drawing a sledge, they have a simple harness of deer or seal skin 
going round the neck by one bight, and another for each of the”fore legs, with 
a single thong leading over the back, and attached to the sledge as a trace. 
Though they appear at first sight to be huddled together without regard to 
regularity, considerable attention is really paid to their arrangement, particular- 
ly in the selection of a dog of peculiar spirit and sagacity, who is allowed by a 
longer trace to precede the rest as leader, and to whom, in turning to the right 
or left, the driver usually addresses himself, using certain words as the carters 
do with us. To these a good leader attends with admirable precision (espec- 
ially if his own name be repeated at the same time), looking behind over his 
shoulder with great earnestness, as if listening to the directions of the driver, 
who sits quite low on the fore part of the sledge, his whip in hand, and his feet 
overhanging the snow on one side. 

On rough ground, as among hummocks of ice, the sledge would be frequent- 
ly overturned if the driver did not repeatedly get off, and, by lifting or draw- 
ing it to one side, steer it clear of those obstacles. At all times, indeed, except 
on a smooth and well-made road, he is pretty constantly employed thus with 
his feet, and this, together with his never-ceasing vociferations and frequent 
use of the whip, renders the driving of one of these vehicles by no means a 
pleasant or easy task. 

“The whip, ’ says Kane, who from assiduous practice at length attained a con- 
siderable proficiency in its use, “is six yards long, and the handle but sixteen 
inches—a short lever to throw out such a length of seal-hide. Learn to do it, 
however, with a masterly sweep, or else make up your mind to forego driving 
sledges; for the dogs are guided solely by the lash, and you must be able to 
hit not only any particular dog of a team of twelve, but to accompany the 
feat also with a resounding crack. After this you find that, to get your lash 
back, involves another difficulty ; for it is apt to entangle itself among the dogs 
and lines, or to fasten itself cunningly round bits of ice, so as to drag you head 
over heels into the snow. The secret by which this complicated set of require- 
ments is fulfilled consists in properly describing an are from the shoulder with 
a stiff elbow, giving the jerk to the whip-handle from the hand and wrist alone. 
The lash trails behind as you travel, and when thrown forward is allowed to 
extend itself without an effort to bring it back. You wait patiently, after giv- 
ing the projectile impulse, until it unwinds its slow length, reaches the end of its 
tether, and cracks to tell you that it is at its journey’s end. Such a crack on 


300 THE POLAR WORLD. 


the ear or fore foot of an unfortunate dog is signalized by a howl quite unmis- 
takable in its import.” 

The mere labor of using this whip is such that the Esquimaux travel in 
couples, one sledge after the other. The hinder dogs follow mechanically, and 
thus require no whip; and the drivers change about so as to rest each other. 

In the summer, when the absence of snow prevents the use of sledges, the 
dogs are still made useful, on journeys and hunting excursions, by being em- 
ployed to carry burdens in a kind of saddle-bags laid across their shoulders. 
A stout dog thus accoutred will accompany his master laden with a weight 
of about twenty or twenty-five pounds. 

The scent of the Esquimaux dog is excellent, and this property is turned to 
account in finding the seal-holes, which they will discover entirely by the smell 
at a very great distance. The track of a single deer upon the snow will in 
like manner set them off at full gallop at least a quarter of a mile before they 
arrive at it, and with the same alacrity they pursue the bear or the musk-ox. 
Indeed, the only animal which they are not eager to chase is the wolf, of which 
they seem to have an instinctive dread, giving notice at night of their ap- 
proach to the huts by a loud and continued howl. 

In spite of their invaluable services, they are treated with great severity by 
their masters, who never caress them, and, indeed, scarcely ever take any no- 
tice of them except to punish them. But notwithstanding this rough treatment, 
the attachment of the dogs to their masters is very great, and this they dis- 
play, after a short absence, by jumping up and licking their faces all over with 
extreme delight. 

It may be supposed that among so cheerful a people-as the Esquimaux there 
are many games or sports practised. One of their exhibitions consists in mak- 
ing hideous faces by drawing both lips into the mouth, poking forward the chin, 
squinting frightfully, occasionally shutting one eye, and moving the head from 
side to side as if the neck had been dislocated. 

Another performance consists in repeating certain words with a guttural 
tone resembling ventiiloquism, staring at the same time in such a manner as 
to make their eyes appear ready to burst out of their sockets with the exertion. 
Two or more will sometimes stand up face to face, and, with great quickness 
and regularity, respond to each other, keeping such exact time that the sound 
appears to come from one throat instead of several. They are fond of music, 
both vocal and instrumental, but their singing is not much better than a howl. 

The Esquimaux have neither magistrates nor laws, yet they are orderly in 
their conduct towards each other. The constitution of their society is patri- 
archal, but there is no recognition of mastership except such as may be claimed 
by superior prowess. The rule of the head of a family lasts only as long as he 
has vigor enough to secure success in hunting. When his powers of mind 
and body are impaired by age, he at once sinks in the social scale, associates 
with the women, and takes his seat in the oomiak. They rarely quarrel among 
themselves, and settle their disputes either by boxing, the parties sitting down 
and striking blows alternately until one of them gives in, or before a court of 
honor, where, after the accuser and the accused have richly abused and ridi- 


THE ESQUIMAUX. 301 


culed each other, the case is decided by the priests or “angekoks.” These 
wonder-workers, who enjoy a great reputation as sorcerers, soothsayers, or med- 
icine-men, employ ventriloquism, swallow knives, extract stones from various 
parts of their bodies, and use other deceptions to impress their dupes with a 
high opinion of their supernatural powers. Like the members of the learned 
professions elsewhere, they have a certain language or jargon of their own, in 
which they communicate with each other. The heathen Esquimaux do not 
appear to have any idea of the existence of one Supreme Being, but believe in 
a number of spirits, with whom on certain occasions the angekoks pretend to 
hold mysterious intercourse. Even in Old Greenland the influence and teach- 
ings of the missionaries have not entirely obliterated the old superstitions, and 
the mysteries of the angekok, though not openly recognized near the Danish 
settlements, still hold their secret power over many a native who is professedly 
a Christian. _ 

Captain Hall highly praises the good-nature of the Esquimaux; but in their 
behavior to the old and infirm they betray the insensibility, or rather inhu- 
‘manity, commonly found among savage nations, frequently abandoning them 
to their fate on their journeys, and allowing them to perish in the wilderness. 

Among themselves “ Tiglikpok” (he is a thief) is a term of reproach, but 
they steal without scruple from strangers, and are not ashamed when detected, 
nor do they blush when reproved. Parry taxes them with want of gratitude ; 
and though they have no doubt rendered good services to many of our 
Arctic navigators, yet sometimes, when they fancied themselves the stronger 
party, they have not hesitated to attack or to murder the strangers, and their 
good behavior can only be relied upon as long as there is the power of enforce- 
ing it. 

One of the most amiable traits of their character is the kindness with which 
they treat their children, whose gentleness and docility are such as to occasion 
their parents little trouble, and to render severity towards them quite unneces- 
sary. Even from their earliest infancy they possess that quiet disposition, gen- 
tleness of demeanor, and uncommon evenness of temper for which, in mature 
age, they are for the most part distinguished. “They are just as fond of play,” 
says Parry, “as any other young people, and of the same kind, only that while 
an English child draws a cart of wood, an Esquimaux of the same age has a 
sledge of whalebone; and for the superb baby-house of the former, the latter 
builds a miniature hut of snow, and begs a lighted wick from her mother’s 
lamp to illuminate the little dwelling.” 

When not more than eight years old, the boys are taken by their fathers 
on their sealing excursions, where they begin to learn their future business ; 
and even at that early age they are occasionally intrusted to bring home a 
sledge and dogs from a distance of several miles over the ice. At the age of 
eleven we see a boy with his water-tight boots, a spear in his hand, and a small 
coil of line at his back, aceompanying the men to the fishery under every cir- 
cumstance; and from this time his services daily increase in value to the whole 
tribe. 

In intelligence and susceptibility of civilization the Esquimaux are far su 


302 THE POLAR WORLD. 


perior to the neighboring Indians, They have such a good idea of the hydrog- 
raphy and bearings of the sea-coasts which they frequent as to draw accurate 
charts of them. Thus Parry,in his second voyage, was guided in his opera- 
tions by the sketches of the talented Iligliuk; and while Beechey was at Kotze- 
bue Sound, the natives constructed a chart of the coast upon the sand, first 
marking out the coast-line with a stick, and regulating the distance by the day’s 
journey. ‘The hills and ranges of mountains were next shown by elevations of 
sand or stone, and the islands represented by heaps of pebbles, their propor. 
tions being duly attended to. When the mountains and islands were erected, 
the villages and fishing-stations were marked by a number of sticks placed up- 
right, in imitation of those which are put up on the coast wherever these peo- 
ple fix their abode. In this manner a complete hydrographical plan was drawn 
from Cape Derby to Cape Krusenstern. 

The Esquimaux have a, decided predilection for commercial pursuits, and 
undertake long voyages for the purposes of trade. Thus on the continental 
line of coast west of the Mackenzie, the Point Barrow Esquimaux proceed 
every summer, with sledges laden with whale or seal oil, whalebone, walrus- 
tusks, thongs of walrus hide, and seal-skins, to the Colville River, where they 
meet the Esquimaux from Kotzebue Sound, who offer them in exchange arti- 
cles procured from the Tchuktchi in the previous summer, such as iron and 
copper kettles, knives, tobacco, beads, and tin for making pipes. About ten 
days are spent in bartering, dancing, and revelry, on the flat ground between 
the tents of each party, pitched a bow-shot apart. The time is one of pleasant 
excitement, and is passed nearly without sleep. About July 20 this friendly 
meeting is at an end: the Kotzebue Sound Esquimaux ascend the Colville on 
their way homeward, while those from Point Barrow descend to the sea, to 
pursue their voyage eastward to Barter Reef, where they obtain in traffic from 
the eastern Esquimaux various skins, stone lamps, English knives, small white 
beads, and, lately, guns and ammunition, which in the year following they ex- 
change for the Kotzebue Sound articles at the Colville, along with the produce 
of their own sea-hunts. 

In this manner, articles of Russian manufacture, originally purchased at the 
fair of Ostrownoje by the Tchuktchi, or from the factors of the Russian Fur 
Company on Sledge Island, in Bering’s Straits, find their way from tribe to 
tribe along the American coast as far as Repulse Bay, and compete among the 
tribes of the Mackenzie with articles from Sheffield or Birmingham. 

A hunter’s life is always precarious—a constant alternation between abun- 
dance and want ; and though the Esquimaux strikes many a seal, white-fish, or 
walrus in the course of the year, yet these animals do not abound at all sea- 
sons, and there are other causes, besides improvidence, which soon exhaust the 
stores laid by in times of abundance. Active exercise and constant exposure 
to cold are remarkable promoters of atomic change in the human body, and a 
very large supply of food is absolutely necessary to counterbalance the effects 
of a rapid organic combustion. As a matter of curiosity, Parry once tried 
how much an Esquimaux lad would, if freely supplied, consume in the course 
of aday. The following articles were weighed before being given to him: 


THE ESQUIMAUX. 303 


he was twenty hours in getting through them, and certainly did not consider 
the quantity extraordinary. 


Ibs. 02 

ROEM MECCEC SH HATO [TOZEMM.... 5.0 ois v0.0 ao.0.0is o0ias eo case vecese syns Bale Wipiacolebirateleie 4 4 
ts SET OMCE eer 5 ck barred he's cB One eee cate os Cute eer ee cee ee 4 $4 
Mere TMMe a PIRCRUL=C1UIGE cies. «s/c 4.0 s o'dyeis-¢ oc lais Wie lho die tree ica's o pid wiv tle olelo'eldire'le late pie k},.12 
"Potal’ OF SOLOS: : 2 '<:d.s.é.0.0i06 co o.4.6\ wate an ban eee 10 4 


The fluids were in fair proportion, viz., rich gravy soup, 1} pint; raw spirits, 3 wine-glasses; strong 
grog, 1 tumbler; water, 1 gallon 1 pint.* 

Kane averages the Esquimaux ration in a season of plenty at eight or ten 
pounds a day, with soup and water to the extent of half a gallon, and finds in 
this excessive consumption—which is rather a necessity of their peculiar life 
and organization than the result of gluttony—the true explanation of the scarci- 
ty from which they frequently suffer. In times of abundance they hunt in- 
domitably without the loss of a’day,and stow away large quantities of meat. 
An excavation is made either on the mainland—or, what is preferred, on an isl- 
and inaccessible to foxes—and the flesh is stacked inside and covered with 
heavy stones. One such cache which Kane met on a small island contained 
the flesh of ten walruses, and he knew of others equally large. But by their an- 
cient custom, all share with all; and as they migrate in numbers as their neces- 
sities prompt, the tax on each particular settlement is not seldom so excessive 
that even considerable stores are unable to withstand the drain, and soon make 
way for pinching hunger, and even famine. 

* Captain Hall, who in his search after the remains of the Franklin expedition spent several years 


among the Esquimaux, and had so far acquired their appetite that he was able to consume 9 Ibs. of meat 
a day without any inconvenience. 


3u4 THE POLAR WORLD. 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 
THE FUR-TRADE OF THE HUDSON’S BAY TERRITORIES. 


The Coureur des Bois. —The Voyageur.—The Birch-bark Canoe.—The Canadian Fur-trade in the last 
Century.—The Hudson’s Bay Company.—Bloody Feuds between the North-west Company of Can- 
ada and the Hudson’s Bay Company.—Their Amalgamation into a new Company in 1821.—Recon- 
struction of the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1863.—Forts or Houses.—The Attihawmeg. —Influence 
of the Company on its savage Dependents.—The Black Bear, or Baribal.—The Brown Bear.—The 
Grizzly Bear.—The Raccoon.—The American Glutton.—The Pine Marten.—The Pekan, or Wood- 
shock.—The Chinga.—The Mink.—The Canadian Fish-otter.—The Crossed Fox.—The Black or 
Silvery Fox.—The Canadian Lynx, or Pishu.—The Ice-hare.-—The Beaver.—The Musquash. 

A® the desire to reach India by the shortest road first made the civilized 

world acquainted with the eastern coast of North America, so the exten- 
sion of the fur-trade has been the chief, or rather the only, motive which origi- 
nally led the footsteps of the white man from the Canadian Lakes and the bor- 
ders of Hudson’s Bay into the remote interior of that vast continent. 

The first European fur-traders in North America were French Canadians— 
coureurs des bois—a fitting surname for men habituated to an Indian forest- 
life. Three or four of these “irregular spirits” agreeing to make an expedi- 
tion into the backwoods would set out in their birch-bark canoe, laden with 
goods received on trust from a merchant, for a voyage of great danger and 
hardship, it might be of several years, into the wilderness. 

On their return the merchant who had given them credit of course recbivédl 
the lion’s share of the skins gathered among the Hurons or the Iroquois; the 
small portion left as a recompense for their own Jabor was soon spent, as sailors 
spend their hard-earned wages on their arrival in port; and then they started 
on some new adventure, until finally old age, infirmities, or death prevented 
their revisiting the forest. 

The modern “ voyageur,” who has usurped the place of the old “ cowreurs,” 
is so like them in manners and mode of life, that to know the one is to become 
acquainted with the other. In short, the voyageur is merely a coureur subject 
to strict law and serving for a fixed pay; while the coureur was a voyageur 
trading at his own risk and peril, and acknowledging no control when once 
beyond the pale of European colonization. 

The camel is frequently called the “ship of the desert,” and with equal jus- 
tice the birch-bark canoe might be named the “ camel of the North American 
wilds.” For if we consider the rivers which, covering the land like a net-work, 
are the only arteries of communication; the frequent rapids and cataracts; the 
shallow waters flowing over a stony ground whose sharp angles would infalli- 
bly cut to pieces any boat made of wood; and finally the surrounding deserts, 
where, in case of an accident, the traveller is left to his own resources, we must 
come to the conclusion that in such a country no intercourse could possibly be 


THE FUR-TRADE OF THE HUDSON’S BAY TERRITORIES. 505 


carried on without a boat made of materials at once flexible and tough, and ca- 
pable moreover of being easily repaired without the aid of hammer and nails, 
of saw and plane. This invaluable material is supplied by the rind of the paper- 
birch, a tree whose uses in the Hudson’s Bay territories are almost as manifold 
as those of the palm-trees of the tropical zone. Where the skins of animals 
are rare, the pliant bark, peeled off in large pieces, serves to cover the Indian’s 
tent. Carefully sewn together, and ornamented with the quills of the porcupine, 
itis made into baskets, sacks, dishes, plates, and drinking-cups, and in fact is, in 
one word, the chief material of which the household articles of the Crees are 
formed. The wood serves for the manufacture of oars, snow-shoes, and sledges ; 
and in spring the sap of the tree furnishes an agreeable beverage, which, by 
boiling, may be inspissated into a sweet syrup. Beyond the Arctic Circle the 
paper-birch is a rare and crooked tree, but it is met with as a shrub as far as 
69° N. lat. It grows to perfection on the northern shores of Lake Superior, 
near Fort William, where the canoes of the Hudson’s Bay Company are chiet- 
ly manufactured. 

A birch-bark canoe is between thirty and forty feet long, and the rinds of 
which it is built are sewn together with filaments of the root of the Canadian 
fir. In case of a hole being knocked into it during the journey, it can be patch- 
ed like an old coat, and is then as good as new. As it has a flat bottom, it does 
not sink deep into the water; and the river must be almost dried up which 
could not carry such a boat. The cargo is divided into bales or parcels of from 
90 to 100 pounds; and although it frequently amounts to more than four tons, 
yet the canoe itself is so light that the crew can easily transport it upon their 
shoulders. This crew generally consists of eight or ten men, two of whom 
must be experienced boatmen, who receive double pay, and are placed one at 
the helm, the other at the poop. When the wind is fair, a sail is unfurled, and 
serves to lighten the toil. 

The Canadian voyageur combines the light-heartedness of the Frenchman 
with the apathy of the Indian, and his dress is also a mixture of that of the 
Red-skins and of the European colonists. Frequently he is himself a mixture 
of Gallic and Indian blood—a so-called “ bois-bralé,” and in this case doubly 
light-hearted and unruly. With his woollen blanket as a surcoat, his shirt of 
striped cotton, his pantaloons of cloth, or his Indian stockings of leather, his 
moccasins of deer-skin, and his sash of gaudily-dyed wool, in which his 
knife, his tobacco-bag, and various other utensils are stuck, he stands high in 
his own esteem. His language is a French jargon, richly interlarded with 
Indian and English words—a jumble fit to drive a grammarian mad, but 
which he thinks so euphonious that his tongue is scarcely ever at rest. His 
supply of songs and anecdotes is inexhaustible, and he is always ready for 
a dance. His politeness is exemplary: he never calls his comrades otherwise 
than “mon frére,’ and “mon cousin.” It is hardly necessary to remark that 
he is able to handle his boat with the same ease as an expert rider manages 
his horse. 

When after a hard day’s work they rest for the night, the axe is immediately 
at work in the nearest forest, and in less than ten minutes the tent is erected 

20 


306 THE POLAR WORLD. 


and the kettle simmering on the fire. While the passengers—perhaps some 
chief trader on a voyage to some distant fort, or a Back or a Richardson on his 
way to the Polar Ocean—are warming or drying themselves, the indefatigable 
“ voyageurs” drag the unloaded canoe ashore, turn it over, and examine it care- 
fully, either to fasten again some loose stitches, or to paint over some damaged 
part with fresh resin. Under the cover of their boat, which they turn against 
the wind, and with a flaming fire in the foreground, they then bid defiance to 
the weather. At one o’clock in the morning “Léve! léve! léve!” is called; 
in half an hour the encampment is broken up, and the boat reladen and launched. 
At eight in the morning a halt is made for breakfast, for which three-quarters 
of an hour are allowed. About two in the afternoon half an hour’s rest suffices 
for a cold dinner. Eighteen hours’ work and six hours’ rest make out the day. 
The labor is incredible; yet the “voyageur” not only supports it without a 
murmur, but with the utmost cheerfulness. Such a life requires, of course, an 
iron constitution. In rowing, the arms and breast of the “voyageur” are ex- 
erted to the utmost; and in shallow places he drags the boat after him, wading 
up to the knees and thighs in the water. Where he is obliged to force his way 
against a rapid, the drag-rope must be pulled over rocks and stumps of trees, 
through swamps and thickets; and at the portages the cargo and the boat 
have to be carried over execrable roads to the next navigable water. Then 
the “ voyageur ” takes upon his back two packages, each weighing 90 pounds, 
and attached by a leathern belt running over the forehead, that his hands may 
be free to clear the way; and such portages sometimes occur ten or eleven 
times in one day. 

For these toils of his wandering life he has many compensations, in the 
keen appetite, the genial sensation of muscular strength, and the flow of spirits 
engendered by labor in the pure and bracing air. Surely many would rather 
breathe with the “ voyageur” the fragrance of the pine forest, or share his rest 
upon the borders of the stream, than lead the monotonous life of an artisan, 
pent up in the impure atmosphere of a city. 

During the first period of the American fur-trade the “ coureurs des bois ” 
used to set out on their adventurous expeditions from the village “ La Chine,” 
one of the oldest and most famous settlements in Canada, whose name points 
to a time when the St. Lawrence was still supposed to be the nearest way to 
China. How far some of them may have penetrated into the interior of the 
continent is unknown; but so much is certain, that their regular expeditions 
extended as far as the Saskatchewan, 2500 miles beyond the remotest European 
settlements. Several factories or forts protected their interests on the banks 
of that noble river; and the French would no doubt have extended their do- 
minion to the Rocky Mountains or to the Pacific if the conquest of Canada by 
England, in 1761, had not completely revolutionized the fur-trade. The change 
of dominion laid it prostrate for several years, but our enterprising countrymen 
soon opened a profitable intercourse with the Indian tribes of the west, as their 
predecessors had done before them. Now, however, the adventurous “ coureur 
des bois,” who had entered the wilds as a semi-independent trader, was obliged 
to serve in the pay of the British merchant, and to follow him, as his “ voya- 


THE FUR-TRADE OF THE HUDSON’S BAY TERRITORIES. 307 


geur,” deeper and deeper into the wilderness, until finally they reached on the 
Athabasca and the Churchill River the Indian hunters who used to sell their 
skins in the settlements of the Hudson’s Bay Company. 

This company was founded in the year 1670 by a body of adventurers and 
merchants under the patronage of Prince Rupert, second cousin of Charles IL. 
The charter obtained from the Crown was wonderfully liberal, comprising not 
only the grant of the exclusive trade, but also of full territorial possession to 
all perpetuity of the vast lands within the watershed of Hudson’s Bay. The 
Company at once established some forts along the shores of the great inland 
sea from which it derived its name, and opened a very lucrative trade with the 
Indians, so that it never ceased paying rich dividends to the fortunate share- 
holders until towards the close of the last century, when, as I have already men- 
tioned, its prosperity began to be seriously affected by the energetic competi- 
tion of the Canadian fur-traders. 

In spite of the flourishing state of its affairs, or rather because the monop- 
oly which it enjoyed allowed it to prosper without exertion, the Company, as 
long as Canada remained in French hands, had conducted its affairs in a very 
indolent manner, waiting for the Indians to bring the produce of their chase to 
the Hudson’s Bay settlements, instead of following them into the interior and 
stimulating them by offering greater facilities for exchange. 

For eighty years after its foundation the Company possessed no more than 
four small forts on the shores of Hudson’s Bay; and only when the encroach- 
ments of the Canadians at length roused it from its torpor, did it resolve like- 
wise to advance into the interior, and to establish a fort on the eastern shore 
of Sturgeon Lake, in the year 1774. Up to this time, with the exception of 
the voyage of discovery which Hearne (1770-71) made under its auspices to 
the mouth of the Coppermine River, it had done but little for the promotion 
of geographical discovery in its vast territory. 

Meanwhile the Canadian fur-traders had become so hateful to the Indians 
that these savages formed aconspiracy for their total extirpation. 

Fortunately for the white men, the small-pox broke out about this time 
among the Redskins, and swept them away as the fire consumes the parched 
grass of the prairies. Their unburied corpses were torn by the wolves and 
wild dogs, and the survivors were too weak and dispirited to be able to under- 
take any thing against the foreign intruders. The Canadian fur-traders now 
also saw the necessity of combining their efforts for their mutual benefit, instead 
of ruining each other by an insane competition; and consequently formed, in 
1783, a society which, under the name of the North-west Company of Canada, 
at first consisted of sixteen, later of twenty partners or shareholders, some of 
whom lived in Canada, while the others were scattered among the various 
stations in the interior. The whole Canadian fur-trade was now greatly de- 
veloped ; for while previously each of the associates had blindly striven to do 
as much harm as possible to his present partners, and thus indirectly damaged. 
his own interests, they now all vigorously united to beat the rival Hudson’s 
Bay Company out of the field. The agents of this North-west Company, in 
defiance of their charter, were indefatigable in exploring the lakes and woods, 


308 THE POLAR WORLD. 


the plains and the mountains, for the purpose of establishing new tr ading-sta- 
tions at all convenient points. 

The most celebrated of these pioneers of commerce, Alexander Mackenzie, 
reached, in the year 1789, the mouth of the great river which bears his name, 
and saw the white dolphins gambol about in the Arctic Sea. In a second voy- 
age he crossed the Rocky Mountains, and followed the course. of the Fraser 
River until it discharges its waters into the Georgian Gulf opposite to Van- 
couver’s Island. Here he wrote with perishable vermilion the following in. 
scription on a rock-wall fronting the gulf :— 


A. Mackenzie 
arrived from Canada by land, 
22 July, 1792. 


The words were soon effaced by wind and weather, but the fame of the ex- 
plorer will last as long as the English language is spoken in America. 


The energetic North-west Company thus ruled over the whole continent 


from the Canadian Lakes to the Rocky Mountains, and in 1806 it even crossed 
that barrier and established its forts on the northern tributaries of the Colum- 
bia River. To the north it likewise extended its operations, encroaching more 
and more upon the privileges of the Hudson’s Bay Company, which, roused to 
energy, now also pushed on its posts farther and farther into the interior, and 
established in 1812 a colony on the Red River to the south of Winipeg Lake, 
thus driving, as it were, a sharp thorn into the side of its rival. But a power 
like the North-west Company, which had no less than 50 agents, 70 interpret: 
ers, and 1120 voyageurs in its pay,and whose chief managers used to appear 
at their annual meetings at Fort William, on the banks of Lake Superior, with 
all the pomp and pride of feudal barons, was not inclined to tolerate this en- 
croachment; and thus, after many quarrels,a regular war broke out between 
the two parties, which, after two years’ duration, led to the expulsion of the 
Red River colonists and the murder of their governor, Semple. This event 
took place in the year 1816, and is but one episode of the bloody feuds which 
continued to reign between the two rival companies until 1821. At first sight 
it may seem strange that such acts of violence should take place between 
British subjects and on British soil, but then we must consider that at that 
time European law had little power in the American wilderness. 

The dissensions of the fur-traders had most deplorable consequences for 
the Redskins; for both companies, to swell the number of their adherents, 
lavishly distributed spirituous liquors-—a temptation which no Indian can re- 
sist. 

The whole of the hunting-grounds of the Saskatchewan and Athabasca 
were but one scene of revelry and bloodshed. Already decimated by the 
small-pox, the Indians now became the victims of drunkenness and discord, 
and it was to be feared that if the war and its consequent demoralization con- 
tinued, the most important tribes would soon be utterly swept away. é 

The finances of the belligerent companies were in an equally deplorable 
state; the produce of the chase diminished from year to year with the in- 


Hs: 


THE FUR-TRADE OF THE HUDSON’S BAY TERRITORIES. 309 


crease of their expenditure; and thus the Hudson’s Bay Company, which used 
to gratify its shareholders with dividends of 50 and 25 per cent., was unable, 


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310 THE POLAR WORLD. 


taken from the very beginning, would have saved them both a great deal of 
treasure and many crimes. Instead of continuing to swing the tomahawk, 

they now smoked the calumet, and amalgamated in 1821, under the name of 
the “ Hudson’s Bay Company,” and under the wing of the charter. The Brit- 
ish Government, as a dowry to the impoverished couple, presented them with a 
license of exclusive trade throughout the whole of that territory which, under 
the name of the Hudson’s Bay and North-west territories, extends from Lab- 
rador to the Pacific, and from the Red River to the Polar Ocean. This license 
was terminable in 21 years, but in 1838 it was renewed again for the same pe- 
riod. The good effects of peace and union soon became apparent, for after a 
few years the Company was enabled to pay half-yearly dividends of five per 
cent., and the Indians, to whom brandy was now no longer supplied unless as a 
medicine, enjoyed the advantages of a more sober life. 

About 1848 the Imperial Government, fearing that Vancouver’s Island 
might be annexed by the United States, resolved to place it under the manage- 
ment of the Hudson’s Bay Company. This was accordingly done in 1849. A 
license of exclusive trade and management was granted for ten years, termina- 
ble therefore in 1859 (the time of expiration of the similar license over the 
Indian territory). 

These were the palmy days of the Hudson’s Bay Company. They held 
Rupert’s Land by the royal charter, which was perpetual; they held Vancou- 
ver’s Island and the whole Indian territory to the Pacific by exclusive licenses, 
terminable in 1859; and thus maintained under their sole sway about 4,000,000 
square miles—a realm larger than the whole of Europe. 

For the ten years ending May 31, 1862, the average net annual profits of the 
Company amounted to £81,000 on a paid-up capital of £400,000, but a portion 
only of this income was distributed as dividend. 

In 1863 the Company was reconstructed, with a capital of £2,000,000, for the 
purpose of enlarging its operations—such as opening the southern and more 
fruitful districts of the Saskatchewan or the Winipeg to European coloniza- 
tion; but the northern, and by far the larger portion of the vast domains over 
which, after the dismemberment of British Columbia and the Stikine territory, 
it still holds sway, have too severe a climate ever to be cultivated, and, unless 
their mineral wealth be made available, must ever be what they are now—a 
fur-bearing region of gloomy pine-forests, naked barren - grounds, lakes, and 
morasses. 

Over thisvast extent of desert the Company has established about 150 trad- 
ing-posts, called “ houses,” or “ forts,” which, however, consist merely of a few 
magazines and dwelling-houses, protected by a simple wall, stockade, or palisade 
sufficiently strong to resist any sudden attack of the Indians. Among the tribes, 
with whom a friendly intercourse has long subsisted, and whose fidelity may 
implicitly be trusted, no guard is ever kept, and it is only in forts more recent- 
ly built in remote parts that precautions are taken. 

These forts are always situated on the borders of a lake or river, both for fa- 
cility of transport and for the purpose of catching fish, particularly the species 
of Coregonus, or white-fish, which, from its importance to all the natives of 


THE FUR-TRADE OF THE HUDSON’S BAY TERRITORIES. 311 


Rupert’s Land between the great Canada lakes and the Arctic Sea, the Crees 
call Attihawmeg, or the “reindeer of the waters.” In many of the trading- 


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posts it forms the chief food of the white residents; and it is asserted that 
though deprived of bread and vegetables, a man may live upon it for months or 


oe _ THE POLAR WORLD. \ 


even years without tiring. According to Sir John Richardson, no fish in any 
country or sea excels the white-fish in flavor and wholesomeness, and it is the 
most beneficial article of diet to the Red Indians near the Arctic Circle, being 
obtained with more certainty than the reindeer, and with less change of abode 
in summer and winter. 

Each of the principal forts is the seat of a chief factor, or general adminis- 
trator of a district, and of a chief trader, who transacts the business with the 
Indians. 

Besides these principal functionaries—out of whom the governor is chosen 
—the Company employed, in 1860, 5 surgeons, 87 clerks, 67 postmasters, 1200 
permanent servants, and 500 voyageurs, besides temporary employés of differ- 
ent ranks, so that the total number of persons in its pay was at least 3000. 
Besides this little army of immediate dependents, the whole male Indian popu. 
lation of its vast territory, amounting to about 100,000 hunters and trappers, 
may be considered as actively employed in the service of the Company. Arm- 
ed vessels, both sailing and steam, are employed on the north-west coast to car- 
ry on the fur-trade with the warlike natives of that distant region. More than 
twenty years ago this trade alone gave employment to about 1000 men, occupy- 
ing 21 permanent establishments, or engaged in navigating five armed sailing 
vessels and one armed steamer, varying from 100 to 300 tons in burden. 

The influence of the Company over its savage dependents may justly be 
called beneficial. Both from motives of humanity and self-interest, every effort 
is made to civilize them. No expense is spared to preserve them from the 


TRADER’S CAMP, 


THE FUR-TRADE OF THE HUDSON’S BAY TERRITORIES. 313 


want into which their improvidence too often plunges them; and the example 
of an inflexible straightforwardness serves to gain their confidence. This moral 
preponderance, and the admiration of the Indian for the superior knowledge 
and arts of the Europeans, explain how a mere handful of white men, scattered 
over an enormous territory, not only lead a life of perfect security, but exercise 
an almost absolute power over a native population outnumbering them at least 
several hundred times. ‘The Indians have in course of time acquired many new 
wants, and have thus become more and more dependent cn the white traders. 
The savage hunter is no longer the free, self-dependent man, who, without any 
foreign assistance, was able to make and manufacture, with his own hands, all 
the weapons and articles needed for his maintenance. Without English fire- 
arms and fishing-gear, without iron-ware and woollen blankets, he could no long- 
er exist, and the unfortunate tribe on which the Company should close its stores 
would soon perish for want. “History,” says Professor Hind, “ does not fur- 
nish another example of an association of private individuals exerting a power- 
ful influence over so large an extent of the earth’s surface, and administering 
their affairs with such consummate skill and unwavering devotion to the origi- 
nal objects of their incorporation.” 

_ The standard of exchange in all mercantile transactions with the natives is a 
beaver skin, the relative value of which, as originally established by the traders, 
differs considerably from the present worth of the articles represented by it; 
but the Indians are averse to change. They receive their principal outfit of 
clothing and ammunition on credit in the autumn, to be repaid by their winter 
hunts; the amount intrusted to each of the hunters varying with their reputa- 
tions for industry and skill. 

The furs which, in the course of the year, are accumulated in the various 
forts or trading-stations, are transported in the short time during which the 
rivers and lakes are navigable, and in the manner described at the beginning of 
the chapter, to York Factory, or Moose Factory, on Hudson’s Bay, to Montreal 
or Vancouver, and shipped from thence mostly to London. From the more 
distant posts in the interior, the transport often requires several seasons; for 
travelling is necessarily very slow when rapids and portages continually inter- 
rupt navigation, and the long winter puts a stop to all intercourse whatever. 

The goods from Europe, consisting (besides those mentioned above) of 
printed cotton or silk handkerchiefs, or neck-cloths, of beads, and the universal 
favorite tobacco, require at least as much time to find their way into the distant 
interior; and thus the Company is not seldom obliged to wait for four, five, 
or six years before it receives its returns for the articles sent from London. 
It must, however, be confessed, that it amply repays itself for the tediousness 
of delay, for Dr. Armstrong was told by the Esquimaux of Cape Bathurst—a 
tribe in the habit of trading with the Indians from the Mackenzie, who are in 
direct communication with the Hudson’s Bay Company’s agents—that for three 
silver-fox skins—which sometimes fetch as high a price as twenty-five or thirty 
guineas apiece at the annual sale of the Company—they had got from the trad- 
ers cooking utensils which might be worth eight shillings and sixpence! 

The value of the skins annually imported into England by the Company 


314 THE POLAR WORLD. 


amounts to about £150,000 or £200,000. Besides, many of its furs are bartered 
for Russian-American peltry, and a large quantity is exported direct to China. 


Lie 


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SWAMP FORMED BY DESERTED BEAVER-DAM. 


After this brief account of one of the most remarkable mercantile associa- 
tions of any age, some remark on the chief fur-bearing animals of the Hudson’s 


THE FUR-TRADE OF THE HUDSON’S BAY TERRITORIES. 315 


Bay territory may not be without interest. Among these, the black bear, 
muskwa, or baribal (Ursus americanus), is one of the most valuable, as his long 
hair—unlike that of the brown or the white bear—is beautifully smooth and 
glossy. He inhabits the forest regions of North America, but migrates accord- 
ing to the seasons. In spring he seeks his food in the thickets along the banks 
of the rivers or lakes; in summer he retreats into the forests; in winter he 
either wanders farther to the south, or hollows out a kind of lair beneath the 
root of an overthrown tree, where, as the cold is more or less severe, he either 
finds a retreat after his excursions, or hibernates buried inthe snow. He feeds 
chiefly on berries, grain, acorns, roots, eggs, and honey; though, when ‘pressed 
by hunger, he will attack other quadrupeds. He climbs upon trees or rocks 
with great agility, and, being very watchful, is not easily got at in summer. 
Sometimes, however, his caution brings about his destruction; for, from fear 
of some possible danger, or at the slightest noise, he rises on his hind legs to 
look over the bushes under which he lies concealed, and thus offers a mark to 
the bullet of the hunter. In the winter, when the snow betrays his traces, he 
is more easily shot, and his skin and flesh are then also in the best condition. 
In spite of his apparent clumsiness and stolidity, the muskwa is more alert 
than the brown bear, whom he nearly approaches in size; he runs so fast that no 
man can overtake him, and is an excellent swimmer and climber. When attacked, 
he generally retreats as fast as possible into the forest; but if escape is im- 
possible, he turns furiously upon his pursuers, and becomes exceedingly danger- 
ous. Dogs alone are incapable of mastering him, as he is always ready to re- 
ceive them with a stroke of his fore paw; but they are very useful in driving 
him up a tree, and thus giving the hunter an opportunity of hitting him in the 
right spot. When in a state of captivity, the baribal, in his mild and good- 
humored disposition, is distinguished from the brown and white bear. His 
fur is also much more valuable than that of the brown bear. 

It is not yet fully ascertained whether the American brown bear is identical 
with that of Europe; the resemblance, however, is close. In summer he wan- 
ders to the shores of the Polar Sea, and indulges more frequently in animal 
food than the baribal. He is even said to attack man when pressed by hunger ; 
but all those whom Sir John Richardson met with ran away as soon as they 
saw him. 

As the grizzly bear (Ursus ferox) is found on the Rocky Mountains up to 
the latitude of 61°, he undoubtedly deserves a place among the sub-arctic ani- 
mais. The skin of this most formidable of the ursine race, who is about nine 
feet long, and is said to attain the weight of cight hundred pounds, is but little 
prized in the fur-trade. He is the undoubted monarch of his native wilds, for 
even the savage bison flies at his approach. | 

Although the raccoon (Procyon lotor) is more commonly found in Canada 
and the United States, yet he is also an inhabitant of the Hudson’s Bay terri- 
tories, where he is met with up to 56° N. lat. This interesting little animal, 
which, like the bears, applies the sole of its foot to the ground in walking, has 
an average length of two feet from the nose to the tail, which is about ten inch- 
es long. Its color is grayish-brown, with a dusky line running from the top of 


316 THE POLAR WORLD. 


the head down the middle of the face, and ending below the eyes. The tail is 
very thickly covered with hair, and is annulated with several black bars on a 
yellowish-white ground. Its face is very like that of the fox, whom it equals 
in cunning, while its active and playful habits resemble those of the monkey. 
Its favorite haunts are the woods, near streams or lakes, for one of its most 
marked peculiarities, from which it has received its specific name of Jotor, or the 
washer, is its habit of plunging its dry.food into water before eating it. The. 
raccoon devours almost any thing that comes in his way—fruits and grain of all 
sorts, birds’ nests, mice, grasshoppers, beetles: while the waters yield him fishes, 
crabs, and oysters, which he is very expert in opening. His fur forms no in- 
considerable article of commerce, and is very fashionable in Russia. In 1841, 
111,316 raccoon skins were imported into St. Petersburg,and more than half a 
million were stapled in Leipzig, intended, no doubt, for smuggling across the 
frontier. 

The fur of the American glutton, or wolverine, is much used for muffs and 
linings; yet, from its being a notorious robber of their traps, the animal is as 
much hated by the Indian hunters as the dog-fish by the northern fishermen. 

The Hudson’s Bay territories can not boast of the sable, but the American 
pine marten (Martes abietum) is not much inferior in value, as its dark-brown 
fur is remarkably fine, thick, and glossy. It frequents the woody districts, 
where it preys on birds, and all the smaller quadrupeds from the hare to the 
mouse. Even the squirrel is incapable of escaping the pine marten, and after 
having vaulted and climbed from tree to tree, sinks at last exhausted into its 
gripe. 

The pekan, or woodshock (Martes canadensis), the largest of the marten fam- 
ily, is also the one which most richly supplies the fur-market. It is found over 
the whole of North America, and generally lives in burrows near the banks of 
rivers, as it principally feeds on the small quadrupeds that frequent the water. 

Several species of ermine inhabit the Hudson’s Bay territories, but their 
skins are of no great importance in the fur-trade. Like many other species of 
the marten family, they eject, when irritated or alarmed, a fluid of a fetid odor; 
but in this respect they are far surpassed by the chinga (Mephitis chinga), 
whose secretion has so intolerable a smell that the least quantity suffices to pro- 
duce nausea and a sense of suffocation. This animal is frequently found near 
THudson’s Bay, whence it extends farther to the north. In spite of the formi- 
dable means of defense with which it has been armed by nature, it is of use to 
man, for its black and white striped fur (which, as may easily be supposed, 
never appears in the European market) provides the Indians with coverings 
or tobacco-pouches. Before seizing the chinga, they irritate it with a long 
switch until it has repeatedly emptied the glands from which the noxious va- 
por issues; then suddenly springing upon it, they hold it up by the tail and 
dispatch it. 

The mink (Vison americanus), another member of the weasel family, is one _ 
of the most important fur-bearing animals of the Hudson’s Bay territories. It 
resembles the small European fish-otter (Vison dutreola), but its skin is far more 
valuable—the brown hair with which it is covered being much softer and thick- 


THE FUR-TRADE OF THE HUDSON’S BAY TERRITORIES. 317 


er. As its toes are connected by a small web, it is an excellent swimmer, and 
as formidable to the salmon or trout in the water as to the hare on land. 

The Canadian fish-otter (Zutra canadensis) far surpasses the European spe- 
cies, both in size and in the beauty of its glossy brown skin. It occurs as far 
northward as 66° or 67° lat., and is generally taken by sinking a steel trap 
near the mouth of its burrow. It has the habit of sliding or climbing to the 
top of a ridge of snow in winter, or of a sloping moist bank in summer, where, 
lying on the belly, with the fore feet bent backward, it gives itself with the 
hind legs an impulse which sends it swiftly down the eminence. This school- 
boy sport it continues for a long time. 

The red fox (Vulpes fulvus), which is found throughout the Hudson’s Bay 
territories, has likewise a much finer fur than our common fox. It is of a bright 
ferruginous red on the head, back, and sides; beneath the chin it is white, 
while the throat and neck are of a dark gray, and the under parts of the body, 
toward the tail, are of a very pale red. The crossed fox (Canis decussatus), 
thus named from the black cross on its shoulders, is still more valuable; its 
skin—the color of which is a sort of gray, resulting from the mixture of black 
and white hair—being worth four or five guineas. Peltry still more costly is 
furnished by the black or silvery fox (Canis argentatus), whose copious and 
beautiful fur is of a rich and shining black or deep brown color, with the long- 
er or exterior hairs of a silvery white. Unfortunately it is of such rare occur- 
rence that not more than four or five are annually brought to a trading-post. 

The Canada lynx, or pishu (Lynx canadensis), is smaller than the European 
species, but has a finer fur, those skins being most valued which approach to a 
pale or whitish color, and on which the spots are most distinct. It chiefly feeds 
on the hare (Lepus americanus), which is not much larger than a rabbit, and 
is found on the banks of the Mackenzie as far north as 68° or 69°. 

Still nearer to the Pole, the ice-hare (Lepus glacialis) ranges as far as the 
Parry Islands (75° N. lat.), where it feeds on the arctic willow, and other high 
northern plants. Its favorite resorts are the stony districts, where it easily 
finds a refuge; in winter it burrows in the snow. In summer its back is gray- 
ish white, but as the cold increases, it becomes white, with the exception of the 
tips of the ears, which remain constantly black. 

Formerly the beaver (Custor fiber) was the most important of the fur-bear- 
ing animals of the Hudson’s Bay territories. In the year 1743, 127,000 beaver 
skins were exported from Montreal to La Rochelle, and 26,700 by the Hudson’s 
Bay Company to London. At present, the exportation hardly amounts to one- 
third of this quantity. As the beaver chiefly lives on the barks of the willow, 
the beech, and the poplar, it is not found beyond the forest region; but along 
the banks of the Mackenzie it reaches a very high latitude. 

The musk-rat, ondatra or musquash (Liber zibethicus)—which is about the 
size of a small rabbit, and of a reddish-brown color—is called by the Indians 
the younger brother of the beaver, as it has similar instincts. Essentially a 
bank-haunting animai, it is never to be seen at any great distance from the 
water, where it swims and dives with consummate ease, aided greatly by the 
webs which connect the hinder toes. It drives a large series of tunnels into 


318 THE POLAR WORLD. 


the bank, branching out in various directions, and having several entrances, all 
of which open under the surface of the water. If the animal happens to live 
upon a marshy and uniformly wet soil, it becomes a builder, and lives in curi- 
ously-constructed huts, from three to four feet in height, plastered with great 
neatness in the inside, and strengthened externally with a kind of basket-work 
of rushes, carefully interlaced together. The judgment of the animal shows 
itself in the selection of the site, invariably choosing some ground above the 
reach of inundation, or else raising its hut on an artificial foundation; for, 
though obliged to reside near flat, submerged banks, where the soft soil is full 
of nourishing roots, it requires a dry home to rest in. 

In winter the musquash villages—for the huts are sometimes built in such 
numbers together as to deserve that name—are generally covered with thick 
snow, under which this rodent is able to procure water, or to reach the provis- 
ions laid up in its storehouse. Thus it lives in ease and plenty, for the marten 
is too averse to the water, and the otter too bulky to penetrate into its tunnels. 
But when the snow melts, and the huts of the musquash appear above the 
ground, the Indian, taking in his hand a large four-barbed spear, steals up to 
the house, and driving his weapon through the walls, is sure to pierce the ani- 
mals inside. Holding the spear firmly with one hand, he takes his tomahawk 
from his belt, dashes the house to pieces, and secures the inmates. Another 
method employed by the Indians to capture the musquash is to block up the 
different entrances to their tunnels, and then to intercept the animals as they 
try to escape. Sometimes the gun is used, but not very frequently, as the mus- 
quash is so wary that it dives at the least alarm, and darts into one of its holes. 
The trap, however, is the ordinary means of destruction. The soft and glossy 
fur of the musquash, though worth no more than from 6d. to 9d., is still a not 
inconsiderable article of trade, as no less than half a million skins are annually 
imported into England for hat-making; nor is there any fear of the musquash 
being extirpated, in spite of its many enemies, as it multiplies very fast, and is 
found near every swamp or lake with grassy banks as far as the confines of the 
Polar Sea. 


THE CREE INDIANS, OR EYTHINYUWUEK. 319 


HUNTING BISON IN THE SNOW. 


CHAPTER XXIX. 
THE CREE INDIANS, OR EYTHINYUWUE. 


The various Tribes of the Crees. —Their Conquests and subsequent Defeat.—Their Wars with the Black- 
feet.—Their Character.—Tattooing.—Their Dress.—Fondness for their Children.—The Cree Cradle.— 
Vapor Baths.—Games.—Their religious Ideas.—The Cree Tartarus and Elysium. 

HE various tribes of the Crees, or Eythinyuwuk, range from the Rocky 

Mountains and the plains of the Saskatchewan to the swampy shores of 

Hudson’s Bay. Towards the west and north they border on the Tinné, towards 

the east and south, on the Ojibbeway or Sauteurs, who belong like them to the 

great family of the Lenni-lenape Indians, and inhabit the lands between Lake 

Winipeg and Lake Superior. 

About sixty years since, at the time when Napoleon was deluging Europe 
with blood, the Crees likewise played the part of conquerors, and subdued even 
more extensive, though less valuable domains. 

Provided with fire-arms, which at that time were unknown to their northern 
and western neighbors, they advanced as far as the Arctic Circle, imposing 
tribute on the various tribes of the Tinné. But their triumphs were not more 
durable than those of the great European conqueror. 

The small-pox broke out among them and swept them away by thousands. 
Meanwhile the Tinné tribes had remained untouched by this terrible scourge; 
and as the agents of the Hudson’s Bay Company, advancing farther and farther 
to the west and north, had likewise made them acquainted with the use of fire. 
arms, they in their turn became the aggressors, and drove the Crees before them, 


320 THE POLAR WORLD. 


Their former conquerors now partly migrated to the south, and leaving the 
forest region, where they had hunted the reindeer and the elk, spread over the 
prairies of the Saskatchewan, where they now pursued the herds of bison, 
sometimes driving them over a precipice, or chasing them on foot through the 
snow. But in their new abodes they became engaged in constant feuds with 
their new neighbors the Assiniboins and Blackfeet, who of course resented 
their intrusion. : 

The romance in which the manners and character of the Indians are por- 
trayed might lead us to attribute to these people a loftiness of soul for which 
it would be vain to look in the present day, and which without much skepticism 
we may assert they never really possessed. Actions prompted only by the ca- 
price of a barbarous people have been considered as the results of refined sen- 
timent; and savage cunning, seen through the false medium of prejudice, as- 
sumed the nobler proportions of a far-sighted policy. But though the history 
of the wars of the Indians among themselves and with the Europeans affords 
but few instances of heroism, it abounds in traits of revolting cruelty, and in 
pictures of indescribable wretchedness. 

A large party of Blackfeet once made a successful foray in the territory of 
the Crees. But meanwhile the latter surprised the camp where the aggressors 
had left their wives and children; ard thus, when the Blackfeet returned to 
their tents, they found desolation and death where they looked for a joyful wel- 
come. In their despair they cast away their arms and their booty, and retired 
to the mountains, where for three days and nights they wailed and mourned. 


A HERD OF BISON. 


THE CREE INDIANS, OR EYTHINYUWUK. 321 


In the year 1840 a bloody war broke 
out between the Crees and the Black- 
feet, arising as in general from a very 
trifling cause. Peace was at length con- 
cluded, but while the two nations were 
celebrating this fortunate event with 
games and races, a Cree stole a ragged 4\@@gA AN 2 ~ 
blanket, and a new fight immediately "ys 3 AYA (NSA ee 
began. Returning home, the Blackfeet | 
met a Cree chieftain, with two of his 
warriors, and killed them after a short 
altercation. Soon after the Crees sur- DRIVING BISON OVER A PRECIPICE. 
prised and murdered some of the Black- 

feet, and thus the war raged more furiously than ever. Sir George Simpson, 
who was travelling through the country at the time, visited the hut of a Cree 
who had been wounded in the conflict at the peace meeting. As in his flight 
he bent over his horse’s neck, a ball had struck him on the right side, and re- 
mained sticking near the articulation of the left shoulder. In this condition he 
had already lain for three-and-thirty days, his left arm frightfully swollen, and 
the rest of his body emaciated to a skeleton. Near the dying savage, whose 
glassy eye and contracted features spoke of the dreadful pain of which he dis- 
dained to speak, lay his child, reduced to skin and bones, and expressing by a 
perpetual moaning the pangs of illness and hunger, while most to be pitied 
perhaps of this wretched family was the wife and mother, who seemed to 
be sinking under the double load of care and fatigue. During the night the 
“medicine-man” was busy beating his magic drum and driving away the evil 
spirits from the hut. 

Although the Crees show great fortitude in enduring hunger and the other 
evils incident to a hunter’s life, yet any unusual accident dispirits them at once, 
and they seldom venture to meet their enemies in open warfare, or even to sur- 
prise them, unless they have a great advantage in point of numbers. Instances 
of personal bravery like that of the Esquimaux are rare indeed among them. 
Superior in personal appearance to the Tinné, they are less honest, and though 
perhaps not so much given to falsehood as the Tinné, are more turbulent and 
more prompt to invade the rights of their countrymen, as well as of neighbor- 
Ing nations. 


21 


322 THE POLAR WORLD. 


Tattooing is almost universal among them. The women are in general con- 
tent with having one or two lines drawn from the corners of the mouth towards 


/ 


pee 


—— = : = : 
SaaS $e 
——— = = = = 
= = = ~ 


SS ———— 


SSSSSS—= 


=s. 
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—————— 


Bo 2 
— Coes 
=S=S=—=— SSS SES = = 


3S = 
Vee 


———S— 


—— SSS 


———— 


WATCHING FQR CREES. 


SS —————— = —— =— 


——S 


—————— 
——————— = = 
— —— 
SSS 
—— = 


= 
—= — === 
== SS === = ———=: 
== —— = ——————————————— 
— —— 
—— —S 
SSS SSS = 
SS S=SS>S= 


—S 


= = : 
<-> a ~~ — === 
S == = = === 

= SS = ESS — SS 
———————— 2 = SS =— 
SSS : = = 

= = SS 
N = 


. 
a 
——— 
——— 


the angles of the lower jaw, but some of the men have their bodies covered 
with lines and figures. It seems to be considered by most rather as a proof of 


THE CREE INDIANS, OR EYTHINYUWUK. 323 


courage than an ornament, as the operation is both painful and tedious. The 
lines on the face are formed by dexterously running an awl under the cuticle, 
and then drawing a cord, dipped in charcoal and water, through the canal thus 
formed. The punctures on the body are made by needles of various sizes, set 
inaframe. A number of hawk-bells attached to this frame serve, by their noise, 
to cover the groans of the sufferer, and probably for the same reason the process 
is accompanied with singing. An indelible stain is produced by rubbing a lit- 
tle finely-powdered willow-charcoal into the puncture. A half-breed, whose arm 
was amputated by Sir John Richardson, declared that tatooing was not only 
the more painful operation of the two, but rendered infinitely more difficult to 
bear by its tediousness, having lasted, in his case, three days. 
The Crees are also fond of painting their faces with vermilion and charcoal. 
In general the dress of the male consists of a blanket thrown over the shoulders, 
a leathern shirt or jacket, and a piece of cloth tied round the middle. The 
women have in addition a long petticoat, and both sexes wear a kind of wide 
hose, which, reaching from the ankle to the middle of the thigh, are suspended 
by strings to the girdle. These hose, or “ Indian stockings,” are commonly or- 
namented with beads or ribands, and from their convenience have been univer- 
sally adopted by the white residents, as an essential part of their winter-cloth- 
ing. ‘Their shoes, or rather soft boots (for they tie round the ankle), are made 
of dressed moose-skins; and during the winter they wrap several pieces of 
blanket round their feet. They are fond of European articles of dress, such as 
great-coats, shawls, and calicoes, which, however showy they may beat first, are 
soon reduced to a very filthy condition by their custom of greasing the face and 
hair with soft fat or marrow. This practice they say preserves the skin soft, and 
protects it from cold in the winter and the mosquitoes in summer; but it ren- 
ders their presence disagreeable to Europeans who may chance to be seated 
near them in a close tent and near a hot fire. 
The: Cree women are not in general treated harshly by their husbands: a 
great part of the labor, however, falls to the lot of the wife. She makes the 
hut, cooks, dresses the skins, and for the most part carries the heaviest load; 
but when she is unable to perform her task, the husband does not consider it 
beneath his dignity to assist her. 
The Crees are extremely indulgent to their children. The father never 
chastises them; and the mother, though more hasty in her temper, seldom be- 
stows a blow on a troublesome child. 
_ The cradle in use among them is well adapted to their mode of life, and is 

one of their neatest articles of furniture, being generally ornamented with beads 
and bits of scarlet cloth, but it bears a very strong resemblance in its form to a 
mummy-case. The infant is placed in this bag, having its lower extremities 
wrapped up in soft sphagnum, or bog-moss, and may be hung up in the tent or 
to the branch of a tree, without the least danger of tumbling out; or, ina jour- 
ney may be suspended on the mother’s back by a band which crosses the fore- 
head so as to leave her hands free. The sphagnum forms a soft elastic bed, 
which absorbs moisture very readily, and affords such a protection from the 
winter cold that its place would be ill supplied by any other material. 


324 THE POLAR WORLD. 


A CREE VILLAGE. 


The ordinary wigwams, skin tents, or “lodges” of the Tinné and Crees are 
exactly alike in form, being extended on poles set up in a conical manner; but 
as a general rule the tents of the latter are more commodious and more fre- 
quently supplied with a fresh lining of the spray of the balsam-fir. They also 
occasionally erect a larger dwelling of Iattice-work, covered with birch-bark, in 
which forty men or more can assemble for feasting, debating, or performing 
some of their religious ceremonies. The entire nation of the Eythinyuwuk cul- 
tivate oratory more than their northern neighbors, who express themselves more 
simply and far less fluently. 

Vapor baths are in common use with the Crees, and form one of the chief 
remedies of their medicine-men. The operator shuts himself up with his patient 
in the small sweating-house—in which red-hot stones besprinkled with water, 
and having a few leaves of a species of prunus strewed around them, produce 
a damp atmosphere of a stifling heat—and shampoos him, singing all the time a 
kind of hymn. As long as the medicine-man can hold out,so long must the 
patient endure the intense heat of the bath, and then, if the invalid be able to 
move, they both plunge into the river. If the patient does not recover, he is at 
least more speedily released from his sufferings by this powerful remedy. 

The Crees are a vain, fickle, improvident, indolent, and ludicrously boastful 
race. They are also great gamblers, but, instead of cards or dice, they play 
with the stones of a species of prunus. The difficulty lies in guessing the num- 
‘ber of stones which are tossed out of a small wooden dish, and the hunters 
will spend whole nights at this destructive sport, staking their most valuable 


oe asa 


ely 


THE CREE INDIANS, OR EYTHINYUWUK. 325 


articles. They have, however, a much more manly amusement, termed the 
“cross,” although they do not engage even in it without depositing consider- 
able stakes. An extensive meadow is chosen for this sport, and the articles 
staked are tied to a post, or deposited in the custody of two old men. The com- 
batants being stripped and painted, and each provided with a kind of racket, 
in shape resembling the letter P, with a handle about two feet long, and a head 
loosely wrought with net-work, so as to form a shallow bag, range themselves 
on different sides. A ball being now tossed up in the middle, each party en- 
deavors to drive it to their respective goals, and much dexterity and agility is 
displayed in the contest. When a nimble runner gets the ball in his cross, he 
sets off towards the goal with the utmost speed, and is followed by the rest, who 
endeavor to jostle him and shake it out, but, if hard pressed, he discharges it 
with a jerk, to be forwarded by his own party or bandied back by their oppo- 
nents until the victory is decided by its passing the goal. 

Neither the Esquimaux nor the Tinné have any visible objects of worship, 
but the Crees carry with them small wooden figures rudely carved, or merely 
the tops of a few willow-bushes tied together, as the representatives of a mali- 
cious, or at least capricious being, called Kepoochikann, ‘Their most common 
petition to this being is for plenty of food, but as they do not trust entirely to 
his favor, they endeavor at the same time to propitiate the animal, an imagina- 
ry representative of the whole race of larger quadrupeds that are objects of the 
chase. 

Though often referring to the Kitche-manito, the “Great Spirit,” or “ Mas- 
ter of Life,” they do not believe that he cares for his creatures, and consequent- 
ly never think of praying to him. They have no legend about the creation, but 
they speak of a deluge caused by an attempt of the fish to drown Woesack-oo- 
tchacht, a kind of demi-god, with whom they had quarrelled. Having construct- 
ed a raft, this being embarked with his family and all kinds of birds and beasts. 
After the flood had continued for some time, he ordered several waterfowl to 
dive to the bottom. They were all drowned ; but a musk-rat, dispatched on 
the same errand, returned with a mouthful of mud, out of which Woesack- 
ootchacht, imitating the mode in which the rats construct their houses, formed 
a new earth. First a small conical hill of mud appeared above the water; by- 
and-by, its base gradually spreading out, it became an extensive bank, which 
the rays of the sun at length hardened into firm land. Notwithstanding the 
power that Woesack-ootchacht here displayed, his person is held in very little 
reverence by the Indians, who do not think it worth while to make any effort 
to avert his wrath. 

Like the Tinné, the Crees also have a Tartarus and an Elysium. The souls 
‘of the departed are obliged to scramble with great labor up the sides of a steep 
mountain, upon attaining the summit of which they are rewarded with the 
prospect of an extensive plain abounding in all sorts of game, and interpersed 
here and there with new tents pitched in pleasant situations. While they are 
absorbed in the contemplation of this delightful scene, they are descried by the 
inhabitants of the happy land, who, clothed in new skin dresses, approach and 
welcome, with every demonstration of kindness, those Indians who have led 


326 THE POLAR WORLD. 


good lives, but the bad Indians are told to return from whence they came, and 
without more ceremony are hurled down the precipice. 

As yet Christianity has made but little progress among the Indians of Brit- 
ish North America, its benefits being hitherto confined to the Ojibbeways of 
Lake Huron, and to a small number of the Crees of the Hudson’s Bay territory. 
The well-fed Sauteurs of the Winipeg are as disinclined to be converted as the 
buffalo-hunters of the prairies. 


THE TINNE INDIANS. 32% 


CHAPTER XXX. 
THE TINNE INDIANS. 
The various Tribes of the Tinné Indians.—The Dog-ribs.—Clothing.—The Hare Indians. —Degraded 
State of the Women.—Practical Socialists. —Character.—Cruelty to the Aged and Infirm. 

CW HE Tinné Indians, whose various tribes range from the Lower Mackenzie 

. to the Upper Saskatchewan, and from New Caledonia to the head of Ches- 
terfield Inlet, occupy a considerable part of the territories of the Hudson’s Bay 
Company. To their race belong the Strongbows of the Rocky Mountains ; the 
Beaver Indians, between Peace River and the west branch of the Macken- 
zie; the Red-knives, thus named from the copper knives of which their native 
ores furnish the materials, and who roam between the Great Fish River and the 
Coppermine; the Hare Indians, who inhabit the thickly wooded district of the 
‘Mackenzie from Slave Lake downward; the Dog-ribs, who occupy the inland 
country on the east from Martin Lake to the Coppermine; the Athabascans, 
who frequent the Elk and Slave Rivers, and many other tribes of inferior note. 

The Tinné, in general, have more regular features than the Esquimaux, and, 
taken on the whole, exhibit all the characteristics of the red races dwelling 
farther south; but their utter disregard of cleanliness and their abject be- 
havior (for when in the company of white people they exhibit the whine and 
air of inveterate mendicants) give them a wretched appearance. Mackenzie, 
the first European who became acquainted with the Dog-ribs, describes them 
as an ugly emaciated tribe, covered with dirt and besmeared with grease from 
head to foot. More than sixty years have passed since Mackenzie’s journey, 
but his account of them is true to the present day. The women are even 
uglier and more filthy than the men, for the latter at least paint their unwashed 
faces and wear trinkets on festive occasions, while the females leave even their 
hair without any other dressing than wiping their greasy hands on the matted 
locks, when they have been rubbing their bodies with marrow. The clothing 
of the men in summer consists of reindeer leather dressed like shammy, which, 
when newly made, is beautifully white and soft. “A shirt of this material,” 
says Sir John Richardson, to whom we are indebted for the best account of the 
various nations inhabiting the Hudson’s Bay territory, “cut evenly below, 
reaches to the middle; the ends of a piece of cloth secured to a waist-band 
hang down before and behind; the hose, or Indian stockings, descend from the 
top of the thigh to the ankle, and a pair of moccasins or shoes of the same soft 
leather with tops which fold round the ankle, complete the costume. When 
the hunter is equipped for the chase he wears, in addition, a stripe of white 
hare-skin, or of the belly part of a deer-skin, in a bandana round the head, with 
his lank, black elf-locks streaming from beneath; a shot-pouch suspended by 
an embroidered belt, a fire-bag or tobacco-pouch tucked into the girdle, and a 


328 THE POLAR WORLD. 


long fowling-piece thrown carelessly across the arm, or balanced on the back of 
the neck. The several articles here enumerated are ornamented at the seams 
and hems with leather thongs wound round with porcupine quills, or more or 
less embroidered with bead-work, according to the industry of the wife or 
wives. One of the young men, even of the slovenly Dog-ribs, when newly 
equipped, and tripping jauntily over the mossy ground with an elastic step, dis- 
plays his sim and not ungraceful figure to advantage. But this fine dress once 
donned is neither laid aside nor cleaned while it lasts, and soon acquires a dingy 
look, and an odor which betrays its owner at some distance. In the camp a 
greasy blanket of English manufacture is worn over the shoulders by day, and 
forms with the clothes the bedding by night.” 

In winter they clothe themselves with moose or reindeer skins, retaining the 
hair, while a large robe of the same material is thrown over the shoulders, and 
hangs down to the feet in place of the blanket. The women’s dress resembles 
the men’s, but the skirt is somewhat longer, and generally accompanied by a 
petticoat which reaches nearly to the knee. The form of dress here described 
is common to the whole Tinné nation, and also to the Crees, but the material 
varies with the district. Thus moose-deer, red-deer, and bison leather are in 
use among the more southern and western tribes, and the Hare Indians make 
their skirts of the skins of the animal from which they derive their surname. 
As this, however, is too tender to be used in the ordinary way, it is torn into 
narrow strips, twisted slightly, and plaited or worked into the required shape. 
Such is the closeness and fineness of the fur that these hare-skin dresses are 
exceedingly warm, notwithstanding the closeness of their texture. 

The Hare Indian and Dog-rib. women are certainly at the bottom of the 
scale of humanity in North America. Not that they are treated with cruelty, 
but that they are looked upon as inferior beings, and in this belief they them- 
selves acquiesce. In early infancy the boy discovers that he may show any 
amount of arrogance towards his sisters, who, as soon as they can walk, are 
harnessed to a sledge, while the tiny hunter struts in his snow-shoes after the 
men and apes their contempt of the women. All the work, except hunting and 
fishing, falls to their share; yet they are in general not discontented with their 
lot. 

It would be vain to look among the Dog-ribs for the stoicism popularly 
attributed to the Indians, for they shrink from pain, shed tears readily, and are 
very timorous ; but all, young and old, enjoy a joke heartily, and when young 
are lively and cheerful. When bands of their nation meet each other after a 
long absence, they perform a kind of dance. A piece of ground is cleared for 
the purpose, and the dance frequently lasts for two or three days, the parties 
relieving each other as they get tired. The two bands commence the dance 
with their backs turned to each other, the individuals following one another in 
Indian file, and holding the bow in the left hand and an arrow in the right. 
They approach obliquely after many turns, and when the two bands are closely 
back to back, they feign to see each other for the first time, and the bow is in- 
stantly transferred to the right hand and the arrow to the left, signifying that 
itis not their intention to use them against their friends. Their dancing, which 


=: 


THE TINNE INDIANS. 329 


they accompany by a chorus of groans, compared by Sir John Richardson to 
the deep sigh of a pavior as he brings his rammer down upon the pavement, has 
not the least pretensions to grace; their knees and body are half bent, and, from 
their heavy stamping, they appear as if desirous of sinking into the ground. 

The Dog-ribs are practical socialists, and their wretched condition results 
in a great measure from this cause. All may avail themselves of the produce 
of a hunter’s energy or skill, and do not even leave him the distribution of his 
own game. When it becomes known in a camp that deer have been killed, the 
oid men and women of each family sally forth with their sledges and divide the 
quarry, leaving the owner nothing but the ribs and tongue—all he can claim of 
right. Unable to restrain their appetite, all the community feast in times of 
abundance, however little many of the men (and there are not a few idle ones) 
may have contributed to the common good. Taught by frequent sufferings, 
the more active hunters frequently withdraw from the worthless drones, leay- 
ing them at some fishing-station, where, with proper industry, they may subsist 
comfortably. Fish-diet is, however, not agreeable to their taste, and as soon as 
reports of a successful chase arrive, a general movement to the hunting-ground 
ensues. If on their march the craving multitude discover a hoard of meat, it is 
devoured on the spot; but they are not always so fortunate. The deer and the 
hunters may have gone off, and then they are obliged to retrace their steps, 
many perishing by the way. , 

-- The Dog-ribs are not conspicuous for hospitality. When a stranger enters 
a tent he receives no welcome and proffer of food, though he may help himself 
from a piece of meat hanging on the wall or join the repast. Though great 
liars, they do not steal the white man’s property like the Esquimaux and Crees, 
and when visiting a fort, they may be trusted in any of the rooms. <As to their 
religious belief, the majority of the nation recognize a Great Spirit, while others 
doubt his existence, assigning as 4 reason their miserable condition. They are 
in great fear of evil spirits, which, as they imagine, assume the forms of the 
bear, wolf, and wolverine, and in the woods, waters, and desert places they fancy 
they hear them howling in the winds or moaning by the graves of the dead. 
They never make offerings to the Great Spirit, but deprecate the wrath of an 
evil being by the promise of a sacrifice, or by scattering a handful of deer-hair 
or a few feathers. They believe in a state of future happiness or torment. 
The soul, after death, crosses a broad river in a boat, and thus endeavors to 
reach the opposite shore, which is adorned with all the beauties of paradise. If 
laden with crime, the boat sinks under the weight, and the unfortunate soul, im- 
mersed in water, strives in vain to reach the blissful abode from which it is for- 
ever banished. 

Formerly when a Tinné warrior died, it was customary for the family to 
abandon every article they possessed, and betake themselves, in a perfectly des- 
titute condition, to the nearest body of their own people or trading-post, The 
advice of traders is gradually breaking down this absurd practice, which would 
alone suffice to keep this people in a state of perpetual poverty. In other re- 
spects also, European influence begins to make itself felt. Since 1846 Roman 
Catholic missionaries are at work among the Chepewyans, and have taught many 


330 THE POLAR WORLD. 


of their converts to read and write. The Athabascans had formerly but a small 
breed of dogs, now a stouter race has, in some respects, ameliorated the condi- 
tion of the females, and the introduction of the horse, which has more recently 
taken place, holds out prospects of a still greater improvement. The Tinné are 
as giddy and thoughtless as children. When accompanied by a white man 
they will perform a long journey carefully, but can not be depended upon to 
carry letters, however high the reward may be that has been promised them on 
reaching their destination, as the least whim suffices to make them forget their 
commission. 

They are generally content with one wife at a time, and none but the chiefs 
have more than two. The successful wrestler takes the wife of his weaker 
countryman, who consoles himself for his loss by endeavoring to find one weaker 
than himself. 

Tender and affectionate parents, the Tinné are totally indifferent to the sor- 
rows of helpless age. During the stay of Sir George Back at Fort Reliance, 
an old woman arrived there on Easter Sunday, clothed in ragged reindeer skins, 
worn down toa skeleton, and grasping with both her hands a stick to support 
her body, bent double by age and want. The story of the poor creature was 
soon told. She had become a burden to her family; her former services had 
all been forgotten, and she had been told “ that though she still seemed to live, 
she was in reality dead, and must be abandoned to her fate. In the new fort 
she might find assistance, for the white strangers were powerful medicine-men.” 
This had happened a month before, and all this time she had slowly crept along, 
appeasing her hunger with the berries she found here and there on the way. 
When she reached the fort it was too late; she died a few days after her 
arrival, 


THE LOUCHEUX, OR KUTCHIN INDIANS, 331 


CHAPTER XXXII. 
THE LOUCHEUX, OR KUTCHIN INDIANS. 


The Countries they inhabit.—Their Appearance and Dress.—Their Love of Finery.—Condition of the 

Women.—Strange Customs.—Character. —Feuds with the Esquimaux.—Their suspicious and timo- 

‘rous Lives.—Pounds for catching Reindeer.—Their Lodges. 
WN the banks of the Lower Mackenzie, to the west of Great Bear Lake, in 
the territories drained by the Peel River and by the Upper Yukon, 
dwell the Loucheux, or Kutchin Indians, whose language is totally different 
from that of the other North American tribes, and whose customs and manners 
also vary considerably from those of all their neighbors, both Red-skins and 
Esquimaux. 

They are an athletic and fine-looking people, with regular features and « 
complexion of a lighter copper color than that of the other Red Indians, so that 
many of their women would be reckoned handsome in any country. The fe- 
males tattoo their chins and use a black pigment when they paint their faces, 
while the men employ both red and black on all occasions of ceremony, and al- 
ways to be ready, each carries a small bag with red clay and black lead suspend- 
ed to his neck. Most commonly the eyes are encircled with black, a stripe of 
the same runs down the middle of the nose, and a blotch is daubed on the upper 
part of each cheek. The forehead is crossed by many narrow red stripes, and 
the skin is streaked alternately with red and black. 

The outer shirt of the Kutchin is made of the skins of tawn reindeer, dress- 
ed with the hair on after the manner of the Hare, Dog-rib, and other Chepe- 
wyan tribes, but resembles in form the analogous garment of the Esquimaux, 
being furnished with peaked skirts, though of smaller size. The men wear 
these skirts before and behind; the women have larger back skirts, but none in 
front. In winter shirts of hare-skin are worn, and the pantaloons of deer-skin 
have the fur next the skin. 

None of the neighboring nations pay so much attention to personal cleanli- 
ness, or are so studious in adorning their persons. A broad band of beads is 
worn across the shoulders and breast of the shirt, and the hinder part of the 
dress is frmged with tassels wound round with dyed porcupine quills and strung 
with the silvery fruit of the oleaster (Zlwagnus argentea); a stripe of beads, 
strung in alternate red and white squares, ornament the seams of the trowsers, | 
and bands of beads encircle the ankles. The poorer sort, or the less fortunate 
hunters, who are unable to procure these costly trinkets in the same enviable 
abundance as the rich, strive to wear at least a string of beads, and look down 
with contemptuous pity upon the still more needy class, which is reduced to 
adorn itself with porcupine quills only. 

In consequence of this passionate fondness for beads, these ornaments serve 


335 THE POLAR WORLD. 


as a medium of exchange among the Kutchin, and Sir John Richardson re- 
marks that no such near approach to money has been invented by the nations 
to the eastward of the Rocky Mountains. The standard bead, and one of the 
most value, is a large one of white enamel, manufactured in Italy only, and is 
with difficulty procured in sufficient quantity to satisfy the demand, as beads 
are more prized than English cloth and blankets. 

Another article very much in request among the Kutchin is the large ribbed 
dentalium shell which is collected in the archipelago between Oregon and Cape 
Fairweather, and passes by trade from tribe to tribe until it finds its way at 
length to the Yukon. With this shell they adorn their mittens, and even at- 
tach it to their guns, which have been lately introduced, and are in great de- 
mand. All men carry powder and ball, whether they own a gun or not, and 
obtain for it a share of the game. 

The tribes on the Yukon tie their hair behind in a cue, or “ chignon,” and 
daub it with grease, and the down of geese and ducks, until, by the repeti- 
tion of the process continued from infancy, it swells to an enormous thickness, 
so that the weight of the accumulated load of hair, dirt, and ornaments causes 
the wearer to stoop forward habitually. The tail-feathers of the eagle and 
fishing-hawk are stuck into the hair on the back of the head, and are removed 
only when the owner retires to sleep, or when he wishes to wave them to and 
fro in a dance. ua} 

The principal men have two or three wives each, while the bad hunters are 
obliged to remain bachelors. A good wrestler, however, even though poor, can 
always obtain a wife. 

The women do all the drudgery in winter except. cooking, and do not eat 
till the husband is satisfied. In summer they labor little, except in drying 
meat or fish for its preservation. ‘The men alone paddle while the women sit 
as passengers, and husbands even carry their wives to the shore on their arms, 
that they may not wet their feet—an instance of gallantry almost unparalleled in 
savage life. The Esquimaux women row their own “ oomiaks,” and the Chepe- 
wyan women assist the men in paddling their canoes. On the whole, the so- 
cial condition of the Kutchin women is far superior to that of the Tinné women, 
but scarcely equal to that of the Esquimaux dames. 

They do not carry their children in their hoods or boots like the Esquimaux, 
nor do they stuff them into a bag with moss like the Tinné and Crees, but they 
place them in a seat of birch-bark, with a back and sides like those of an arm- 
chair, and a pommel in front resembling the peak of a Spanish saddle, by which 
they hang it from their back. The child’s feet are bandaged to prevent them: 
growing, small feet being thought handsome, and consequently short unshapely 
feet are characteristic of the people of both sexes. A more ridiculous or insane 
custom can hardly be imagined among a nation of hunters. 

The Kutchin are a lively, cheerful people, fond of dancing and singing, in 
which they excel all other Indians ; leaping, wrestling, and other athletic exer- 
cises are likewise favorite amusements. They are inveterate talkers. Every 
new-comer arriving at a trading-post makes a long speech, which must not be 
interrupted. The belief in Shamanism is still in full vigor among them. 


THE LOUCHEUX, OR KUTCHIN INDIANS. 333 


Though a treacherous people, they have never yet imbrued their hands in 
European blood, but there are frequent feuds among their various tribes, by 
which one-half of the population of the banks of the Yukon has been cut off 
within the last twenty years. From a constant dread of ambuscade, they do 
not travel except in large parties; and thus a perpetual feeling of insecurity 
embitters their lives, which are already rendered sufficiently hard by the sever- 
ity of an Arctic climate. The agents of the Hudson’s Bay Company have en- 
deavored by good advice, and the distribution of large presents, to establish 
peace, but have only met with partial success. 

Like the Tinné, the Kutchin are in a state of perpetual warfare with the Es- 
quimaux ; and though they always charge the latter with treachery, yet there 
can be no doubt that the accusation might, with full justice, be retorted upon 
themselves. One of the hostile encounters, mentioned by Sir J. Richardson, de- 
serves notice, on account of its resemblance in some particulars to the meeting 
of Joab and Abner, recorded in the Second Book of Samuel. A party of each of 
the two nations having met on the banks of a river, the young men of both 
parties rose up as if for a friendly dance. The stream glides peacefully along, 
the setting sun gilds the pine forest and sparkles in the waters; all nature 
breathes peace. But the Esquimaux having, according to their custom, con- 
cealed their long knives in the sleeves of their deer-skin shirts, suddenly draw 
them in one of the evolutions of the dance and plunge them into their oppo- 
nents. A general conflict ensues, in which the Kutchin, thanks to their guns, 
ultimately prove victorious. “ Another incident,” says Sir John Richardson, 
“which occurred on the banks of the Yukon in 1845, gives us a farther insight 
into the suspicious and timorous lives of these people. One night four stran- 
gers from the lower part of the river arrived at the tent of an old man who was 
sick, and who had with him only two sons, one of them a mere boy. The new- 
comers entered in a friendly manner, and when the hour of repose came, lay 
down; but as they did not sleep, the sons, suspecting from their conduct that 
they meditated evil, feigned a desire of visiting their moose-deer snares. They 
intimated their purpose aloud to their father and went out, taking with them 
their bows and arrows. Instead, however, of continuing their way into the 
wood, they stole back quietly to the tent, and listening on the outside, discover- 
ed, as they fancied, from the conversation of the strangers, that their father’s 
life was in danger. Knowing the exact position of the inmates, they thereupon 
shot their arrows through the skin covering of the tent and killed two of the 
strange Indians; and the other two, in endeavoring to make their escape by the 
door, shared the fate of their companions. This is spoken of in the tribe as an 
exceedingly brave action.” 

During the summer the Yukon Kutchin dry, for their winter use, the white- 
fish (Coregonus albus), which they catch by planting stakes across the smaller 
rivers and narrow parts of the lakes and closing the openings with wicker-bas- 
kets. They take the moose-deer in snares, and towards spring mostly resort to 
the mountains to hunt reindeer and lay in a stock of dried venison. On the 
open pasture-grounds frequented by this animal they construct large pounds. 
Two rows of posts firmly planted in the ground, and united by the addition of 


334 THE POLAR WORLD. 


strong horizontal bars into a regular fence, extend their arms for nearly the 
length of a mile in the form of a Roman V. The extremity of the avenue is 
closed by stakes with sharp points sloping towards the entrance, on which the 
reindeer, driven together and hotly pursued by the Indians, may impale them- 
selves in their desperate flight. The structure is erected with great labor, as 
the timber has to be transported into the open country from a considerable dis- 
tance. Some of these may be a century old, and they are the hereditary pos- 
session of the families or tribes by whom they were originally constructed. 

But in spite of all their contrivances and the use of fire-arms, the Kutchin, 
whose numbers on the banks of the Yukon are estimated at about a thousand 
men and boys able to hunt, are frequently reduced to great distress. Hence 
the old and infirm are mercilessly left to their fate when game is scarce, and 
famine makes itself felt. Attempts have been vainly made to better the con- 
dition of the northern Indians by inducing them to tame the reindeer. Their 
superstition is one of the obstacles against this useful innovation, for they fear 
that were they to make some of the reindeer their captives, the remainder would 
immediately leave the country. “And why,” they add, “should we follow like 
slaves a herd of tame animals, when the forest and the barren ground provide 
us with the elk, the wild reindeer, and the musk-ox, and our rivers and lakes are 
filled with fishes that cost us nothing but the trouble of catching them ?” 

_ Each family possesses a deer-skin tent or lodge, which in summer, when in 
quest of game, is rarely erected. The winter encampment is usually in a grove 
of spruce-firs; the ground being cleared of snow, the skins, which are prepared 
with the hair, are extended over flexible willow poles which take a semicircular 
form. This hemispherical shape of lodges is not altogether unknown among 
the Chepewyans and Crees, being that generally adapted for their vapor baths, 
framed of willow poles, but their dwelling-places are conical, as stiff poles are 
used for their construction. | 

When the tent is erected the snow is packed on outside to half its height, 
and it is lined equally high within with the young spray of the spruce-fir, that 
the bodies of the inmates may not rest against the cold wall. The doorway is 
filled up by a double told of skin, and the apartment has the closeness and 
warmth but not the elegance of the Esquimaux snow hut, which it resembles 
in shape. Though only a very small fire is kept in the centre of the lodge, yet 
the warmth is as great as in a log-house. The provisions are stored on the 
outside under fir branches and snow, and further protected from the dogs by 
sledges being placed on top. 


On 


ARCTIC VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY. 33 


CHAPTER XXXII. 
ARCTIC VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY, FROM THE CABOTS TO BAFFIN. 
First Scendinavian Discoverer of America. —The Cabots.—Willoughby and Chancellor (1553-1554).— 


Stephen Burrough (1556).—Frobisher (1576-1578).—Davis (1585-1587).—Barentz, Cornelis, and 
Brant (1594).—Wintering of the Dutch Navigators in Nova Zembla (1596-1597).—John Knight 
(1606).—Murdered by the Esquimaux.—Henry Hudson (1607-1609). —Baffin (1616). 
ONG before Columbus sailed from the port of Palos (1492) on that ever- 
memorable voyage which changed the geography of the world, the Scan- 
dinavians had already found the way to North America. From Greenland, 
which was known to them as early as the ninth century, and which they began 
to colonize in the year 985, they sailed farther to the west, and gradually extend. 
ed their discoveries from the coasts of Labrador, Nova Scotia, and Newfound- 
land, to those of the present State of Rhode Island, which, from the wild vines 
they there found growing in abundance, they called the “ good Vinland.” 

But a long series of disasters destroyed their Greenland colonies about the 
end of the fourteenth century, and as Scandinavia itself had at that time but 
very little intercourse with the more civilized nations of Southern Europe, it is 
not to be wondered at that, despite the discoveries of Giinnbjorn and Eric the 
Red, the great western continent remained unknown to the world in general. 

One of the first consequences of the achievements of Columbus was the re- 
discovery of the northern part of America, for the English merchants longed 
to have a share of the commerce of India; and as the Pope had assigned the 
eastern route to the Portuguese and the western one to the Spaniards, they re- 
solved to ascertain whether a third and shorter way to the Spice Islands, or to 
the fabulous golden regions of the east, might not be found by steering to the 
north-west. dn pursuance of these views John and Sebastian Cabot sailed in 
1497 from Bristol, at that time our first commercial port, and discovered the 
whole American coast from Labrador to Virginia. They failed indeed in the 
object of their mission, but they laid the first foundations of the future colonial 
greatness of England. 

A second voyage, in 1498, by Sebastian Cabot alone, without the companion- 
ship of his father, had no important results, but in a third voyage which he 
undertook in search of a north-west passage, at Henry VIII.’s expense, in 1516 
or 1517, it is tolerably certain that that great navigator discovered the two 
straits which now bear the names of Davis and Hudson. 

The French expeditions of Verazzani (1523) and Jacques Cartier (1524), 
however memorable in other respects, having been as unsuccessful as those of 
Cortereal (1500) or Gomez (1524) in discovering the desired north-western pas- 
sage, Sebastian Cabot, who in 1549 was created Grand Pilot of England, start- 
‘ed in his old age another idea, which has become almost equally momentous in 


5326 THE POLAR WORLD. 


the history of Arctic discovery—the search for a north-eastern route to China. 
Accordingly, in the year 1553, a squadron of three small vessels, under the 
command of Sir Hugh Willoughby, Chancellor, and Durfoorth, set sail from 
Ratcliffe, with the vain hope of reaching India by sailing round North Asia, 
the formation and vast extent of which were at that time totally unknown. 

Off Senjan, an island on the Norwegian coast in lat. 693°, the ships parted 
company in a stormy night, never to meet again. Willoughby and Durfoorth 
reached the coast of Nova Zembla, and ultimately sought a harbor in Lap- 
land on the west side of the entrance into the White Sea, where the captain- 
general, officers, and crews of both ships were miserably frozen to death, as some 
Russian fishermeu ascertained in the following spring. How long they sus- 
tained the severity of the weather is not known, but the journals and a will 
found on board the “ Admiral” proved that Sir Hugh Willoughby and most 
of that ship’s company were alive in January, 1554. They died the victims of 
inexperience; for had they,as Sir John Richardson remarks, been skilled in 
hunting and clothing themselves, and taken the precaution moreover of laying 
in at the beginning of the winter a stock of mossy turf such as the country 
produces for fuel, and above all had they secured a few of the very many seals 
and belugze which abounded in the sea around them, they might have preserved 
their lives and passed 2n endurable winter. 

Chancellor was either more fortunate or more skillful, for after having long 
been buffeted about by stormy weather, he eventually reached St. Nicholas, in 
the White Sea. From thence he proceeded overland to Moscow, and delivered 
his credentials to the Czar, Ivan Vasilovitch, from whom he obtained many 
privileges for the company of merchants who had fitted out the expedition. In 
1554 he returned to England, and shortly afterwards was sent back to Russia 
by Queen Mary for the purpose of negotiating a treaty of commerce between 
the two nations. Having satisfactorily accomplished his mission, he once more 
set sail from the White Sea, accompanied by a Muscovite ambassador. But 
this time the return voyage was extremely unfortunate, for Chancellor, after 
losing two of his vessels off the coast of Norway, was carried by a violent tem- 
pest into the Bay of Pitsligo, in Scotland, where his ship was wrecked. He en- 
deavored to save the ambassador and himself in a boat, but the small pinnace 
was upset; and although the Russian safely reached the strand, the English- 
man, after having escaped so many dangers in the Arctic Ocean, was drowned 
within sight of his native shores. 

In 1556 the Muscovy Company fitted out the Serchthrift pinnace, under the 
command of Stephen Burrough, for discovery towards the River Obi and farther 
search for a north-east passage. This small vessel reached the strait between 
Nova Zembla and Vaigats, called by the Russians the Kara Gate, but the 
enormous masses of ice that came floating through the channel compelled it to 
return. : 

In spite of these repeated disappointments, the desire to discover a northern 
route to India was too great to allow an enterprising nation like the English to 
abandon the scheme as hopeless. 

Thus in the days of Elizabeth the question of the north-west passage was 


ARCTIC VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY. 337 


again revived, and Martin Frobisher, who had solicited merchants and nobles 
during fifteen years for means to undertake “ the only great thing left undone in 
the world,’ sailed in the year 1576 with three small vessels of 35, 30, and 10 tons, 
on no less an errand than the circumnavigation of Northern America. The 
reader may smile at the ignorance which encouraged such efforts, but he can 
not fail to admire the iron-hearted man who ventured in such wretched nutshells 
to face the Arctic seas. The expedition safely reached the coasts of Greenland 
and Labrador, and brought home some glittering stones, the lustre of which 
was erroneously attributed to gold. This belief so inflamed the zeal for new 
expeditions to “ Meta Incognita,” as Frobisher had named the coasts he had 
discovered, that he found no difficulty in equipping three ships of a much larger 
size, that they might be able to hold more of the anticipated treasure. At the 
entrance of the straits which still bear his name, he was prevented by the gales 
and drift-ice from forcing a passage to the sea beyond, but having secured about 
200 tons of the supposed golden ore, the expedition was considered eminently 
successful. A large squadron of fifteen vessels was consequently fitted out in 
1578 for a third voyage, and commissioned not only to bring back an untold 
amount of treasure, but also to take out materials and men to establish a colony 
on those desolate shores. But this grand expedition, which sailed with such 
extravagant hopes, was to end in disappointment. One of the largest vessels 
was crushed by an iceberg at the entrance of the strait, and the others were so 
beaten about by storms and obstructed by fogs that they were at length glad 
to return to England without having done any thing for the advancement of 
geographical knowledge. The utter worthlessness of the glittering stones 
having meanwhile been discovered, Frobisher relinquished all further attempts 
to push his fortunes in the northern regions, and sought new laurels in a sunnier 
clime. He accompanied Drake to the West Indies, commanded subsequently 
one of the largest vessels opposed to the Spanish Armada, and ended his heroic 
life while attacking a small French fort in behalf of Henry IV. during the war 
with the League. 

The discovery of the North-western Passage was, however, still the great 
enterprise of the day, and thus sundry London merchants again “ cast in their 
adventure,” and sent out John Davis, in 1585, with his two ships, “ Sunshine” 
and “ Moonshine,” carrying, besides their more necessary equipments, a band 
of music “to cheer and recreate the spirits of the natives.” Davis arrived in 
sight of the south-western coast of Greenland, where he saw a high mountain 
(Sukkertoppen) towering like a cone of silver over the fog which veiled the 
dismal shore. The voyagers were glad to turn from the gloomy scene, and to 
steer through the open water to the north-west, where, on August 6, they dis- 
covered land in latitude 66° 40’ altogether free from “the pesters of ice, and 
ankered in a very fair rode.” A friendly understanding was established with 
the Esquimaux, and a lively traffic opened, the natives eagerly giving their 
skins and furs for beads and knives, until a brisk wind separated the strange 
visitants from their simple-minded friends. The remainder of the season was 
spent in exploring Cumberland Sound and the entrance to Frobisher’s and 
Hudson’s Straits. | | 

22 


838 THE POLAR WORLD. 


In the following year Davis undertook a second voyage to the north-west, 
for which the “Sunshine” and “ Moonshine” were again engaged, with two 
other vessels. On June 29, 1586, he landed on the coast of Greenland, in lati- 
tude 64°, and soon after steered to the west. ‘The enormous ice-floes which, as 
is well known, come drifting from Baffin’s Bay until the season is far advanced, 
opposed his progress. For some days he coasted these floating islands, when a 
fog came on, during which ropes, sails, and cordage were alike fast frozen, and 
the seamen, hopeless of accomplishing the passage, warned their commander 
that “‘by his over-boldness he might cause their widows and fatherless children 
to give him bitter curses.” 

Touched by this appeal, Davis ordered two of his ships to return home, and 
pushing on in the “ Moonshine” with the boldest of his followers, he reached 
the American shore, which he coasted from 67° to 57° of latitude. Off the 
coast of Labrador two of his sailors were killed by the natives, and September 
being ushered in by violent gales, he gave up further attempts for the year, and 
returned to England. 

On June 16, 1587, we once more find him on the coast of Greenland, in his 
old tried bark the “Sunshine,” in company with the “ Elizabeth” and a pin- 
nace. The supplies for this third voyage being furnished under the express 
condition that the expenses should be lightened as much as possible by fishing 
at all suitable times, the two larger ships were stationed for the purpose near 
the part of the coast which they had formerly visited, while Davis steered for- 
ward in the small and ill-conditioned vessel which alone remained at his dispo- 
sal. He first sailed along the Greenland coast as far as 72° lat., where, having 
fairly entered Baffin’s Bay, he named the point at which he touched Sander- 
son’s Hope, in honor of his chief patron, and then steered to the west, until he 
once more fell in with the ice-barrier which had prevented his progress the 
year before. Time and perseverance, however, overcame all obstacles, and by 
July 19 he had crossed to the opposite side of the strait which bears his name. | 
He then sailed for two days up Cumberland Strait—which, it will be remem- 
bered, he discovered on his first expedition—but believing this passage to be 
an inclosed gulf, he returned, and again passing the entrance to Hudson’s Bay 
without an effort to investigate it, repaired to the rendezvous appointed for the 
two whaling-vessels to meet him on their way to England. But who can 
paint his astonishment and consternation when he found that his companions 
had sailed away, leaving him to find his way home in his miserable pinnace, 
which, however, landed him safely on his native shores? This was the last of 
the Arctic voyages of that great navigator, for the spirit of the nation was 
chilled by his three successive disappointments ; and all the zeal with which he 
pleaded for a fourth expedition proved fruitless. 

He subsequently made five voyages to the East Indies, and was killed on 
December 27, 1605, on the coast of Malacca, in a fight with the Malays. 

Seven years after Davis’s last Arctic voyage the Dutch made their first ap- 
pearance on the scene of northern discovery. This persevering people had just 
then succeeded in casting off the Spanish yoke, and was now striving to gain, 
by the development of his maritime trade, a position among the neighboring 


ARCTIC VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY. 339 


states, which the smallness of its territory seemed to deny to it. All the 
known avenues to the treasures of the south were at that time too well guard- 
ed by the fleets of Portugal and Spain to admit of any rivalry; but if fortune 
favored them in finding the yet unexplored northern passage to India, they 
might still hope to secure a lion’s share in that most lucrative of trades. 

Animated by this laudable spirit of enterprise, the merchants of Amster- 
dam, Enkhuizen, and Middelburg fitted out in 1594 an expedition in quest of 
the north-eastern passage, which they intrusted to the command of Cornelius 
Corneliszoon, Brant Ysbrantzoon, and William Barentz, one of the most ex- 
perienced seamen of the day. The three vessels sailed from the Texel on June 
6, and having reached the coast of Lapland, separated into two divisions ; 
Barentz choosing the bolder course of coasting the west side of Nova Zem- 
bla as far as the islands of Orange, the most northerly points of the archipel- 
ago; while his less adventurous comrades were contented to sail along the 
Russian coast until they reached a strait, to which they gave the very appro- 
priate name of Vaigats, or “ Wind-hole.” Forcing their way through the ice, 
which almost constantly blocks up the entrance to the Kara Sea, they saw, on 
rounding a promontory at the other end of the strait, a clear expanse of blue 
open sea, stretching onward as far as the eye could reach, while the continent 
trended away rapidly towards the south-east. They now no longer doubted 
that they had sailed round the famous Cape Tabin—a fabulous headland, which, 
according to Pliny (an indisputable authority in those times of geographical 
ignorance), formed the northern extremity of Asia, from whence the voyage 
was supposed to be easy to its eastern and southern shores. Little did Brant 
and Cornelius dream that within the Arctic Circle the Asiatic coast. still 
stretched 120° to the east; and fully trusting their erroneous impressions, they 
started in full sail for Holland, eager to bring to their countrymen the news of 
their imaginary success. Off Russian Lapland they fell in with Barentz, who, 
having arrived at the northern extremity of Nova Zembla—a higher latitude 
than any navigator 1s recorded to have reached before—had turned back be- 
fore strong opposing winds and floating ice, and the three vessels returned to- 
gether to Texel. 

Such were the hopes raised by the discovery of the imaginary Cape Tabin 
that, losing sight of their habitual caution, the merchants of Middelburg, Enk- 
huizen, Rotterdam, and Amsterdam immediately fitted out a fleet of six ships, 
laden with all sorts of merchandise fit for the Indian market. A little yacht 
was added, which was to accompany the fleet as far as that promontory, and 
thence to return with the good news that the squadron had been left steering 
with a favorable wind right off to India. But, as may well be supposed, these 
sanguine hopes, built on the unsubstantial fabric of a vision, were doomed to a 
woful disappointment, for the “ Wind-hole Strait,” doing full justice to its 
name, did not allow the vessels to pass; and after fruitless efforts to force 
their way through the ice-blocks which obstructed that inhospitable channel, 
they returned crestfallen to the port whence they had sailed a few months be- 
fore with such brilliant expectations. 

Although great disappointment was felt at this failure, the scheme of sailing 


340 THE POLAR WORLD. 


round Cape Tabin to India was, however, not abandoned by the persevering 
Amsterdamers ; and, on May 16, 1596, Heemskerk, Barentz, and Cornelis Ryp 
once more started for the north-east. Bear Island and Spitzbergen were dis- 
covered, whereupon the ships separated, Cornelis and Heemskerk returning 
to Holland, while Barentz, slowly making his way through the fog and ice, ad- 
vanced to the most northern point of Nova Zembla, the crew being encouraged 
by the tidings that from the high cliffs of Orange Island clear open water had 
been seen to the south-east. The effort to reach this inviting channel was frus- 
trated by the ice, which gathered about the ship as it lay near shore, and grad- 
ually collecting under and around it, raised it far above the level of the sea. 
All hope of return before the next summer now vanished, but these brave ° 
sailors submitted with resignation to their fate, “though much grieved,” says 
Gerrit de Veer, who was himself an eye-witness of all the incidents he relates, 
“+o live there all that cold winter, which we knew would fall out to be ex- 
tremely bitter”” Fortunately a quantity of drift-wood was found on the strand, 
which served the Dutchmen both for the construction of a small hut and for 
fuel. 

As early as September the ground was frozen so hard that they tried in 
vain to dig a grave for a dead comrade, and their cramped fingers could hardly 
build the hut, which was the more necessary, as the vessel, cracking under the 
pressure of the ice, gave signs of speedily breaking up altogether. By the middle 
of October the rude dwelling was completed, and though its accommodation was 
scanty, they were glad to take up their abode in it at once. The best place by 
the central fire was assigned to a sick comrade, while all the rest arranged 
their beds as best they could on shelves which had been built round the walls. 
An examination into the state of their provisions showed the necessity of re- 
ducing their daily rations of bread, cheese, and wine, but by setting traps they 
caught a good many Arctic foxes, which gave them an occasional supply of 
fresh food. The sun had now entirely taken his departure, and the long winter 
night of the 75° 43’ of latitude set in, during which snowdrifts and impetuous 
winds confined them to their miserable hut. 

“We looked pitifully one upon the other,” says De Veer, “ being in great 
fear that if the extremity of the cold grew to be more and more, we should all 
die there of cold, for that what fire soever we made would not warm us.” 

The ice was now two inches thick upon the walls, and even on the sides of 
their sleeping cots and the very clothes they wore were whitened with frost. 
Yet in the midst of all their sufferings these brave men maintained cheerful 
hearts; and so great was their elasticity of spirit that, remembering January 5 
was Twelfth Eve, they resolved to celebrate it as best they might. “ And then,” 
says the old chronicler, “we prayed our Maister that we might be merry that 
night, and said that we were content to spend some of the wine that night 
which we had spared, and which was our share (one glass) every second day, 
and whereof for certaine days we had not dranke, and so that night we made 
merry and drew for king. And therewith we had two pounds of meal, where- 
of we made pancakes with oyle, and every man had a white biscuit which we 
sopt in the wine. And so supposing that we were in our owne country and 


ARCTIC VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY. 341 


amongst our friends, it comforted us well as if we had made a great banquet 
in our owne house. And we also made trinkets, and our gunner was king of 
Novaya Zemlya, which is at least 800 miles long and lyeth between two seas.” 

On January 24 the edge of the sun appeared above the horizon, and the 
sight was a joyful one indeed. Now also the furious snow-storm ceased, and 
though the severity of the cold continued unabated, they were better able to 
brave the outer air and to recruit their strength by exercise. With the re- 
turn of daylight the bears came again about the house, and some being shot, af- 
forded a very seasonable supply of grease, so that they were able to burn lamps 
and pass the time in reading. 

When summer returned it was found impossible to disengage the ice-bound 
vessel, and the only hopes of escaping from this dreary prison now rested on 
two small boats, in which they finally quitted the scene of so much suffering 
on June 14,1596. On the fourth day of their voyage their barks became 
surrounded by enormous masses of floating ice, which so crushed and injured 
them that the crews, giving up all hope, took a solemn leave of each other. 
But in this desperate crisis they owed their preservation to the presence of 
mind and agility of De Veer, who, with a well-secured rope, leaped from one 
ice-block to another till he reached a larger floe, on which first the sick, then 
the stores, the crews, and finally the boats themselves were fairly landed. Here 
they were obliged to remain while the boats underwent the necessary repairs, 
and during this detention upon a floating ice raft the gallant Barentz closed the 
eventful voyage of his life. He died as he had lived, calmly and bravely, think- 
ing less of himself than of the welfare of his fellow-sufferers, for his last words 
were directions as to the course in which they were to steer. His death was 
bitterly mourned by the rough men under his command, and even the prospect 
of a return to their homes could not console them for the loss of their beloved 
leader. After a most tedious passage (for by July 28 they had only reached 
the southern extremity of Nova Zembla) they at length, at the end of August, 
arrived at Kola, in Russian Lapland, where, to their glad surprise, they found 
their old comrade, John Cornelison Ryp, with whom they returned to Am- 
sterdam. 

Meanwhile the spirit of discovery had once more recovered in England from 
the chill thrown upon it by so many previous disappointments. In 1602, Wey- 
mouth, while attempting to sail up the promising inlet, now so well-known as 
the entrance to Hudson’s Bay, was repulsed by a violent storm, and in 1606 a 
melancholy issue awaited the next expedition to the north-west, which sailed 
under the command of John Knight, a brave and experienced sailor. Driven 
by stormy weather among the drift-ice on the coast of Labrador, Knight was 
fain to take shelter in the first cove that presented itself, and lost no time in or- 
dering his damaged ship of forty tons to be drawn high up on the dry sand be- 
yond the tide mark, where she might undergo the necessary repairs. 

This position, however, not proving satisfactory, he manned his boat next 
day, and while the rest of the crew were busy at work, sailed across to the 
other side of the inlet to seek for some more convenient anchorage. Leaving 
two men in charge of the boat, he landed with his mate and three of his men to 


342 THE POLAR WORLD. 


explore the strange coast. They climbed the steep acclivity of the shore, lin- 
gered for a moment on the summit of the cliffs, and before disappearing on the 
other side exchanged greetings of farewell with their messmates in the boat, 
who little imagined that it was a parting forever. Evening came on, and then 
darkened into night; muskets were fired and trumpets sounded, but no answer 
was made, and eleven o’clock arriving without any sign or signal of the missing 
party, the men who had tarried on shore mournfully returned to the ship with 
the dismal tidings of the loss of their brave commander and his comrades. 

During this melancholy night, passed in alternate lamentations and plans for 
search and rescue, the ice had so accumulated in the channel which the unfor- 
tunate Knight crossed the day before, that though the boat was speedily rigged 
for the expedition, and the party who occupied it were one and all uncontrolla- 
bly eager to start, the morning light convinced the most sanguine of the utter 
impossibility of forcing their way across the gulf. Thus passed two wretched 
days of uncertainty, rendered doubly miserable by the inactivity to which they 
were condemned, when on the night of the second day the little encampment 
was attacked by a large party of natives, whose hostility left no doubt about 
the fate which had befallen their missing friends. A volley of musketry soon 
dispersed the savages, but fearing future attacks, the crew, now only eight in 
number, at once resolved to put to sea in their crazy bark, which, though de- 
_ prived of its rudder, and so leaky that the pumps were obliged to be constantly 
at work, safely carried them to Newfoundland. 

In the year 1607 Henry Hudson made the first attempt to sail across the 
North Pole, a plan started in 1527 by Robert Thorne, but not yet acted upon 
by any one during the eighty years that had since passed. He reached the east 
coast of Greenland in 73° of latitude,and then proceeded to the northern ex- 
tremity of Spitzbergen, but all his efforts to launch forth into the unknown 
ocean beyond were bafiled by the ice-fields that opposed his progress. 

In his next voyage (1608) he vainly tried for the north-east passage, but his 
third voyage (1609), which he performed in the service of the Dutch, led to the 
discovery of the magnificent river which still bears his name, and at whose 
mouth the “ Empire City ” of the great American republic has arisen. 

In April, 1610, we find him setting sail on the last and most celebrated of 
his voyages. In all but its commander, this expedition was miserably inade. 
quate to the object of its mission, for it consisted only of one vessel of fifty-five 
tons provisioned for six months, and manned by a crew who speedily proved 
themselves to be utterly unworthy of their leader. On entering Hudson’s 
Straits, the large masses of ice which encumbered the surface of the water and 
the thickness of the constant fogs made them lose all courage, and they earnest- 
ly begged their commander to return at once to England. But Hudson pressed 
on until at last his little bark emerged into a vast open water rippling and 
sparkling in the morning sunshine. Hudson’s Bay expanded before him, and 
the enraptured discoverer was fully convinced that the north-western route to 
India now lay open to the mariners of England. 

It was the beginning of August, and the dastardly crew considering the pas- 
sage effected, urged an immediate return; but Hudson was determined on 


ARCTIC VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY. 343 


completing the adventure, and wintering, if possible, on the sunny shores of 
India. For three months he continued tracking the south coasts of that vast 
northern Mediterranean, but all his hopes of finding a new channel opening to 
the south proved vain, until at length the ship was frozen in on November 10 
in the south-east corner of James’s Bay. A dreary winter awaited the ice-bound 
seamen, with almost exhausted provisions, and unfortunately without that 
heroic patience and concord which had sustained the courage of Barentz and 
his companions under trials far more severe. But spring came at last, and 
revived the spirits of their leader. His ship was once more afloat, once more 
his fancy indulged in visions of the sunny East, when, as he stepped on deck on 
the morning of June 21, his arms were suddenly pinioned, and he found him- 
self in the power of three of his men. 

Inquiry, remonstrance, entreaty, command, all failed to draw a word from 
the stubborn mutineers, and Hudson resigned himself bravely to his fate, and, 
with the quiet dignity of a noble nature, looked on calmly at the ominous prep- 
-arations going forward. A small open boat was in waiting, and into this 
Hudson—his hands being previously tied behind his back—was lowered ; some 
powder and shot and the carpenter’s box came next, followed by the carpenter 
himself, John King, whose name ought to be held in honorable remembrance, 
as he alone among the crew remained true to his master. Six invalids were 
also forced into the boat, which was then cut adrift, and the vessel sailed on- - 
ward on its homeward course. Nothing more was ever heard of Hudson; 
but the ringleaders of that dark conspiracy soon paid a terrible penalty. Some 
fell in a fight with the Esquimaux, and others died on the homeward voyage, 
during which they suffered from the extremest famine. 

The account of the great expanse of sea which had been reached gave new 
vigor to the spirit of discovery, and new expeditions sallied forth (Sir Thomas 
Button, 1612, Gibbons, 1614, Bylot, 1615), to seek along the western shores of 
Hudson’s Bay the passage which was to open the way to India. All efforts in 
this direction were of course doomed to disappointment, but Baffin, who sailed 
in 1616, with directions to try his fortune beyond Davis’s Straits, enriched 
geography with a new and important conquest by sailing round the enormous 
bay which still bears his name. During this voyage he discovered the en- 
trances of Smith’s, Jones’s, and Lancaster Sounds, without attempting to irves- 
tigate these broad highways to fields of later exploration. He believed them 
to be mere inclosed gulfs, and this belief became so firmly grounded in the 
public mind that two full centuries elapsed before any new attempt was made 
to seek for a western passage in this direction, while Jens Munk, a Dane, sent - 
out in 1619 with two good vessels, under the patronage of his king, Christian 
IV.; Fox and James (1631--1632), Knight and Barlow (1719), Middleton (1741), 
Moor and Smith (1746), confined their efforts to Hudson’s Bay, and, by their 
repeated disappointments, made all expeditions in quest of a north-western 
passage appear well-nigh as chimerical as those of the knight-errants of 
romance. 


344 THE POLAR WORLD. 


CHAPTER XXXIII. 
ARCTIC VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY, FROM BAFFIN TO M‘CLINTOCK. 


Buchan and Franklin.—Ross and Parry 1818).—Discovery of Melville Island.—Winter Harbor (1819~ 

1820).— Franklin’s first land Journey.— Dreadful Sufferings.— Parry’s second Voyage (1821-1823). 

— Iligliuk.— Lyon (1824).— Parry’s third Voyage (1824).—Franklin’s second land Journey. to the 

Shores of the Polar Sea.—Beechey.—Parry’s sledge Journey towards the Pole.—Sir John Ross’s 

second Journey.—Five Years in the Arctic Ocean.—Back’s Discovery of Great Fish River.—Dease 

and Simpson (1837-1839).—Franklin and Crozier’s last Voyage (1845).—Searching Expeditions.— 
Richardson and Rae.—Sir James Ross.—Austin.—Penny.—De Haven.—Franklin’s first Winter- 
quarters discovered by Ommaney.—Kennedy and Bellot.—Inglefield.—Sir E. Belcher.—Kellett.— 

M‘Clure’s Discovery of the North-west Passage.—Collinson.—Bellot’s Death.—Dr. Rae learns the 

Death of the Crews of the ‘‘ Erebus” and ‘‘ Terror.”—Sir Leopold M‘Clintock. 

HE failure of Captain Phipps (afterwards Lord Mulgrave) in the Spitzber- 

gen seas (1773), and that of the illustrious Cook (1776), in his attempt to 
circumnavigate the northern shores of America or Asia by way of the Straits of 
Bering, entirely damped, for the next forty years, the spirit of Arctic discov- 
ery ; but hope revived when it became known that Captain Scoresby, on a whal- 
ing expedition in the Greenland seas (1806), had attained 81° 30’ N. lat., and 
thus approached the pole to within 540 miles. No previous navigator had 
ever reached so far to the north; an open sea lay temptingly before him, and 
the absence of the ice-blink proved that for miles beyond the visible horizon no 
ice-field or snow-covered land opposed his onward course; but as the object of 
Scoresby’s voyage was strictly commercial, and he himself answerable to the 
owners of his vessel, he felt obliged to sacrifice his inclinations to his duty, and 
to steer again to the south. 

During the Continental war, indeed, England had but little leisure to prose- 
cute discoveries in the Arctic Ocean ; but not long after the conclusion of peace, 
four stout vessels (1818) were sent out on that mission by Government. Two 
of these, the “ Dorothea,” Captain Buchan, and the “Trent,” Commander Lieu- 
tenant John Franklin, were destined to proceed northward by way of Spitzber- 
gen, and to endeavor to cross the Polar Sea. After unnumbered difficulties, the 
expedition was battling with the ice to the north-west of that wintry archipela- 
go, when, on July 30, a sudden gale compelled the commander, as the only 
chance of safety, to “ take the ice ””—that is, to thrust the ships into an opening 
among the moving masses that could be perceived. In this very hazardous op- 
eration, the “ Dorothea ”—having received so much injury that she was in dan- 
ger of sinking—was therefore turned homeward as soon as the storm subsided, 
and the “ Trent” of necessity accompanied her. 

The other two ships, which sailed in the same year, the “ Isabella,” command- 
ed by Captain John Ross, and the “ Alexander,” by Lieutenant William Ed- 
ward Parry, had been ordered to proceed up the middle of Davis’s Strait to a 


ARCTIC VOYAGES, FROM BAFFIN TO M‘CLINTOCK. 345 


high northern latitude, and then to stretch across to the westward, in the hope 
of being able to pass the northern extremity of America, and reach Bering’s 
Strait by that route. As respects the purposes for which it was sent out, this 
expedition likewise ended in disappointment; for though Ross defined more 
clearly the Greenland coast to the north of the Danish possessions between 
Cape Melville and Smith’s Sound, he was satisfied with making a very cursory 
examination of all the great channels leading from Baffin’s Bay into the Polar 
Sea. After sailing for some little distance up Lancaster Sound, he was arrest- 
ed by the atmospheric deception of a range of mountains, extending right 
across the passage, and concluding it useless to persevere, he at once—to the 
great astonishment and mortification of his officers—abandoned a course which 
was to render his successor illustrious. As may easily be imagined, the man- 
ner in which Ross had conducted this expedition failed to satisfy the authori- 
ties at home; and thus, in the following year, the “ Hecla” and “ Griper ” were 
commissioned for the purpose of exploring the sound, whose entrance only had 
been seen by Baffin and Ross. The former ship was placed under the Com- 
mand of Parry, and the latter under that of Lieutenant Matthew Liddon. 

With this brilliant voyage, the epoch of modern discoveries in the Arctic 
Ocean may properly be said to begin. Sailing right through Lancaster Sound, 
over the site of Ross’s imaginary Croker Mountains, Parry passed Barrow’s 
Strait, and after exploring Prince Regent Inlet, whence the ice compelled 
him to return to the main channel, he discovered Wellington Channel (August 
22), and soon after had the satisfaction of announcing to his men that, having 
reached 110° W. long., they were entitled to the king’s bounty of £5000, se- 
cured by order of council to “such of His Majesty’s subjects as might succeed 
in penetrating thus far to the west within the Arctic Circle.” After passing and 
naming Melville Island, a little progress was still made westward; but the ice 
was now rapidly gathering, the vessels were soon beset, and, after getting free 
with great difficulty, Parry was only too glad to turn back and settle down in 
Winter Harbor. It was no easy task to attain this dreary port, as a canal, two 
miles and a third in length, had first to be cut through solid ice of seven inches 
average thickness; yet such was the energy of the men that the herculean 
labor was executed in three days. The two vessels were immediately unrigged, 
the decks housed over, a heating apparatus arranged, and every thing made as 
comfortable as possible. To relieve the monotony of the long winter’s night, 
plays were acted every fortnight, a school established, and a newspaper set on 
foot—certainly the first periodical ever issued in so high a latitude. During 
the day the men were employed for exercise in banking up the ships with snow 
or making excursions within a certain distance; and when the weather forbade 
their leaving shelter, they were obliged to run round the decks to the tune of a 
barrel-organ. | 

In January the cold became more and more intense. On the 12th it was 
51° below zero in the open air,and on the 14th the thermometer fell to 54°. 
On February 24 a fire broke out in a small house which had been built near 
the ships, to serve as an observatory for Captain Sabine, who accompanied the 
expedition as astronomer. All hands rushed to the spot to endeavor to sub- 


346 THE POLAR WORLD. 


due the flames, but having only snow to throw on it, it was found impossible to 
extinguish it. The snow, however, covered the astronomical instruments, and 
secured them from the fire. The thermometer was at the time 44° below zero, 
and the faces of nearly the whole party grew white and frost-bitten after five 
minutes’ exposure, so that the surgeon and two or three assistants were busily 
employed in rubbing the faces of their comrades with snow, while the latter 
were working might and main to extinguish the flames. One poor fellow, in 
his anxiety to save the dipping-needle, carried it out without putting on his 
gloves; his hands were so benumbed in consequence, that when plunged into a 
basin of cold water it instantly froze, from the intense coldness imparted to it, 
and it was found necessary to resort,some time after, to the amputation of a 
part of four fingers on one hand and three on the other. 

February 3 was a memorable day—the sun being visible from the maintop 
of the “ Hecla,” from whence it was last seen on November 11. The weather 
got considerably milder in March; on the 6th the thermometer rose to zero, 
for the first time since December 17, and on April 30 it stood at the freezing- 
point, which it had not done since September 12. 

At length May appeared, bringing the long summer’s day of the high north- 
ern latitudes; but as many a week must still pass before the vessels could move 
out of their ice-bound harbor, Parry started on June 1 to explore the interior 
of the island, which at this early period of the season still wore a very dreary 
aspect. But such was the rapidity of vegetation, that by the end of the month 
the land, now completely clear of snow, was covered with the purple-colored 
saxifrage in blossom, with mosses, and with sorrel, and the grass was from two 
to three inches long. The pasturage appeared to be excellent in the valleys, 
and, to judge by the numerous tracks of musk-oxen and reindeer, there was no 
lack of animals to enjoy its abundance. 

It was not bctore August 1 that the ships were released from their ten 
months’ blockade in Winter Harbor, when Parry once more stood boldly for 
the west; but no amount of skill or patience could penetrate the obstinate mass- 
es of ice that blocked the passage, or insure the safety of the vessels under the 
repeated shocks sustained from them. Finding the barriers insuperable, he 
gave way, and steering homeward, reached London on November 3, 1820, 
where, as may well be imagined, his reception was most enthusiastic. 

While Parry was engaged on this wonderful voyage, Lieutenant Franklin 
and Dr. Richardson, accompanied by two midshipmen, George Back and Robert 
Hood, and a sailor, John Hepburn, to whom were added during the course of 
the journey a troop of Canadians and Indians, were penetrating by land to the 
mouth of the Coppermine River for the purpose of examining the unexplored 
shores of the Polar Sea to the east. An idea of the difficulties of this under- 
taking may be formed, when I mention that the travellers started from Fort 
York, Hudson’s Bay, on August 30, 1819, and after a boat voyage of 700 miles 
up the Saskatchewan arrived before winter at Fort Cumberland. The next 
winter found them 700 miles farther on their journey, established during the 
extreme cold at Fort Enterprise, as they called a log-house built by them on 
Winter Lake, where they spent ten months, depending upon fishing and the 


ARCTIC VOYAGES, FROM BAFFIN TO M‘CLINTOCK. 347 


success of their Indian hunters. During the summer of 1821 they accom- 
plished the remaining 334 miles to the mouth of the Coppermine, and on July 
21 Franklin and his party embarked in two birch-bark canoes on their voyage 
of exploration. In these frail shallops they skirted the desolate coast of the 
American continent 555 miles to the east of the Coppermine as far as Point 
Turnagain, when the rapid decrease of their provisions and the shattered state 
of the canoes imperatively compelled their return (August 22). And now 
began a dreadful land-journey of two months, accompanied by all the horrors 
of cold, famine, and fatigue. An esculent lichen (tripe de roche), with an occa- 
sional ptarmigan, formed their scanty food, but on very many days even this 
poor supply could not be obtained, and their appetites became ravenous. Some- 
times they had the good-fortune to pick up pieces of skin, and a few bones of 
deer which had been devoured by the wolves in the previous spring. The bones 
were rendered friable by burning, and now and then their old shoes were added 
to the repast. On reaching the Coppermine, a raft had to be framed, a task 
accomplished with the utmost difficulty by the exhausted party. One or two 
of the Canadians had already fallen behind, and never rejoined their comrades, 
and now Hood and three or four more of the party broke down and could 
proceed no farther, Dr. Richardson kindly volunteering to remain with them, 
while Back, with the most vigorous of the men, pushed on to send succor 
from Fort Enterprise, and Franklin followed more slowly with the others. 
On reaching the log house this last party found that wretched tenement desolate, 
with no deposit of provisions and no trace of the Indians whom they had ex- 
pected to meet there. “It would be impossible,” says Franklin, “to describe 
our sensations after entering this miserable abode and discovering how we had 
been neglected ; the whole party shed tears, not so much for our own fate as 
for that of our friends in the rear, whose lives depended entirely on our sending 
immediate relief from this place.” Their only consolation was a gleam of hope 
afforded them by a note from Back, stating that he had reached the deserted 
hut two days before, and was going in search of the Indians. The fortunate 
discovery of some cast-off deer-skins and of a heap of acrid bones, a provision 
worthy of the place, sustained their flickering life-flame, and after eighteen miser- 
able days they were joined by Dr. Richardson and Hepburn, the sole survivors 
of their party, Lieutenant Hood, a young officer of great promise, having been 
murdered by a treacherous Canadian, whom Richardson was afterwards obliged 
to shoot through the head in self-defense. 

“‘ Upon entering the desolate dwelling,” says Richardson, “ we had the satis- 
faction of embracing Captain Franklin, but no words can convey an idea of the 
filth and wretchedness that met our eyes on looking around. Our own misery 
had stolen upon us by degrees, and we were accustomed to the contemplation 
of each otber’s emaciated figures; but the ghastly countenances, dilated eye- 
balls, and sepulchral voices of Captain Franklin and those with him were more 
than we could at first bear.’ At length,on November 7, when the few sur- 
vivors of the ill-fated expedition (for most of the voyagers died from sheer ex- 
haustion) were on the point of sinking under their sufferings, three Indians 
sent by Back, whose exertions to procure them relief had been beyond all praise, 


348 THE POLAR WORLD. 


brought them the succor they had so long been waiting for. The eagerness 


with which they feasted on dried meat and excellent tongues may well be im- 
agined; but severe pains in the stomach soon warned them that after so long 
an abstinence they must be exceedingly careful in the quantity of food taken. 
In a fortnight’s time they had sufficiently recruited their strength to be able to 
join Back at Moose Deer Island, and in the following year they returned to 
England. , 
Parry’s second voyage of discovery (1821-1823) was undertaken for the 
purpose of ascertaining whether a communication might be found between Re- 
gent’s Inlet and Rowe’s Welcome, or through Repulse Bay and thence to the 


north-western shores cf America. The first summer (1821) was spent in the . 


vain attempt of forcing a way through Frozen Strait, Repulse Bay, the large 
masses of ice in these waters holding the ships helplessly in their grasp, and 
often carrying them back in a few days to the very spot which they had left a 
month before. Owing to these rebuffs, the season came to an end while their 
enterprise was yet scarcely begun, and the ships took up their quarters in an 
open roadstead at Winter Island to the south of Melville Peninsula. Besides 
the winter amusements and occupations of the first voyage, the monotony of 
the winter was pleasantly broken during February by friendly visits from a 
party of Esquimaux. Among these a young woman, Iligliuk, distinguished her- 
self by her talents. Her love for music amounted to a passion, and her quick- 
ness of comprehension was such that she soon became an established inter- 
preter between her own people and the English. The nature of a map having 
been explained to her, she readily sketched with chalk upon the deck the out- 
lines of the adjoining coast, and continuing it farther, delineated the whole 
eastern shore of Melville Peninsula, rounding its northern extremity by a large 
island and a strait of sufficient magnitude to afford a safe passage for the ships. 
This information greatly encouraged the whole party, whose sanguine anticipa- 
tions already fancied the worst part of their voyage overcome, and its truth 
was eagerly tested as soon as the ships could once more be set afloat, which 
was not till July 2. 

After running the greatest dangers from the ice, they at length reached the 
small island of Igloolik, near the entrance of the channel, the situation of which 
had been accurately laid down by the Esquimaux woman. But all their efforts 
_to force a passage through the narrow strait proved vain, for after struggling 
sixty-five days to get forward, they had only in that time reached forty miles 
to the westward of Igloolik. The vessels were therefore again placed in win- 
ter-quarters in a channel between Igloolik and the land; but having ascertained 
by boat excursions the termination of the strait, Parry thought it so promising 
for the ensuing summer that he at once named it the “ Hecla and Fury Strait.” 
But his hopes were once more doomed to disappointment by the ice-obstructed 
channel, and he found it utterly impossible to pass through it with his ships. 
His return to England with his crews in health, after two winters in the high 
latitudes, was another triumph of judgment and discipline. 

In the following year two new expeditions set sail for Polar America. Cap- 
tain Lyon was sent out in the “Griper,” with orders to land at Wager River 


y 


fe a 


ARCTIC VOYAGES, FROM BAFFIN TO M‘CLINTOCK. 349 


off Repulse Bay, and thence to cross Melville Peninsula, and proceed overland 
to Point Turnagain, where Franklin’s journey ended. But a succession of 
dreadful storms so crippled the “ Griper,” while endeavoring to proceed on- 
ward up Rowe’s Welcome, that it became necessary to return at once to Eng- 
land. 

Such was the esteem and affection Parry had acquired among the compan- 
ions of his two former voyages, that when he took the command of a third ex- 
pedition, with the intention of seeking a passage through Prince Regent’s In- 
let, they all volunteered to accompany him. From the middle of July till nearly 
the middle of September (1824), the “ Hecla” and the “Fury” had to contend 
with the enromous ice-masses of Baffin’s Bay, which would infallibly have 
crushed vessels less stoutly ribbed; and thus it was not before September 10 
that they entered Lancaster Sound, which they found clear of ice, except here 
and there a solitary berg. But new ice now began to form, which, increasing 
daily in thickness, beset the ship, and carried them once more back again into 
Baffin’s Bay. By perseverance, however, and the aid of a strong easterly breeze, 
Parry regained the lost ground, and on September 27 reached the entrance of 
Port Bowen, on the eastern shore of Prince Regent’s Inlet, where he passed the 
winter. By July 19 the vessels were again free, and Parry now sailed across 
the inlet to examine the coast of North Somerset; but the floating ice so in- 
jured the “ Fury” that it was found necessary to abandon her. Her crew and 
valuables were therefore received on board the “ Hecla ;” the provisions, stores, 
and boats were landed, and safely housed on Fury Point, off North Somerset, 
for the relief of any wandering Esquimaux, or future Arctic explorers who 
might chance to visit the spot, and the crippled ship was given up to the mercy 
of the relentless ice, while her companion made the best of her way to Eng- 
land. 

In spite of the dreadful sufferings of Franklin, Richardson, and Back during 
their first land journey, we find these heroes once more setting forth in 1825, 
determined to resume the survey of the Arctic coasts of the American conti- 
nent. A far more adequate preparation was made for the necessities of their 
journey than before; and before they settled down for the winter at “ Fort 
Franklin,” on the shores of Great Bear Lake, a journey of investigation down 
the Mackenzie River to the sea had been brought to a successful end. As soon 
as the ice broke in the following summer, they set out in four boats, and sepa- 
rated at the point where the river divides into two main branches, Franklin and 
Back proposing to survey the coast-line to the westward, while Richardson set 
out in an easterly direction to the mouth of the Coppermine River. Franklin 
arrived at the mouth of the Mackenzie on July 7, where a large tribe of Esqui- 
maux pillaged his boats, and it was only by great prudence and forbearance 
that the whole party were not massacred. A full month was now spent in the 
tedious survey of 374 miles of coast, as far as Return Reef, more than 1000 miles 
distant from their winter-quarters on great Bear Lake. The return journey 
to Fort Franklin was safely accomplished, and they arrived at their house on 
September 21, where they had the pleasure of finding Dr. Richardson and Lieu- 
tenant Kendall, who, on their part, had reached the Coppermine, thus connect- 


300 THE POLAR WORLD. 


ing Sir John Franklin’s former discoveries to the eastward in Coronation Gulf 
with those made by him on this occasion to the westward of the Mackenzie. 
The cold during the second winter at Fort Franklin was intense, the thermom- 
eter standing at one time at 58° below zero; but the comfort they now enjoyed 
formed a most pleasing contrast to the squalid misery of Fort Enterprise. 

When Franklin left England to proceed on this expedition, his first wife was 
then lying at the point of death, and indeed expired the day after his depart- 
ure. But with heroic fortitude she urged him to set out on the very day ap- 
pointed, entreating him, as he valued her peace and his own glory, not to delay 
a moment on her account. His feelings may be imagined when he raised on 
Garry Island a silk flag which she had made and given him as a parting gift, 
with the instruction that he was only to hoist it on reaching the Polar Sea. 

While Parry and Franklin were thus severally employed in searching for a 
western passage, a sea expedition under the command of Captain Beechey had 
been sent to Bering’s Straits to co-operate with them, so as to furnish provis- 
ions to the former and a conveyance home to the latter—a task more easily 
planned than executed; and thus we can not wonder that when the “ Blossom” 
reached the appointed place of rendezvous at Chamisso Island, in Kotzebue 
Sound (July 25,1826), she found neither Parry (who had long since returned 
to England) nor Franklin. Yet the barge of the “ Blossom ”—which was dis- 
patched to the eastward under charge of Mr. Elson—narrowly missed meeting 
the latter; for when she was stopped by the ice at Point Barrow, she was only 
about 150 miles from Return Reef, the limit of his discoveries to the westward 
of the Mackenzie. 

In the year 1827 the indefatigable Parry undertook one of the most extra- 
ordinary voyages ever performed by man; being no less than an attempt to 
reach the North Pole by boat and sledge travelling over the ice. His hopes of 
success were founded on Crosby’s authority, who reports having seen ice-fields 
so free from either fissure or hummock, that had they not been covered with 
snow, a coach might have been driven many leagues over them in a direct line; 
but when Parry reached the ice-fields to the north of Spitzbergen, he found them 
of a very different nature, composed of loose, rugged masses, intermixed with 
pools of water, which rendered travelling over them extremely arduous and slow. 
The strong flat-bottomed boats, specially prepared for an amphibious journey, 
with a runner attached to each side of the keel, so as to adapt them for sledg- 
ing, had thus frequently to be laden and unladen, in order to be raised over the 
hummocks, and repeated journeys backward and forward over the same ground 
were the necessary consequence. Frequently the crew had to go on hands and 
knees to secure a footing. Heavy showers of rain often rendered the surface 
of the ice a mass of slush, and in some places the ice took the form of sharp- 
pointed crystals, which cut the boots like penknives. But in spite of all these 
obstacles, they toiled cheerfully on, until at length, after thirty-five days of in- 
cessant drudgery, the discovery was made that, while they were apparently ad- 
vancing towards the pole, the ice-field on which they were travelling was drift- 
ing to the south, and thus rendering all their exertions fruitless. Yet, though 
disappointed in his hope of planting his country’s standard on the northern 


aE 
+ ne 


ARCTIC VOYAGES, FROM BAFFIN TO M‘CLINTOCK. 301 


axis of the globe, Parry had the glory of reaching the highest authenticated 
latitude ever yet attained (82° 40'30”). On their return to the “ Hecla,” which 
awaited them under Captain Forester in Treurenberg Bay, on the northern 
coast of Spitzbergen, the boats encountered a dreadful storm on the open sea, 
which obliged them to bear up for Walden Island—one of the most northerly 
rocks of the archipelago—where, fortunately, a reserve supply of provisions had 
been deposited. “ Every thing belonging to us,” says Sir Edward Parry, “ was 
now completely drenched by the spray and snow; we had been fifty-six hours 
without rest, and forty-eight at work in the boats, so that by the time they were 
unloaded we had barely strength to haul them up on the rocks. However, by 
dint of great exertion, we managed to get the boats above the surf, after which, 
a hot supper, a blazing fire of drift-wood, and a few hours’ quiet rest restored 
us.” He who laments over the degeneracy of the human race, and supposes it 
to have been more vigorous or endowed with greater powers of endurance in 
ancient times, may perhaps come to a different opinion when reading of Parry 
and his companions. 

Thus ended the last of this great navigator’s Arctic voyages. Born in the 
year 1790, of a family of seamen, Parry at an early age devoted himself, heart 
and soul, to the profession in which his father had grown old. In his twenty- 
eighth year he discovered Melville Island, and his subsequent expedition con- 
firmed the excellent reputation he had acquired by his first brilliant success. 
From the years 1829 to 1834 we find him in New South Wales, as Resident 
Commissioner of the Australian Agricultural Company. In the year 1837 he 
was appointed to organize the mail-packet service, then transferred to the Ad- 
miralty, and after filling the post of Captain Superintendent of the Royal Naval 
Hospital at Haslar, was finally appointed Governor of Greenwich Hospital. He 
died in the summer of 1855 at Ems. 

Ten years had elapsed since Captain John Ross’s first unsuccessful voyage, 
when the veteran seaman, anxious to obliterate the reproach of former failure 
by some worthy achievement, was enabled, through the munificence of Sir Felix 
Booth, to accomplish his wishes. A small Liverpool steamer, bearing the rath- 
er presumptuous name of the “ Victory,” was purchased for the voyage, a rather 
unfortunate selection, for surely nothing can be more unpractical than paddle- 
boxes among ice-blocks; but to make amends for this error, the commander of 
the expedition was fortunate in being accompanied by his nephew, Commander 
James Ross, who, with every quality of the seaman, united the zeal of an able 
naturalist. He it was who, by his well-executed sledge journeys, made the 
chief discoveries of the expedition; but the voyage of the “ Victory ” is far less 
remarkable for successes achieved than for its unexampled protraction during 
a period of five years. 

The first season ended well. On August 10, 1829, the “ Victory ” entered 
Prince Regent’s Inlet, and reached on the 13th the spot where Parry, on his 
third voyage, had been obliged to abandon the “Fury.” The ship itself had 
been swept away ; but all her sails, stores, and provisions on land were found 
untouched. The hermetically sealed tin canisters in which the flour, meat, bread, 
wine, spirits, sugar, etc., were packed had preserved them from the attacks of 


352 THE POLAR WORLD. 
oo 


the white bears, and they were found as good after four years as they had been 
on the day when the “ Fury” started on her voyage. It was to this discovery 
that the crew of the “ Victory ” owed their subsequent preservation, for how 
else could they have passed four winters in the Arctic wastes ? 

On August 15 Cape Garry was attained, the most southern point of the inlet 
which Parry had reached on his third voyage. Fogs and drift-ice greatly re- 
tarded the progress of the expedition, but Ross moved on, though slowly, so 
that about the middle of September the map of the northern regions was en- 
riched by some 500 miles of newly-discovered coast. But now, at the begin- 
ning of winter, the “ Victory” was obliged to take refuge in Felix Harbor, 
~ where the useless steam-engine was thrown overboard as a nuisance, and the 
usual preparations made for spending the cold season as pleasantly as possible. 

The following spring (from May 17 to June 13) was employed by James 
Ross on a sledge journey, which led to the discovery of King William’s Sound 
and King Wiiliam’s Land, and during which that courageous mariner penetra- 
ted so far to the west that he had only ten days’ provisions—scantily measured 
out—for a return voyage of 200 miles through an empty wilderness. 

After twelve months’ imprisonment, the “ Victory” was released from the 
ice on September 17, and proceeded once more on her discoveries. But the 
period of her liberty was short, for, after advancing three miles in one continual 
battle against the currents and the drift-ice, she again froze fast on the 27th of 
the same month. 

In the following spring we again see the indefatigable James Ross extend- 
ing the circle of his sledge excursions, and planting the British flag on the site. 
of the Northern Magnetic Pole—which, however, is not invariably fixed to one 
spot, as was then believed, but moves from place to place within the glacial 
zone. ; , 

On August 28, 1831, the “ Victory ”—after a second imprisonment of eleven 
months—was warped into open water; but after spending a whole month to 
advance four miles, she was encompassed by the ice on September 27, and once 
more fettered in the dreary wilderness. 

As there seemed no prospect of extricating her next summer, they resolved 
to abandon her and travel over the ice to Fury Beach, there to avail themselves 
of the boats, provisions, and stores, which would assist them in reaching Davis’s 
Straits. Accordingly, on May 29, 1832, the colors of the “ Victory ” were hoist- 
ed and nailed to the mast, and after drinking a parting glass to the ship with the 
crew, and having seen every man out in the evening, the captain took his own 
leave of her. “It was the first vessel,” says Ross, “that I had ever been obliged 
to abandon, after having served in thirty-six, during a period of forty-two years. 
It was like the last parting with an old friend, and I did not pass the point 
where she ceased to be visible without stopping to take a sketch of this melan- 
choly desert, rendered more melancholy by the solitary, abandoned, helpless 
home of our past years, fixed in immovable ice, till time should perform on her 
his usual work.” 3 

After having, with incredible difficulty, reached Fury Beach, where, thanks 
to the forethought of Sir Edward Parry, they fortunately found a sufficient num- 


ARCTIC VOYAGES, FROM BAFFIN TO M‘CLINTOCK. 300 


ber of boats left for their purpose, and all the provisions in good condition, 
they set out on August 1—a considerable extent of open sea being visible—and 
after much buffeting among the ice, reached the north of the inlet by the 
end of the month. But here they were doomed to disappointment, for, after 
several fruitless attempts to run along Barrow’s Strait, the ice obliged them to 
haul their boats on shore and pitch their tents. Day after day they lingered 
till the third week in September, but the strait continuing one impenetrable 
mass of ice, it was unanimously agreed that their only resource was to fall back 
again on the stores at Fury Beach, and there spend a fourth long winter within 
the Arctic Circle. They were only able to get half the distance in the boats, 
which were hauled on shore in Batty Bay on September 24,and performed the 
rest of their journey on foot, the provisions being dragged in sledges. On Oc- 
tober 7 they once more reached the canvas hut, dignified with the name of 
“So.nerset House,” which they had erected in July on the scene of the 
“ Pury’s” wreck, and which they had vainly hoped never to see again. 

They now set about building a snow-wall four feet thick round their dwell- 
ing, and strengthening the roof with spars, for the purpose of covering it with 
snow, and by means of this shelter, and an additional stove, made themselves 
tolerably comfortable, until the increasing severity of the cold and the furious 
gales confined them within-doors, and sorely tried their patience. Scurvy now 
began to appear, and several of the men fell victims to the scourge. At the 
same time, cares for the future darkened the gloom of their situation ; for, should 
they be disappointed in their hopes of escaping in the ensuing summer, their 
failing strength and diminishing stores gave them but little hope of surviving 
another year. 

It may easily be imagined how anxiously the movements of the ice were 
watched when the next season opened, and with what beating hearts they em- 
barked at Batty Bay on August 15. Making their way slowly among the mass- 
es of ice with which the inlet was encumbered, they to their great joy found, 
on the 17th, the wide expanse of Barrow’s Strait open to navigation. 

Pushing on with renewed spirits, Cape York soon lay behind them, and, al- 
ternately rowing and sailing, on the night of the 25th they rested in a good 
harbor on the eastern shore of Navy Board Inlet. At 4 o’clock on the follow: 
ing morning they were roused from their slumber by the joyful intelligence 
of a ship being in sight, and never did men more hurriedly and energetically 
set out; but the elements were against them, and the ship disappeared in the 
distant haze. 

After a few hours’ suspense, the sight of another vessel lying to in a calm 
relieved their despair. This time their exertions were successful, and, strange 
to say, the ship which took them on board was the same “ Isabella ””—now re- 
duced to the rank of a private whaler—in which Ross had made his first voyage 
to the Arctic Seas. 

The seamen of the “Isabella” told him of his own death—of which all Eng- 
land was persuaded—and could hardly believe that it was really he and his 
party who now stood before them. But when all doubts were cleared away, the 
rigging was instantly manned to do them honor, and thundering cheers wel- 

23 


304 THE POLAR WORLD. 


comed Ross and his gallant band on board! The scene that now followed can 
not be better told than in Ross’s own words. 

“ Though we had not been supported by our names and characters, we should 
not the less have claimed from charity the attentions that we received ; for ney- 
er was seen a more miserable set of wretches. Unshaven since I know not when, 
dirty, dressed in rags of wild beasts, and starved to the very bones, our gaunt and 
grim looks, when contrasted with those of the well-dressed and well-fed men 
around us, made us all feel (I believe for the first time) what we really were, as 
well as what we seemed to others. But the ludicrous soon took the place of 
all other feelings ; in such a crowd and such confusion, all serious thought was 
impossible, while the new buoyancy of our spirits made us abundantly willing 
to be amused by the scene which now opened. Every man was hungry, and 
was to be fed; all were ragged, and were to be clothed; there was not one to 
whom washing was not indispensable, nor one whom his beard did not de,:rive 
of all human semblance. All, every thing too, was to be done at once: it was 
washing, dressing, shaving, eating, all intermingled: it was all the materials of 
each jumbled together, while in the midst of all there were interminable ques- 
tions to be asked and answered on both sides; the adventures of the ‘ Victory,’ 
our own escapes, the politics of England, and the news, which was now four 
years old. But all subsided into peace at last. The sick were accommodated, 
the seamen disposed of, and all was done for us which care and kindness could 
perform. Night at length brought quiet and serious thoughts, and I trust there 
was not a man among us who did not then express where it was due his grati- 
tude for that interposition which had raised us all from a despair which none 
could now forget, and had brought us from the borders of a most distant grave 
to life, and friends, and civilization. Long accustomed, however, to a cold bed 
on the hard snow or the bare rocks, few could sleep amidst the comfort of our 
new accommodations. I was myself compelled to leave the bed which had been 
kindly assigned me, and take my abode in a chair for the night; nor did it fare 
much better with the rest. It was for time to reconcile us to this sudden and 
violent change, to break through what had become habit, and to inure us once 
more to the usages of our former days.” 

The “Tsabella” remained some time longer in Baffin’s Bay to prosecute the 
fishery, and thus our Arctic voyagers did not return to England before October 
15, 1833, when they were received as men risen from the grave. Wherever Ross 
appeared, he was met and escorted by a crowd of sympathizers; orders, medals, 
and diplomas from foreign states and learned societies rained down upon him, 
London, Liverpool, Bristol, and Hull presented him with the freedom of their re- 
spective cities; he received the honor of knighthood; and, though last, not 
least, Parliament granted him £5000 as a remuneration for his pecuniary out- 
lay and privations. 7 

It may easily be imagined that his long-protracted absence had not been al- 
lowed to pass without awakening a strong desire to bring him aid and assist- 
ance. Thus, when Captain (afterwards Rear-admiral Sir George) Back, that 
noble Paladin of Arctic research, volunteered to lead a land expedition in quest 
of Ross to the northern shore of America, £4000 were immediately raised by 


ARCTIC VOYAGES, FROM BAFFIN TO M‘CLINTOCK. 305 


public subscription to defray expenses. While deep in the American wilds, 
Back was gratified with the intelligence that the object of his search had safely 
arrived in England; but, instead of returning home, the indefatigable explorer 
resolved to trace the unknown course of the Thlu-it-scho, or Great Fish River, 
down to the distant outlet where it pours its waters into the Polar Seas. 

It would take a volume to relate his adventures in this expedition, the num- 
berless falls, cascades, and rapids that obstructed his progress; the storms and 
snow-drifts, the horrors of the deserts through which he forced his way, until he 
finally (July 28) reached the mouth of the Thlu-it-scho, or, rather, the broad estu- 
ary through which it disembogues itself into the Polar Sea. His intention 
was to proceed to Point Turnagain, but the obstacles were insurmountable, even 
by him. For ten days the exploring party had a continuation of wet, chilly, 
foggy weather, and the only vegetation (fern and moss) was so damp that it 
would not burn; being thus without fuel, they had only during this time one 
hot meal. Almost without water, without any means of warmth, and sinking 
knee-deep as they proceeded on land, in the soft slush and snow, no wonder 
that some of the best men, benumbed in their limbs, and dispirited by the pros- 
pect before them, broke out for a moment in murmuring at the hardness of their 
duty. 

On Anrnst 15, seeing the impossibility of proceeding even ca single mile far- 


ther, Gac's assembled the men around him, and unfurling the British flag, which 
Was sulutet with three cheers, he announced to them his determination to re- 
turn. The difficulties of the river were of course doubled in the ascent, from 
having toro against the stream. All the obstacles of rocks, rapids, sand-banks, 
anc Bae, portages had to be faced. They found, as they went on, that many 


of the deposits of provisions, on which they relied, had been destroyed by 
wolves. After thus toiling on for six weeks, they were ultimately stopped by 
one most formidable perpendicular fall, which obliged them to abandon their 
boat; and proceeding on foot—each laden with a pack of about 75 lbs. weight 
—they ultimately arrived at their old habitation, Fort Reliance, after an ab- 
sence of nearly four months, exhausted and worn out, but justly proud of hav- 
ing accomplished so difficult and dangerous a voyage. 

The Fish River has since been named Back’s River, in honor of its discover- 
er; and surely no geographical distinction has ever been more justly merited. 

This indefatigable explorer had scarcely returned to England (Sept. 8, 1835), 
when he once more set out on his way to the Arctic regions; but his ship, the 
“Terror,” was so disabled by the ice that she was scarcely able to accomplish 
the return voyage across the Atlantic, without allowing her to make any new 
discoveries. 

The land expedition sent out by the Hudson’s Bay Company (1837-39), under 
the direction of Peter Warren Dease, one of their chief factors, and Mr. Thomas 
Simpson, proved far more successful. Descending the Mackenzie to the sea, 
they surveyed, in July, 1837, that part of the northern coast of America which 
had been left unexamined by Franklin and Elson in 1825, from Return Reef to 
Cape Barrow. 

Although it was the height of summer, the ground was found frozen several 


356 THE POLAR WORLD. 


inches below the surface, and the spray froze on the oars and rigging of their 
boats, which the drift-ice along the shore ultimately obliged them to leave 
behind. 

As they went onward on foot, heavily laden, the frequent necessity of wading 
up to the middle in the ice-cold water of the inlets, together with the constant 
fogs and the sharp north wind, tried their powers of endurance to the utmost; 
but Simpson, the hero of the expedition, was not to be deterred by any thing 
short of absolute impossibility; nor did he stop till he had reached Point 
Barrow. Indeed, no man could be more fit than he to lead an expedition like 
this, for he had once before travelled 2000 miles on foot in the middle of 
winter from York Factory to Athabasca, walking sometimes not less than 
fifty miles in one day, and without any protection against the cold but an ordi- 
nary cloth mantle. 

After wintering at Fort Confidence, on Great Bear Lake, the next season 
was profitably employed in descending the Coppermine River, and tracing nearly 
140 miles of new coast beyond Cape Turnagain, the limit of Franklin’s survey 
in 1821. ‘The third season (1839) was still more favored by fortune, for Simpson 
succeeded in discovering the whole coast beyond Cape Turnagain as far as 
Castor and Pollux River (August 20, 1839), on the eastern side of the vast arm 
of the sea which receives the waters of the Great Fish River. On his return 
voyage, he traced sixty miles of the south coast of King William’s Island, and 
a considerable part of the high, bold shores of Victoria Land, and reached Fort 
Confidence on September 24, after one of the longest and most successful boat 
voyages ever performed in the Polar waters, having traversed more than 1600 
miles of sea. 

Unfortunately he was not destined to reap the rewards of his labor, for in 
the following year, while travelling from the Red River to the Mississippi, 
where he intended to embark for England, he was assassinated by his Indian 
guides; and thus died, in the thirty-sixth year of his age, one of the best men 
that have ever served the cause of science in the frozen north. 

On May 26, 1845, Sir John Franklin, now in the sixtieth year of his age, and 
Captain Crozier, sailed from England, to make anew attempt at the north-west 
passage. Never did stouter vessels than the “Erebus” and “ Terror,” well- 
tried in the Antarctic Seas, carry a finer or more ably commanded crew; never 
before had human foresight so strained all her resources to insure success; and 
thus, when the commander’s last dispatches from the Whalefish Islands, Baf- 
fin’s Bay (July 12), previous to his sailing to Lancaster Sound, arrived in Eng- 
land no one doubted but that he was about to add anew and brilliant chapter 
to the history of Arctic discovery. 

His return was confidently expected towards the end of 1847; but when 
the winter passed and still no tidings came, the anxiety at his prolonged absence - 
became general, and the early part of 1848 witnessed the beginning of a series 
of searching expeditions fitted out at the public cost or by private munificence, 
on a scale exceeding all former examples. The “ Plover” and the “ Herald” 
(1848) were sent to Bering’s Straits to meet Franklin with supplies, should he 
succeed in getting thither. In spring Sir John Richardson hurried to the shores 


ARCTIC VOYAGES, FROM BAFFIN TO M‘CLINTOCK. 307 


of the Polar Sea, anxious to find the traces of his lost friend. He was accom- 
panied by Dr. Rae, who had just returned from the memorable land expedition 
(1846-47), during which, after crossing the isthmus which joins Melville 
Peninsula to the mainland, he traced the shores of Committee Bay and the east 
coast of Boothia as far as the Lord Mayor’s Bay of Sir John Ross, thus proving 
that desolate land to be likewise a vast peninsula. 

But in vain did Rae and Richardson explore all the coasts between the 
Mackenzie and the Coppermine. ‘The desert remained mute; and Sir James 
Ross (“ Enterprise ”) and Captain Bird (“ Investigator”), who set sail in June, 
1848, three months after Dr. Richardson’s departure, and minutely examined all 
the shores near Barrow Strait, proved equally unsuccessful. 

Three years had now passed since Franklin had been expected home, and 
even the most sanguine began to despair; but to remove all doubts, it was re- 
solved to explore once more all the gulfs and channels of the Polar Sea. Thus 
in the year 1850 no less than twelve ships sailed forth, some to Bering’s Straits, 
some to the sounds leading from Baffin’s Bay.* Other expeditions followed 
in 1852 and 1853,and though none of them succeeded in the object of their 
search, yet they enriched the geography of the Arctic World with many inter- 
esting discoveries, the most important of which I will now briefly mention. 

Overcoming the ice of Baftfin’s Bay by the aid of their powerful steam-tugs, 
Austin, Ommaney, and Penny reached the entrance of Lancaster Sound. Here 
they separated, and while the “ Resolute” remained behind to examine the 
neighborhood of Pond’s Bay, Ommaney found at Cape Riley (North Devon) 
the first traces of the lost expedition. He was soon joined by Ross, Austin, 
Penny, and the Americans, and a minute investigation soon proved that Cape 
Spencer and Beechey Island, at the entrance of Wellington Channel, had been 
the site of Franklin’s first winter-quarters, distinctly marked by the remains of 
a large storehouse, staves of casks, empty pemmican-tins, and, most touching 
relic of all, a little garden shaped into a neat oval by some flower-loving sailor, 
and filled with the few hardy plants which that bleak clime can nourish. Mean- 
while winter approached, and little more could be done that season; so all the 
vessels which had entered Barrow’s Strait now took up their winter-quarters at 
the southern extremity of Cornwallis Land; with the exception of the “ Prince 
Albert,” which set sail for England before winter set in, and of the Americans, 


* 


* 1850-1854. ‘‘ Investigator,” Captain M‘Clure, ) 
1850-1855. ‘' Enterprise,” Captain Collinson, s 
1850, 1851. ‘‘ Resolute,” Captain Austin, 

1850, 1851. ‘* Assistance,” Captain Ommaney, 
Accompanied by two steam tenders, officered by Lieutenant Sherard Osborne and 
Lieutenant F. L. M‘Clintock. 
1850, 1851.‘ Lady Franklin,” Master Penny, accompanied by the ‘‘ Sophia,” Master A. Stewart, 
under Admiralty Orders, to Lancaster Strait and Wellington Channel. 
1850. “‘ Prince Albert,” Captain Forsyth, belonging to Lady Franklin, to Regent’s Inlet and 
Beechey Island. 
1850, 1851. ‘‘Advance,” Lieutenant De Haven, U.S.N.) 
1850, 1851. ‘‘Rescue,”S. P. Griffin, Esq., U.S.N. J 
Fitted at the expense of H. Grinnell, Esq., of New York, to Lancaster Strait and 
Wellington Channel. 


Bering’s Straits. 


; Lancaster Strait and Cornwallis Island. 


308 THE POLAR WORLD. 


who, perceiving the impolicy of so many ships pressing to the westward on one 
parallel, turned back, but were soon shut up in the pack-ice, which for eight long 
months kept them prisoners. The “ Rescue” and “ Advance” were drifted 
backward and forward in Wellington Channel until in December a terrific 
storm drove them into Barrow’s Strait, and still farther on into Lancaster Sound. 
Several times during this dreadful passage they were in danger from the ice 
opening round them and closing suddenly again, and only escaped being “ nip- 
ped” by their small size and strong build, which enabled them to rise above 
the opposing edges instead of being crushed between them. Even on their ar- 
rival in Baffin’s Bay the ice did not release them from its hold, and it was not 
till June 9, 1851, that they reached the Danish settlement at Disco: After re- 
eruiting his exhausted crew, the gallant De Haven determined to return and 
prosecute the search during the remainder of the season; but the discouraging 
reports of the whalers induced him to change his purpose, and the ships and 
crews reached New York at the beginning of October, having passed through 
perils such as few have endured and still fewer have lived to recount. 

Meanwhile the English searching expeditions had not remained inactive. 
As soon as spring came, well-organized sledge expeditions were dispatched in 
all directions, but they all returned with the same invariable tale of disappoint- 
ment. 

As soon as Wellington Channel opened, Penny boldly entered the ice-lanes 
with a boat, and, after a series of adventures and difficulties, penetrated up 
Queen’s Channel as far as Baring Island and Cape Beecher, where, most reluc- 
tantly, he was compelled to turn back. 

A fine open sea stretched invitingly away to the north, but his fragile boat 
was ill-equipped for a voyage of discovery. Fully persuaded that Franklin must 
have followed this route, he failed, however, in convincing Captain Austin of the 
truth of his theory, and as, without that officer’s co-operation, nothing could be 
effected, he was compelled to follow the course pointed out by the Admiralty 
squadron, which, after two ineffectual attempts to enter Smith’s and Jones’s 
Sounds, returned to England. 

The “ Prince Albert ” having brought home in 1850 the intelligence of the 
discoveries at Beechey Island, it was resolved to prosecute the search during 
the next season, and no time was lost to refit the little vessel and send her once 
more on her noble errand, under the command of William Kennedy (1851-52), 
to examine Prince Regent’s Inlet, on the coast of North Somerset. Finding the 
passage obstructed by a barrier of ice, Kennedy was obliged to take a tempo- 
rary refuge in Port Bowen, on the eastern shore of the inlet. As it was very 
undesirable, however, to winter on the opposite coast to that along which lay 
their line of search, Kennedy, with four of his men, crossed to Port Leopold, 
amid masses of ice, to ascertain whether any documents had been left at this 
point by previous searching parties. None having been found, they prepared 
to return; but to their dismay they now tound the inlet so blocked with ice as 
to render it absolutely impossible to reach the vessel either by boat or on foot. 
Darkness was fast closing round them, the ice-floe on which they stood threaten- 
ed every instant to be shivered in fragments by the contending ice-blocks which 


ARCTIC VOYAGES, FROM BAFFIN TO M‘CLINTOOK, D309 


crashed furiously against it: unless they instantly returned to shore, any mo- 
ment might prove their last. A bitter cold night (September 10, 1851), with 
no shelter but their boat, under which each man in turn took an hour’s rest—the 
others, fatigued as they were, seeking safety in brisk exercise—was spent on 
this inhospitable shore, and on the following morning they discovered that the 
ship had disappeared. The drift-ice had carried her away, leaving Kennedy 
and his companions to brave the winter as well as they could, and to endeavor 
in the spring to rejoin their vessel, which must have drifted down the inlet, and 
was most likely by this time imprisoned by the ice. Fortunately a dépdt of 
provisions, left by Sir James Ross at Whaler Point, was tolerably near, and 
finding all in good preservation, they began to fit up a launch, which had been 
left at the same place as the stores,for a temporary abode. Here they sat, on 
October 17, round a cheerful fire, manufacturing winter garments and ccomplete- 
ly resigned to their lot, when suddenly, to their inexpressible joy, they heard the 
sound of well-known voices, and Lieutenant Bellot, the second in command of 
the “ Prince Albert,” appeared with a party of seven men. Twice before had 
this gallant French volunteer made unavailing attempts to reach the deserted 
party, who soon forgot their past misery as they accompanied their friends back 
to the ship. In the following spring Kennedy and Bellot explored North 
Somerset and Prince of Wales’ Land, traversing with their sledge 1100 miles 
of desert, but without discovering the least traces of Franklin or his comrades. 
Yet in spite of these frequent disappointments the searching expeditions were 
not given over, and as Wellington Channel and the sounds to the north of Baf- 
fin’s Bay appeared to offer the best chances, the spring of 1852 witnessed the 
departure of Sir Edward Belcher and Captain Inglefield* for those still unknown 
regions. 

The voyage of the latter proved one of the most successful in the annals of 
Arctic navigation. Boldly pushing up Smith’s Sound,which had hitherto baffled 
every research, Inglefield examined this noble channel as far as 78° 30’ N. lat., 
when stormy weather drove him back. He next attempted Jones’s Sound, and 
entered it sufficiently to see it expand into a wide channel to the northward. 

The squadron which sailed under the command of Sir Edward Belcher was 
charged with the double mission of prosecuting the discoveries in Wellington 
Channel, and of affording assistance to Collinson and M‘Clure, who, it will be 
remembered, had sailed in 1850 to Bering’s Straits. 

At Beechey Island, where the “ North Star” was stationed as dépét-ship, the 
squadron separated, Belcher proceeding with the “ Assistance” and the “ Pio- 
neer” up Wellington Channel, while Kellett, with the “ Resolute” and “ Intrep- 
id,” steered to the west. Scarcely had the latter reached his winter-quarters 
(September 7, 1852) at Dealy Island, on the south coast of Melville Island, when 


* 1852. **Tsabel,” Captain E. Inglefield. Lady Franklin’s vessel. 
1852-1854, ‘* Assistance,” Sir Edward Belcher, to Lancaster Sound, Wellington Channel. 
1852-1854. ‘‘ Resolute,” Captain Kellett, Lancaster Strait, Melville, and Banks’s Island. 
1852-1854. ‘‘ Pioneer,” Lieutenant Sherard Osborne. 
1852-1854, . ‘‘ Intrepid,” Captain M‘Clintock. 
1852-1854, ‘' North Star,” Captain Pullen. 


560 THE POLAR WORLD. 


parties were sent out to deposit provisions at various points of the coast, for the 
sledge parties in the ensuing spring. 

The difficulties of transport over the broken surface of the desert when de- 
auded of snow may be estimated from the fact, that though the distance from 
the north to the south coast of Melville Island is no more than thirty-six miles 
in a direct line, Lieutenant M‘Clintock required no less than nineteen days to 
reach the Hecla and Griper Gulf. Similar difficulties awaited Lieutenant 
Mechan on his way to Liddon Gulf, but he was amply rewarded by finding at 
Winter Harbor dispatches from M‘Clure, showing that, in April, 1851, the “In- 
vestigator ” was lying in Mercy Bay, on the opposite side of Banks’s Strait, and 
that consequently the north-west passage, the object of so many heroic efforts, 
was at last discovered. 

On March 9, 1853, the “ Resolute” opened her spring campaign with Lieu- 
tenant Pym’s sledge journey to Mercy Bay, to bring assistance to M‘Clure, or 
to follow his traces in case he should no longer be there. 

A month later three other sledge expeditions left the ship. The one under 

M‘Clintock proceeded from the Hecla and Griper Gulf to the west, and return- 
ed after one hundred and six days, having explored 1200 miles of coast—a 
sledge journey without a parallel in the history of Arctic research, though near- 
ly equalled by the second party under Lieutenant Mecham, which likewise start- 
ed to the west from Liddon Gulf, and travelled over a thousand miles in nine- 
ty-three days. The third party, under Lieutenant Hamilton, which proceeded 
to the north-east towards the rendezvous appointed by Sir Edward Belcher the 
preceding summer, was the first that returned to the ship, but before its arrival 
another party had found its way to the “ Resolute”—pale, worn, emaciated 
figures, slowly creeping along over the uneven ice. A stranger might have 
been surprised at the thundering hurrahs which hailed the ragged troop from 
a distance, or at the warm and cordial greetings which welcomed them on deck, 
but no wonder that M‘Clure and his heroic crew were thus received by their 
fellow-seamen after a three years’ imprisonment in the ice of the Polar Sea. 

On August 1, 1850, the “Investigator,” long since separated from her con- 
sort, the “ Enterprise,” had met the “ Herald” and “ Plover ’* at Cape Lisburne, 
beyond Bering’s Straits, and now plunged alone into the unknown wildernesses 
of the Arctic Ocean. She reached the coast of Banks’s Land on September 6, 

‘discovered Prince Albert Land on the 9th, and then sailed up Prince of Wales’ 
Strait, where, on October 9, she froze in for the winter. In the same month, 


however, a sledge expedition was sent to the northern extremity of the strait, — 


which established the fact of its communication with Parry Sound and Barrow’s 
Strait. In the following July the “Investigator,” though set free, was prevent- 
ed from penetrating into the sound by impassable barriers of ice. Nothing 
now remained but to return to the southern extremity of the strait, and then to 
advance along the west coast of Banks’s Land to the north. This course was fol- 
lowed with tolerable ease till August 20, when the ship was driven between the 
ice and the beach a little north of Prince Albert Cape. Here she lay in compar- 


* These two vessels had been sent in the year 1847 to the Polar Sea beyond Bering’s Straits, ee 
they discovered the ‘‘ Herald” and ‘‘ Plover” Islands. 


ARCTIC VOYAGES, FROM BAFFIN TO M‘CLINTOCK. 361 


ative safety till the 29th, when the immense floe to which she was attached was 
raised edgeways out of the water, from the pressure of surrounding ice, and 
\ifted perpendicularly some twenty-five feet. The slightest additional pressure 
would have thrown the delicately-poised vessel entirely over, but fortunately a 
large piece from underneath was rent away, and after one or two frightful os- 
cillations the floe righted itself and drifted onward, bearing the ship unharmed 
upon its course. , 

During the succeeding month, every day brought its perils. Now forced 
ashore by the pressure of the ice, now hurried along amidst its inclosing masses, 
the adventurers, slowly working their way along the north coast of Banks’s 
Land, at length found refuge in a harbor to which the appropriate name of 
Mercy Bay was thankfully given. Here they spent two winters—the interven- 
ing summer having failed to release the ship. In the spring of 1853 Lieuten- 
ant Pym brought them the joyful news that the “ Resolute ” was not far off. 
Such had been the adventures of M‘Clure up to the moment when Kellett wel- 
comed him on board. 

Meanwhile neither the sledge parties of the “ Resolute,” nor those which Sir 
Edward Belcher had sent out in all directions from his first winter-quarters in 
Northumberland Sound (76° 52’ N. lat.), on the west side of Grinnell Peninsula, 
had been able to discover the least traces of Franklin. The winter (1853-54) 
passed, and in the following April Lieutenant Mecham found in Prince of Wales’ 
Strait, and later on Ramsay Island, at its southern outlet, documents from Col- 
linson, bearing date August 27,1852, and giving full intelligence ot his pro- 
ceedings since his separation from the “ Investigator.” While M‘Clure was 
achieving in 1850 the discovery of the north-west passage, Collinson, having 
arrived in Bering’s Straits later in the season, was unable to double Point Bar- 
row. In 1851, however, he succeeded in getting round that projection, and pur- 
suing the continental channel as easily as his precursor had done, followed him 
through Prince of Wales’ Strait ; but, though he penetrated a few miles farther — 
into Melville Sound, he found no passage, and returning to the south end of the 
strait passed the winter of 1851-52 in Walker Bay. Next summer he carried 
his ship through Dolphin and Union Straits and Dease Strait to Cambridge 
Bay, where he spent his second winter (1852-53). His sledge parties explored 
the west side of Victoria Strait, but a deficiency of coals compelled him to re- 
turn the way he came, instead of attempting to force a passage through the 
channel. He did not, however, get round Barrow Point on his return without 
passing a third winter on the northern coast of America. 

On returning to the “ Resolute,” Lieutenant Mecham found all hands busy 
preparing to leave the ship, Sir E. Belcher having given orders to abandon her, 
as well as the “ Assistance,” “ Pioneer,” and “ Intrepid,” which had now been 
blocked up above a year in the ice, and had no chance of escaping. 

Thus the summer of 1854 witnessed the return to England of the “ North 
Star,” with all those brave crews which had spent so many unavailing efforts, 
and in numerous boat and sledge excursions had explored so many known 
and unknown coasts in search of Franklin; and thus also M‘Clure and his com- 
rades, abandoning the “Investigator ” in Mercy Bay, returned home through 


362 © THE POLAR WORLD. 


Davis’s Straits, after having entered the Polar Ocean at the Strait of Bering. 
He had, however, been preceded by Lieutenant Cresswell and Mr. Wynniat, 
who, on an excursion to Beechey Island in the summer of 1858, had there met 
with and joined the “ Phenix,” Captain Inglefield, who, accompanied by his 
friend Lieutenant Bellot, had conveyed provisions to Sir E. Belcher’s squadron, 
and was about to return to England. During this expedition Bellot, whose 
many excellent qualities had made him a universal favorite, was unfortunately 
drowned by a fall into an ice-crevice during a sledge excursion. A stone monu- 
ment erected before Greenwich Hospital reminds England of the gallant volun- 
teer whose name is gloriously linked with that of Franklin in Arctic history. 

Years had thus passed without bringing any tidings of the “ Erebus” and 
“ Terror ” since the discovery of their first winter-quarters, until at last, in the 
spring of 1854, Dr. Rae, of the Hudson’s Bay Company, while engaged in the 
survey of the Boothian isthmus, fell in with a party of Esquimaux, who infor: 
ed him that in the spring of 1850 some of their countrymen on King William’s 
Island had seen a party of white men making their way to the mainland. None 
of them could speak the Esquimaux language intelligibly, but by signs they 
gave them to understand that their ships had been crushed by ice, and that 
they were now going to where they expected to find deer to shoot. At a 
later date of the same season, but before the breaking up of the ice, the bodies 
of some thirty men were discovered on the continent a day’s journey from 
Back’s Great Fish River, and five on aa island near it. Some of the bodies 
had been buried (probably those of the first victims of famine), some were in a 
tent, others under the boat which had been turned over to form a shelter, and 
several lay scattered about in different directions. Of those found on the island, 
one was supposed to have been an officer, as he had a telescope strapped over 
his shoulder, and his double-barrelled gun lay underneath him. The mutilated 
condition of several of the corpses and the contents of the kettles left no doubt 
that our wretched countrymen had been driven to the last resource of canni- 
balism, as a means of prolonging existence. Some silver spoons and forks, a 
round silver plate, engraved “Sir John Franklin, K.C.B.,” a star or order, with 
the motto, “ Nec aspera terrent,” which Dr. Rae purchased of the Esquimaux, 
corroborated the truth of their narrative. 

Thus it was now known how part of the unfortunate mariners had perished, 
but the fate of the expedition was still enveloped in mystery. What had be- 
come of the ships and of the greater part of their crews? And was Franklin 
one of the party seen by the Esquimaux, or had an earlier death shortened his 
sufferings ? 

To solve at least this mournful secret—for every hope that he might still 
be alive had long since vanished—his noble widow resolved to spend all her 
available means—since Government would no longer prosecute the search— 
and with the assistance of her friends, but mostly at her own expense, fitted 
out a small screw steamer, the “ Fox,” which the gallant M‘Clintock, already 
distinguished in perilous Polar voyages, volunteered to command. Another 
Arctic officer, Lieutenant Hobson, likewise came forward to serve without pay. 

At first it seemed as if all the elements had conspired against the success of 


ARCTIC VOYAGES, FROM BAFFIN TO M‘CLINTOCK. 363 


this work of piety, for in the summer of 1857 the floating ice off Melville Bay, 
on the coast of Greenland, seized the “ Fox,” and after a dreary winter, various 
narrow escapes, and eight months of imprisonment, carried her back nearly 
1200 geographical miles, even to 633° N. lat. in the Atlantic. 

At length, on April 25, 1858, the “ Fox” got free, and, having availed her- 
self of the scanty stores and provisions which the small Danish settlement of 
Holstenburg afforded, sailed into Barrow Strait. Finding Franklin Channel 
obstructed with ice, she then turned back, and steaming up Prince Regent’s 
Inlet, arrived at the eastern opening of Bellot’s Strait. Here the passage to 
the west was again found blocked with ice, and after five ineffectual attempts 
to pass, the “ Fox” at length took up her winter-quarters in Port Kennedy, on 
the northern side of the strait. 

On his first sledge excursion in the following spring, M‘Clintock met at 
Cape Victoria, on the south-west coast of Boothia, with a party of Esquimaux, 
who informed him that some years back a large ship had been crushed by the 
ice out in the sea to the west of King William’s Island, but that all the people 
landed safely. 

Meeting with the same Esquimaux on April 20, he learned, after much anx- 
ious inquiry, that besides the ship which had been seen to sink in deep waier, 
a second one had been forced on shore by the ice, where they supposed it still 
remained, but much broken. They added that it was in the fall of the year— 
that is, August or September—when the ships were destroyed; that all the 
white people went away to the Great Fish River, taking a boat or boats with 
them, and that in the following winter their bones were found there. 

These first indications of the fate of Franklin’s expedition were soon fol- 
lowed by others. On May 7 M‘Clintock heard from an old Esquimaux woman 
on King William’s Island that many of the white men dropped by the way as 
they went to the Great River; that some were buried, and some were not. 
They did not themselves witness this, but discovered their bodies during the 
winter following. 

Visiting the shore along which the retreating crews must have marched, he 
came, shortly after midnight of May 25, when slowly walking along a gravel 
ridge near the beach, which the winds kept partially bare of snow, upon a hu- 
man skeleton, partly exposed, with here and there a few fragments of clothing 
appearing through the snow. 

“A most careful examination of the spot,” says M‘Clintock, “ was of course 
made, the snow removed, and every scrap of clothing gathered up. A pocket- 
book, which being frozen hard could not be examined on the spot, afforded 
strong grounds for hope that some information might be subsequently obtained 
respecting the owner, and the march of the lost crews. The victim was a 
young man, slightly built, and perhaps above the common height; the dress 
appeared to be that of a steward. The poor man seems to have selected the 
bare ridge top, as affording the least tiresome walking, and to have fallen upon 
his face in the position in which we found him. It was a melancholy truth 
that the old woman spake when she said, ‘ They fell down and died as they 
walked along.’” 


364 THE POLAR WORLD. 


Meanwhile Lieutenant Hobson, who was exploring with another sledge par- 
ty the north-western coast of King William’s Land, had made the still more 
important discovery of a record giving a laconic account of the Franklin ex- 
pedition up to the time when the ships were lost and abandoned. It was found 
on May 6 in a large cairn at Point Victory. It stated briefly that in 1845 the 
“ Hrebus” and “ Terror” had ascended Wellington Channel to lat. 77°, and re- 
turned by the west side of Cornwallis Island to Beechey Island, where they 
spent the first winter. In 1846 they proceeded to the south-west, through Peel 
Sound and Franklin Sound, and eventually reached within twelve miles of the 
north extremity of King William’s Land, when their progress was arrested by 
the ice. Sir John Franklin died on June 11, 1847, having completed—two 
months before his death—the sixty-first year of an active, eventful, and honor- 
able life. On April 22, 1848, the ships were deserted, having been beset since 
September: 12,1846. The officers and crew, consisting of 105 souls, under the 
command of Captain Crozier, landed with the intention of starting for Back’s 
Fish River, which, as we have seen, they were never destined to reach. 

Quantities of clothing and articles of all kinds were found lying about the 
cairn, as if these men, aware that they were retreating for their lives, had then 
abandoned every thing which they considered superfluous. 

Thus all doubts about Sir John Franklin’s fate were at length removed. He 
at least had died on board his ship, and been spared ‘the miserable end of his 
comrades as they fell one by one in the dreary wilderness. 

The two wrecks have disappeared without leaving a trace behind. <A sin- — 
gle document, some coins and pieces of plate—this is all that remains of the 
gallant ships which so hopefully sailed forth under one of the noblest seamen 
that ever served in the navy of Great Britain. 

It is a curious circumstance that Franklin’s ships perished within sight of 
the headlands named Cape Franklin and Cape Jane Franklin by their discov: 
erer, Sir James Ross, eighteen years before. 


KANE AND HAYES, 365 


CHAPTER XXXIV. 
KANE AND HAYES. 


Kane sails up Smith’s Sound in the “ Advance ” (1853).—Winters in Rensselaer Bay.—Sledge Journey 
along the Coast of Greenland. —The Three-brother Turrets. —Tennyson’s Monument.—The Great 
Humboldt Glacier.—Dr. Hayes crosses Kennedy Channel. — Morton’s Discovery of Washington 
Land.—Mount Parry.—Kane resolves upon a second Wintering in Rensselaer Bay.—Departure and 
Return of Part of the Crew.—Sufferings of the Winter.—The Ship abandoned.—Boat Journey to 
Upernavik.—Kane’s Death in the Havana (1857).—Dr. Hayes’s Voyage in 1860.—He winters at 
Port Foulke.—Crosses Kennedy Channel.—Reaches Cape Union, the most northern known Land 
upon the Globe. —Koldewey.—Plans for future Vovages to the North Pole. 

N point of dramatic interest, few of the Arctic expeditions can rival the sec- 
ond and last voyage of Dr. Kane, which, to avoid interrupting the narrative 

of the discovery of Franklin’s fate by Dr. Rae and Sir James M‘Clintock, I 

have refrained from mentioning in chronological order. 

Weak in body, but great in mind, this remarkable man, who had accompa- 
nied the first Grinnell expedition in the capacity of surgeon, sailed from Boston 
in 1853, as commander of the “ Advance,” with a crew of 17 officers and men, 
to which two Greenlanders were subsequently added. His plan was to pass up 
Baflin’s Bay to its most northern attainable point, and thence pressing on 
towards the pole as far as boats or sledges could reach, to examine the coast- 
lines for vestiges of Franklin. 

Battling with storms and icebergs, he passed, on August 7, 1853, the rocky 
portals of Smith’s Sound, Cape Isabella and Cape Alexander, which had been 
discovered the year before by Inglefield; left Cape Hatherton—the extreme 
point attained by that navigator—behind, and after many narrow escapes from 
shipwreck, secured the “ Advance ” in Rensselaer Bay, from which she was des- 
tined never to emerge. His diary gives us a vivid account of the first winter 
he spent in this haven, in lat. 78° 38’, almost as far to the north as the most 
northern extremity of Spitzbergen, and in a far more rigorous climate. 

“Sept. 10, +14° F.—The birds have left. The sea-swallows, which abound- 
ed when we first reached here, and even the young burgomasters that lingered 
after them, have all taken their departure for the south. The long “night in 
which no man can work” is close at hand; in another month we shall lose the 
sun. Astronomically, he should disappear on October 24, if our horizon were 
free; but it is obstructed by a mountain ridge; and, making all allowance for 
refraction, we can not count on seeing him after the 10th. 

“Sept. 11.—The long staring day, which has clung to us for more than two 
months, to the exclusion of the stars, has begun to intermit its brightness. 
Even Aldebaran, the red eye of the bull, flared out into familiar recollection 
as early as ten o’clock; and the heavens, though still somewhat reddened by the 
gaudy tints of midnight, gave us Capella and Arcturus, and even that lesser 


366 THE POLAR WORLD. 


light of home memories, the polar star. Stretching my neck to look uncom- 
fortably at the indication of our extreme northernness, it was hard to realize 
that he was not directly overhead; and it made me sigh as I measured the few 
degrees of distance that separated our zenith from the pole over which he hung. 

“ Oct. 28.—The moon has reached her greatest northern declination of about 
25° 35’. She is a glorious object; sweeping around the heavens, at the lowest 
part of her curve, she is still 14° above the horizon. For eight days she has 
been making her circuit with nearly unvarying brightness. It is one of those 
sparkling nights that bring back the memory of sleigh-bells and songs, and 
glad communings of hearts in lands that are far away. 

“* Nov. 7.—The darkness is coming on with insidious steadiness, and its ad- 
vances can only be perceived by comparing one day with its fellow of some 
time back. Westill read the thermometer at noonday without a light, and the 
black masses of the hills are plain for about five hours, with their glaring patch- 
es of snow; but all the rest is darkness. The stars of the sixth magnitude 
shine out at noonday. Except upon the island of Spitzbergen, which has the 
advantages of an insular climate, and tempered by ocean currents, no Chris- 
tians have wintered in so high a latitude as this.* They are Russian sailors 
who made the encounter there—men inured to hardships and cold. Our dark- 
ness has ninety days to run before we shall get back again even to the con- 
tested twilight of to-day. Altogether our winter will have been sunless for one 
hundred and forty days. | 

«“ Nov. 9.—Wishing to get the altitude of the cliffs on the south-west cape 
of our bay before the darkness set in thoroughly, I started in time to reach 
them with my Newfoundlanders at noonday, the thermometer indicating 23° 
below zero. Fireside astronomers can hardly realize the difficulties in the way 
of observations at such low temperatures. The breath, and even the warmth 
of the face and body, cloud the sextant-arc and glasses with a fine hoar-frost. 
It is, moreover, an unusual feat to measure a base-line in the snow at 55° below 
freezing. 

“ Nov. 21.—We have schemes innumerable to’cheat the monotonous soli- 
tude of our winter—a fancy ball; a newspaper,‘ The Ice Blink ; a fox-chase 
round the decks. 

“Dec. 15.—We have lost the last vestige of our midday twilight. We can 
not see print, and hardly paper; the fingers can not be counted a foot from 
the eyes. Noonday and midnight are alike; and, except a vague glimmer in 
the sky that seems to define the hill outlines to the south, we have nothing to 
tell us that this Arctic world of ours hasasun. In the darkness, and consequent 
inaction, it is almost in vain that we seek to create topics of thought, and, by a 
forced excitement, to ward off the encroachments of disease. 

“Jan. 21.—First traces of returning light, the southern horizon iia for 
a short time a distinct orange tinge. 

“< eb. 21.—We have had the sun for some days silvering the ice between 
the headlands of the bay, and to-day, towards noon,I started out to be the 


* Rensselaer Harbor is situated 1° 46’ higher than Sir E. Belgner s winter-quarters in Northumber- 
land Sound, 76° 52’. 


, 


KANE AND HAYES. 267 


first of my party to welcome him back. It was the longest walk and toughest 
climb that I have had since our imprisonment, and scurvy and general debility 
have made me ‘short o’ wind. But I managed to attain my object. I saw him 
once more, and upon a projecting crag nestled in the sunshine. It was like bath. 
ing in perfumed water.” 

Thus this terrible winter night drew to its end, and the time came for un- 
dertaking the sledge journeys, on which the success of the expedition mainly 
depended. Unfortunately, of the nine magnificent Newfoundlanders and the 
thirty-five Esquimaux dogs originally possessed by Kane, only six had survived 
an epizootic malady which raged among them during the winter: their num- 
ber was, however, increased by some new purchases from the Esquimaux who 
visited the ship at the beginning of April. 

Thus scantily provided with the means of transport, Kane, though in a very 
weak condition, set out on April 25, 1854, to force his way to the north. He 
found the Greenland coast beyond Rensselaer Bay extremely picturesque, the 
cliffs rising boldly from the shore-line to a height of sometimes more than a 
thousand feet, and exhibiting every freak and caprice of architectural ruin. In 
one spot the sloping rubbish at the foot of the coast-wall led up, like an artifi- 
cial causeway, to a gorge that was streaming at noonday with the southern sun, 
while everywhere else the rock stood out in the blackest shadow. Just at the 
edge of this bright opening rose the dreamy semblance of a castle, flanked with 
triple towers, completely isolated and defined. These were called the “ 'Three- 
brother Turrets.” | 

‘“‘ Farther on, to the north of Jatitude 79°, a single cliff of greenstone rears 
itself from a crumbled base of sandstone, like the boldly-chiselled rampart of an 
ancient city. At its northern extremity, at the brink of a deep ravine which 
has worn its way among the ruins, there stands a solitary column or minaret 
tower, as sharply finished as if it had been cast for the Place Venddme. Yet 
the length of the shaft alone is 480 feet, and it rises on a pedestal, itself 280 
feet high. I remember well the emotions of my party, as it first broke upon 
our view. Cold and sick as I was, I brought back a sketch of it which may 
have interest for the reader, though it scarcely suggests the imposing dignity 
of this magnificent landmark. Those who are happily familiar with the writ- 
ings of Tennyson, and have communed with his spirit in the solitudes of a 
wilderness, will apprehend the impulse that inscribed the scene with his 
name.” 

But no rock formation, however striking or impressive, equalled in grandeur 
the magnificent glacier to which Kane has given the name of Humboldt. Its 
solid glassy wall, diminishing to a well-pointed wedge in the perspective, rises 
300 feet above the water-level, with an unknown, unfathomable depth below it 
and its curved face sixty miles in length—from Cape Agassiz to Cape Forbes 
—vanishes into unknown space at not more than a single day’s railroad travel 
from the pole. 

In spite of the snow, which had so accumulated in drifts that the travellers 
were forced to unload their sledges and carry forward the cargo on their backs, 
beating a path for the dogs to follow in, Kane came in sight of the Great Gla- 


368 THE POLAR WORLD. 


cier on May 4; but this progress was dearly earned, as it cost him the last 
remnant of his strength. 

“T was seized with a sudden pain,” says the intrepid explorer, “ and fainted. 
My limbs became rigid, and certain obscure tetanoid symptoms of our winter 
enemy, the scurvy, disclosed themselves. I was strapped upon the sledge, and 
the march continued as usual, but my powers diminished so rapidly that I could 
not resist the otherwise comfortable temperature of 5° below zero. My left 
foot becoming frozen caused a vexatious delay, and the same night it became 
evident that the immovability of my limbs was due to dropsical effusion. On 
the 5th, becoming delirious and fainting every time that I was taken from the 
tent to the sledge, I succumbed entirely. My comrades would kindly persuade 
me that, even had I continued sound, we could not have proceeded on our jour- 
ney. ‘The snows were very heavy, and increasing as we went; some of the 
drifts perfectly impassable, and the level floes often four feet deep in yielding 
snow. 

“The scurvy had already broken out among the men, with symptoms like 
my own, and Morton, our strongest man, was beginning to give way. It is the 
reverse of comfort to me that they shared my weakness. All that I should re- 
member with pleasurable feeling is that to my brave companions, themselves 
scarcely able to travel, I owe my preservation. 

“ They carried me back by forced marches. I was taken into the brig on 
the 14th, where for a week I lay fluctuating between life and death. Dr. Hayes 
regards my attack as one of scurvy, complicated by typhoid fever.” 

Fortunately summer was now fast approaching, with his cheering sunbeams 
and his genial warmth. The seals began to appear on the coast in large num- 
bers, and there was now no want of fresh meat, the chief panacea against the 
scurvy. The snow-buntings returned to the ice-crusted rocks, and the gulls and 
eider-ducks came winging their way to their northern breeding-places. 

Vegetation likewise sprang into life with marvellous rapidity, and the green 
sloping banks not only refreshed the eye, but yielded juicy, anti-scorbutic herbs. 

Kane’s health slowly but steadily improved. He was, however, obliged to 
give up all further sledge excursions for the season, and to leave the execution 
of his plans to his more able-bodied companions. 

Thus Dr. Hayes, crossing the sound in a north-easterly direction, reached 
the opposite coast of Grinnell Land, which he surveyed as far as Cape Frazer 
in lat. 79° 45’. 

This journey was rendered uncommonly slow and tedious by the excessively 
broken and rugged character of the ice. Deep cavities filled with snow inter- 
vened between lines of hammocks frequently exceeding twenty or thirty feet in 
height. Over these the sledge had to be lifted by main strength, and it re 
quired the most painful efforts of the whole party to liberate it from the snow 
between them. Dr. Hayes returned on June 1, and a few days later Morton 
left the brig, to survey the Greenland coast beyond the Great Glacier. The 
difficulties were great, for, besides the usual impediments of hummocks, the 
lateness of the season had in many places rendered the ice extremely unsafe, or 
even entirely destroyed the ice-ledge along the shore. Thus for the last days of 


KANE AND HAYES. 369 


his onward journey he was obliged to toil over the rocks and along the beach of a 
sea which, like the familiar waters of the south, dashed in waves at his feet. 
Morton and his companion Hans, the Esquimaux, reached on June 26, 1854, 
Cape Constitution, a bold headland, where the surf rolled furiously against high 
overhanging cliffs, which it was found impossible to pass. Climbing from rock 
to rock, in hopes of doubling the promontory, Morton stood at this termination 
of his journey, and from a height of 300 feet looked out upon a great waste of 
waters, stretching to the unknown north. Numerous birds—sea-swallows, kit- 
tiwakes, brent-geese—mixed their discordant notes with the novel music of dash- 
ing waves; and among the flowering plants growing on the rocks was found 
a crucifer (Hesperis pygmea), the dried pods of which, still containing seed, 
had survived the wear and tear of winter. From Cape Constitution the coast 
of Washington Land trended to the east, but far to the north-west, beyond the 
open waters of the channel, a peak, terminating a range of mountains similar in 
their features to those of Spitzbergen, was seen towering to a height of from 
2500 to 3000 feet. This peak, the most remote northern land at that time 
known upon our globe, received the name of Mount Parry. 

Meanwhile the short summer was wearing on, and, as far as the eye could 
reach, the ice remained inflexibly solid. It was evident that many days must 
still elapse before the vessel could possibly be liberated—but then most likely 
winter would almost have returned—a dismal prospect for men who knew by 
experience the long fearful night of the 79° of latitude, and who, broken in 
health and with very insufficient supplies of provisions and fuel, were but ill 
armed for a second encounter. No wonder that many of Kane’s companions 
thought it better to abandon the vessel than to tarry any longer in those frozen 
solitudes. 

But though it was horrible to look another winter in the face, the resolution 
of Kane could not be shaken. On August 24, when the last hope of seeing the 
vessel once more afloat had vanished, he called the officers and crew together, 
and explained to them frankly the considerations which determined him to 
remain. ‘To abandon the vessel earlier would have been unseemly, and to reach 
Upernavik so late in the season was next to impossible. To such of them, 
however, as were desirous of making the attempt, he freely gave his permission 
so to do, assuring them of a brother’s welcome should they be driven back. He 
then directed the roll to be called, and each man to answer for himself. In 
result, eight out of the seventeen survivors of the party resolved to stand by the 
brig. The others left on the 28th, with every appliance which the narrow 
circumstances of the brig could furnish to speed and guard them. When they 
disappeared among the hummocks, the stern realities of their condition pressed 
themselves with double force on those whom they left behind. 

The reduced numbers of the party, the helplessness of many, the waning 
efficiency of all, the impending winter, with its cold, dark nights, the penury 
of their resources, the dreary sense of increased isolation—all combined to 
depress them. But their energetic leader, leaving them no time for these 
gloomy thoughts, set them actively to work to make the best possible prepa- 
rations they could for the long cold night to come. | 

24 


370 THE POLAR WORLD. 


He had carefully studied the Esquimaux, and determined that their form of 
habitations and their mode of diet, without their unthrift and filth, were the 
safest and best that could be adopted. The deck was well padded with moss 
and turf, so as to form a nearly cold-proof covering, and, down below, a space 
some eighteen feet square—the apartment of all uses—was inclosed and packed 
from floor to ceiling with inner walls of the same non-conducting material. The 
floor itself, after having been carefully caulked, was covered with Manilla oakum 
a couple of inches deep and a canvas carpet. The entrance was from the hold, 
by a low moss-lined tunnel, with as many doors and curtains to close it up as 
ingenuity could devise. Large banks of snow were also thrown up along the 
brig’s sides to keep off the cold wind. 

All these labors in the open air wonderfully improved the health of the ex- 
iles, and their strength increased from day to day. A friendly intercourse was 
opened with the Esquimaux of the winter settlements of Etah and Anoatok, 
distant some thirty and seventy miles from the ship, who, for presents of nee- 
dles, pins, and knives, engaged to furnish walrus and fresh seal meat, and to 
show the white men where to find the game. Common hunting-parties were 
organized, visits of courtesy and necessity paid, and even some personal attach- 
ments established deserving of the name. As long as the Americans remained 
prisoners of the ice, they were indebted to their savage friends for invaluable 
counsel in relation to their hunting expeditions, and in the joint hunt they 
shared alike. 

The Esquimaux gave them supplies of meat at critical periods, and they 
were able to do as much for them. In one word, without the natives, Kane 
and his companions would most likely have succumbed to the winter, and the 
Esquimaux on their part learned to look on the strangers as benefactors, and 
mourned their departure bitterly. 

On December 12 the party which had abandoned the ship returned, havy- 
ing been unable to penetrate to the south, and was received, as had been prom- 
ised, with a brotherly welcome. They had suffered bitterly from the cold, 
want of food, and the fatigues of their march among the hummocks. 

“The thermometer,” says Kane, “ was at —50°; they were covered with 
rime and snow, and were fainting with hunger. It was necessary to use cau- 
tion in taking them below; for, after an exposure of such fearful intensity and 
duration as they had gone through, the warmth of the cabin would have pros- 
trated them completely. They had journeyed three hundred and fifty miles ; 
and their last run from the bay near Etah, some seventy miles in a right line, 
was through the hummocks at this appalling temperature. One by one they 
all came in and were housed. Poor fellows! as they threw open their Esqui- 
maux garments by the stove, how they relished the scanty luxuries which we 
had to offer them! The coffee, and the meat-biscuit soup, and the molasses, 
and the wheat bread, even the salt pork, which our scurvy forbade the rest of 
us to touch—how they relished it all! For more than two months they had 
lived on frozen seal and walrus meat.” 

Thus Kane, by his determination not to abandon the ship, proved the saviour 
of all his comrades; for what would have become of them had he been less firm 


KANE AND HAYES. 3871 


in his resolution, or if his courage had failed him during the trials of that 
dreadful winter ? 

“ February closes,” says the heroic explorer; “ thank God for the lapse of 
its twenty-eight days! Should the thirty-one of the coming March not drag 
us farther downward, we may hope for a successful close to this dreary drama. 
By April 10 we should have seals; and when they come, if we remain to wel- 
come them, we can call ourselves saved. But a fair review of our prospects 
tells me that I must look the lion in the face. The scurvy is steadily gaining 
onus. Ido my best to sustain the more desperate cases, but as fast as I par- 
tially build up one, another is stricken down. Of the six workers of our party, 
as I counted them a month ago, two are unable to do out-door work, and the 
remaining four divide the duty of the ship among them. Hans musters his re- 
maining energies to conduct the hunt. Petersen is his disheartened, moping 
assistant. The other two, Bonsall and myself, have all the daily offices of 
household and hospital. We chop five large sacks of ice, cut six fathoms of 
eight-inch hawser into junks of a foot each, serve out the meat when we have 
it, hack at the molasses, and hew out with crowbar and axe the pork and dried 
apples; pass up the foul slop and cleansings of our dormitory, and, in a word, 
cook, scullionize, and attend the sick. Added to this, for five nights running 
I have kept watch from 8 p.m. to 4 a.m., catching such naps as I could in the 
day without changing my clothes, but carefully waking every hour to note 
thermometers.” 

With March came an increase of sufferings. Every man on board was 
tainted with scurvy, and there were seldom more than three who could assist 
in caring for the rest. The greater number were in their bunks, absolutely un- 
able to stir. Had Kane’s health given way, the whole party, deprived of its 
leading spirit, must inevitably have perished. 

To abandon the ship was now an absolute necessity, for a third winter in 
Rensselaer Bay would have been certain death to all; but before the boats 
could be transported to the open water, many preparations had to be made, 
and most of the party were still too weak to move. The interval was employed 
by Kane in an excursion with his faithful Esquimaux to the Great Glacier. 

At length on May 20, 1855, the entire ship’s company bade farewell to the 
“Advance,” and set out slowly on their homeward journey. It was in the soft, 
subdued light of a Sunday evening, June 17, that after hauling their boats with 
much hard labor through the hummocks, they stood beside the open sea-way. 
But fifty-six days had still to pass before they could reach the port of Uper- 
navik. Neither storms nor drift-ice rendered this long boat-journey danger- 
ous, but they had to contend with famine, when they at length reached the 
open bay, and found themselves in the full line of the great ice-drift to the At- 
lantic, in boats so unseaworthy as to require constant bailing to keep them 
afloat. Their strength had decreased to an alarming degree; they breathed 
heavily ; their feet were so swollen that they were obliged to cut open their 
canvas boots; they were utterly unable to sleep, and the rowing and bailing be- 
came hourly more difficult. 

It was at this crisis of their fortunes that they saw a large seal floating—as 


372 THE POLAR WORLD. 


is the custom of these animals—on a small patch of ice, and seemingly asleep. 
“'Trembling with anxiety,” says Kane, “ we prepared to crawl down upon him. 
Petersen, with a large English rifle, was stationed in the bow, and stockings 
were drawn over the oars as mufflers. As we neared the animal, our excite- 
ment became so intense that the men could hardly keep stroke. He was not 
asleep, for he reared his head when we were almost within rifle-shot; and to 
this day I can remember the hard, careworn, almost despairing expression of 
the men’s thin faces as they saw him move; their lives depended on his cap- 
ture. I depressed my hand nervously, as a signal for Petersen to fire. M‘Gary 
hung upon his oar, and the boat slowly, but noiselessly surging ahead, seemed 
to me within certain range. Looking at Petersen, I saw that the poor fellow 
was paralyzed by his anxiety, trying vainly to obtain a rest for his gun against 
the cut-water ef the boat. The seal rose on his fore flippers, gazed at us for a 
moment with frightened curiosity, and coiled himself for a plunge. At that in- 
stant, simultaneously with the crack of our rifle, he relaxed his long length on 
the ice, and, at the very brink of the water, his head fell helpless to one side. 
I would have ordered another shot, but no discipline could have controlled the 
men. With a wild yell, each vociferating according to his own impulse, they 
urged their boats upon the floes. A crowd of hands seized the seal and bore 
him up to safer ice. The men seemed half crazy. I had not realized how 
much we were reduced by absolute famine. They ran over the floe, crying 
and laughing, and brandishing their knives. It was not five minutes before 
every man was sucking his bloody fingers, or mouthing long strips of raw 
blubber. Not an ounce of this seal was lost.” 

Within a day or two another seal was shot, and from that time forward 
they had a full supply of food. 

When Kane, after an absence of thirty months, returned on October 11, 
1855, to New York, he was enthusiastically received. Well-deserved honors of 
all sorts awaited him on both sides of the Atlantic; but his health, originally 
weak, was completely broken by the trials of his journey, and on February 16, 
1857, he died at the Havana, in the thirty-seventh year of hisage. In him the 
United States lost one of her noblest sons, a true hero, whose name will ever 
shine among the most famous navigators of all times and of all nations. 

In 1860, Dr. Hayes, who had accompanied Kane on his journey, once more 
sailed from America for the purpose of completing the survey of Kennedy’s 
Channel, and, if possible, of pushing on to the pole itself. After several narrow 
escapes from ice-fields and icebergs, his schooner, the “ United States,” was at 
length compelled to take up her winter-quarters at Port Foulke, on the Green- 
land coast, about twenty miles in latitude to the south of Rensselaer Harbor. 
Thanks to an abundant supply of fresh meat (for the neighborhood abounded 
with reindeer), and also no doubt to the inexhaustible fund of good-humor 
which prevailed in the ship’s company, they passed the winter without suffer- 
ing from the scurvy; but most of the dogs on which Dr. Hayes relied for his 
sledge expeditions in the ensuing spring were destroyed by the same epidemic 
which had been so fatal to the teams of Dr. Kane. Fortunately some fresh 
dogs could be purchased and borrowed of the friendly Esquimaux, and thus, 


KANE AND HAYES. 373 


early in April, 1861, Dr. Hayes left the schooner, to plunge into the icy wilder- 
ness. Having previously ascertained that an advance along the Greenland 
shore was utterly impossible, he resolved to cross the sound, and to try his 
fortunes along the coast of Grinnell Land, Of the difficulties which he had to 
encounter his own words will give the best idea. 

“ By winding to the right and left, and by occasionally retracing our steps 
when we had selected an impracticable route, we managed to get over the first 
few miles without much embarrassment, but farther on the tract was rough past 
description. I can compare it to nothing but a promiscuous accumulation of 
rocks closely packed together and piled up over a vast plain in great heaps and 
endless ridges, leaving scarcely a foot of level surface. The interstices between 
these closely accumulated ice-masses are filled up, to some extent, with 
drifted snow. The reader will readily imagine the rest. He will see the 
sledges winding through the tangled wilderness of broken ice-tables, the 
men and dogs pulling and pushing up their respective loads. He will see 
them clambering over the very summit of lofty ridges, through which there is 
no opening, and again descending on the other side, the sledge often plunging 
over a precipice, sometimes capsizing and frequently breaking. Again he will see 
the party baffled in their attempt to cross or find a pass, breaking a track with 
shovel and handspike, or again, unable even with these appliances to accom- 
plish their end, they retreat to seek a better track; and they may be lucky 
enough to find a sort of gap or gateway, upon the winding and uneven surface 
of which they will make a mile or so with comparative ease. The snow-drifts 
are sometimes a help, and sometimes a hinderance. Their surface is uniformly 
hard, but not always firm to the foot. The crust frequently gives way, and in a 
most tiresome and provoking manner. It will not quite bear the weight, and 
the foot sinks at the very moment when the other is lifted. But, worse than 
this, the chasms between the hummocks are frequently bridged over with snow 
in such a manner as to leave a considerable space at the bottom quite unfilled; 
and at the very moment when all looks promising, down sinks one man to his mid- 
dle, another to the neck, another is buried out of sight; the sledge gives way, 
and to extricate the whole from this unhappy predicament is probably the labor 
of hours. It would be difficult to imagine any kind of labor more disheartening, 
or which would sooner sap the energies of both men and animals. The strength 
gave way gradually; and when, as often happened after a long and hard day’s 
work, we could look back from our eminence and almost fire a rifle-ball into our 
last snow-hut, it was truly discouraging.” 

No wonder that after thus toiling on for twenty-five days they had not yet 
reached half-way across the sound, and that they were all broken down. But 
their bold leader was fully determined not to abandon his enterprise while still 
the faintest hope of success remained, and, sending the main party back to the 
schooner, he continued to plunge into the hammocks with three picked compan- 
ions—Jensen, M‘Donald, Knorr—and fourteen dogs. After fourteen days of al- 
most superhuman exertion the sound was at length crossed, and now began a 
scarcely less harassing journey along the coast. On the fifth day Jensen, the 
strongest man of the party, completely broke down, and leaving him to the 


BYE: : THE POLAR WORLD. 


charge of M‘Donald, Dr. Hayes now pushed on with Knorr alone, until, on May 
18, he reached the border of a deep bay, where farther progress to the north 
was stopped by rotten ice and cracks. Right before him, on the opposite side 
of the frith, rose Mount Parry, the lofty peak first seen by Morton in 1854 from 
the shores of Washington Land ; and farther on, a noble headland, Cape Union 
—the most northern known land upon the globe—stood in faint outline against 
the dark sky of the open sea. Thus Dr. Hayes divides the honor of extreme 
northern travel with Parry. | 

On July 12 the “United States” was released from her icy trammels, and 
Dr. Hayes once more attempted to reach the opposite coast and continue his 
discoveries in Grinnell Land, but the schooner was in too crippled a state to 
force her way through the pack-ice which lay in her course, and compelled her 
commander to return to Boston. 

Thus ended this remarkable voyage; but having done so much, Dr. Hayes 
is eager, and resolved, to do stillmore. Fully convinced by his own experience 
that men may subsist in Smith’s Sound independent of support from home, he 
proposes to establish a self-sustaining colony at Port Foulke, which may be made 
the basis of an extended exploration. Without any second party in the field to 
co-operate with him, and under the most adverse circumstances, he, by dint of 
indomitable perseverance, pushed his discoveries a hundred miles farther to the 
north and west than his predecessors; and it 1s surely not over-sanguine to ex- 
pect that a party better provided with the means of travel may be able to tray- 
erse the 480 miles at least which intervene between Mount Parry and the pole. 
The open sea which both Morton and himself found beyond Kennedy Channel 
gives fair promise of success to a strong vessel that may reach it after having 
forced the ice-blocked passage of Smith’s Sound, or, should this be impractica- 
ble, to a boat transported across the sound and then launched upon its waters. 

Captain Sherard Osborne, who is likewise a warm partisan of this route, has 
been endeavoring to interest Government in its favor; but in the opinion of 
other scientific authorities an easier passage seems open to the navigator who 
may attempt to reach the pole by way of Spitzbergen. To the east of this 
urchipelago the Gulf Stream rolls its volume of comparatively warm water far 
on to the north-east, and possibly sweeps round the pole itself. It was to the 
north of Spitzbergen that Parry reached the latitude of 82° 45’; and in 1837 
the “ Truclove,” of Hull,* sailed through a perfectly open sea in 82° 30’ N., 15° 
E., and, had she continued her course, might possibly have reached the pole as 
easily as the high latitude which she had already attained. 

The distinguished geographer, Dr. Augustus Petermann, who warmly advo- 
cates the route between Spitzbergen and Greenland, has, by dint of perseverance, 
succeeded in collecting among his countrymen the necessary funds for a recon- 
noitring voyage in this direction. Thanks to his exertions, May 24, 1868, wit- 
nessed the departure of a small ship of eighty tons, the “ Germania,” Captain 
Koldewey, from the port of Bergen, for Shannon Island (75° 14’ N. lat.), the 
highest point on the east coast of Greenland attained by Sabine in 1823. Here 
the attempt to explore the unknown Arctic seas beyond was to begin; but, 

| * «¢ Atheneum,” Dec. 3, 183. 


KANE AND HAYES. 375 


meeting with enormous masses of drift-ice on her repeated endeavors to pene- 
trate to the north-east, the “ Germania” has been obliged to return, after reach- 
ing the high latitude of 81° 5’, and accurately surveying a small part, of the 
Greenland coast hitherto but imperfectly explored. -An expedition on a more 
extensive scale is to renew the attempt in 1869. 

A third route to the pole is no less strenuously recommended by M. Gustave 
Lambert, a French hydrographer, who, having sailed through Bering’s Strait in 
a whaler in 1865, is persuaded that this is the right way to reach the problemat- 
ical open North Sea, which, once attained, promises a free passage to the navi- 
gator. Liberal subscriptions have been raised in Paris for the accomplishment 
of his plan, and an expedition under his command will most probably set out 
in 1869. 

Thus, after so many illustrious navigators have vainly endeavored to reach 
_ the pole, sanguine projectors are still as eager as ever to attain the goal; nor is 
it probable that man will ever rest in his efforts until every attainable region 
of the Arctic Ocean shall have been fully explored. 


376 THE POLAR WORLD. 


CHAPTER XXXYV. 
NEWFOUNDLAND. 


Its desolate Aspect.—Forests.—Marshes.—Barrens.—Ponds.—Fur-bearing Animals,.—Severity of Cli- 
mate.—St. John’s.—Discovery of Newfoundland by the Scandinavians.—Sir Humphrey Gilbert.— 
Rivalry of the English and French.—Importance of the Fisheries.—The Banks of Newfoundland.— 
Mode of Fishing.—Throaters, Headers, Splitters, Salters, and Packers.—Fogs and Storms.—Seal- 
catching. 


ee veiled with mists, Newfoundland appears at first sight 
gloomy and repulsive. Abrupt cliffs, showing here and there traces of a 
scanty vegetation, rise steep and bare from the sea,and for miles and miles 
the eye sees nothing but brown hills or higher mountains, desolate and wild as 
they appeared in the eleventh century to the bold Norwegian navigators who 
first landed on its desert shore. The waves of the ocean have everywhere cor- 
roded the rocky coast into fantastic pinnacles or excavated deep grottoes in its 
flanks. In one of these cavities the action of the surge has produced a remark- 
able phenomenon, known under the name of “ The Spout.” In stormy weather 
the waves penetrate into the hollow and force their way with a dreadful noise 
from an aperture in the rock as a gigantic fountain visible at a distance of 
several miles.* 

The interior of the country corresponds with the forbidding appearance of 
the coasts, and offers nothing but a succession of forests, marshes, and barrens. 
The forests, if they may thus be called, generally grow on the declivities of the 
hills or on the sides of the valleys, where the superfluous waters find a natural 
drain. The trees consist for the most part of fir, spruce, birch, pine, and juni- 
per or larch; and incertain districts the wych-hazel, the mountain-ash, the eld- 
er, the aspen, and some others are found. The character of the timber varies 
ereatly according to the nature of the subsoil and the situation. In some parts, 
more especially where the woods have been undisturbed by the axe, trees of 
fair height and girth may be found; but most of the wood is of stunted 
growth, consisting chiefly of fir-trees about twenty or thirty feet high, and 
not more than three or four inches in diameter. These commonly grow so 
closely together that their twigs and branches interlace from top to bottom, 
while among them may be seen innumerable old and rotten stumps and branch- 
es, or newly-fallen trees, which, with the young shoots and brushwood, form a 
tangled and often impenetrable thicket. The trees are often covered with lich- 
ens, and tufts of white dry moss are entangled about the branches. Other 
green and softer mosses spread over the ground, concealing alike the twisted 
roots of the standing trees and the pointed stumps of those which have fallen, 


* For an account of the similar phenomena of the ‘‘ Buffadero,” on the Mexican coast, and of the 
‘* Souffieur,” Mauritius, see ‘‘ The Sea and its Living Wonders,” 3d ed. p: 52. 


NEWFOUNDLAND. 377 


the sharp edges or slippery surface of the numerous rocks and boulders, and the 
holes and pitfalls between them. Every step through these woods is conse- 
quently a matter of great toil and anxiety. In the heat of summer, while the 
woods are so thick as to shut out every breath of air, they are at the same 
time too low and too thinly leaved at top to exclude the rays of the sun, the at- 
mosphere being further rendered close and stifling nytt the smell of the turpen- 
tine which exudes from the trees. 

Inclosed in these gloomy woods, large open tracts, called marshes, are found 
covering the valleys and lower lands, and frequently also at a considerable 
height above the sea on the undulating backs of the mountains. These tracts 
are covered to a depth sometimes of several feet with a green, soft, and spongy 
moss, bound together by straggling grass and various marsh-plants. The sur- 
face abounds in hillocks and holes, the tops of the hillocks having often dry 
crisp moss like that on the trees. A boulder or small crag of rock occasionally 
protrudes, covered with red or white lichens, and here and there is a bank on 
which the moss has become dry and yellow. The contrast of these colors with 
the dark velvety green of the wet moss frequently gives a peculiarly rich appear- 
ance to the marshes, so that when seen from a little distance they might easily 
be mistaken for luxuriant meadow-grounds, but a closer inspection soon destroys 
the illusion, and shows, instead of nutritious grass and aromatic flowers, nothing 
but a carpet of useless cryptogamic plants. Except in long-continued droughts 
or hard frosts, these marshes are so wet as to be unable to bear the weight ofa 
person walking over them. A march of three miles, sinking at every step into 
the moss, sometimes knee-deep, and always as far as the ankle, is, it may well 
be supposed, toilsome and fatiguing, especially when, as must always be the 
case in attempting to penetrate the country, a heavy load is carried on the 
shoulders. This thick coating of moss is precisely like a great sponge spread 
over the country, and becomes at the melting of the snow in the spring thor- 
oughly saturated with water, which it long retains, and which every shower of 
rain continually renews. 

The “barrens ” of Newfoundland are those districts which occupy the sum- 
mits of the hills and ridges, and other elevated and exposed tracts. They are 
covered with a thin and scrubby vegetation, consisting of berry-bearing plants 
and dwarf bushes of various species, resembling the moorlands of the north of 
England, and differing only in the kind of vegetation and its scantier quantity. 
Bare patches of gravel and boulders and crumbling fragments of rock are fre- 
quently met with apon the barrens, and they are generally altogether destitute 
of vegetable soil. But only on the barrens is it possible to explore the interior 
of the country with any kind of ease or expedition. These different tracts are 
none of them of any great extent; woods, marshes, and barrens frequently alter- 
nating with each other in the course of a day’s journey. 

Another remarkable feature of Newfoundland is the almost incredible num. 
ber of lakes of all sizes, all of which are indiscriminately called ponds. They 
are scattered over the whole country, not only in the valleys but on the higher 
lands ; and even in the hollows of the summits of the ridges and the very tops 
of the hills. They vary in size from pools of fifty yards in diameter to lakes up- 


378 THE POLAR WORLD. 


ward of thirty miles long and four or five miles across. The number of those 
which exceed a couple of miles in extent must on the whole amount to several 
hundreds, while those of a smaller size are absolutely countless. It is supposed 
that a full third of the surface of the island is covered by fresh water, and this 
reckoning is rather below than above the mark. In a country so abundantly 
provided with lakes or ponds, it seems strange to find no navigable rivers. 
The undulating surface of the land, with its abrupt hills and deep gullies, is, 
without all doubt, one cause of this absence of larger streams. 

Each pond or small set of ponds communicates with a valley of its own, 
down which it sends an insignificant brook, which takes the nearest course to 
the sea. The chief cause, however, both of the vast abundance of ponds and 
the comparative scantiness of the brooks, is to be found in the great coating of 
moss which spreads over the country, and retains the water like a sponge, al- 
lowing it to drain off but slowly and gradually. 

The wilds of Newfoundland are tenanted by numerous fur-bearing animals, 
affording a great source of gain to some of the fishermen, who in winter turn 
furriers. Arctic foxes are here in all their variety. Beavers, once nearly ex- 
tirpated, but now unmolested owing to the low value of their fur, are increasing 
in numbers. Brown bears are pretty numerous, and Polar bears sometimes find 
their way to the northern promontory of the island upon the ice which comes 
drifting down in spring from Davis’s Straits. By way of contrast, in hot sum- 
mers the tropical humming-bird has been known to visit the southern shores 
of Newfoundland. Reindeer are abundant, but unfortunately their enemies 
the wolves have likewise increased in number, since the reward given by the 
Colonial Government for their destruction has ceased to be paid. 

Although in the same latitude as Central France and the south of Germany, 
Newfoundland has a long and severe winter, owing to the two vast streams of 
Arctic water, the Davis’s Straits and East Greenland currents, which combine 
and run by its shores; and the summer, though sometimes intensely hot, is so 
short and so frequently obscured by fogs that, even were the soil less sterile, ag- 
riculture must necessarily be confined to narrow limits. The little wheat and 
barley, cultivated on the inside lands far above the sea-shore, is often cut green, 
and carrots, turnips, potatoes, and cabbages are nearly all the esculent vegeta- 
bles which the land has been proved capable of producing. 

Hence we can not wonder that the whole island, which is considerably larger 
than Scotland, has only about 90,000 inhabitants, and even these would have 
had no inducement to settle on so unpromising a soil if the riches of the sea 
did not amply compensate for the deficiencies of the land. Fish is the staple 
produce of Newfoundland, and the bulk of its population consists of poor fish- 
ermen, who have established themselves along the deep bays by which the coast 
is indented, and catch near the coast vast quantities of cod, which they bring 
in and cure at their leisure, in order to have it ready for the ships when they 
arrive. With the outer world they have little communication, and a visit to 
St. John’s, the capital of the island, forms an epoch in their solitary lives. 

This town lies at the head of a wide and secure bay, and consists of a main 
street fronting the water, from which narrow, dirty lanes and alleys branch out 


NEWFOUNDLAND. 379 


towards the land: The dingy, unpainted houses are built of wood, the Gov- 
ernment edifices only being constructed of brick or stone. The long rows of 
fish-stages along the shore attract the stranger’s attention, but he is still more 
astonished at the countless gin and beer shops, which at once tell him he is 
in a place where thirsty sailors and fishermen form the mass of the popula- 
tion. In the winter St. John’s is comparatively deserted, as it then has no more 
than about 10,000 inhabitants, but their number is doubled or trebled during 
the fishing-season. 

The island of Newfoundland, first seen and visited in the eleventh century 
by the Norse colonists of Greenland, and then utterly forgotten, was rediscov- 
ered in 1497 or 1498 by John and Sebastian Cabot. 

The richness of its cod-fisheries soon attracted attention, and fishermen from 
Spain, France, Portugal, and England annually visited its banks. The best har- 
bors along the coast were occupied by the first comers in spring—a circum- 
stance which gave rise to frequent quarrels. 'To obviate this lawless state of 
affairs, Sir Humphrey Gilbert was sent out by Queen Elizabeth in 1583 to take 
possession of the land. He divided the coast about St. John’s into districts, 
and the British settlers willingly agreed to pay a tax to Government in the ex- 
pectation of seeing their interests better protected. The new arrangement had 
a beneficial effect on the trade of Newfoundland, for in 1615 more than 250 
English vessels visited St. John’s, and gradually the whole of the eastern coast 
of the island was occupied by English fishermen. 

The French on their part colonized the north and south sides of the island, 
and founded the town of Placentia, once a very considerable place, but now re- 
duced to insignificance. The rivalry of the French was naturally a great source 
of jealousy to a nation ill-accustomed to brook any foreign intrusion into its 
commercial interests. Thus, after the war of the Spanish succession, Great 
Britain demanded and obtained by the Treaty of Utrecht the sole possession 
of Newfoundland; and Louis XIV., anxious for peace on any terms, willingly 
acceded to this sacrifice, merely reserving for his subjects the right to dry on 
the shores of the island the fish they had caught on the banks. By the subse- 
quent treaties of Paris the French were restricted to the small islands of St. 
Pierre and Miquelon, but not allowed to erect fortifications of any kind. 

Besides the English and the French, the Americans also have the right to 
fish on the banks of Newfoundland ; for when England acknowledged the in- 
dependence of the United States, a formal article of the treaty of peace secured 
to the latter the fishing privileges which they had previously enjoyed as col- 
onies. : 

The value of the dry codfish alone exported every year from Newfoundland 
is on an average about £400,000, while the total value of the exported produc- 
tions in fish, oil, and skins is upward of £700,000. This, from a population 
of 80,000 or 90,000, proves that the people of the island ought to be happy and 
prosperous; but unfortunately a system of credit renders the bulk of the fish- 
ermen entirely dependent on the merchants, and want of education is a further 
source of evil. | 

Though vast quantities of cod are taken along the shores of Newfoundland, 


380 THE POLAR WORLD. 


yet the most important fishery is carried on on the banks at some distance 
from the island. 

The Great Bank lies twenty leagues from the nearest point of land from lat- 
itude 41° to 49°, and extends 300 miles in length and 75 in breadth. To the 
east of this lies the False Bank; the next is styled the Green Bank, about 240 
miles long and 120 broad ; then Banquero, about the same size, with several 
other shoals of less note, all abounding with fish, but chiefly with cod, the 
great magnet which sets whole fleets in motion. In winter the cod retire to 
the deeper waters, but they re-appear in March and April, when their pursuers 
hasten to the spot, not only from the bays and coves of Newfoundland, but 
from Great Britain, the United States, and France. 

While fishing, each man has a space three feet and a half wide allotted to 
him on deck, so as not to interfere with his neighbor. The lines are from thirty 
to forty fathoms long—for the cod generally swims at that depth. The chief 
baits used are the squid, a species of cuttle-fish, and the capelin, a small salmon 
abounding on the North American coasts. The herring and the launce, and 
a shell-fish called clam, which is found in the belly of the cod, are likewise used. 
In spring particularly the cod rushes so eagerly upon the bait, that in the 
course of a single day a good fisherman is able to haul up four hundred, one 
after another. This is no easy task, considering the size of the fish, which on 
an average weighs fourteen pounds, but has been taken four feet three inches 
long, and forty-six pounds in weight. When a large fish, too heavy for the 
line, has been caught, the fisherman calls on his neighbor, who strikes a hook 
attached to a long pole into the fish, and then safely hauls it on board. 

Mindful of the proverb which recommends us all to strike while the iron is 
hot, the fishermen continue to catch cod for hours, until so many are heaped on 
the deck that to make room it becomes necessary to “ dress them down.” This 
is done on long planks made to rest with both ends on two casks, and thus 
forming a narrow table. First, each man cuts out the tongues of the fish he 
has caught, as his wages are reckoned by their number, and then the whole 
crew divide themselves into throaters, headers, splitters, saliers, and packers. 
The throater begins the operation of “dressing” by drawing his knife across 
the throat of the cod to the bone and ripping open the bowels. He then passes 
it to the header, who with a strong wrench pulls off the head and tears out the 
entrails, which he casts overboard, passing the fish at the same time to the 
splitter, who with one cut lays it open from head to tail, and almost in the 
twinkling of an eye with another cut takes out the backbone. After separating 
the sounds, which are placed with the tongues and packed in barrels as a deli- 
cacy, the backbone follows the entrails overboard, while the fish at the same 
moment is passed with the other hand to the salter. Such is the amazing 
quickness of the operations of heading and splitting, that a good workman will 
often decapitate and take out the entrails and backbone of six fish in a minute. 
Every fisherman is supposed to know something of each of these operations, and 
no rivals at cricket ever entered with more ardor into their work than do some 
athletic champions for the palm of “dressing down” after a “day’s catch.” 

Generally the fog is so dense that one ship does not see the other, although 


=e 


NEWFOUNDLAND. 381 


both may be so near that the crews distinctly hear each other’s voices. Fre- 
quently one is hardly able to see to the distance of a few feet, and the large drops 

of the condensed mist fall like rain from the yards. During calm weather the 
aspect of the sea is so dismal that it requires all the buoyant spirits of a seaman 
to resist its depressing influence. For days the calm remains unbroken, and 
no sound is heard but that of a fish darting out of the water, or the screech of 
a sea-bird flitting over the sea. But sometimes a storm breaks this awful 
silence of nature. At such times the fishing-ships, hidden in mists, run the 
greatest danger of striking against each other, although signal-lanterns and 
alarm-trumpets are used to give warning. A tremendous wave bursting on 
the deck often strikes them with such force as to sink them or dash them to 
pieces against the rocky coast. Thus many a widow and orphan has a mournful 
tale to relate of the dangers of the cod-fishery on the banks of Newfoundland. 

In some parts of the coast where the water is sufficiently shallow the cod- 
fish are now caught in sieves or nets. This operation requires more capital to 
commence with than the mere boat and hooks and lines of the common fisher- 
men, and, like all improvements, met at first with much opposition, on the plea 
that it must interfere with the interests of the poorer class. It is obvious, how- 
ever, that the use of the net is advantageous to the trade at large, for shoals, or, 
as they are termed, “schools,” of fish may sometimes be seen sweeping along 
shore, which but for the net would escape altogether. Besides, there seems 
such an incalculable abundance of the fish that there will always be enough to 
hook, enough to jig, enough to net, and more than enough to go away. 

“One calm July evening,” says Mr. Jukes,* “I was in a boat just outside St. 
John’s harbor, when the sea was pretty still, and the fish were ‘ breaching,’ as it 
is termed. For several miles around us the calm sea was alive with fish. They 
were sporting on the surface of the water, flirting their tails occasionally into 
the air, and as far as could be seen the water was rippled and broken by their 
movements. Looking down into its clear depths, codfish under codfish of all 
sizes appeared swimming about as if in sport. Some boats were fishing, but not 
a bite could they get, the fish being already gorged with food. Had the ground 
been shallow enough to use nets, the harbor might have been filled with fish.” 

Besides the cod-fishery, seal-catching is also carried on with considerable suc- 
cess on the eastern coast, which intercepts many immense fields and islands of 
ice as they move southward in the spring from the Arctic Sea. The interior 
parts of these drifting shoals, with the lakes or openings interspersed, remain 
unbroken, and on them myriads of seals may be found. In the month of March 
or April, as soon as the ice-fields descend with the currents from Davis’s Straits, 
many small ships, not only from the harbors of the east coast of Newfoundland, 
but even from the distant Scotch ports, particularly Aberdeen, put out to sea, 
and boldly plunge into all the openings of the ice-fields to make war upon the 
seals. Armed with firelocks and heavy bludgeons, the crews surprise the ani- 
mals on the ice. In this way thousands are killed yearly from the north, but 
their numbers have latterly decreased, and the seal-catchers pay the penalty of 
their heedless and indiscriminate slaughter. 


* ‘© Excursions in Newfoundland.” 


382 THE POLAR WORLD. 


CHAPTER XXXVI. 
GREENLAND. 


A mysterious Region.—Ancient Scandinavian Colonists.—Their Decline and Fall.—Hans Egede.—His 
Trials and Success.—Foundation of Godthaab.—Herrenhuth Missionaries.—Lindenow.—The Scores- 
bys.—Clavering.—The Danish Settlements in Greenland.—The Greenland Esquimaux.—Seal-catch- 
ing.—The White Dolphin.—The Narwhal.—Shark-fishery.—Fiskernasset.—Birds.—Reindeer-hunt- 
ing.—Indigenous Plants.—Drift-wood.—Mineral Kingdom.—Mode of Life of the Greenland Esqui- 
maux.—The Danes in Greenland.—Beautiful Scenery.—Ice Caves. 

ie many respects Greenland is one of the most remarkable countries of the 

Arctic zone. The whole of the northern coast of continental America 
from Cape Lisburne to Belle Isle Straits is known; the borders of Siberia front- 
ing the icy ocean have been thoroughly explored by water and by land; the 
distance of Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla from the pole has long since been 
determined ; but how far Greenland may reach to the north we know not— 
though nearly a thousand years have passed since the Icelander Ginnbjorn 
(970 a.p.) first saw its high mountain coast, and in spite of all the attempts 
made since that time to circumnavigate it. The interior of the island—or con- 
tinent as it may perhaps more justly be called, for it has a surface of at least 
750,000 square miles, and is probably larger than Australia—is also unknown ; 
for of this vast extent of territory only the narrow shores of the coast-line 
seemed to be inhabitable, or even accessible to man. On penetrating into the 
deeper fjords, all the valleys are found blocked with glaciers, which, on climb- 
ing the heights, are seen to pass into a monotonous plateau of ice, or névé, which 
seems to cover and conceal the whole interior. Thus, from its physical config- 
uration, Greenland may well be called a mysterious region ; and, strange to say, 
the history of the decline and fall of its first colonists is as little known as its 
geography. 

We have seen in a previous chapter that Iceland, so peaceful in the present 
day, was peopled in the ninth century with a highly turbulent race of jarls and 
vikings. One of these worthies, called Erik Rauda, or the Red, having twice 
dyed his hands with blood, was banished by the Althing (982) for a term of 
years, and resolved to pass the time of his compulsory absence in exploring the 
land discovered by Giinnbjorn. After spending three years on its western 
coasts, he returned to Iceland, and made so favorable a report of the new coun- 
try, which—knowing the advantages of a good name—he called Greenland, that 
in 986 he induced a large body of colonists to sail with him and settle there. 
Other emigrants followed, and in a few years all the habitable places of South- 
ern Greenland were occupied. . 

The colony, which soon after its foundation adopted the Christian religion, 
was divided into two districts, or “ bygds” (from the Icelandic “ byggia,” to 


GREENLAND. 383 


inhabit), by an intervening tract of land named Ubygd, the “ uninhabitable ” or 
“uninhabited.” The West Bygd reached from lat. 66° down to 62°, and con- 
tained, in its best days, ninety farms and four churches. South of it lay the 
desert, “ Ubygd,” of seventy geographical miles, terminated by the East Bygd, 
consisting of 190 farms, and having two towns, Gardar and Alba, one cathedral, 
and eleven churches. The whole population may probably have amounted to 
6000 souls. The country was governed by Icelandic laws, and the first of its 
eighteen bishops, Arnold, was elected in 1121, the last being Endride Andrea- 
son, who was consecrated in 1406. In spite of its poverty and distance, Green- 
land was obliged to contribute its mite to the revenues of the Papal chair, for 
we read in the ancient annalists that in 1326 its tribute, consisting of walrus- 
teeth, was sold by the Pope’s agent, Bertram of Ortolis, to a merchant of Flan- 
ders for the sum of twelve livres and fourteen sous. 

The time, however, was now fast approaching when the Greenland colony 
was not only to cease paying tithes and Peter’s pence, but to be swept away. 
During the course of the fourteenth century it was visited by one misfortune 
after another. The black death, which carried off twenty-five millions of Kuro- 
peans, did not spare its distant fjords (1348-9), the Esquimaux harassed the 
survivors with repeated attacks, killing some, and carrying away others captive. 
A hostile fleet, suspected to be. English, laid waste the country in 1418; and, 
finally, the revolutions and wars which broke out in Scandinavia after the death 
of Queen Margaret of Waldemar caused Greenland to be entirely neglected and 
forgotten. The last colonists either retreated to Iceland, or were destroyed by 
the Esquimaux, and many years elapsed before Greenland was again thought of 
as a place where Scandinavians had once been living. At length King Frederick 
II. of Denmark sent out Mogens Heineson, a famous “ sea-cock,” as the chroni- 
clers style him, to the south-eastern coast of Greenland (1581), to see if men of 
a Norse origin still dwelt along those ice-bound fjords. Heineson reached the 
coast, but the great transparency of the air, which in the Polar regions frequent- 
ly causes strange optical delusions, led him into a singular error. After having 
sailed for many hours in the same direction, and still seeing the mountains which 
seemed quite near recede as he advanced, he fancied himself fettered by an in- 
visible power, and thus the famous “ sea-cock” returned home with the report 
that, detained by a magnetic rock, he had not been able to reach the land. 

In 1605 King Christian IV. of Denmark sent out a new Greenland expedi- 
tion, consisting of three ships, under the command of Godske Lindenow, and 
the guidance of James Hall, an English pilot. This time no magnetic rocks in- 
tervened ; but the ships having: separated, Hall landed on the west coast, which 
had already been rediscovered and visited by Davis, Hudson, Baffin, and other 
Arctic navigators ; while Lindenow, anchoring off Cape Farewell, kidnapped two 
Esquimaux, who afterwards died of nostalgia in Denmark. But neither Linde- 
now, who the year after again made his appearance on the western coast of 
Greenland, nor two later expeditions under Carsten Richardson and Dannell, were 
able to effect a landing on any part of the eastern coast. It was in sight, but 
the drift-ice made it inaccessible. They were equally unsuccessful in finding 
any traces of the lost colony, which came at length to be regarded as a mere 


384 THE POLAR WORLD. 


Scandinavian myth. But while no one else cared about its existence, the ardent 
Hans Egede (born in Norway, January 31, 1686), pastor of Vaage, in the Lofo- 
ten Islands, still continued to cherish its memory. He had read in the ancient 
chronicles about the old Christian communities in Greenland, and could not be- 
lieve in their total extinction. He felt the deepest concern in the fate of their 
descendants, and the thought that after so long a separation from the mother- 
country they must needs be plunged in barbarism and heathen darkness, left 
him no rest by night or day. At length he resolved to devote his life to their 
spiritual welfare, and to become the apostle of rediscovered or regenerated 
Greenland. His zeal and perseverance overcame a thousand difficulties. Nei- 
ther the public ridicule, nor the coldness of the authorities to whom he vainly 
applied for assistance, nor the exhortations of his friends, could damp his ardor. 
At length, after years of fruitless endeavors, after having given up his living 
and sacrificed his little fortune in the prosecution of his plans, he succeeded in 
forming a Greenland Company, with a capital of 9000 dollars, and in obtaining an 
annual stipend from the Danish Missionary Fund of 300 dollars, to which King 
Frederic IV. added a gift of 200 dollars. With three ships, the largest of 
which “ The Hope,” had forty colonists on board, Egede, accompanied by his 
wife and four children, set sail from the port of Bergen on May 12,1721, and 
reached Greenland on July 3, after a long and tedious passage. The winds had 
driven him to the western coast, in latitude 64°, and here he resolved at once 
to begin his evangelical labors with the Esquimaux. A wooden chapel was 
speedily erected, which formed the first nucleus of the still existing settlement 
of Godthaab. 

But if the life of worthy Egede had for many a year been full of trouble be- 
fore he went to Greenland, trials still more severe awaited him during his apos- 
tolical career. He had not merely the suspicions of the Esquimaux, the enmity 
of their medicine-men, the severity of the climate, and not seldom even famine 
to contend with. His own countrymen, disappointed in their hopes of carrying 
on a lucrative trade with the Greenlanders, resolved to abandon it altogether, 
and, after ten laborious years, the Government not only withdrew all further as- 
sistance from the mission, but even ordered the colony to be broken up. All 
his companions, with the exception of a few volunteers who engaged to share 
his fortunes, now returned to Denmark ; but Egede, though his health had been 
so shattered by almost superhuman exertions that he had long since been obliged 
to leave all active duties to his son, resolved, like a faithful soldier, to die at his 
post. In 1733 his perseverance was at length rewarded by the grateful news 
that the king, at the entreaty of Count Zinzendorf, the founder of Herrenhuth, 
had consented to bestow an annual grant of 2000 dollars on the Greenland mis- 
sion, and that three Moravian brothers had arrived to assist him in his work. 
Thus he could at length (1735) return with a quiet heart to his native country, 
where he died, universally regretted, in 1758, at the age of seventy-two. 

It may easily be supposed that, during his long stay in Greenland, he anx- 
iously sought the traces of his lost countrymen, for the desire to help them had 
first led him to that Arctic country. Nothing in the physiognomy of the Ks- 
quimaux or in their language pointed in any way to a European origin, and 


GREENLAND. 385 


even their traditions said not a word of the old Norse settlers who had once 
inhabited the land. The ruins of some churches, and other buildings scattered 
here and there along the west coast, alone attested their existence, and formed 
a link between the past and the present. Thus if Greenland still had inhabit- 
ants of Scandinavian origin, they must necessarily be confined to the eastern 
coast beyond Cape Farewell. But Egede was as little able as his predecessors 
to penetrate through the ice-belt which, both by land and sea, completely sepa- 
rated it from the rest of the world. 

For many years after his death it remained unknown and inaccessible; and 
Léwenorn, who was sent out in 1786-87 to renew the attempts of Heineson 
and Lindenow, had no better success. No doubt many a whaler may have ad- 
mired its distant mountain peaks glowing in the evening sun, or may have been 
driven by the storm against its shores, but the Scoresbys were the first to de- 
termine accurately the position of part of its well-fenced coast. In the year 
1817, Captain Scoresby the elder, deviating from the usual course of the whalers, 
steered through the western ice, and reached the east coast of Greenland be- 
yond 70°. He could easily have landed; the coast which had so frequently 
baffled the attempts of previous navigators lay invitingly before him, but he 
could not sacrifice his duty as the commander of a whaler to curiosity or re- 
nown. And thus, without having set his foot on shore, he sailed back into the 
open sea. On a later visit, however, he landed in the sound which bears his 
name. In the year 1822 Scoresby the younger succeeded in more closely ex- 
amining the land. Leaving the usual track of the whalers, he had steered to 
the west, and threaded his way through the drift-ice until, between 70° 33’ and 
71° 12' N. lat., the coast of Greenland lay before him. No coast that he had 
ever seen before had so majestic a character. The mountains, on which he be- 
stowed the nameof Roscoe, consisted of numberless jagged stones or pyramids, 
rising in individual peaks to a height of 3000 feet, and a chaos of sharp needles 
covered their rough declivities. 

On July 24 he landed on arocky promontory, which he named Cape Lister 
(70° 30’), and, climbing its summit, continued his excursion along its back, which 
was between three and four hundred feet high. Here and there between the 
stones, which were either naked or thinly clothed with lichens, bloomed Andro- 
meda tetragona,a Saxifraga oppositifolia,a Papaver nudicanle, or a Ranun- 
culus nivalis. At Cape Swainson he again descended to the shore, which here 
formed a flat strand about 600 feet broad. Some deserted Esquimaux huts soon 
arrested his attention. Charred drift-wood and a quantity of ashes lay scattered 
about the hearths, and proved that these dwellings had not been long forsaken. 
Searcely a bird was to be seen on land, but countless auks and divers animated 
the waters. A great number of winged insects—butterflies, bees, mosquitoes 
—flew or buzzed about, particularly on the hillocks between the stones. On 
July 25 he once more landed on Cape Hope, where he again found traces of in- 
habitants. Bones of hares and fragments of reindeer horns lay scattered about 
on the ground. The skull of a dog was planted on a small mound of earth, 
for it is a belief of the Greenland Esquimaux that the dog, who finds his way 
everywhere, must necessarily be the best guide of the innocent children to the 

25 


386 THE POLAR WORLD. 


land of souls. The heat, which soon put an end to this excursion, was so great 
that many of the plants had shed their seeds, and some were already complete- 
ly dried up and shrivelled. 

The part of the coast of East Greenland discovered by Scoresby, and that. 
which was visited the year after by Clavering, lay, however, too far to the north 
to afford any clue about the extinct Scandinavian settlements, even supposing 
them, as was then still believed, to have been partly situated to the east of Cape 
Farewell. At length in the year 1829, Captain Graah, who had been sent out 
by King Frederick VI. of Denmark, succeeded in exploring the south-eastern 
coast of Greenland, from its southern extremity to the latitude of 65° 18’, 
beyond which no colony could ever have existed; and as he nowhere found 
either the most insignificant ruins or the least traces of an ancient Christian. 
settlement in the language and customs of the natives, it was now fully proved 
that the east bygd of the old chroniclers was, in reality, situated on the south- 
western coast of Greenland, in the present districts of Julianshaab and Lichte- 
nau, a coast which, in comparison with the more northern colonies of Frederik- 
shaab and Fiskernis, distinctly trends to the east. 

The present Danish settlements, which are confined to the more sheltered 
fjords of its western coast, are divided into a north and south inspectorate, the 
former extending from lat. 67° to 72°, and comprising the districts of Upernavik, 
Omenak, Jakobshavn, Christianshaab, Egedesminde, and Godhavn, on Disco 
Island ; while the latter contains the districts of Holsteensborg, oe 
Gsathaub, Fiskernasset, Frederikshaab, and Julianshaab. 

In the year 1855 the population of the South Inspectorate consisted of 6128 
aboriginal Greenlanders, or Esquimaux, and 120 Europeans; that of the North 
Inspectorate, of 3516 of the former, and 128 of the latter ; a very small number 
if we consider that it is scattered over a space of 12° of latitude. Ina country 
like this, such towns as Godhavn, with 150 inhabitants, or Godthaab, the most 
populous of all, with 330, pass for considerable cities. 

But, in spite of its scanty population, Greenland is a valuable possession of 
the Danish crown, or rather of the Danish company, which entirely monopolizes 
the trade, and manages its affairs so well that the Greenlander receives for his 
produce only about the sixth part of its price at Copenhagen. According to 
the average of six years (1850-1855), the total value of the exports from 
Greenland amounted to 378,588 rix-dollars; that of the importations from 
Denmark, to 164,215; but in the latter sum was included not only the price 
paid to the Greenlanders for their goods, but all the stores and provisions 
necessary for the agents and servants of the company, the missionaries, and the 
administration of the colony. The trifling amount which, after all deductions 
and charges, the poor Greenlander receives for his seal-skins or his blubber, 
he generally spends in tobacco, candy-sugar, coffee, and sea-biscuits, for his real 
wants are amply supplied by his own country, and he has not yet learned to 
invest his gains more profitably. Like all other Esquimaux, he depends chiefly 
upon the sea for his subsistence. Of the various species of Phoce found in 
the Greenland waters the most valuable is the hispid seal (Phoca hispida), 
both from its numbers and from its frequenting the fjords during the whole 


GREENLAND. 387 


year; while the larger Greenland seal (Phoca greenlandica) is not stationary 
like the former, but leaves the coast from March to May, and from July to 
September. The Cystophora cristata, or hooded seal, remarkable for a globular 
sac, capable of inflation, on the head of the male, appears in the fjords only 
from April till June. It is the most pugnacious of all the seals. In the south- 
ern districts, where the seal-hunting must be chiefly carried on in open water, 
the Greenlander relies upon his boat, the kayak. When the animal is struck, 
the barbed point of the harpoon detaches itself, by an ingenious mechanism, 
from the shaft, which otherwise would be broken by its violent contortions ; 
and as the line is attached to a bladder, it can easily be recovered. 

Among the cetaceans, the white dolphin (Delphinopterus leucas) and the 
narwhal (Monodon monoceros) are the most valuable to the Greenlanders of 
the North Inspectorate, from 500 to 600 of these huge animals being annually 
caught. The former makes its appearance a short time after the breaking up 
of the ice, and again in autumn; in summer it seeks the open sea. Sometimes 
large herds of the white dolphins are cut off from the sea by the closing in of 
the ice in the neighborhood of the land, so that several hundred may be killed 
in the course of a few days. The narwhal is caught only in the Omenak fjord, 
which it visits regularly in November. As its chase is both difficult and dan- 
dorous, the Greenlanders generally hunt it in company, so that after a narwhal 
has been struck with the first harpoon or lance, others are ready to follow up 
the advantage. The larger whales are now seldom caught, but the dead body 
of a fin-back is not seldom cast ashore, and affords a rich harvest to the neigh- 
borhood. Sometimes masses of oil, evidently proceeding from dead whales, 
are found floating in the fjords. In 1854 ninety-five tons of this matter were 
collected near Holsteinburg. 

The fishes likewise amply contribute to supply the Greenlander’s wants. 
The shark-fishery (Sceymnus microcephalus) is of considerable importance. 
The entrails of seals and other offal are placed in the openings of the ice to at- 
tract these sharks to the spot, where they are caught in various ways, particu- 
larly by torch-light, which brings them to the surface. The fishermen, watch- 
ing the moment, strike them with a sharp hook, and then drag them upon the 
ice. They are also caught with strong iron angles attached to chains. They 
are captured for the sake of their livers, which yield a good deal of oil. It has 
very recently been ascertained that a valuable substance resembling spermaceti 
may be expressed from the carcass which was formerly wasted, and for this 
purpose powerful screw presses are now employed. About 30,000 of these 
gluttonous animals are caught every year, and the fishery may be greatly ex- 
tended, as the bottom of the ice-fjords absolutely swarms with them. Their 
capture is attended with far less trouble and danger than in Iceland, where 
they are pursued in boats, and in a capricious and tempestuous sea. Improy- 
ing upon the old Esquimaux methods of fishing or hunting, the Danish resi- 
dents set nets for the white whale or the seal; for the former, they are attach- 
ed to the shore, and extend off at right angles, so as to intercept them in their 
autumnal southern migration, when they swim close along the rocks to avoid 
the grampus. When the white whale is stopped by the net, it often appears 


388 THE POLAR WORLD. 


at first to be unconscious of the fact, and continues to swim against it, and 
then allows the boat to approach it from behind. If entangled in the net, it is 
soon drowned, as, like all the whale tribe, it is obliged to come to the surface 
to breathe. | 

A large quantity of cod are caught in various parts of the South Inspecto- 
rate, particularly at Fiskernasset, which, being less subject to fogs and more 
exposed to the sea-wind, offers peculiar advantages for the drying of the fish. 
The capelin (Mallotus villosus), which in May and June visits the coasts of 
Greenland in great numbers, is eaten both fresh or laid upon the rocks to dry 
for the winter. The sea-wolf, the lump-fish, the bull-head, the Norway had- 
dock, the salmon-trout, are likewise important articles of food. The halibut 
grows to a huge size, and a smaller species ({ippoglossus pinguis) is fished for 
at the depth of 180 or even 380 fathoms. The banks frequented by this fish 
are most valuable to the neighboring Greenlanders. Many are no doubt still 
undiscovered, others may be known by the dead fish floating on the surface, or 
by the seals diving out of the water with a flat fish in their mouth. Long-tail- 
ed crabs are easily caught in many parts, and the common mussel may be 
gathered almost everywhere at ebb tide. 

Crowds of birds nestle during the summer on the rocky shores, particularly 
at Upernavik, where the largest. breeding-places are found. They are general- 
ly killed with small blunted arrows. In the ice-fjord of Jacobshavn the gulls 
are caught ingeniously by floating traps on which something brilliant or re- 
sembling a fish is fixed. The eggs of the sea-birds are gathered in vast num- 
bers, and the feathers and skins of the eider-duck and auk are both exported 
and used for the lining of boots. 

Compared with the wealth of the seas, the land is very poor. The chase of 
the reindeer is, however, important, as its skin affords both a warmer and a 
softer clothing than that of the seal, and serves moreover as a bed-cover or a 
sledge-carpet. Reindeer-hunting is a favorite summer occupation of the Green- 
landers, who annually kill from 10,000 to 20,000, and export about one-half of 
the skins. Only a few cows, sheep, and goats are kept at Julianshaab. For 
want of hay they are fed with fish during the winter. In South Greenland the 
potato is cultivated by the European residents as a luxury. The plant never 
flowers, and even buds are rare. Turnips, cabbages, salad, and spinach like- 
wise grow in South Greenland, but barley sown in the gardens scarcely ever 
comes to ear. In summer the windows of the houses are gay with geraniums 
and fuchsias and other flowers of a more temperate zone. 

Among the indigenous plants, the berries of the Hmpetrum nigrum, Vac- 
cinium uliginosum, and Vaccinium vitis idea furnish the Greenlanders with 
their only vegetable food. While the coasts exposed to the bleak sea-winds 
afford scanty traces of vegetation, the valleys and hill slopes of the more 
sheltered fjords are green during the summer, and justify the name bestowed 
by Erick on the land of his adoption, Forests are of course out of the question 
in Greenland, though in some places the birch attains a not inconsiderable 
size. Thus in a dell at the upper end of Lichtenau Fjord a thicket of these 
trees, fifteen feet high, surrounds a little lake fed by a waterfall, the largest 


GREENLAND. 389 


hitherto known in Greenland. More generally, however, the trees, such as the 
beech, the willow, the elder, etc., merely creep along the ground, where the 
dense matting of their roots and branches, mingled with bushes of the empe- 
trum, or with mosses, lichens, and fallen leaves, forms a kind of turf which is 
used as fuel by the Danes. 

In some measure the sea makes up for the want of timber by casting on the 
shore a quantity of drift-wood, the origin of which is still a matter of doubt, 
some tracing it to the North American rivers, others to those of Siberia. It 
consists mostly of the uprooted trunks of coniferous trees. Sometimes also 
large pieces of bark, such as those of which the Indians make their canoes, and 
sewn together with threads of hair, and drifted into the fjords. 

The mineral kingdom, though it has within the last few years attracted the 
attention of speculators, will hardly ever realize their hopes. Several attempts 
_ to work the lead and copper ores at Nanursoak and in the Arksak fjord have 
miserably failed. The cost of transport is immense, and the difficulty of ob- 
taining the necessary workmen presents an insuperable obstacle to all mining 
Operations in Greenland. 

Though the Greenlanders have now been for more than a century under the 
influence of Christian teachers, yet their mode of life is still much the same as 
that of their relatives the wild Esquimaux on the opposite continent of North 
America. Like them, they use the “kayak,” the “ oomiak,” and the sledge; 
like them, they live in small winter huts of stone (the snow-house is unknown 
to them) or in summer tents hung with skins, and they are equally improvi- 
dent in times of abundance. Their constant intercourse with Europeans has, 
however, taught them the use of many luxuries unknown to the wild Esqui- 
maux, and they are now great consumers of coffee. They are fond of instruc- 
tion, but the immense space over which the population is scattered, and their 
vagrant life during a great part of the year, are great hinderances to their im- 
provement. They are also very good-natured, and live on the best terms with 
the Danes who reside among them. The latter, who, with the exception of the 
Moravian missionaries, are all in the service of the Company, soon get attached 
to the country, and leave it with regret; sometimes even returning to close 
their days in Greenland. | 

The climate, though severe, is very healthy, and the lover of sport finds am- 
ple opportunities for gratifying his favorite passion. In September, or at the 
begining of October, the last ships leave for Europe; and then, till the next 
April or May-—when the first English whalers appear in the ports of Godhayn 
or Upernavik—all communication with the civilized world is totally cut off. 
Towards the end of January or the beginning of February, when the days begin 
rapidly to lengthen, frequent sledge-parties keep up a constant interchange of 
visits between the various settlements. This mode of travelling over the lakes 
and inclosed fjords is very agreeable in May, as then the sun is pleasantly 
warm at noon; and though he hardly disappears below the horizon, the nights 
are sufficiently cold to convert the melted snow into ice hard enough to bear 
the weight of a sledge. This is the best time for visiting many interesting 
spots inaccessible at other seasons of the year, and for enjoying many a scene 


390 THE POLAR WORLD. 


unsurpassed in Switzerland itself. Here, as on the Alps, the glacier and the 
snow-clad peak appear in all their grandeur ; here also, in the valleys, the sum- 
mer brooks flow between well-clothed banks, and the Helvetian lakes are wor- 
thily rivalled by the magnificent fjords of Greenland. | 

In many parts, the waves, beating against the steep coasts of the islands 
and fjords, render access difficult, if not impossible during the summer, but in 
winter or spring they may easily be visited across the ice. The surf has worn 
many caves in these precipitous rock-walls, which are no less remarkable for 
their picturesque basaltic forms than for the huge masses of ice on their sides, 
which, in their tints and grouping, far surpass the stalactites of the most re- 
nowned European grottoes. 


THE ANTARCTIC OCEAN. 391 


CHAPTER XXXVII. 
THE ANTARCTIC OCEAN. 


Comparative View of the Antarctic and Arctic Regions.—Inferiority of Climate of the former.—Its 
Causes.—The New Shetland Islands.—-South Georgia. —The Peruvian Stream.—Sea-birds.—The Gi- 
ant Petrel.—The Albatross. —The Penguin.—The Austral Whale-—The Hunchback.—The Fin-back. 
—The Grampus.—Battle with a Whale.—The Sea-elephant.—The Southern Sea-bear.—The Sea- 
leopard.—Antarctic Fishes. _ | 

oo Antarctic regions are far more desolate and barren than the Arctic. 

Here we have no energetic hunters, like the Esquimaux, chasing the seal 
or the walrus; no herdsmen following, like the Samoiedes or the Lapps, their 
reindeer to the brink of the icy ocean; but all is one dreary, uninhabitable 
waste. While within the Arctic Circle the musk-ox enjoys an abundance of 
food, and the lemming is still found thriving on the bleakest islands, not a sin- 
gle land quadruped exists beyond 56° of southern latitude. 

Summer flowers gladden the sight of the Arctic navigator in the most north- 
ern lands yet reached; but no plant of any description—not even a moss or a 
lichen—has been observed beyond Cockburn Island in 64° 12'S. lat.; and while 
even in Spitzbergen vegetation. ascends the mountain slopes to a height of 3000 
feet the snow-line descends to the water’s edge in every land within or near the 
Antarctic Circle. 

An open sea, extending towards the northern pole as far as the eye can reach, 
points out the path to future discovery; but the Antarctic navigators, with one 
single exception, have invariably seen their progress arrested by barriers of ice, 
and none have ever penetrated beyond the comparatively low latitude of 
per 10’, 

Even in Spitzbergen and East Greenland, Scoresby sometimes found the 
heat of summer very great; but the annals of Antarctic navigation invariably 
speak of a frigid temperature. In 1773, when Captain Phipps visited Spitzber- 
gen, the thermometer once rose to +584°; and on July 15, 1820, when the 
“ Hecla” left her winter-quarters in Melville Island (74° 47’ N.), she enjoyed a 
warmth of +56°. But during the summer months spent by Sir James Ross. 
in the Antarctic Polar area, the temperature of the air never once exceeded 
+41°5'. In Northumberland Sound (76° 42’ N.), probably the coldest spot 
hitherto visited in the north, the mean of the three summer months was found 
to be +30° 8’, while within the Antarctic Circle it only amounted to + 27° 3’. 

The reader may possibly wonder why the climate of the southern polar re- 
gions is so much more severe than that of the high northern latitudes; or why 
coasts and valleys, at equal distances from the equator, should in one case be 
found green with vegetation, and in another mere wastes of snow and ice; but 
the predominance of land in the north, and of sea in the south, fully answers 


392 THE POLAR WORLD. 


the question. Within the Arctic Circle we see vast continental masses project- 
ing far to the north, so as to form an almost continuous belt round the icy 
sea; while in the southern hemisphere, the continents taper down in a vast ex- 
tent of open ocean. In the north, the plains of Siberia and of the Hudson’s 
Bay territories, warmed by the sunbeams of summer, become at that season 
centres of radiating heat, so that in many parts the growth of forests, or even 
the culture of the cereals, advances as high as 70° of latitude; while the An- 
tarctic lands are of a comparatively small extent, and isolated in the midst of 
frigid waters, whose temperature scarcely varies from +29° 2' even in the 
height of summer. Mostly situated within the Antarctic Circle, and constantly 
chilled by cold sea-winds, they act at every season as refrigerators of the atmos- 
phere. 

In the north, the formation of icebergs is confined to a few mountainous 
countries, such as the west coast of Greenland or Spitzbergen; but the Antarc- 
tic coast-lands generally tower to a considerable height above the level of the 
sea, and the vast fragments which are constantly detaching themselves from 
their glaciers keep up the low temperature of the seas. 

In the north, the cold currents of the Polar Ocean, with their drift-ice and 
bergs, have but the two wide gates of the Greenland Sea and Davis’s Strait 
through which they can emerge to the south, so that their influence is confined 
within comparatively narrow limits, while the gelid streams of the Antarctic 
seas branch out freely on all sides, and convey their floating ice-masses far and 
wide within the temperate seas. It is only to the west of Newfoundland that 
single icebergs have ever been known to descend as low as 39° of latitude; but 
in the southern hemisphere they have been met with in the vicinity of the Cape 
of Good Hope (35° S. lat.), near Tristan d’Acunha, opposite to the mouth of the 
Rio de la Plata, and within a hundred leagues of Tasmania. In the north, final- 
ly, we find the Gulf Stream conveying warmth even to the shores of Spitzbergen 
and Nova Zembla; while in the opposite regions of the globe, no traces of warm 
currents have been observed beyond 55° of latitude. 

Thus the predominance of vast tracts of flat land in the boreal hemisphere, 
and of an immense expanse of ocean in the Antarctic regions, sufficiently ac- 
counts for the estival warmth of the former, and the comparatively low sum- 
mer temperature of the latter. 

It is unnecessary to describe in detail each of the desolate lands which mod- 
ern navigators have discovered among the Antarctic ice-fields, but it may not 
be uninteresting to compare one or two of these dreary wastes with the lands 
of the north, situated in analogous latitudes. 

The New Shetland Islands, situated between 61° and 63° of Southern lati- 
tude, were originally discovered by Dirck Gheritz, a Dutch navigator, who, in 
attempting to round Cape Horn, was carried by tempestuous weather within 
sight of their mountainous coasts. Long forgotten, they were re-discovered in 
1819 by Mr. Smith, a master in the royal navy—whom a storm had likewise 
earried thither—and in the following year more accurately examined by Edward 
Bransfield, whose name survives in the strait which separates them from D’Ur- 
ville’s Louis Philippe Land. 


THE ANTARCTIC OCEAN. 393 


In 1829, the “ Chanticleer,” Captain Forster, was sent to New Shetland for 
the purpose of making magnetic and other physical observations, and remained 
for several months at Deception Island, which was selected as a station from its 
affording the best harbor in South Shetland. 

Though these isiands are situated at about the same distance from the pole 
as the Faroe Islands which boast of numerous flocks of sheep, and where the 
sea never freezes, yet, when the “ Chanticleer” approached Deception Island, on 
January 5 (a month corresponding to our July), so many icebergs were scatter- 
ed about, that Forster counted at one time no fewer than eighty-one. A gale 
having arisen, accompanied by a thick fog, great care was needed to avoid run- 
ning foul of these floating cliffs. After entering the harbor—a work of no 
slight difficulty, from the violence of the wind—the fogs were so frequent that, 
for the first ten days, neither sun nor stars were seen; and it was withal so raw 
and cold, that Lieutenant Kendal, to whom we owe a short narrative of the expe- 
dition, did not recollect having suffered more at any time in the Arctic regions, 
even at the lowest range of the thermometer. In this desolate land, frozen water 
becomes an integral portion of the soil; for this volcanic island is composed 
chiefly of alternate layers of ashes and ice, as if the snow of each winter, during 
a series of years, had been prevented from melting in the following summer, by 
the ejection of cinders and ashes from some part where volcanic action still goes 
on. Early in March (the September of the north) the freezing over of the cove 
in which the ship was secured gave warning that it was high time for her to 
quit this desolate port. With much difficulty and severe labor, from the fury 
of the gales, they managed to get away, and we may fully credit Lieutenant 
Kendal’s assertion, that it was a day of rejoicing to all on board when the 
shores of Deception faded from their view. 

In 1775 Cook, on his second voyage, discovered the large island of South 
Georgia, situated in latitude 54° and 55°, a situation corresponding to that 
of Scarborough or Durham. But what a difference in the climate, for “ we saw 
not a river or stream of water,” says the great navigator, “on all the coast of 
Georgia. The head of the bay, as well as two places on each side, was termi- 
nated by perpendicular icebergs of considerable height. Pieces were continu- 
ally breaking off and floating out to sea, and a great fall happened while we 
were in the bay, which made a noise like a cannon. The inner parts of the 
country were not less savage and horrible. . The wild rocks raised their lofty 
summits till they were lost in the clouds, and the valley lay covered with ever- 
lasting snow. Not a tree was to be seen, not a shrub even big enough to make 
a toothpick. The only vegetation was a coarse strong-bladed grass growing 
in tufts, wild burnet, and a plant like moss, which sprang from the rocks. The 
lands, or rather rocks, bordering on the sea-coast were not covered with snow 
like the inland parts, but all the vegetation we could see on the clear places was 
the grass above mentioned.’ To find scenes of a similar wintry desolation, we 
‘must travel in the north as far as Nova Zembla or prone) which are 20° 
or 24° nearer to the pole! 

Thus the influence of the cold Antarctic waters extends far within the tem- 
_perate zone. We can trace their chilling effects in Kerguelen Land (50° S, 


394 THE POLAR WORLD. 


lat.), which when visited by Cook in the height of summer was found covered 
with snow, and where only five plants in flower were collected; in Tierra del 
Fuego (53° S. lat.), where the mean summer temperature is fully 93° lower than 
that of Dublin (53° 21’ N. lat.) ; in the Falkland Islands (51° 30’), which, though 
flat and low and near Patagonia, have, according to Mr. Darwin, a climate simi- 
lar to that which is experienced at the height of between one and two thousand 
feet on the mountains of North Wales, with less sunshine and less frost, but 
more wind and rain; and finally along the south-west coast of America, where 
the Peruvian current and the cold sea-winds so considerably depress the snow: 
line, that while in Europe the most southern glacier which comes down to the 
sea is met with, according to Von Buch, on the coast of Norway in lat. 67°; 
the “ Beagle” found a glacier fifteen miles long and in one part seven miles 
broad descending to the sea-coast in the gulf of Penas, in a latitude (46° 50’) 
nearly corresponding with that of the Lake of Geneva. 

“The position of this glacier,” says Mr. Darwin, “may be put even in a 
more striking point of view, for it descends to the sea-coast within less than 9° 
from where palms grow; within 43° of a region where the jaguar and puma 
range over the plains, less than 23° from arborescent grasses, and (looking to 
the westward in the same hemisphere) less than 2° from orchideous parasites, 
and within a single degree of tree-ferns!” As the influence of the tropical gulf 
stream reaches as far as Spitzbergen, so that of the cold Peruvian stream, which 
issues from the Antarctic Seas, extends even to the equator, and not seldom re- 
duces the temperature of the waters about the Galapagos to less than 4-584°, 
so that reef-building corals, which require a minimum warmth of +60°, are 
unable to grow near islands situated directly under the line. 

Though the Antarctic lands are so bleak and inclement that not a single 
quadruped is to be found within 60° of latitude, yet they are the resort of in- 
numerable sea-birds which, belonging to the same families as those ot the north, . 
generally form distinct genera or species, for with rare exceptions no bird is 
found to inhabit both the Arctic and the Antarctic regions. 

Thus in the petrel family we find the fulmar (Procellaria glacialis) and the 
glacial petrel (P. gelida) of the high north represented in the Antarctic Seas 
by the giant petrel (Procellaria gigantea), which extends its flight from Pata- 
gonia to the ice-banks of the south, where the Antarctic and the snowy petrels 
(P. antarctica et nivea) first appear, cold-loving birds which never leave those 
dreary waters, and are often seen in vast flocks floating upon the drift-ice. 

The giant petrel, which has received from the Spaniards the significant appel- 
lation of “ guebranta huesos,” or “ break-bones,” is a more powerful bird than 
the fulmar. It is larger than a goose, with a strong beak 43 inches long. Its — 
color is a dirty black, white below, and with white spots on the neck and back. 
In its habits and manner of flight it closely resembles the albatross, and, as with 
the albatross, a spectator may watch it for hours together without seeing on 
what it feeds. Like the fulmar it feasts upon fishes, or the carcasses of seals and 
cetaceans, but it also chases other birds. At Port Saint Antonio it was seen by — 
some of the officers of the “ Beagle” pursuing a diver, which tried to escape by 
diving and flying, but was continually struck down, and at last killed by a blow 


THE ANTARCTIC OCEAN. 395 


on its head. Such is its voracity that it does not even spare its own kind, for 
a gigantic petrel having been badly wounded by a shot from the “Terror,” 
and falling at too great a distance for a boat to be sent after it, was immediate- 
ly attacked by two others of the same kind and torn to pieces. It isa common 
bird both in the open sea and in the inland channels of Tierra del Fuego, and 
the south-west coast of America. 

The wandering albatross (Diomedea eaulans), closely allied to the petrels, 
and rivalling the condor in size and strength of wing, may truly be ranked among 
the Antarctic birds, as it is seldom seen in a lower latitude than 36°, and in. 
creases in numbers towards the south. Freyssinet saw it most frequently be- 
‘tween 55° and 59° §. lat., and it probably knows no other limits than those of 
the Polar ice. It is found in every meridian of this enormous zone, but the 
regions of storms—the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn—are its favorite 
resorts. Here it may frequently be seen in the full majesty of its flight. 

The auks of the northern hemisphere are represented, in the austral regions, 
by the penguins, who, as Buffon remarks, are the least bird-like of all birds. 
Their small wing-stumps, covered with short rigid scale-like feathers, are alto- 
gether incapable of raising the body in the air, but serve as admirable paddles 
in the water, and on land as fore feet, with whose help they so alertly scale the 
grassy cliffs that they might easily be mistaken for quadrupeds. Their feet, 
like those of the auks, are placed so far back that the body is quite upright 
when the bird is standing on the ground, a position which renders their gait 
uncommonly slow and awkward, but greatly facilitates their movements in the 
water. When at sea and fishing, the penguin comes to the surface for the pur- 
pose of breathing with such a spring, and dives again so instantaneously, that at 
first sight no one can be sure that it is nvé a fish leaping for sport. Other sea- 
birds generally keep a considerable part of their body out of the water while 
swimming, but this is not the case with the penguin, whose head alone appears 
above the surface, and thus rowing at the same time with its wings and feet, it 
swims so quickly that many fishes would fail to keep up with it. Sir James 
Ross once saw two penguins paddling away a thousand miles from the nearest 
land. Protected against the cold by a thick layer of fat and a warm great-coat 
of feathers, it remains for months on the high seas, and seeks land only in the 
suiamer for the purpose of breeding. At this time it is found in vast numbers 
on the Falkland Islands, Kerguelen’s Land, New Shetland, or wherever in the 
Antarctic Seas, perhaps even to the pole itself, a convenient coast invites its 
stay. On Possession Island, for instance, a desolate rock, discovered by Sir 
James Ross in lat. 71° 56’, myriads of penguins covered the whole surface of 
the land, along the ledges of the precipices, and even to the summit of the hills. 
Undaunted by the presence of beings whom they had never seen before, the 
birds vigorously attacked the British seamen as they waded through their 
ranks, and pecked at them with their sharp beaks, a reception which, together 
with their loud coarse notes, and the insupportable stench of their guano, made 
our countrymen but too happy to depart, after having loaded their boat with 
geological specimens and penguins. There are several species of this singular 
‘bird. The largest and rarest (Aptenodytes Forsteri) is generally found sin- 


‘THE POLAR WORLD. 


396 


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THE ALBATROSS. 


THE ANTARCTIC OCEAN. 397 


gly, while the smaller species always associate in vast numbers. Several were 
caught in lat. 77° by Sir James Ross and brought on board alive; indeed it 
was a very difficult and a cruel operation to kill them, until hydrocyanic acid 
was resorted to, of which a tablespoonful effectually accomplished the purpose 
in less than a minnte. These enormous birds varied in weight from sixty to 
seventy-five pounds. They are remarkably stupid, and allow a man to ap- 
proach them so near as to strike them on the head with a bludgeon, and some- 
times, if knocked off the ice into the water, they wil] almost immediately leap 
upon it again as if eager for a fight, though without the smallest means either 
of offense or defense. They were first discovered during Captain Cook’s voyage 
to the Antarctic regions, but Sir James Ross was fortunate in bringing the first 
perfect specimens to England, some of which were preserved entire in casks of 
strong pickle, that the physiologist and comparative anatomist might have an 
opportunity of thoroughly examining their structure. The principal food of the 
great penguin consists of various species of crustaceous animals, and in its 
stomach are frequently found from two to ten pounds’ weight of pebbles, swal- 
lowed no doubt to promote digestion. “Its capture,” says Sir James Ross, 
“afforded great amusement to our people, for when alarmed and endeavoring 
to escape, it makes its way over deep snow faster than they could follow it: by 
lying down on its belly and impelling itself by its powerful feet, it slides along 
upon the surface of the snow at a great pace, steadying itself by extending its 
finlike wings, which alternately touch the ground on the side opposite to the | 
propelling leg.” 

Though the Antarctic Seas possess neither the narwhal nor the morse, they 
abound, perhaps even more than the Arctic waters, in whales, dolphins, and 
seals, at least in the higher latitudes. 

The austral smooth-backed whale (Balena australis) differs from his Green- 
land relative in many respects: the head is comparatively smaller, being only 
about one-fourth of the total length, the mouth is broader, the baleen shorter, 
the pectoral fins are larger and pointed, and the color is almost totally black, 
the white on the lower surface being confined to a small part of the abdomen. 
The skull is also differently formed; and while the Greenland whale has only 
thirteen pairs of ribs, the austral smooth-back has fifteen. 

According to Mr. Bennett, the austral smooth-back seldom attains a greater 
length than fifty feet; but as it yields on an,average from eighty to ninety 
barrels of oil, its capture amply rewards the whaler’s trouble. Though met 
with in the highest latitudes, and roaming over the whole extent of the Antarc- 
tic Seas, it resorts in spring to the sheltered bays of New Zealand, Australia, 
Kerguelen’s Land, Chili, the Falkland Islands, Algoa Bay, etc., for the purpose 
of bringing forth its young. This of course makes its capture easier, but must 
at the same time lead to its extirpation, or drive it to the most inaccessible re- 
gions of the Polar Ocean. Even now the whale-fishery of the southern seas, 
which twenty or thirty years ago employed hundreds of vessels, has much di- 
minished in importance: it is chiefly carried on by the Americans, the French, 
_and our Australian colonies, which have the:advantage of being more conven- 
iently situated than the mother-country. 


398 THE POLAR WORLD. 


In the higher latitudes of the Antarctic zone the hunch-back and fin-back 
whales abound ; but as the former is meagre and hardly worth the boiling, and’ 
the latter, like the rorquals of the north, dives with such rapidity that he snaps 
the harpoon-line or drags the boat along with him into the water, they are sel- 
dom hunted. Hence they will most likely continue to prosper in their native 
seas, unless the improved missiles recently introduced in the whale-fishery can 
be made to conquer them. ‘The hunch-back is distinguished by the great 
length of his pectoral fins, which extend to full eighteen feet, while these organs 
are comparatively small in the fin-back. A kind of broad-nosed whale likewise’ 
makes its appearance in the Antarctic Seas, but it is not yet determined whether 
all these fin-backed whales of the south are distinct species from those of the 
Arctic waters. A circumstance which seems to speak for their identity is that 
fin-backs are met with in the intervening temperate and tropical seas, so that 
no limits appear to have been set to their excursions. 

The sperm whale, or cachalot, though partial to the equinoctial ocean, is also’ 
found in the cold Antarctic waters. It was met with by Sir James Ross among 
the icebergs in 63° 20’ S. lat.; and near Possession Island (71° 50'S. lat.), where 
the hunch-backs were so abundant that thirty were counted at one time in va- 
rious directions, and during the whole day wherever the eyes turned their blasts 
were to be seen. A few sperm whales were also distinguished among them by 
their peculiar manner of blowing or spouting. 

Among the dolphins of the Antarctic Ocean we find a species of grampus 
no less formidable and voracious than that of the northern seas. On January 
20, 1840, the American ship “ Peacock,” while cruising in the Antarctic waters, 
witnessed a conflict between one of them and a whale. The sea was perfectly 
_ smooth, so that the whole combat could be distinctly seen. At first the whale’ 
was perceived at some distance from the ship lashing the water into foam, and 
apparently making desperate efforts to shake off some invisible enemy. On 
approaching, they found that an enormous grampus had seized it with its jaws. 
The whale vainly turned and twisted itself in every direction, and its blood 
tinged the water far around. The grampus had evidently the advantage, and 
the other whales, of which there were many in sight, instead of assisting their 
comrade, seemed only intent on their own safety. The grampus had a brown 
back, a white abdomen, and a large fin on its back. The speed at which the 
monstrous animals shot through the water prevented the Americans from wit- 
nessing the issue of the fight. The classical dolphin of the ancients has been: 
seen near the Cape of Good Hope, and most likely wanders far to the south, as 
he is proverbial for his arrow-like rapidity, and can easily traverse a couple of 
hundred miles in a single day. In the Strait of Magellan and about Cape Horn 
are frequently seen the Delphinus superciliosus, whose turned-up mouth-cor- 
ners give his countenance a peculiarly benevolent and friendly expression, belied 
by his ravenous propensities, and the Delphinus leucoramphus, who, like the 
bjeluga of the north, has no dorsal fin, and by the liveliness of, his movements 
emulates the classical dolphin of the Mediterranean. — 

The seal family plays a no less important part in the zoology of the Antarc- 
tic Seas than in that of the northern waters. Here we find the monstrous sea- 


THE ANTARCTIC OCEAN. 399 


elephant (Macrorhinus elephantinus), so called not only from his size attaining 
a length of twenty-five feet, and a girth at the largest part of the body of from 
fifteen to eighteen, but also from the singular structure of his elongated nostrils, 
which hang down when he is in a state of repose, but swell out to a proboscis a 
foot long when he is enraged. This gives the animal a very formidable appear- 
ance, which, along with his bellowing and his widely-gaping jaws armed with 
tusk-like canines, might strike terror into the boldest heart. But in reality the 
sea-elephant is a most defenseless creature, for on land it moves its unwieldy 
carcass with the utmost difficulty, and a single blow upon the snout with a club 
suffices to stretch it lifeless on the ground. It used to be met with in consid- 
erable numbers on all the flat shores or islands between 35° and 62° S. lat., but 
as it yields a large quantity of excellent oil, and as its skin, though merely cov- 
ered with thick short bristles, is of some value from its great strength and 
_ thickness, incessant persecution has greatly thinned its ranks, and in some parts 
extirpated it. Thus Sir James Ross relates that the sea-elephant and several 
other species of seals, which were formerly in great abundance at Kerguelen’s 
Land, annually drew a number of fishing-vessels to its shores. But at the time 
of his visit (1840), after so many years of slaughter, they had quite deserted 
the place. The flesh of the sea-elephant is black, and of an oily taste, but Anson 
and his companions, after having been tossed about for several months on a 
tempestuous sea and reduced to great distress by scurvy, relished it at Juan 
Fernandez. The tongue is said to be a great delicacy. 

As the soft jet-black fur of the young southern sea-bear (Arctocephalus falc- 
landicus) is no less valuable than that of its northern relative, the eagerness 
with which it is pursued may easily be imagined. Formerly vast herds of sea- 
bears used to resort every summer to the New Shetland Islands, but soon after 
the rediscovery of the group the American and English sealers made their ap- 
pearance on its desolate shores, and in the short time of four years extirpated 
the ursine seals, thus destroying by wasteful destruction what might have been 
a permanent source of profit. 

The southern sea-lion ( Otaria jubata) is a larger animal than his northern 
namesake; and while the latter is furnished only with an erect and curly hair- 
tuft at the neck, a complete mane flows round his breast. The remainder of 
the tawny body is covered with short smooth hairs or bristles. The sea-lioness, 
who is much smaller than her mate, has no mane; and as she is of a darker 
color and has a differently shaped head, is frequently mistaken for another 
species, and called wolf, or Jobo, by the inhabitants of the south-western coast 
of America. The fore flippers of the sea-lion have the appearance of large 
pieces of black tough leather, showing, instead of nails, slight horny elevations ; 
the hind fins, which are likewise black, have a closer resemblance to feet, and the 
five toes are furnished with small nails. It is a formidable-looking beast, par- 
ticularly when full grown to a length of ten feet and more. The sea-leopard 
(Leptonyx Weddellt), which owes its name to its spotted skin, is peculiar to the 
southern seas. This large seal is from eight to nine feet long; the hind feet 
have no nails, and greatly resemble the tail of a fish. 

The Antarctic seals, dolphins, and petrels chiefly prey upon a genus of fish 


400 THE POLAR WORLD. 


discovered at Kerguelen’s Land, and named Notothenia by Dr. Richardson. 
These fish, which are of an elongated eel-like shape, conceal themselves from 
the persecutions of their enemies in the small’cracks and cavities of the pack- 
ice, and were frequently noticed by Sir James Ross when driven from shelter 
by the ship as it struck and passed over their protecting pieces of ice. They 
in their turn live upon the smaller cancri and limacine, and these again upon 
creatures of a still more diminutive size, until finally the chain of created 
beings terminates in the diatoms,* which are found filling these seas with the 
minutest forms of organic life. 


* “The Sea and its Living Wonders,” p. 403, 


ANTARCTIC VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY. 401 


CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
ANTARCTIC VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY. 


Cook’s Discoveries in the Antarctic Ocean.—Bellinghausen.—Weddell.—Biscoe.—Balleny.—Dumont 
d’Urville.—Wilkes.—Sir James Ross crosses the Antarctic Circle on New Year’s Day, 1841.—-Dis- 
covers Victoria Land.—Dangerous Landing on Frankiin Island.—An Eruption of Mount Erebus.— 
The Great Ice Barrier.—Providential Escape.—Dreadful Gale —Collision.—Hazardous Passage be- 
tween two Icebergs.—Termination of the Voyage. 


alae Cook, no navigator had left Europe with the clear design of pen- 
etrating into the Antarctic regions. Dirk Gheritz indeed had been driv- 
en by a furious storm far to the south of Cape Horn, and became the involun- 
tary discoverer of the New Shetland Islands in 1600; but his voyage was soon 
forgotten, and in an age when the love of gold or the desire of conquest were 
the sole promoters of maritime enterprise, no mariner felt inclined to follow on 
his track, and to plunge into a sea where most prebably he would find nothing 
but ice-fields and icebergs to reward his efforts. Nearly two centuries later a’ 
more scientific age directed its attention to the unknown regions of the distant 
south, and Cook sailed forth to probe the secrets of the Antarctic Seas. This 
dangerous task he executed with an intrepidity unparalleled in the annals of 
navigation. Beyond 60° of southern latitude, he cruised over a space of more 
than 100° of longitude, and on January 30, 1774, penetrated as far as 71° of 
southern latitude, where he was stopped by impenetrable masses of ice. Such 
were the difficulties encountered from dense fogs, snow-storms, intense cold, 
and every thing that can render navigation dangerous, that in his opinion the 
lands situated to the southward of his discoveries must forever remain un- 
known. 

Again for many a year no one attempted to enter a field where the most 
celebrated of modern mariners had found but a few desert islands (South 
Georgia, Sandwich’s Land, Southern Thule) until Smith’s casual rediscovery of 
New South Shetland in 1819 once more turned the current of maritime ex- 
ploration to the Antarctic Seas. 

Soon afterwards a Russian expedition under Lazareff and Bellinghausen 
discovered (January, 1821), in 69° 3’S. lat., the islands Paul the First and 
Alexander, the most southern lands that had ever been visited by man. 

The year after Captain Weddell, a sealer, penetrated into the icy ocean as | 
far as 74° 15’ S. lat., 3° nearer to the pole than had been attained by Cook. 
The sea lay invitingly open, but as the season was far advanced, and Weddell 
apprehended the dangers of the return voyage, he steered again to the north. 

In 1831 Biscoe discovered Enderby Land, and soon afterwards Graham’s 
Land, to which the gratitude of geographers has since given the discoverer’s 
name. In 1839 Balleny revealed the existence of the group of islands called 

26 


402 THE POLAR WORLD. 


after him, and of Sabrina Land (69° S$. lat.). About the same time three con- 
siderable expeditions, fitted out by the governments of France, the United 
States, and England, made their appearance in the Antarctic Seas. | 

Dumont d’Urville discovered Terre Louis Philippe (63° 31’ S. lat.) in Feb- 
ruary, 1838, and Terre Adélie (66° 67’ S. lat.) on January 21, 1840. Almost 
on the same day, Wilkes, the commander of the United States Exploring Ex- 
pedition, reached an ice-bound coast, which he followed for a length of 1500 
miles, and which has been called Wilkes’s Land, to commemorate the discover. 
er’s name. 

But of all the explorers of the southern frozen ocean, the palm unquestiona- 
bly belongs to Sir James Ross, who penetrated farther towards the pole than 
any other navigator before or after, and made the only discoveries of extensive 
land within the area bounded by the Antarctic Circle. 

On New Year’s Day, 1841, the “ Erebus,” Captain James Clark Ross, and 
the “ Terror,” commanded by Francis Crozier, who died with Franklin in the 
Arctic Sea, crossed the Antarctic Circle, and after sustaining many severe 
shocks in breaking through the pack-ice, emerged on January 9 into a clear sea 
of great extent; but the fog and snow-showers were so thick that the naviga- 
tors could seldom see more than half a mile before them. On the following 
day the fog began to disperse, and on the 11th, Victoria Land, rising in lofty 
peaks entirely covered with perennial snow, was seen at a distance of more 
than one hundred miles. On steering towards Mount Sabine, the highest 
mountain of the range, new chains of hills were seen extending to the right 
and left. After sailing for a few days to the south along the ice-bound coast, 
a gale forced the ships to stand out to sea; but on the morning of January 15, 
the weather becoming beautifully clear, allowed a full view of a magnificent 
chain of mountains stretching far away to the southward. Ross was most 
anxious to find a harbor in which to secure the ships, but every indentation of 
the coast was found filled with snow drifted from the mountains, and forming 
a mass of ice several hundred feet thick. It was thus impossible to enter any 
of the valleys or breaks in the coast where harbors in other lands usually oc- 
cur. Yet these inhospitable shores (72° 73'S. lat.) are situated but one or two 
degrees nearer to the pole than Hammerfest, the seat of an active commerce 
on the Norwegian coast. 

Favored by northerly winds and an open sea, the ships reached on January 
22 a higher southern latitude (74° 20'S.) than that which had been attained 
by Weddell. Pursuing their way to the southward along the edge of the 
pack-ice, which now compelled them to keep at a considerable distance from 
the coast, they came on the 27th within two or three miles of a small island 
connected by a vast ice-field with the extreme point of the mainland. Eager 
to set his foot on the most southerly soil (76° 8’ S.) he had as yet discovered, 
Ross left the “Erebus,” accompanied by several officers, and, followed by Cro- 
zier and a party from the “ Terror,” pulled towards the shore. A high south- 
erly swell broke so heavily against the cliffs and on the only piece of beach 
which they could see as they rowed from one end of the island to the other, as 
almost to forbid their landing. 


‘ANTARCTIC VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY. 403 


By great skill and management Ross succeeded in jumping on to the rocks, 
By means of a rope some of the officers landed somewhat more easily, but not 
without getting thoroughly wetted, and one of them nearly lost his life in this 
difficult affair. The thermometer being at 22°, every part of the rocks washed 
by the waves was covered with a coating of ice, so that in jumping from the 
boat he slipped from them into the water between her stern and the almost 
perpendicular rock on which his companions had landed. But for the prompt- 
itude of the men in the boat in instantly pulling off, he must have been crushed 
between it and the rock. He was taken into the boat without having suffered 
any other injury than being benumbed by the cold. 

The island, which received the name of Franklin, bore not the smallest trace 
of vegetation, not even a lichen or piece of sea-weed growing on the rocks; but 
the white petrel and the skua-gull had their nests on the ledges of the cliffs, and 
seals were seen sporting in the water. 

The following day was memorable for the discovery of the southernmost 
known land of the globe, a magnificent mountain chain, to which the name of 
Parry was given, in grateful remembrance of the honor which that illustrious 
navigator had conferred on Ross, by calling the most northern land at that 
time known by his name. It is not often that men are able to reciprocate such 
compliments as these! The most conspicuous object of the chain was Mount 
Erebus (77° 5’ 8.), an active volcano, of which Ross had the good-fortune to 
witness a magnificent eruption. The enormous columns of flame and smoke 
rising two thousand feet above the mouth of the crater, which is elevated 
12,400 feet above the level of the sea, combined with the snow-white mountain 
chain and the deep-blue ocean to form a magnificent scene. An extinct volcano 
to the eastward of Mount Erebus, and a little inferior in height, being by meas- 
urement 10,900 feet high, was called “ Mount Terror.” A brilliant mantle of 
snow swept down the sides of both these giants of the south, and projected a 
perpendicular icy cliff several miles into the sea. 

Gladly would Ross have penetrated still farther to the south, but all his 
efforts were baffled by a vast barrier of ice, forming an uninterrupted wall, 
450 miles in length, and rising in some parts to a height of 180 feet above the 
sea-level. While sailing along this barrier, the ships were frequently obliged 
by the wind and the closely-packed ice to keep at a considerable distance; but 

/on February 9, having entered the only indentation which they had perceived 
throughout its whole extent, they had an excellent opportunity of getting quite 
close to it, though at no little hazard. This bay was formed by a projecting 
peninsula of ice, terminated by a cape 170 feet high; but at the narrow isthmus 
which connected it with the great barrier it was not more than fifty feet high, 
affording Ross the only opportunity he had of seeing its upper surface from 
the mast-head. It appeared to be quite smooth, and conveyed to the mind the 
idea of an immense plain of frosted silver. Gigantic icicles depended from 
every projecting point of its perpendicular cliffs, proving that it sometimes 
thawed, which otherwise could not have been believed; for at a season of the 
year equivalent to August in England, the thermometer at noon did not rise 
above 14°, and the young ice formed so quickly in the sheltered bay as to warn 


404 THE POLAR WORLD. 


them of the necessity of a speedy retreat. Favored by the breeze, and by dint 
of great exertion, they ultimately emerged from their dangerous position, but 
scarcely had they escaped when the wind came directly against them, so that 
had they lingered but half an hour longer near the barrier they would certainly 
have been frozen up. 

On February 13 the approach of winter convinced Ross that it was high 
time to relinquish the further examination of the barrier to the eastward; and 
as no place of security where it was possible to winter could be found upon 
any part of the land hitherto discovered, he reluctantly resolved to recross the 
Antarctic Circle, and postpone all attempts to reach the pole to the next season. 
The return voyage was difficult and dangerous. On March 7, the ships, while 
endeavoring to find a way through the pack-ice in lat. 65°, had a narrow escape 
from imminent destruction. The wind having ceased, they found themselves 
at the mercy of a heavy easterly swell, which was driving them down upon the 
pack, in which were counted from the mast-head eighty-four large bergs, and 
some hundreds of smaller size. As they rapidly approached this formidable 
chain, no opening could be discovered through which the ships could pass; the 
waves were beating violently against the bergs, and dashing huge masses of 
pack-ice against their precipitous faces, now lifting them nearly tc their summit, 
then forcing them again far beneath their water-line, and sometimes rending 
them in a multitude of brilliant fragments against their projecting points. 
“ Sublime and magnificent,” says Ross, “as such a scene must have appeared 
under different circumstances, to us it was awful, if not appalling. For eight 
hours we had been gradually drifting towards what to human eyes appeared 
inevitable destruction ; the high waves and deep rolling of our ships rendered 
towing with the boats impossible, and our situation the more painful and em- 
barrassing from our inability to make any effort to avoid the dreadful calami- 
ty that seemed to await us...... We were now within half a mile of the 
range of bergs. The roar of the surf, which extended each way as far as we 
could see, and the crashing of the ice, fell upon the ear with fearful distinctness, 
whilst the frequently averted eye as immediately returned to contemplate the 
awful destruction that threatened in one short hour to close the world, and all 
its hopes, and joys, and sorrows upon us forever. In this our deep distress 
‘ we called upon the Lord, and He heard our voices out of His temple, and our 
cry came before Him.’ <A gentle air of wind filled our sails; hope again re. 
vived, and the greatest activity prevailed to make the best use of the feeble 
breeze ; as it gradually freshened, our heavy ships began to feel its influence, 
slowly at first, but more rapidly afterwards, and before dark we found ourselves 
far removed from every danger.” 

After passing the winter at Hobarton, the capital of Tasmania, Sir James 
Ross, in the following year, once more crossed the Antarctic Circle to examine 
the icy barrier which in his previous voyage had blocked his progress to the 
south, and to renew his attempts to pass round or through it. But there were 
new dangers to be encountered. On January 17, 1842, a fearful storm came on 
as the “Erebus” and “ Terror” were making their way through the pack-ice, 
which was this time met with in a more northern latitude than the year before. 


ANTARCTIC VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY. 405 


The sea broke all the hawsers which held them to a large piece of floe, and 
drove them helplessly along into the heavy pack. They were now involved in 
an ocean of rolling fragments of ice, which were dashed against them by the 
waves with so much violence that their masts quivered as if they would fall at 
every successive blow. ‘The loud crashing noise of the straining and working 
of the timbers and decks, as they were driven against some of the heavier 
pieces, might well appall the stoutest heart, and thus hour passed away after 
hour. During this terrible scene the ships were at one time so close together 
that when the “ Terror ” rose to the top of one wave, the “ Erebus” was on the 
top of the wave next to leeward of her, the deep chasm between them being fill- 
ed with heavy rolling masses; and as the ships descended into the hollow be- 
tween the waves, the maintopsail-yard of each could be seen, just level with the 
crest of the intervening wave, from the deck of the other. The night, which 
now began to draw in, rendered their condition, if possible, more hopeless and 
helpless than before; but at midnight the snow, which had been falling thickly 
for several hours, cleared away, as the wind suddenly shifted to the westward ; 
the swell began to subside, and the shocks which the ships still sustained, though 
strong enough to shatter any vessel less strongly ribbed, were feeble compared 
with those to which they had been exposed. On the following day, the wind 
having moderated toa fresh breeze, the crippled ships, whose rudders had been 
sorely shattered, were securely moored to a large floe-piece in the now almost 
motionless pack, where, by dint of unceasing labor, the damages were repaired 
in the course of a week, and the vessels once more fitted to fight their way to 
the south. 

On February 22 the great barrier was seen from the mast-head, just before 
midnight, and the following day, the wind blowing directly on to its cliffs, they 
approached it within a mile and a half, in lat. 78° 11’, the highest ever attained 
in the southern hemisphere. From this point, situated about 5° of longitude 
farther to the east than the indentation where the ships had so narrowly escaped 
being frozen fast in the preceding year, the barrier trended considerably to the 
northward of east, so that Ross was obliged to give up all hope of rounding it, 
and extending his explorations towards the pole, as the season was already con- 
siderably advanced. On his return voyage to the Falklands, where he intended 
to pass the winter, he had already reached the latitude of 60°, and thought him- 
self out of danger of meeting with bergs, when, in the afternoon of March 12, 
the southerly wind changed to a strong north-westerly breeze. In the evening 
the wind increased so much, and the snow-showers became so incessant, that he 
was obliged to proceed under more moderate sail. Small pieces of ice were 
also met with, warning him of the presence of bergs, concealed by the thickly- 
falling snow, so that before midnight he directed the topsails of the “ Erebus ” 
to be close-reefed, and every arrangement made for rounding to until daylight, 
deeming it too hazardous to run any longer. “Our people,” says the gallant 
explorer, “ had hardly completed these operations, when a large berg was seen 
ahead and quite close; the ship was immediately hauled to the wind on the 
port tack, with the expectation of being able to weather it; but just at this mo- 
ment the ‘Terror’ was observed running down upon us, under her topsail and 


406 THE POLAR WORLD. 


foresail; and as it was impossible for her to clear both the berg and the ‘ Ere- 
bus,’ collision was inevitable. We instantly hove all aback to diminish the vi- 
olence of the shock; but the concussion when-she struck us was such as to 
throw almost every one off his feet ; our bowsprit, foretopmast, and other small- 
er spars, were carried away, and the ships hanging together entangled by their 
rigging, and dashing against each other with fearful violence, were falling down 
upon the weather face of the lofty berg under our lee, against which the waves 
were breaking and foaming to near the summit of its perpendicular cliffs. 
Sometimes the ‘Terror’ rose high above us, almost exposing her keel to view, 
and again descended, as we in our turn rose to the top of the wave, threatening 
to bury her beneath us, whilst the crashing of the breaking upper-works and 
boats increased the horror of the scene. Providentially the ships: gradually 
separated before we drifted down amongst the foaming breakers, and we 
had the gratification of seeing the ‘ Terror’ clear the end of the berg, and of 
feeling that she was safe. But she left us completely disabled; the wreck of 
the spars so encumbered the lower yard that we were unable to make sail so 
as to get headway on the ship; nor had we room to wear round, being by this 
time so close to the berg that the waves, when they struck against it, threw 
back their spray into the ship. The only way left to us to extricate ourselves 
from this awful and appalling situation was by resorting to the hazardous ex- 
pedient of a stern board, which nothing could justify during such a gale but to 
avert the danger which every moment threatened us of being dashed to pieces. 
The heavy rolling of the vessel, and the probability of the masts giving away 
each time the lower yard-arms struck against the cliffs, which were towering 
high above our. mast-heads, rendered it a service of extreme danger to loose 
the mainsail;. but no sooner was the order given, than the daring spirit of the 
British seaman manifested itself—the men ran up the rigging with as much 
alacrity as on any ordinary occasion; and, although more than once driven off 
the yard, they after a short time succeeded in loosing the sail. Amidst the roar 
of the wind and sea, it was difficult both to hear and to execute the orders that 
were given, so that it was three-quarters of an hour before we could get the 
yards braced by, and the main tack hauled on board sharp aback—an expedient 
that perhaps had never before been resorted to by seamen in such weather ; 
but it had the desired effect; the ship gathered sternway, plunging her stern 
into the sea, and with her lower yard-arms scraping the rugged face of the 
berg, we in a few minutes reached its western termination; the ‘ under-tow,’ as 
it is called, or the reaction of the water from its vertical cliffs, alone preventing 
us being driven to atoms against it. No sooner had we cleared it than another 
was seen directly astern of us, against which we were running; and the diffi- 
culty now was to get the ship’s head turned round and pointed fairly through 
between the two bergs, the breadth of the intervening space not exceeding three 
times her own breadth. This, however, we happily accomplished ; and in a few 
minutes, after getting before the wind, she dashed through the narrow channel 
between two perpendicular walls of ice, and the foaming breakers which stretch- 
ed across it, and the next moment we were in smooth water under itslee. The 
‘Terror’s’ light was immediately seen and answered; she had rounded to, wait- 


ANTARCTIC VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY. 407 


ing for us .... , and,as soon as day broke, we had the gratification of learn- 
ing that she had not suffered any serious damage.” 

On December 17 Sir James Ross sailed from the Falkland Islands, with the 
intention of following the track of Weddell, as, from the account of that daring 
navigator, he had every reason to expect to find a clear sea, which would enable 
him considerably to extend the limits of geographical knowledge towards the 
pole. He was disappointed, for though he discovered some new land (63°- 
64° 30'S. lat., 55°-57° W. long.) to the south of D’Urville’s Terre Louis Phi- 
lippe, yet the pack-ice so blocked his progress that the farthest point he could 
attain was in lat. 71° 30’S., long. 14° 51’ W. On March 1 he recrossed the An- 
tarctic Circle, and on the 28th of the same month dropped his anchors at the 
Cape. Thus ended this most remarkable voyage, so honorable to all engaged 
in it, for, as Sir John Richardson justly remarks, “the perseverance, daring, 
and coolness of the commanding officer, of the other officers, and of the crews 
of the ‘ Erebus’ and ‘ Terror,’ was never surpassed, and have been rarely, if ever, 
equalled by seamen of any nation.” 

Since then the “ Pagoda,” which had been sent out by the Admiralty for the 
_ purpose of observing magnetic phenomena in a quarter of the Antarctic Seas 
that had not been visited by Sir James Ross, attained the 73d parallel, but no 
more recent expedition has been fitted out to prosecute his discoveries, and no 
man after him has seen Mount Erebus vomiting forth its torrents of flame, or 
traced the stupendous barrier which stopped his progress to the pole. 


408 THE POLAR WORLD. 


STRAIT OF MAGELLAN. 


CHAPTER XXXIX. 
THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN. 


Description of the Strait.—Western Entrance.—Point Dungeness.—The Narrows.—Saint Philip’s Bay, 
—Cape Froward.—Grand Scenery.—Port Famine.—The Sedger River.—Darwin’s Ascent of Mount 
Tarn.—The Bachelor River.—English Reach.—Sea Reach.—South Desolation.—Harbor of Mercy.—- 
Williwaws.—Discovery of the Strait by Magellan (October 20, 1521).—Drake.—Sarmiento.—Cav- 
endish.—Schouten and Le Maire.—Byron.—Bougainville.—Wallis and Carteret.—King and Fitz- 
roy.—Settlement at Punta Arenas.—Increasing Passage through the Strait.—A future Highway of 
Commerce. 

HE celebrated strait which bears the name of Magellan is generally pic- 

tured as the scene of a wild and dreary desolation; but though its climate 
is far from being genial, and its skies are often veiled with mists and rain, yet 

nature can smile even here. , 

A glance at the map shows us the extreme irregularity of its formation, as 
it is constantly changing in width and direction; now swelling almost to the 
magnitude of a Mediterranean Sea, and then again contracting to a narrow 
passage; sometimes taking a rapid turn to the north, and at others as sudden- 
ly deviating to the south. Islands and islets of every form—some mere naked 
rocks, others clothed with umbrageous woods—are scattered over its surface ; 
promontories without number, from the Patagonian mainland or the Fuegian 
archipelago, protrude their bold fronts into its bosom, as if with the intention 


THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN. 409 


of closing it altogether; and countless bays and havens are scooped into its 
rocky shores, as if the sea in a thousand different places had striven to open 
a new passage to her waters. 

The western entrance of this remarkable strait is formed by Queen Cathe- 
rine’s Foreland (Cape Virgins) and Point Dungeness, the latter having been 
' thus named from its resemblance to the well-known Kentish promontory at the 
eastern mouth of the channel. Although it rises at most nine feet above low- 
water mark, the snow-white breakers which the tides are constantly dashing 
over its sides render it visible from a great distance. It is generally the resort 
of a number of sea-lions. When the wind comes blowing from the north-east, 
the passing mariner—who, from the shallow nature of the shore, is obliged to 
keep at some distance from the Ness—hears their hoarse bellowing, which har- 
monizes well with the wild and desolate character of the scene. Albatrosses 
and petrels hover about them, while rows of grave-looking penguins seem to 
_ contemplate their doings with philosophic indifference. 

Beyond these promontories the strait widens into Possession Bay, which at 
Punta Delgada and Cape Orange contracts to a narrow passage. This leads 
into a wide basin, to which the Spaniards have given the name of Saint Philip’s 
Bay, and which again terminates in a second narrow passage or channel, a 
formation resembling on a small scale the Sea of Marmora, which, as we all 
know, has likewise the semblance of a lake, receiving and discharging its wa- 
ters through the Dardanelles and the Strait of Constantinople. During the 
rising of the flood, a strong current flows through all these bays and narrows 
from the west, so as to allow ships an easy passage, even against the wind; 
but during ebb tide the current turns to the east, so that at this time a ves- 
sel, even when favored by the wind, makes but little progress, or is even 
obliged to anchor to avoid losing ground. When Magellan, after sailing round 
Cape Virgins, penetrated into the strait, this circumstance at once convinced 
that great navigator that he was not in an inclosed bay, but in an open chan- 
nel, which would lead him into another ocean. Thus far the country on both 
sides of the strait consists of nearly level plains, like those of Patagonia; but 
beyond the second Narrows the land begins to assume the more bold and pic- 
turesque appearance which is characteristic of Tierra del Fuego. Mountains 
rise above mountains with deep intervening valleys, all covered by one thick, 
dusky mass of forest; while farther to the east scarcely a bush clothes the 
naked soil. The trees reach to an elevation of between 1000 and 1500 feet, 
and are succeeded by a band of peat, with minute Alpine plants, and this again 
is succeeded by the line of perpetual snow, which, according to Captain King, 
descends to between 3000 and 4000 feet. j 

The finest scenery about the Strait of Magellan is undoubtedly to the east 
of Cape Froward, the most southerly point of the mainland of South America. 
This promontory, which consists of a steep mass of rock about 800 feet high, 
abutting from a mountain chain of about 2000 or 3000 feet in height, forms 
the boundary between two very different climates, for to the east the weather 
is finer and more agreeable than to the west, where wind and rain are almost 
perpetual. 


410 THE POLAR WORLD. 


On the Patagonian plains, the drought and the want of protection against 
the piercing winds almost entirely impede vegetation ; but the country between 
Cape Negro—a little within the second Narrows—and Cape Froward, or the 
eastern shore of Brunswick Peninsula, is shielded by its situation against the 
almost perpetual storms from the west, and enjoys, moreover, a sufficiency of 
rain, and now and then serene weather. As, moreover, the soil in this central 
part of the strait consists of disintegrated clay-slate, which is most favorable to 
the growth of trees, the forests, from all these causes, are finer here than any- 
where else. 

The country about Port Famine is particularly distinguished for the rich- 
ness of its vegetation; and both for this reason, and from its central situation, 
this harbor has become a kind of chief station for the ships that pass through 
the strait. Several unfortunate attempts at colonization have been made at 
Port Famine; here many a naturalist has tarried, and thus no part of the 
strait has been oftener described or more accurately observed. 

“The anchorage,” says Dumont d’Urville, who, in December, 1837, spent 
several days at Port Famine, “is excellent, and landing everywhere easy. A 
fine rivulet gives us excellent water, and the neighboring forests might furnish 
whole fleets with the necessary fuel. The cliffs along the shore are literally 
covered with mussels, limpets, and whelks, which afford a delicious variety of 
fare to a crew tired of salt beef and peas. Among the plants I noticed with 
pleasure a species of celery, which, with another herb resembling our corn 
flower in form and taste, gives promise of an excellent salad. 

“TI made use of my first leisure to visit the romantic banks of the Sedger 
River, which discharges its waters on the western side of the port. At its 
mouth the swampy strand is completely covered with enormous trees heaped 
upon the ground. These naked giants, stripped of their branches, afford a re- 
markable spectacle: they might be taken for huge bones bleached by time. 
No doubt they are transported from the neighboring forest by the waters of 
the river, which, when it overflows its banks, after a deluge of rain, tears 
along with it the trees it meets with in its course. Arrested by the bar at the 
mouth of the stream, they are cast out upon its banks, ..”ere they remain 
when the waters sink to their usual level. 

“ Having crossed the river, I entered the large and fine forest with which it 


is bordered. The chief tree is the Antarctic beech (agus betuloides), which is 


often from sixty to ninety feet high, and about three feet in diameter. Along 
with this are two other trees, the winter’s bark ( Winteria aromatica), and a 
species of berberis, with a very solid wood; but they are much less abundant, 
and of a much smaller size. With the exception of mosses, lichens, and other 
plants of this order, these forests afford but little that is interesting to the 
naturalist—no quadrupeds, no reptiles, no land-snails; a few insects and some 
birds are the only specimens to be gained after a long search. After collect- 
ing a good supply of mosses and lichens, I returned to the boat for the pur- 
pose of rowing up the river. Although the current was tolerably rapid, we ad- 
vanced about two miles, admiring the beauty of its umbrageous banks. On 
my return I shot two geese that were crossing the river over our heads, and 


THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN. 411 


whose excellent meat amply supplied my table for several days. This, together 
with the little gobies which were abundantly caught with hand-lines, the large 
mussels we detached from the rocks, and the celery-salad, gave me dinners fit 
for an alderman. How often since have I regretted the plenty of Port Fam- 
ine !” 

In the month of February (1834), in the height of the Antarctic summer, 
Mr. Darwin ascended Mount Tarn, which is 2600 feet high, and the most ele- 
vated point in the vicinity of Port Famine. “ The forest,” says our great nat- 
uralist, “commences at the line of high-water mark, and during the first two 
hours I gave over all hopes of reaching the summit. So thick was the wood 
that it was necessary to have constant recourse to the compass, for every land- 
mark, though in a mountainous country, was completely shut out. In the deep 
ravines the death-like scene of desolation exceeded all description; outside it 
was blowing a gale, but in these hollows not even a breath of wind stirred the 
leaves of the tallest trees. So gloomy, cold, and wet was every part, that not 
even the fungi, mosses, or ferns could flourish. In the valleys it was scarcely 
possible to crawl along, they were so completely barricaded by great moulder- 
ing trunks, which had fallen down in every direction. When passing over 
these natural bridges, one’s course was often arrested by sinking knee-deep 
into the rotten wood ; at other times, when attempting to lean against a tree, 
one was startled by finding a mass of decayed matter, ready to fall at the 
slightest touch. We at last found ourselves among the stunted trees, and then 
soon reached the bare ridge, which conducted us to the summit. Here was a 
view characteristic of Tierra del Fuego; irregular chains of hills, mottled with 
patches of snow, deep yellowish-green valleys, and arms of the sea intersecting 
the land in many directions. The strong wind was piercingly cold, and the 
atmosphere rather hazy, so that we did not stay long on the top of the mount- 
ain. Our descent was not quite so laborious as our ascent; for the weight 
of the body forced a passage, and all the slips and falls were in the right di- 
rection.” 

To the west of Cape Froward the strait extends in a north-westerly, almost 
rectilinear direction, until it finally opens into the Pacific, between Cape Pillar 
and Cape Victory. Here a day rarely passes without rain, hail, or snow. 
Where the dreadful power of the prevailing winds has free play, the mountain 
sides are naked and bare, but in every sheltered nook the damp climate produces 
a luxuriant vegetation. The trees, however, do not attain any great height, and 
at Port Gallant the beech is already decidedly stunted inits growth. This is no 
doubt caused by the excessive humidity of the soil, which in all lower situations 
is converted by the continual rains into a deep morass. The trunks and the 
branches are covered with a thick layer of moss, and the tree becomes rotten in 
its youth. But many shrubs, herbs, and mosses thrive under the perpetual del- 
uge; the latter particularly, covering large patches of ground witha spongy car- 
pet. It may easily be imagined how difficult, or rather impossible it must be to 
penetrate into the interior of such a country. Yet even these wild inhospitable 
regions can boast of many a romantic scene. Thus the English Reach, which 
extends from Cape Froward to Carlos Island, is bounded on both sides by lofty 


412 THE POLAR WORLD. | 


“mountains, their cones or jagged peaks covered with eternal snow. Its south- 
ern bank, formed by Clarence Island, is intersected with bays and channels, two 
of which, Magdalena Sound and Barbara Channel, lead through a maze of isl- 
ands into the open sea. Several glaciers descend in a winding course from the 
upper great expanse of snow to the sea-coast, and many a cascade comes dash- 
ing down from rock to rock. Skogman* draws an enthusiastic picture of the 
beauty of York Roads near the mouth of the small Bachelor River. To the 
south, behind Carlos Island, mountains rise above mountains, and snow-fields 
above snow-fields; to the north lies the jagged colossus, which from its solitary 
grandeur has been called Bachelor Peak, and at whose foot the crystal river now 
hides itself beneath a shady wood, and now rolls its crystal waters through a 
green lawn, decorated with clumps of fuchsias. But in spite of its romantic 
beauty, the want of life gives a melancholy character to this solitary vale. Be- 
yond Carlos Island in Long Reach, the banks of the strait become yet more bare 
and desolate. Vegetation descends lower and lower into the valleys, and even 
here the trees are misshapen and dwarfish. But the mountain scenery has still 
all the majesty which snow-fields and glaciers of a beryl-like blue impart to an 
Alpine landscape. As Sea Reach shows itself, vegetation is almost totally ex- 
tinct, and on approaching the mouth of the strait, the mountains become lower, 
their forms are less picturesque, and instead of the stern grandeur which marks 
the middle part of the strait, low, rounded, barren hills make their appearance, 
which completely justify the name of South Desolation, which Sir James Nar- 
borough gave to this coast, “because it was so desolate a land to behold.” 

It may easily be imagined that the prevailing winds beyond Cape Froward 
are extremely troublesome to ships sailing to the western mouth of the strait, 
and that if not entirely beaten back, they can frequently only force the passage 
after many efforts. Fortunately, the deeply indented coasts possess a number 
of small havens which may serve the mariner as stations during his gradual ad- 
vance. Thus, close to the mouth of the strait, where, between Cape Victory 
and Cape Pillar, the sea during and after storms 1s so boisterous that even 
steamers require their utmost strength not to be dashed against the rocks, a se- 
cure port, appropriately called “ Harbor of Mercy,” allows the vessels to watch 
for more tranquil weather, and to seize the first favorable opportunity for 
emerging into the open sea. But even these harbors and bays are subject to 
peculiar dangers from sudden gusts of wind that come sweeping down from the 
mountains, and are known among the seal-catchers who frequent these danger- 
ous waters under the name of widliwaws, or hurricane squalls. For when the 
wild south-west storms come rushing against the mountain-masses of Tierra 
del Fuego, the compressed air precipitates itself with redoubled violence over 
the rock-walls, and then suddenly expanding, flows down the valleys or gullies, 
tearing up trees by the roots, and hurling rocks into the abyss. Where such a 
gust of wind touches the surface of the water, the sea surges in mighty waves, 
and volumes of spray are whirled away to a vast distance. If a ship comes un- 
der its influence, its safety depends mainly upon the strength of its anchor ropes. 

Some situations are particularly subject to williwaws, and then the total want 

* Voyage of the Swedish ship ‘‘ Eugénie.” 


THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN. 413 


of vegetation and the evident marks of ruin along the mountain slopes warn the 
mariner to avoid the neighborhood. In Gabriel Channel Captain King saw a 
spot where the williwaws, bursting over the mountains on the south side, had 
swept down the declivities, and then rushing against the foot of the opposite 
hills, had again dashed upward with such fury as to carry away with them every 
thing that could possibly be attached from the bare rock. 

It was a memorable day in the annals of maritime discovery (October 20, 
1521) when Magellan reached the eastern entrance of the strait that was to lead 
him, first of all European navigators, from the broad basin of the Atlantic into 
the still wider expanse of the Pacific Ocean. It was the day dedicated in the 
Catholic calendar to St. Ursula and her eleven thousand virgins, and he conse- 
quently named the promontory which first struck his view “Cabo de las Vir- 
gines.” The flood tide, streaming violently to the west, convinced him that he 
was at the mouth of an open channel, but he had scarcely provisions for three 
months—a short allowance for venturing into an unknown world, and thus be- 
fore he attempted the passage he convoked a council of all his officers. Some 
were for an immediate return to Europe, but the majority voted for the con- 
tinuation of the voyage, and Magellan declared that should they even be re- 
duced to eat the leather of their shoes he would persevere to the last, and with 
God’s assistance execute the commands of his imperial master Charles V. He 
then at once gave orders to enter the strait full sail, and on pain of death for- 
bade any one to say a word more about a return or the want of provisions. 

Fortunately the winds were in his favor, for had the usual inclemencies of 
this stormy region opposed him, there is no doubt that with such crazy ves- 
sels, and such discontented crews, all his heroism would have failed to insure 
success. It was the spring of the southern hemisphere, and the strait showed 
itself in one of its rare aspects of calm. Many fish were caught, and, as Pi- 
gafetti, the historian of the voyage, relates, the aromatic winter’s bark which 
served them for fuel “ wonderfully refreshed and invigorated their spirits.” 

The fires kindled by the savages on the southern side during the night in- 
duced Magellan to give that part of the country the name of Tierra del Fuego, 
or Fireland; while from their high stature and bulky frames, he called the m- 
habitants of the opposite mainland Patagonians (patagon being the Spanish 
augmentative of pata, foot). Although several days were lost in exploring 
some of the numerous passages and bays of the straits, its eastern mouth was 
reached on November 28, and Magellan saw the wide Pacific expand before 
him. 

In 1525 Charles V. sent out a new expedition of six vessels, under Garcia 
de Loaisa, to circumnavigate the globe. The vice-admiral of the squadron was 
Sebastian el Cano, who, after the death of Magellan, had brought the illustri- 
ous navigator’s ship safely back to Europe, and as a reward had been ennobled 
with the globe in his coat of arms, and the motto, “ Primus circumdedisti me.” 
Loaisa entered the strait on January 26,1526, but he was beaten back by 
storms as far as the River Santa Cruz. On April 8 he once more attempted the 
passage, and emerged into the Pacific on May 25. Simon de Alcazaba, who in 
1534 attempted to pass the Magellans with a number of emigrants for Peru, 


414 THE POLAR WORLD. 


was less successful, but in 1539, Alfonso de Camargo, having lost two vessels 
in the strait, passed it with the third, and reached the port of Callao. | 

Until now the Spanish flag had alone been seen in these remote and solitary 
waters, but the time was come when they were to open a passage to its most 
inveterate foes. On August 20, 1579, Francis Drake, commissioned by Queen 
Elizabeth to plunder and destroy the Spanish settlements on the west coast of 
America, ran into the strait, and’on December 6 sallied forth into the Pacific. 

To meet this formidable enemy, the Viceroy of Peru sent out in the same 
year two ships under Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa. His orders were to inter- | 
cept Drake’s passage through the strait and then to sail on to Spain. Though 
he failed.in the object of his mission, yet Sarmiento displayed in the naviga- 
tion of the intricate and dangerous passages along the south-west coast of 
America, the courage and skill of a consummate seaman, and he gave the first 
exact and detailed account of the land and waters of Fuegia. His voyage, ac- 
cording to the weighty testimony of Captain King, deserves to be noted as one 
of the most useful of the age in which it was performed. 

On his arrival in Spain, Sarmiento strongly pointed out the necessity of es- 
tablishing a colony and erecting a fort in the strait (at that time the only known 
passage to the Pacific), so as effectually to prevent the recurrence of a future 
hostile expedition like that of Drake. Commissioned by Philip II. to carry 
his plans into execution, he founded a colony, to which he gave the name of 
Ciudad de San Felipe, but a series of disasters entirely destroyed it ; and when, 
a few years later, Cavendish, who had fitted out three ships at his own expense 
to imitate the example of Drake, appeared in the strait, he found but three sur- 
vivors of many hundreds, and gave the scene of their misery the appropriate 
name of Port Famine, which it has retained to the present day. 

After Cavendish and Hawkins (1594), the Dutch navigators De Cordes 
(1599), Oliver Van Noort (1599), and Spilberg (1615), attempted, with more or 
less success, to sail through the strait with the intention of harassing and plun- 
dering the Spaniards on the coast of the Pacific. 

Strange to say, no attempt had been made since Magellan to discover a pas- 
sage farther to the south, so universal and firmly established was the belief that 
Fuegia extended without interruption to the regions of eternal ice, until at 
length, in 1616, the Dutchmen Schouten and Le Maire discovered the passage 
round Cape Horn. Two years later Garcia de Nodales sailed through the 
Strait of Le Maire, and, returning through the Magellans into the Atlantic, was 
thus the first circumnavigator of Fuegia. In 1669, Sir John Narborough hav- 
ing been sent out by King Charles II. to explore the Magellanic regions, fur- 
nished a good general chart of the strait, and many plans of the anchorage 
within it. 

More than sixty years now elapsed before any expedition of historical renown 
made its appearance in the strait. The dangers and hardships which had as- 
sailed the previous navigators discouraged their successors, who all preferred 
the circuitous way round Cape Horn to the shorter but, as it was at that time 
considered, more perilous route through the strait. After this long pause, By- 
ron (December, 1764) and Bougainville (February, 1765) once more attempted 


THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN. 415 


the Magellans. The difficulties encountered by them were surpassed by those 
of Wallis and Carteret. The former spent nearly four months (from Decem- 
ber 17, 1766, to April 11,1767) in a perpetual conflict with stormy weather 
while slowly creeping through the strait; and the latter required eighty-four 
days for his passage from Port Famine to Cape Pillar. No wonder that the 
next circumnavigators, Liitke, Krusenstern, Kotzebue, preferred sailing round 
Cape Horn, and that adventurous seal-hunters became for a long time the 
sole visitors of these ill-famed waters. At length the British Government came 
to a resolution worthy of England, and resolved to have the Magellanic regions 
carefully surveyed, and to conquer them, as it were, anew for geographical — 
science. Under the command of Captain King, the “ Adventure” and the 
“ Beagle” were engaged in this arduous task from 1826 to 1830; but such 
were the dangers they had to encounter, that Captain Stokes, the second in 
command, after contending for four months with the storms and currents which 
frequently threatened to dash his vessel against the cliffs, became so shattered 
in mind and body, that after his return to Port Famine he committed suicide in 
a fit of melancholy. . 

From 1831 to 1834 Captain Fitzroy was engaged in completing the survey 
of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, and the result of all these labors was a col- 
lection of charts and plans which have rendered navigation in those parts as 
safe as can be expected in the most tempestuous region of the globe. 

While formerly the passage round Cape Horn was universally preferred, the 
more accurate knowledge of the Strait of Magellan, for which navigation is in- 
debted to the labors of King and Fitzroy, has since then turned the scale in 
favor of the latter. 

For a trading-vessel, with only the ordinary number of hands on board, the 
passage through the strait from east to west is indeed very difficult, and even 
dangerous; but in the opposite direction, the almost constant westerly winds 
render it commodious and easy particularly during the summer months, in 
which they are most prevalent. 

For small vessels—clippers, schooners, cutters—the passage in both directions 
is, according to the excellent authority of Captain King, much to be preferred. 
Such vessels have far more reason for fearing the heavy seas about Cape Horn; 
they can more easily cross against the west winds, as their manceuvres are gen- 
erally very skillful, and they find in the Sound itself a great number of anchor- 
ing-places, which are inaccessible to larger vessels. 

For steamers the advantage is entirely on the side of the Strait, and they 
consequently now invariably prefer this route. Here they find plenty of wood, 
which enables them to save their coals; and moreover, from Cape Tamar as far 
as the Gulf of Penas, an easy navigation for about 360 sea miles through the 
channels along the west coast of America. 

As the trade of the Pacific is continually increasing, and the Strait of Magel- 
lan more frequented from year to year, we can not wonder that the old project 
of settling a colony on its shores should have been revived in our days. About 
the year 1840 the Government of Chili established a penal colony at Punta Are- 
nas and Port Famine, which miserably failed in consequence of a mutiny ; but 


416 : THE POLAR WORLD. 


in 1853 about one hundred and fifty German emigrants were settled at Punta 
Arenas, and when the “ Novara” visited the strait in 1858, they were found ina 
thriving condition. Should the project of stationing steam-tugs in the strait, 
and of erecting lighthouses at Cape Virgins and at the entrance of Smyth Chan- 
nel be executed, the Magellans would become one of the high-roads of com- 
merce, and the dangers which proved so dreadful to the navigators of former 
days a mere tale of the past. 


ia i i A 
Wc i 


A HIGHWAY OF COMMERCE. 


PATAGONIA AND THE PATAGONIANS. 417 


Sr, 


aS 
—— 


PATAGONIANS. 


CHAPTER XL. 
PATAGONIA AND THE PATAGONIANS. 


Difference of Climate between East and West Patagonia.—Extraordinary Aridity of East Patagonia.— 
Zoology.—The Guanaco.—The Tucutuco.—The Patagonian Agouti.—Vultures.—The Turkey-buz- 
zard.—The Carrancha.—The Chimango.—Darwin’s Ostrich. —The Patagonians.—Exaggerated Ac- 
counts of their Stature.—Their Physiognomy and Dress.—Religious Ideas. —Superstitions. —Astro- 
nomical Knowledge.—Division into Tribes—The Tent, or Toldo.—Trading Routes.—The great 
Cacique.—Introduction of the Horse.—Industry.—Amusements.—Character. 


a the southern extremity of the American continent, is divided 

by the ridge of the Andes into two parts of a totally different character. 
Its western coast-lands, washed by the cold Antarctic current and exposed to 
the humid gales of a restless ocean, are almost constantly obscured with clouds 
and drenched with rain. Dense forests, dripping with moisture, clothe the 
steep hill-sides; and, from the coldness of the summer, the snow-line is so low 
that for 650 miles northward of Tierra del Fuego almost every arm of the 
sea which penetrates to the interior higher chain is terminated by huge glaciers 
descending to the water’s edge. 

East Patagonia, on the contrary, a vast plain rising in successive terraces 
from the Atlantic to the foot of the Cordillera, is one of the most arid regions 
of the globe. The extreme dryness of the prevailing westerly winds, which 
have been totally deprived of their humidity before crossing the Andes, and 
the well-rounded shingles which compose the soil, have entailed the curse of 

27 


418 THE POLAR WORLD. 


sterility on the land. Monotonous warm tints of brown, yellow, or light red 
everywhere fatigue the eye, which vainly seeks for rest in the dark blue sky, 
and finds refreshing green only on some river-banks. 

Many broad fiat vales transsect the plains, and in these the vegetation is 
somewhat better. The streams of former ages have no doubt hollowed them 
out, for the rivers of the present day are utterly inadequate to the task. On 
account of the dryness of the atmosphere, the traveller may journey for days 
in these Patagonian plains without finding a drop of water. Springs are rare, 
and even when found are generally brackish and unrefreshing. While the 
“ Beagle” was anchoring in the spacious harbor of Port St. Julian, a party one 
day accompanied Captain Fitzroy on a long walk round the head of the harbor. 
They were eleven hours without tasting any water, and some of the party were. 
quite exhausted. From the summit of a hill, to which the appropriate name 
of “ Thirsty Hill” was given, a fine lake was spied, and two of the party pro: 
ceeded, with concerted signals, to show whether it was fresh water. The dis: 
appointment may be imagined when the supposed lake was found to be a 
snow-white expanse of salt, crystallized in great cubes. 

The extreme dryness of the air, which imparts so sterile a character to the 
country, favors the formation of guano deposits on the naked islands along 
the coast, which are frequented by sea-birds. Protracted droughts are essen- 
tial to the accumulation of this manure, for repeated showers of rain would 
wash it into the sea, and for this reason no guano deposits are found on the 
populous bird-mountains of the north. A similar dryness of the atmosphere 
favors the deposit at Ichaboe on the African coast, at the Kooria Nooria Is- 
lands in the Indian Ocean, and at the Chincha Islands on the Peruvian coast; 
and this kind of climate appears also to be particularly agreeable to the sea- 
birds. 

Considering the excessive aridity of Patagonia, it seems surprising that the 
country should be traversed from west to east by such considerable rivers as 
the Rio Negro, the Gallegos, and the Santa Cruz; but all these have their 
sources in the Andes, and are fed by mountain torrents, which no doubt derive 
their waters from the atmospherical precipitations of the Pacific. 

The zoology of Patagonia is as limited as its flora, and greatly resembles in 
its character that of the mountain regions of Chili, or of the Puna or high ta- 
ble-land of the tropical Andes of Peru and Bolivia, the height of which varies 
from 10,000 to 14,000 feet above the level of the sea. 

In all these countries, situated in such different latitudes, the explorer is as- 
tonished to find not only the same genera, but even animals of the same species. 
The forest-loving race of monkeys is nowhere to be found in treeless Patago- 
nia. None of the quadrumana ventures farther south than 29° lat., but on the 
borders of the Rio Negro, the northern boundary of Patagonia, some small bats 
are seen fluttering about in the twilight. 

The dark-brown yellow-headed Galictis vittata, an animal allied to the Civ- 
ets and Genets, is likewise found there, but much more frequently its relation the 
Zorilla, which ranges from 30° lat. to the Strait of Magellan, and, like the skunk 
of the north, has the power of discharging a fluid of an intolerably fetid odor. 


PATAGONIA AND THE PATAGONIANS. 419 


The guanaco is the characteristic quadruped of the plains of Patagonia, 
where it is no less useful to man than the wild reindeer to the savage hunters 
of the north. It ranges from the Cordillera of Peru as far south as the islands 
near Cape Horn, but it appears to be more frequent on the plains of South 
Patagonia than anywhere else. It is of greater size than the llama, and re- 
sembles it so much that it was supposed to be the wild variety, until Tschudi, 
in his “ Fauna Peruana,” pointed out the specific difference between both. 
The guanaco is a more elegant animal, with a long, slender neck and fine legs ; 
its fleece is shorter and less fine; its color is brown, the under parts being 
whitish. It generally lives in small herds of from half a dozen to thirty in each ; 
but on the banks of the Santa Cruz Mr. Darwin saw one herd which contained at 
least five hundred. Though extremely shy and wary, it is no match for the 
cunning of the savage; and, before the horse was introduced into Patagonia, 
man most probably could not have existed in those arid plains without the 
guanaco. It easily takes to the water, and this accounts for its presence on the 
eastern islands of Fuegia, where it has been followed by the puma, or Ameri- 
can lion, who likewise pursues it on the plateaus of the Cordillera, 12,000 feet 
above the level of the sea. 

The Brazilian fox (Canis Azare) is also met with as far as the strait. It 
is somewhat smaller than our fox, but more robustly built. In Patagonia it 
preys chiefly upon the small rodents, with which the land, in spite of its sterili- 
ty, is perhaps more richly stocked than any other country in the world. Among 
these the tucutuco (Ctenomys magellanica), which may briefly be described as 
a gnawer with the habits of a mole,is one of the most remarkable. It abounds 
near the strait, where the sandy plain is one vast burrow of these creatures, 
This curious animal makes, when beneath the ground, a very peculiar noise, con- 
sisting of a short nasal grunt, monotonously repeated about four times in quick 
succession, the name tucutuco being given in imitation of the sound. Where 
the animal is abundant, it may be heard at all times of the day, and sometimes 
directly beneath one’s feet. The tucutuco is nocturnal in its habits; its food 
consists chiefly of roots, the search after which seems to be the cause of its bur- 
rowing. 

Among the indigenous quadrupeds of Patagonia we find, moreover, a spe- 
cies of agouti (Dasyprocta patagonica), which in some measure represents our 
hare, but is about twice the size, and has only three toes on its hind feet; the 
elegant long-eared mara (Dolichotis patagonicus), which, unlike most burrowing 
animals, wanders, commonly two or three together, for miles from its home ; the 
Didelphis Azarce,a species of opossum; and the pichy (Dasypus minutus), a 
small armadillo, which extends as far south as 50° lat. 

It would be vain to seek among the Patagonian birds for the splendid 
plumage of the tropical feathered tribes; their colors are simple and monoto- 
nous, as those of the naked plains which are their home. Many birds of prey 
of the warmer regions of America likewise frequent the arid wastes of Pata- 
gonia. When a horse chances to perish from fatigue or thirst, the turkey-buz- 
zard ( Vultur awra?) begins to feast upon its carcass, and then the carrancha 
(Polyborus brasiliensis) and the chimango (Polyborus chimango) pick its bones 


420 | THE POLAR WORLD. 


clean. Though these birds, which well supply the place of our carrion-crows, 
magpies, and ravens, generally feed in common, they are by no means on a 
friendly footing. When the carrancha is quietly seated on the branch of 
a tree or on the ground, the chimango often continues for a long time flying 
backward and forward, up and down, in a semicircle, trying each time, at the 
bottom of the curve, to strike its larger relative, which takes little notice ex- 
cept by bobbing its head. The carrancha, which is common in the dry and 
open countries, and likewise on the arid shores of the Pacific, is also found in- 
habiting the forests of West Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego. The chimango 
is much smaller than the carrancha. Of all the carrion feeders, it is generally 
the last which leaves the skeleton of a dead animal, and may frequently be seen 
within the ribs of a horse, like a prisoner behind a grating. It is frequently 
found on the sea-coast, where it lives on small fishes. 

The condor may likewise be reckoned among the Patagonian birds, as it 
follows its prey, the guanaco, across the Strait of Magellan as far as the eastern 
lowlands of Tierra del Fuego. In the winter especially, when the cold forces 
vast numbers of geese and ducks to quit the Antarctic islands in the higher 
latitudes, all these birds of prey, to which the crowned falcon (Circetes co- 
ronatus), the three-colored buzzard (Buteo tricolor), the Aguia eagle) Ha- 
licctus aguia), and several others must be added, live in luxury. Most of them 
are likewise migratory birds, and disappear in summer, with the defenseless 
tribes on which they prey. The Magellanic thrush (Zurdus magellanicus) 
leaves in winter the stormy banks of the strait, and retires to the milder skies 
of the Rio Negro, where it meets the tuneful Patagonian warbler ( Orpheus 
patagonicus), the nimble troglodyte ( Zroglodytes pallida), and the inconstant 
fly-catcher (MWuscicape parvulus). 

A peculiar species of ostrich, the nandu (Ahea Darwint), roams over the 
plains of Southern Patagonia as far as the Strait of Magellan. It is smaller than 
the South American ostrich (hea americana), which inhabits the country of 
La Plata as far as a little south of the Rio Negro; but it is more beautiful, 
as its white feathers are tipped with black at the extremity, and its black ones 
in like manner terminate in white. 

In the same high latitude one is surprised to meet with a member of the 
parr ot tribe (Psittacus patagonicus) feeding on the seeds of the winter’s bark, 
and to see humming-birds ( Trochilus forficatus) flitting about during the snow- 
storms in the forests of Tierra del Fuego. ) 

The plains of Patagonia are inhabited by a race of Indians supposed to be 
gigantic, but the descriptions of modern travellers have dispelled the idea. 
Thus Pigafetti, the companion of Magellan, relates that the Europeans only 
reach to the waist of the Patagonians; Simon de Weert tells us that they are 
from ten to eleven feet high; Byron, who visited them in the last century, 
reduces them to seven feet, and Captain King finally, who accurately measured 
them, found the medium height of the males about five feet eleven inches. As 
the Patagonians have most likely not degenerated within the last few centuries, 
we may infer from these various accounts that the travellers of the present day 
are less prone to exaggeration than those of more ancient times. So much is 


PATAGONIA AND THE PATAGONIANS. 421 


certain, that the Patagonians are a fine athletic race of men, with remarkably 
broad shoulders and thick muscular limbs. The head is long, broad, and flat, 
and the forehead low, with the hair growing within an inch of the eyebrows, 
_which are bare; the eyes are often placed obliquely, and have but little expres- 
sion; the forehead and the large lips are prominent, so that if a perpendicular 
line were drawn between the two, the thick flat nose would hardly reach it, and 
but seldom project beyond it. In spite of these coarse features the physiogno- 
my of the young girls is by no means unpleasant, as it has an amiable, lively ex- 
pression. All of them have small hands and feet, and D’Orbigny says that 
they have the finest shapes of all the savages he saw. Though they have a 
wide mouth and thick lips, this fault is redeemed by their beautiful white teeth, 
which never fall out even in old age. 

The color of the Patagonians is much darker than that of the Pampas In- 
dians and others farther to the north, and most closely resembles that of the 
mulatto; a fact totally at variance with the common belief that the darkness 
of the human skin increases on approaching the equator. 

The chief garment is the manuhé, a wide, square mantle—eight feet long and 
nearly as broad—which they wear after the fashion of the ancient Greeks and 
Romans, with one end hanging down to the earth. It generally consists of 
guanaco skins neatly sewn together with ostrich sinews. In cold weather the 
manuhé, which serves also as a blanket, is worn with the hair inside; the even 
surface is therefore ornamented with red drawings. Sometimes they wear 
boots of horse-leather, like the Gauchos, from whom they have learned to make 
them; formerly sandals of guanaco skin were alone in use. Their long black 
hair is tied behind with a thong of leather or a piece of ribbon; the women 
plait and adorn it with a number of ornaments of glass and copper. The tace 
is generally painted red, white, and black, and a Patagonian is never seen with- 
out the little pouch in which he carries the necessary colors. A remarkable 
custom, common to all the Indian tribes as far as Bolivia, is that of eradicating 
the hairs of the beard, and the men may frequently be seen plucking them out 
with a pair of pincers. 

The religious ideas of the Patagonians greatly resemble those of their neigh- 
bors the Aucas and the Puelches. The divine Achekenat Kanet is reverenced 
as the genius of both good and evil; but beside this chief deity they have a 
number of inferior spirits, generally of a malignant nature, which can be held 
in check only by the arts of their magicians. Like the shamans, or medicine 
men of the north, these impostors work themselves into an ecstatic state, in 
which they predict things to come, or announce the will of the unseen gods; 
but their trade does not seem to be very lucrative if we may judge from the 
bad condition of their mantles. They also act as physicians, for all diseases 
are invariably ascribed to the agency of evil spirits. 

The Patagonians are quite as superstitious as the Indians of the high north- 
ern latitudes. They seldom cut their hair, but when they do, they cast it into 
the river or carefully burn it, so that it may not fall into the hands of some ma- 
lignant magician, who might use it to the hurt of its quondam owner. When, 
on journeying along a river, they see some trunks of trees descending with the 


422. THE POLAR WORLD. 


current, they take them for evil spirits, and address them with a loud voice. If 
by chance the trees are swept by less rapidly or are driven round in a whirl- 
pool, they believe that this takes place for the purpose of hearing them. They 
then make them liberal promises, which they faithfully keep. They cast their 
weapons, their ornaments, sometimes even their horses with bound feet, into 
the water, fully persuaded that by this sacrifice they have averted the misfor- 
tunes that otherwise would have befallen them. Like many other savage na- 
tions, they believe in a future paradise, where they expect to find again all that 
they prized on earth. For this reason they immolate over the graves of their 
friends all the animals that belonged to them, and inter with them all they pos- 
sessed. 

The astronomical knowledge of the Patagonians is surprising in a people 
ranking so low in the scale of civilization. Continually migrating over their arid 
land, they soon felt the necessity of directing their movements during the day 
by the position of the sun, during the night by the stars; and thus they gradu- 
ally learned to observe the march of the constellations, and to note the times of 
their appearance and disappearance, giving them names, so as to be able to com- 
municate their observations to each other. Their lively fancy traces in the 
starry firmament the picture of the Indian’s hunting expedition. The Milky 
Way is the path on which he follows the ostrich; the “Three Kings” are the 
bolas, or balls, with which he strikes the bird whose feet form the Southern 
Cross; and the Magellanic clouds are heaps of its feathers that have been col- 
lected by its pursuer. 

When the Patagonians speak of the direction they intend to follow, from 
north to south or from east to west, they always indicate the constellations ; so 
.that in these South American plains, as in those of Chaldea, a similar necessity 
has led man to lay the first foundations of astronomical knowledge. 

The Patagonians are divided into a number of small migratory tribes, each 
consisting of, at the utmost, thirty or forty families. As they live exclusively 
by the chase, it is evident that a few days would suffice to destroy or to drive 
away the game of a great extent of territory were they to assemble in larger 
numbers. Not to perish of want, they are thus compelled to wander from 
place to place in small companies, and to carry along with them their leathern 
toldos, or tents. The toldo reposes on a frame of poles stuck into the earth, and 
is scarcely higher than six feet in its centre, so that one can hardly imagine how 
a family of tall Patagonians can live in so small a space. The door is invaria- 
bly to the east, so that early in the morning the chief of the family may sprinkle 
before ita few drops of water as an offering to the rising sun, for were this sac- 
rifice to be neglected, the evil spirits would infallbly wreak their vengeance 
upon the inmates of the tent. Horse-hides, or guanaco skins coarsely sewn to- 
gether, cover the frame, and afford but a scanty protection against the rain and 
the much more frequent wind. At the top, as in the Laplander’s hut, an open- 
ing is left to let out the smoke. The hearth is in the middle, and close by le 
some earthen vases, and large volute shells which serve as drinking-horns. The 
inmates lie on skins, or sit in a corner cross-legged, after the Oriential fashion. 
The excessive filth of these wretched tenements makes their poverty appear still 


PATAGONIA AND THE PATAGONIANS. 423 


more squalid than it really is. Thirty or forty toldos form a migratory village, 
or tolderia. Though the dreadful small-pox epidemic from 1809 to 1812 de- 
stroyed whole tribes of Patagonians, their present number may still be estimated 
at from eight to ten thousand ; a small one, when compared with the size of the 
country, yet large enough when we consider the sterile nature of its soil and the 
vast space of desert needed to feed a sufficient number of guanacos and horses 
for the wants of even a scanty population. Each tolderia appears to have its 
territory limited by the hunting-grounds of its neighbors, but commercial trans- 
actions take place between the various tribes, and occasion longer journeys. 
One of the chief trading routes runs along the eastern foot of the Andes from 
the Strait of Magellan to the Rio Negro, as water is here everywhere found ; 
another, leading parallel with the coast from the Rio Negro to Port St. Julian 
and Port Desire, is only frequented in the rainy season, and even then there are 
wide spaces without any sweet water, and where it is necessary to travel night 
and day so as to avoid the danger of be of thirst. 

Every year the various Patagonian tribes wander to the sources of the Rio 
Neero, where they provide themselves with araucaria seeds, which serve them 
as food, or with apples, which have multiplied on the eastern spurs of the Andes 
in the same astonishing manner as the peach-trees near the mouths of the La 
Plata. The apple-tree was introduced by the first Spaniards who inhabited the 
Chilian Andes soon after the conquest; and when later the intruders were ex- 
pelled by the victorious Araucanians, the natives found their country enriched 
by this valuable acquisition. 

One of the chief bartering rendezvous is the island Cholechel, which is form- 
ed by two arms of the Rio Negro, about eighty leagues from the mouth of the 
river. Here the Patagonian exchanges his guanaco skins for the articles which 
the Puelches, his northern neighbors, either fabricate themselves or procure in 
amore easy manner by stealing them from the white settlers in their neighbor- 
hood. This bartering trade is very ancient, and has always existed excepting in 
times of war. In this manner the Patagonians were provided with horses soon 
after the introduction of this valuable animal into the New World, and thus 
also articles of Spanish manufacture soon found their way as far as the Strait 
of Magellan. 

At present there seems to be peace among all the Patagonian tribes, which 
consider themselves as brothers, though prequenily separated several hundred 
leagues from each other. 

Their system of government is very simple. The whole nation has a chief, 
or great cacique, whom they call carasken, and whose authority is very limited. 
In war he presides in the assembly of the minor chiefs, and has the supreme 
command in battle. In peace his sway is confined to his own tribe. He is as 
poor as his subjects, and, far from enjoying a copious civil list, is obliged to 
hunt for his subsistence like every other Patagonian; the only advantage he 
owes to his exalted station being a somewhat larger share of the products of 
the chase; and this he is obliged to distribute among the more needy of his fol- 
lowers, to maintain his influence. The dignity of carasken is not always hered- 
itary. ‘To succeed his father, the son must first prove by his eloquence, his 


424 THE POLAR WORLD. 


wauitige: and his liberality that he is worthy to succeed him; and if he is found 
wanting, the Indian most distinguished by his moral and intellectual quali- 
ties is elected in his place. , | 

The Patagonians are very awkward fishermen; they merely catch what 
chance throws into their hands, and are unacquainted with nets or any other 
piscatorial artifice. In this respect they are totally different from the Fuegians, 
who derive their chief subsistence from the sea. They have ever been a nation 
of hunters, and before the introduction of the horse, they pursued their game 
on foot, using their bolas with great dexterity for the destruction of the guanaco 
and the ostrich. Their dogs afforded them a valuable assistance, and since they 
have become accomplished horsemen, their fleet coursers enable them to over- 
take with ease all the animals of the wilderness. In times of scarcity they 
dig for a small root, which is either eaten fresh or preserved dry. Horse-fiesh 
is their favorite food. 

The Patagonian toldos and their weapons are very rudely made, but their 
skin mantles are not untastefully ornamented with rectilinear figures. In their 
war-dress they have a very hideous appearance, and it would be difficult to im- 
agine a more diabolical figure than that of a tall Patagonian ready for a fight, 
his broad face painted scarlet, with black or blue stripes under the eyes, and 
his coarse features distorted with fury. Their arms are bows and arrows, with 
points of flint loosely attached with sinews,so as to remain sticking in the 
wound. They are excellent archers, and use with skill the sling, the javelin, 
and above all their formidable bolas, which serve them both for bringing the 
guanaco to the ground or for breaking the skull of an enemy. When not en- 
gaged in war or in the chase, the men, like most savages, pass their time in ab- 
solute idleness, leaving all the household work to the women. Amusements 
they have but few. The use of dice they have learned from the Spaniards. 
They are said to be a false and deceitful people, but their hospitality and good- 
nature have been frequently extolled by travellers. 


THE FUEGIANS. 429 


Mt 
hi f 
ey 


COAST OF FUEGIA. 


CHAPTER XLI. 
THE FUEGIANS. 


Their miserable Condition. —Degradation of Body and Mind.—Powers of Mimicry.—Notions of Barter. 
—Causes of their low State of Cultivation.—Their Food.—Limpets.—Cyttarra Darwint.—Constant 
Migrations.—The Fuegian Wigwam.—Weapons.—Their probable Origin.—Their Number, and 
various Tribes. —Constant Feuds.—Cannibalism.—Language.—Adventures of Fuegia Basket, Jem- 
my Button, and York Minster.—Missionary Labors.—Captain Gardiner.—His lamentable End. 
¢ an wilds of Tierra del Fuego are inhabited by a race of men generally sup- 
posed to occupy the lowest grade in the scale of humanity. Ina far more 
rigorous climate, the Esquimaux, their northern antipodes, exhibit skill in their 
snow huts, their kayaks, their weapons, and their dress; but the wretched Fue- 
gians are ignorant of every useful art that could better their condition, and 
contrive scarcely any defense against either rain or wind. 

But even among the Fuegians there are various grades of civilization—or 
rather barbarism. The eastern tribes, which inhabit the extensive plains of 
King Charles’s South Land, seem closely allied to the Patagonians, and are 
a very different race from the undersized wretches farther westward. A man- 
tle of guanaco skin, with the wool outside—the usual Patagonian garment— 
loosely thrown over their shoulders, and leaving their persons as often exposed 
as covered, affords them some protection against the piercing wind. The con- 
dition of the central tribes inhabiting the south-western bays and inlets of this 
dreary country is much more miserable. Those farther to the west possess 
seal-skins, but here the men are satisfied with an otter skin or some other cov- 
ering scarcely larger than a pocket-handkerchief. It is laced across the breast 
by strings, and according as the wind blows it is shifted from side to side. 


426 THE POLAR WORLD. 


But all have not even this wretched garment, for near Wollaston Island Mr. 
Darwin saw a canoe with six Fuegians, one of whom was a woman, naked. It 
was raining heavily, and the fresh water, together with the spray, trickled down 
their bodies. In another harbor not far distant, a woman, who was suckling 
a recently-born child, came one day alongside the vessel, and remained there 
out of mere curiosity, whilst the sleet fell and thawed on her naked bosom 
and on the skin of her naked baby! These poor wretches were stunted in 
their growth, their faces bedaubed with white paint, their skins filthy, their hair 
entangled, their voices discordant, and their gestures violent. ; 

The Fuegians whom Cook met with in Christmas Sound were equally 
wretched, ‘Their canoes were made of the bark of trees stretched over a frame- 
work of sticks, and the paddles which served to propel these miserable boats 
were small, and of an equally miserable workmanship. In each canoe sat from 
five to eight persons; but instead of greeting the strangers with the joyful 
shouts of the South Sea Islanders, they rowed along in perfect silence; and 
even when quite close to the vessel, they only uttered from time to time the 
word “ Pescherah!” After repeated invitations some of these savages came 
on board, but without exhibiting the least sign of astonishment or curiosity. 
None were above five feet four inches high; they had large heads, broad 
faces, with prominent cheek-bones, flat noses, small and lack-lustre eyes; and 
their black hair, smeared with fat, hung in matted locks over their shoulders. 
Instead of a beard, their chin exhibited a few straggling bristles, and their 
whole appearance afforded a striking picture of abject misery. Their shoul- 
ders and breast were broad and strongly built, but the extremities of the body 
so meagre and shrivelled that one could hardly realize the fact that they be- 
longed to the upper part. The legs were crooked, the knees disproportionate- 
ly thick. Their sole garment consisted of a small piece of seal-skin, attached to 
the neck by means of a cord, otherwise they were quite naked ; but even these 


miserable creatures had made an attempt to decorate their olive-brown skin. 


with some stripes of ochre. The women were as ugly as the men. Their food 
consisted of raw, half-putrid seal’s flesh, which made them smell so horribly, 
that it was impossible to remain long near them. Their intelligence was on a 
par witn the filth of their bodies. The most expressive signs were here of no 
avail. Gestures which the most dull-headed native of any South Sea island im- 
mediately understood, these savages either did not, or would not give them- 
selves the trouble to comprehend. Of the superiority of the Europeans they 
appeared to have no idea, never expressing by the slightest sign any astonish- 
ment at the sight of the ship and the various objects on board. It would how- 
ever be doing the Fuegians injustice to suppose them all on a level with these 
wretches. According to Forster, they were most likely outcasts from the 
neighboring tribes. : 

Mr. Darwin, as well as Sir James Ross, describes the Fuegians whom they 
met with in the Bay of Good Success and on Hermit Island as excellent 
mimics. “As often as we coughed or yawned,” says the former, “or made any 
odd motion, they immediately imitated us. Some of our party began to squint 
\ and look awry, but one of the young Fuegians (whose whole face was painted 


THE FUEGIANS. 427 


black, excepting a white band across his eyes) succeeded in making far more 
hideous grimaces. They could repeat with perfect correctness each word in 
any sentence we addressed them, and they remembered such words for some 
time. Yet we all know how difficult it is to distinguish apart the sounds in a 
foreion language.” 

Close to the junction of Ponsonby Sound with the Beagle Channel, where 
Mr. Darwin and his party spent the night, a small family of Fuegians soon 
joined the strangers round a blazing fire. They seemed well pleased, and all 
joined in the chorus of the seamen’s songs. During the night the news had 
spread, and early in the morning other Fuegians arrived. Several of these had 
run so fast that their noses were bleeding, and their mouths frothed from the 
rapidity with which they talked ; and with their naked bodies all bedaubed with 
black, white, and red, they looked like so many demons. 


FUEGIAN TRADERS. 


These people plainly showed that they had a fair notion of barter. Mr. Dar- 
win gave one man a large nail (a most valuable present) without making any 
signs for a return; but he immediately picked out two fish, and handed them 
up on the point of his spear. Here at least we see signs of a mental activity 
favorably contrasting with the stolid indifference of the Fuegians seen by For- 
ster at Christmas Harbor; and Mr. Darwin is even of opinion that in general 
these people rise above the Australians in mental power, although their actual 
acquirements may be less. , 

The reason why the Fuegians are so little advanced in the arts of life, 


‘428 THE POLAR WORLD. 


are partly to be sought for in the nature of the land, and partly in their political 
state. The perfect equality among the individuals in each tribe must retard 
their civilization; and until some chief shall arise with power sufficient to se- 
cure any acquired advantage, such as the domesticated animals, it seems scarce- 
ly possible that their condition can improve. But the chief causes of their 
wretchedness are doubtless the barrenness of their country and their constant 
forced migrations. 

With the exception of the eastern part, the habitable land is reduced to 
the stones on the beach. In search of food they are compelled to wander from 
spot to spot; and so steep is the coast that they can only move about in their 
canoes. Whenever it is low water, winter or summer, night or day, they must 
rise to pick limpets from the rock; and the women either dive to collect sea- 
eggs, or sit patiently in their boats, and with a baited hair-line, without any 
hook, jerk out little fish. If a seal is killed, or the floating carcass of a putrid 
whale discovered, it is a feast; and such miserable food is assisted by a few 
tasteless berries, chiefly of a dwarf arbutus, or by a globular bright yellow fun- 
gus (Cyttaria Darwini), which grows in vast numbers on the beech - trees. 
When young, it is elastic, with a smooth surface; but, when mature, it shrinks, 
becomes tougher, and has its entire surface deeply pitted or honey-combed. 
In this mature state it is collected in large quantities by the women and chil- 
dren, and is eaten uncooked. It has a mucilaginous, slightly sweet taste, with 
a faint smell like that of a mushroom. 

The necessity of protecting themselves against the extremity of cold, and of 
obtaining their food from the sea, or by the chase of the reindeer or the white 
bear, forces the Esquimaux to exert all their faculties, and thus they have 
raised themselves considerably higher in the scale of civilization than the Fue- 
gians, whose mode of life requires far less exertion of the mind. To knock a 
limpet from the rock or to collect a fungus does not even call cunning into ex- 
ercise. Living chiefly upon shell-fish, they are obliged constantly to change 
their abode, and thus they hardly bestow any thought on their dwellings, which 
are more like the dens of wild beasts than the habitations of human beings. 
The Fuegian wigwam consists of a few branches stuck in the ground, and very 
imperfectly thatched on one side with a few tufts of grass and rushes. The 
whole can not be the work of an hour, and it is only used for afew days. At 
intervals, however, the inhabitants of these wretched huts return to the same 
spot, as is evident from the piles of old shells, often amounting to several tons 
in weight. These heaps can be distinguished at a distance by the bright green 
color of certain plants, such as the wild celery and scurvy grass, which invari- 
ably grow on them. 

The only articles in the manufacture of which the Fuegians show some 
signs of ability are a few ornaments and their weapons, which again are far 
inferior to those of the Esquimaux. Their bows are small and badly shaped, 
their arrows, which are between two and three feet long, feathered at one end 
and blunted at the other. The points are only attached when the arrow is 
about to be used, and for this purpose the archer carries them about with him 
in a leathern pouch. The shaft of their larger spears is about ten feet long, 


THE FUEGIANS. 429 


and equally thick at bothends. At one of the extremities is a fissure, into which 
a pointed bone with a barbed hook is inserted and tightly bound with a thread. 
With this weapon tney most probably attack the seals; they also use it to de- 
tach the shell-fish from the rocks below the surface of the water. A second 
spear, longer and lighter than the first, with a barbed point, serves most likely 
as a weapon of war; and a third one, much shorter and comparatively thin, 
may perhaps be destined for the birds. The females know how to make 


A FUEGIAN AND HIS FOOD. 


pretty necklaces of colored shells and baskets of grass stalks. Here, as with 
all other races of mankind, we find the germs of improvement, which only 
require for their development the external impulse of more favorable circum- 
stances. 

If it be asked whether they feel themselves as miserable as their wretched 
appearance would lead us to believe them, it must be replied that most travel- 
lers describe them as a cheerful, good-humored, contented people; and as Mr. 
Darwin finely remarks, “ Nature, by making habit omnipotent and its effects 


430 THE POLAR WORLD. 


hereditary, has fitted the Fuegian to the climate and the productions of hig 
country.” 3 | 

The number of these savages is no doubt very small, as seldom more than 
thirty or forty individuals are seen together. The interior of the mountainous 
islands, which is as little known as the interior of Spitzbergen, is no doubt com- 
pletely uninhabited ; as the coasts alone, with the exception of the eastern and 
more level part of the country, where the guanaco finds pasture, are able to’ 
furnish the means of subsistence. The various tribes, separated from each 
other by a deserted neutral territory, are nevertheless engaged in constant 
feuds, as quarrels are perpetually arising about the possession of some limpet- 
bank or fishing-station. When at war they are cannibals; and it is equally cer- 
tain that when pressed in winter by hunger they kill and devour their old wom- 
en before they kill their dogs, alleging as an excuse that their dogs catch otters, 
and old women do not. 

It has not been ascertained whether they have any distinct belief in a future 
life. ‘They sometimes bury their dead in caves, and sometimes in the mountain 
forests. Hach family or tribe has a wizard, or conjuring doctor. Their lan- 
guage, of which there are several distinct dialects, is likewise little known; it 
is, however, far inferior to the copious and expressive vocabulary of the Esqui- 
maux. | 

In 1830, while Captain Fitzroy was surveying the coasts of Fuegia, he seized 
on a party of natives as hostages for the loss of a boat which had been stolen, 
and some of these natives, as well as a child belonging to another tribe, whom 
he bought for a pearl button, he took with him to England, determining to 
educate them at his own expense. One of them afterwards died of the small- 
pox; but a young girl, Fuegia Basket, and two boys, Jemmy Button (thus 
named from his purchase-money) and York Minster (so called from the great 
rugged mountain of York Minster, near Christmas Sound), were placed in a 
school at Walthamstow, and moreover had the honor of being presented to 
King William and Queen Adelaide. Three years Jemmy and his companions 
remained in England, at the end of which time Captain Fitzroy was again sent 
out to continue the survey, and took with him these three Fuegians, intending 
to return them to the place whence they had come. In this, however, he was 
disappointed; but at their own request York and Fuegia were, with Jemmy, 
deposited at Woollya, a pleasant looking spot in Ponsonby Sound, belonging 
to Jemmy’s tribe. His family, consisting of his mother and three brothers, 
was absent at the time, but they arrived the following morning. Jemmy rec- 
ognized the stentorian voice of one of his brothers at a prodigious distance, but 
the meeting, as Mr. Darwin, who witnessed the scene, relates, was less interest- 
ing than that between a horse turned out into a field and an old companion. 
There was no demonstration of affection; they simply stared for a short time 
at each other. Three large wigwams were built for them, gardens planted, and 
an abundant supply of every thing landed for their use. Jemmy, who had be- 
come quite a favorite on board, was short and fat, but vain of his personal ap- 
pearance; he used always to wear gloves, his hair was neatly cut, and he was 
distressed if his well-polished shoes were dirtied. York was somewhat coarse 


THE FUEGIANS. 431 


and less intelligent, though in some things he could be quick. He became at- 
tached to Fuegia, and as both were of the same tribe, they became man and 
wife after their return to Tierra del Fuego. She was the most intelligent of 
the three, and quick in learning any thing, especially languages. 

Thus these semi-civilized savages were left among their barbarous country- 
men, with the hope that they might become the means of improving their whole 
tribe; but when Captain Fitzroy returned to the spot twelve months after, 
he found the wigwams deserted and the gardens trampled under foot, Jemmy 
came paddling up in his canoe, but the dandy who had been left plump, clean, 
and well-dressed, was now turned into a thin, haggard savage, with long, disor- 
dered hair, and naked, except a bit of a blanket round his waist. He could still 
speak English, and said that he had enough to eat, that he was not cold, and 
that his relations were very good people. He had a wife besides, who was de- 
cidedly the best-looking female in the company. With his usual good feeling, 
he brought two beautiful otter skins for two of his best friends, and some spear- 
heads and arrows made with his own hands for the captain. He had lost all 
his property. York Minster had built a large canoe, and with his wife Fuegia 
had, several months since, gone to his own country, and had taken farewell by 
an act of consummate villainy. He persuaded Jemmy and his mother to coma 
with him, and then on the way deserted them by night, stealing every article 
of their property. It was the opinion of all on board that the cunning rogue had 
planned all this long before, and that with this end in view he had desired so 
earnestly to remain with Jemmy’s tribe rather than be landed on his own coun- 
try. Eight years after an English vessel put into a bay in the Magellans for 
water, and there was found a woman, without doubt Fuegia Basket, who said, 
“How do? Ihave been to Plymouth and London.” York Minster was also 
seen in 1851. From Captain Snow, commander of the mission yacht “ Allen 
Gardiner,” we have the last accounts of Jemmy Button in 1855. Twenty-three 
years had not obliterated his knowledge of the English language, but he was as 
wild and shaggy as his untaught countrymen. In spite of his superior knowl- 
edge, he was treated as a very inferior personage by the members of his tribe; 
yet he declared that though he loved England, he loved his country still better ; 
that nothing should induce him to leave it, and that he would never allow any 
of his children to quit their native soil. 

Other efforts have been made to civilize the Fuegians. A Spanish vessel 
having been shipwrecked on the eastern coast in 1767, its crew was hospitably 
treated by the natives, who even assisted in saving thecargo. Out of gratitude, 
the Governor of Buenos Ayres sent out some missionaries, who, however, totally 
failed to make any impression on the savages. 

A no less unsuccessful attempt was made about the year 1835 by English mis- 
sionaries ; and the expedition of Captain Gardiner, who, accompanied by a sur- 
geon, a catechist, and four Cornish fishermen, sailed to Fuegia in 1851, with the 
intention of converting the natives, proved equally fruitless, and had a far more 
tragic end. His measures for securing the necessary supplies of food were so 
ill calculated that the whole party died of hunger in Spaniards’ Harbor, on the 
southern coast. Captam Morshead, of the “ Dido,” had received orders on his 


432 THE POLAR WORLD. 


STARVATION BEACH. 


way to Valparaiso to visit the scene of the mission, and afford Captain Gardi- 
ner any aid he might require, but, on arriving at the cove, he found it deserted. 
After a few days’ search the bodies were discovered, and fragments of a jour- 
nal written by Captain Gardiner gave proof of the sufferings which they had 
endured before death relieved them from their misery. The spot has received 
the name of Starvation Beach. 


CHARLES FRANCIS HALL AND THE INNUITS. 433 


WY 
* WN \ 
ANN 


i 


Se ay J : 


Pipl 
‘ i 7 


SURVEYING IN GREENLAND. 


hs 


CHAPTER XLII. 
CHARLES FRANCIS HALL AND THE INNUITS. 


Hall’s Expedition.—His early Life.—His reading of Arctic Adventure.—His Resolve.—His Arctic Out- 
fit.—Sets Sail on the ‘‘ George Henry.”—The Voyage.—Kudlago.—Holsteinborg, Greenland.—Pop- 
ulation of Greenland.—Sails for Davis's Strait.—Character of the Innuits.—Wreck of the ‘‘ Rescue.” 
—Ebierbing and Tookoolito.—Their Visit to England.—Hall’s first Exploration. —European and In- 
nuit Life in the Arctic Regions.—Building an Igloo.—Almost Starved.—Fight for Food with Dogs. 
—Ebierbing arrives with a Seal.—How he caught it—A Seal-feast.—The Innuits and Seals.—The 
Polar Bear.—How he teaches the Innuits to catch Seals.—At a Seal-hole.—Dogs as Seal-hunters.— 
Dogs and Bears.—Dogs and Reindeers.—Innuits and Walruses.—More about Igloos.—Innuit Imple- 
ments.—Uses of the Reindeer.—Innuit Improvidence.—A Deer-feast.—A frozen Delicacy.—W hale- 
skin as Food.—Whale-gum. —How to eat Whale Ligament. —Raw Meat.—The Dress of the Innuits. 
—A pretty Style.— Religious Ideas of the Innuits.— Their kindly Character.— Treatment of the 
Aged and Infirm.—A Woman abandoned to die.—Hall’s Attempt to rescue her.—The Innuit Nomads, 
without any form of Government.—Their Numbers diminishing.—A Sailor wanders away.—Hall’s 
Search for him.—Finds him frozen to death.—The Ship free from Ice.—Preparations to return.— 
Reset in the Ice-pack.—Another Arctic Winter.—Breaking up of the Ice.—Departure for Home.— 
Tookoolito and her Child ** Butterfly.”—Death of ‘‘ Butterflv.”—Arrival at Home.—Results of Hall’s 
Expedition.—Innuit Traditions. —Discovery of Frobisher Relics.—Hall undertakes a second Expedi- 
tion.—His Statement of its Object and Prospects.—Last Tidings of Hall. 


A the most remarkable expeditions ever undertaken in the Polar world 
is that of Charles Francis Hall, performed during the years 1860, 1861, and 
1862. Its primary object was to discover the survivors of Sir John Franklin’s 
party; for at this time there was good reason to believe that out of the 105 who 
were known to be living on the 25th of April, 1848, some were still surviving. 
Towards the main purpose of the undertaking nothing was indeed accomplished. 
Hall came upon no traces of Franklin and his men; but he acquired a more ac- 
curate knowledge of the Esquimaux—or rather as they call themselves, and as 
we shall call them, the Innuits—a word meaning simply “ men” or “ people ”— 
and their mode of life than was ever before, or is likely to be hereafter, gained 
28 


434 ; THE POLAR WORLD. 


UL: 


‘ ST, L, Wi 
ip 


it 


if} 
Lr 


SS 


it SANA 
i lg 


HALL AND COMPANIONS, IN INNUIT COSTUME. 


by any other white man capable of telling what he saw, and a part of which he 
was. The remarkable book in which Mr. Hall describes his expedition* seems 
not to have come under the notice of Dr. Hartweg. It is proposed in this chap- 
ter to supplement the account of the Innuits from this work of Mr. Hall. | 

* Arctic Researches, and Life among the Esquimaux, By Cuartes Francis Hatt. New York, 1866. 


CHARLES FRANCIS HALL AND THE INNUITS. 435 


Up to middle life Hall had resided in the inland city of Cincinnati. He had 
eagerly read every thing that he could find on record of the searches made for 
Franklin. Large ships and small ships had been sent out. Brave hearts and 
stout hands had been enlisted in the search, but with no tangible result beyond 
ascertaining the spot where the surviving 105 were when they abandoned their 
ships and took to the shore, hoping to make their way to their homes. Only 
two of these men were proven to have died; and it was more than probable 
that of the 105 known to have been living in 1848, some would yet be alive in 
1860, for not a few of these men, if living, would be still of middle age. 

Hall had read the story of the sufferings of Kane’s party during the long 
months of the Arctic winter, but he had come to the conclusion that most of 
these resulted from the mode of life adopted by them. The Innuits, he knew, 
lived to a good old age through a succession of such winters, and he believed 
that a civilized man could live where a savage could. This conviction was con- 
firmed by one of Kane’s companions, who told him, “ When we lived like the 
Esquimaux, we immediately recovered, and enjoyed our usual health. If Prov- 
idence had so ordered it that we should cast our lot with the Esquimaux, I 
have no doubt that we would have lived quite as long, and in quite as good 
health as in the United States or England. White men can live where Esqui- 
maux can, and frequently when and where they can not.” 

So Hall grew into the conviction that some of these lost ones could yet be 
found; and he writes, “It seemed to me as if I had been called, if I may so 
speak, to try and do the work. My heart felt sore at the thought of so great a 
mystery in connection with any of our fellow-creatures, especially akin to our- 
selves, yet remaining unsolved.” How should he obey this call? His own 
means, beyond a stout frame and strong will, were of the smallest. He broach- 
ed the project at the West, where it was received with favor. Then he came 
Kast, and was met with like consideration. Funds were raised, and the expe- 
dition which Hall contemplated was fitted out. 

This expedition consisted simply of Hall himself. The cash contributed for 
the outfit was just $980, of which more than a third was contributed by Henry 
Grinnell, of New York. In addition to this was about a quarter as much in 
the way of presents. “These,” says Hall, “constituted all the means and ma- 
terial I had to carry out the great undertaking my mind had led me to embark 
in.’ Hall's list of the articles on his outfit for a three years’ residence and ex- 
ploration is worthy of record. It shows in what way his $980 in cash was ex- 
pended. 

“My outfit,” he writes, “for the voyage and the whole of my expedition, 
consisted of :—a boat, length twenty-eight feet, beam seven feet, depth twenty- 
nine and one-half inches, drawing eight inches of water when loaded with stores 
and a crew of six persons; one sledge; one half-ton of pemmican; two hun- 
dred pounds of Borden’s meat biscuit ; twenty pounds pork scrap; one pound 
preserved quince ; one pound preserved peaches; two hundred and fifty pounds 
powder ; a quantity of ball, shot, and percussion caps; one rifle, six double-bar- 
relled guns; one Colt’s revolver ; beads, needles, etc., for presents; two dozen 
pocket-knives; some tin ware ; one axe, two picks, files, etc.; tobacco and pipes ; 


436 THE POLAR WORLD. 


wearing apparel for self, and red shirts for natives; stationery and journal- 
books; watch, opera-glass, spy-glass ; sextant, pocket sextant, artificial horizon, 
azimuth compass, common compass, two pocket compasses ; three ordinary and 
two self-registering thermometers. Some navigation-books and several Arctic 
works, with my Bible and a few other volumes, formed my library.” The boat 
and fixtures cost one hundred and twenty-five dollars; meat, biscuit, pemmican, 
etc., about two hundred and fifty dollars; astronomical instruments, about one 
hundred dollars; guns and accoutrements, about two hundred and twenty-five 
dollars ; clothing, fifty dollars ; pipes and tobacco, twenty dollars; travelling ex- 
penses and express payments, seventy-five dollars; dog-team, bought in Green- 
land, fifty dollars. The other items making up the nine hundred and eighty 
dollars are all duly given. It will be seen that the balance left for minor, but 
necessary, expenditures was very small. 

New London, Connecticut, is the port from which vessels mainly sail for the 
Arctic whale-fishery. Here was the place of business. Williams and Haven 
largely engaged in that enterprise. They relieved Hall of a great load of 
anxiety by a brief note, in which they said: “Asa testimony of our person- 
al regard, and the interest we feel in the proposed expedition, we will convey 
it and its required outfit, boats, sledges, provisions, instruments, etc., free of 
charge, on the barque ‘ George Henry,’ to Northumberland Inlet; and, when- 
ever desired, we will give the same free passage home in any of our vessels.” 


On the 29th of May, 1860, the “ George Henry ” set sail, with a crew, officers . 


and men, of twenty-nine souls. Accompanying as tender was a schooner, which 
had a history. She was now known as the “ Amaret ;” but under the name of 
the “ Rescue ’ she had won fame in Arctic research, for in her Kane had made 
his first Arctic voyage. Hall always calls her by her old name, and the ac- 
count of her loss forms a striking episode in his narrative. 

We have said that Hall’s expedition consisted of himself alone. But when 
he started he had with him a companion, who he hoped would greatly aid him. 
This was Kudlago, an Innuit, who had 
acquired some knowledge of our lan- 
guage in Greenland from whalers, had 
come to the United States on a whal- 
ing-vessel, and was now anxious to re- 
turn to Greenland. But he fell sick on 
the voyage, and died on the Ist of July. 
His last words were, “ Do you'see the 
ice?” for he knew that the appearance 
of ice at this season would show that he 
was near hishome. He died three hun- 
dred miles at sea, and was committed 
to the ocean, Hall reading the funeral 
service. A great iceberg—the slender 
one represented on page 48 of this vol- 
ume—was drifting close by, and Hall named it “ Kudlago’s Monument.” 

On the 7th of July they reached Holsteinborg, the capital of the Danish col- 


KUDLAGO. 


CHARLES FRANCIS HALL AND THE INNUITS. 437 


ony of Greenland, a town consisting of twenty-four houses. The entire popula- 
tion of Greenland is estimated at about 2450, of whom 2300 are Innuits, and the 
remainder Europeans. Of the Innuits, 1700 live by sealing, and 400 by fishing ; 
the others being mainly mechanics and sailors, besides twenty native catechists. 
Of the Europeans, thirty-one are “ First and Second Governors ;” twenty-four 
missionaries and priests; thirty-six clerks; the others mechanics and sailors. 
The forty-four native and European missionaries receive, in all, 13,600 Danish 
paper dollars, equal to about $8500 in specie. The head-schoolmaster has one 
hundred and twenty-five paper dollars; three others receive one hundred dollars 
each; three, twenty-five dollars ; two, six dollars. Of these last, one teaches his 
own two children, who are the only ones in his district. There are also four 
women, who get a dollar a year each for teaching children their letters. The six- 
teen Government employés get from forty to ninety dollars a year, besides pro- 
visions for themselves and their families. Bread is baked for them every 
fortnight. The currency of the colony is paper, the “ six-skilling” note be- 
ing worth about three cents. 


LenneMnvisnin gyldirifer ; | 
! ‘ia é Nrandeutederne¢ Gp ye Gf sal 
2 Njilentavn’ ISIC. 

Yl? 


mel ; 


faces iii 


GREENLAND CURRENCY. 


The native Greenlanders are by no means deficient in intelligence. Mr. Hall 
gives a fac-simile of a wood-cut representing a woman and child drawn and 
engraved by one of them who had received no instruction in art, and no educa- 
tion of any sort beyond that of the majority of his countrymen. The great 
festival of Greenland is the birthday of the King of Denmark, in which all the 
population, native and European, who can be assembled, take part, his Majesty 
furnishing the cheer. Hall gives a view of this celebration, taken from a draw- 
ing made by a native. The original drawing was full of character. 

The “ Rescue” having rejoined her consort, the “ George Henry,” from whom 
she had been separated on the voyage, the captain proposed to set sail for. his 
proposed whaling-ground on the west side of Davis’s Strait. They sailed on the 


438 THE POLAR WORLD. 


24th of July, Hall accompanying. Three days after, they encountered a violent 
snow-storm, and were beset by icebergs. On the 8th of August they anchored 
in a bay in latitude 63° 20’, called by the natives Ookoolear, but by Hall named 
Jornelius Grinnell Bay. Here and hereabouts the whalers went to work, and 
Hall began his acquaintance with the Esquimaux at home. 


AE Gr® | 
(hit A 


( nis, Ne ; 
Wat's 


i; vid 
tus 


WOMAN AND CHILD. (Drawn and Engraved by AN INNUIT.) 


. 


439 


CHARLES FRANCIS HALL AND THE INNUITS. 


Among these was Kookerjabin, the widow of Kudlago, and of three others. 


As they crowded our decks, 


“The Innuits,” writes Hall, “ are a happy people. 


TN aU) 


se TERT 
3 
“ ‘ 


2B 


— ve 


I one day noticed about a dozen women seated, and busily engaged at their work. 
Two were mending one of the boat’s sails, some were chewing seal-skins for 


440° THE POLAR WORLD. 


MBs 
WY, 


- ) j 
Vy i; r 
( A) uf 4 is \ 
yy). Sr / / 


PREPARING BOOT-SOLES. 


boot-soles, others were sewing, while one was tending a cross baby. It is rare 
to find an Innuit child who is not very quiet, but this little fellow had eaten a 
piece of raw blubber, which had disordered him. Some of the amusing tricks 
played by these Esquimaux women are especially deserving of notice. The va- 
riety of games performed by a string tied at the ends, similar to a ‘ cat’s cra- 
dle,’ completely throws into the shade our adepts at home. I never before wit- 
nessed such a number of intricate ways in which a simple string could be used. 
One arrangement represented a deer; another, a whale; a third, the walrus; a 
fourth, the seal; and so on without end.” 

The short Arctic summer soon came to a close. On the morning of the 
26th of September came light winds from the north-west; by noon it began to 
snow, the wind increasing to a gale. The whaling-boats all came in, and prep- 
arations were made for bad weather. During the night the storm grew hourly 
fiercer. The “Rescue” dragged her anchor, and was dashed upon the rocks an 
utter wreck. Hall’s little boat, upon which he had so much relied, was torn 
from its moorings and lost, “dooming me,” says Hall, “to a wreck of disap- 
pointment in the hopes I had cherished concerning her. The ‘ George Hen- 

ry’ was also in imminent peril, but outrode the tempest; but on her next 
voyage, eighteen months later, was lost at a point hardly a hundred miles dis- 
tant.” | 

The “ George Henry” was soon after laid up in winter-quarters, fairly blocked 
in by ice. Hall in the mean time had made himself acquainted with the Ks- 


441 


CHARLES FRANCIS HALL AND THE INNUITS. 


a 


SS SS 


WRECK OF THE RESCUE. 


quimaux of the region. Prominent among these were a couple—husband and 


wife—whose history is worthy of record. 


One day—it was November 2—while Hall was writing in his cabin, he heard 
a low, sweet voice saying, “ Good-morning, Sir.” Looking up, he saw a comely 
woman, dressed in very good imitation of civilized costume. He had heard of 


a 


442 THE POLAR WORLD. 


THE GEORGE HENRY LAID UP FOR THE WINTER. 


her before. Her name was Tookoolito. She was the wife of Ebierbing, a 
rather famous seal-hunter and pilot. Seven years before a British whaler had 
taken them to England, where they were received as the lions of the day. 
They dined with Prince Albert, and were introduced to the Queen. Ebierbing 
thought that the Queen was “ very pretty ;” indeed she bore no very distant 
likeness to his own wife. Tookoolito thought Prince Albert was a “very kind, 
good man.” Both agreed that the Queen had “a very fine place.” Tookoolito, 
as many thousands in the United States afterwards had occasion to know, 
spoke English almost perfectly. Her husband was less fluent, but still quite in- 
telligible. This pair became Hall’s constant companions in the Arctic regions ; 
came with him upon his return to the States, remained there with him for two 
years, and went back with him upon his second expedition, which now (Septem- 
ber, 1869) is not completed. 

Early in January Hall resolved to make an exploring expedition with the 
dog-team which he had bought at Holsteinborg. The party consisted of him- 
self, Ebierbing, Tookoolito, and another Esquimaux, named Koodloo. The 
sledge was drawn by ten dogs—five of which belonged to Hall, and five to 
Ebierbing. They relied for food mainly upon the proceeds of their hunt- 
ing, taking with them only a pound and a half of preserved mutton, three 
pounds of salt pork, fifteen pounds of sea-bread, three pounds of pork scraps 
for soup, and a little coffee, pepper, and molasses. The trip lasted nearly a 
month and a half, during which time Hall learned to live like the Hsquimaux 
in their snow cabins, and subsisted mainly upon raw seal flesh. When he re- 
turned to the ship it was hard for him to accustom himself to the change from 
the pure atmosphere of a snow-house to the confined air of a small cabin. 


_— ey se 


CHARLES FRANCIS HALL AND THE INNUITS. _ | 443 


STORM-BOUND. 


Had Kane but known how to pass an Arctic winter, the world would never 
have had occasion to read one of the most pathetic accounts ever written of 
suffering. Buddington, the captain of the “ George Henry,” had learned the les- 
son by dear experience. Five years before, when in command of another ves- 
sel, he had lost thirteen of his men by scurvy. “ But,” said he, “Iam not now 
afraid of losing any more men by scurvy while I have command over them. 
Whenever there are appearances of it on board, I will have every pork and beef 
barrel—salt provisions of every kind—headed up at once, and every man shall 
live upon bread and fresh provision, such as whale, walrus, seal, deer, bear, ptar- 
migan, duck, and the like. It is not a little remarkable that persons afflicted 
with scurvy seem madly inclined to salt provisions, which they know to be in 
their case absolute poisons. They will go any length to obtain salt pork, even 
when they have fresh food in abundance.” __ 

Hall’s first night in an igloo may stand as a sample of many more. We 
cite, with much abridgment, from his journal : 

“We encamped at 5 p.m., having found good material for building a snow- 
house. Ebierbing and Koodloo at once commenced sawing out snow-blocks, 
while I carried them to a suitable spot for erecting the igloo, which took us 
one hour to make. As soon as it was completed Tookoolito entered, and com- 
menced placing the stone lamp in its proper position. It was trimmed, and 
soon a kettle of snow was over it, making water for coffee and soup. She then 
placed several pieces of board, which we had brought with us, on the snow plat- 
form where our beds were to be made. Upon these were placed canvas and 
deer-skins, and our sleeping accommodations were complete. The drying of 
any thing that has become wet during the day falls to the lot of the woman. 


444 THE POLAR WORLD. 


She places them in a net hung over the 
lamp and attends to them through the 
night, meanwhile mending all articles 
of clothing that need repairs. Presently 
our evening meal was ready. It con- 
sisted of Cincinnati ‘crackling’ soup, 
a bit of raw salt pork, half a biscuit for 
each, and coffee.” 

A snow-house, built in an hour, is 
| abandoned when the use for it is over. 

INNUIT STONE LAMP. The dogs are suffered to enter, and ap- 
: propriate any thing that is left which 
suits their taste. Nothing comes amiss to them. On the third night Hall had 
his hair cut by Tookoolito, and the clippings were left on the floor. The dogs 
swallowed these, among other things. Stormy weather soon came on. There 
was no hunting or sealing, and the party had nothing to eat except some bits of 
raw, frozen whale’s-skin which they found in a cache, which a party from the 
ship had made a few weeks before. Not far off was an igloo belonging to an 
Innuit named Ugarng, whom they knew. Hall went to it hoping to find some- 
thing to eat. Ugarng had just come in, having spent two whole days and a 
night in watching over a seal-hole without success. He had heard the seal 
blow, and that was all. He bore his disappointment coolly. “ Away I go to- 
morrow again,’ he said. He went next day, remained all night over the seal- 
hole, and came back with nothing. “This was very bad for the whole of us,” 
says Hall. How bad it was for the poor wife of Ugarng and her children may 
be inferred from her own words. They were without food or light; her infant 
was restless from hunger. She said simply, “ Me got no milk, meat all gone, 
blubber too; nothing to eat, no heat; must wait till get seal.” 

Hall was about as near starvation as were the Innuits. All he had to eat 
was a bit of the “ black skin ” of a whale, and this he relished ; he could have 
eaten any thing which would have gone to keep up internal heat, and make bone 
and flesh. Ebierbing was away hunting. At length Tookoolito managed to 
extemporize a warm dinner. From the black skin she tried out enough oil to 
fill the lamp and heat some snow-water. This was thickened with a couple of 
ounces left of a quart of meal which formed a part of the stores with which 
they set out. The pair shared the “ pudding,” and thought it excellent. The 
cold was severe. Within the dark igloo the thermometer stood at about zero; 
outside, 25° to 52° below zero. Under these circumstances Hallkeptat his journal, 
sitting wrapped in furs to keep from freezing. So passed ten days. Ebierbing 
had gone back to the vessel in order to bring back some food. Day by day 
Hall went to the top of a hill, straining his eyes over the snowy waste in hope 
of seeing the approach of the messenger. On the evening of the 24th of Jan- 
uary, fourteen days after their starting upon the expedition, they were reduced 
to their last ration of food, which was:a piece of black skin two inches long, an 
inch and a half wide, and three-quarters of an inch thick. yen 

At midnight footsteps were heard approaching; Hall sprang from his bed 


CHARLES FRANCIS HALL AND THE INNUITS. 445 


and opened the snow-block door. There was “Jack,” an Innuit, who had gone 
out on a hunt, with his spear strung with strips of seal-blubber. Hall’s favor- 
ite dog had been allowed to sleep in the igloo. The half-starved creature 
scented the blubber, gave a desperate leap, and grasped a portion of the food, 
and in spite of all the efforts of Hall and the others swallowed it. Before the 
door could be closed all the other dogs outside were aroused, and fighting for a 
share. Among them they got nearly the whole. Next morning Hall went out, 


FIGHTING FOR FOOD. 


and gazing in the direction from which the approach of Ebierbing was hoped 
for, saw something black moving over the snow. It was Ebierbing with dogs 
and a sledge, loaded with provisions from the ship, and also with a seal which 
he had caught that morning. <A great seal-feast took place at once, which Hall 
thus describes: ; 

“ According to Innuit custom, an immediate invitation was given by the suc- 
cessful hunter’s family for every one to attend a seal-feast. Our igloo was soon 
crowded. My station was on the dais, or bed-place, so that I could watch 
what was going on. The first thing done was to consecrate the blubber by 
sprinkling water over it. Then our host proceeded to separate the blubber 
and skin from the meat and skeleton of the seal. The body was then opened, 
and the blood scooped out. The blood is considered very precious. The liver 
came next, cut into pieces and eaten raw, I getting a share. Then followed dis- 
tributing the ribs, for social picking, also eaten raw, I doing my duty, and be- 
coming quite an Innuit in all except in the quantity eaten. This I might chal- 
lenge any white man to do. No human stomach but an Innuit’s could possibly 


ea THE POLAR WORLD. | 


THROUGH THE SNOW. 


hold what I saw these men and women devour. When the feast was ended, 
the company dispersed. Tookoolito then sent around bountiful gifts of seal- 
blubber for fire-lamps, also some seal-meat and blood. This is the usual cus- 
tom among the Innuits. They share each other’s success, and bear each oth- 
er’s wants. Generally if it is found that one is short of provisions, it may be 
known that all are so.” : 

The manner in which Ebierbing secured that precious seal is a striking ex- 
ample of Innuit patience. On his way to the ship the dogs discovered a seal- 
hole. He marked the spot by making a small pile of snow close by, and squirt- 
ing a mouthful of tobacco-juice upon it by way of mark. On his return he 
found the hole, and determined to try to secure the animal. So wrapping his 
feet and legs in furs taken from the sledge, he took his position, spear in hand, 
over the seal-hole. It was buried two feet deep under the snow. He thrust 
his spear through the snow again and again until he found the little aperture 
leading through the ice; then in the dark night he seated himself close by, 
waiting to hear the blowing of the seal. Towards morning the welcome sound 
was heard. One well-aimed thrust of the spear secured the prize. Ebierbing 
was nearly frozen, his nose being frostbitten; but he suffered more from thirst 
than from cold. There was indeed snow all around, but in that intense cold 
the mouth does not retain sufficient caloric to melt a piece of snow placed in it. 
His first call when he reached the igloo was for water. To watch all night at 
a seal-hole would seem to be a sufficient trial of patience and endurance; but 
Hall notes another time when Ebierbing passed two whole days and nights 
without food by a hole, and then failed to secure the seal. 

To the Innuit the seal is, in the broadest sense, the staff of life. It is to 
them all that flocks and herds, grain-fields, forests, coal mines, and petroleum 
wells are to dwellers in more favored lands. It furnishes to them food, fuel, 
and clothing. The seal is the most wary and suspicious cf creatures; to cap- 
ture him demands a patience and dexterity which throws into the shade all the 
exploits of deer-stalkers and lion-hunters. ‘ Nutchook,” for so the Innuits name 
the seal, has good reason for wariness, for his chief enemy, “ Ninoo,” the bear, 


CHARLES FRANUIS HALL AND THE INNUITS. 447 


WAITING BY A SEAL-HOLE, 


against whom he has to keep constant watch, is a keen hunter. The Innu- 
its acknowledge that “ Ninoo” has taught them how to catch “ Nutchook,” 
the common seal, and his big cousin “ Oookgook,” the great seal. Hall, no con- 
temptible sportsman, acknowledges that he was never able to get within rifle- 


448 - THE POLAR WORLD. 


shot of a seal when basking upon the ice; yet Ninoo catches them’ with his 
own paws; and the Innuits, taught by him, come within the distance of a 
spear’s cast. 

The way Ninoo goes to work at seal-hunting upon the ice, according to In- 
nuit accounts, is this: He sees far away upon the ice a black spot, which he 
knows to be a seal resting at the edge of his hole, and taking a succession of 
“cat naps,” hardly ten seconds long, lifting up his head between times, and nar- 
rowly surveying the whole horizon. Ninoo flings himself upon his side, and 
creeps along when the seal’s head is down. The moment the seal’s head is 
raised the bear stops short, and begins “talking” to the seal. The sound 
which he utters is quite distinct from his ordinary voice. The seal is charmed, 
suspects no harm, and down goes his head for another nap.. Forward goes 
Ninoo, and so on for a long time, until he gets within leaping distance; then 
one spring, and it is all over with Nutchook. The Innuits say that if they 
could only talk to Nutchook as cleverly as Ninoo does, they would catch more 
seals. The Innuit imitates Ninoo. 

Hall describes one of these hunts, the main actor being an Innuit named 
Koojesse: “ Koojesse had ‘ talk’ with seals, and it was with great interest that 
I watched him. He lay down on one side, and crawled by hitches or jerks to- 
wards his victim; then as the seal raised its head Koojesse would stop, and 
commenced pawing with his right hand and foot, while he uttered his ‘ seal- 
talk.’ On this the seal would feel a charm, raise and shake its flippers both 
fore and aft, and roll over on its side and back as if perfectly delighted; after 


LOOKING FOR SEALS. 


449 


CHARLES FRANCIS HALL AND THE INNUITS. 


\s 


———— Ah 


INNUIT STRAT 


EGY TO CAPTURE A SEAL. 


which usually occurred every few moments.” 


this it would drop its head to sleep. Then Koojesse would hitch along till the 


seal’s head would pop up again, 


, for the Innuit had approached too near, 


In this particular case the seal escaped 


and had thus broken the charm. 


its capture requires great 


? 


when the seal lives under the ice 


In the winter, 


29 


450 THE POLAR WORLD. 


skill and perseverance. She, for some- 
how the male seal seems now not to be 
noticed, has a breathing-hole through 
the ice, to which she must come now 
and then for air. Upon the surface of 
the solid ice, which is covered with 
snow, the prospective mother constructs | , 
an igloo for her progeny. She scrapes == 
off the snow until she has formed a == 
dome, carrying away the snow down | sl 
through the hole in the ice. Upon the | | 
shelf of ice surrounding the hole the | 
young one is born, and there it is egu- | 
larly visited by the mother. None but 
very keen-scented animals, such as the 
bear, fox, and dog, can discover such ; 
an igloo. The dog sometimes captures 
a seal. Hall describes such an ever?- 
“Kbierbing had one day been out with 
dogs and sledge where the ice was still 
firm, when suddenly a seal was noticed 
ahead. In an instant the dogs were off towards the prey, drawing the sledge 
after them at a marvellous rate. The seal for a moment acted as if frightened, 
and kept on the ice a second or two too long, for just as he plunged, Smile, 
the best seal and bear dog I ever saw, caught him by the tail and flippers. The 
seal struggled violently, and so did 
= Smile ; but in a moment more the oth- 

er lows laid hold, and aided in dragging 
| the seal out of his hole, when Smile 
took it in charge. The prize was se- 
cured wholly by the dogs.” 

Dogs seem to hunt the seal only 
upon their master’s account; but the 
fox and the bear capture him for them- 
selves. How the fox contrives to get 


SEAL-HOLE AND IGLOO. 


the Innuits are to be believed, the way 
the bear goes to work is this: When 
he has scented out the precise position 


— = into a seal igloo we are not told; but 
: arian Tn il = dieses 2s they manage to break open the best 

| 

| 

Vii that they know how to commit bur- 
‘We i glary upon the igloo of a poor seal. If 

un ay | 

| 

7 of an igloo he goes back a little dis- 
tance, so as to get a good run; and 


\ vi 
Wy 0 Be iy my packed provision-cases, we may assume 
"WAITING FOR A BLOW. then, giving a high leap, comes down 


i 


CHARLES FRANCIS HALL AND THE INNUITS. 451 


DOG AND SEAL. 


with all his weight upon the roof of the dome, crushes it in, and with his paw 
seizes the young seal, who was quietly asleep upon the ice-shelf. The cunning 
bear is not always satisfied with the little infant seal, but uses it as a bait to 
catch its mother. Having caught the young one, and holding it fast by the 
hind flippers, the bear scrapes away all the snow, and lets the young seal paddle 
about in the water; its cries draw the mother to the hole, and within reach 
of the bear’s paw, when one grab is given, and the anxious mother is secured. 
At all events the Innuits practise this sort of strategy with the seal, and they 
declare that they have learned it from the bear. 

The bear is to the Innuits the embodiment of all wisdom. They tell sto- 
ries of his sagacity which are hard to believe. Thus they say that when he 
sees a walrus basking upon the ice at the foot of a high cliff, he mounts to the 
summit of the cliff, and picking up a big stone flings 1t down with perfect aim 
upon the head of the walrus and crushes its thick skull. If it should happen 
that the walrus is only stunned, the bear crawls down the cliff, picks up a stone, 
and with it hammers away at the head of the walrus until the skull is broken. 
This story of the Innuits needs confirmation, though Hall seems to credit it. 

The dog is essential to the existence of the Innuits. As they have never 
domesticated the reindeer, without the dog they could not travel from place to 
place, which they are obliged to do in order to follow the migrations of the seal 
and walrus, upon which they mainly subsist. Without him they could never 
find out the holes in the ice through which the seal comes up to breathe in the 
winter. Their doos seem to be much more intelligent and docile than those of 
any other of the Polar tribes. When one is found to be more than usually in- 
telligent he is carefully trained as a seal-dog. When the dog scents a seal- 
hole, which he does though it is covered deep under the snow, he unerringly 
follows the scent to the very spot. 

-The Innuit proceeds to “ prospect” by driving the slender spear through 
the snow until he finds the small opening in the ice which leads to the main 
hole. He then withdraws the spear, taking the utmost care not to disturb the 
snow, and seats himself close by to await the coming of the seal. He watches 
for hours, and sometimes for days, before he hears the welcome “blow.” At 


4 


Cu 


2 THE POLAR WORLD. 


SPEARING THROUGH THE SNOW. 


the second or third puff, he knows that the nose of the seal is at the bottom of 
the breathing-hole, perhaps two yards below the spot where he is standing. 
The spear must be thrust with perfect accuracy ; for an error of a quarter of an 
inch on either side would miss the hole, and the spear-point would strike the 


CHARLES FRANCIS HALL AND THE INNUITS. 453 


solid ice, and the seal would be away in an instant. If the blow is well-aimed 
and at the right instant, it pierces the head of the unseen seal, who instantly 
dives, and runs out the eight or ten fathoms of line which, fastened to the har- 
poon, is tied around the waist of the Innuit. The snow is then dug away, the 
breathing-hole enlarged, so as to permit the seal to be drawn through. 


DOGS AND BEAR. 


The dogs also take special delight in hunting the bear. When a team scent 
a bear it is impossible to restrain them. Once when Hall was on a journey a 
bear with her cub was seen on the ice at the foot of a high mountain. When 
within two hundred yards, the leading dog was cut loose, and he made straight 
for the bear; one by one the others were set free from the sledge, and all were 
in hot pursuit. One dog set upon the cub, and finally separated it from its 
mother; another caught the dam; and both rolled down a precipice, up which 
the bear scrambled again and escaped, for it was so steep that the dogs could 
not follow. All the dogs, eleven in number, now set upon the cub. Hall com- 
ing up, the young brute made at him; he ran it through with his spear. He 
expected that the Innuits would applaud his courage and dexterity ; but they 
shook their heads and said nothing at the time. They soon showed the utmost 
_ determination to leave the neighborhood, and explained by saying that the old 
bear would come back at night, smell the blood of the cub, and become en- 
raged, and. kill them all. The Innuits avoid killing a young bear until they 
have dispatched the old one, for they say that knowing the death of her young 
makes her a hundred times more terrible. Although the liver of the seal is 


454 THE POLAR WORLD. 


BARBEKARK AND THE REINDEER. 


held to be a great delicacy, the Innuits never eat that or the head of the bear ; 
nor, if they can prevent it, will they suffer their dogs to do so. 

The Innuit dogs also sometimes hunt the reindeer. Hall’s dogs one day 
gave chase to a deer, and one of them, Barbekark, sprung at its throat, and bit 
through skin, windpipe, jugular, and tongue, taking out the piece as clearly as 
though it had been cut with a knife. Barbekark was brought to the United 
States by Mr. Hall, and died there. His stuffed skin showed him to be a noble 
beast of unusual size. 

The walrus enters largely into the supplies of the Innuits. They manifest 
much courage and skill in harpooning these ungainly beasts. The hunter goes 
out armed with a lance and a peculiar harpoon made for that purpose. A long 
hide-rope is attached to the 
head of the harpoon, and coil- 
ed around the neck of the 
hunter, who crawls along un- 
til he comes within striking 
distance of the walrus, who 
lies basking upon the ice. The 
walrus dives at once; the hun- 
ter slips the coil off from his 
neck, and fastens the end of it 
to a spear driven into the ice; 
thus tethering the animal. As 
soon as the walrus comes up 
he is dispatched with a long HEAD OF REINDEER. 


CHARLES FRANCIS HALL AND THE INNUITS. 455 


SPEARING THE WALRUS. 


lance. Should the Innuit fail to slip off the coil in time, he would infallibly be 
drawn into the water, and almost certainly lose his life; but as Hall records no 
instance of such a catastrophe, we infer that. these rarely happen. 

The Innuits show remarkable ingenuity in availing themselves of every fa- 


THE POLAR WORLD, 


456 - 


cility afforded by their inhospitable country. 


Of their igloos or snow-houses 


we have already spoken. 


In half an hour a couple of men will build one of 


these, which answers very well for a temporary shelter. 


to be 


A site is 


When one is 
over a running stream, so that they 


taken in the construction. 


more care is 


chosen where the snow is hard—if possible, 


built for a longer residence, 


*SOOTSI LIONNI 


eee: 
—$ SHE 


CHARLES FRANCIS HALL AND THE INNUITS. 457 


<4 
<G Uh 


can obtain water without the la- 
( Va ~ bor of melting the ice. A circle 
i aa is marked out for the ground 
3 | plan. Blocks of snow are cut 
with a large knife or saw. These 
blocks are three feet long, eight- 
een inches wide, and six inches 
thick, shaped rounding, so that 
each block forms the segment of 
a circle of the proposed diameter 
of the igloo. The blocks are slight- 
ly tapered off on the inner side, 
WALRUS SKULL AND TUSKS. and are laid spirally, one man 
building from within, while the 
other brings the blocks from without. The courses grow smaller and smaller 
as the dome rises, until there is only a narrow open circle, into which a block 
of snow is dropped by way of keystone, binding the whole dome firmly together. 
The man within now carefully examines every part, and if there are any open- 
ings left they are stopped up with snow. A hole for a door is then gut; and 
through this are passed the snow-blocks to build the divan, which forms the 
seats and bed. A tunnel-like passage is then dug and covered over. This is so 
low and narrow that one must crawl on all fours to pass through it. The outer 
door of the passage consists of a block of ice or hard snow fitting closely to 
the opening and turning upon a sort of pivot. The usual diameter of a family 
igloo is twelve or sixteen feet, and its height about eight. It will accommodate 
ten or a dozen people. 

When newly built, an igloo is one ot the most beautiful structures conceiv- 
able. The blocks are more transparent than the clearest alabaster and whiter 
than the purest marble, but they soon become defaced by the smoke and the 
filth of all kinds which rapidly accumulates. Apart from the divan, almost the 
only article of furniture is the stone lamp, which serves the purpose both of 
lamp and furnace. It reminds one of an implement common among civilized 
people, and known as an “ Etna.” 

The Innuits show great dexterity in the construction of their implements 
and in the fabrication of their clothing. Their canoes have been the admira- 
tion of every voyager in the Arctic regions, and they are wonderfully dexterous 
in the management of them. Their sledges have the runners made of bits of 
bone ingeniously tied together with the sinews of the deer. When they wish 
them to run very smoothly they shoe them with 
ice, by simply squirting from their mouths a 
thin stream of water upon the runner, where it 
congeals in aninstant. The “oodloo,” or woman’s 
knife, is shaped like our common meat-chopper. 
It is made of bone, merely edged with iron; but 
in the hands of an Innuit woman it takes the 
place of the knife, hatchet, scraper, and shears of THE WOMAN’S KNIFE. 


453 


THE POLAR WORLD. 


Gf” 


si” YY 


ZE= 
YY) 


My 
W/L Lid 


CZ ty 


INNUIT IMPLEMENTS. 


her civilized sisters. The different kinds of spears and harpoons used in -captur- 
ing the seal, walrus, and whale are admirably adapted for their purpose. We 
doubt whether we could improve upon the design, and, with all our facilities in 
the way of material, very much in the way of execution. The Innuits have 
clearly given their whole minds to the fabrication of these weapons. 


| They have 
the bow and arrow, and are quite clever in its employment; but for them it is 


of little use except in the shooting of birds, for a seal or walrus would not even 
feel an arrow shot from the strongest bow. 

Although the Innuits have never domesticated the reindeer, it yet plays a 
great part in their economy. Their clothing and bedding is composed almost 
wholly of deer-skin, which is one of the best non-conductors of heat known. 
Even when the thermometer marks 70 degrees below the freezing-point, they 
never use but one for bedding; and Mr. Hall says that he has slept under a 


CHARLES FRANCIS HALL AND THE INNUITS. 459 


dozen of the best woollen blankets and been almost frozen, while a single slender 
skin kept him abundantly warm. During the summer the deer furnishes a 
great part of the food of the people. The grass and mosses upon which the 
deer live are very abundant. Nowhere, except on the prairies of the West, had 
Hall ever seen such luxuriant pasturage, and the deer in August were so plenti- 
ful that they were killed merely for the sake of their hides and tallow, which is 
a great luxury, fully equal, in Hall’s opinion, to the finest butter. It the Innuits 
would only store up their provisions in the season of plenty, they need never 
suffer from famine; but they never do this, and the consequence is that from 
November till May they are almost always on the verge of starvation, while 
during the rest of the year they revel in plenty. 

As a pendant to Mr. Hall’s account of a seal-feast, we give his description of 
a reindeer-feast. The date is December, the season of scarcity. “ Four months 
before, they had more deer-meat than they could eat—and the quantity that an 
Innuit and his dog can consume is something almost incredible. But one daya 
man came in from a hunting excursion bearing with him a portion of the car- 
casses of two deer, frozen as hard as a rock. A general invitation for a feast 
was of course given out; and the entire population, about thirty in all, rushed 
in. Sampson, the giver of the feast, acted as master of ceremonies. He first 
made the ladies on the bed give away, so as to clear a space whereon he might 
do the carving. Then he placed a huge seal-skin on this spot, by way of table- 
cloth, upon which the frozen carcass was laid. This he began to carve with a 
hatchet. Slabs of its side were chopped and peeled off; chips of ice flew here 
and there into the faces of the guests at each stroke of the axe. As fast as the 
fragments of venison rolled off, other men took the pieces, and by means of a 
saw and seal-knives reduced them to a size adapted for handling. Then Samp- 
son distributed these bits, one to each, till every mill had its grist to grind. 
Thus for half an hour Sampson carved; then his hatchet-handle’broke off close 
up to the head. Another axe was sent for, and meanwhile, with the half of a 
. gaw, the two saddles were divided into the proper number of pieces, ready for 
distribution. The carcass was ther once more attacked, and the shell was 
broken, split, and sawed to pieces. In it was the ‘kernel,’ to which all looked 
with anxious eyes; this was at last divided into as many pieces as there were 
pieces of saddle, and then one of each was given to every guest. I received 
my share with gratitude, and, with a piece in each hand, began eating. I bit 
off a mouthful of the saddle-piece ; it was good. I took a morsel of the other ; 
it was delightful: its flavor was a kind of sorrel acid; it had an ambrosial taste ; 
it fairly melted in my mouth. When nearly through, I had the curiosity to 
crowd my way to a light to see what this delicious frozen food was, for where I 
sat I was shaded by large forms between me and the firelight. I looked at it, 
rolled it over, and looked again. Behold, it was the contents of a reindcer’s 
paunch! On this discovery I stopped feasting for that night.” 

Mr. Hall passes judgment upon various other articles of Innuit food. Seal’s 
blood, smoking hot, is excellent. The skin of the whale, three-quarters of an 
inch thick, looking like India-rubber, even when raw, is good eating ; but when 
boiled and soused in vinegar, is most excellent. The“ gum” of the whale, that 


460 THE POLAR WORLD. 

is, the substance in which whalebone is set, is a special Innuit delicacy; it looks 
like cocoa-nut meat, and tastes like unripe chestnuts. Hall could not fully ap- 
preciate this; but he adds savingly, “If the struggle was for life, and its pres- 
ervation depended upon the act, I would undoubtedly eat whale’s gum until I 
got something better to my liking.” Once a substance which looked like a 
choice bit from a turkey’s breast was handed to him. He thought he had 
stumbled upon a delicacy, but after vainly trying to masticate it for half an 
hour, he found it as solid as when he began. This substance was the ligament 
lying between the vertebra of the whale. He had made a mistake in the way 
of disposing of it. The Innuit mode is to take a huge piece into the mouth, 
lubricate it thoroughly, and then bolt it whole, as the boa-constrictor swallows 
a deer. Hall thinks well of the Innuit practice of eating their meat raw, in a 
sanitary point of view; but he never quite liked it. He never fully came up to. 
the opinion of Mansfield Parkyns, the Abyssinian traveller, who assures us that 
no man knows what a good beef-steak is until he has eaten it raw, before it has 
had time to get cold. 3 : 

The costume of the Innuits is admirably adapted to the climate. The win- 
ter dress, commencing with the feet, is thus composed: Long stockings of rein- 
deer skin, with the hairy side next to the person; socks of eider-duck skin, with 
the feathers on both sides, and of seal-skin with the hair outside; boots, the 
legs of reindeer skin with the hair outside, the soles of seal-skin. The jacket 
is of reindeer skin, fitting rather loosely; those of the women have long tails 
reaching almost to the ground. The ornamentation of the female dress de- 
pends on the means and taste of the wearer. One “very pretty style, ’ men- 
tioned by Mr. Hall, had a fringe of colored beads across the neck, bowls of 
Britannic-metal tea-spoons down the front flap, and a double row of copper 
cents, surmounted by a small bell, down the tail, which was bordered by a 
beading of leaden shot. The jacket has no opening before or behind, but is 
slipped on over the head. The women’s jacket has a hood which serves a 
variety of purposes, among others, that of carrying the children. The breeches 
reach below the knee, and are fastened by a string drawn about the waist. 
Finger-rings and a head-band of bright brass, complete the fashionable cos- 
tume. 

The religious ideas of the Innuits are very vague. They believe that there 
is one Supreme Being who created the earth, sea, and stars; and also a second- 
ary divinity, his daughter, who created all things having life, whether animal 
or vegetable. She is the tutelary deity of the Innuits. They believe in a heav- 
en and a hell, but have no very well defined ideas about them. According to 
Tookoolito, heaven was upward ; it is light there all the time, and there are no 
ice or storms. Hell is downward; no sun there, but storms and snows all the 
while; it is cold, and there is a great deal of ice there. Any one who has been 
killed by accident goes straight to heaven. They have a kind of priests, or 
rather conjurers, called Angekos, whose business is to charm away sickness, 

and secure good hunting-seasons, with an abundance of seals, walrus, and deer, 
und an early disappearance of the ice. When his services are called for, he is 
always, like a wise man, careful to get his pay in advance, and it is generally 


CHARLES FRANCIS HALL AND THE INNUITS. 461 


FINDING THE DEAD. 


understood that the success of his incantations depends greatly upon the 
amount of his fee. 

Upon the whole, the Innuits must be regarded as an amiable and kindly 
people. They are exceedingly tender parents, and not unaffectionate husbands 
and wives. The main exception to their general kindness is their treatment of 
the aged and infirm. When one, especially a woman, is hopelessly sick or in- 
firm, she is not untrequently abandoned. Mr. Hall relates several incidents of 
this kind which came within his own knowledge. In one case the husband, 
when he found that his wife was hopelessly sick of consumption, abandoned 
her, and took another while the poor creature was still alive. The deserted 
woman lingered several weeks, supplied with food by the neighbors. In anoth- 
er case a sick woman, in the depth of winter, was left behind in an igloo, with 
a small quantity of provisions. Hall, learning of this, made an attempt to go 
to her rescue. But in the mean time a heavy snow-storm had come on, and 
the igloo was entirely buried, so that no traces of it could be found. A few 
days after, Hall, accompanied by Ebierbing, made another attempt. The spot 
was finally found, though the snow lay level above the ice-hut, the position of 


462 THE POLAR WORLD. 


which could be ascertained only by exploring with their spears. They broke 
through the roof, and, looking down, saw the woman frozen as solid as a mar- 
ble statue. She had been dead for days, and the indications showed that she 
had perished from cold very soon after being abandoned. There were supplies 
of whale-skin for food, and blubber to keep up the fire, but she was too feeble 
to rise from the bed and replenish the lamp. : 

The Innuits of the present day are a purely nomadic race,roaming from 
place to place, following the seal, walrus, and deer.» But their wanderings ap- 
pear to be confined to the region of the coast, never extending far into the in- 
terior. Their dwellings are therefore constructed for mere temporary occupa- 
tion, being snow-huts (¢g/oos) for winter, and tents (¢vpics) for summer. But 


SAN = a : 


INNUIT SUMMER VILLAGE. 


there are indications in the form of trenches and excavations which show that 
they formerly led a more settled life, and constructed more permanent habita- 
tions. Their numbers have been gradually diminishing ever since they have 
come into contact with the whites. How this comes to pass is a mystery. 
There is nothing to show that the climate has become more rigorous, or that 
the animals which constitute their food have grown scarcer or less easy of cap- 
ture. The Indians of America have been destroyed by the occupation of their 
hunting-grounds, by whisky, and the small-pox, introduced by the whites. The 
natives of the South Sea Islands have been eaten up by nameless diseases, con- 
tracted from their licentious white visitors. There is scarcely a trace of either 
drunkenness or licentiousness among the Innuits. Consumption is the great 


Ke 


“ 


CHARLES FRANCIS HALL AND THE INNUITS. 463 


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destroyer among them; but we can see no reason why this should be more 
prevalent now than it was generations ago. 

It seems that in former times there were chiefs among the Innuits, but at 
the present time there is no trace of any thing like government among them. 
In each community there is usually some one who, from age, personal prowess 


464 THE POLAR WORLD. 


OVER THE ICE. 


as a hunter, or native shrewdness, is looked up to with respect, and his opinions 
are regarded with deference; but he has no sort of authority except that which 
each person voluntarily concedes to him. 

We left Mr. Hall near the close of January, 1861, when he was just return- 
ing to the ship after his first overland expedition. We do not propose to fol- 
low him through the course of his personal narrative, although it abounds with 
striking incidents and details of hardship and peril. Thus, one day in March, 
John Brown, one of the ship’s crew, in company with two Innuits, started off 
from an igloo a few miles distant to rejoin the ship. Somehow he got sepa- 
rated from his companions, but the next morning he had not arrived. The night 
had been intensely cold, the thermometer marking 57 degrees below freezing- 
point. A party of a dozen set off in the attempt to find him. In two hours 
they came upon the tracks of the wanderer, but only Hall and four others 
could hold out; the others, one by one, fell back. They kept on, following the 
tracks, which now began to grow faint, being partly filled up with snow. For 
a time the tracks went straight for the ship; then they began to waver, now in 
one direction, and then in another, showing that the man had lost his way. 
They followed the tracks, in the intense cold, 60 degrees below freezing-point. 
They were tormented by thirst, which they attempted to allay by the use of 
ice. The first fragment which Hall put into his mouth froze it fast. He 
managed to reduce the temperature of the ice by holding the fragments in his 
mittened hand, so that he could place them in his mouth. After six hours, Hall’s 
companions said they could go no farther and must return; for they had 
brought along no snow-knife, with which they could build an igloo for the night ; 
and if a storm should spring up, they must all be inevitably lost. Hall went on 
alone. One of the crew named Johnston soon overtook him, saying, “ Brown 
was my shipmate, and I loved him. I will go on with you. If I were to go 
back now, I shall always regret it.” They followed the tracks, which now be- 
gan to run in circles, interlocking one another. There were twelve of these 


CHARLES FRANCIS HALL AND THE INNUITS. 465 


THE FROZEN SAILOR. 


within less than two miles. Every little while they came upon places where 
the wanderer had lain down to rest. At five o’clock, nine hours after setting 
out, they were overtaken by Captain Buddington, with two sailors and two In- 
nuits, accompanied by a dog-team. They all pressed on with renewed vigor, 
and in a few minutes came upon poor Brown, frozen dead. They could not con- 
vey the corpse to the ship, fully ten miles away, and so buried him in the snow 
upon the spot where he was found. 

It was the middle of July before the ship was released from her icy prison. 
The whalers went to work, and Hall made several important expeditions by 
land and water, living nearly all the while with the Innuits. Towards the 
middle of October the captain began to prepare for returning home. But he 
was a few days too late. The ship was beset in the ice-pack, with no hope of 
escape. There was nothing left but to make up their minds to spend another 
winter in the ice. 

We must pass wholly over the incidents and adventures of this second win- 
ter. It is the old tale of suffering and privation. On the 12th of January the 
thermometer fell to 72 degrees below the freezing point. One of the men who 
had left to visit an Innuit encampment came back, saying that he thought he 
had frozen his toe.\ Upon pulling off his boots both feet were found to be 
frozen stiff, and as hard as ice. The usual attempts to save the members were 
made in vain; mortification began, and, to save the man’s life, the captain was 
obliged to amputate portions of both his feet. 

This year, 1862, the ice held on unusually late; but on the 8th of August it 

30 


466 THE POLAR WORLD. 


was found that the pack had broken up. The way home was apparently open; 
and all hands were summoned on board. The vessel spread her canvas and 
sailed off, the Innuits surrounding her in their canoes, and shouting farewell. 

Tookoolito and Ebierbing resolved to accompany Hall to the States, taking 
with them Tukeliketa (“ Butterfly”), their infant, a year old. The child died a 
few months after their arrival in the States, and lies buried in the graveyard at 
Groton, Connecticut. “I never saw,” says Hall, “a more animated, sweet-tem- 
pered, and engaging child.” For days the mother was delirious; then she 
longed to die, that she might be with her lost Butterfly. Upon his grave were 
laid, according to the custom of his people, all his childish playthings. They 
were sacred to the dead. The mother went to the grave one day, and found 
that one article, a gayly-painted little tin pail, had been taken away. She was 
inconsolable. ‘ Poor little Butterfly,” she said, “how he will miss his beauti- 
ful pail !” 

The homeward voyage was speedy and prosperous. On the 13th of Septem- 
ber the “George Henry” dropped anchor at New London, whence she had 
sailed two years and three and a half months before. 

The net results of Hall’s expedition were these: Many new discoveries were 
made in Arctic geography; much information was gathered in relation to the 
inhabitants ; and experience acquired of immense value to all future Arctic ex- 
plorers. Mr. Hall also made a very interesting discovery in regard to the fate 
of the expedition of Martin Frobisher, undertaken almost three centuries ago. 
He found a tradition among the natives that many years ago white men in ships 
had visited a place still called “ White Man’s Island.” Hall compared these tra- 
ditions with the accounts extant in books respecting this voyage, and was struck 
with their remarkable coincidence. He visited the place designated as the 
white man’s encampment, and found many things which had evidently been left 
by Europeans. Among these was a heap of coal amounting to several tons, a 
large fragment of iron, and some bricks. Every thing was covered over with 
moss whose thick growth showed that they must have remained there undis- 
turbed for ages. 

The bearing of this upon the possibility of revealing the whole mystery of 
the fate of Franklin is evident. If the Innuits have preserved tolerably accu- 
rate traditions of what took place three centuries ago, it is not to be doubted 
that they still have information of what took place within a single generation. 
It is now past hoping that any members of Franklin’s expedition are yet living ; 
but there must be Innuits who can tell how and where they died. 

To further this investigation Hall resolved upon a second expedition. He 
spent nearly two years in preparing his book for publication, and in making prep- 
arations for this enterprise. Abundant facilities were now placed at his dis- 
posal; and on the 30th of July, 1864, he again set sail. In the preface to his 
book, written on board the vessel, he says: 

“TI am persuaded that among the Innuits may be sought, by one competent, 
with every chance of complete success, the sad history of Sir John Franklin’s 
men. To make myself competent for this more interesting and important re- 
search, I patiently acquired the language and familiarized myself with the habits 


CHARLES FRANCIS HALL AND THE INNUITS. 467 


of the Esquimaux. I now return to their country able to speak with them, to 
live among them, to support my life in the same manner that they do theirs; 
to migrate with them from place to place, and to traverse and patiently explore 
all the region in which it is reasonable to suppose Franklin’s crew travelled and 
perished. I shall be accompanied by the two intelligent Esquimaux, Ebierbing 
and Tookoolito, who, having accompanied me on my return from my first 
expedition, and after remaining with me for two years, now go back with me 
on this second voyage. I enter upon this undertaking with the liveliest hope 
of success. I shall not, like previous explorers, set my foot on shore for a few 
days or weeks, or, like others, journey among men whose language to me is 
unintelligible. I shall live for two or three years among the Esquimaux, and 
gain their confidence; and I have the advantage of understanding their lan- 
guage, and of making all my wishes known to them.” 

This second expedition of Hall, instead of the two or three years which he 
had anticipated, occupied more than five years, during a great part of which 
he was shut out from all communication with the world. Up to 1867, he 
wrote as opportunity afforded to his fast friend and warm supporter, Henry 
Grinnell; but his letters gave only faint indications of what he hoped to 
accomplish. He had expected to return in 1868, but in that year no whaling 
vessels came back from the Arctic seas, and he was doomed to another year 
in that region. Late in 1869 he returned, and was received with plaudits not 
less warm than those which had welcomed Kane, fifteen years before. Con- 
gress in a few months passed a bill making adequate appropriations for a 
national expedition to the Arctic regions, to be placed under the direction of 
Hall. On the day following Christmas, 1870, I met Hallin New York. He 
was little changed in appearance from the aspect which he had borne five years 
before, as shown upon page 434 of this volume. He was busily engaged in 
preparations for his new voyage, and was in high spirits. “I have demonstra- 
ted in my own person,” he said, “that white men can live, with no extraor- 
dinary sufferings, for years in the depths of the Arctic regions. I have lived 
there for years, and can teach my associates how to do so. Upon this new 
expedition I shall be amply provided with all means for a thorough explora- 
tion. I shall have with me a scientific observer, a naturalist fully qualified 
to report upon every thing in his department, and an artist and photographer, 
who will be able to depict every thing relating to the Arctic regions. Thus 
abundantly supplied, and aided by my own experience of more than ten years, 
I think that I shall be able to accomplish something worthy of the means 
placed at my disposal.” 

About the time when these pages meet the eye of the reader, Hall will 
have set out on his third expedition. We bid him, by anticipation, “ Hail. 


and farewell.” | 
Livingstone says that he found it easier to perform his African journeys 


than write the account of them. Something like this may be the case with 
Hall; at all events, so fully has he been occupied in fitting out his third expe- 
dition that he has not found time to prepare the narrative of the one which 


468. THE POLAR WORLD. 


he has just completed. But his journals and drawings are preserved, and 
will undoubtedly see the light. Of their value, as they stand, I have means 
of knowing something; and trust that he may return safely, and be able to re- 
vise them for publication. In a few weeks he will have set out on his third 
voyage. From the capacity which he has manifested in two expeditions, occu- 
pying together more than ten years, and from the abundant resources now at 
his disposal, there is every reason to hope that he will be able to solve the 
remaining problems relating to the Arctic regions. If there be, as there is 
good reason to suppose, an open sea surrounding the North Pole; and if that 
sea 1s accessible to man, by land or by water, we can hardly doubt that Hall, 
certainly the first of white men, and most likely first of all men, will make 
his way to it. 

Until such time as he shall have returned from his present voyage, we bid 
him hail and farewell. And also, copying his own last drawing made during 
his first expedition, we bid farewell to the Innuits—that interesting people 
whom he is the first fairly to introduce to the world; since he was the first 
white man who ever lived with them, faring summer and winter as they fared, 


and experiencing with them the pleasures and the sorrows of their hyperbo- 
rean life. 


FAREWELL OF THE INNUITS. 


[Barely two years after the foregoing was written, tidings came of the death of Hall, and the prob- 
able failure of his expedition. In an additional chapter at the close of this volume will be found an ac- 
count, so far as is now known, of this expedition.] 


THE TROPICAL WORLD. - 


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CHAPTER I. 


THE OCEAN AND ATMOSPHERE OF THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


Characteristics of the Polar and Tropical Worlds—Geographical and Climatic Limits of the 
Zones—Distribution of Land and Water—Climatic Importance of the Ocean—Currents of 
the Ocean—The Gulf Stream—Influence of the Gulf Stream upon the Climate of Europe— 
The Sargasso Sea—Columbus and the Gulf Stream—The Pacific and Indian Currents— 
Heat and Force—Relative Positions of Hot and Cold Currents—Currents of the Air—The 
Trade Winds—Atmospheric Currents and Climate—The Calm Belt near the Equator— 
Rainfall of Different Regions—Rainy and Dry Seasons within the Tropics—The Monsoons 
—Winds as Regulators of Rains—Annual Rainfall—Whirlwinds—Their Rotary Motion— 
Tropical Islands—Volcanic Islands—Coralline Islands—Atolls and Reefs—Influence of the 
Ocean upon Life in the Tropical Islands. 


ROM a wide survey of the Polar World, we now turn to the tropical regions, 
where nature assumes aspects of an entirely different character. In the Polar 
World there is a constant struggle between all sorts of life and cold. As we approach 
the poles, cold gains more and more the mastery; life nearly ceases upon the land, 


472 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


and exists mainly in the waters which sweep around the ice-bound shores. In the 
Tropical World, of which we are now to speak, the intense rays of the vertical sun 
call into being an exuberance of animal and vegetable life unknown to other regions. 

Here, in the outset, it is well to define, as nearly as may be done, the geographical 
limits of the zones or belts of the earth, and especially of that with which we are now 
most immediately concerned, which we designate as Tropical, as distinguished from the 
Temperate Zones which lie upon each side of it, and the Polar, which lie on each side 
still farther beyond, to the north and the south. 

As used by geographers, the Tropical Zone includes that belt of the earth’s sur- 
face extending 235° on each side of the equator, bounded on the north by an 
imaginary line called the Tropic of Cancer, on the south by the Tropic of Capricorn. 
These mark the points from which the sun appears to make a turn (Greek rpoms, 
tropé, whence the name) toward the equator, from its utmost declination toward the 
north and south. It is only between these points that the sun ever appears directly 
overhead ; north of these it is always seen to the south, and south of them to the 
north. This forms the Torrid Zone, or belt of extreme heat. But as the prevailing 
forms of vegetable and animal life which characterize this zone extend considerably 
further in both directions, we shall use the word Tropical in a somewhat wider sense, 
and by the Tropical World shall designate all that part of the earth’s surface between 
the equator and the thirtieth parallel of latitude on each side, forming a single belt of 
60° in width. Perhaps the best single characteristic of this zone is, that within it 
alone the various species of the palm tree have their home. 

The Polar World, as we have used the phrase, designates the zones at the north and 
south where the cold is so excessive as to prevent the growth of grains and esculent 
plants suited to the use of man. The parallels of 60°, north and south, are the 
approximate boundaries of these zones, although the actual limit is sometimes_above 
and sometimes below this. Thus in Europe and on the western coast of America, the 
polar limit is as high as 65°; while on the eastern coast of America, as in Labrador, 
it sinks as low as 50°. 

The Temperate Zones comprise the surface of the globe between the parallels of 30° 
and 60° north and south latitude. 

These great climatic divisions shade into each other; but it may be said in general 
terms that each occupies a space of 60° of latitude, as follows : 

The Polar Zones, 90° to 60° north and south. 

The Temperate Zones, 60° to 30° north and south. 

The Tropical Zones from the equator to 30° north and south. 

The whole of Europe, more than nine-tenths of Asia, a narrow strip of Africa, and 
all of North America except Mexico, and a small portion of Texas and Florida, lie 
north of the tropical limit. Patagonia, the bare southern extremity of Africa, half of 
Australia, and the almost unknown land around the southern pole, with a few islands, 
are all the land south of the tropics. The Tropical World comprises Mexico, Central 
America, nearly the whole of South America and Africa, and nearly all the great 
islands of the globe, including the West India Islands, Polynesia, the islands of the 
Indian Ocean, and half of Australia. } | 

The ocean covers three-fourths of the surface of the globe. Of the land, three- 
quarters is in the northern hemisphere, and one-quarter in the southern. The Arctic 


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PROPORTIONS OF LAND AND WATER. 473 


and North Temperate Zones are not very unequally divided between land and water. 
The ocean covers four-fifths of the Tropical Zone, and rolls in an almost unbroken mass 
over the southern temperate and Antarctic regions. This great preponderance of 
water over land between the tropics is one of the most important facts in physical 
geography. Were the proportions reversed, sterility would be the rule all over the 
globe, for without water there can be no vegetable or animal life. All the water that 
wells up in fountains, or flows in brooks and rivers, comes from the ocean, whence it 
is raised by evaporation and borne along the viewless channels of the air to be pre- 
cipitated in the form of rain and snow, sometimes thousands of miles from the spot 
where it commenced its aerial journey. It is computed that nearly 200,000 cubic 
miles of water are annually raised from the ocean in the form of vapor. Three- 
quarters of this is raised within the tropics, and a great part falls beyond them. If 
the extent of the tropical ocean were diminished by half, there is hardly a part of the 
Temperate Zone which would not be parched by perpetual drought, and hardly a river 
whose bed would not become a dry ravine. The hidden springs of the Amazon, 
Mississippi, and the Danube lie in the Pacific. The water which fills the great 
lakes of North America, and thundering down the cataract of Niagara finds its way 
through the St. Lawrence River into the ocean almost on the verge of the polar 
world, only a few weeks before, perhaps, laved the coral reefs of the tropical seas. 

Moreover, if any considerable part of the tropical ocean were converted into land, 
the heat of the Torrid Zone would become so greatly enhanced that no animal life, such 
as now exists, could endure it; and as the vegetation of a climate is adapted to the 
prevailing temperature, the trees and plants which now flourish would become extinct. 
Water in being converted into a gaseous form by the process of evaporation absorbs 
heat from surrounding objects, or, as we say, produces cold. Thus the burning rays 
of a vertical sun pouring down upon the ocean in a measure quench themselves. The 
same rays which falling upon the ocean never raise the water beyond a grateful 
temperature, falling upon the land produce an intolerable heat. To step on a sum- 
mer’s day from the cool water upon the sandy beach is like treading upon a plate of 
heated metal. 

The conformation of the land within the tropics likewise goes far to counterbalance 
or mitigate the excessive heat of a vertical sun. The most casual glance over a map 
shows that the land here is mostly insular, laved on all sides by the surrounding 
waters, or stretches in a narrow length between two oceans, thus eis the 
surface over which the sea is enabled to exert its cooling influence. 

The great extent of the tropical seas is also the primary cause of those mighty ocean 
currents which sweep from the equatorial to the polar regions. Cool as is the water of 
the tropics when compared with the land, it is yet warm when compared with the other 
parts of the ocean. The water thus heated becomes specifically lighter than that 
of colder regions, is lifted up, and, in obedience to the law of gravitation, runs off in 
both directions toward the poles. There having become cooled, the salt waters are 
heavier than the comparatively fresh ones of the polar regions, and, sinking beneath 
them, return in an under current to their starting-place. 

This great equatorial current, or rather series of currents, is the marvel of physical 
geography. Let us follow that of the Atlantic in its long career. Starting on the 
line of the equator, it flows north-westward along the coast of South America, enters the 


474 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, from which it derives the name of the Gulf 
Stream. It passes out through the Straits of Bemini, between Florida and Cuba, a 
great river 32 miles wide, 2,200 feet deep, flowing at the rate of four miles an hour. 
Its volume is a thousand times greater than that of the Amazon or the Mississippi, and 
its banks of cold water are more clearly defined than are those of either of these rivers 
at flood. So clear is the line of demarkation between the warm water of the river 
and its cool liquid banks, that a ship sailing along may be half in one and half in the 
other ; and a bucket of water dipped from one side will be twenty degrees cooler than 
one from the other. Skirting the coast at a distance of about 100 miles, its width is 
increased and its velocity diminished. Striking the projecting banks of Newfound- 
land, its course is deflected almost due east, until it arrives at mid-ocean. Here it 
spreads out like a fan, skirting the shores of Spain, France and Great Britain. It 
then divides, one branch sweeping around the west coast of Iceland, the other 
approaching the shores of Norway, and its sess i influence is perceptible in the 
ameliorated climate of Spitzbergen. 

It is owing to this great ocean river that the temperature of the western shores of 
Europe is so much higher than that of the eastern shore of America in the same lati- 
tudes. Maury estimates that the amount of heat which the Gulf Stream diffuses over 
the northern Atlantic in a winter’s day is sufficient to raise the whole atmosphere 
which covers France and Great Britain from the freezing point to summer heat. The 
olives of Spain, the vines of France, the wheat-fields of England, and the green 
expanse of the Emerald Isle, are the gifts of the tropical seas, dispensed through the 
Gulf Stream. 

Near the Azores another branch of the Gulf Stream encounters the return flow 
from the Arctic Ocean, bends around, and skirting the coast of Africa, returns to its 
starting-place in the Gulf of Guinea, leaving in its great bend near the Azores an 
expanse of almost motionless waters larger than the whole of France. This is known 
as the Sargasso Sea, from the surface being covered with a seaweed called the Sar- 
gassum natans. So thick is the covering of weeds that ata little distance it seems 
solid enough to walk upon. Another curious species of seaweed, the Macrocrystis 
pyrifera, is found in this grassy sea. The stem, not thicker than a man’s finger, is 
from 1,000 to 1,500 feet long, branching upward in filaments like pack-thread. Most 
of these weeds probably grow on the spot; but many are borne along by the Gulf 
Stream, for everything that floats from other parts of the Atlantic tend to its eastern 
side. The discovery of the bodies of strange animals and unknown trees and plants 
flung ashore at the Azores suggested to Columbus the idea that there was land lying 
beyond the western ocean; so that to the Gulf Stream we are indebted for the dis- 
covery of the New World. Bottles have been thrown overboard at various points in 
the Gulf Stream, containing the date and position of the ship. Many of these have 
been picked up. From these it appears that the stream takes eight months to flow 
from the Gulf of Mexico to the shores of Europe, and the broader and slower current 
takes a year to travel from the Bay of Biscay back to the Gulf of Mexico. 

The Gulf Stream, though the best known, and in many respects the most remark- 
able of the great equatorial currents, is by no means the largest. The great current 
of the Pacific and Indian Oceans may be regarded as one mighty stream flowing from 
east to west. It crosses the Pacific in a sheet nearly 3,500 miles broad, spreading 


OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC CURRENTS. 475 


over almost half of the distance from pole to pole. Another great current originates 
in the Indian Ocean, flows into the China Sea through the Straits of Malacca, thence 
into the North Pacific between the coast of Asia and the Philippine Islands; thence 
crosses the ocean to the north-westward, modifying the climate of Oregon and Alaska. 

All the heated water thus poured from the tropical ocean, and all raised from it by 
evaporation and transported through aerial channels to feed the rivers of the temperate 
and polar regions, must find its way back by counter currents. Heat, according to the 
dictum of modern science, may be reduced to force. The force of the sun’s rays 
poured upon the tropical oceans is sufficient to raise thousands of yards into the air 
five hundred cubic miles of water every day, and to put and keep in motion the 
mighty currents which sweep back and forth from the equator to the poles. The 
study of the course, direction, and elevation of these currents has as yet only begun. 
We know that sometimes, as on the eastern coast of America, the currents of warm 
and cold water run side by side in opposite directions ; sometimes a warm current 1s 
on the surface, and sometimes below it. In the Gulf Stream the warm current is 
above, the cold below; while on the coast of Japan a cold current from the Sea of 
Okhotsk runs on the surface, giving rise to a fishery not inferior in magnitude to that 
caused on the banks of Newfoundland by the cold current from Baffin’s Bay. Enough, 
however, is now known of oceanic currents to warrant the assumption that they are 
mainly governed by the great law of gravitation. The lighter water flows upon the 
surface, the heavier flows underneath. But the specific gravity of ocean water depends 
upon two things, the temperature and the amount of salts contained. The heated 
water from the tropics is rendered lighter than that which surrounds it of the same 
saltness, and so floats on the surface; but the cold currents from the poles are less 
saline, and consequently lighter than the tropical waters of the same temperature. 
When these two opposing currents meet there is a struggle; but at length the one 
which is really specifically heavier sinks, while the lighter rises. So facile is the 
movement of fluids among each other, that a difference in gravity which we can hardly 
detect with our nicest instruments may be abundantly sufficient to decide which of two 
opposing currents shall run above and which below. 

The air has currents as well as the ocean, and these have much to do in modifying 
the climate of the Tropical World. MRarified by the intense heat of a vertical sun, the: 
air within the tropics rises in perpendicular columns high above the surface of the 
earth, and thence flows off toward the poles; while, to fill up the void, cold air cur- 
rents come rushing in from the Arctic and Antarctic regions; but the rotation of the 
earth gradually diverts the direction of these cold currents, and changes them into the 
trade winds which regularly blow over the greater part of the tropical ocean from east 
to west, and materially contribute to the health and comfort of the navigator whom 
they waft over the equatorial waters. 

These atmospheric currents in another way still more powerfully influence the 
climate and productions of the Tropical World ; for upon them, in conjunction with 
the character and direction of the great mountain ranges, depends the supply of water 
upon the surface of the globe, and thus determine the fertility or barrenness of the 
soil. It may be laid down asa rule that wherever within the tropics there is an 
abundant supply of moisture, vegetation grows in rank luxuriance ; and wherever this 
is wanting, the land is a desert ; and wherever, as in the anos of Southern America, 


476 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


there is a regular alternation of long periods of rain and drought, there is at different 
seasons a wonderful interchange between apparent desolation and a profusion of vege- 
table and animal life. The aspects of these regions will be more fully described 
hereafter. | 

The great mountain ranges run mainly north and south. The great atmospheric 
currents at the surface of the earth in tropical regions blow mainly from east to west. 
The moisture in these winds is condensed when they strike the cold mountains, and 
descends in the form of rain or snow. Hence, in general, the eastern’ sides of tropical 
mountains are better watered than the western slopes. 

We have spoken of the trade winds as extending over the whole breadth of the 
Tropical World. But to this there is a notable exception. Near the equator, but a 
little to the north of it, the two currents from the Arctic and Antarctic regions meet 
and neutralize each other, producing a belt of calms, which sailors call the ‘ Dol- 
drums,’’ of about six degrees in breadth. Here it rains almost every day during the 
year, for the ascending currents of heated air loaded with moisture become suddenly 
cooled in the higher regions, and are forced to give up the water which they have 
lifted from the ocean. ‘Towards noon dense clouds form in the sky, and dissolve in 
torrents of rain. Towards evening the vapors disperse, and the sun sets in a cloudless 
horizon. The quantity of rain which here falls during the year is enormous. In the 
United States the annual rainfall is from 25 to 70 inches; in Europe from 15 to 104; 
in the Atlantic doldrums it reaches 225. So copious is the rainfall at times that fresh 
water has been dipped up from the surface of the tropical seas. 

Proceeding north or south from the belt of calms, we come to a region characterized 
by two rainy and two dry seasons. The rainy seasons take place while the sun is 
passing the zenith, and more or less neutralizing the influence of the trade winds. In 
Jamaica, for example, the first rainy season begins in April, the second in October; 
the first dry season in June, the second in December. Towards. the verge of the 
tropics follow the zones characterized by a single rainy and a single dry season; the 
rains lasting from the vernal to the autumnal equinox. | 
_ The two rainy seasons which characterize the middle zone between each tropic and 
the equator have a tendency to merge into one rainy season of six months’ duration on 
advancing toward the tropics, and into a perpetual rainy season on approaching the 
equator. As the sun goes north or south he opens the flood-gates of the heavens, and 
closes them behind him as he passes to the other hemisphere; while he keeps them 
continually open where he is always vertical. But this general state of things, which 
would be the normal condition of the tropical regions if their surface was an unbroken 
sheet of water, and no disturbing forces existed, is liable to great modifications. 
Thus in the monsoon region, extending from the eastern coast of Africa to the northern 
part of Australia, and from the tropic of Capricorn to the Himalayas and China, it is 
not the sun directly, but the winds that regulate the periodical rains. Thus in India 
and the Malayan peninsula the western coasts are watered during the south-west mon- 
soon, which prevails from April to October; and the eastern coasts during the north- 
east monsoon, from October to April. For example, the south-west wind condenses 
its vapor on the western side of the Ghauts, the north-east on the eastern, so that 
violent rains fall daily on the coast of Coromandel, while it is the reverse on .that of 
Malabar, and vice versa. In the southern hemisphere the rainy season corresponds with 


RAINS AND HURRICANES. 477 


the north-western monsoon, the dry season with the south-eastern. In South Africa 
and Australia winter is the rainy season. In South America, in the same latitudes, 
summer is the rainy season on the eastern side of the Cordilleras, and winter on the 
western side. 

At sea, it rains almost daily within the calm belt, rarely within that of the trade 
winds. On the land within the tropics the rainfall is in many regions enormous. 
The average annual fall in the most favored parts of the temperate zone is about 40 
inches ; in the tropics it exceeds 100. In some portions it is vastly greater. On the 
western Ghauts the mean annual quantity is 800 inches. On the Himalayas, Mr. 
Yule measured 264 inches in the single month of August, of which 150 inches fell in 
five successive days. Hooker and Thomson measured here 500 inches in seven 
months; and during a terrific shower 30 inches fell in four hours, and Castlenau 
measured the same quantity during a single storm on the Amazon. 

Tornados and hurricanes rage in the Tropical World with a frequency, extent and 
violence unknown in other climates. They sometimes move with a direct velocity of 
45 miles an hour; but the violence and destructiveness of a whirlwind depend less 
upon the velocity with which the whole storm moves than upon the speed with which 
the wind whirls around and in upon the center. The great Bahama hurricane of 1866 
moved forward at the rate of 30 miles an hour; but the velocity of its whirling motion 
was from 80 to 100, and for short intervals from 100 to 120 miles an hour. The 
diameter of the great storms of the tropical Atlantic is often from 600 to 1,000 miles ; 
those of the Indian Ocean 1,000 to 1,500. These, however, move but slowly. The 
smaller storms are usually more rapid than the larger ones. 

The revolving motion accounts for the sudden and violent changes observed during 
hurricanes. In consequence of this rotation, the wind blows in opposite directions on 
each side of the axis of the storm; the violence. increases from the circumference 
inward ; but at the center the air is in repose. Hence, when the body of the storm 
passes over a place, the wind begins to blow moderately, and increases to a hurricane 
as the center of the whirlwind approaches; then in a moment a dead calm succeeds, 
suddenly followed by a renewal of. the storm in all its violence, but now blowing in a 
direction opposite to that which it had before. From this rotary motion it follows that 
the direction of the wind at any moment is no indication of the direction which the 
body of the storm is pursuing. The progressive motion may continue for days in one 
direction, while the wind accomplishes many gyrations from every point of the compass. 
During a part of the course of a storm the wind blows in just the opposite direction 
from that which the hurricane is taking, just as when a carriage-wheel, and every 
point of its circumference, is really moving forward, during a part of each revolution 
any point in the circumference is at the same time moving back with a still greater 
velocity. | 

We have already referred to the insular character of a considerable portion of the 
Tropical World. Nine-tenths of the islands which dot the ocean lie within the tropics. 
These islands are divided into two great classes. The one class is of volcanic origin, 
upheaved from the depths of the ocean; or, rather, they are peaks of lofty mountains 
whose sides and base lie deep in the water. There are two opposite theories to 
account for the existence and present appearance of these islands. According to one 


theory, a continent once occupied a large part of the Pacific Ocean within the tropics, 
ol 


478 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


a great portion of which has sunk beneath the waters, and these islands are but the 
peaks and table-lands of that lost continent. The other theory is that these islands 
have been for unknown ages, and now are, slowly being lifted up from the depths 
below. Both theories rest upon so wide an induction of facts that both must be 
accepted as true; or rather as parts of the one great truth, that the crust of the earth 
which we are wont to consider so firm and stable is now, as it always has been, rising 
and falling, as truly as the surface of the water rises and falls by the attraction of the 
sun and moon; only that these periodic changes are measured by ages instead of by 
hours. Who shall say that in the higher knowledge which we shall gain during the 
ages of the future we may not attain to the understanding that the rise and sinking of con- 
tinents is like that of the tides governed by law, and that we may not be able to express 
in figures, which will then be quite finite to us, though now seeming infinite, the 
years that have elapsed since when “in the beginning heaven and earth rose out of 
chaos ?”” 

Volcanic islands are found in all oceans. Iceland has its Heckla, Sicily its Etna, 
Hawaii its Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, Niphon its Fusiyama. From Sumatra, Java, 
and Sumbawa, Ternate and Tidore, Borneo, Celebes, and Gilolo, close by the equator, 
thence northward and north-westward to the Kurile Islands, hard by the frozen coast 
of Kamchatka, is one great belt of volcanic islands, spreading out like a fan through 
Polynesia. But in the tropical seas, and there alone, are coralline islands, built up, 
grain by grain, by minute living beings. 

The simplest form of these coral islands is a ring enclosing a portion of the ocean. 
Sometimes this ring is barely two miles in diameter; sometimes it reaches a hundred 
miles, rising only a half-score of feet above the level of the water, and owing to the 
convexity of the surface of the ocean invisible from the deck of a ship at a distance of 
a mile or two, unless they happen to be covered with tall palms or pandanus. The 
roar of the surf dashing upon their windward side is often heard long before the island 
itself comes into view. On the outer side this ring, or atoll, slopes gradually for a 
hundred yards or more, to a depth of twenty-five fathoms, and then plunges sheer 
down into the waters with a descent more rapid than the cone of any volcano. Ata 
distance of five hundred yards no bottom has been reached with a sounding line of a 
mile and a half in length. All below the surface of the water to the depth of 100 
feet is alive, all above and below this section dead, for the coral insect can live only 
within this range. 

These atolls assume every form and condition. Sometimes they are solitary specks 
in the waste of waters. Oftener they occur in groups. The Caroline Archipelago 
has sixty groups extending over a space of a thousand square miles. Sometimes a 
group of atolls becomes partially joined into one, the irregular ring encircling an 
island-studded lagoon, with openings through which a ship may enter. Sometimes 
these coral formations take the form of long reefs bordering an extensive coast. Such 
a reef runs parallel to the coast of Malabar for nearly five hundred miles. It consists 
of a series of atolls arranged in a double row, separated by a sea whose depths no line 
has sounded ; yet from outer to inner edge of the double row is a space of but fifty 
miles. Such a broken coral reef often girdles a volcanic island. Tahiti, the largest 
of the Society group, is a fine example of this kind. The island rises in mountains 
7,000 feet high, with only a narrow plain along the shore. The lagoon which encom- 


TROPICAL ISLANDS. 479 


passes it like a great moat is thirty fathoms deep, and is shut out from the ocean by a 
coral band at a distance of from half a mile to three miles. 

But there are coral reefs of far greater magnitude. The grandest is that extending 
along the north-east coast of Australia. Rising from an unfathomed ocean, it extends 
for a thousand miles along the coast, with a breadth of from two hundred yards to a 
mile, and at an average distance of twenty or thirty miles, though sometimes double 
that space. This long, narrow lagoon is never less than ten fathoms deep, and often 
six times as much, so that the “ Great Eastern,” the hugest vessel that ever floated, if 
it once passed through one of the openings in the reef, might sail as though in a tran- 
auil harbor for a thousand miles in sight of land on either side, without its keel for an 
instant reaching half way to the bottom. 

The direct influence of the ocean upon the islands of the Tropical World is great in 
every respect. It gives an almost temperate climate to low lands lying under the 
equator, and thus modifies their fauna and flora, in accordance with known laws of 
nature. But the ocean and air in their currents also determine the vegetable, animal, 
and human life of the islands of the Tropical World in an accidental manner. 

Time was when the volcanic islands of the tropics were masses of naked rock, the 
coralline islands patches of barren sand. The elements disintegrated the surface of 
the rock and ground the coral into soil. Some day a fruit, perhaps a cocoa or bread- 
fruit, drifted along by currents, touched the island, or a bird swept far out to sea 
having in its crop an undigested seed, rested its weary wing upon solid land. The 
chance-planted fruit or seed took root, and grew, and produced its kind, and in time 
the waste island was clothed with verdure. Other birds found a home in the new 
forests, built their nests, and raised their young, so that the islands became populous 
with the winged tribes. Animals, of course, could only rarely cross the waste of 
waters. Hence the comparative paucity of this form of life in islands remote from 
the main land. Swine were almost the only quadrupeds which the early European 
navigators found in Polynesia; and they were doubtless brought there by human 
means. Mankind reached the islands in a like accidental manner. Perhaps a canoe 
from the Malayan shores drifted upon the Fiji Islands, and its rowers became the 
progenitors of the black cannibals; or a junk from China or Japan was cast away 
upon Tahiti or Hawaii. These wanderers, cut off from intercourse with the rest of 
the world, developed their barbarism or semi-civilization in their own way, under the 
influence of altered conditions, climate and productions. The story of the “ Bounty,”’ 
and the first settlement of Pitcairn’s Island, too well known to require more than a 
passing allusion, shows that such a canoe or junk voyage is altogether possible, and 
how widely in the course of a single generation a group of isolated individuals devi- 
ate from their original stock. 


480 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


CHAPTER II. 
TABLE-LANDS AND PLATEAUS OF THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


Influence of Elevation upon Climate.—7The Puna of Peru: Squier’s Description of the Fana— 
The Soroche or Veta—View from La Portada—Effects of the Soroche—The Sarumpe 
—The Veruga Water—Effects of the Veta on Animals—Vegetation of the Puna—The 
Llama—The Huanacu—The Alpaca—The Vicuna—Hunting the Vicuna—The Hunts of 
the Ancient Incas—Enemies of the Vicuna—Other Native Animals—The Ox, Horse, 
Mule and Sheep—Waterfowl—Warm Valleys—Rapid Change of Climate According to 
Elevation.—Lake Titicaca: The Sacred Island of Titicaca—Manco Capac, the First Inca— 
His Journey from Lake Titicaca to Cuzco—Fact and Myth respecting Manco Capac— 
Extent of the Inca Empire—Inca Civilization originated in the Puna, near Lake Titicaca 
—The Sacred Rock on the Island—Ruins and Relics on the Island—The Hacienda on the 
Island—The Eve of St. John—The Bath of the Incas—Other Sacred Islands—Ruins at 
Tihuanico—Some more ancient than the Incas—Immense Monolithic Gateways and Hewn 
Stones—Inca Civilization—The Great Military Roads—System of Posts and Post-Sta- 
tions.— The Valley of Quito: Approach to the Valley from the Pacific Coast—A Tropical 
Region—Climbing the Cordillera—Scenes by the Way—Quito—Climate of the Valley— 
Astronomical Site—Trees, Fruits, Vegetables, and Flowers—Animals—Birds—lInsects, 
Reptiles, and Fish—The Population of the Valley—Indians—Half-Breeds—W hites— 
Courtesy of the People—A Polite Message—Scenery of the Valley—Volcanoes—Imba- 
bura—Destruction of Otovalo—Cayamba—Guamani—Antisana—Sincholagua—Cotopaxi 
—The Inca’s Head—Tunguragua—Altar—Sangai—Its perpetual Eruption—Chimborazo— 
Caraguarizo—Illinza—Corazon—Pichincha—Its immense Crater—Descent into the Crater 
—Eruptions of Pichincha.—The Table-Land of Bogoté: Voyage up the Magdalena—Ascent 
to the Plateau—Bogotd and the Bogotdnos—Traveling at Bogoté.—Table-Land of Mexico: 
Its Extent—The Tierra Calienta—The Tierra Templada—The Tierra Fria—The Valley 
of Anahuac—The Volcanoes of Orizaba, Popocatapetl, Iztacihuatl, and Toluca.— The Sik- 
kim Slope: Approach and Ascent—Dorjiling—The Sikkim Peaks—Altitude of Kinchin- 
junga—Flight of the Condor. 


7 , YITHIN the geographical limits of the Tropical World is found every variety 
of climate upon the globe. ‘here are great mountain ranges which even at 
the equator rise above the limits of perpetual snow. Their summits, untrodden by 
man and unvisited by any other form of animal life, must be more desolate than the 
extremest polar regions to which explorers have been able to penetrate. Of living 
creatures the strong-winged condor only has reached so high. Then, below these, 
yet rising far jnto the air, are broad plateaus whose desolate character reminds one of 
the tundras of Siberia and the wastes stretching across the American continent from 
Hudson’s Bay to Behring’s Straits. 
One of the most notable of these lofty tropical plateaus is that extending between 
the parallel mountain chains of the Cordilleras in South America. It is known as the 
Puna or Altos.of Peru. In the popular language of the region a part of it is called 


THE PUNA OF PERU. 481 


the Despoblado, or ‘*‘ Uninhabited.”” It extends through a great part of the length 
of Peru and Bolivia, at a hight of from ten to fourteen thousand feet above the level 
of the sea. ‘‘It is,” says Squier, “that cold and rugged region which forms the 
broad summit of the Cordillera. It has the aspect of an irregular plain, and is diver- 


THE PUNA OF PERU. 


sified with mountain ridges and snowy volcanic peaks, imposing in their proportions, 
notwithstanding that they rise from a level of 14,000 feet above the sea.”’ Squier, in 
a few graphic sentences, describes the varying aspects of nature as one climbs up the 
ascent of the Puna: “ Pacla is a poor but picturesque little village, with a small, white 
church gleaming out against the dull brown of the bare mountain side. It is 9,700 
feet above the sea. There were some scant fields of maize and lucern around it, and 
the lower slopes of the mountains were thinly sprinkled with stems of the columnar 
eactus.”’ Still ascending, ‘‘our mules began to pant under the influence of the 
soroche or rarification of the air, but which the drivers insisted was from the veta, or 
influence due to the vetas or veins of metal in the earth. At La Portada, 12,600 feet 
above the level of the sea, and 1,000 feet higher than the Hospice of the Grand St. 
Bernard, I witnessed a scene more wild and desolate than I have beheld in crossing 
the Alps by the routes of the Simplon, the Grand St. Bernard, or the St. Gothard. 
There is neither tree nor shrub ; the frosty soil cherishes no grass, and the very lichens 
find scant hold on the bare rocks. The aguardiente, or native rum, which I had pur- 
chased for making a fire for preparing my coffee, refused to burn, and extinguished 
the lighted match thrust into it, as if it were water. I was obliged to abstract some 


482 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


refined alcohol from my photographic stores to supply its place.” At the pass of 
Guaylillos, 14,750 feet above the level of the sea, ‘‘one of our companions fell from 
his saddle under the effects of the soroche. On lifting him from the ground we found 
him nearly senseless, with blood trickling from his mouth, ears, nostrils, and the 
corners of his eyes. Copious vomitings followed, and we administered the usual 
restoratives with good effect. In doing this I drew off my gloves, and was surprised 
to find my hands swollen and covered can blood, which appeared as if it had ound 
from a thousand minute punctures.”’ 

Other travelers give similar accounts of the climate of the Puna Cold winda 
from the icy Cordilleras, whose summits often rise 8,000 feet above the plateau, sweep 
over their surface, and during eight months of the year they are daily visited by fear- 
ful storms. In a few hours the change of the temperature often amounts to forty or 
fifty degrees, and the sudden fall is rendered still more disagreeable to the traveler by 
the biting winds which irritate the hands and face. The lips suffer especially, break- 
ing out into deep rents which heal with difficulty. The eyes also suffer intensely. 
The rapid changes from a cloudy sky to the brilliancy of a snow-field, glistening in 
the sun, produces an affection which the natives call the sarwmpe. So intolerable is 
the burning and stinging that even the stoical Indian, when attacked, will fling him- 
self on the ground uttering cries of anguish and despair. Chronic ophthalmia, sup- 
puration of the eyelids, and total blindness, are frequent consequences of the sarumpe, 
against which the traveler over the highlands endeavors to guard himself by wearing 
green spectacles or a dark veil. 

The first symptoms of the veta or soroche usually appear at an elevation of some 
12,000 feet above the level of the sea. They frequently manifest themselves in those 
who ride, but are greatly ageravated when the traveler ascends on foot. The giddiness 
and nausea are accompanied with an insupportable sense of lassitude, difficulty of 
breathing, and violent palpitation of the heart, followed by spitting of blood and a 
bloody diarrhoea. This last affliction is, however, to a considerable extent occasioned 
by the noxious character of the water. ‘‘ All the water of the Despoblado,’’ says 
Squier, ‘‘even that which does not display any evidence of foreign or mineral sub- 
stances in solution, is more or less purgative, and often productive of very bad effects. 
In many parts the thirsty traveler discovers springs as bright and limpid as those of 
our New England hills; yet when he dismounts to drink, his muleteer will rush for- 
ward in affright, with the warning cry, ‘ Beware, es agua de Veruga!’ The Veruga 
water is said to produce a terrible disease called by the same name, which manifests 
itself outwardly in both men and animals in great bleeding boils and carbuncles, 
- which occasion much distress, and often result in death.”’ 

The veta shows itself also in animals unaccustomed to mountain traveling. They 
proceed more and more slowly, frequently stop, trembling all over, and fall to the 
ground. If not allowed to rest they inevitably die. The natives are accustomed to 
slit the nostrils of their mules and horses in order to allow a greater influx of air. 
Mules and asses are less affected by the veta than horses’; but it is fatal to cats, who 
are unable to live at the hight of more than 13,000 feet. 

Another consequence of the diminished pressure of the air is that water boils at so 
low a temperature that meat, vegetables and eggs can not be boiled sufficiently to be 
edible, and whoever wishes a warm meal in the Puna must have it baked or roasted. 


THE LLAMA, ALPACA, AND VICUNA. 483 


Agriculture is of course confined within the narrowest limits. In some parts barley 
will grow; but it never ripens, and is cut green for forage. The only cultivated vege- 
table is the mata, the tuberous roots of which resemble the potato, and form a great 
part of the food of the inhabitants. It grows best at an elevation of more than 12,000 
feet. Vegetation is scanty. Here and there is a solitary dwarfed quinua, or wild 
olive, or patch covered with reddish-brown ratania shrubs, which, with the droppings 
of the llamas and vicunas, constitute the sole fuel of the region. The whole land- 
scape presents a scene of bare rock, or of steppe-like expanses covered with dun 
meagre herbage. The profusion of flowers which appear in many Alpine regions is 
here utterly wanting. 

The animal kingdom is more amply represented on this bleak table-land. But its 
native members are almost wholly confined to the camelida family, of which there are 
four well-marked species,—the llama, the alpaca, the vicufia, and the huanacu,—who 
find nourishment in the grassy patches. Before the advent of the Europeans these 
llamas constituted the only beasts of burden, and even now they are largely employed 
for that purpose. To the ancient Peruvians they were what the camel is to the Arabs. 
Their flesh and milk served as food, their skins for a mantle, and from their wool a 
coarse cloth was manufactured ; and they formed the only means except human labor 
of transporting burdens from one place to another. Even now, when to a great extent 
superseded by the stronger horse and mule, there are regions where they are indis- 
pensable. The silver mines are often approached only by precipices so abrupt that 
even the hoof of the sure-footed mule would find no foot-hold. The ordinary load of a 
llama is a hundred pounds; but as they never feed after sunset, they must be allowed 
to graze on the way, so that they can travel only ten or fifteen miles a day. The 
llama is the only animal ever domesticated by the aborigines of America. 

The llama is about the size of the deer, but bears a strong resemblance to the camel, 
having the same formation of toes and stomach, and the same callosities upon the 
breast and knees, but the unsightly hump is wanting. The microscope reveals that 
the resemblance extends even to the globules of the blood, which are elliptical in the 
camelides and some species of deer, but circular in all other quadrupeds. 

The huanacu was long supposed to be only the wild variety of the llama; but 
naturalists now point out specific differences. The huanacu is larger; its wool is 
shorter and coarser ; it presents no variety of color. They are very shy, and live in 
small troops of from five to seven. When caught young they may be tamed, but 
still show traces of their wild nature, and can hardly ever be trained to carry burdens. 

The alpaca is smaller than the llama, and bears some resemblance to the sheep; but 
its neck is longer, and it has a more elegantly formed head. Its wool is long, fine, 
of a silky lustre, varying in color from almost white to black. The wool is especially 
valuable since it can be woven with common wool, silk, or cotton, and within a few 
years has become an article of considerable commercial value. Attempts, none of 
which have as yet proved successful, have been made to introduce the alpaca into 
other countries. They are kept in large herds grazing all the year round upon the 
bleak table-lands, and are only driven-to the pens to be shorn. 

The vicufia is of a more graceful shape than the llama; its wool is shorter and 
more curly, and of such extreme fineness as to be very valuable. It inhabits the 
most secluded valleys, and during the rainy season climbs far up the sides of the Cor 


484 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


dilleras, but never ventures upon the bare summits, for its hoofs are tender. The cry 
— of the vicufia is a shrill whistle, so loud that it may be heard ata long distance. Like 
the camel and llama, it has the habit of spitefully ejecting a mass of saliva and half- 
digested food in the face of those who come within reach. In the case of the vicufia 
this is peculiarly offensive, has a disgusting smell, and stains the skin of a dark green 
color, which can be effaced only with difficulty. 

The annual hunt of the vicufia, which takes place in April or May, is the great 
event in life of the Indians of the Puna. They collect in bands from all the villages, 
bearing bundles of poles and ropes, and set out for the lofty summits whither the 
animals have retired. With the poles and ropes a circular enclosure, called a chacu, 
is formed, often several hundred paces wide. The hunters form a ring, sometimes 
miles in circumference, and gradually drive the animals into the chacu. The vicufias 
are shy and do not venture to leap over the cords, and are easily dispatched by the 
hunters. If, however, a huanacu happens to be driven into the enclosure, he bounds 
over the cord, and is followed by the herd of vicufias in a mass, just as a flock of 
sheep will follow a leader. The flesh of the vicufia is rank and unsavory. Squier 
says that it is just preferable as an alternative to starvation. But when it has been 
dried and pounded, and disguised by an abundance of the hot red pepper, its taste is 
not altogether unpleasant to one who has learned to like that fiery condiment. 

The number caught in one of these hunts is often considerable. At one in which 
Von Tschudi took part there were 122 killed, and the produce of their skins was 
appropriated to building a new altar in the village church. In the times of the Incas 
the vicufia chase in the Puna was conducted upon a far more magnificent scale. 
Every year a great hunt was held. Twenty-five or thirty thousand of the Indians 
were assembled, who drove all the animals within a circuit of many leagues into an 
enormous enclosure. As the circle narrowed, the lines of the hunters were doubled 
and trebled. All the pernicious animals were killed, but only a limited number of 
the deer, huanacus, and vicuifias, for those wise rulers were too provident to take the 
lives of these creatures merely for sport. The battue, apart from the destruction 
of noxious animals, was rather a royal spectacle than a hunt. 

Excepting man, the vicufia has few enemies capable of penetrating its lofty strong- 
holds. A sneaking puma now and then creeps up from the regions below; or a condor 
swoops down from above and pounces upon the young. But the numbers of the 
- vicunas has undergone no diminution from age to age. Now, however, that their wool 
has become an article of commerce, we may anticipate their gradual extermination ; 
for, unlike the alpacas, they are incapable of domestication, and man the arch-destroyer 
wages fatal war upon all animals which he can not domesticate. Their only alternative 
is death or subjection. 

Several animals of the deer tribe are also indigenous to the Puna. Among these is 
the stag-like tarush, whose horns consist of but two branches. The half wild Puna 
dogs are especially annoying to the traveler, for they have a peculiar antipathy to the 
white race; and it is often dangerous for a European to approach an Indian hut 
guarded by these spiteful creatures, who, like the bull-dog, do not hesitate to attack 
enemies far stronger than themselves. The bisacha, allied to the chinchilla, which it 
resembles in the quality of its fur, is often seen perched in front of its burrow, to 
which it retreats on the approach of danger. 


THE SACRED LAKE TITICACA. 485 


To the aboriginal animals of the Puna have been added, since the Spanish conquest, 
the ox, the horse, the mule, and the sheep. These do not inhabit the bleak Despo- 
blado, though the horse and the mule, under the guidance of man, traverse as beasts 
of burden its bleakest wastes and most rugged passes. The herds of oxen and sheep 
are, during the wet season, driven far up into the Altos, often to the hight of 15,000 
feet ; but when the cold frosty nights of the dry season arrive, they are driven down 
to the valleys which furrow the table-land. Here there are haciendas, or estates, the 
owners of which possess 60,000 sheep and 500 cows. These herds seldom see the 
face of man, and have relapsed into a half savage state, rendering traveling dangerous 
in many parts of the Puna. Von Tschudi, whose journeyings in this region are more 
extensive than those of any other European, was more than once compelled to save his 
life from the attacks of a wild bull by a well-aimed shot from his rifle. 

The frequent showers and snow-falls of the Puna give rise to numerous swamps and 
lagoons which afford nourishment to an abundance of birds. There is the huacha 
goose, with a snow-white body and dark green wings shining with metallic lustre ; the 
licli, a species of plover; the long-legged ibis and flamingo; and the gigantic coot, 
which, unable to fly in the air, dives in the cold waters, and builds its nest on the 
bare stones which rise above the surface. 

The frosts of winter and a perpetual spring are nowhere found in closer proximity 
than in these Peruvian highlands; for deep valleys furrow the windy Puna, and when 
the traveler, benumbed by the cold blasts of the mountain plains, descends into these 
sheltered gorges, he finds himself transported almost at once from the rigors of a polar 
climate to a terrestrial paradise. They are so high that the rays of the tropical sun 
are not felt; and protected by their abrupt rocky walls from the keen blasts of the 
mountains, these pleasant valleys enjoy all the advantages of a mild and genial sky. 
Rich corn-fields and green lucerne meadows would almost persuade the European 
iraveler that he had been by magic transported to his own home, were it not that the 
sight of agaves and cactuses upon the rocky sides by day, and new constellations by 
night, remind him that he is in another hemisphere. There are regions here where 
the traveler may in the morning leave the snow-covered Puna hut in which he has 
shivered over night, and before sunset pluck pine-apples and bananas on the cultivated 
margin of a tropical forest, and repose under the feathery leaves of gigantic palms. 

But in this vast highland region there is nothing which possesses so deep a human 
interest as Lake Titicaca, for in it is embosomed the sacred island, to which the Incas 
traced their origin, and which to this day is to their descendants all that Jerusalem 
and Mecca are to Hebrews, Christians, and Mohammedans. The lake lies at an 
elevation of 12,864 feet above the sea, less than 3,000 feet lower than the summit of 
Mont Blanc, and higher than any point in Europe except the ten loftiest peaks of the 
Alps. It is 120 miles long and 50 or 60 wide. It never freezes over, though ice 
forms near its shores. It exercises a very important influence on the climate of the 
cold and desolate region in which it is situated, for during the winter months the tem- 
perature of the waters is ten or twelve degrees above tkat of the atmosphere. Wherever 
the shores are low they afford pasturage for herds of cattle; and multitudes of water- 
fowl find shelter among the reeds and rushes. On the little islands barley, peas and 
maize ripen, although they are not prolific. 

The largest of the islands is the sacred Island of Titicaca, bold, bare, and rocky, 


486 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


six miles long and three or four wide. Here, according to tradition, Manco Capac, 
and Mama Oella, at ouce his sister and wife, both children of the sun and commissioned 
by that luminary, started on their errand to civilize the barbarous tribes that occupied 
the country. Manco Capac was directed to travel northward until he reached a spot 
where his golden staff shouid sink into the ground of its own accord; and there he 
was to fix the seat of his empire. He traveled slowly along the western shore of the 
lake, through the broad bleak Puna lands, crossing the water-shed which separates the 
streams which find their outlet through the La Plata from those which form the mighty 
Amazon, whose mouths lie 2,500 miles apart in a straight line. Striking the river 
Vilcanota, an affluent of the Ucayali, one of the main branches of the Amazon, he 
descended its valley, until, after a journey of three hundred miles, his golden staff 
sank into the ground upon the spot where the city of Cuzco now stands. Here he 
fixed his seat, and here arose the City of the Sun, the capital of the Inca empire, which 
in time spread over a length of 37° of latitude, and in breadth from the eastern base 
of the Andes westward to where the Pacific beats against the deeply planted feet of 
the Cordillera. 

So runs the legend; but there is much mythical matter incorporated into the tra- 
ditions respecting Manco Capac. We find this counterpart in the Fohi of the Chinese, 
the Buddha of the Hindus, the Osiris of Egypt, the Odin of Scandinavia, the Jatza. 
coal of Mexico, the Votan of Central America. Still there can be no doubt that he 
is a real historical character, to whom, however, have been attributed many of the 
achievements of those who preceded him, and perhaps of some who followed him. 
The time when he lived is altogether uncertain. Some, studying the guippus or 
knotted cords, which are the only records of ancient Peruvian history, place his advent 
back to within five centuries after the deluge. But the best authorities give the date 
approximately at about four centuries before the arrival of the Spaniards under Pizarro, 
or about 1000 A. D., the period when all Christendom was hurling itself in the 
crusades upon the Holy Land. 

The rule of Manco Capac was at first limited to the region close by Cuzco; but 
under his successors the Inca dominion, by alliances and conquests, spread far and 
wide. The greatest of the Inca monarchs was Huayna Capac, who in 1475 led his 
forces as far northward as Quito, a distance of 1,200 miles from Cuzco. He made 
Quito his residence. At his death the empire was divided between his two sons, 
Huascar, who reigned at Cuzco, and Atahuallpa at Quito. Civil war ensued, Huascar 
was defeated and slain, and Atahuallpa remained sole Inca. During the war Pizarro, 
coasting down from the Isthmus of Darien, landed at Tumbez, conquered Atahuallpa, 
and overthrew the Inca civilization. 

This civilization, in some respects one of the most remarkable which the world has 
ever seen, had its origin in the lofty table-land of the Puna, which we are now con- 
sidering ; and far and wide as the reign of the Incas subsequently extended, they and 
their subjects always retained their reverence for the little rocky islet in Lake Titicaca, 
’ where it had its origin. At the northern end of the island is a frayed and water-worn 
mass of red sandstone, about 225 feet long and 25 feet high. ‘This is the sacred rock 
of Manco Capac, the most holy spot in all Peru. Upon it, as was believed, no bird 
would alight, no animal venture, and upon which no human being not of the royal 
blood dared set his foot. From this rock the sun first rose to dispel the primal vapors 


THE SACRED ISLAND OF TITICACA. 487 


and illuminate the world. It was, so says the legend, plated all over with gold and 
silver, and, except upon the most solemn occasions, covered with a vail of cloth of 
costly materials and gorgeous color. The gold and silver plating and the gorgeous 
covering have long ago disappeared, and what is now seen is a bare rock, on the crest 
- of the island, which rises 2,000 feet above the waters of the lake. Yet even now, 
when the Indian guides come within sight of it, they raise their hats, bow reverently, 
muttering words of mystic import, which they themselves, most likely, only partly 
comprehend. In front of the rock is a level artificial terrace 372 feet long and 125 
feet broad, supported by a low stone wall. According to tradition, the soil which 
once covered this terrace was conveyed upon the backs of men from the distant valleys 
of the Amazon, so that it might nourish a vegetation denied by the hard ungrateful 
soil of the island. 

Everywhere on the holy island are the ruins of Inca structures, and the sites of the 
most sacred spots are still shown. Here is the sheltered bay where the Incas landed 
when they came to visit the spot consecrated to the sun. JHalf way up the ascent are 
the ‘‘ foot-prints’”’ of the great Inca Tupanqui, marking the spot where he stood 
when, catching his first view of the hallowed rock, he removed the imperial covering 
from his head in token of adoration of the divinity whose shrine rose before him. 
These so-called foot-prints look not unlike the impressions of a gigantic foot, thirty-six 
inches long and of corresponding breadth. They are formed in outline by hard 
ferruginous veins around which the softer rock has been worn away, leaving them in 
relief. 

The sacred island of the Incas is now the property of a resident of Puna, a city on 
the shore of the lake containing 7,000 inhabitants. It is the loftiest spot on the globe 
which is the site of any considerable town. It stands 12,870 feet above the level of 
the sea. The mining town of Potosi is indeed 500 feet higher, and there are among 
the Andes post-stations and farms much higher. The station of Rumihuasi, in the 
Puna, the loftiest permanently inhabited spot in the New World, is 15,542 feet high— 
only 242 feet below the summit of Mont Blanc; and the gold mine of Thok Jalung in 
Thibet is 18,330 feet above the sea. The proprietor of the sacred island has a 
hacienda close by the ‘‘ Bath of the Incas.” ‘‘ It consists,’ says Squier, ‘‘ of three 
small buildings, occupying as many sides of a court. One is a kitchen and dormitory, 
another a kind of granary or storehouse, and in the third is an apartment reserved for 
the proprietor when he visits the island. The room is neatly whitewashed, the floor 
matted, and there are two real chairs from Connecticut, and a table that may be 
touched without falling in pieces. The night was bitterly weld,” continues Squier, 
‘“‘and we had no covering except our saddle-cloths, having declined some sheep-skins 
which the alcalde would have taken from the poor people of the establishment. A 
sheep skin, or the skin of a vicufia, spread on the mud floor of his hut, is the only bed 
of the Indian from one year’s end to the other. It is always filthy, and frequently 
full of vermin. Before going to bed we went out into the frosty, starry night, and 
were surprised to see fires blazing on the topmost peaks of the island, on the crest of 
Coati, and on the headland of Copobanea. Others, many of them hardly discernible 
in the distance, were also burning on the peninsula of Tiquina, and on the bluff 
Bolivian shores of the lake, their red light shimmering like golden lances over the 
water. Qur first impression was that some mysterious signalling was going on, con- 


488 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


nected perhaps with our visit. We ascertained, however, that this was the Eve of St. 
John, which is celebrated in this way throughout the Sierra. On that night fires 
blaze on the hill-tops in all the inhabited districts of Peru and Bolivia, from the desert 
of Atacama to the Equator.’’ Thus have the rites of Christianity superseded the old 
worship of the Incas. 


(fie, 
Asi 

Pay 

silt, 


Lp 


The Fountain of the Incas is situated in a sheltered nook, surrounded with terraces 
upon which grow patches of maize with ears not longer than one’s finger. The bath 
itself is a pool forty feet long, ten wide, and five deep, built of worked stones. Into 
this pour four jets of water, as large as a man’s arm, from openings cut in the stones 
behind. ‘‘ The water comes through subterranean passages from sources now un- 
known, and never diminishes in volume. It flows to-day as freely as when the Incas 
resorted here and cut the steep hill-sides into terraces, bringing the earth all the way 
from the Valley of Yucay, or ‘ Vale of Imperial Delights,’ four hundred miles 
distant. Over the walls droop the tendrils of vines; and what with the odors and 
the tinkle and patter of the water, one might imagine himself in the court of the 
Alhambra.”’ 

Besides the sacred island of Titicaca, there are eight smaller ones in the lake. Soto 
was the Isle of Penitence, where the Incas were wont to resort for fasting and humilia- 
tion. Coati was sacred to the moon, the wife and sister of the sun, and on it is the 
palace of the Virgins of the Sun, one of the most remarkable and best preserved 
remains of aboriginal architecture on the continent of America. 

At Tihuanico, on the border of the lake, are immense ruins which clearly antedate 
the time of the Incas. They were ruins when the Spaniards made their appearance, 
and the natives could give no account of them. They supposed that they were built 


THE VALLEY OF QUITO. 489 


by divine architects in a single night. Cieza de Leon, one of the companions of 
Pizarro, writes of them: ‘‘ What most surprised me was that the enormous gateways 
were formed on other great masses of stone, some of which were thirty feet long, fifteen 
wide, and six thick. I can not conceive with what tools or instruments these stones 
were hewn out, for they must have been vastly larger than we now see them. It is 
supposed that some of these structures were built long before the dominion of the 
Incas; and I have heard the Indians affirm that these sovereigns constructed their 
great building at Cuzco after the plans of the walls of Tihuanico.”” The most remark- 
able thing in these ruins are the great doorways of a single block of stone. The 
largest of these is ten feet high and thirteen broad, the opening cut through it being 
six feet four inches high, and three feet two inches wide. The whole neighborhood is 
strewn with immense blocks of stone elaborately wrought, equalling if not surpassing 
in size any known to exist in Egypt, India, or any other part of the world. Some of 
these are thirty feet long, eighteen broad, and six thick. 

All these gigantic remains of a past civilization are found in the lofty table-land of 
the Puna. When these come to be fully described and illustrated, it will be seen 
that here, in a climate so cold that hardly a vegetable will grow which man can use for 
food, were planted the seeds of a civilization as remarkable as any which ever existed. 
More wonderful, perhaps, than these great architectural works were the great military 
roads constructed by the Incas. One reached from Cuzco down to the ocean. The 
other stretched from the capital, along the very crest of the Cordilleras, and down 
their ravines, to Quito, 1,200 miles distant. The length of these great roads, including 
branches, was not less than 3,000 miles. Modern travelers compare them with the 
best in the world. They were from 18 to 25 feet broad, paved with immense blocks 
of stone, sometimes covered with asphaltum. In ascending steep mountains, broad 
steps were cut in the rock ; ravines were filled with heavy embankments flanked with 
parapets, and, wherever the climate permitted, lined with shade trees and shrubs, with 
houses at regular distances for the accommodation of travelers, and especially serving 
as post stations. for there was a regular postal service by which the Incas could send 
messages from one extremity of their dominions to the other. This service was per- 
formed by runners; for, as has been said, the Peruvians had no beasts of burden 
stronger or swifter than the llama. These messengers were trained to great speed. 
On approaching a station they gave a loud shout to warn the next courier of their 
approach, so that he might be ready to take the message or parcel without delay. In 
this manner it is said that dispatches were sent at the rate of 150 miles a day, a speed 
unequaled until within our own times, when the railway and the telegraph have 
brought the ends of the world almost together. 


Lying lower than the desolate Puna, but more than twice as high as the loftiest 
summits of Great Britain, and higher by half than the topmost peaks in North 
America east of the Rocky Mountains, is a series of valleys and table lands which 
form a marked feature in the Tropical World. The principal of these, going northward 
from the equator, are those of Quito in Equador, Bogota in Columbia, and Mexico. 

The valley of Quito, with a breadth of thirty miles, is two hundred miles in length 
from north to south, the ‘equator running upon its northern border. It is in reality a 
great table-land occupying the summit of the Cordilleras, only overtopped and sur- 


490 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


rounded by a series of peaks the most picturesque, and, after the highest peaks of the 
Himalayas, among the loftiest on the globe. The valley is 10,000 feet above the level 


oe mA of the sea, which, by the rule of 
Maas Ge Shak Baer BE allowing 300 feet in elevation to 
Li Bre Si Peo Petia 
Oe Sree e equivalent to a decree of lati- 
op tal Nes ‘a | AU Ge aie aS - =} 
ogee shy tare we tude, would give a climate ap- 


proximating to that of Florida 
and Georgia; but this is much 
modified by other circumstances, 
especially by the snow-clad peaks 
which surround it, and by the 
) more abundant rainfall. 
4 This lofty valley is approach- 
able by the great Inca road of 
which we have spoken, leading 
across the crest of the Cordilleras. 
But for generations probably no 


\ Some day it will be visited from 
the east by steaming up the 
Amazon to the foot of the Andes, 
and ascending the mountains. At 
present it is approached from 
- Guayaquil on the Pacific. We 
: will accompany Mr. Orton,* an 


s 
: Y 


8, at the head of a scientific expe- 
dition, made the journey thither ; 
and thence, descending the Ama- 
zon, crossed the entire continent 
almost on the line of the equator. 
Landing at Guayaquil, the seaport 
of Ecuador, we embark on a 
little steamer which carries us 
seventy miles up the turbid river 
Guayas. The Eucadorian govern- 
meut, however, does not patronize 
the steamer, but sends the mails 
up the river in a canoe. The river runs first through an almost impenetrable jungle ; 
then come vast plantations of cocoa and coffee ; then follow groves of oranges, lemons, 
plantains and mango. Leaving the boat, we hire mules with which to make the ascent 
of the Andean Cordilleras.| We plunge at once by a narrow path into a dense forest. 


ASCENDING THE ANDES. 


*The Andes and the Amazon, by James Orton, Professor in Vassar College, Pough- 
keepsie, N. Y. 

+ Cordillera, literally a long ridge, is usually applied to a longitudinal subdivision of the 
Andes, as the east and west Cordilleras, enclosing the valley of Quito. A Sierra is a jagged 
spur of the mountains. 


ASCENDING THE ANDES. 491 


Superb bananas, with glossy leaves eight feet long, slender bamboos, and lofty palms 
overarch the way. Soon we begin to climb the mountain sides. The path—the 
present royal road to Quito—grows steeper, running sometimes through a gully so 
narrow that ‘the traveler must throw up his legs to save them from being crushed. 
Before night we have reached an altitude where the air is sensibly cold. We stop 
near a rude hut; but there is room for only a part of us within; the others sleep out- 
side on the ground, upon beds which we have brought with us. But we have reached 
a comparatively passable road. 

As the sun goes down we have a view which amply repays us. for our weary travel. 
We are on the summit of a sierra 8,000 feet high. Still above us is a wild chaos of 
mountains, their sides broken into ravines. Looking westward, the mountains tumble 
down to verdurous hills, which in the distance melt into plains, dipping into the great 
Pacific. Upward rise the lofty peaks, over all of which towers Chimborazo, its pure 
white dome piercing the unclouded azure. The road now slopes gently down the side 
of the Sierra, climbs again still higher, and brings us at evening to the sleepy little 
town of Guaranda. The people seem to have nothing to do but to eat potato soup, 
and keep themselves warm by wrapping themselves in their ponchos and basking in 
the sun. The place is of note in one respect, for it is the capital of the region which 
produces the chinchona, whence comes quinine. The trees grow at elevations of from 
2,000 to 9,000 feet, the richest species occupying moist situations in the highest alti- 
tudes. Close by we are shown the spot where Church painted one of the views for 
his magnificent composition, ‘‘ The Heart of the Andes,”’ 

Still ascending, we find ourselves in a wilderness of crags and treeless mountains, 
clothed with long, coarse grass. The summit of the pass, known as the arenal, is a 
sandy plain of a league in length, at an elevation of more than 14,000 feet. In the 
afternoon it is swept by cold winds, and often by violent snow-storms. It is said that 
some of the Spanish soldiers were frozen to death here. Then again we begin to 
descend along a gray, barren waste. Not a tree or a human habitation is in sight. 
Icy rivulets and mule-trains are the only moving objects. We pass the night in a 
dirty, mud hovel, the halting-place for all the caravans between the capital and its sea- 
port. or food we have the invariable potato soup, to which have been added cheese 
and egos. It is well that the potatoes are small, for water boils at this altitude before 
it is fairly hot. Descending in all 6,000 feet from the summit of the pass, we come 
to Ambato, a town of 15,000 inhabitants, beautifully situated in a deep ravine. It 
has also an inn—the first since leaving Guayaquil. Once more upward, through vast 
deposits of rocks and pumice dust, thrown out by the voleano of Cotopaxi, and we 
gain the last summit which we are to surmount. Fifteen hundred feet below us, and 
seemingly at our very feet, lies Quito, nestled in its lovely valley, sentinelled on each 
side by the lofty peaks of Pichincha and Antisana, while behind us tower Chimborazo 
and Tunguragua. Pichincha, the lowest of these four peaks, is 7,000 feet above the 
plain ; Chimborazo, the highest, is 12,000; and it is almost 10,000 feet more before 
the level of the sea is reached. 

The climate of the valley of Quito is the most absolutely perfect of any on earth. 
The thermometer never rises above 70° or sinks below 45°; its mean is 60°, the 
temperature of a mild spring day in New York. There is no cold winter and no hot 
summer; it is always spring and autumn; but each day furnishes a change just 


492 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


sufficient to give a pleasing variety. The coldest hour is at sunrise ; the warmest two 
or three hours after noon. Nobody talks about the weather, for it is always pleasant ; 
conversation begins with a blessing, and ends with a benediction. In healthfulness it 
is unequaled. Consumption is unknown. One will hear more coughing during a 
Sunday service in a New England church than in all Quito for a six-month. The 
intermittent fevers so prevalent on the coast are rare. Asthma, induced measurably 
by the rarity of the atmosphere, and typhoid fevers, are the prevalent diseases. In 
Quito, with 40,000 inhabitants, there are but three drug-stores. Still, owing to 
indolence, filth, and bad diet, comparatively few natives attain old age. With proper 
habits of living, there is probably no spot on earth where the death-rate would be so 
low. The atmosphere is of unsurpassed transparency. Humboldt, with the naked 
eye, saw the poncho of a horseman at a distance of eight miles. The sky is of a deep 
blue, and the stars shine with great brilliancy; the dark openings between them have 
been compared by Humboldt to “tubes through which we look into the remotest 
depths of space.” An adequate observatory at Quito would, perhaps, make more 
additions to astronomical science than anywhere else on the globe ; for, in addition to 
the constant purity of the atmosphere, it is situated on the very line of the equator, 
so that the constellations of both hemispheres are visible. Low in the north the 
‘‘ pointers”’ of the Great Bear are visible, while low in the south the Southern Cross 
can be discerned, 

Contrary to what one would expect, the valley of Quito is almost destitute of trees. 
There is not such a thing as a forest from one end to the other; the trees stand singly 
or in small clumps. The aliso, a species of birch, is the most common tree; the 
walnut is the best timber; oaks and pines are not found. The variety of fruits is 
~good. There are alligator-pears, guavas, granadillas, oranges, lemons, plums and 
quinces. Peaches and pears are found, but of poor flavor. The favorite fruit is the 
chirimoya, which grows on a tree fifteen feet high; the ripe fruit sometimes weighing 
sixteen pounds. Markham calls it ‘‘ a spiritualized strawberry.”’ Our common garden 
vegetables, such as onions, beets, carrots, turnips, cabbages, and tomatoes, flourish. 
The potato is indigenous here, but is inferior to ours, which have improved by trans- 
planting. The Spaniards carried the potato to Spain from Quito, three-quarters of a 
century before Raleigh introduced it into England from Virginia. Flowers are 
numerous and in great variety. 

Animal life presents few species and few individuals in each. There is strictly no 
beast of prey, no large native quadruped, and few of the smaller tribes. The orni- 
thology of the valley is limited; it is only when we descend into the valley of the 
Amazon that we find the feathered tribes in their glory. The condor and the hum- 
ming-bird, the extremes in size of the feathered tribes, are the most noticeable among 
the mountains. Butterflies abound of all colors from emerald green to snowy white 
Mosquitoes and flies hardly exist; but fleas and other “small deer ”’ find congenial 
pasturage in the filthy garments and unkempt hair of the Indians. Serpents are so 
unfrequent, that in three months the members of the American expedition saw only a 
single snake ; and there are not frogs enough in the valley to furnish a respectable 
chorus of brek-ke-kex-koax. There is in all the valley only a single species of fish, 
small and of a black color. Multitudes of these have been thrown up during volcanic 
eruptions from the bowels of the earth. 


THE VOLCANOES OF ECUADOR. 493 


Of the population of the entire valley Indians constitute a great majority. Though 
reduced to absolute serfdom, and sunk deep in degradation, they still retain a memory 
of the days of Incarial greatness. This is particularly the case with the inhabitants of 
the mountains. Mr. Orton noticed that some of those who descended to the plain wore 
a black poncho underneath their bright-colored one, and was told that they were in 
mourning for the last Inca. In Quito itself there are about 8,000 of Spanish descent; 
perhaps 10,000 of pure Indian blood; the remaining 22,000 being Cholos, the off- 
spring of whites aud Indians, the Indian blood largely predominating. These almost 
exclusively carry on what of industry exists. They are the artisans, tradesmen, and 
soldiers. The whites constitute the governing class. They have fair natural capacity, 
but lack education, industry, and energy. They are, however, courteous and refined 
in manners and deportment. Their courtesy, even in the most common intercourse, is 
carried to a point which we can hardly appreciate. Mr. Hassaurek, the late American 
minister to Ecuador, gives the following as a specimen of a message sent by one fair 
Quitonian to another: ‘‘Go,’’ she says to her servant, ‘‘ to the Senorita So-and-So,, 
and tell her that she is my heart and the dear little friend of my soul; tell her that 
I am dying for not having seen her, and ask her why she does not come to see me} 
tell her that I have been waiting for her more than a week, and that I send her my 
best respects and considerations; and ask her how she is, and how her husband is, and 
how her children are, and whether they are all well in the family. And tell her that 
she is my little love, and ask her whether she will be kind enough to send me that 
pattern which she promised me the other day.”’ 

Before bidding adieu to the lofty tropical valley, let us take one glance at the grand 
scenery which environs it. There are fifty-one volcanic peaks in the Andean chain, 
twenty of which girdle the valley of Quito, three being active, five dormant, and 
twelve extinct. Looking toward the eastern Cordillera, the first mountain to the north 
is Imbabura, 18,000 feet high. At its foot stood the city of Otovalo, destroyed in the 
great earthquake of August, 1868; here alone out of 10,000 inhabitants 6,000 per- 
ished. The first shock, which came without hardly a premonitory sign, lasted but one 
minute ; at the end of that minute not a house or a wall a yard high remained stand- 
ing. Next, exactly on the equator, comes square-topped Cayamba, 19,500 feet high, 
and in full view from the plaza of Quito. Ten miles south is the bare Guamani 
range, over which, at a hight of 15,000 feet, the traveler must pass before he begins 
to descend into the valley of the Amazon. Its culminating peak, Sara-Urcu, threw 
out ashes as late as 1856. Then comes Antisana, 19,000 feet high, clothed in snow 
for 3,000 fect. It is now dormant; but the lava streams down its side show how 
tremendous was its former activity. One of these streams is ten miles long and five 
hundred feet deep. Its last eruption occurred in 1590; but smoke issued from it in 
1802. Next comes ragged Sincholagua, 16,500 feet high; and then Cotopaxi, ‘‘ the 
shining,’’ more than 2,000 feet higher, the loftiest of active volcanoes, though its great 
eruptions occur only at intervals of a century; but deep rumblings, and a constant 
cloud of smoke issuing from its crater, down which no man has looked, show that it is 
only sleeping. Its last great eruption occurred in 1803. Far down its south side 
lies a huge porphyritic rock, called the Inca’s Head, which tradition avers to have 
once been the summit of the volcano, torn off and hurled down on the very day when 


Atahuallpa was murdered by Pizarro. Sixty miles further south rises the perfect 
32 


494 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


cone of Tunguragua, 16,500 feet high. A cataract on it springs from the very edge 
of the perpetual snow, coming down 1,500 feet in three leaps. Its last eruption, 
which lasted seven years, began in 1773. Close by, 17,500 feet high, rises Altar, 
called by the Indians Capac- Urcu, ‘The Chief.”” They say that it once overtopped 
Chimborazo ; but that, after an eruption which lasted eight years, the lofty walls of its 
crater fell in. Twenty miles further is Sangai, 17,000 feet high, the most active 
volcano on the globe. Without a moment’s intermission it has for three hundred 
years poured forth a stream of fire, water, mud, and ashes. Its ashes are almost 
always falling at Guayaquil, a hundred miles distant; and its explosions, generally 
occurring every hour or two, are often heard in that city. It sometimes rouses itself 
to unwonted activity. In 1849 Wisse counted 267 explosions in an hour,—more 
than two in every three seconds. 

We have thus far followed the eastern Cordillera southward. We now turn to the 
western range, which runs parallel to it, ata distance of from thirty to sixty miles, 
and go northward back to Quito. First and foremost, but not ‘‘sole monarch of the 
vale,’ comes Chimborazo, “the Snowy Mountain,” 21,470 feet high. Ages ago its 
now silent summit glowed with volcanic fires. Its sides are seamed with huge rents 
and dark chasms, in some of which Vesuvius could be hidden away out of sight. 
Next, and separated from it only by a narrow valley, is Caraguarizo, 19,000 feet high, 
called by the Indians ‘‘ the wife of Chimborazo.”’ A century and three-quarters ago 
the top of this mountain fell in, and torrents of mud containing multitudes of the little 
fishes of which we have spoken poured out. Journeying onward, passing peaks 
scarcely lower than these, some of them extinct volcanoes, such as Illinza, 17,000 feet. 
high, and heart-shaped Corazon, we reach Pichincha, ‘‘ the Boiling Mountain,” 16,000 
feet high, whose smoking crater lies only five miles distant from Quito. It is the only 
Eucadorean volcano which has not a cone-shaped crater. Such an one it doubtless 
once had; but some convulsion of nature far beyond the reach of history or tradition, 
has hollowed out from its now flattened summit an enormous funnel-shaped basin 
2,500 feet deep, three-quarters of a mile m diameter at the top, and 1,500 feet at the 
bottom. It is the deepest crater on the globe: That of Kileaua is but 600 feet deep, 
Orizaba 500, Etna 300, Hecla 100. 

The brink of the erater of Pichincha: was first reached by the French Academicians 
in 1742. Sixty years later Humboldt reached the edge, but pronounced its bottom 
‘inaccessible on account of its great depth and precipitous descent.’’ The crater was 
first entered in 1844 by Morena, now President of Ecuador, and Wisse, a French 
engineer. Mr. Orton and his associates, after one unsuccessful attempt, succeeded in 
accomplishing the perilous descent in October, 1867. Scrambling down the steep 
sides, sometimes of rocks covered with snow, sometimes a mass of loose, treacherous 
sand ; now leaping a chasm, now letting themselves down from cliff to cliff, threatened 
by huge rocks which perpetually loosed themselves and went bounding past them, in 
two and a half hours they reached the bottom of the crater. It was found to consist 
of a deeply furrowed plain, strewn with ragged rocks, with here and there a patch of 
vegetation, and half a dozen species of flowers. In the center was an irregular heap 
of stones 260 feet high, and 800 in diameter. In its top and sides were seventy 
vents, sending forth steam, smoke, and sulphurous gas. The central vent, or chim- 
ney, gives forth a noise like that of a bubbling cauldron. 


THE TABLE LAND OF BOGOTA. ‘ 495 


‘There have been five eruptions of Pichincha since the Spanish conquest, the last 
being in 1660. That of 1566 covered Quito three feet deep with ashes and stones, 
while boiling water and bitumen poured forth in torrents. In 1867 the column of 
smoke did not rise above the crest of the crater; but on the 19th of March, 1868, 
violent rumblings were heard in Quito, followed three days afterward by great columns 
of vapor. Since the great earthquake of August, 1868, the mountain has continued 
to send forth columns of smoke, and so much fine sand that it was not possible to reach 
the crater. It may be that the volcano is preparing to rouse itself from its slumber 
of two centuries. The Quitonians, however, congratulate themselves that the edge of 
the crater is considerably lower on the side facing the city ; so that should an erup- 
tion occur, the volcano will pour its fiery contents away from them into the wilds 
of the Esmeralda. 

We leave the valley of Quito, whose mighty surrounding volcanoes present one of 
the most striking aspects of nature within the Tropical World. 


The next great table-land is that of Bogota. Its elevation is 8,700 feet above the 
sea,—1,300 feet less than that of Quito; but although barely five degrees from the 
equator, the climate is much colder. To reach the table-land, we ascend the great 
river Magdalena for three hundred and fifty miles, through a low country covered with 
tropical vegetation; then, leaving the stream, we set our faces toward the mountain 
range upon whose summit lies the table-land, fifty miles away, between us and it inter- 
vening several sharp ridges, which might easily be skirted. But the road, with a 
thorough contempt for all engineering devices, runs straight over them. In the course 
of a single day we twice ascend a mountain 3,000 feet high, only to descend as far on 
the opposite side, giving us in the space of twenty miles an unnecessary ascent of a 
mile, and an equal descent. At length we come to the outer rim of the great plain 
of Bogota, rising sheer up like a wall before us; up this the path winds by sharp 
turns and zigzags like a circular staircase. Pile the Catskills upon the summit of 
Mount Washington, and then level off upon the summit a marshy plateau half as large 
as the State of Connecticut, and heap around it mountains some thousands of fect 
higher, and we have the great plain of Bogota, which the inhabitants believe to be the 
most delightful spot on earth. 

The temperature of the plain is so low that it produces only a little wheat, grass, 
barley, and a few esculent roots. The greater part of it is owned in vast estates by a 
few rich land-holders, who have the reputation of being excessively stupid. The 
people of the city call them Orejones, ‘‘ Big-Hars.” The markets of Bogota are sup- 
plied mainly from the warm country below. An Indian and his wife will toil up the 
steep path bearing enormous loads of fish or plantains, trudge across the weary breadth 
of the marshy plain, occupying three days in the journey, and think themselves lucky 
if they find a purchaser for their load. Sometimes these patient bearers will be seen 
descending the mountains which tower above the city, loaded with plantains, oranges, 
and other tropical productions. These could not have grown upon the mountains, but 
have been brought over their summits from the warmer regions lying far down on the 
opposite slopes. Bogotanos sometimes descend to the plains to thaw out. The 
favorite place for pleasurable resort is the village of Fusagasuga, which lies far down 
on the slope. ‘To reach it one must first climb up a thousand feet higher than the 


496 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


plain, and then descend three times as far. There are two modes of traveling: mule- 
back and man-back. It requires some preparation for such a pleasure-trip. As it is 
always cold and usually rainy, the traveler has his face well bundled up to protect it. 
His hat has a covering of oiled silk; his poncho, or cloak, which must serve also as a 
blanket by night, is fastened to his saddle-bow, when not upon his shoulders; and a 
pair of Jeather overalls is drawn over his lower garments. Behind him comes a mule 
driven by a peon, bearing a huge bundle resembling an enormous feather bed. This 
is called a vaca, ‘‘ cow,’’ but no cow’s hide would be sufficient to hold it. Besides 
the usual baggage of a traveler, it contains a mattress, which the pleasure-seeker must 
carry with him or do without. Women usually, and men not unfrequently, travel by 
silla. A rude bamboo chair is fastened to the back of a man by two belts—one 
crossing over the chest and another passing over the forehead. ‘The rider, seated with 
his back to his bearer, is completely helpless. A story is told, and the scene of it 
pointed out near Bogotaé, where a Spaniard wearing huge spurs mounted his sillero, 
whom he goaded as though he were a mule. The sillero, by a sudden jerk, pitched 
his rider sheer down a precipice, then took to the woods and was never caught. 

The plateau of Bogota is, upon the whole, a most uninteresting region. It is most 
noteworthy on account of its showing how elevation and local circumstances affect the 
climate of the tropical regions. Lying just north of the equator, in a latitude indeed 
in which, rather than under the equator, the hottest regions of the earth are found, it 
reminds one not a little of the interior of Kamchatka and Alaska, which almost touch 
the Arctic Circle. 


If the table-land of Quito is the most lovely, that of Mexico is by extent and variety 
the most remarkable of the lofty tropical plateaus. Commencing at the Isthmus of 
Tehuantepec, in latitude 16°, it stretches with varied breadth to the limits of the 
Tropical Zone. With the exception of a narrow strip along the shores of the oceans, it 
occupies in Mexico the whole breadth of the continent. It rises almost by steps into 
broad, well-defined terraces sloping upwards, each presenting the climate and productions 
of different portions of the Temperate Zone. Its highest level is traversed by moun- 
tain ranges, sometimes rising into lofty peaks; but its general surface is almost as level 
as the ocean. <A road from the city of Mexico northward for more than a thousand 
miles would run over a dead level, hardly varying from an altitude of 7,500 feet. 

There is not upon the globe a great region which nature has more assiduously 
striven to render a fit habitation for civilized man than the greater part of Mexico. 
There is no one in which man has s0 persistently set himself at work to counteract the 
designs of nature. 

Let us, starting from Vera Cruz, make the journey to and across these table-lands. 
The Gulf bordered by a broad zone of lowlands, called the éerra calienta, or ‘‘ hot 
lands,’’ which has the normal hot climate of the tropics. Parched and sandy plains 
dotted with mimosas and prickly plants alternate with savannas overshadowed by 
groves of palms, and glowing with the exuberant splendor of equinoctial vegetation. 
The branches of the stately forest trees are festooned with vines and creepers, whose 
flowers present the most brilliant hues; while the thick undergrowth of prickly aloes, 
matted with the wild rose and honeysuckle, often forms an impenetrable thicket. In 
this wilderness of sweet-scented buds and flowers flutter clouds of butterflies of 


SIKKIM PLAIN AND PEAKS. 497 


resplendent hues, and birds of gorgeous plumage. Many of these birds have notes 
of exquisite melody. But the malaria engendered by the decomposition of the rank 
vegetation and the dank soil renders the region one of the most insalubrious upon the 
globe, and almost uninhabitable by man from the vernal to the autumnal equinox. 
Here is the birthplace of the dreaded vomito, or yellow fever. 

Passing this fatal belt, after twenty leagues the traveler finds himself ascending 
into a purer atmosphere. The vegetation changes at every league. One by one the 
vanilla, the indigo plant, the sugar cane, and the plantain disappear; until at the 
hight of 4,000 feet the unchanging green of the rich foliage of the liquidamber indi- 
cates that the traveler has reached the elevation where the clouds and mists settle in 
their passage from the Gulf, and maintain a perpetual moisture. 

Here are the confines of the tzerra templada, or temperate region, where the ever- 
green oaks remind him of the forests of Central Europe. The features of the scenery 
beceme imposing. The ascending road sweeps along the base of mighty mountains, 
now snow-clad, but bearing traces of former volcanic fires. The flanks of the moun- 
tains are rent with huge darancas or ravines, down whose steep sides he can look for 
more than a thousand feet. Cactuses, euphorbia, draceena, and a multitude of other 
plants cling to the rocky walls; while at the bottom of the gorge, to which he might 
apparently almost leap, stand huge laurels and fig-trees. Upward still, he passes 
fields waving with yellow wheat and broad-leaved maize, with plantations of the agave, 
from which the Mexicans prepare, as they did in the days of the Montezumas, their 
national beverage of pulque. 

At an elevation of 8,000 feet, the forests of sombre pine announce that the terra 
Sria, or ‘‘ cold region,”’ the last of the three great terraces, has been reached. Here 
in the valley of Anahuac, yet at an elevation of 7,500 feet, rests the city of Mexico, 
the famous capital of the Montezumas, with its shallow lakes, and surrounded by 
elliptical plains, enclosed by frowning ridges of basaltic and porphyrite rocks. On 
the south-eastern side rises the snow-crowned cone of Orizaba, whose ever blazing 
summit, shining like a star through the darkness of night, gained for it its Aztec name 
of Citlaltepetl, ‘‘the Mountain of the Star ;’’ farther west rise Popocatepetl, Iztaci- 
huatl, and Toluca, altogether forming a magnificent volcanic circuit, only equaled by 
that which girdles the valley of Quito. If the traveler chooses to climb the sides of 
these volcanoes, in a few days’ journey he will have passed through every variety 
of climate and every zone of production, from the fiercest tropical heat to the confines 
bf perpetual winter ; from the towering palm to the lichen which hardly lifts its head 
above the sterile rock. 


Sikkim, on the southern side of the Himalayas, may be considered a vast sloping 
plain, rising in a gradual ascent from the foot of the chain to the base of the peaks, the 
highest on the globe. From the shores of the Bay of Bengal is a level plain of a 
hundred miles in breadth to the foot of the Himelayas. Thence the land rises gently 
7,000 feet in eighty miles. Here is the British sanitarium of Dorjiling, where the 
European debilitated by the burning climate of the lowlands may breathe air as cool 
and refreshing as those of his native land. ighty miles further brings him 9,000 
feet higher to the limits of perpetual snow. Thea arise more steeply, 12,000 feet 
higher, the lofty summits, rather than peaks, of the Himalayas, looking down upon 


498 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


the magnificently wooded region below. The highest of these Sikkim peaks is Kin 
chin-junga—the third, but until recently believed to be the first, in hight upon the 
globe. It falls but a hundred feet below the Dipsang or Karkakorum peak, and 
about eight hundred below Gaurisanker, which the British have re-named Mount 
Everest. Kinchin-junga rises to the altitude of 28,172 feet. Not only is its summit 
untrodden by man or beast, but nothing that breathes has ever mounted so high into 
the air. The condor, who in his flight looks down upon the dome of Chimborazo, 
never mounts to within thousands of feet of the hight of Kinchin-junga.* 


* Humboldt’s statement that the condor flies higher than Chimborazo (21,420 feet) has been 
questioned. But Orton has seen numbers of them hovering at least a thousand feet above 
Pichincha (16,000 feet), and does not doubt that they fly much higher. Muller, in his ascent of 
Orizaba, saw falcons flying fully 18,000 feet high ; and it is affirmed that wild geese fly over the 
peak of Kunchan-ghow (22,000 feet). ‘There can be little doubt that the condor attains an eleva- 
tion greater than any other bird, and that no other creature ever voluntarily ascends so high. 


SAVANNAS AND DESERTS. 499 


CHAPTER III. 
SAVANNAS AND DESERTS OF THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


Water and Life—Characteristics of the Savannas.—TZhe Llanos: The Dry Season—Effects 
upon Vegetable Life—Effects upon Animal Life—Approach of the Rainy Season—Revival 
of Vegetable and Animal Life—Vast Migrations of Animals.—Zhe Pampas: Horses and 
Cattle in the New World—Effects of their Introduction upon the Character of the Popu- 
lation—The Mauritia Palm—Living in the Tree-tops.—The Grand Chaco—Its Indian 
Inhabitants—The Guachos—The Lasso and Bolas.—The Plains of Southern Africa: Thorny 
Bushes—Excessive Droughts—A Great Hunting Ground—Species of Game—Vegetation— 
Watery Tubers—Esculent Gourds—Possibility of Wells—Water-Pits in the Kalahari— 
Mode of Pumping Up the Water—Livingstone’s Theory of Water-Making Ants—More 
Probable Explanation—Inhabitants of Southern Africa—The Lake Region of Equatorial 
Africa: Little Known—Explorations of Livingstone and Burton—Speke’s Journey—His 
Notices of the Country—Moderate and Equable Temperature—The Inhabitants—Charac- 
teristics of a Real Desert.—The Atacama of Peru: Its Arid Character—The Mule the Ship 
of this Desert.—TZhe Australian Desert: Its Utter Desolation.—Sturt’s Exploration— 
Leichardt—Lost Rivers.—The Sahara: Extent and General Characteristics—The Capital 
of Fezzan—Perilous Adventure of Barth—Plains and Hills—Oases—Luxuriant Vegetation 
of the Oases—Contrasts of Light and Shade—The Khamsin or Simoom—Animals and 
Reptiles—The Ostrich and its Chase—Fluctuations of Animal and Vegetable Life accord- 
ing to the Seasons. 


ae presence or absence of water in the Tropical World exerts an influence upon 
all forms of animal and vegetable life not less important than the temperature. 
Wherever water is absolutely wanting the country is given over to barrenness. 
Wherever water is perpetual and abundant, the soil is clothed with lofty forests and a 
profusion of lush vegetation. Midway between these extremes are vast tracts dry at 
one season and wet at another. These regions, which we may call savannas, embrace 
the pampas of the Argentine Republic and the Ilanos of Venezuela and New Granada, 
and a considerable portion of Southern Africa. They are in general to be character- 
ized as vast plains, never of more than moderate elevation, covered with grass and 
shrubs ; but, except on the banks of the rivers, destitute of extensive forests, the trees 
standing singly or in small clumps. : 

There can be no more striking contrast than that presented at different seasons of 
the year by the great llanos of Venezuela. When the rainy season is over and the 
sun for weeks blazes in an unclouded sky, pouring his vertical rays upon the thirsty 
plains, the calcined grass-plains present the aspect of an interminable, monotonous 
waste. Like the ocean they stretch out till in the distance hazy and quivering with 
heat, their boundary blends upon the horizon with the sky in an indistinct line. The 
water pools which nourished the scattered clumps of the Mauritia palm disappear one 
by one. The tall, dry reeds which indicate the spot which had been a swamp, bear 


500 _ THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


high up their stalks the encrusted mud which marks the hight of ooze and slime of 
the rainy season. The grass has long since withered, and stands a mass of dry stems, 
ready at the touch of fire to break out into a conflagration which outstrips the speed 
of the swiftest horse. 

Animal life seems to have become extinct. The deer, the aguti, and the peccary, 
taught’ by instinct, have migrated to less arid regions, followed by their natural ene- 
mies the Indian, the puma, and the jaguar. The vast herds of wild horses and cattle 
which roamed over the savanna perish in countless numbers, or rush about bellowing, 
and neighing, and snuffing the thirsty air, seeking to scent out the neighborhood of 
some pool where a little moisture has survived the general drought. Buried far down 
in the stiff clay of the dried-up pools, the alligator and huge water snake lie torpid in 
a long summer sleep, as the bear slumbers through the dreary Arctic winter. 

At length, when all nature seems to have expired or to be expiring for want of 
water, welcome signs announce the approach of the rainy season. The blue, cloudless 
sky begins to assume a leaden hue ; the atmosphere becomes obscured by condensing 
vapors ; the stars which shone with a mild planetary lustre now twinkle faintly even 
in the zenith, while the bright Southern Cross, low down in the horizon, is hardly dis- 
cernible, and the phosphoric gleam of the Magellanic clouds expires. Banks of vapor 
rise in mountainous forms on the horizon, increasing in density, and mounting higher 
and higher, until at length they burst into rains which pour down in torrents. Searcely 
have the showers had time to moisten the thirsty land, when a change comes over the 
face of nature. The dull, tawny surface of the savanna is transformed as if by magic into 
an expanse of vivid green, enameled with flowers of every hue. The mimosas ex- 
pand their delicate foliage, and the Mauritia palm, ‘the tree of life,” puts forth its 
feathery fronds. 

Animal life awakens from its long torpor. On the borders of the swamps the 
moistened clay heaves, and slowly bursts asunder, and from the tomb in which he lay 
embedded, rises the form of some huge alligator or water-snake. The newly formed 
pools swarm with water-fowl. The herds of horses and oxen rejoice in the thick 
grasses, under whose covert not unfrequently crouches the jaguar waiting for his prey. 
On the very same spot where a few weeks before the horse anxiously snuffed the air, 
half-mad with thirst, he is now obliged to lead an almost amphibious life. The mares 
retreat with their foals to the higher banks, which rise like islands from a lagoon, and 
swim about in quest of the grasses which lift their heads above the waters. Not un- 
frequently they become the prey of alligators that strike them down with their scaly 
tails, and seize them with their enormous jaws. ‘‘This sight,” says Humboldt, 
‘involuntarily reminds the reflecting observer of the great pliability with which na- 
ture has endowed several species of plants and animals. Along with the fruits of 
Ceres, the horse and the ox have followed man over the whole earth from the Ganges 
to the Plata, and from the coast of Africa to the mountain plain of Antisana, over- 
looking the Valley of Quito. Here, the northern birch-tree, and there the tropical 
date-palm, protects the tired ox from the heat of the sun. The same species.of animal 
which in eastern Europe contends with bears and wolves, is attacked in another zone 
by the tiger and the crocodile.” 

It is scarcely three centuries since the horse and the ox were first introduced into 
America by the Spaniards. The latter has flourished to such a degree that it is not 


ANIMAL LIFE ON THE PAMPAS. 501 


improbable that in the pampas and llanas of South America there are more cattle than 
in all the rest of the globe. Strain, who rode across the pampas, was told that in a 
single year ten millions of hides were exported from Buenos Ayres. Knowing that 
the census of 1840 gave but fifteen millions in the United States, this statement seemed 
incredible. But when day after day he saw from every slight swell herd after herd, 
blackening the whole expanse, until they became mere specks in the distance, and re- 


CATTLE-HUNTING ON THE PAMPAS. 


flected that the millions upon millions which he saw were but fractions of those spread 
for hundreds of thousands of square miles, he could give credit to the statement. 
The annual slaughter of millions seems to have no sensible effect in diminishing the 
numbers of the survivors. These herds belong mainly to wealthy estancieros. The 
extent of some of these estancias and the number of the herds is almost incredible. The 
estate of San José, belonging to Urquiza, late President of the Argentine Confedera- 
tion, covered an area of several hundred square miles, and upon it he had 2,000 horses, 
40,000 head of cattle, and 70,000 sheep, and this is but one out of his many estates.” 


* Page’s La Plata, 52, 59. 


502 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


The introduction of the horse and the ox has wrought an entire change in the char- 
acter of the Indians of the great plains of North and South America. When the 
Spaniards first visited the llanos and pampas they found them almost destitute of 
inhabitants, for the Indians were wholly unacquainted with agriculture. They could 
exist only in the spots where grew the Mauritia palm. This tree grows to the hight 
of a hundred feet, its slender trunk surmounted by a magnificent tuft of great fan- 
shaped fronds, under which grow in large clusters scaly fruit, resembling pine cones. 
Like the banana they differ in taste according to the stage of ripeness ; and the trunk 
affords a nutritious pith like sago, which when dried forms a large part of the food of 
the natives. From its sap they prepared an intoxicating drink; its leaves covered 
their huts; from the fibres of the petiole they manufactured threads and cordage, 
and the sheaths at their base served for sandals. The Mauritia grew abundantly near 
the mouth of the Orinoco ; and among its branches the Guaranas dwelt like monkeys, 
high above the reach of the great inundations. They built platforms, floored with its 
leaves, from trunk to trunk, a patch of moist clay serving for a fire-place. The early 
voyagers were by night astonished at the light of their fires, gleaming like beacons 
up among the dark foliage. 

The Grand Chaco, lying along the Paraguay and Parana rivers, is one of the most 
remarkable of the pampa regions. It covers an area of 200,000 square miles, nearly 
equal to France, and is nominally partitioned among the neighboring governments ; 
but is really in the possession of hordes of Indians, who acknowledge no allegiance 
except to their own caciques. Neither time nor intercourse with the whites has miti- 
gated their deep feeling of hostility against the whites for the wrongs inflicted upon 
their race. The horse, the gift of the Spaniards, has put them upon an equality with 
their enemies, and given them the means of making continual predatory inroads. 
When pursued by a military force they scatter and are lost in the depths of the forest. 
They are admirable horsemen, using neither saddle or bridle, but control their animals 
by a rude rein of raw-hide passing around the lower jaw, and secured by a thong of 
the same material. 

The guachos, or herdsmen, inhabiting the pampas are of Spanish descent, but have 
relapsed into an almost savage state. The wild life of a guacho begins from infancy. 
As soon as he ean walk he has a little lasso made of twine, with which he amuses 
himself in catching the chickens and dogs. By the time he is four years old he is put 
upon horseback, which he soon learns to consider the only place for a man, thinking 
it degrading to walk for any considerable distance. He early acquires skill in the use 
of the lasso and bolas. With the former he will capture the wildest bull or stallion, 
throwing from horseback the noose with unerring aim over the horns, or around a leg 
of the animal. He is equally dextrous in the use of the bolas. This consists of three 
balls, about three inches in diameter, joined together in a common center by thongs a 
yard long. Holding one ball in his hand, the guacho whirls the other around his 
head, and then flings the whole at his victim. The instant one thong strikes the leg 
of an animal, all wind themselves around, each by its own independent motion, and 
the more the victim struggles the more inextricably does he become entangled. 


The so-called deserts of Southern Africa, including the great Kalahari, are savannas 
rather than deserts. This region has of late years been thoroughly described by 


THE GREAT KALAHARI. 503 


travelers, most of them allured thither in pursuit of game. It may be considered as 
bounded by the parallels of 20° and 30° south of the equator, and from 17° to 30° 


ri Hi 

Pos 5 
ie, 
Selly; 


TIGVHVIVH AHL AO SHAILVN 


of longitude, covering an area of 1,000 miles by 700. .The great Kalahari occupies 
its center. The physical aspects of so vast a region of course vary. ‘Taking its outside 


504 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


rim, it may in general be described as a series of broad plains intercepted by rugged 
mountains of no great hight. These plains during the wet season ‘bound with juicy 
herbage, which disappears, fairly burned off, in the dry season, leaving the ground 
parched and dusty. Sometimes there are immense tracts overgrown with low, thorny 
bushes, standing so closely together that the traveler must chop his way through them 
step by step. ‘The most common of these bushes is called by the colonists the ‘‘ wait- 
a-bit,”” for its short hook-like thorns present a standing invitation to the passer to wait 
a bit at every foot of his advance. Andersson mentions once coming upon a consider- 
able forest of thornless trees. ‘‘I do not think,”’ he says, ‘‘ that I was ever so sur- 
prised in my life. I hesitated to trust my senses. Even the dull faces of my native 
attendants seemed for a few seconds to relax from their usual heavy, unintelligent 
cast, and to express joy at the novel scene.” The brief wet season, when the rain 
falls in torrents, is succeeded by months of absolute drought, when water is found only 
at long intervals in solitary fountains and stagnant pools. The books of travelers in 
this region present a continual record of sufferings endured by man and beast from 
lack of water. 

But uninviting as this region otherwise is, it is the paradise of the sportsman. In 
other regions of the globe he is limited to a few species of the larger game. On our 
western prairies he is confined to bison; in India he must satisfy himself with tigers 
and wild hogs; in Ceylon he may bag tuskless elephants and buffalos; in Siberia he 
has only bears and wolves. But Southern Africa is a vast zoological garden. Giraffes 
raise their long necks above the stunted acacia trees, stooping to crop their topmost 
twigs. Gigantic boars, and their still bigger cousins the unwieldy hippopotami and 
rhinoceroses, abound. Leopards and hyenas find abundant prey in numerous species 
of antelopes, and in turn afford rich sport to the hunter. Lions are everywhere, from 
the sneaking brute who crawls stealthily upon his ignoble prey, to the ferocious “* man- 
eater,’’ in whom the taste of human flesh has awakened a new faculty which induces 
him to despise all meaner food, and to leap boldly into the camp of the hunter iv 
search of a human victim. Elephants wander about singly, or in pairs and groups, or 
troop in vast herds to the lonely pools where they can quench their thirst, ‘* They 
walk about as thick as cattle,”” said a native to Andersson, who had occasion to verify 
the statement; and Barth once counted two hundred elephants in a single herd on the 
banks of Lake Tschad. Besides these, there are ostriches, zebras, quaggas, and an 
almost innumerable variety of the deer tribe, such as oryxes, koodoos, inyalas, gnus, 
elands, springbocks, gemsbocks, hartebeests, leches, pallahs, and others whose very 
names have as yet found no place in books of natural history. 

Such a superfluity of animal life presupposes no inconsiderable amount of vegetation 
even in these arid regions; for all animals directly or indirectly subsist upon vegetable 
food. The lion devours the deer; but he could find no deer to devour unless the 
deer could find grass and leaves to eat. Nature has also gifted these animals with an 
instinct which leads them to wander far and wide for food, and to divine where it is 
likely to be found. In so wide a pasture-ground all parts will not be parched at 
once; and beasts of prey follow in the tracks of their victims. Moreover, there are 
species of plants peculiar to these regions which go far to modify the apparent sterility, 
and store up food and even water beneath what appears to be dry sand. Such a plant 
is the leroshtia, whose low stalk is hardly larger than a crow’s quill; but it sends its 


WATER-PLANTS AND WATER. 505 


roots deep down into the soil, which, at the depth of a foot or two, expand into a tuber 
of the size of a small melon, which is a mass of watery cellular tissue, like a young 
turnip. The mokuri, a low creeper, expands under ground into a cluster of tubers, 
some of them as large as a man’s head. The clusters spread out in a circle of a yard 
in diameter, When a native suspects the existence of such a cluster, he pounds with 
stones around until a hollow sound tells him that he has found the spot. Many of the 
animals have sharp hoofs, and instinct points out to them the sites of these watery 
tubers, to reach which they dig away the sand, as the reindeer digs the snow which 
conceals the moss which is his food. The kengwe, a kind of gourd, a favorite with 
man and beast, sometimes covers immense tracts. Macabe once crossed the desert, in 
a favorable season, and found them so numerous that his cattle lived on them for three 
weeks, during which they had no water, and when this was reached they seemed quite 
indifferent to it. Another gourd, the naras, covers many of the low sand-hills. Its 
fruit, the size of a turnip, is on the outside of a greenish yellow, within of a deep 
orange, and for three months in the year constitutes the chief food of man and beast in 
the neighborhood of Walfisch Bay. Its seeds, something like an almond in looks and 
taste, are carefully gathered, dried, and preserved for food when the fruits have 
disappeared. 

Judging from the geological character of this African semi-desert, there can be little 
doubt that water might be found by deep boring almost everywhere ; for as the rain- 
fall is great during the wet season, and as hardly any of it finds an outlet through 
rivers, much of it must sink into the sandy soil until it is arrested by beds of clay or 
underlying rock, and by digging down to these the water would be reached. Wherever © 
and whenever water here exists, there is fertility; and it may be that the time will 
come when these now arid plains will be honey-combed with artesian wells, and thereby 
transformed into a garden. When that time comes, farewell to elephants and lions, to 
deer and antelopes. Wells, or rather pits, of slight depth, but which contain water 
throughout the year, except when two years of drought happen together, are not un- 
frequently found in the Kalahari. These pits are hidden with the utmost care. Some- 
times the natives fill them up with loose sand, and build a fire over the spot; the 
ashes would naturally be taken as an indication that here at least no water was to be 
found beneath the surface. They are careful to establish their huts at a considerable 
distance from their hidden mine of liquid treasure. When they wish for water, the 
women set out from the village, carrying their water vessels, which consist of ostrich- 
shells, with a little hole in the end. A reed of nearly a yard in length, with a bunch 
of grass fastened to the end, is sunk down through the sand, which is then rammed 
closely around. By sucking through the reed a vacuum is made in the sponge-like 
bunch of grass; into this the water flows and passes through the reed into the mouth, 
whence it is squirted into the shells. This natural pump is really very efficacious for 
the shallow depth at which it is used. 

Livingstone relates another circumstance which seems conclusive as to the fact that 
water exists in the Kalahari, at no very great distance below the surface of the ground. 
During two successive seasons of extreme drought, in neither of which the rainfall 
exceeded five inches, and every thing was parched, and the ground so hot that beetles 
placed upon the surface died in a few seconds, as though they had been placed on a 
heated plate of iron, a certain species of ants, who form long and deep galleries, were 


506 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


always as active and merry as ever ; and upon opening their chambers the walls were 
invariably moist. In reply to the question, whence these insects derived their water, 
Livingstone suggests that they have the power by vital force of combining the oxygen 
of the air with the hydrogen of their food, and so making water. He instances, in 
support of this theory, other insects which he found in Angola, where a colony of in- 
sects on the branch of a tree would distill several pints of water in a single night ; 
and he satisfied himself, by cutting off the branch, and so stopping the flow of sap, that 
this water was not derived from the juices of the tree. But in this case the atmosphere 
was surcharged with moisture; while in the Kalahari it was so dry that the best 
hygrometric tests at his disposal failed to detect moisture in the air. A needle exposed 
for months in the open air did not rust ; there was no dew on the ground, and a mix- 
ture of sulphuric acid and water parted with all its water to the air, instead of imbib- 
ing more from it, as it usually does. We know of no facts to confirm Livingstone’s 
theory of this insect manufacture of water. Our theory is that the ants went down 
far enough to find water in the soil. Paradoxical as it may seem, the extraordinary 
heat—1382° to 134° at a depth of three inches—and the absolute dryness of the air, 
would diminish the distance before moisture was reached ; for the surface would soon 
be baked so as to be as hard as sandstone, thus precluding evaporation from any con- 
siderable depth, by forming a solid crust through which no water could escape. He 
dug wells deep into the bed of the dried-up river near by, but found no water. We 
imagine that if he had followed Solomon’s injunction to ‘‘ go to the ant and be wise,”’ 
and dug down close by one of their habitations, he would have come to moist sand 
at no great depth; and this moisture would, by natural laws, have flowed into his 
well. 

The human inhabitants of this wide African semi-desert are of very varied character. 
A large portion of them, Caffres, Bechuanas, and the like, belong to the lowest grade 
of humanity, perhaps a little above the aborigines of Australia, and some tribes in 
Borneo, which, could we admit of any connecting link between men and monkeys, we 
would designate as semi-human. There are other tribes, such as the Balakahari, which 
rise far higher in the scale of being; and are, we judge, quite susceptible of civiliza- 
tion. They have garden patches which they cultivate with great care, and rear small 
herds of goats, although they are often in the dry season obliged to dip up for them 
water absolutely in spoonfuls. They are also keen traders in their small way, barter- 
ing the skins of animals for spears, knives, tobacco, and dogs. These tribes merge 
almost imperceptibly into the Makalaka and Makélolo, whom Livingstone found in 
the more favorable region to the North, around Lake Negami. 


There is also in Africa another vast region which belongs apparently to the savannas 
rather than to what we consider the proper tropical regions. For want of a better 
term we may designate it as the ‘‘ Lake Region,”’ for in it lie great lakes, inferior only 
to those of North America, whose very existence was until within a few years unknown 
to the civilized world. Geographically it is purely equatorial, for it lies within five 
degrees of the equator on either side ; and its elevation is not such as oc itself suffi- 
cient to greatly modify its climate ; but other circumstances give it an aspect wholly 
unexpected. In general it may be described as a plateau of 3,000 to 4,000 feet 
above the ocean, with little outcropping hills of granite, and many fertilizing springs 


THE LAKE REGION OF AFRICA. 507 


in the valleys. This region has been, if we may use the term, only pricked into by 
travelers. Burton just touched upon its borders, Livingstone, in his second expe- 
dition, did the same, and it is here that he has been for five years lost to the civilized 
world, save for vague and sometimes contradictory accounts that have reached us. If 
the most recent reports are to be trusted, there is good reason to hope that he will ye 
return, and then we shall learn something of this as yet almost unknown region. Ax 
yet Speke and Hanning are the only ones who have brought back any thing like an 
account of this vast region, and their journey of 1,500 miles, although it occupied 
nearly thirty months, from Zanzibar on the Indian Ocean to Khartoum, where the twa 
main branches of the Nile unite, at a distance of 1,500 miles from the great river of 
Egypt, was almost on a single line. Speke died in the belief that he had solved the 
mystery of the Nile, by the discovery of the origin of its main branch in Lake Victoria 
N’yanza, hardly a mile from the equator ; but the subsequent explorations of Baker 
ender it almost certain that Speke discovered only one, and that by no means the 
largest of the sources of the river, which, as far as we know, is the sole outlet of the 
waters of a region larger than that drained by St. Lawrence. 

From all that we now know, this great region is one admirably adapted for the abode 
of civilized man. Here and there in Speke’s Journal occur passages like the following : 
“ The hill-sides and tops are well covered with bush and small trees, among which the 
bamboo is most conspicuous, while the bottoms, having a soil still richer and deeper, 
produce fine large fig-trees of exceeding beauty, the huge calabash, and a variety of 
other trees.” Again: ‘‘Our day’s march has been novel and very amusing. The 
hilly country surrounding us brought back to recollection many happy days which I 
had once spent with the Tartars in the Thibetan Valley of the Indus; only this was 
more picturesque; for though both countries are wild and thinly inhabited, this was 
greencd over with grass, and dotted here and there on the higher slopes with thick 
bushes of acacias, the haunts of the rhinoceros, both white and black ; while in the 
flat of the valleys herds of hartebeest and fine cattle roamed about like the kiyang 
and tame yak of Thibet.”’ Again: “ We descended into the close valley of the 
Uthenga, bound in by steep hills hanging over us more than a thousand feet high, 
as prettily clothed as the mountains of Scotland; while in the valley there were 
not only magnificent trees of extraordinary hight, but also a surprising amount of 
the richest cultivation, among which the banana may be said to prevail.” At Kara- 
gué, on Lake N’yanza, 5,100 feet above the level of the ocean, Speke kept a 
record of the thermometer for six months, from November to April. The lowest 
point was 65°, in April, the highest 70°, in November, for the mean temperature 
of aday. The highest absolute point at any hour of the day was 85°. As, strictly 
speaking, there is no summer and winter at the equator, one six months of the year 
will be the same as the other; the mean temperature of the whole year is put down 
at 68°. 

Here and there Speke came upon an isolated tribe living in almost pastoral quiet- 
ness ; but they were under perpetual apprehensions of attacks from their fierce neigh- 
bors ; for, as a general rule, the life of these tribes is one of perpetual war. The 
main object of predatory inroads is to procure slaves. These slaves are bartered from 
tribe to tribe, the survivors ultimately falling into the hands of the Portuguese slave- 
traders on the coast. 


508 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


From the savannas and semi-deserts of the Tropical World, we now turn to the 
great deserts themselves, which constitute a striking feature in that portion of the 
globe which is now under review. A desert, in the strict sense in which we use the 
term, is an extensive region wherein there is no regular rainfall, and in which, more- 
over, there exists no other means of irrigation. It is a land doomed to irremediable 
sterility ; for, as we have again and again pointed out, water is the great requisite to 
life. We have taken Southern Africa, and even the Kalahari, out of the category of 
deserts, because during a part of the year rain falls there, and therefore vegetable life, 
and by consequence, animal life, may exist, and often does exist in great profusion. 
The Valley of the Nile, including all Egypt, is rainless, and would be a desert, were it 
not that the lower course of the river, supplied from rainy regions, overflows its banks, 
and for the rest of the year it is irrigated by waters raised by human labor from the 
abounding river. Egypt is the “ gift of the Nile,”’ and is redeemed from barrenness 
by being, as described by the great Hebrew lawgiver, a land ‘‘ watered by the foot.”’ 

In America the only great tropical desert is that of Atacama, the ‘* sand-coast of 
Peru.”’ It is a long, narrow strip of land lying between the parallels of 3° and 21° 
south latitude, bounded on the west by the Pacific Ocean, and on the east by the Cor- 
dilleras. Its length is 1,600 miles, its breadth from 15 to 60 miles. It is traversed 
by spurs from the mighty mountain range, which sometimes sink into the level of the 
plain, and sometimes jut out in steep promontories into the ocean. Here and there, 
at wide intervals, a brook fed from the snowy Andes, makes a brief course across the 
narrow plain, forming a narrow strip of verdure only sufficient to break the general 
monotony. ‘The few inhabitants carefully husband the last drop of water from these 
scanty streams to irrigate their arid fields. Here the mule takes the place of the Afri- 
can camel as the ‘‘ship of the desert.’’ The horse can not support thirst for more 
than forty-eight hours without becoming so weak as to be scarcely able to carry its 
rider; yet if urged by his master he will stagger on until he falls dead in his tracks. 
The mule, more obstinate, as we say, but in fact more wise, when he feels himself 
verging upon the limits of endurance, stops short, and no urgency of whip or spur 
will force him to move, until he has rested. Yet notwithstanding the great power of 
endurance of the mules, many of them succumb to the fatigue of the journey, and the_ 
roads across the Atacama are marked by their skulls and bones, as the caravan routes 
across Sahara are whitened by the skeletons of camels. 


Perhaps the most absolute desert tract on the face of the globe is that which occu- 
pies the interior of the great island, or, as it may not improperly be styled, continent, 
of Australia. The island has an area of something more than three millions of square © 
miles, nearly equal in extent to Hurope. Fora great part of its circumference it is 
bounded by a continuous range of mountains or highlands, nowhere rising to a great 
hight, and for long distances consisting of plateaus or table-lands. There is, however, 
a continuous range of water-shed, which is never broken through, and which never 
recedes to any great distance from the coast. The hgbitable portions of Australia are 
limited to the slopes of the mountains and the narrow space between them and the 
eoast, in all not exceeding a width of three hundred miles. The interior, as far as is 
known, or as can be inferred from physical geography, is an immense depressed plain, 
more hopelessly barren and uninhabitable than the great desert of Sahara, 


THE GREAT AUSTRALIAN DESERT. 509 


The interior of this desert has probably never been traversed by the foot of man or 
beast; and only three or four exploring expeditions have penetrated far into its depths, 
In 1844 Sturt made his way some four hundred miles beyond the habitable regions, 
which brought him near the geographical center of the island. This space he found 
to be occupied by an immense plain covered with ridges of drifting sand, often rising 
to a hight of eighty or a hundred feet, and stretching away in either direction beyond 
the range of vision. Here and there grew a few solitary tufts of grass, nourished by 
infrequent showers. Permanent water there was none, and the sand was heated to 
such a degree that a match dropped upon it became ignited at once. The thermometer 
on one occasion rose to 153° in the coolest place to be found. In the midst of this 
sterile tract was a desert of still deeper gloom, which was traced for a distance of 
eighty miles in one direction, and thirty-five in another. Its surface was paved by a 
solid bed of dark iron-stone, upon which the horses’ hoofs rung as upon a metallic 
floor, without making the slightest indentation. There was not a trace of water or 
vegetation. Leichardt, a German naturalist, succeeded in penetrating from the settle- 
ments on the eastern coast, through the unexplored interior of the island, to its northern 
side. But his course led him only along the skirts of the great desert; yet even here 
he was more than once saved from perishing by following the flight of a bird winging 
its way to some solitary sink or water-hole. In 1846 he set out on a new journey, 
intending to pass from the east through the desert to the colony on the western shore. 
This journey was expected to occupy two and a half years. Highteen months after he 
set out, a letter was received from him written on the extreme verge of habitation. 
After that he disappeared, and it was not until years after that it was discovered that 
he had been murdered by his native guides. 

When it was ascertained that no rivers from the interior reached the sea-coast, while 
considerable streams poured from the hills towards the interior, it was supposed that 
there must be a great central lake. Sturt followed the Victoria, the most consider- 
able of these rivers, which poured a considerable current into the interior; but the 
farther he followed it the less became the stream, which at length dwindled into a 
succession of water-holes, and was finally lost among the barren sands. It is probable 
that the same is the case with all the streams running into the interior; and that all 
their water is exhausted by evaporation long before the center of the island is reached. 


But the great desert of the Tropical World is the African Sahara, occupying the 
central portion of the northern half of the continent from the latitude 17° to that of 
29°, although in many parts fruitful districts penetrate its bounds like peninsulas 
jutting into the sea. No Kuropean traveler has followed its southern limits from east 
to west; and of its interior little is known, except along the caravan routes traced 
across it for centuries. One scarcely strikes the northern border of the Sahara before 
he finds himself in a region beset with perils. 

The first portion, after leaving Tripoli, following the caravan route, known as the 
Hamada, is an elevated plateau, six days’ journey wide, barren and stony, except 
here and there where there is a patch of verdure upon which the patient camel browses 
with delight. Here is found a little bird called the asfir, which lives wholly upon the 
vermin which it picks from the feet of the camels. Then comes a broad, sandy, tree- 
less plain, crossed by shifting sand-ridges so steep that the traveler is often obliged to 

— 33 


510 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


flatten them down in order to enable his camels to proceed. Upon the verge of this 
stands Murzuk, the capital of Fezzan, a clay-built town in a sand-pit, shut in on all 
sides by barren ridges. Near by, in an occasional favored spot, grow a few pome- 
' granates, figs, and peaches. Onions are the principal vegetables, and the only milk 
to be obtained is a little furnished by goats. Yet the traveler into the desert will look 
back to it almost as to a paradise. 

Barth came near losing his life almost on the edge of the desert. Taking with him 
only a few dry biscuits and dates, he left his caravan one day alone to ascend a steep 
hill, the summit of which the natives supposed to be inhabited by demons. The 
mountain seemed to recede before him as he advanced ; but before noon he gained the 
summit. The fierce desert sun glared down, and the broad, sandy waste lay spread 
out before him. Looking around, he could discern no trace of the caravan. He dared 
only sip a few drops of his small stock of water, and could only swallow a morsel of 
his dry biscuit. He then plunged wildly down the mountain side in the supposed 
direction of the caravan. Parched with intolerable thirst, he swallowed all his water 
at a draught; but the relief was only momentary. He grew bewildered, and lost his 
course. Again and again he fired his pistols, listening eagerly for an answering shot; 
but the stillness of the desert was unbroken. Day began to decline, and he threw 
himself in despair upon the hot sand. Once he thought he caught a glimpse of the 
long line of the caravan, but it was only an illusion of the imagination. There were a 
few trees around, but he had not strength to light a fire, which might have served as 
a signal to his friends. He was utterly broken down and exhausted. Darkness fell 
around, and then he saw far across the plain the light of a fire. It must mark the 
encampment of his comrades. He fired his pistols, but received no reply. The dis- 
tance was too great for the sound to traverse. Still the steady fire gleamed, marking 
the position of the friends whom he might never again behold. The long, sleepless 
night wore away, and the sun rose hotter and hotter in the east. He had barely 
strength to move so as to keep his head within the scanty shade of the leafless tree 
under which he lay. The torments of thirst became unendurable. He bit his arm, 
and sucked the blood which flowed from the wound. ‘Then he fell into a delirious 
trance, from which he did not awake till the sun had sunk behind the hills. As he 
cast a despairing look through the gathering gloom over the pitiless waste, he heard 
the cry of a camel. No music ever sounded so sweetly. Raising himself a little, he 
saw, not far off, a man mounted on a camel, looking eagerly around. It was one of 
his escort, who had come upon his tracks in the sand, and was following upon his 
trace. Barth cried out feebly for water. The man heard him, and, after bathing his 
head, gave him a draught. So swollen was his throat that he could hardly swallow. 
He was then put upon the camel and borne to the caravan. ‘The natives scarcely 
~ believed that he could be alive; for they say that no man can live in the desert with- 
out water for more than twelve hours. Save with his own blood, Barth had not 
moistened his parched lips for eight-and-twenty hours. 

Until within the last years, the Sahara was supposed to be a low plain, partly situ- 
ated even below the level of the ocean; but the journeys of Barth, Overweg, and 
Vogel, have proved it, on the contrary, to be a high table-land, rising 1,000 or 2,000 
feet above the sea. Nor is it the uniform sand-plain which former descriptions led 
one to imagine ; for it is frequently traversed by chains of hills, as desolate and wild 


THE DESERT OF SAHARA. 51 


as the expanse from which they emerge. But the plains also have a different char- 
acter in various parts: sometimes over a vast extent of country the ground is strewed 
with blocks of stone or small boulders, no less fatiguing to the traveler than the loose 
drift sand, which, particularly in its western part (most likely in consequence of the 
prevailing east winds), covers the dreary waste of the Sahara. Often also the plain 
is rent by deep chasms, or hollowed into vast basins. In the former, particularly on 
the northern limits of the desert, the rain descending from the gulleys of the Atlas, 
sometimes forms streams, which are soon swallowed up by the thirsty sands, or dried 
by the burning sunbeams. 

The deeper basins of the Sahara are frequently of great extent, and sometimes con- 
tain valuable deposits of salt. Wherever perennial springs rise from the earth, or 
wherever it has been possible to collect water in artificial wells, green oases, often 
many days’ journey apart from each other, break the monotony of the desert. They 
might be compared with the charming islands that stud the vast solitudes of the South 
Sea ; but they do not appear, like them, as elevations over surrounding plains of sea, 
but as depressions, where animals and plants find a sufficient supply of water, and a 
protection, not less necessary, against the terrific blasts of the desert. 

A wonderful luxuriance of vegetation characterizes these oases of the wilderness. 
Under and between the date-palms, that are planted about six paces apart, grow apricot 
and peach trees, pomegranates and oranges, the henneh, so indispensable to oriental 
beauty ; and even the apple-tree, the pride of European orchards. The vine twines 
from one date-palm to another, and every spot susceptible of culture bears grain, par- 
ticularly dourrah or barley, and also clover and tobacco. With prudent economy the 
villages are built on the borders of the oases on the unfruitful soil, so that not a foot 
of ground susceptible of culture may be lost. 

The vast tracts of sterile sand, where not even the smallest plants take root, and 
which might be called the “desert of the desert,’ present the greatest conceivable 
contrast to its green oases. With the vegetable world the animal kingdom likewise 
disappears, and for days the traveler pursues his journey without meeting with a single 
quadruped, bird, or insect. Nowhere are the transitions of light and shade more ab- 
rupt than in the desert, for nowhere is the atmosphere more thoroughly free of all 
vapors. ‘The sun pours a dazzling light on the ground, so that every object stands 
forth with wonderful clearness, ae all that remains in the shade is sharply deine’, 
and appears like a dark spot in the surrounding glare. 

The stillness of these wastes is sometimes satel: interrupted by the loud voice of 
the khamsin or simoom. The crystal transparency of the sky is veiled with a hazy dim- 
ness. The wind rises and blows in intermittent gusts, like the laborious breathing of 
a feverish patient. Gradually the convulsions of the storm grow more violent and 
frequent ; and although the sun is unable to pierce the thick dust-clouds, and the 
shadow of the traveler is scarcely visible on the ground, yet so suffocating is the heat, 
that it seems to him as if the fiercest rays of the sun were scorching his brain. The dun 
atmosphere gradually changes to a leaden blackness; the wind becomes constant ; and 
even the camels stretch themselves upon the ground and turn their backs to the whirl- 
ing sand-storm. At night the darkness is complete; no light or fire burns in the tents, 
which are hardly able to resist the gusts of the simoom. Silence reigns throughout 
the whole caravan, yet no one sleeps ; the bark of the jackal or the howl of the hyena 


512 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


alone sounds dismally from time to time through the loud roaring of the storm. The 
sultry breath of the desert is felt far beyond its bounds. It blows over Italy, where 
it is known as the sirocco, and crosses even the Alps, where, under the name of the 
Fénwind, it rapidly melts the snow of the higher valleys, and causes dangerous inun- 
dations. The dust of the desert, whirled high into the air, frequently falls upon the 
decks of vessels crossing the Atlantic, far from the coast of Africa, and flies in clouds 
over the Red Sea —a greeting from Nubia to Arabia. 

When we consider the scanty vegetation of the Sahara, we can not wonder that 
animal life is but sparingly scattered over it. The lion, whom our poets so frequently 
name the “king of the desert,”’ only shows himself on its borders; and on asking the 
nomades of the interior whether it is ever seen in their parts, they gravely answer that 
in Europe lions may perhaps feed on shrubs or drink the air, but that in Africa they 
cannot exist without flesh and water, and therefore avoid the sandy desert. In fact, 
they never leave the wooded mountains of the Atlas, or the fruitful plains of the Sou- 
dan, to wander far away into the Sahara, where snakes and scorpions are the only 
dangerous animals to be met with. The snakes, which belong to the genus Cerastes, 
which is distinguished by two small horns upon the head, have a deadly bite, and are 
remarkable for their almost total abstinence from water. When a caravan, on first 
entering the desert, meets with one of these venomous reptiles, it is not killed, ‘‘ for 
it is of good omen to leave evil behind;” but farther on the snakes are mercilessly 
destroyed wherever they are seen. Among the animals which inhabit those parts of 
the desert which are covered with prickly shrubs, we find hares and rabbits, hyenas 
and jackals, the hedgehog and the porcupine. Several lizards inhabit the desert 
among others, a large gray monitor, and a small white skink, with very short legs, 
called zelgague by the Arabs. Its movements are so rapid that it seems to swim on 
the sand like a fish in the water, and when one fancies he has caught it, it suddenly 
dives under the surface. Its traces, however, betray its retreat, and it is easily ex- 
tracted from its hole, —a trouble which, in spite of the meagre booty, is not consid. 
ered too great when provisions are scarce. 

The ostrich, which is proverbially said to drink only every five days when there is 
' water, and to be able to endure thirst for a much longer period when there is none, ana 
the gazelle, which even the greyhound finds it difficult to catch, venture deeper into the 
desert. The chase of the gazelle is a favorite amusement of the Saharians. On see- 
ing a herd at a distance they approach as cautiously as possible ; and when about a mile 
distant, they unleash their greyhounds, who dart off with the rapidity of arrows, and 
are excited, by loud cries, to their utmost speed. Yet they only reach the flying herd 
after a long chase ; and now the scene acquires the interest of a drama. ‘The best 
greyhound selects the finest gazelle for his prey, which uses all its cunning to avoid its 
pursuer, springing to the right, to the left, now forwards, then backwards, sometimes 
even right over the greyhound’s head; but all these zigzag evolutions fail to save it 
from its indefatigable enemy. When seized it utters a piteous scream, the signal of 
the greyhound’s triumph, who kills it with one bite in the neck. 

According to the seasons animal life fluctuates in the Sahara from north to south. 
In winter and spring, when heavy rains, falling on its northern borders, provide wide 
districts, thoroughly parched by the summer heat, with the water and pasturage needed 
for the herds, the nomadic tribes wander farther into the desert with their camels, horses, 


THE DESERT OF SAHARA. 513 


sheep, and goats, and retreat again to the coast lands as the sun gains power. At this 
time of the year the wild animals—the lion, the gazelle, and the antelope—also wan- 
der farther to the south, which at that time provides them, each according to its taste, 
with the nourishment which the dry summer is unable to bestow; while the ostrich, 
_who during the summer ranged farther to the north, then retreats to the south ; for hot 
and sandy plains are the paradise in which this singular bird delights to roam. 

In the southern part of the Sahara the tropical rains, whose limits extend to 19° 
north latitude, and in some parts still farther to the north, produce similar periodical 
changes in the character of the desert. Under their influence the sandy plains are 
soon covered with grasses and shrubs. In the dry season, on the contrary, the green 
carpet disappears, and the country then changes into an arid waste, covered with stubbles 
and tufts of mimosas. This beneficial change, however, does not take place every 
year ; for the tropical rains frequently fail to appear on their northern boundaries, and 
thus disappoint the hopes of the thirsty desert, 


514 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


NTR AN 
WN Men vi ut 
RSS 


IGARIPE, OR CANOCE-PATH ON THE AMAZON. 


CHAPTER IV. 
TROPICAL FORESTS.—VALLEY OF THE AMAZON. 


Characteristics of the Tropical Forests—Variety of Trees and Plants—Aspect During the 
Rainy Season—Beauty After the Rainy Season—A Morning Concert—Repose at Noon— 
Awakening at Evening—Nocturnal Voices of the Forest.—The Amazon: Course of the 
River—Size of its Basin—The Tide at its Mouth—Rising of the River—Igaripes, or Canoe- 
Paths—Inundations of the Amazon—Vast Variety of its Vegetation—Fishes—A gassiz’s 
Specimens—Alligators and Turtles—Turtle-Hunting—Insects—Ants—Butterflies—Spiders 
—Lizards—Frogs and Toads—Snakes—Paucity of Mammalia—The Jaguar—Scantiness 
of Human Population—Indian Tribes—Mundurcu Tattooing—Travelers’ Accounts of the 
Tribes—Men with Tails—Orton’s Summary of their Character—His Own Experience 
Favorable—He finds them Honest and Peaceable—Agassiz’s Notices of the Indians—Their 
Familiarity with Animals and Plants—Whites—Negroes—Mixed Breeds—Agassiz and 
Orton on the Capacity of Amazonia. 


AVING passed in review the lofty plateaus, the broad savannas, and the 
burning deserts, which form striking though exceptional features of the 
Tropical World, we proceed to the forests, which constitute the most distinctive 
feature of the regions which lie bordering the equator. Reserving for a separate chap- 
ter some of the most notable trees specially characteristic of the tropics, we propose to 


Se 


ASPECTS OF TROPICAL FORESTS. 515 


take a survey of the general aspects of the great forests, and especially of that which 
covers, with scarcely an interruption, the valley of the Amazon, in whose almost unin- 
habited depths the whole habitable part of Kurope might be hidden away. 
The peculiar charms of the tropical primitive forest are enhanced by the mystery of 
its impenetrable thickets; for however lovely its lofty vaults and ever-changing forms 
of leaf or blossom may be, fancy paints scenes still more beautiful beyond, where the 
eye cannot penetrate, and where, as yet, no wanderer has ever strayed. In the bound- 
less forests of tropical America, the jaguar sometimes loses himself in such impenetrable 
thickets that, unable to hunt upon the ground, he lives for a long time on the trees, a 
terror to the monkeys. Here the padres of the mission-stations, which are not many 
miles apart in a direct line, often require more than a day’s navigation to visit each 
other, following the windings of small rivulets in their courses, as the forest renders 
communication by land impossible. The matted bush-ropes, climbing along the trunks 
and branches, extend like the rigging of a ship from one tree to another, and blossom 
at such a giddy hight that it is frequently as impossible to reach these flowers as it is 
to distinguish to which of the many interlacing stems they may belong. Nor is it 
possible to drag down one of these inaccessible creepers; for, owing to their strength 
and toughness, it would be easier to pull down the tree to which it attaches itself than 
to force the liana from its hold. No botanist ever entered a primitive forest without 
envying the bird to whom no blossom is inaccessible; who, hizh above the loftiest 
trees, looks down upon the sea of verdure, and enjoys prospects whose beauty can 
hardly be imagined by man. 

A majestic uniformity is the character of our woods, which often consist but of one 
species of tree, while in the tropical forests an immense variety of families strive for 
existence, and even in a small space one neighbor scarcely ever resembles the other. 
Within the space of half a mile square, Agassiz counted one hundred and seventeen 
different kinds of wood, many of them fitted for the finest cabinet work. Even ata 
distance this difference becomes apparent in the irregular outlines of the forest, as here 
an airy dome-shaped crown, there a pointed pyramid, rises above the broad flat masses 
of green, in. ever varying succession. On approaching, the differences of color are 
added to the irregularities of form; for while our forests are deprived of the ornament 
of flowers, many tropical trees have large blossoms, mixing in thick bunches with the 
leaves, and often entirely overpowering the verdure of the foliage by their gaudy 
tints. Thus splendid white, yellow, or red colored crowns are mingled with those of 
darker or more humble hue. At length when, on entering the forest, the single leaves 
become distinguishable, even the last traces of harmony disappear. Here they are 
delicately feathered, there lobed; here narrow, there broad; here pointed, there 
obtuse ; here lustrous and fleshy, as if in the full luxuriance of youth, there dark and 
arid, as if decayed with age. In many the inferior surface is covered with hair; and 
as the wind plays with the foliage, it appears now silvery, now dark green, now of a 
lively, now of a melancholy, hue. Thus the foliage exhibits an endless variety of 
form and color; and where plants of the same species unite in a small group, they are 
mostly shoots from the roots of an old stem. Where so many thousand forms of equal 
pretensions vie for the possession of the soil, none is able to expand its crown or extend 
its branches at full liberty. Hence there is a universal tendency upwards; for it is 
only by overtopping its neighbors that each tree can hope to attain the region of free- 


516 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


dom and of light; and hence also the crowns borne aloft on those high columnar 
trunks are comparatively small. 

In the deep lowlands the forest assumes a severe and gloomy character: dense 
erowns of foliage form lofty vaults almost impenetrable to the light of day ; no under- 
wood thrives on the swampy ground; no parasite puts forth its delicate blossoms 
where the mighty trees stand in interminable confusion; and only mushrooms sprout 
abundantly from the humid soil. Nothing can equal the gloom of these forests during 
the rainy season. Thick fogs obscure the damp and sultry air, and clouds of mos- 
quitoes whirl about in the mist. The trees drip with moisture; the flowers expand 
their petals only during the few dry hours of the day, and every animal seeks shelter 
in the thicket. No bird, no butterfly comes forth; the snorting of the capybaras, and 
the monotonous croaking of frogs and toads, are the only sounds that break the dull 
silence ; except when the roar of the jaguar, or the howlings of the stentor-monkey, 
issue like notes of distress from the depth of the melancholy woods. 

After the wet season the woods appear in their full beauty. Before the first 
showers, the long continued drought had withered their leaves, and dried up many 
of the more tender parasites; during its continuance the torrents of rain despoiled 
them of all ornament; but when the clouds disperse and the animals come forth 
from their retreats to stretch their stiffened limbs in the warm sunshine, then also 
the vegetable world awakens to new life; and where, a few days before, the eye 
met only with green in every variety of shade, it now revels in the luxuriance of 
beautiful flowers, which embalm the air with exquisite fragrance. These fairy 
bowers are enlivened by birds of splendid plumage, particularly in the early 
morning, when the luscious green of the high palm-fronds or the burning yellow 
of the lofty leopoldinias, touched by the first rays of the sun, suddenly shines forth. 
Then hundreds of gaudy parrots fly across the river; numberless colibris dart like 
winged gems through the air; whole herds of cotingas flutter among the blossoms ; 
ducks of brilliant plumage cackle on the branches of submerged trees; on the highest 
tree-tops the toucan yelps his loud pia-po-ko! while, peeping from his nest, the oriole 
endeavors to imitate the sound ; and the scarlet ibis flies in troops to the coast, while 
the white egrette flutters along before the boat, rests, and then again rises for a new 
career. 

In general the morning hours are loudest in the primitive forest ; for the animals 
that delight in daylight, though not more numerous than the nocturnal species, have 
generally a louder voice. Their full concert, however, does not begin immediately 
after sunrise ; for they are mostly so chilled by the colder night, that they need to be 
warmed for some time before awakening to the complete use of their faculties. First, 
single tones ring from the high tree-crown, and gradually thousands of voices join in 
various modulation,—now approaching, now melting into distance. Pre-eminent in 
loudness is the roar of the howling monkeys, though without being able fully to stifle 
the discordant cries and chattering of the noisy parrots. But the sun rapidly ascends 
towards the zenith, and one musician after the other grows mute and seeks the cool 
forest shade, until finally the whole morning concert ceases to be heard. 

As the heat grows more intense, the stillness of the forest is only interrupted at in- 
tervals by single animal voices. The deepest silence reigns at noon, when the sun 
becomes too powerful even for the children of the torrid zone; and many creatures, 


THE VALLEY OF THE AMAZON. 517 


particularly birds, sink into a profound sleep. Then all the warm-blooded animals 
seek the shade, and only the cold reptiles,—alligators, lizards, salamanders,—stretch 
themselves upon the glowing rocks in the bed of the forest-streams, or on sunny slopes, 
and, with raised head and distended jaws, seem to inhale with delight the sultry air. 

As evening approaches, the noise of the morning begins to re-awaken. With loud 
eries the parrots return from their distant feeding-grounds to the trees on which they 
are accustomed to rest at night; and, as the monkeys saluted the rising sun, so chat- 
tering or howling, they watch him sinking in the west. With twilight a new world 
of animals,—which, as long as the day lasted, remained concealed in the recesses of 
the forest,—awakens from its mid-day torpor, and prepares to enjoy its nightly revels. 
Then bats of hideous size wing their noiseless flight through the wood, chasing the 
giant hawk-moths and beetles, which have also waited for the evening hour, while the 
felidze quit their lairs, ready to spring on the red stag near some solitary pool, or on 
the unwieldy tapir, who, having slept during the heat of the day, seeks, as soon as 
evening approaches, the low-banked river, where he loves to wallowin the mud. Then 
also the shy opossum quits his nest in hollow trees, or under some arch-like vaulted 
root, to search for insects or fruits, and the cautious agouti sallies from the bush. - 

In our forests scarcely a single tone is heard after sunset ; but in the tropical zone 
many loud voices celebrate the night, where, for hours after the sun has disappeared, 
the cicadas, toads, frogs, owls, and goatsuckers chirrup, ery, croak, howl, and wail. 
The quietest hours are from midnight until about three in the morning. Complete 
silence, however, occurs only during very short intervals; for there is always some 
cause or other that prompts some animal to break the stillness. Sometimes the din 
grows so loud, that one might fancy a legion of evil spirits were celebrating their 
orgies in the darkness of the forest. Humboldt supposes the first cause of these tu- 
mults to be a conflict among animals, which, arising by chance, gradually swells to 
larger dimensions. The jaguar pursues a horde of pecaris or tapirs which break 
wildly through the bushes. Terrified by the noise, the monkeys howl, awakening par- 
rots and toucans from their slumber; and thus the din spreads through the wood. . 
A long time passes before the forest returns to its stillness. Towards the approach 
of day the owls, the goatsuckers, the toads, the frogs, howl, groan, and croak for the 
last time ; and as soon as the first beams of morning purple the sky, the shrill notes 
of the cicadas mix with their expiring cries. 

The valley of the Amazon is the great forest of the globe. This mighty river, 
rising in the small mountain lake of Lauricocha, only sixty miles from the Pacific, 
runs clear across the breadth of the continent, almost on the line of the Equator, and 
einpties into the Atlantic. Its whole length is*2,740 miles, following its windings, or 
2,050 in a straight line. From north to south its tributaries stretch 1,750 miles. At 
a distance of 2,000 miles above its mouth it has a breadth of a mile and a half, after- 
wards it spreads to ten miles, then expands until it presents to the Atlantic a front of 
one hundred and eighty miles. The lake which is the source of the main stream lies 
just below the limits of perpetual snow. For the first five hundred miles the stream 
flows through a deep valley, before reaching the level of the great plain. 

The region drained by the Amazon dwarfs that of any other river. The Mississippi 
drains an area of a million and a quarter square miles, the Amazon almost twice as 


*See note on page 524. 


518 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


much, a space equal to two-thirds of all Europe. Into this basin the United States 
might be packed without touching its boundaries. It would hold the basins of the 
Mississippi, the Nile, the Danube, and the Hoang-Ho. 

Dangerous sand-banks guard the giant’s threshold ; and no less perilous to the nav- 
igator is the famous Pororocca, or the rapid rising of the spring-tide at the shallow 
mouths of the chief. stream and some of its embranchments,—a phenomenon which, 
though taking place at the mouth of many other rivers, such as the Hooghly, the 
Indus, the Dordogne, and the Seine, nowhere assumes such dimensions as here, where 
the colossal wave frequently rises suddenly along the whole width of the stream to 
a hight of twelve or fifteen feet, and then collapses with a roar so dreadful that it is 
heard at the distance of more than six miles. ‘Then the advancing flood-wave glides 
almost imperceptibly over the deeper parts of the river bed, but again rises angrily 
as soon as a more shallow bottom arrests its triumphant career. 

The territory drained by the Amazon is so vast that, at the sources of its northern 
and southern tributaries, the rainy season takes place at opposite times of the year. 
So wonderful is the length of the stream that, while at the foot of the Andes it begins 
to rise early in January, the Solimoens swells only in February ; and below the Rio 
Negro the Amazon does not attain its full hight before the end of March. The 
swelling of the river is colossal as itself. In the Solimoens and farther westward the 
water rises above forty feet; and Von Martius even saw trees whose trunks bore 
marks of the previous inundation fifty feet above the hight of the stream during the 
dry season. Then for miles and miles the swelling giant inundates his low banks, and, 
majestic at all times, becomes terrible in his grandeur when rolling his angry torrents 
through the wilderness. The largest forest-trees tremble under the pressure of the 
waters, and trunks, uprooted and carried away by the stream, bear witness to its 
power. Fishes and alligators now swim where a short while ago the jaguar lay in 
wait for the tapir, and only a few birds, perching on the highest tree-tops, remain to 
witness the tumult which disturbs the silence of the woods. 

Meanwhile the waters stimulate vegetation; numberless blossoms break forth from 
the luxuriant foliage ; and while the turbid waters still play round the trunks of the 
submerged trees, the gayest flowers enamel their green crowns, and convert the inun- 
dated forest into an enchanted garden. When at length the river retires within its 
usual limits, new islands have been formed in its bed, while others have been swept 
away ; and in many places the banks, undermined by the floods, threaten to crush the 
passing boat by their fall,—a misfortune which not seldom happens, particularly when 
high trees come falling headlong down with the banks into the river. 

Countless lagunes stretch along the course of the Amazon and its tributaries. These 
lagunes, called by the natives ¢garipés, or canoe-paths, are a characteristic feature of 


the river. One may paddle from Santarem a thousand miles up the Amazon, and 


never, unless he chooses, enter the river itself. Most of these lazunes communicate 
with the larger currents by channels, which, however, are generally dried up before 
the rainy season sets in. The magical beauty of tropical vegetation reveals itself in 
all its glory to the traveler who steers his -boat through the solitudes of these aquatic 
mazes. Here the forest forms a canopy over his head; there it opens, allowing the 
sunshine to disclose the secrets of the wilderness; while on either side the eye pene- 
trates through beautiful vistas into the depths of the woods. Sometimes, on a higher 


7. 


THE FORESTS OF AMAZONIA. 519 


spot of ground, a clump of trees forms an island worthy of Eden. A chaos of bush- 
ropes and creepers flings its garlands of gay flowers over the forest, and fills the air 
with the sweetest odor. Numerous birds, partly rivaling in beauty of color the passi- 
floras and bignonias of these hanging gardens, animate the banks of the lagune, while 
gaudy macaws perch on the loftiest trees; and, as if to remind one that death is not 
banished from this scene of Paradise, a dark-robed vulture screeches through the 
woods, or an alligator rests, like a black log of wood or a sombre rock, on the tranquil 
waters. Well he knows that food will not be wanting; for river tortoises and large 
fish are fond of retiring to these lagunes. 
_ The inundations of the Amazon, which often extend many miles inland, essentially 
modify the character of the bordering forest ; for it it only beyond their verge that the 
-enormous fig and laurel trees appear in all their grandeur. As here the underwood is 
less dense and more dwarfish, it is easy to measure the colossal trunks, and to admire 
their proportions, often towering to a hight of 120 feet, and measuring fifteen feet in 
diameter above the projecting roots. Enormous mushrooms spring from the decayed 
leaves, and numberless parasites rest upon the trunks and branches. The littoral for- 
est, on the contrary, is of more humble growth. The trunks, branchless in their lower 
part, clothed with a thinner and a smoother bark, and covered with a coat of mud 
according to the hight of the previous inundation, stand close together, and form above 
a mass of interlacing branches. These are the sites of the cacao-tree and of the prickly 
sarsaparilla, which is here gathered in large quantities for the druggists of Europe. 
-Leafless bush-ropes wind in grotesque festoons among the trees, between whose trunks 
-a dense underwood shoots up, to perish by the next overflowing of the stream. In- 
stead of the larger parasites, mosses and jungermannias weave their carpets over the 
drooping branches. But few animals besides the numerous water-birds inhabit this 
damp forest zone, in which, as it is almost superfluous to add, no plantation has been 
formed by man. 

The many windings of the water channels which traverse the littoral woods are so 
overgrown with bushes, that the boat can only with difficulty be pushed onwards 
through these retreats, whose silence is only broken by the splashing of a fish or the 
snorting of a crocodile. The many islands of the delta of the Amazon are every- 
where encircled by mangroves; but sailing stream upwards, the monotonous green of 
these monarchs of the shore is gradually replaced by flowers and foliage, which, in 
every variety of form and color, for hundreds and hundreds of miles characterize the 
banks of the river. 

During the dry season prickly astricarias, large musaceze, enormous bamboo-like 
grasses, white plumed ingas, and scarlet poivreas, are most frequently seen among the 
numberless plants growing along the bank of the stream, or projecting over its margin; 
while above the shrubbery of the littoral forest numberless palms tower, like stately 
columns, to the hight of a hundred feet; others of a lower stature are remarkable for 
the size of their trunks, on which the foot-stalks of the fallen leaves serve as supports 
for ferns and other parasites. On the trees which often lie floating on the river, 
though still attached by their roots to the bank on which they had flourished, petrels 
or scarlet ibises frequently perch ; and as a boat approaches, hideous bats, disturbed 
in their holes, fly out of the mouldering trunks. 

It stands to reason that in a length of more than 3,000 miles the species of plants 


520 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


must frequently change; yet the low banks of the Amazon, and of its vassals, as soon 
as they have emerged from the mountains where they rise, have everywhere a similar 
character. ‘‘ No spot on the globe,’’ says Orton, ‘‘ contains so much vegetable matter 
as the valley of the Amazon. From the grassy steppes of Venezuela to the treeless 
pampas of Buenos Ayres expands a sea of verdure, in which we may draw a circle of 
eleven hundred miles in diameter, which shall include an ever green unbroken forest. 
There is a most bewildering diversity of grand and beautiful trees; a wild, uncon- 
quered race of vegetable giants, draped, festooned, corded, matted, and ribboned with 
climbing and creeping plants, woody and succulent in endless variety. The exuber- 
ance of nature displayed in these million square acres of tangled, impenetrable forest, 
offers a bar to civilization nearly as great as its sterility in the African deserts. The 
moment you land, (and it is often difficult to get a footing on the bank, ) you are con- 
fronted by a wall of vegetation. A macheta is a necessary predecessor, for you must 
literally cut your way at every step.’ The mass of the forests on the banks consists 
of palms, of which there are about thirty species, leguminous or pod-bearing trees, 
broad-leaved bananas, and giant grasses. Among the trees which might be useful are 
the palo de sangre and the moria-pinima, or ‘‘ tortoise-shell tree,”’ the most beautiful 
ornamental wood in the world. Enough of this is annually wasted to veneer all the 
palaces of the civilized world. 

The great river is a crowded aquarium. Agassiz brought back more than 80,000 
specimens of fishes, which are yet to be classified and arranged. Alligators abound 
beyond all example elsewhere. “It is scarcely exaggerating,’’ remarks Bates, ‘‘ to 
say that the waters of the Amazon are as well stocked with large alligators in the dry 
season as a ditch in England is in summer with tadpoles.” Turtles are the most 
important product at present of the Amazon. The hunting of its eggs is the great 
business of the inhabitants. They are used chiefly for the purpose of extracting their 
oil, which is used for illumination. It is calculated that fifty millions of eggs are 
annually destroyed. 

The Amazonian forests are apparently almost bare of animal life. But this barren- 
ness is more apparent than real; for so wide is the field that myriads exist, but they 
are widely scattered and very shy. Insects are rare in the dense forests, being mostly 
confined to the open country along the banks of the rivers and lagoons. The most 
numerous family is that of ants. Termites abound. ‘Their special duty is to hasten 
the decomposition of decaying vegetation ; but they work their way into houses and 
trunks. They have a special fondness for paper; so that, according to Humboldt, “it 
is rare to find papers in tropical America older than fifty years.’’ Butterflies swarm 
in numbers and gorgeousness of coloring elsewhere unknown. Within half an hour’s 
walk from Para 700 species have been collected, while all Europe furnishes but 390 
species, and the British islands only 66. Of spiders there are 8,000 species, more than 
three times as many as exist in England. The largest of these, the Mygale Blondi, 
is five inches long. Lizards are met everywhere, in houses, roads, and forests. They 
run with such speed that it is almost impossible to catch them. Frogs and toads are 
the chief musicians of the Amazonian forest. They are of all sizes, from an inch to a 
foot in diameter. This latter size is attained by a toad of a dull gray color, studded 
all over with enormous warts, who has a good right to his name, Bufo gigas. Of 
snakes there is no lack, There are in South America 150 species, half as many as are 


THE ANIMALS OF AMAZONIA. 521 


found in the Hast Indies. The serpentine family is led by the enormous boa, while 
the rear is brought up by the Amphisbzenas, or ‘‘ double-headers,” who crawl one end 
foremost as well as the other, so that it is no easy matter to make head or tail of them. 
The greater part of the South American species are not venomous. 

Amazonia is remarkably poor in terrestrial mammals, and the species are of small 
size. The elephants and rhinoceroses of the Old World are represented by a single 
species of the tapir, and this is rare and shy. The lion tribe finds its only representa- 
tive in the puma. The jaguar, representing the tiger and leopard, is the fiercest and 
most powerful beast of prey of the New World. He is marked something like the 
leopard; but his spots are angular instead of rounded, and have a central dot. In 
size it exceeds the leopard. Humboldt, indeed, saw a jaguar whose length surpassed 
that of any of the tigers of India whose skins he had seen in the collections of Europe. 
There are but three species of deer, all small. A peccari, a wild dog, opossums, ant- 
eaters, armadilloes, capybaras, pacas, agoutis, and monkeys, conclude the list of Ama- 
zonia. Monkeys are the most numerous, about forty species inhabiting the valley. 

Man makes an insignificant figure in the vast solitudes of the Amazon. ‘There is 
but one human being to every four square miles. Put them down at equal distances 
apart, and each one would be two miles from his nearest neighbor. From what we 
know and can infer, there is no part of the globe in itself capable of supporting a more 
dense population. It is safe to say that a third of the present population of the globe 
eould find food in these now almost unpeopled wastes. The most zealous disciple of 
Malthus may dismiss his fears that the world will, within any reasonable number 
of centuries, become so over-peopled that population will outrun means of sustenance. 

There are said to be several hundred Indian tribes in Amazonia, each having a dif- 
ferent language unintelligible to all others. The most numerous are the Mundaraucus, 
who number about 10,000. They are far from being savages, are friendly to the 
whites, and are industrious, making considerable journeys to sell sarsaparilla, India 
rubber, and tonqua beans. They are noted for the elaborate manner in which they are 
tattooed. Agassiz figures two of these Indians who came from a long distance. The 
woman had the upper part of the face clear,—except that a black line was drawn 
across the nose and from the outer corner of the eyes to the ears, presenting precisely 
the appearance of a pair of spectacles. The chin was tattooed in a pattern of net- 
work. The upper part of the breast was wrought in open work, headed by two straight © 
lines around the shoulders, as if to represent a lace finish. The man was far more 
fully ornamented. The whole face was tattooed in bluish black, looking like a fine 
wire mask, the jaws and chin having a broad pattern. The neck, breast, and arms 
were wrought all over in a broad pattern with belts, lozenges, and squares, looking 
very like the netted shirts sometimes worn by laborers with us. To make a full suit 
of tattoo costs more time than to produce any other article of dress worn by human 
beings—a Cashmere shawl or the feathered cloak of a Polynesian noble not excepted. 
Ten full years are required, for so painful is the operation that only a bit can be made 
at a time ; but when once made the garment lasts a life-time. 

Of the character of the numerous tribes little is positively known. The few notices 
of travelers are vague, often contradictory, and not seldom wholly incredible. Thus 
Castlennau gravely assures us that on the banks of the Teffe ‘‘ dwell the Canamas and 
Uginas ; the former dwarfs, the latter having tails a palm and a half long—a hybrid 


522 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


from an Indian and a monkey.” Orton sums up their general characteristics as fol- 
lows: ‘Skin of a brown color, with a yellowish tinge, often nearly of the tint of 
mahogany ; thick, straight, black hair ; black, horizontal eyes; low forehead, some- 
what compensated by its breadth ; beardless ; of middle hight, but thick-set ; broad, 
muscular chest; small hands and feet; incurious, unambitious, impassive, undemon- 
strative ; with a dull imagination and little superstition ; with no definite idea of a 
Supreme Being, few tribes having a name for God, though one for the Demon; with 
no belief in a future state ; and, excepting civility, with virtues all negative. Yet a 
little while,” he says, ‘‘ and the race will become as extinct as the Dodo. He has not 
the supple organization of the European, enabling him to accommodate himself to 
diverse conditions.” And yet in the very same paragraph he says: “ The South 
American Indian seems to have a natural aptitude for the arts of civilized life not 
found in the red man of our continent.’ He makes brief mention of thirty or more 
of the tribes. Some are described as cannibals. Others are mentioned in quite dif- 
ferent terms. Thus the Mauhes are “an agricultural tribe, well-formed, and of a 
mild disposition.”’ The Uaupés “have permanent abodes in the shape of a parallel- 
ogram, with a semicircle at each end of a size to contain several families. One of 
them was 115 feet long by 75 broad, and about 30 feet high. The walls are bullet- 
proof.” The Passés and Juris are ‘“ peaceable and industrious, and have always been 
friendly to the whites.” The Tuctinas are ‘‘ an extensive tribe, leading a settled agri- 
cultural soit each horde having a chief and a ‘ medicine-man,’ or priest of their super- 
stitions.’? The Cucdmas are “ shrewd hard-working canoe-men, notorious for the 
singular desire for acquiring property.” And so on. 

Mr. Orton’s personal acquaintance with the Indians was rather Sienitede ; yet his brief 
notices of them give a favorable idea of their character. Fora month and a half par- 
ties of them served him as peons and boatmen. ‘The first party, consisting of twenty, 
undertook to carry his luggage a distance of thirteen days’ journey ‘ironed the dense 
forest. ‘‘ Not a transportation company in the United States,” he says, ‘“‘ever kept its . 
engagement more faithfully than did these twenty peons, and this too though we paid 
them in advance, according to the custom of the country.” His canoe-men “ were 
always in good humor, and during the whole voyage of a month we did not see the 
slightest approach to a quarrel. At no time did we have the least fear of treachery or 
violence. When it rained they invariably took off their ponchos; but in all our in- 
tercourse with these wild men we never noticed the slightest breach of modesty. They 
strictly maintained a decent arrangement of such apparel as they possessed.” 

The almost incidental notices given by Agassiz in his ‘‘ Journey in Brazil ’’ certainly 
place the Indians of the Amazon in a light far more favorable both for character and 
intelligence than that in which they are usually represented. That the men are disin- 
clined to labor is true; but this they share with men all over the globe. ‘‘ The women 
are said, on the contrary, to be very industrious ; and those whom we have had an 
opportunity of seeing justify this reputation. The wife of Laudigdri is always busy 
at some household work or other,—grating mandioca, drying farinha, packing tobacco, 
cooking, or sweeping. Her children are active and obedient, the older ones making 
themselves useful in bringing water, washing mandioca, or in taking care of the 
younger ones. She can hardly be called pretty, but she has a pleasant smile and a 
remarkably sweet voice, with a kind of childlike intonation which is very winning.” 


THE INHABITANTS OF AMAZONIA. 523 


Of another pair he says: “‘ Our host and hostess do what they can to make us com- 
fortable, and the children as well as the parents show that natural courtesy which has 
struck us so much among these Indians. My books and writing seem to interest them 
much, and while I was reading the father and mother came up, and after watching me 
for a few minutes in silence the father asked me if I had any leaves from an old book, 
or even a part of a newspaper to leave with him when I went away. He said he had 
once known how to read a little, and he seemed to think if he had something to practice 
upon he might recover the lost art. Then he added that one of his boys was very bright, 
and he was sure that he could learn if he had the means of sending him to school.” 
Again of a still different group: ‘‘ The familiarity of these children of the forest with 
the natural objects about them—plants, birds, insects, fishes, ete.—is remarkable. 
They frequently ask to see the drawings, and on turning over a pile containing several 
hundred colored sketches of fishes, they scarcely make a mistake, even the children 
giving the name instantly.”” And again: ‘‘A large number of the trees forming 
these forests are still unknown to science ; and yet the Indians, those practical botan- 
ists and zodlogists, are well acquainted not only with their external appearance, but 
also with their various properties. So intimate is their practical knowledge of the 
natural objects about them, that I believe it would greatly contribute to the progress 
of science if a systematic record were made of all the information thus scattered 
through the land ; and an encyclopzedia of the woods, as it were, taken down from 
the tribes which inhabit them. I think it would be no bad way of collecting to go 
from settlement to settlement, sending the Indians out to gather all the plants they 
know, to dry and label them with the names applied to them in the locality, and 
writing out under the heads of these names all that may thus be ascertained of their 
medicinal and otherwise useful properties, as well as their botanical character.’’ These 
notices certainly go far to throw discredit upon the sweeping descriptions given by 
other travelers of the savage character of the natives of Amazonia. 

The other inhabitants of the Amazon are Whites, Negroes, and Mixed Breeds. 
Excepting a few English, French, German, and Portuguese emigrants, who come to 
the country temporarily and with a purpose to return home when they have acquired 
a fortune, few of the so-called Whites are of pure Caucasian descent, the emigration 
having for many years been almost wholly of the male sex. Indeed it is considered 
in rather bad taste to boast of purity of descent. All travelers speak in warm terms 
of the courtesy of the Brazilians; and although they are generally inclined to indo- 
lence, yet of late years especially not a few of them have shown no inconsiderable 
energy and enterprise. Certainly the Empire of Brazil is by far the most promising 
of all the South American nations. It is the only one which is not in an almost 
chronic revolutionary condition. 

In the valley of the Amazon negroes are confined to the lower portion ; yet they 
have imparted a decided tinge to the character of the population. The mixed races 
comprise a very considerable part of the inhabitants. Fully five-and-twenty different 
classes of these are enumerated, each with its own distinctive name. Mamelucos, or 
White and Indian, are the most common; Mulattoes, are White and Negro; Cafuzos 
or Zambos are Indian and Negro; Curibocos are Cafuzo and Indian; Xibaros are 
Cafuzo and Negro ; and soon through different degrees of intermixture. Von Tschudi 
gives the following summation of the character of the mixed races: “‘ As a general rule 


524 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


it may be said that they unite in themselves all the faults without any of the virtues of 

their progenitors. As men they are generally inferior to the pure races, and as mem- 

bers of society they are the worst class of citizens.”’ Orton quotes this, but makes 
decided qualifications to the generalization. ‘‘ They display,”’ he says, ‘‘ considerable 
talent and enterprise ; a proof that mental degeneracy does not necessarily result from 

the mixture of white with Indian blood. Our observations do not support the opinion | 
that the result of amalgamation is ‘a vague compound lacking character and expres- 
sion.’ The moral part is perhaps deteriorated ; but in tact and enterprise they often 

exceed their progenitors.” We have already, in Chapter II., quoted his statement 
that in Quito, where he had the best opportunity of becoming acquainted with them, 
‘‘ They are the soldiers, artisans, and tradesmen who keep up the only signs of life in 
Quito.” 

Agassiz thus sums up some of the leading capacities of the basin of the Amazon : 
“Its woods alone have an almost priceless value. Nowhere in the world is there finer 
timber either for solid construction or for works of ornament. The rivers which flow 
past these magnificent forests seem meant to serve first as a water-power for the saw- 
mills which ought to be establishéd on their borders, and then as a means of transpor- 
tation for material so provided. Yet all the lumber used is brought from Maine. Set- 
ting aside the woods as timber, what shall I say of the mass of fruits, resins, oils, color- 
ing matter, textile fabrics which they yield? What surprised me most was to find 
that a great part of this region was favorable to the raising of cattle. An empire 
might esteem itself rich in any one of the sources of industry which abound in this 
valley ; and yet the greater part of its vast growth rots on the ground, and goes to 
form a little more river-mud, or to stain the waters on the shores of which its manifold 
products die and decompose. Although the rivers abound in delicious fish, large use 
is made of salt cod imported from other countries; and bread and butter are brought 
from the United States and England.” 

Orton says of the Valley of the Amazon: ‘‘ It possesses the most agreeable and 
enjoyable climate in the world, with a brilliant atmosphere only equaled by that of 
Quito, and with no changes of seasons. Life may be maintained with as little labor 
as in the Garden of Eden. Perhaps no country in the world is capable of yielding so 
large a return for agriculture. Nature, evidently designing this land as the home of a 
great nation, has heaped up her bounties of every description: fruits of richest flavors, 
woods of the finest grain, dyes of gayest colors, drugs of rarest virtues, and left no 
sirocco or earthquake to disturb its people.” 

*NoTE.—The length of the Amazon is very variously given by different authors, according as they con- 
sider one or another of the great rivers which unite to furm it, to be the main stream; for it happens that 
the longer ones are not the larger. Thus from Lake Lauricocha to Para, the distance including windings 
is estimated at 2,740 miles; but if we consider the Ucayali as the main aftluent, the distance is about 
3,000 miles. Lieutenant Herndon, considering the still longer but smaller Huallaga to be the true Amazon, 
estimates the total length at 3,944 miles, which others reduce to about 3,795 miles. The statement in the 


text is the one which, on the whole, seemis to be the most accurate. A. H. G. 
APRIL, 1874, 


Ot 
to 
Or 


TROPICAL VEGETATION. 


CHAPTER V. 
CHARACTERISTIC FORMS OF TROPICAL VEGETATION. 


General Features of Tropical Forests—Number of Species of Plants—The Baobab—Its Gigan- 
tic Size—Age of the Great Trees—Dragon-Trees—The Great Dragon-Tree of Orotava— 
The Sycamore—The Banyan—The Sacred Bo-Tree—The Oldest Historical Tree—The 
Teak—The Satin-wood—The Sandal Tree—The Ceiba—The Mahogany 'Tree—The Mora 
—The Guadua—Bamboos—The Aloe—The Agave—The Cactus—The Screw Pine— 
Mimosas—Lianas—Climbing Trees—Epiphytes—Water Plants—Buttressed Trees—Trees 
with Fantastic Roots—Mangroves—Marsh Forests—Palms—The Cocoa Palm—The Sago 
Palm—The Saguer Palm—The Areca Palm—The Palmyra Palm—The Talipot Palm— 
Ratans—The Date Palm—Oil Palms—Variety of Size, Form, Foliage and Fruit—Future 
Commercial Value of the Palm. 


HEREVER in the tropical regions periodical rains saturate the earth, vege- 
table life expands in a wonderful variety of forms. In the higher latitudes 
of the frozen north, a rapidly evanescent summer produces but few and rare flowers in 
sheltered situations, soon again to disappear under the winter’s snow; in the temperate 
zones, the number, beauty and variety of plants increase with the warmth of a genial 
sky; but it is only where the vertical rays of an equatorial sun awaken and foster life 
on humid grounds that ever-youthful Flora appears in the full exuberance of her 
creative power. It is only there we find the majestic palms, the elegant mimosas, the 
large-leafed bananas, and so many other beautiful forms of vegetation alien to more cold 
and variable climes. While our trees are but sparingly clad with scanty lichens and 
mosses, they are there covered with stately bromelias and wondrous orchids. Sweet- 
smelling vanillas and passifloras wind round the giants of the forest, and large flowers 
break forth from their rough bark, or even from their very roots. 

‘« The tropical trees,’’ says Humboldt, ‘‘ are endowed with richer juices, ornamented 
with a fresher green, and decked with larger and more lustrous leaves than those of 
the more northerly regions. Social plants, which render European vegetation so 
monotonous, are but rarely found within the tropics. ‘Trees, nearly twice as high 
as our oaks, there glow with blossoms large and magnificent as those of our lilies. 
On the shady banks of the Magdalena river, in South America, grows a climbing 
Aristolochia, whose flower, of a circumference of four feet, the children, while play- 
ing, sometimes wear as a helmet; and in the Indian Archipelago the blossom 
of the Rafflesia measures three feet in diameter, and weighs more than fourteen 
pounds.” 

The number of known plants is estimated at about 200,000, and the greater part of 
this vast multitude of species belongs to the torrid zone. But if we consider how very 
imperfectly these sunny regions have as yet been explored,—that in South America 


526 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


enormous forest lands and river basins have never yet been visited by a naturalist,— 
that the vegctation of the greater part of Central Africa is still completely hidden in 


=> 


FOREST ON THE PANAMA RAILROAD, 


mystery,—that no botanist has ever yet penetrated into the interior of Madagascar, 
Borneo, New Guinea, South-western China, and Ultra-Gangetie India,—and that, 


THE BAOBAB. 527 


moreover, many of the countries visited by travelers have been but very superficially 
and hastily examined,—we may well doubt whether even one-fourth part of the tropical 
plants is actually known to science. What a vast field for future naturalists! What 
prospects for the trade and industry of future generations ! 

After these general remarks on the variety and exuberance of tropical vegetation, I 
shall now briefly review those plants which, by their enormous size, their singularity 
of form, or their frequency in the landscape, chiefly characterize the various regions 
of the torrid zone in different parts of the globe. 

The African Baobab, or ‘‘ monkey-bread tree,’’ (Adansonia digitata,) may justly 
be called the elephant of the vegetable world. Near the village Gumer, in Fassokl, 
Russegger saw a baobab thirty feet in diameter and ninety-five in circumference; the 
horizontally outstretched branches were so large that the negroes could comfortably 
sleep upon them. ‘The Venetian traveler Cadamosto (1454) found, near the mouths 
of the Senegal, baobabs measuring more than a hundred feet in cireumference. As 
these vegetable giants are generally hollow, they are frequently made use of as dwell- 
ings or stables. Livingstone mentions one in which twenty or thirty men could lie 
down and sleep, as in a hut. As the baobab begins to decay in the part where the 
trunk divides into the larger branches, and the process of destruction thence continues 
downwards, the hollow space fills, during the rainy season, with water, which keeps a 
long time, from its being protected against the rays of the sun. The baobab thus 
forms a vegetuble cistern. 

The hight of the baobab does not correspond to its bulk, as it seldom exceeds sixty 
feet. As it is of very rapid growth, it acquires a diameter of three or four feet and its 
full altitude in about thirty years, and then continues to grow in circumference. The 
larger beam-like branches, almost as thick at their extremity as at their origin, are 
abruptly rounded, and then send forth smaller branches, with large, light green, pal- 
mated leaves. The bark is smooth and greyish. The oval fruits, which are of the 
size of large cucumbers, and brownish yellow when ripe, hang from long twisted spongy 
stalks, and contain a white farinaceous substance, of an agreeable acidulated taste, 
enveloping the dark brown seeds. They are a favorite food of the monkeys, whence 
the tree has derived one of its names. Jrom the depth of the incrustations formed on 
the marks which the Portuguese navigators of the fifteenth century used to cut in the 
large baobabs which they found growing on the African coast, and by comparing the 
relative dimensions of several trunks of a known age, Adanson concluded that a baobab 
of thirty feet in diameter must have lived at least 5,000 years; but a more careful 
investigation of the rapid growth of the spongy wood has reduced the age of the giant 
tree to more moderate limits, and proved that, even in comparative youth, it attains 
the hoary aspect of extreme senility. 

The baobab belongs to the same family as the mallow or the hollyhock. It ranges 
over a wide extent of Africa, particularly in parts where the summer rains fall in 
abundance, as in Senegambia, in Soudan, and in Nubia. Livingstone admired its 
colossal proportions on the banks of the Zouga and the Zambesi; under a great 
baobab near this river lie the remains of his wife, who bore him company during his 
journeyings; and William Peters found it on the eastern coast, near 26° south 
latitude. It forms a conspicuous feature in the landscape at Manaar in Ceylon. 
Tennent found one of the largest, measuring upwards of thirty feet in circumference, 


528 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


and another at Putten, since destroyed by the digging of a well under part of its 
roots, which, though but seventy feet high, was forty-six feet in girth. 


BAOBAB TREE, WITH THE GRAVE OF MRS. LIVINGSTONE, 


Age 


Dracenas, or ‘‘ dragon-trees,”” are found growing on the west coast of Africa and 
in the Cape Colony, in Bourbon and in China; but it is only in the Canary Islands, 


in Madeira, and Porto Santo, that they attain such gigantic dimensions as to entitle 


them to rank among the vegetable wonders of the world. Near Orotava, in Tene- 


DRAGON-TREE—SYCAMORE—BANYAN. 529 


riffe, still flourishes the venerable dragon-tree, which was already reverenced for its 
age by the extirpated nation of the Guanches, the aboriginal inhabitants of the island, 
and which the adventurous Bethencourts, the conquerors of the Canaries, found hardly 
less colossal and cavernous in 1402 than Humboldt, who visited it in 1799. Above 
the roots, the illustrous traveler measured a circumference of forty-five feet; and ac- 
cording to Sir George Staunton, the trunk has still a diameter of four yards, at an 
elevation of ten feet above the ground. The whole hight of the tree is not much 
above sixty-five feet. The trunk divides into numerous upright branches, terminating 
in tufts of evergreen leaves, resembling those of the pine-apple. 

Next to the baobab and the draceena, the Sycamore (Ficus sycomorus) holds a con- 
spicuous rank among the giant trees of Africa. It attains a hight of only forty or 
fifty feet, but in the course of many centuries its trunk swells to a colossal size, and 
its vast crown covers a large space of ground with an impenetrable shade. Its leaves 
are about four inches long and as many broad, and its figs have an excellent flavor. 
In Egypt it is almost the only grove-forming tree ; and most of the mummy coffins 
are made of its incorruptible wood. 

No baobab rears its monstrous trunk on the banks of the Ganges ; no dragon-tree 
of patriarchal age here reminds the wanderer of eenturies long past ; but the beautiful 
and stately Banyan (Ficus indica) gives him but little reason to regret their absence. 
Hach tree is in itself a grove, and some of them are of an astonishing size, as they are 
continually increasing, and, contrary to most other animal and vegetable productions, 
seem to be exempted from decay ; for every branch from the main body throws out its 
own roots, at first in small tender fibers, several yards from the ground, which contin- 
ually grow thicker, until, by a gradual descent, they reach its surface, where, striking 
in, they increase to a large trunk and become a parent-tree, throwing out new branches 
from the top. These in time suspend their roots, and, receiving nourishment from 
the earth, swell into trunks and send forth other branches, thus continuing in a state 
of progression so long as the first parent of them all supplies her sustenance. The 
Hindoos are peculiarly fond of this tree ; they consider its long duration, its outstretch- 
ing arms and overshadowing beneficence, as emblems of the Deity ; they plant it near 
their temples; and in those villages where there is no structure for public worship 
_ they place an image under a banyan, and there perform a morning and evening sacrifice. 

Many of these beautiful trees have acquired an historie celebrity ; and the famous 
*‘ Cubbeer-burr,”’ on the banks of the Nerbuddah, thus called by the Hindoos in mem- 
ory of a favorite saint, is supposed to be the same as that described by Nearchus, the 
admiral of Alexander the Great, as being able to shelter an army under its far-spread- 
ing shade. High floods have at various times swept away a considerable part of this 
extraordinary tree, but what still remains is near 2,000 feet in circumference, meas- 
ured round the principal stems; the overhanging branches not yet struck down cover 
a much larger space; and under it grow a number of custard-apple and other fruit 
trees. The large trunks of this single colossus amount to a greater number than the 
days of the year, and the smaller ones exceed 3,000, each constantly sending forth 
branches and hanging roots, to form other trunks and become the parents of a future 
progeny. In the march of an army it has been known to shelter 7,000 men. Such 
is the banyan — more wonderful, and infinitely more beautiful and majestic, than all 
the temples and palaces which the pride of the Moguls has ever reared ! 


530 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


The nearly related Pippul of India, or Bo-tree (Ficus religiosa), which differs 
from the banyan by sending down no roots from its branches, is reverenced by the Bud- 
dhists as the sacred plant, under whose shade Gotama, the founder of their religion, 
reclined when he underwent his divine transfiguration. Its heart-shaped leaves, which 
like those of the aspen, appear in the profoundest calm to be ever in motion, are 
supposed to tremble in recollection of the mysterious scene of which they were the 
witnesses. The sacred Pippul at Anarajapoora, the fallen capital of the ancient kings 
of Ceylon, is probably the oldest historical tree in the world ; as it was planted 288 
years before Christ, and hence is now 2,150 years old. The enormous age of the bao- 
babs of Senegal, and of the wondrous sequoias of California, can only be conjectured ; 
but the antiquity of the Bo-tree is matter of record, as its preservation has been an object - 
of solicitude to successive dynasties ; and the story of its fortunes has been preserved 
in a series of continuous chronicles amongst the most authentic that have been handed 
down by mankind. The olives in the garden of Gethsemane were full-grown when 
the Saracens were expelled from Jerusalem, and the cypress of Somma in Lombardy 
is said to have been a tree in the time of Julius Czesar. Yet the Bo-tree is older than 
the oldest of these by a century, and would almost seem to verify the prophecy pro- 
nounced when it was planted, that it would “flourish and be green forever.” The 
degree of sanctity with which this extraordinary tree has been invested in the imagi- 
nation of the Buddhists, may be compared to the feeling of veneration with which 
Christians would regard the attested wood of the cross. At the present day the aspect 
of the tree suggests the idea of extreme antiquity : the branches which have rambled 
at their will far beyond the outline of its inclosure, the rude pillars of masonry that 
have been carried out to support them, the retaining walls which shore up the parent 
stem, the time-worn steps by which the place is approached, and the grotesque carvings 
that decorate the stone-work and friezes, all impart the conviction tbat the tree which 
they encompass has been watched over with abiding solicitude, and regarded with an 
excess of veneration that could never attach to an object of dubious authenticity. 

Although far inferior to these wonders of the vegetable world in amplitude of growth, 
yet the Teak tree, or Indian oak ( Tectona grandis), far surpasses them in value, as the 
ship-worm in the water, and the termite on land, equally refrain from attacking its close- 
grained strongly-scented wood ; and no timber equals it for ship-building purposes. 
It grows wild over a great part of British India; in the mountainous districts along 
the Malabar coast, in Guzerat, the valley of the Nerbuddah, in Tenasserim and Peou. 
In Java also the teak forests, both those of natural growth and those that have been 
planted by the Dutch, are carefully administered. This tree, which requires a century 
to attain its full diameter of four feet, loses its leaves in the dry season, when the 
grass and undergrowth of shrubbery is burnt, as the heat which is developed does the 
trees no injury. The ashes afford an excellent manure, and the fire makes crevices and 
rents in the soil, through which the fertilizing rain can afterwards more easily penetrate 
to the roots. In Java the teak tree attains only a hight of eighty feet, inferior to its 
loftier Hindostanic stature. | pia 

Among the numerous timber-trees of Ceylon, the Satenwood ( Chloroxylon Swie- 
tenia) is by far the first, in point of size and durability. All the forests around Bat- 

ticaloa and Trincomalee, and as far north as Jaffna, are thickly set with this valuable 
tree, under whose ample shade the traveler rides for days together. It grows to the 


+ 


SANDAL—CEIBA—MAHOGANY—MORA. 531 


hight of a hundred feet, with a rugged, gray bark, small, white flowers, and polished 
leaves, with a somewhat unpleasant odor. Owing to the difficulty of carrying its heavy 
beams, the natives cut it only near the banks of the rivers, down which it is floated to 
the coast, whence large quantities are exported to every part of the colony. The 


richly colored and feathery pieces are used for cabinet-work, and the more ordinary 


logs for building purposes, every house in the eastern province being floored and tim- 
bered with satin-wood. 

The Sandal-tree, which furnishes the sweet-scented, fine-grained wood, so highly 
prized by the Chinese, and so much used in small cabinets, escritoires, and similar 
articles, because no insect can exist within its influence, also deserves to be noticed as 
one of the most valuable productions of the Malabar coast. It chiefly grows on rocky 
hills, and, if permitted, would attain a tolerable size, but, from its great value, is gen- 
erally cut down at an early stage. On low land and a richer soil it degenerates, and is 
in all respects less esteemed. A variety of the same tree, but furnishing a wood of 
inferior quality, grows on many of the South Sea Islands ; but in many parts the 
excessive avidity of the traders has almost caused its total extirpation. The sandal is 
a beautiful tree; the branches regular and tapering; the leaf like that of the willow, 
but shorter and delicately soft. The blossoms hang in bunches of small flowers, either 
red or white, according to the color of the wood. 

On turning our attention to America we find that Nature, delighting in infinite vari- 
eties of development, and disdaining a servile copy of what she had elsewhere formed, 
covers the earth with new and no less remarkable forms of vegetation. Thus, while in 
Africa the baobab attracts the traveler’s attention by its colossal size and peculiarity of 
growth, the gigantic Ceiba (Bombazx ceiba), belonging to the same family of plants, 
raises his astonishment in the forests of Yucatan. Like the baobab, this noble tree rises 
only to a moderate hight of sixty feet, but its trunk swells to such dimensions that fif- 
teen men are hardly able to span it, while a thousand may easily screen themselves 
under its canopy from the scorching sun. The leaves fall off in January ; and then at 
the end of every branch bunches of large, glossy, purple-red flowers make their appear- 


, ance, affording, as one may well imagine, a magnificent sight. In Guiana the savages 


take refuge upon the ceiba trees during the inundations. The seeds have an agree- 
able taste, and are frequently eaten, as well as the young and mucilaginous leaves. 

In British Honduras, in the neighborhood of Balize, and along the Motagua river, 
the Mahogany tree (Swietenia mahagont) is found scattered in the forests, attracting 


‘the woodman’s attention from a distance by its light-colored foliage. Such are its 
Y g g 


dimensions, and such is the value of peculiarly fine specimens, that in October, 1823, a 
tree was felled which weighed more than seven tons, and cost, when landed at Liver- 
pool, above £375; here it was sold for £525, and the expense of sawing amounted 
to £750 more ; so that the wood of this single tree, before passing into the hands of 
the cabinet-maker, was worth as much as a moderately sized farm. The African 
mahogany wood is furnished by the near related Khaya senegalensis, which likewise 
towers to the hight of a hundred feet, and has been transplanted to the Antilles, 

‘* Heedless and bankrupt in all curiosity must he be,’”’ says Waterton, ‘‘ who can 
journey through the forests of Guiana without stopping to take a view of the towering 
Mora. Its topmost branch, when naked with age, or dried by accident, is the favorite 
resort of the toucan. Many a time has this singular bird felt the shot faintly strike 


532 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


him from the gun of the fowler beneath, and owed his life to the distance betwixt 
them. The wild fig tree, as large as a common English apple tree, often rears itself 
from one of the thick branches at the top of the mora; and when its fruit is ripe, to it 
the birds resort for nourishment. It was to an indigested seed passing through the 
body of this bird, which had perched on the mora, that the fig tree first owed its 
elevated station there. The sap of the mora raised it into full bearing; but now, in 
its turn, it is doomed to contribute a portion of its own sap and juices towards the 
growth of different species of vines, the seeds of which also the birds deposited on its 
branches. These soon vegetate and bear fruit in great quantities; so what with their 
usurpation of the resources of the fig tree, and the fig tree of the mora, the mora, 
unable to support a charge which Nature never intended it should, languishes and 
dies under its burden; and then the fig tree and its usurping progeny of vines, 
receiving no more succor from their late foster-parent, droop and perish in their turn.” 
Our stateliest oaks would look like pigmies near this ‘‘ chieftain of the forests,” who 
raises his dark green cupola over all the neighboring trees, and deceives the traveler, 
who fancies that a verdant hill is rising before him. Its wood is much firmer than 
that of the fir. 

The graceful tapering form of the Gramineae, or grasses, belongs to every zone; 

but it is only in the warmer regions of the globe that we find the colossal Bambusacee, 
rivaling in grandeur the loftiest trees of the primeval forest. Such is the rapidity 
of their growth, that in the Royal Botanical Garden of Edinburgh, a bamboo was 
observed to increase six inches a day in a temperature of from 65° to 70°. The 
Bambusa gigantea of Burmah has been known to grow eighteen inches in twenty-four 
hours ; and as the Bambusa Tulda in Bengal attains its full hight of seventy feet in 
a single month, its average increase can not be less than an inch per hour. In New 
Grenada and Keuador the Guadua, one of these giant grasses, ranks next to the 
sugar-cane and maize as the plant most indispensable to man. It forms dense jungles, 
not only in the lower regions of the country, but in the valleys of the Andes, 5,000 
feet above the level of the sea. The culms attain a thickness of six inches, the single 
joints are twenty inches long, and the leaves are of indescribable beauty. A whole. 
hut can be built and thatched with the guadua, while the single joints are extensively 
used as water vessels and drinking cups. 
_ India, South China, and the Eastern Archipelago are the seats of the real bamboos, 
which grow in a variety of genera and species, as well on the banks of lakes and rivers 
in low marshy grounds, as in the more elevated mountainous regions. They chiefly 
form the impenetrable jungles, the seat of the tiger and the python. Sometimes a 
hundred culms spring from a single root, not seldom as thick as a man, and towering 
to a hight of eighty or a hundred feet. Fancy the grace of our meadow grasses, 
united with the lordly growth of the Italian poplar, and you will have a faint idea of 
the beauty of a clump of bamboos. 

The variety of purposes to which these colossal reeds can be applied almost rivals 
the multifarious uses of the cocoa-nut palm itself. Splitting the culm in its whole 
length into very thin pieces, the industrious Chinese then twist them together into 
strong ropes, for tracking their vessels on their numerous rivers and canals. The 
sails of their junks, as well as their cables and rigging, are made of bamboo; and in 


the southern province of Sechuen, not only nearly every house is built solely of this 


ALOES—AGAVES—SCREW-PINE—CACTUSES. 533 


strong cane, but almost every article of furniture which it contains—mats, screens, 
chairs, tables, bedsteads, bedding—is of the same material. From the young shoots 
they also fabricate their fine writing paper. In Mysore and Orizza the seeds of several 
species are eaten with honey; and in Sikkim the. grain of the Praong, a small bam- 
boo, is boiled, or made into cakes, or into beer. In Java, the prickly bamboo, whose 
wood is of such flinty hardness that sparks are emitted on its being struck with an 
axe, and whose formidable thorns project from every node, is used to form impenetrable 
hedges. 

The Aloes form the strongest contrast to the airy lightness of the grasses, by the 
stately repose and strength of their thick, fleshy, and inflexible leaves. They gener- 
ally stand solitary in the parched plains, and impart a peculiarly austere or melancholy 
character to the landscape. The real aloes are chiefly African, but the American 
yuccas and agaves have a similar physiognomical character. The Agave Americana, 
the usual ornament of our hot-houses, bears on a short and massive stem a tuft of 
fleshy leaves, sometimes no less than ten feet long, fifteen inches wide, and eight inches 
thick. After many years a flower stalk twenty feet high shoots forth in a few weeks 
from the heart of the plant, expanding like a rich candelabrum, and clustered with 
several thousands of greenish yellow aromatic flowers. But a rapid decline succeeds 
this brilliant efflorescence, for it is soon followed by the death of the exhausted plant. 

In Mexico, where the agave is indigenous, and whence it has found its way to 
Spain and Italy, it is reckoned one of the most valuable productions of Nature. At 
the time when the flower-stalk is beginning to sprout, the heart of the plant is cut out, 
and the juice, which otherwise would have nourished the blossom, collects in the hol- 
low. About three pounds exude daily, during a period of two or three months. 
Thus a single agave, or maguey, gives about a hundred and fifty bottles. But the 
use of the agave is not confined to the production of a vinous liquor, as the tough 
fibres of its leaves furnish an excellent material for the strongest ropes, or the forma- 
tion of coarse cloth. Long before the conquest of the country by Cortez, the abo- 
rigines applied the agave to a great variety of purposes. From it they made their 
paper (pieces of which of various thickness are still found covered with curious hiero- 
glyphie writing), their threads, their needles (from its sharp points), and many arti- 
cles of clothing and cordage. 

The Pandanus odoratissimus, or Sweet smelling Screw-pine, whose fruits, when 
perfectly mature, resemble large richly-colored pine-apples, plays an important part in 
the household economy of the coral-islanders of the South Sea. The inhabitants of 
the Mulgrave Archipelago, where the cocoa-nut is rare, live almost exclusively on the 
juicy pulp, and the pleasant kernels of the fruit. The dried leaves serve to thatch 
their cottages, or are made use of asa material for mats and raiment. The wood is 
hard and durable. They string together the beautiful red and yellow colored nuts for 
ornaments, and wear the flowers as garlands. When the tree is in full blossom, the 
air around is impregnated with delicious aromas. 

The grotesque forms of the Cactuses possess the stiff rigidity of the aloes. Their 
fleshy stems, covered with a gray-green coriaceous rind, generally exhibit bunches of 
hair and thorns instead of leaves. The angular columns of the Cerei, or torch cac- 
tuses, rise to the hight of sixty feet,—generally branchless, sometimes strangely rami- 


fied, as candelabras, while others creep like ropes upon the ground, or hang, snake- 


534 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


like, from the trees, on which they are parasitically rooted. The Opuntias are unsym- 
metrically constructed of thick, flat joints springing one from the other, while the 
melon shaped Echinocacti and Mammillariz, longitudinally ribbed or covered with 
warts, remain attached to the soil. The dimensions of these monstrous plants are ex- 
ceedingly variable. One of the Mexican echinocacti (#. Visnaga) measures four 
feet in hight, three in diameter, and weighs about two hundred pounds ; while the 
dwarf-cactus (#. nana) is so small that, loosely rooted in the sand, it frequently re- 
mains sticking between the toes of the dogs that pass over it. The splendid purple 
flowers of the cactuses form a strange contrast to the deformity of their stems, and the 
spectator stands astonished at the glowing life that springs forth from so unpromising 
a stock. These strange compounds of ugliness and beauty are in many respects useful 
toman. The pulp of the melocacti, which remains juicy during the driest season of 
the year, is one of the vegetable sources of the wilderness, and refreshes the traveler 
after he has carefully removed the thorns. Almost all of them bear an agreeable acid 
fruit, which, under the name of the Indian fig, is consumed in large quantities in the 
West Indies and Mexico. The light and incorruptible wood is admirably adapted for 
the construction of oars and many other implements. The farmer fences his garden 
with the prickly opuatias ; but the services which they render, as the plants on which 
the valuable cochineal insect feeds and multiplies, are far more important. 

The cactuses prefer the most arid situation, naked plains, or slopes, where they are 
fully exposed to the burning rays of the sun, and impart a peculiar physiognomy to a 
great part of tropical America. None of the plants belonging to this family existed 
in the Old World previously to the discovery of America; but some species have 
since then rapidly spread over the warmer regions of our hemisphere. The Nopal 
(Cactus opuntia) skirts the Mediterranean along with the American agave, and 
from the coasts has even penetrated far into the interior of Africa, everywhere main- 
taining its ground, and conspicuously figuring among the primitive vegetation of the 
land. Although chiefly tropical, the cactuses have a perpendicular range, which but 
few other families enjoy. From the low sand-coasts of Peru and Bolivia they ascend 
through vales and ravines to the highest ridges of the Andes. 

What a contrast between these deformities and the delicately feathered Micaioes 
unrivaled among the loveliest children of Flora in the matchless elegance of their 
foliage! Our acacias give but a faint idea of the beauty which these plants attain 
under the fostering rays of a tropical sun. In most species the branches extend hori- 
zontally, or umbrella-shaped, somewhat like those of the Italian pine, and the deep- 
blue sky shining through the light green foliage, whose delicacy rivals the finest em- 
broidery, has an extremely picturesque effect. Kndowed with a wonderful sensibility, 
many of the mimosas seem, as it were, to have outstepped the bounds of vegetable 
life, and to rival in acuteness of feeling the coral polyps and the sea-anemones of the 
submarine gardens. The Porliera hygrometrica foretells serene or rainy weather by 
the opening or closing of its leaves. Large tracts of country in Brazil are almost 
entirely covered with sensitive plants. The tramp of a horse sets the nearest ones in 
motion, and, as if by magic, the contraction of the small gray-green leaflets spreads in 
quivering circles over the field, making one almost believe, with Darwin and Dutro- 
chet, that plants have feeling 

Among the most remarkable forms of tropical vegetation, the creeping plants, bush- 


LIANAS—CLIMBING-TREES—EPIPHY TES—ORCHIDS. 535 


ropes, or Lianas, that contribute so largely to the impenetrability of the forests, hold 
a conspicuous rank. Often three or four bushropes, like strands in a cable, join tree 
to tree, and branch to branch ; others, descending from on high, take root as soon as 
their extremity touches the ground, and appear like shrouds and stays supporting the 
mainmast of a line-of-battle ship ; while others send out parallel, oblique, horizontal, 
and perpendicular shoots in all directions. Frequently trees above a hundred feet 
high, uprooted by the storm, are stopped in their fall by these amazing cables of Na- 
ture, and are thus enabled to send forth vigorous shoots, though far from their perpen- 
dicular, with their trunks inclined to every degree from the meridian to the horizon. 
Their heads remain firmly supported by the bushropes; many of their roots soon refix 
themselves in the earth, and frequently a strong shoot will sprout out perpendicularly 
from near the root of the reclined trunk, and in time become a stately tree. No less 
pliable than. tough, the lianas of the western hemisphere are used by the Brazilians as 
cordage to fasten the rafters of their houses, in the same manner as the equally flexible 
ratans are employed throughout the East Indian world. 

The enormous Climbing Trees, that stifle the life of the mightiest giants of the forest, 
offer a still more wonderful spectacle. At first, these emblems of ingratitude grow 
straight upwards like any feeble shrub, but as soon as they have found a support in 
other trees, they begin to extend over their surface; for, while the stems of other 
plants generally assume a cylindrical form, these climbers have the peculiarity of di- 

vesting themselves of their rind when brought into contact with an extraneous body, 
and of spreading over it, until they at length enclose it in a tubular mass. When, 
during this process, the powers of the original root are weakened, the trunk sends 
forth new props to restore the equilibrium ; and thus this tough and hardy race con- 
tinually acquires fresh strength for the ruin of its neighbors. 

Several species of the fig-trees are peculiarly remarkable for this distinctive prop- 
erty, and from the facility with which their seeds take root where there is a sufficiency 
of moisture to permit of germination, are formidable assailants of ancient monuments. 
Sir Emerson Tennent mentions one which had fixed itself on the walls of a ruined 
edifice at Polanarrua, and formed one of the most remarkable objects of the place, its 
roots streaming downwards over the walls as if their wood had once been fluid, and 
following every sinuosity of the building and terraces till they reached the earth. 

On the borders of the Rio Guama, the celebrated botanist, Von Martius, saw whole 
groups of Macauba palms encased by fig-trees that formed thick tubes round the shafts 
of the palms, whose noble crowns rose high above them; and a similar spectacle occurs 
- in India and Ceylon, when the Tamils look with increased veneration on their sacred 
pippul thus united in marriage with the palmyra. After the incarcerated trunk has 
been stifled and destroyed, the grotesque form of the parasite, tubular, cork-screw like, 
or otherwise fantastically contorted, and frequently admitting the light through inter- 
stices like loopholes in a turret, continues to maintain an independent existence among 
the straight-stemmed trees of the forest,—the image of an eccentric genius in the 
midst of a group of steady citizens. — 

Like the mosses and lichens of our woods, Hpiphytes of endless variety and almost 
inconceivable size and luxuriance (ferns, bromelias, tillandsias, orchids, and pothos) 
cover in the tropical zone the trunks and branches of the forest trees, forming hanging 
gardens, far more splendid than those of ancient Babylon. While the Orchids are 


536 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


distinguished by the eccentric forms and splendid coloring of their flowers, sometimes 
resembling winged insects or birds, the Pothos family attracts attention by the beauty 
of their large, thick-veined, generally arrow-shaped, digitated, or elongated leaves, and 
form a beautiful contrast to the stiff bromelias or the hairy tillandsias that conjointly 
adorn the knotty stems and branches of the ancient trees. 

In size of leaf, the Pothos family is surpassed by the large tropical water plants, 
the Nymphzeas and Nelumbias, among which the Victoria regia, discovered in 1837 
by Robert Schomburgk in the river Berbice, enjoys the greatest celebrity. The round, 
light-green leaves of this queen of water-plants measure no less than six feet in diam- 
eter, and are surrounded by an elevated rim several inches high, and exhibiting the 
pale carmine-red of the under surface. The odorous white blossoms, deepening into 
roseate hues, are composed of several hundred petals; and, measuring no less than 
fourteen inches in diameter, rival the colossal proportions of the leaves. ‘ 

The trunk of several tropical trees offers the remarkable peculiarity of bulging out 
in the middle like a barrel. In the Brazilian forests, the Pao Barrigudo arrests the 
attention of every traveler by its odd ventricose shape, nearly half as broad in the 
centre as long, and gradually tapering towards the bottom and the top, whence spring 
a few thin and scanty branches. ; 

In other trees which, struggling upwards to air and light, attain a prodigious alti- 
tude, or from their enormous girth and the colossal expansion of their branches require 
steadying from beneath, we find buttresses projecting like rays from all sides of the 
trunk. They are frequently from six to twelve inches thick, and project from five to 
fifteen feet, and, as they ascend, gradually sink into the bole and disappear at the 
hight of from ten to twenty feet from the ground. By the firm resistance which they 
offer below, the trees are effectually protected from the leverage of the crown, by 
which they would otherwise be uprooted. Some of these buttresses are so smooth 
and flat as almost to resemble sawn planks; as, for instance, in the Bumbax cevba, 
one of the most remarkable examples of this wonderful device of Nature. 

In other cases we find the roots fantastically spreading and reveling in a variety of 
grotesque shapes, such as we nowhere find in the less exuberant vegetation of Kurope. 
Thus, in the india rubber tree (/icus elastica), masses of the roots appear above 
ground, extending on all sides from the base, and writhing over the surface in serpen- 
tine undalations, so that the Indian villagers give it the name of the snake-tree. Sir 
Emerson Tennent mentions an avenue of these trees leading to the botanical garden 
of Peradenia, in Ceylon, the roots of which meet from either side of the road, and 
have so covered the surface, as to form a wooden frame work, the interstices of whieh 
retain the materials that form the roadway. These tangled roots sometimes trail to 
such an extent, that they have been found upwards of 140 feet in length, whilst the 
tree itself was not thirty feet high. 

The thorns and spines with which many European plants are armed, give but a 
faint idea of the size which these defensive weapons attain in the tropical zone. The 
cactuses, the acacias, and many of the palm trees, bristle with sharp-pointed shafts, 
affording ample protection against the attacks of hungry animals, and might appropri- 
ately be called vegetable hedge-hogs, or porcupines. The Toddalia aculeata, a climb- 
ing plant, very common in the hill jungles of Ceylon, is thickly studded with knobs, 
about half an inch high, and from the extremity of each a thorn protrudes, as large 


THORNY PLANTS—MANGROVES. 537 


and sharp as the bill of a sparrow-hawk. The black twigs of the buffalo-thorn (Acacia 
latronum), a low shrub, abounding in northern Ceylon, are beset at every joint by a 
pair of thorns set opposite each other, like the horns of an ox, as sharp as a needle, 
from two to three inches in length, and thicker at the base than the stem they grow 
on; and the Acacia tomentosa, another member of the same numerous genus, has 
thorns so large as to be called the jungle-nail by Europeans, and the elephant-thorn 
by the natives. In some of these thorny plants, the spines grow, not singly, but in 
branching clusters, each point presenting a spike as sharp as a lancet; and where 
these shrubs abound, they render the forest absolutely impassable, even to animals of 
the greatest size and strength. The formidable thorny plants of the torrid zone, which 
are often made use of by man to protect his fields and plantations against wild beasts 
and robbers, have sometimes even been made to serve as a bulwark against hostile 
invasions. Thus Sir Emerson Tennent informs us, that during the existence of the 
Kandyan kingdom, before its conquest by the British, the frontier forests were so 
thickened and defended by dense plantations of thorny plants, as to form a natural 
fortification impregnable to the feeble tribes on the other side ; and at each pass which 
led to the level country, movable gates, formed of the same thorny beams, were sus- 
pended as an ample security against the incursions of the naked and timid lowlanders. 

In the tropical zone, wherever the reflux of the tide exposes a broad belt of alluvial 
soil, the shores of the sea, particularly along the estuaries of rivers or in the shallow 
lagoons, are generally found fringed with a dense vegetation of Mangroves. For no 
plants are more admirably adapted for securing a footing on the unstable brink of the 
ocean,—none are better formed to lead an amphibious life. The growth of these salt- 
water loving trees is equally peculiar and picturesque. The seeds germinate on the 
branches, and, increasing to a considerable length, finally fall down into the mud, 
where they stick, with their sharp point buried, and soon take root. The fruits of 
many plants are furnished with wings, that the winds may carry them far away and 
propagate them from land to land; others, enveloped in hard, water-proof shells, float 
on the surface of the sea, and are wafted by the currents to distant coasts; but here 
we havea plant, the seeds of which were destined to remain fixed on an uncertain 
soil, close to the parent-plant, and surely this end could not have been attained in a 
more beautiful manner! As the young mangrove grows upwards, pendulous roots 
issue from the trunk and low branches, and ultimately strike into the muddy ground, 
where they increase to the thickness of a man’s leg; so that the whole has the appear- 
ance of a complicated series of loops and arches, from five to ten feet high, supporting 
the body of the tree like so many artificial stakes. Their influence in promoting the 
growth of land is very great, and in course of time they advance over the shallow bor- 
ders of the ocean. Their matted roots stem the flow of the waters, and, retaining the 
earthy particles that sink to the bottom between them, gradually raise the level of the 
soil. As the new formation progresses, thousands of seeds begin to germinate upon 
its muddy foundation, thousands of cables descend, still farther to consolidate it; and 
thus foot by foot, year after year, the mangroves extend their empire and encroach 
upon the maritime domains. 

A whole world of interesting discoveries would here, no doubt, reward the natural- 
ist’s attention; but the mangroves know well how to guard their secrets, and to repel 
the curiosity of man. Should he attempt to invade their domains, clouds of blood- 


538 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


thirsty insects would instantly make him repent of his temerity ; for the plague of the 
mosquitoes is nowhere more dreadful than in these thickets. And supposing his 
scientific zeal intense enough to bid defiance to the torture of their stings, and to scorn 
the attacks of every other visible foe—insect or serpent, crocodile or beast of prey— 
that may be lurking among the mangroves, yet the reflection may well bid him pause, 
that poisonous vapours, pregnant with cholera or yellow fever, are constantly rising 
from that muddy soil. ven in the temperate regions of Europe the emanations from 
marshy grounds are pregnant with disease, but the malaria ascending from the sultry 
morasses of the torrid zone is absolutely deadly. Thus there cannot possibly be a 
better natural bulwark for a land than to be belted with mangroves; and if Borneo, 
Madagascar, Celebes, and many other tropical islands and coasts, have to the present 
day remained free from the Kuropean yoke, they are principally indebted for their 
independence to the miasms and tangles of a mangrove girdle, bidding defiance alike 
to the sharp edge of the axe or the destructive agency of fire. 

Next to the mangroves, the Bruguieras, the Avicennias, the Sonneratias, and various 
species of palms, such as the Mipa fruticans and the Phenix paludosa, a dwarf date- 
tree, which literally covers the islands of the Sunderbunds, at the delta of the Ganges, 
form conspicuous features in the marsh-forests of the torrid zone. The magnificent 
Avicennia tomentosa, which, with a more majestic growth than the rhizophora, raises 
its crown to the hight of seventy feet, and is said to flourish throughout the whole 
range of the tropics as far as the flood extends, mixes with the mangroves, standing 
like them on overarching roots. The Sonneratias (acida, alba) grows along the 
marshy banks of the large rivers of India, the Moluccas, and New Guinea; their roots 
spread far and wide through the soft mud, and at various distances send up, like the 
avicennias, extraordinarily long spindle-shaped excrescences four or five feet above the 
surface. These curious formations spring very narrow from the root, expand as they 
rise, and then become gradually attenuated, occasionally forking, but never throwing 
out shoots or leaves, or in any way resembling the parent root. For lining insect- 
boxes and making setting-boards they are unequalled, as the finest pin passes in easily 
and smoothly, and is held so firmly and tightly that there is no risk of the insects 
becoming disengaged. In fact Nature, while forming them, seems to have had the 
entomologist in view, and to have studied how to gratify his wishes. 

But of all trees none are so distinctively characteristic of the Tropical World as the 
different species of the Palm. They assume every variety of form, but all are beauti- 
ful. We shall undertake to mention only a few of those which are of special utility 
toman. The graceful Acanthus gave the imaginative Greeks the first idea of the 
Corinthian capital; but the shady canopy of the Cocoa-nut tree would form a still 
more beautiful architectural ornament of architecture, were it possible for art to imitate 


its feathery fronds and carve their delicate tracery in stone. No cathedral has a pil- — 


lared aisle so magnificent as the famous Avenue of Palms in the Botanical Garden of 
Rio de Janeiro. The tall stems rise to the hight of eighty feet, and their overarching 
branches interlace, forming a roof whose beauty human hands can never imitate. 
Essentially littoral, this noble palm requires an atmosphere damp with the spray 
and moisture of the sea to acquire its full stateliness of growth; and while along the 
bleak shores of the Northern Ocean the trees are generally bent landward by the 
rough sea breeze, and send forth no breuches to face its violence, the cocoa, on the 


THE COCOA-PALM AND ITS USES. 539 


eontrary, loves to bend over the rolling surf, and to drop its fruits into the tidal wave. 
Wafted by the winds and currents over the sea, the nuts float along without losing 
their germinating power, like other seeds which migrate through the air; and thus, 
during the lapse of centuries, the cocoa-palm has spread its wide domain from coast to 
coast throughout the whole extent of the tropical zone. It waves its graceful fronds 
over the emerald islands of the Pacific, fringes the West Indian shores, and from the 
Philippines to Madagascar crowns the atolls, or girds the sea-board of the Indian 
Ocean. But nowhere is it met with in a Pe ey 

such abundance as on the coasts of Cey- ‘i Set 
Jon, where for miles and miles one con- 
tinuous grove of palms, preéminent for 
beauty, encircles the ‘‘ Eden of the east- 
ern wave.” Multiplied by plantations 
and fostered with assiduous care, the total 
number in the island cannot be less than 
twenty millions of full-grown trees; and 
such is its luxuriance in those favored dis- 
tricts, where it meets with a rare combina- 
tion of every advantage essential to its 
growth, a sandy and pervious soil, a free 
and genial air, unobstructed solar heat, 
and abundance of water, that, when in full 
bearing, it will annually yield as much as 
a ton’s weight of nuts—an example of 
fruitfulness almost unrivalled even in the 
torrid zone. 

No other tree in the world, no other 
plant cultivated by man, contributes in so 
many ways to his wants and comforts as 
this inestimable palm. Besides furnish- 
ing their chief food to many tribes on the 
coast within the torrid zone, the nut con- 
tains a valuable oil, which burns without 
smoke or smell, and serves, when fresh, 
for culinary purposes. 

The fibrous rind or husk of the nut fur- 
nishes the coir of commerce, a scarce less 
important article of trade than the oil itself. It is prepared by being soaked for some 
months in water, for the purpose of decomposing the interstitial pith, after which it is 
beaten to pieces until the fibres have completely separated, and ultimately dried in the 
sun. Ropes made of coir, though not so neat in appearance as hempen cords, are 
superior in lightness, and exceed them in durability, particularly if wetted frequently 
by salt water. From their elasticity and strength they are exceedingly valuable for 
cables. Besides cordage of every calibre, beds, cushions, carpets, brushes, and nets 
are manufactured from the filaments of the cocoa-nut husk, while the hard shell is 
fashioned into drinking-cups, spoons, beads, bottles, and knife-handles. From the 


AVENUE OF PALMS—RIO DE JANEIRO. 


540 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


spathes of the unopened flowers a delicious ‘‘ toddy ” is drawn, which, drunk at sun- 
rise before fermentation has taken place, acts as a cooling, gentle aperient, but in a few 
hours changes into an intoxicating wine, and may be distilled into arrack. The strong 
tough foot-stalks of the fronds, which attain a length of from eighteen to twenty feet, 
are used for fences, for yokes, for carrying burdens on the shoulders, for fishing-rods ; 
the leaflets serve for rooffing, for mats, for baskets, for cattle-fodder ; and their mid- 
ribs form good brooms for the decks of ships. Cooked or stewed, the cabbage or 
cluster of unexpanded leaves is an excellent vegetable, though rarely used, as it neces- 
sarily involves the destruction of the tree ; and even the tough web or network, which 
sustains the foot-stalks of the leaves, may be stripped off in large pieces and used for 
straining. After the cocoa-nut tree has ceased to bear, its wood serves for many val- 
uable purposes—for the building of ships, bungalows, and huts, for furniture and 
farming implements of every description; and, as it admits of a fine polish, and its 
reddish ground color is beautifully veined with dark lines, it is frequently imported 
into England under the name of porcupine-wood. When we consider the many bene- 
fits conferred upon mankind by this inestimable tree, we cannot wonder at the anima- 
tion with which the islander of the Indian Ocean recounts its ‘‘ hundred uses,”’ or at 
the superstition which makes him believe that by some mysterious sympathy it pines 
when beyond the reach of the human voice. 

In every zone we find nations in a low degree of civilization living almost exclu- 
sively upon a single animal or plant. The Laplander has his reindeer, the Esquimau 
his seal, the Sandwich Islander his taro-root; and thus also we find the natives of a 
great part of the Indian Archipelago living almost exclusively upon the pith of the 
Sago palm. Of this tree, which is of such great importance to the indolent Malay, 
as it almost entirely relieves him of the necessity of labor, we shall speak hereafter, in 
connection with its use as furnishing nutrition to man. 

The Saguer or Gomuti, the ugliest of palms, but almost rivaling the cocoa-nut tree 
by the multiplicity of its uses, is likewise a native of the Indian Archipelago. On 
seeing its rough and swarthy rind, and the dull dark-green color of its fronds, the 
stranger wonders how it is allowed to stand, but when he has tasted its delicious wine 
he is astonished not to see it cultivated in greater numbers. Although the outer cov- 
ering of the fruit has venomous qualities, and is used by the Malays to poison springs, 
the nuts have a delicate flavor, and the wounded spathe yields an excellent toddy, 
which, like that of the cocoa-nut and the palmyra palm, changes by fermentation into 
an intoxicating wine, and on being thickened by boiling furnishes a kind of black sugar, 
much used by the natives of Java and the adjacent isles. The reticulum or fibrous net 
at the base of the petioles of the leaves constitutes the gumatty, a substance admirably — 
adapted to the manufacture of cables, and extensively used for cordage of every de- 
scription. The gumatty is black as jet, the hairs extremely strong, and resembling 
coir, except that they are longer and finer. The small, hard twigs found mixed up 
with this material are employed as pens, besides forming the shafts of the sumpits, or 
little poisoned arrows of the Malays, and underneath the reticulum is a soft silky ma- 
terial, used as tinder by the Chinese, and applied as oakum in caulking the seams of 
ships, while from the interior of the trunk a kind of sago is prepared. 

The Areca palm (Areca Catechu) bears a great resemblance to the cocoa-nut tree, 
hut is of a still more graceful form, rising to the hight of forty or fifty feet, without 


THE ARECA, PALMYRA, AND TALIPOT PALMS—RATANS. = 541 


any inequality on its thin polished stem, which is dark-green towards the top, and sus- 
tains a crown of feathery foliage, in the midst of which are clustered the astringent 
nuts, for whose sake it is carefully tended. In the gardens of Ceylon the areca palm 
is invariably planted near the wells and water-courses, and the betel plant, which imme- 
morial custom has associated to its use, is frequently seen twining round its trunk. 

The Palmyra palm, the sacred Talgaha of the Brahminical Tamils of Ceylon, ex- 
tends from the confines of Arabia to the Moluccas, and is found in every region of 
Hindostan from the Indus to Siam, the cocoa and the date tree being probably the only 
palms that enjoy a still wider geographical range. In northern Ceylon, and particularly 
in the peninsula of Jaffna, it forms extensive forests; and such is its importance in 
the Southern Dekkan and along the Coromandel coast, that its fruits afford a compen- 
sating resource to seven millions of Hindoos on every occasion of famine or failure of 
the rice crop. Unlike the cocoa-nut palm, which gracefully bends under its ponderous 
crown, the palmyra rises vertically to its full hight of seventy or eighty feet, and pre- 
sents a truly majestic sight when laden with its huge clusters of. fruits, each the size 
of an ostrich’s egg, and of a rich brown tint, fading into bright golden at its base. 
The Palmyra rivals the cocoa-nut and the gomuti by its many uses, and Hindoo poets 
celebrate the numerous blessings it confers upon mankind. 

The Zalipot of the Singalese rises to the hight of one hundred feet, and expands 
into a crown of enormous fan-like leaves, each of which when laid upon the ground 
will form a semicircle of sixteen feet in diameter, and cover an area of nearly two 
hundred superficial feet. These gigantic foliaceous expansions are employed by the 
Singalese for many purposes. They form excellent fans, umbrellas, or portable tents, 
one leaf being sufficient to shelter seven or eight persons; but their most interesting 
use is for the manufacture of a kind of paper, so durable as to resist for many ages the 
ravages of time. The leaves are taken whilst still tender, cut into strips, boiled in 
spring water, dried, and finally smoothed and polished, so as to enable them to be 
written on with a style, the furrow made by the pressure of the sharp point being ren- 
dered visible by the application of charcoal ground with a fragrant oil. The leaves of 
the palmyra similarly prepared are used for ordinary purposes; but the most valuable 
books and documents are written to-day, as they have been for ages past, on olas or 
strips of the talipot. 

The Ratans, a most singular genus of creeping palms, luxuriate in the forests of 
tropical Asia. Sometimes their slender stems, armed with dreadful spines at every 
joint, climb to the summit of the highest tree ; sometimes they run along the ground; 
and while it is impossible to find out their roots among the intricate tangles of the 
matted underwood, their palm-like topes expand in the sunshine, the emblems of 
successful parasitism. They frequently render the forest so impervious, that the dis- 
tinguished naturalist Junghuhn, while exploring the woods of Java, was obliged to be 
accompanied by a vanguard of eight men, one half of whom were busy cutting the 
ratans with their hatchets, while the others removed the stems. These rope-like plants 
frequently grow to the incredible length of four or even six hundred feet, often con- 
sisting of a couple of hundred joints two or three feet long, and bearing at every knot 
a feathery leaf, armed with thorns on its lower surface. Tennent mentions having 
seen a specimen two hundred and fifty feet long and an inch in diameter, without a 


single irregularity, and no appearance of foliage other than the bunch of feathery leaves 
oF 


542 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


at the extremity. Though often extremely disagreeable to the traveler, yet the ratans 
are far from being useless. The natives of Java and the other islands of the Eastern 
Archipelago cut the cane into fine slips, which they plait into beautiful mats, manu- 
facture into strong and neat baskets, or twist into cordage; and they are also exten- 
sively exported to Kurope, where they are chiefly employed for the making of chair 
bottoms. 

On turning from Asia to the adjoining continent of Africa, we find a new world of 
palms, several of which are no less valuable than the cocoa-nut or the palmyra, either 
as affording food, or enriching by their produce the commerce of the world. 

The Date-tree, sung from time immemorial by the poets of the Hast, is as indispens- 
able as the camel to the inhabitants of the wastes of North Africa and Arabia, and, 
next to the ‘‘ship of the desert,’’ the devout Mussulman esteems it the chief gift of 
Allah. Few palms have a wider range, for it extends from the Persian Gulf to the 
borders of the Atlantic, and flourishes from the twelfth to the thirty-seventh degree 
of northern latitude. Groves of dates adorn the coasts of Valencia in Spain; near 
Genoa its plantations afford leaves for the celebration of Palm Sunday; and in the 
gardens of southern France a date tree sometimes mixes among the oranges and olives. 
But it never bears fruit on these northern limits of its empire, and thrives best in the 
oases on the borders of the sandy desert. Here it is cultivated with the greatest care, 
and irrigated every morning; for, though it will grow on an arid soil, it absolutely 
requires water to be fruitful. It is not to be wondered at that the tribes of the desert 
so highly value a tree which, by enabling a family to live on the produce of a small 
spot of ground, extends as it were the bounds of the green islands of the desert, and 
rarely disappoints the industry that has been bestowed on its culture. It is considered 
criminal to fell it while still in its vigor, and both the Bible and the Koran forbid the 
warriors of the true (rod to apply the axe to the date trees of an enemy. 

Thus various forms of palms flourish along the banks of the Nile, but in general 
Africa has a less number of these trees to boast of than either Asia or America. On 
the other hand, neither India nor Brazil have palms of such vast commercial impor- 
tance as the Cocos butyracea, and the Eleis guineensis, the oil-teeming fruit trees of 
tropical West Africa. The productiveness of the Elseis may be inferred from its bear- 
ing clusters of from 600 to 800 nuts, larger than a pigeon’s egg, and so full of oil that 
it may be pressed out with the fingers. 

Besides the hight of the shaft, the position of the leaves serves chiefly to impart a 
more or less majestic character to the palms: those with drooping leaves being far less 
stately than those whose fronds shoot more or less upwards to the skies. Nothing can 
exceed the elegance of the Jagua palm, which along with the splendid Cucurito adorns 
the granite rocks in the cataracts of the Orinoco at Atures and Maypures. The fronds, 
which are but few in number, rise almost perpendicularly sixteen feet high, from the 
top of the lofty columnar shaft, and their feathery leaflets of a thin and grass-like texture 
play lightly round the tall leaf-stalks, slowly bending in the breeze. The physiognomy 
of the palms depends also upon the various character of their efflorescence. The spathe 
is seldom vertical, with erect fruits; generally it hangs downwards, sometimes smooth, 
frequently armed with large thorns. 

In the palms with a feathery foliage, the leaf-stalks rise either immediately from the 
brown rugged ligneous trunk (cocoa-nut, date), or, as in the beautiful Palma Real of 


DIFFERENT SPECIES OF PALMS. 543 


the Havana, from a smooth, slender, and grass-green shaft, placed like an additional 
column upon the dark-colored trunk. In the fan-palms, the crown frequently rests 
upon a layer of dried leaves, which impart a severe character to the tree. 


Fa 
Ae 


x i be 
= Mt Za) i 


iar 
el 


ny 


SAN 
A 


NOZVNV HZIGGIN AHL NO SWIVd 


eee a 7 | i 


VA Wi th iN i i mI " Ai 


The form of the trunk also varies greatly, sometimes almost entirely disappearing, as 
in Chamerops humilis; sometimes, as in the Calami, assuming a bush-rope appear- 
ance, smooth or rugged, unarmed or bristling with spines. In the American Yriarteas, 


544 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


the trunk, as in the mangroves, and many of the screw-pines, rests upon a number of 
roots rising above the ground. Thus the Y. exorrhiza, which grows on the banks 
of the Amazon to the hight of a hundred feet, frequently stands upon a dozen or more 
supports, embracing a circumference of twenty feet, and the trunk begins only six or 
eight feet from the ground. The Yriartea ventricosa is still more curious, as the 
spindle-shaped trunk, which at the top and at the bottom is scarce a foot thick, swells 
in the middle to a threefold diameter, and, from its convenient form, is frequently 
used by the Indians for the construction of their canoes. | 

The form and color of the fruits is also extremely various. What a difference 
between the large coco de mer and the date—between the ege-shaped fruits of the 
Mauritia, whose scaly dark rind gives them the appearance of fir-cones, and the gold 
and purple peaches of the Pirijao, hanging in colossal clusters of sixty or eighty from 
the summit of the majestic trunk. Notwithstanding the fecundity of the palms, gen- 
erally but few individuals of each species are found growing wild, partly in conse- 
quence of the frequent abortive development of the fruits, but chiefly on account of 
the large number of animals—from the grub to the monkey—that are constantly feed- 
ing upon them. 

When we consider the enormous range of territory over which the palm-trees 
extend, and how very few of their many hundred species have hitherto been multiplied 
and improved by cultivation, we can not doubt that many benefits are yet to be 
expected from them, and that they will at some day rank high in the commercial 
annals of the world. 


RICE AND ITS CULTIVATION. 545 


CHAPTER VI. 
THE CHIEF NUTRITIVE PLANTS OF THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


Rice—Aspects of Rice-Fields at Different Seasons—The Rice-Fields of Ceylon—Ladang and 
Sawa Rice—Rice in South Carolina—The Rice-Bird—Paddy—Maize—When first brought 
to Europe—Appearance of the Plant—Its Enormous Productiveness—Freedom from Dis- 
ease—Wide Extent of its Cultivation—Benjamin Frank!lin’s Account of Maize—Millet— 
The Bread-Fruit—Its Taste—Modes of Cooking—The Banana and Plantain—Their Great 
Productiveness—The Sago Palm—Manufacture of Sago—Sago Bread—Cheap Living—A 
Siesta and Starvation—The Cassava—Yams—The Sweet Potato—Arrow Root—The Taro 
Root—Tropical Fruits—The Chirimoya—The Litchi—The Mangosteen—The Mango— 
The Durion—Its Taste and Smell—Large Fruit on Tall Trees. 


F all the cereals there is none that affords food to so many human beings as the 

Rice-Plant, (Oryza sativa,) upon whose grains from time immemorial the 
countless millions of South-eastern Asia have chiefly subsisted. It forms the staple, 
one might almost say the only food, of a third of the inhabitants of the globe. The 
failure of the rice crop for a single season in India or China causes a famine compared 
with which the potato famine of Ireland was nothing. From its primitive seat in 
India, the rice-plant has gradually spread not only over the whole Tropical World, 
but far beyond its bounds; for it thrives alike in the swamps of South Carolina and 
upon the plains bordering the Danube and the Po. Along the low river banks, in 
the delta-lands which the rains of the tropics annually change into a boundless lake, or 
where, by artificial embankments, the waters of the mountain streams have been col- 
lected into tanks for irrigation, the rice-plant attains its utmost luxuriance of growth, 
and but rarely deceives the hopes of the husbandman. 

The aspect of the lowland rice-fields of India and its isles is very different at various 
seasons of the year. Where, in Java, for instance, you see to-day long-legged herons 
gravely stalking over the inundated plain partitioned by small dykes, or a yoke of 
indolent buffaloes slowly wading through the mud, you will three or four months later 
be charmed by the view of a gracefully undulating wheat-field. Cords, to which scare- 
crows are attached, traverse the field in every direction, and converge to a small 
watch-house, erected on high poles. Here the attentive villager sits, like a spider in 
the center of its web, and, by pulling the cords, puts them from time to time into 
motion, whenever the wind is unwilling to undertake the office. Then the grotesque 
and noisy figures begin to rustle and to caper, and whole flocks of the neat little rice- 
bird or Java sparrow rise on the wing, and hurry off with all the haste of guilty fright. 
After another month has elapsed, and the waters have long since evaporated or been 
withdrawn, the harvest takes place, and the rice-fields are enlivened by a motley 
crowd, for all the villagers, old and young, are busy reaping the golden ears. 


546 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


The rice-fields offer a peculiarly charming picture when, as in the mountain valleys 
of Ceylon, they rise in terraces along the slopes. ‘‘ Selecting,’ says Sir Emerson 
Tennent, ‘‘an angular recess where two hills converge, the Kandyans construct a 
series of terraces, raised stage above stage, and retiring as they ascend along the slope 
of the acclivity, up which they are carried as high as the soil extends. Lach terrace 
is furnished with a low ledge in front, behind which the requisite depth of water is 
retained during the germination of the seed, and what is superfluous is permitted to 
trickle down to the one below it. In order to carry on this peculiar cultivation the 
streams are led along the level of the hills, often from a distance of many miles, with 
a skill and perseverance for which the natives of these mountains have attained a great 
renown. Many of the tanks, though partially in ruins, cover an area from ten to 
fifteen miles in circumference. They are now generally broken and decayed; the 
waters, which would fertilize a province, are allowed to waste themselves in the sands; 
and hundreds of square miles, capable of furnishing food for all the inhabitants of 
Ceylon, are abandoned to solitude and malaria; whilst rice for the support of the non- 
agricultural population is annually imported from the opposite coast of India.” 

Rice does not invariably require the marsh or the irrigated terrace for its growth, as 
there is a variety which thrives on the slopes of hills, where it is not continuously 
watered. In the mountain regions of Sumatra, rains fall at almost every season of 
the year, though dry weather is more frequent from April to July. In August, the 
rainy days are as three to one, and this is the time generally chosen for the sowing of 
the Ladang, or mountain rice. After the harvest, the field is sown a second time 
with maize; it then lies fallow for a few years, and is soon covered with a thick vege- 
tation of wild shrubbery, generally with glagah, a species of grass which attains a 
hight of twelve feet. When the field is again to be cultivated, fire is resorted to, to 
destroy the dense jungle, in which the tiger has made his lair, or where the rhinoceros 
grazes. At night, these fires, ascending the slopes of the mountains, present a fine 
sight; during the day time, they cover the land with a dun mist. The rapidity with 
which the dry culms of the glagah take fire is not seldom dangerous to the traveler 
when his path leads him across the slope of a hill at whose foot the grass-field begins 
to burn, for the rustling fire-columns ascend with the swiftness of the wind, and soon 
wrap the side of the mountain in a sheet of flame. The ashes of the glagah afford the 
richest manure, so that these fields are only surpassed in fertility by the virgin soil of 
the cleared forest, a laborious work, which is seldom undertaken in this thinly-populated 
country. 

Sawa is the general Malay name for artificially-irrigated rice-fields. In the Indian 
Archipelago, the sawa, or marsh-rice, is at first thickly sown in small beds, and trans- 
planted after a fortnight into the fields, the soil of which has been softened by water. 
As the plant grows, copious irrigations supply it with the necessary moisture ; but as 
maturity approaches, the field is laid dry, and about two months later the ears assume _ 
the rich golden color so pleasing to the husbandman. Each field could easily be 
made to produce two annual harvests; but, when not compelled to labor, the tropical 
peasant never thinks of taxing his industry beyond the supply of his immediate wants. 

The swamps of South Carolina, both those which are occasioned by the periodical 
visits of the tides, and those which are caused by the overflowing of the rivers, are 
admirably adapted to the production of rice; yet the culture of the valuable cereal on 


RICE—MAIZE. 547 


this congenial soil is of comparatively modern date. About the beginning of the last 
century, a brigantine from the island of Madagascar happened to put in at Carolina, 
having a little seed-rice left, which the captain gave toa gentleman of the name of 
Woodward. From part of this, the latter had a very good crop, but was ignorant for 
some years how to clean it. It was soon dispersed over the colony, and, by frequent 
experiments and observations, the planters ultimately raised the culture to its present 
perfection. By the introduction of this water-loving cereal, various swamps which 
previously had only afforded food to frogs and water-birds, have been changed inte 
the most fruitful fields, so that South Carolina not merely supplied the whole of the 
United States with all the rice they require, but also annually exported more than a 
hundred thousand large casks to the various markets of Europe. 

Besides the devastations which the atmosphere of the rice-fields causes among his 
laborers, the planter frequently suffers heavy losses in consequence of the depredations 
of the rice-bunting (Dolichonyx oryzivorus), a species of ortolan, known familiarly by 
the name of bobolink. This bird is about six or seven inches long; its head and the 
under part of its body are black, the upper part is a mixture of black, white, and 
yellow, and the legs are red. It migrates over the continent of America from Labra- 
dor to Mexico, and over the Great Antilles, appearing in the southern extremity 
of the States about. the end of March. During the three weeks to which its un- 
welcome visit to the rice-fields is usually limited, it grows so fat upon the milky 
grains of its favorite cereal, that its flesh becomes equal in flavor to that of the Euro- 
pean ortolan. As long as the female is sitting, the song of the male continues with 
little interruption: it is singular and pleasant, consisting of a jingling medley of short, 
variable notes, confused, rapid and continuous. 

Large quantities of rice are supplied to Europe from Brazil, Java, Bengal, and 
of late years from Arracan and Pegu. Most of the Arracan rice is exported in the 
unshelled state, or as paddy, and cleaned in Europe, where the operation can be more 
effectually and cheaply performed than in the country of production. The loss by 
waste is also found to be less on the transport of paddy than of shelled rice. 

Maize is no less important to the rapidly growing nations of America than the rice- 
plant to the followers of Buddh or of Brama; and when hereafter the banks of the 
Mississippi, of the Amazon, and of the Orinoco, shall be covered by as dense a popu- 
lation as the plains of Bengal, the number of maize eaters will probably be greater 
than that of the consumers of any other species of grain. ven now it is second in 
this respect only to rice. 

The time when the cereals of the old world—wheat, rye, barley—were first trans- 
planted from their unknown Asiatic homes to other parts of the world is hidden in 
legendary obscurity; but the epoch when maize was for the first time seen and tasted 
by EKuropeans lies before us in the broad daylight of authentic history. For, when 
Columbus discovered Cuba, in the year 1492, he found maize cultivated by the 
* Indians, and was equally pleased with the taste of the roasted grains and astonished at 
their size. In the following year, when he made his triumphant entry into Barcelona, 
and presented his royal patrons—Ferdinand and Isabella—with specimens of the 
various productions of the New World, the maize spikes he laid down before their 
throne, though but little noticed, were in reality of far greater importance than the 
heaps of gold which were so falsely deemed to be the richest prizes of his grand 


548 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


discovery. In this manner maize, which is found growing wild from the Rocky 
Mountains to Paraguay, and had been cultivated from time immemorial, as well in the 
Antilles as in the dominions of the Mexican Aztecs and of the Peruvian Incas, was 
first conveyed from the New World to Spain, whence its cultivation gradually extended 
over the tropical and temperate zone of the eastern hemisphere. Round the whole 
basin of the Mediterranean, maize has found a new home, and its grain now nourishes 
the Lombard and the Hungarian, as it does the Egyptian fellah or the Syrian peasant. 

While other cereals only produce a pleasing effect when covering extensive fields, 
but are individually too insignificant to claim attention, the maize plant almost reminds 
the spectator of the lofty Bambusacez of the tropical world. Dark green, lustrous 
leaves spring alternately from every joint of this cereal, streaming like pennants in the 
wind. The top produces a bunch of male flowers of various colors, which is called 
the tassel. Hach plant likewise bears one or more spikes or ears, the usual number 
being three, though as many as seven have been seen occasionally on one stalk. 
These ears proceed from the stem, at various distances from the ground, and are 
closely enveloped by several thin leaves, forming a sheath, or husk. They consist of 
a cylindrical substance of the nature of pith, which is called the cod, and over the 
entire surface of which the seeds are ranged and fixed, in eight or more straight rows. 
Kach of these has generally as many as thirty or more seeds, and each seed weighs at 
least as much as five or six grains of wheat or barley. Surely a cereal like this 
deserves beyond all others to symbolize abundance, and, had it been known to the 
Greeks, it would beyond all doubt have figured conspicuously in the teeming horn of 
Amalthea. | 

While the British farmer is satisfied with an increase of twenty for one, the pro- 
ductiveness of maize, under the circumstances most favorable to its growth, is such as 
almost to surpass belief. In the low and sultry districts of Mexico, it is quite a com- 
mon thing, in situations where artificial irrigation is practised, to gather from 350 to 
400 measures of grain for every one measure that has been sown; and some particu- 
larly favored spots have even been known to yield the incredible increase of 800. In 
other situations, where reliance is placed only on the natural supply of moisture to the 
soil from the periodical rains, such an abundant supply is not expected; but even 
then, and in the least fertile spots, it is rare for the cultivator to realize less than from 
forty to sixty bushels for each one sown. The productiveness of maize diminishes in 
the more temperate climate of the United States; but even there it yields double the in- 
crease of wheat; and such is the quantity annually grown that, in spite of its low price, 
the value of the maize harvest more than twice surpasses that of all the other cereals. 

Another great advantage attending the cultivation of maize is, that of all the cereals 
it is the least subject to disease. Blight, mildew, or rust are unknown to it. It is 
never liable to be beaten down by rain, or by the most violent storms of wind, and in 
climates and seasons which are favorable to its growth, the only enemies which the _ 
maize farmer has to dread are insects in the early stages, and birds in the later periods, 
of its cultivation. In mountainous countries, and the farther it advances beyond the 
tropics, maize—a child of the sun—naturally suffers from the ungenial influence of a 
cold and wet summer, which not only prevents the ripening of the grain, but also 
develops a poisonous ergot in its ears, similar to that which an inclement sky is apt to 
engender in rye. 


FRANKLIN’S DESCRIPTION OF MAIZE. 549 


When we consider that the zone of cultivation of the maize plant extends without 
interruption from 49° north latitude to 40° south latitude, it is not to be wondered at 
that there are numerous varieties, from the gigantic Zlaowili of the Mexicans, which 
absolutely requires a hot sun, and bears ears ten inches in length and five or six inches 
in circumference, and the small variety with ears four or five inches long, which in 
ordinary seasons will ripen its grain, even under the variable and weeping sky of 
England, and which, with ears not larger than one’s finger, was found by Squier 
growing on the sacred island of Titicaca, at an altitude of 12,800 feet above the level 
of the sea. 

The various uses to which the maize plant and grain may be applied cannot be 
better enumerated than in the words of the celebrated Dr. Franklin. 

‘Tt is remarked in North America that the English farmers, when they first arrived 
there, finding a soil and climate proper for the husbandry they have been accustomed 
to, and particularly suitable for raising wheat, they despise and neglect the culture 
of maize or Indian corn; but, observing the advantage it affords their neighbors, the 
older inhabitants, they by degrees get more and more into the practice of raising it, 
and the face of the country shows from time to time that the culture of that grain goes 
on visibly augmenting. The inducements are the many different ways in which it may 
be prepared so as to afford a wholesome and pleasing nourishment to men and other 
animals. First, the family can begin to make use of it before the time of full harvest; 
for the tender green ears, stripped of their leaves and roasted by a quick fire till the 
grain is brown, and eaten with a little salt or butter, are a delicacy. Secondly, when 
the grain is riper and harder, the ears boiled in their leaves and eaten with butter are 
also good and agreeable food. The tender green grain dried may be kept all the 
year, and, mixed with green kidney beans, also dried, make at any time a pleasing 
dish, being first soaked some hours in water and then boiled. When the grain is ripe 
and hard there are also several ways of using it. One is to soak it all night ina 
lessive or lye, and then pound it in a large wooden mortar with a wooden pestle; the 
skin of each grain is by that means skinned off, and the farinaceous part left whole, 
which, being boiled, swells into a white, soft pulp, and, eaten with milk or with butter 
and sugar, is delicious. The dry grain is also sometimes ground loosely so as to be 
broken into pieces of the size of rice, and, being winnowed to separate the bran, it is 
then boiled and eaten with turkeys or other fowls as rice. Ground into a finer meal, 
they make of it by boiling a hasty-pudding or bouilli, to be eaten with milk or with 
butter and sugar, that resembles what the Italians call polenta. They make of the 
same meal with water and salt a hasty-cake, which, being stuck against a hoe or other 
flat iron, is placed erect before the fire, and so baked, to be used as bread. They 
also parch it in this manner: An iron pot is filled with sand, and set on the fire till 
the sand is very hot. Two or three pounds of the grain are then thrown in, and well 
mixed with the sand by stirring. Hach grain bursts and throws out a white substance 
of twice its bigness. The sand is separated by a wire sieve, and returned into the pot 
to be again heated, and repeat the operation with fresh grain. That which is parched 
is pounded to a powder in a mortar. This being sifted will keep long for use. An 
Indian will travel far and subsist long on a small bag of it, taking only six or eight 
ounces of it per day mixed with water. The flour of maize mixed with that of wheat 
makes excellent bread, sweeter and more agreeable than that of wheat alone. To 


550 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


feed horses it is good to soak the grain twelve hours: they mash it easier with their 
teeth, and it yields them more nourishment. The leaves stripped off the stalks after 
the grain is ripe, tied up in bundles when dry, are excellent forage for horses, cows, 
etc. The stalks, pressed like sugar-cane, yield a sweet juice, which, being fermented 
and distilled, yields an excellent spirit; boiled without fermentation it affords an 
excellent syrup. In Mexico fields are sown with it thickly, that multitudes of small 
stalks may arise, which, being cut from time to time, like asparagus, are served in 
desserts, their thin sweet juice being extracted in the mouth by chewing them. The 
meal wetted is excellent food for young chickens and the old grain for grown fowls.”’ 

In Europe, as well as in the United States, the quantity or maize grown far exceeds 
that of wheat or any other grain; but so little is the value of this noblest of cereals 
known in Great Britain, that even during the famine in Ireland it was with the utmost 
difficulty that the starving peasants could be induced to use the meal sent over to them 
from America. This was doubtless in a great measure owing to their unacquaintance 
with the proper manner of cooking it. A delegation of colored ‘‘mammies”’ from 
Virginia, skilled in the mysteries of ‘‘pone”’ and ‘‘ hoe-cake,” would have been of 
inestimable service. 

In light sandy soils, under the scorching rays of the sun, and in situations where 
sufficient moisture cannot be obtained for the production of rice, numerous varieties of 
Millet (Sorghum vulgare) are successfully cultivated in many tropical countries—in 
India, Arabia, the West Indies, in Central Africa, and in Nubia, where it is grown 
almost to the exclusion of every other esculent plant. Though the seeds are by much 
the smallest of any of the cereal plants, the number borne upon each stalk is so great 
as to counterbalance this disadvantage, and to render the cultivation of millet as pro- 
ductive as that of any other grain. 

The Lread-fruit tree (Artocarpus incisa) is the great gift of Providence to the 
fairest isles of Polynesia. No fruit or forest tree in the north of Europe, with the 
exception of the oak or linden, is its equal in regularity of growth and comeliness of 
shape ; it far surpasses the wild chestnut, which somewhat resembles it in appearance. 
Its large oblong leaves, frequently a foot and a half long, are deeply lobed like those 
of the fig tree, which they resemble not only in color and consistence, but also in 
exuding a milky juice when broken. About the time when the sun, advancing 
towards the Tropic of Capricorn, announces to the Tahitians that summer is approach- 
ing, it begins to produce new leaves and young fruits, which commence ripening in 
October, and may be plucked about eight months long in luxuriant succession. The 
fruit is about the size and shape of a new-born infant’s head; and the surface is reticu- 
lated, not much unlike a truffle ; it is covered with a thin skin, and has a core about 
as big as the handle of a small knife. The eatable part lies between the skin and the 
core; it is as white as snow, and somewhat of the consistence of new bread ; it must 
be roasted before it is eaten, being first divided into three or four parts; its taste, 
according to some, is insipid, with a slight sweetness, somewhat resembling that of the 
crumb of wheaten bread mixed with boiled and mealy potatoes. But Wallace, who 
met with it in the island of Amboyna, speaks of it in very different terms. He says: 
‘‘ Here I enjoyed a luxury I have never met with either before or since—the true 
bread-fruit. It is baked entire in the hot embers, and the inside scooped out with a 
spoon. I compared it to Yorkshire pudding; others thought it was like mashed 


BREAD FRUIT—BANANA—PLANTAIN. dol 


potatoes and milk. It is generally about the size of a melon, a little fibrous toward 
the center, but everywhere else quite smooth and puddingy, something between yeast- 
dumplings and batter-pudding. We sometimes made curry or stew of it, or fried it in 
slices; but it is in no way so good as simply baked. With meat and gravy it isa 
vegetable superior to any I know either in temperate or tropical countries. With 
sugar, milk, butter, or treacle, it is a delicious pudding, having a very slight and 
delicate but characteristic flavor, which, like that of good bread and potatoes, one 
never gets tired of.” 

When the season draws to an end, the last fruits are gathered just before they are 
perfectly ripe, and, being laid in heaps, are closely covered with leaves. In this state 
they undergo a fermentation and become disagreeably sweet; the core is then taken 
out entire, which is done by gently pulling out the stalk, and the rest of the fruit is 
thrown into a hole, which is dug for that purpose, generally in the house, and neatly 
lined in the bottom and sides with grass; the whole is then covered with leaves, and 
heavy stones laid upon them; in this state it undergoes a second fermentation, and 
becomes sour, after which it will suffer no change for many months. 

It is taken out of the hole as it is wanted for use, and, being made into balls, it 
is wrapped up in leaves and baked: after it is dressed it will keep five or six weeks, 
It is eaten both cold and hot, and the natives seldom make a meal without it, though 
to Europeans the taste is as disagreeable as that of a pickled olive generally is, the first 
time it is eaten. The fruit itself is in season eight months in the year, and the 
Mahei or sour paste formed in the manner above described fills up the remaining 
cycle of the year. 

To procure this principle article of their food costs the fortunate South Sea Islanders 
no more trouble than plucking and preparing it in the manner above described; for, 
though the tree which produces it does not grow spontaneously, yet, if a man plants 
but ten of them in his lifetime, which he may do in about an hour, he will, as Cook 
remarks, ‘‘as completely fulfil his duty to his own and future generations, as the native 
of our less genial climate by plowing in the cold of winter and reaping in the summer’s 
heat as often as the seasons return.”’ Though it has a far extended range over the 
islands and coasts of the Indian and Pacific Ocean, yet its importance as an article of 
food is chiefly confined to the Tahitian, Friendly, Samoan, Fiji, and Marquesan 
groups, while in most parts of the Indian Archipelago it is either neglected or only 
used for fuel. 

The wonderful luxuriance of tropical vegetation is perhaps nowhere more conspicu- 
ous and surprising than in the magnificent Musacea, the Banana (Musa sapientum), 
and the Plantain (Musa paradisiaca), whose fruits most probably nourished mankind 
long before the gifts of Ceres became known. A succulent shaft or stem, rising to 
the hight of fifteen or twenty feet, and frequently two feet in diameter, is formed of 
the sheath-like leaf-stalks rolled one over the other, and terminating in enormous 
light green and glossy blades, ten feet long and two feet broad, of so delicate a tissue 
that the slightest wind suffices to tear them transversely as far as the middle rib. A 
stout foot-stalk, arising from the center of the leaves, and reclining over one side of 
the trunk, supports numerous clusters of flowers, and subsequently a great weight 
of several hundred fruits about the size and shape of full grown cucumbers. On 
seeing the stately plant, one might suppose that many years had been required for its 


552 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


growth; and yet only eight or ten months were necessary for its full development. 
Hach shaft produces its fruit but once, when it withers and dies; but new shoots 
spring forth from the root, and before the year has elapsed unfold themselves with the 
same luxuriance. Thus, without any other labor than now and then weeding the 
field, fruit follows upon fruit and harvest upon harvest. A single bunch of bananas 
often weighs from sixty to seventy pounds, and Humboldt has calculated that thirty- 
three pounds of wheat and ninety-nine pounds of potatoes require the same space of 
ground to grow upon as will produce 4,000 pounds of bananas. 

This prodigality of nature, seemingly so favorable to the human race, is, however, 
attended with great disadvantages; for where the life of man is rendered too easy, his 
best powers remain dormant, and he almost sinks to the level of the plant which 
affords him subsistence without labor. Exertion awakens our faculties as it increases 
our enjoyments, and well may we rejoice that wheat and maize, and not the banana, 
ripen in our fields. 

As the seeds of the cultivated plantain and banana never, or very rarely, ripen, 
they can only be propagated by suckers. ‘‘In both hemispheres,” says Humboldt, 
‘‘as far as tradition or history reaches, we find plantains cultivated in the tropical 
zone. It is as certain that African slaves have introduced, in the course of centuries, 
varieties of the banana into America, as that before the discovery of Columbus the 
pisang was cultivated by the aboriginal Indians.” 


MANUFACTURE OF SAGO. 


The Sago-Palm may fairly dispute with the plantain the honor of producing upon a 
given space the greatest amount of human food. It grows all over the islands of the 
Malayan Archipelago, the most productive district being in Ceram, whence large 
quantities are exported. The tree, says Mr. Wallace,* is a palm thicker and larger 
than the cocoa-nut tree, although rarely so tall, and having immense pinnate spiny 
leaves, which completely cover the trunk until it is several years old. When it is 


* Malayan Archipelago, 382-385. 


MANUFACTURE OF SAGO. 553 


about ten or fifteen years old it sends up an immense terminal spike of flowers, after 
which it dies. 

For making sago the tree must be used just before it is going to flower. It is cut 
down close to the ground, which, large as the tree is, costs no great labor, for the 
woody shell is only half an inch thick; the rest is all pith. The leaves and leaf- 
stalks are cleared away, and a broad strip of bark taken off the upper side of the 
trunk, laying bare the pithy matter, which is of a rusty color near the bottom, but 
higher up of a pure white, about as hard as a mealy apple, with woody fibres running 
through it, about a quarter of an inch apart. This pith is broken up into a coarse 
powder by a heavy wooden club or pounder, having a piece of hard quartz imbedded 
into the end. By means of this, strips of the pith are cut away, which fall down into 
the cylinder formed by the tough bark, until the whole trunk is cleared out, leaving a 
skin of not more than half an inch in thickness. This material is carried to the 
washing machine, which answers the purpose of a grist-mill for preparing the flour. 
This washing machine is composed wholly from the tree itself. The great sheathing 
bases of the leaves make excellent troughs; and their ribs, as thick as a man’s arm, 
and lighter and tougher than a bamboo, furnish the supporting props; while the fibrous 
covering of the leaf-stalks forms the strainer. Water is poured on the mass of pith, 
which is kneaded and pressed against the strainer until the starch is all washed out, 
when the fibrous refuse is thrown away. The water, charged with the starch, passes 
into another deep trough, where the sediment is quickly deposited, the water running 
off. This mass of starch is made up into packages of thirty pounds, covered with sago 
leaves. This constitutes the “raw sago,”’ and will keep for years. Boiled with water, 
it forms a thick glutinous mass, which is eaten with salt, limes, or Chili peppers. 

More frequently it is used for making bread. The raw sago is broken up, dried in 
the sun, and powdered into a coarse meal. The oven is a square clay pan, divided 
into compartments six or eight inches square, and three-quarters of an inch thick. 
This is heated over a clear fire of embers, filled with the flour, and covered with a 
piece of sago bark. In five minutes the bread, or rather batch of cakes, is baked. 
When hot they are very palatable with butter; and the addition of a little sugar and 
grated cocoa-nut forms quite a delicacy. They are soft, and not unlike our ‘‘ Johnny- 
cakes’’ made of maize flour, but have a slight characteristic flavor which is wanting in 
the prepared sago. When not wanted for immediate use, the cakes are dried in the 
sun for several days; they will then keep for years. They are hard, rough, and dry; 
but the natives do not mind that, and it is a common sight to see children gnawing 
away at them, as our children do at a crust of bread. Dipped in water and toasted, 
they become almost as good as when fresh; soaked and boiled, they make a good 
pudding. We see no reason why these sago biscuit should not form a welcome 
addition to ship-stores in tropical regions. 

A good-sized tree will afford 900 pounds of raw sago. This will make 600 pounds 
of bread. Two cakes, weighing three to the pound, are as much as a man can well 
eat at a meal; five are considered a full day’s allowance. One tree will therefore 
supply a man with food for a whole year. Two men will easily finish a tree in five 
days; so that a man may in ten days raise and make his flour for a year. If he 
chooses to bake his year’s supply of bread at once, another ten days is quite enough; 
so that the labor of twenty days will give him food for a year. This is on the sup- 


554 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


position that he happens to own sago trees. If he does not, he can buy one standing 
for two dollars. As the price of a man’s labor in this region is estimated at ten cents 
a day, the cost of food ready cooked for a man is four dollars a year. Yet, unaccount- 
able as it seems to us, the natives, with these great natural flour-barrels, (only that 
each contains three of our barrels,) standing around them, suffer from hunger. 
Agassiz notices the same thing on the Amazon. If the people of any country really 
prefer to go hungry rather than spend three weeks of the year in weeding a plantain- 
field, or preparing sago, there seems no good reason why any one should interfere 
with their way of enjoying themselves. By all means let them take their siesta and 
starve afterwards. 


WSS: ff 
S WO 
INS 


s \ 

A\\ ‘ \ WY 
) Ana 
} UY 


A SIESTA ON THE AMAZON. 


Life and death are strangely blended in the Cassava or Mandioca root (Jatropha 
manthot). The juice a rapidly destructive poison, the meal a nutritious and agreeable 
food, which, in tropical America, and chiefly in Brazil, forms a great part of the 
people’s sustenance. The hight to which the cassava attains varies from four to six 
feet. It rises by a slender, woody, knotted stalk, furnished with alternate palmated 
leaves, and springs from a tough branched woody root, the slender collateral fibres 
of which swell into those farinaceous, parsnip-like masses, for which alone the plant is 
cultivated. It requires a dry soil, and is not found at a greater elevation than 2,000 
feet above the level of the sea. It is propagated by cuttings, which very quickly take 
root, and in about eight months from the time of their being planted the tubers will 
generally be in a fit state to be collected ; they may, however, be left in the ground 
for many months without sustaining any injury. The usual mode of preparing the 
cassava is to grind the roots after pealing off the dark-colored rind, to draw out the 
polsonous juice, and finally to bake the meal into thin cakes on a hot iron hearth. 


CASSAVA—YAM—SWEET POTATO—ARROWROOT. 555 


Fortunately the deleterious principle is so volatile as to be entirely dissipated by 
exposure to heat; for when the root has been cut into small pieces, and exposed 
during some hours to the direct rays of the sun, cattle may be fed on it with perfect 
safety. If the recently extracted juice be drunk by cattle or poultry, the animals 
soon die in convulsions; but if this same liquid is boiled with meat and seasoned, it 
forms a wholesome and nutritious soup. The Jatropha janipha, or Sweet Cassava, 
though very similar to the Manihot or bitter variety, and wholly innocuous, is far less 
extensively cultivated. A palatable and wholesome bread is made of both kinds; and 
although its taste may be thought somewhat harsh by persons accustomed to soft fer- 
mented bread made from wheaten flour, yet those who have been accustomed to its 
use are so fond of it, that Creole families who have gone to live in Europe frequently 
have it sent to them from the West Indies. The kind of starch so well known under 
the name of tapioca is prepared from the farina of cassava roots. <A large quantity is 
exported from Brazil to Kurope, and may well be considered as a more useful produc- 
tion than all the diamonds of Minas (reraes. 

The Yam roots, which are so frequently mentioned in narratives of travel through 
the tropical regions, are the produce of two climbing plants—the Dioscorea sativa and 
Alata—with tender stems of from eighteen to twenty feet in length, and smooth, sharp- 
pointed leaves on long foot-stalks, from the base of which arise spikes of small flowers. 
The roots of the Dioscorea sativa are flat and palmated, about a foot in breadth, 
white within and externally of a dark brown color, almost approaching to black ; those 
of the D. alata are still larger, being frequently about three feet long, and weighing 
about thirty pounds. Both kinds are cultivated like the common potato, which they 
resemble in taste, though of a closer texture. When dug out of the earth, the roots 
are placed in the sun to dry, and are then put into sand or casks, where, if guarded 
from moisture, they may be preserved for a long time without being in any way 
injured in their quality. The Dioscores: are natives of South Asia, and are supposed 
to have been thence transplanted to the West Indies, as they have never been found 
growing wild in any part of America; while in the island of Ceylon, and on the coast 
of Malabar, they flourish in the woods with spontaneous and luxuriant growth. They 
are now very extensively cultivated in Africa, Asia, and America, as their large and 
nutritious roots amply reward the labor of the husbandman. 
~The Spanish or Sweet Potato, ( Convolvulus batatas,) commonly cultivated in the 
tropical climates both of the Hastern and the Western hemispheres, is an herbaceous 
perennial, which sends out many trailing stalks, extending six or eight feet every way, 
and putting forth at each joint, roots which in a genial climate grow to be very large 
tubers, so that from a single plant forty or fifty large roots are produced. The leaves 
are angular, and stand on long petioles, the flowers are purple. The batata is propa- 
gated by laying down the young shoots in the spring ; indeed in its native climate it 
multiplies almost spontaneously, for if the branches of roots that have been pulled up 
are suffered to remain on the ground, and a shower of rain falls soon after, their vege- 
tation will recommence. From its abundant growth, it is surprising that in Brazil the 
mandioc should be cultivated in preference as food for the negro, the batata being 
raised more as a luxury for the planter’s table. 

Arrowroot is chiefly obtained from two different plants—the Murantha arundina- 
coa and the Tacca pinnatifida. ‘The former, a native of Souta America, is an herba- 


506 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


ceous perennial and is propagated by parting the roots. It rises to the height of two 
or three feet, has broad, pointed leaves, and is crowned by a spike of small, white flow- 
ers It is much cultivated, both for domestic use and for exportation in the West In- 
dies, and in some parts of Hindostan. The arrowroot is obtained by first pounding the 
long, stalky roots in a large, wooden mortar, and pouring a quantity of water over them. 
After the whole has been agitated for some time, the starch, separated from the fibres, 
collects at the bottom of the vessel, and having been cleansed by repeated washings is 
dried in the sun. 

The Zacca pinnatifida, likewise an herbaceous plant with pinnated leaves, an um- 
belliform blossom, and large potato-like roots, is scattered over most of the South Sea 
Islands. It is not cultivated in the Hawaiian group, but found growing wild in 
abundance in the more elevated districts, where it is satisfied with the most meagre 
soil, and sprouts forth among the lava blocks of those voleanic islands. Arrowroot is 
prepared from it in the same manner as from the West Indian Marantha, but, as the 
improvident Polynesians only think of digging it out of the earth, and never give them- 
selves the trouble of replanting the small and useless tubers, its quantity has very much 
diminished. , 

The Caladium esculentum, an aquatic plant, furnishes the large Taro roots which 
form the chief food of the Sandwich Islanders, and are extensively cultivated in many 
other groups of the South Seas. It grows like rice on a marshy ground, the large, 
arrow-shaped leaves rise on high foot-stalks, immediately springing from the root, and 
are likewise very agreeable to the taste, but are more seldom eaten, as they are used 
for propagation. Severed from the root, they merely require to be planted in the mud 
to produce after six months a new harvest of roots. The growth is so abundant that 
1,500 persons can live upon the produce of a single square mile. The South Sea 
Islanders make a thick paste out of the root, which, under the name of poé, forms their 
staple diet. 

It may easily be imagined that the tropical sun, which distills so many costly juices 
and fiery spices in indescribable multiplicity and abundance, must also produce a variety 
of fruits. But man has as yet done but little to improve by care and art these gifts 
of nature, and, with rare exceptions, the delicious flavor for which our native fruits 
are indebted to centuries of cultivation, is found wanting in those of the torrid zone. 

Yet there are exceptions to the rule, and among others the Peruvian Chirimoya 
(Anona tripetala) is vaunted by travelers in such terms of admiration that it can 
hardly be inferior to, and probably surpasses, the most exquisite fruits of Kuropean 
growth. Hanke calls it in one of his letters a masterpiece of nature, and Tschudi says 
that its taste is quite incomparable. It grows to perfection at Huanuco, where it at- 
tains a weight of from fourteen to sixteen pounds. ‘The fruit is generally heart-shaped, 
with the broad base attached to the branch. The rind is green, covered with small tu- 
bercles and scales, and encloses a snow-white, juicy pulp, with many black kernels. 
Both the fruit and the blossoms exhale a delightful odor. The tree is about twenty 
feet high, and has a broad, dull-green crown. 

The Litcht (Nephelium litchi,) a small insignificant tree, with lanceolate leaves, 
and small greenish-white flowers, is a native of China and Cochin-China, but its culti- 
vation has spread over the Hast and the West Indies. The plum-like, scarlet fruit is 
generally eaten by the Chinese with their tea, but it is also dried in ovens and exported. 


THE LITCHI—MANGOSTEEN—MANGO—DURION. 557 


In order to cbtain the fruit in perfection, for the use of the Imperial Court, the trees, 
as soon as they blossom, are conveyed from Canton to Pekin on rafts, at a very great 
troubie and expense, so that the plum may just be ripe on their arrival in the northern 
eapital. 

The beautiful Mangosteen ( Garcinia roteniyostccies ) a native of the Moluccas, and 
thence transplanted to Java, Siam, the Philippines, and Ceylon, resembles at a dis- 
tance the citron tree, and bears large flowers like roses. The dark-brown capsular 
fruit, about the size of a small apple, is described as of unequalled flavor—juicy and 
aromatic, like a mixture of strawberries, raspberries, grapes, and oranges. It is said 
that the patient who has lost an appetite for every thing else still relishes the mango- 
steen, and that the case is perfectly hopeless when he refuses even this. 

The stately Mango, (Mangifera indica,) is frequently represented on the silk 
tissues of the Hindoos, who venerate, under the ugly form of the ape Huniman, the 
transformed hero who first robbed the gardens of a Ceylonese giant of its sweet fruit, 
and presented their forefathers with this inestimable gift. The mango bears beautiful 
girandoles of flowers, followed by large pium-like fruits, of which, however, but four 
or five ripen on each branch. 

In Borneo and the other islands of the Malayan Archipelago grows the Durion, a 
fruit utterly unknown in Europe and America, which alone of all vegetable productions 
possesses the opposite qualities of extreme offensiveness to one sense, and of the highest 
gratefulness to the other sense most closely allied to it. Its smell is like that of 
rotten onions, while its taste is such that those who have once partaken of it prefer it 
— to all other fruit. Wallace* thus describes the fruit: 

“The durion grows on a large and lofty forest tree, somewhat resembling an elm in 
its general character, but with a more smooth and scaly bark. The fruit is round, or 
slightly oval, about the size of a large cocoa-nut, of a green color, and covered all over 
with short, stout spines, the bases of which touch each other, and are consequently 
somewhat hexagonal, while the points are very strong and sharp. -It-is.so completely 
armed that, if the stalk is broken off, it is a difficult matter to lift one from the 
ground. ‘The outer rind is so thick and tough that from whatever hight it may fall it 
is never broken. From the base to the apex five very faint lines may be traced, over 
which the spines arch a little; these are the sutures of the carpels, and show where 
the fruit may be divided with a heavy knife and a strong hand. ‘The five cells are 
white within, and are each filled with an oval mass of cream-colored pulp, imbedded in 
which are two or three seeds about the size of chestnuts. The pulp is the eatable 
part, and its consistence and flavor are indescribable. A rich, butter-like custard, 
highly flavored with almonds, gives the best general idea of it; but intermingled with 
it come wafts of flavor that call to mind cream-cheese, onion-sauce, brown sherry, and 
other incongruities. Then there is a rich glutinous smoothness in the pulp which 
nothing else possesses, but which adds to its delicacy. It is neither acid, nor sweet, 
nor juicy; yet one feels the want of none of these qualities, for it is perfect as it is. 
It produces no nausea, or other bad effect, and the more you eat of it the less you feel 
inclined to stop. In fact, to eat durions is a new sensation worth a voyage to the 
Hast to experience. 

‘* When the fruit is ripe it falls of itself, and the only way to eat durions in perfec- 


36 * Malay Archipelago, 85. 


598 : THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


tion is to get them as they fall, and the smell is then less overpowering. In a good 
fruit season large quantities are preserved salted, and kept the year round, when it 
acquires a most disgusting odor to Europeans, but the natives appreciate it highly as a 
relish with their rice. It would not, perhaps, be correct to say that the durion is the 
best of all fruits, because it can not supply the place of the sub-acid juicy kinds, such 
as the orange, grape, mango, and mangosteen, whose refreshing and cooling qualities 
are so wholesome and grateful; but as producing a food of the most exquisite flavor 
it is unsurpassed. If I had to fix on two only as representing the perfection of the 
two classes, I should certainly choose the durion and the orange as the king and 
queen of fruits. 

‘‘The durion is, however, sometimes dangerous. When the fruit begins to ripen it 
falls daily and almost hourly, and accidents not unfrequently happen to persons walk- 
ing or working under the trees. When it strikes a man in the fall, it produces a 
dreadful wound, the strong spines tearing open the flesh, while the blow itself is very 
heavy. Poets and moralists, judging from the European trees and fruits, have said 
that. small fruits alone grow on lofty trees, so that their fall should be harmless to 
man, while the larger ones trail on the ground. But this generalization would be 
much modified by an acquaintance with tropical trees and fruits. Three of the largest, 
most solid and heavy fruits that exist—the cocoa-nut, the Brazil-nut, and the durion— 
grow on lofty forest trees, from which they fall as soon as they are ripe, and often 
wound or kill the inhabitants. From this we may learn, mortifying as it is to our 
vanity, that trees and fruits, as well as many species of the animal kingdom, do not 
appear to be organized with exclusive reference to the use and convenience of man.” 

When the durion is brought into a house, its odor is so offensive that many persons 
can not bring themselves to taste it. This was the case with Mr. Wallace for a long 
time. Try his best to eat it, and the nose put in its absolute veto, But one day he 
happened when out of doors to find a ripe fruit, and eating it there, he thenceforward 
became a confirmed durion-eater. 


CONDIMENTS PRODUCED IN THE TROPICAL WORLD. 559 


CHAPTER VII. 
SUGAR—COFFEE—CHOCOLATE—COCA—SPICES. 


Sugar: Its Importance—The Home of the Sugar-Cane—Ancient Theories about Sugar—The 
Introduction of the Cane into Earope and America—Characteristics of the Plant—Mode of 
Cultivation.— Coffee: Its Home—Introduction into Egypt and Europe, and elsewhere— 
Present Coffee Countries—Coffee Culture in Brazil—Agassiz’s Description of a Coffee 
Estate— The West Indies and Ceylon—The Coffee-Plant—Methods of Preparing the Berries 
—The Enemies of the Plant—The Golunda—The Coffee Bug—The Coffee Moth.—Carao, 
or Chocolate: Its Culture and Preparation.—Coca: Description of the Plant—Mode of its Use 
—Ilts Effects—Indian superstitions connected with it.— Cinnamon: Known to the Ancients— 
Cinnamon in Ceylon—Mode of Culture and Preparation—General Account of this Spice— 
Nutmegs and Cloves—Enormities of the Dutch Monopoly —Pepper—Pimento—Ginger. 


HERE is a class of products of which, although not strictly articles of food, 

enter largely into human consumption either as furnishing beverages, or as con- 
diments to give flavor to food, or as luxuries. With the exception of tea, which 
belongs to the temperate zone, these belong almost exclusively to the Tropical World; 
and they rank among the most important articles of commerce. We shall enumerate 
the principal of these, viz.: Sugar, Coffee, Cacao, Coca, Vanilla, Cinnamon, Nut- ~ 
megs, Cloves, Pepper, and Pimento. 


Next after the great cereals, which have been described, sugar will rank as the 
most valuable product of the vegetable kingdom. It is produced in greater or less 
quantities from the juices of most fruits and vegetables, and the sap of many kinds of 
trees. We shall, however, speak only of that derived from the sugar-cane, a plant so 
exclusively tropical that its cultivation increases greatly in cost the moment we enter 
the confines of the temperate zones. Even in the great sugar region of Louisiana, 
with all the advantages of capital aided by science, the production of sugar is only 
rendered profitable by the imposition of protective duties upon that of foreign countries. 

The original home of this plant—for which, doubtless, the lively fancy of the 
ancient Greeks, had they been better acquainted with it, would have invented a 
peculiar god, as for the vine or the cereals—is most likely to be sought for in South- 
eastern Asia, where the Chinese seem to have been the first people that learnt the art 
to multiply it by culture, and to extract the sugar from its juice. From China its 
cultivation spread westwards to India and Arabia, at a time unknown to history; and 
the conquests of Alexander the Great first made Europe acquainted with the sweet- 
juiced cane, while sugar itself had long before been imported by the Phoenicians as a 
rare production of the Eastern world. At a later period, both the plant and its 
produce are mentioned by several classical authors. They were, however, ignorant 


560 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


of the manner of its production, and set forth many fanciful theories upon the subject. 
According to some it was a kind of honey, which formed itself without the assistance 
of bees. Others thought it, like the manna in the wilderness, a shower from heaven 
which fell upon the leaves of blessed seed. Others, more nearly correct, believed it 
to be a concretion of the juices, formed by the plant itself in the manner of a gum. 

During the dark ages which followed the fall of the Roman Empire, all previous 
knowledge of the Oriental sugar-plant became lost, until the Crusades, and, still more, 
the revival of commerce in Venice and Genoa reopened the ancient intercourse between 
the Eastern and the Western world. From Egypt, where the cultivation of the sugar- 
cane had, meanwhile, been introduced, it now extended to the Morea, to Rhodes, and 
Malta; and at the beginning of the twelfth century we find it growing in Italy, on the 
sultry plains at the foot of Mount Etna. After the discovery of Madeira by the Portu- 
guese, in the year 1419, the first colonists added the vine of Cyprus and the Sicilian 
sugar-cane to the indigenous productions of that lovely island ; and both succeeded so 
well, as to become after a few years the objects of a lively trade with the mother country. 

Yet, in spite of this extension of its culture, the importance of sugar as an article of 
international trade continued to be very limited, until the discovery of tropical America 
by Columbus opened a new world to commerce. As early as the year 1506 the sugar- 
cane was transplanted from the Canary Islands to Hispaniola, where its culture, 
favored by the fertility of a virgin soil and the heat of a tropical sun, was soon found 
to be so profitable, that it became the chief occupation of the European settlers, and 
the principal source of their wealth. The Portuguese, in their turn, conveyed the 
cane to Brazil; from Hispaniola it spread over the other West Indian Islands; thence 
wandered to the Spanish main, and followed Pedrarias and Pizarro to the shores of 
the Pacific. 

Towards the middle of the last century, the Chinese or Oriental Sugar-cane had 
thus multiplied to an amazing extent over both hemispheres, when the introduction of 
the Tahitian variety, which was found to attain a statelier growth, to contain more 
sugar, and to ripen in a shorter time, began to dispossess it of its old domains. This 
new and superior plant is now universally cultivated in all the sugar-growing Kuropean 
colonies; and if Cook’s voyages had produced no other benefit than making the world 
acquainted with the Tahitian Sugar-cane, they would for this alone deserve to be reck- 
oned by the political economist among the most successful and important ever per- 
formed by man. 

The sugar-cane bears a great resemblance to the common reed, but the blossom is 
different. It has a knotty stalk, like most grasses, frequently rising to the height of 
fourteen feet, and produces at each joint a long, pointed, and sharply serrated leaf or 
blade. The joints in one stalk are from forty to sixty in number, and the stalks rising 
from one root are sometimes very numerous. As the plant grows up, the lower leaves 
fall off. A field of canes, when agitated by a light breeze, affords one of the most 
pleasing sights, particularly when, towards the period of their maturity, the golden 
plants appear crowned with plumes of silvery feathers, delicately fringed with a lilac 
dye. ‘The cane has this peculiarity, that each joint while contributing its share to the 
general growth and nutriment, is at the same time, by a separate system of vessels and 
chambers, providing for its own development. ‘Thus every joint is in a manner a 
distinct plant ; and if placed in the ground will send up a perfect cane. This is 


THE SUGAR CANE, AND SUGAR. 561 


indeed the only manner in which it is now propagated. There is not and probably has 
not been for ages, a single plant raised from the seed. In Louisiana, a third of the 
crop is required for seed. In Cuba, much less is required, as the cane requires 
planting only every ten or twelve years; while in Louisiana it must be renewed every 
two or three years. To this is mainly due the advantage as a sugar country of Cuba 
over Louisiana. : 

As the cane is a rank, succulent plant, it requires a strong, deep soil to bring it to 
perfection, and generally grows best in a low, moist situation. On the eastern, well- 
watered slopes of the Andes, however, it still thrives at a height of 6,000 feet above 
the level of the sea. In preparing a field for planting with the cuttings of cane—for 
the cultivator nowhere resorts to the sowing of seed, which in America at least, has 
never been known to vegetate—the ground is marked out in rows, three or four feet 
apart, and in these lines holes are dug, from eight to twelve inches deep, and with an 
interval of two feet between the holes. In these the cuttings are inserted, which 
invariably consist of the top joints of the plant, because they are less rich in saccharine 
juice than the lower parts of the cane, while their power of vegetation is equally strong. 
While the shoots are growing and progressing to ripeness, great care must be taken to 
irrigate and weed the field. The canes annually yield fresh shoots, or rattoons, but as 
they have a tendency to deteriorate—at least in size—it is customary in all well-man- 
aged estates to renew every year one sixth part of the plantation. 

The manufacture of sugar has been greatly improved by the introduction of steam- 
power, which thoroughly presses out all the juice of the canes on their being passed 
but once between the three iron rollers which the crushing-machine sets in motion. 
The sap is collected in a cistern, and must be immediately heated, to prevent its 
becoming acid—an effect which frequently commences in less than an hour from the 
time of its being expressed. A certain quantity of lime is added to promote the sepa- 
ration of the feculent matters contained in the juice, and these being removed, the cane 
liquor is then subjected to a very rapid boiling, to evaporate the watery particles and 
bring the syrup to such a consistency that it will granulate on cooling. 

In order to separate the granulated or crystallized sugar from the molasses, which 
are incapable of crystallization and even attract the moisture of the air, it is placed in 
a large square iron and air-tight case, divided into two compartments by a sieve-like 
bottom of wire with narrow meshes. The sugar is placed in the upper compartment, 
and the lower one communicates with two air-pumps, which are set in motion by the 
same engine which crushes the canes. On the air being exhausted in this lower com- 
partment, the liquid molasses come pouring in to fill up the void, while the crystallized 
mass remains almost thoroughly purified at the top. This used formerly to be a very 
tedious operation: the sugar was placed in large casks whose bottoms were pierced 
with holes, and though left to drain for at least eight days, it still retained a quantity 
of molasses, while by the new process the cleansing is most effectually performed in a 
couple of hours, and the sugar, which has of course a much better appearance, can 
immediately be packed in hogsheads and cases ready for shipment. 

Our space will not permit us to give a full description of the entire process of culti- 
vating the cane and manufacturing sugar. In Harper’s Magazine for November, 
1853, and February, 1865, will be found fully illustrated articles describing these 
processes as carried on in Louisiana and Cuba. 


562 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


The mountain regions of Enarea and Caffa, situated to the south of Abyssinia, are 
most probably the countries where the Coffee-Tree was first planted by nature, as it 
has here not only been cultivated from time immemorial, but is everywhere found 
growing wild in the forests. 

Here also the art of preparing a beverage from its berries seems to have been first 
discovered. Arabic authors inform us that about four hundred years ago Gemaledie, 
a learned mufti of Aden, having become acquainted with its virtues on a journey to 
‘the opposite shore of Africa, recommended it on his return to the dervises of his 
convent as an erellent means for keeping awake during their devotional exercises. 
‘The example of these holy men brought coffee into vogue, and its use spreading from 
tribe to tribe, and from town to town, finally reached Mecca about the end of the 
fifteenth century. There fanaticism endeavored to oppose its progress, and in 1511 a 
‘council of theologians condemned it as being contrary to the law of Mahomet, on 
account of its intoxicating like wine. The Sultan of Egypt, however, who happened 
to be a great coffee-drinker himself, convoked a new assembly of the learned, who de- 
clared its use to be not only innocent, but healthy ; and thus coffee advanced rapidly 
from the Red Sea and the Nile to Syria, and from Asia Minor to Constantinople, 
where the first coffee-house was opened in 1554, and soon called forth « number of 
rival establishments. But here also the zealots began to murmur at the mosques being 
neglected for the attractions of the ungodly coffee divans, and declaimed against it from 
the Koran, which positively says that coal is not of the number of things created by 
God for good. Accordingly the mufti ordered the coffee-houses to be closed ; but his 
successor declaring coffee not to be coal, unless when over-roasted, they were allowed 
to re-open, and ever since the most pious mussulman drinks his coffee without any 
scruples of conscience. The commercial intercourse with the Levant could not fail to 
make Europe acquainted with this new source of enjoyment. In 1652, Pasqua, a 
Greek, opened the first coffee house in London, and twenty years later the first French 
cafés were established in Paris and Marseilles. 

As the demand for coffee continually increased, the small province of Yemen, the 
only country which at that time supplied the market, could no longer produce a suffi- 
cient quantity, and the high price of the article naturally prompted the European 
governments to introduce the cultivation of so valuable a plant into their colonies. 
The islands of Mauritius and Bourbon took the lead in 1718, and Batavia followed in 
1723. - Some years before, a few plants had been sent to Amsterdam, one of which 
found its way to Marly, where it was multiplied by seeds. Captain Descleux, a 
French naval officer, took some of these young coffee-plants with him to Martinique, 
desirous of adding a new source of wealth to the resources of the colony. The passage 
was very tedious and stormy; water began to fail, ‘and all the gods seemed to conspire 
against the introduction of the coffee-tree into the new world. But Descleux patiently 
endured the extremity of thirst that his tender shoots might not droop for want of 
water, and succeeded in safely bringing over one single plant, the parent stock whence 
all the vast coffee-plantations of the West Indies and Brazil are said to have derived 
their origin. 

On examining the present state of coffee-production throughout the world, we find 
that it has undergone great revolutions within the last thirty years, as some of the 
countries that were formerly prominent in this respect now occupy but an inferior 


COFFEE AND COFFEE COUNTRIES. 563 


rank, while in others the cultivation of coffee has rapidly attained gigantic proportions. 
Thus Brazil, which at the beginning of the century was hardly known in the coffee 
market, now furnishes nearly as much as all the rest of the world besides. Its expor- 
tation, which in 1820 amounted to 97,500 sacks, rose to a million in 1840, and attained 
in 1855 the enormous quantity of 2,392,100 sacks, or more than 350 millions of 
pounds! 

Java ranks next to Brazil among the coffee-producing countries, for though slavery 
does not exist in this splendid colony, yet the Dutch have introduced a system which 
answers the purpose fully as well. Every Javanese peasant is obliged to work sixty- 
six days out of the year for government; andthe residents or administrators of the 
various districts distribute this compulsory labor among thy several plantations, which 
are all in the hands of private individuals. Thus the latter are provided with the 
necessary hands at a very cheap rate; but on the other hand they are compelled to 
sell their whole produce to the Handels Maatschappy, or Dutch Hast India Company, 
at a price fixed by the government, which of course takes care to secure the lion’s 
share of the profit. 

Within the last forty years the progress of coffee cultivation in Ceylon has been no 
less remarkable than its rapid extension in Java or Brazil. Though the plant was 
found growing in the island by the Portuguese, and is even supposed by some to be 
indigenous, yet it was only after the subjugation of the ancient kingdom of Kandy by 
the English in 1815, and the opening of roads in the hill country, that it began to be 
cultivated on a more extensive scale ; so that in an incredibly short time the mountain 
ranges in the centre of the island became covered with plantations, and rows of coffee- 
trees began to bloom upon the solitary hills around the very base of Adam’s Peak. 

Brazil is, however, the great coffee country of the world. According to Agassiz* 
“more than half the coffee consumed in the world is of Brazilian growth. And yet 
the coffee of Brazil has little reputation, and is even greatly underrated, simply because 
a great deal of the best produce of the Brazilian plantations is sold under the name of 
Java or Mocha, or as the coffee of Martinique or Bourbon. Martinique produces only 
600 sacks of coffee annually ; Guadaloupe, whose coffee is sold under the name of the 
neighboring island, yields 6,000 sacks, not enough to provide the market of Rio de 
Janeiro for twenty-four hours; and the Isle of Bourbon hardly more. A great part 
of the coffee which is bought under these names, or under that of Java coffee is Bra- 
zilian ; while the so-called Mocha coffee is often nothing but the small round beans of 
the Brazilian plant, found at the summit of the branches, and very carefully selected.” 
“Tf,” continues Agassiz, ‘‘ the provinces adjacent to Rio de Janeiro offer naturally the 
most favorable soil for the production of coffee, it must not be forgotten that coffee is 
planted with advantage in the shade of the Amazonian forest, and even yields two 
annual crops whérever pains are taken to plant it. In the province of Ceara, where 
the coffee is of superior quality, it is not planted on the plains or in the low grounds, 
or in the shadow of the forest, as in the valley of the Aniazon, but on the slopes of 
the hills and on the mountain hights, at an elevation of from 1,500 to 2,000 feet and 
more above the sea, in the Serras of Aratanha and Batwrité and in the Serra Grande.” 

‘A thriving coffee plantation,’’ says Agassiz elsewhere,f ‘‘is a very pretty sight ; 
the rounded regular cutline of the shrubs gives a tufted look to the hill-sides on which 


* Journey in Brazil, 506, 507. + Journey in Brazil, 71, 113, 114. 


564 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


they grow, and their glittering foliage contrasts strikingly with their bright berries. 
One often passes, however, coffee plantations which look ragged and thin; and in this 
ease the trees are either suffering from the peculiar insect so injurious to them, (a kind 
of tinea,) or have run out and become exhausted. The ordinary roads on the coffee 
plantations are carried straight up the side of the hills, between the lines of the shrubs, 
gullied by every rain, and offering besides so steep an ascent that even with eight or 
ten oxen it is often impossible to drive the clumsy, old-fashioned cart up the slope, and 
the negroes are obliged to bring a great part of the harvest down on their heads. They 
are often seen bringing enormous bundles on their heads down almost vertical slopes.’’ 

Agassiz, however, describes one plantation which he visited which appears to be a 
model: ‘On Senhor Lage’s estate all these old roads are abandoned, except where 
they are planted here and there with alleys of orange-trees for the benefit of the 
negroes ; and he has substituted for them winding roads in the sides of the hill, with a 
very gradual ascent, so that light carts dragged by a single mule can transport all the 
harvest from the summit of the plantation to the drying-ground. It was the harvesting 
season, and the sight was a very pretty one. The negroes, men and women, were 
scattered. about the plantations, with broad shallow trays, made of plaited grass or 
bamboo, over their shoulders, and supported at their waists. Into these they were 
gathering the coffee, some of the berries being brilliantly red, some already beginning 
to dry and turn brown; while here and there was a green one not yet quite ripe but 
soon to ripen in the scorching sun. Little black children were sitting on the ground, 
and gathering what fell under the bushes, singing at their work a monotonous but 
rather pretty snatch of song, in which some took the first and others the second, 
making a not inharmonious music. As their baskets were filled they came to the 
administrator to receive a little metal ticket on which the amount of their work was 
marked. A task is allotted to each one—so much to a full-grown man, so much to a 
woman with young children, so much to a child—and each one is paid for whatever 
he may do over and above it. The requisition is a very moderate one, so that the 
industrious have an opportunity of making a little money independently. At night 
they all present their tickets, and are paid on the spot for any extra work. From the 
harvesting-ground we followed the carts down to the place where their burden is 
deposited. On their return from the plantation the negroes divide the day’s harvest, 
and dispose it in little mounds on the drying-ground, which is paved in a dazzling 
white cement, from the glare of which the eye turns wearily away, longing for a green 
spot on which to rest. When pretty equally dried, the coffee is spread out in thin 
even layers over the whole enclosure, where it is baked in the sun for the last time. 
It is then hulled by a very simple machine, in use on almost all the fazendas, and the 
process is complete. : 

‘‘The coffee plantations cover all the hill-sides for miles around. The seed is 
planted in nurseries especially prepared, where it undergoes its first year’s growth. It 
is then transplanted to its permanent home, and begins to bear in about three years, 
the first crop being a very light one. From that time forward, under good care and 
with favorable soil, it will continue to bear, and’ even to yield two crops or more 
annually for thirty years in succession. At that time the shrubs and the soil are alike 
exhausted, and according to the custom of the country the fazendeiro cuts down a new 
forest and begins a new plantation, completely abandoning his old one, without a 


COFFEE CULTURE IN BRAZIL AND ELSEWHERE. 565 


thought of redeeming or fertilizing the exhausted land. One of the long-sighted 
reforms undertaken by our host, however, is the manuring of all the old deserted plan- 
tations on his estate. He has already a number of vigorous young plantations which 
promise to be as good as if a virgin forest had been sacrificed to produce them. He 
wishes not only to preserve the wood on his own estate, and to show that agriculture 
need not be pursued at the expense of taste and beauty, but also to remind his coun- 
‘ trymen that, extensive as their forests are, they will not last forever ; and that it will 
be necessary to emigrate before long to find new coffee grounds, if the old ones are to 
be considered worthless.” 

In the West Indies the culture of coffee has greatly diminished. Hayti, which 
before the revolution of 1791 exported to France 76,000,000 pounds, now produces 
less than half that quantity. The British West Indies, which in 1827 exported nearly 
30,000,000 pounds, now produce but 4,000,000. Cuba, the product of which in 1833 
was 40,000,000 pounds, now. produces less than half as much. This is, however, 
owing to the fact, that it is found.that under their system of slave-labor the cultivation 
of sugar, for which the climate is so favorable, has been found more profitable than 
that of coffee. In Ceylon the production of coffee has increased enormously within 
the present generation. It rose from less than 2,000,000 pounds in 1833 to more 
than 67,000,000 pounds in 1857 ;, since which time it has still further increased. 

When left to the free growth of nature, the coffee-tree attains a hight of from fifteen 
to twenty feet; in the plantations, however, the tops are generally cut off in order to 
promote the growth of the lower branches, and to facilitate the gathering of the crop. 
Its leaves are opposite, evergreen, and not unlike those of the bay tree ; its blossoms 
are white, sitting on short footstalks, and resembling the flower of the jasmine. The 
fruit which succeeds is a green berry, ripening into red, of the size and form of a large 
cherry, and having a pale, insipid, and somewhat glutinous pulp, enclosing two hard 
and oval seeds or beans, which are too well known to require any further description. 
The tree is in full bearing from its fourth or fifth year, and continues during a long 
series of seasons to furnish an annual produce of about a pound and a half of beans. 
The seeds are known to be ripe when the berries assume a dark red color, and if not 
then gathered, will drop from the trees. 

The planters in Arabia do not pluck the fruit, but place cloths for its reception 
beneath the trees, which they shake, and the ripened berries drop readily. These are 
afterwards spread upon mats, and exposed to the sun until perfectly dry, when the 
husk is broken with large heavy rollers made either of wood or of stone. The coffee, 
thus cleared of its husk, is again dried thoroughly in the sun, that it may not be liable 
to heat when packed for shipment. This method may, in some measure, account for 
the superior quality of the Arabian coffee; but in the large plantations of Brazil, Java, 
Ceylon, and other European colonies, it is necessary to follow a more expeditious 
plan, to pluck the berries from the trees as soon as they ripen, and immediately to 
pass them through a pulping mill, consisting of a horizontal fluted roller turned by a 
crank, and acting against a movable breast-board, so placed as to prevent the passage 
of whole berries between itself and the roller. The pulp is then separated from the 
seeds by washing them, and the latter are spread out in the sun to dry; after which 
the membranous skin, or parchment, which immediately covers the beans, is removed 
by means of heavy rollers or stamping. 


566 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


To be cultivated to advantage, the coffee-tree requires a climate where the mean 
temperature of the year amounts to at least 68°, and where the thermometer never 
falls below 55°. It is by nature a forest tree requiring shade and moisture, and thus 
it is necessary to screen it from the scorching rays of the sun by planting rows of um- 
brageous trees at certain intervals throughout the field. These also serve to protect 
it from the sharp winds which would injure the blossoms. It cannot bear either 
excessive heat or a long-continued drought; and where rain does not fall in sufficient 
quantity, artificial irrigation must supply it with the necessary moisture. From all 
these circumstances it is evident that the best situations for the growth of coffee are 
not the sultry alluvial plains of the tropical and sub-tropical lands, but the mountain 
slopes to an elevation of 4,500 feet. 

Like every other plant cultivated by man, the coffee-tree is exposed to the ravages 
of many enemies. Wild cats, monkeys, and squirrels prey upon the ripening berries, 
and hosts of caterpillars feed upon the leaves. Since 1847 the Ceylon plantations 
have been several times invaded by swarms of the golunda, a species of rat which 
inhabits the forests, making its nest among the roots of the trees, and, like the lem- 
mings of Norway and Lapland, migrating in vast numbers when the seeds of the 
nilloo-shrub, its ordinary food, are exhausted. ‘‘In order to reach the buds and 
blossoms of the coffee, the golunda eats such slender branches as would not sustain its 
weight, and feeds as they fall to the ground; and so delicate and sharp are its incisors, 
that the twigs thus destroyed are detached by as clean a cut as if severed with a 
knife. The Malabar coolies are so fond of its flesh that they evince a preference for 
those districts in which the coffee plantations are subject to its incursions, frying the 
rats in oil or converting them into curry.” 

Another great plague is the Lecanium coffee, known to planters as the coffee bug, 
but in reality a species of coccus, which establishes itself on young shoots and buds, 
covering them with a noisome incrustation of scales, from the influence of which the 
fruit shrivels and drops off. A great part of the crop is sometimes lost, and on many 
trees not a single berry forms from the invasion of this pest, which was first observed 
in 1843 on an estate at Lapalla Galla, and thence spreading eastward through other 
plantations, finally reached all the other estates in the island. No cheap and effectual 
remedy has as yet been found to stay its ravages, and the only hope is that, as other 
blights have been known to do, it may wear itself out, and vanish as mysteriously as 
it came. : 

Mrs. Agassiz* gives an interesting description of the larva of the Brazilian coffee moth : 
‘‘For some time Mr. Agassiz has been trying to get living specimens of the insect so 
injurious to the coffee-tree, the larva of a little moth akin to those which destroy the 
vineyards of Europe. ‘At last he succeeded in obtaining some, and among them was 
one just spinning his cocoon on the leaf. We watched him for a long time with the 
lens as he wove his filmy tent. He had arched the threads upwards in the center, so 
as to leave a little hollow space into which he could withdraw. This tiny vault 
seemed to be completed at the moment we saw him, and he was drawing threads for- 
ward and fastening them at a short distance beyond, thus lashing his house to the leaf, 
as it were. The exquisite accuracy f the work was amazing. He was spinning the 
thread with his mouth, and with every new stitch he turned his body backward, 


* Journey in Brazil, 118. 


Se Se ee 


ae 


THE COFFEE MOTH—CACAO-—VANILLA. 567 


attached his thread to the same spot, then drew it forward and fastened it exactly on a 
line with the last, with a precision and rapidity that machinery could hardly imitate. 
It is a curious question how far this perfection of workmanship in many of the lower 
animals is simply identical with their organization, and therefore to be considered as a 
function as inevitable in its action as digestion or respiration, rather than as an instinct. 
In this case the body of the little animal was his measure. It was amazing to see him 
lay down his threads with such accuracy, till one remembered that he could not make 
them longer or shorter; for, starting from the center of his house, and stretching his 
body to its full length, they must always reach the same point. The same is true of 
the so-called ‘mathematics’ of the bee. The bees stand as close as they can together 
in their hive, for the economy of space; and each one deposits his wax around him, 
his own form and size being the mould for the cells, the regularity of which when 
completed excites so much wonder and admiration. The ‘mathematical’ secret of the 
bee is to be found in his structure, not in his instinct. But in the industrial work of 
some of the lower animals—the ant, for instance,—there is a power of adaptation 
which is not susceptible of the same explanation. Their social organization, too intelli- 
gent, it seems, to be the work of any reasoning powers of their own, yet does not 
appear to be directly connected with their structure. While we were watching our 
little insect, a breath stirred the leaf, and he instantly contracted himself and drew 
back under his roof; but presently came out again and returned to his work.” 


‘“‘ Theobroma,”—food for gods,—the Greek- name given by Linnzus to the Cacao 
or Chocolate tree, sufficiently proves how highly he valued the flavor of its seeds. 
Indigenous in Mexico, it had long been in extensive cultivation before the arrival of 
the Spaniards, who found the beverage which the Indians prepared from its beans so 
agreeable, that they reckoned it among the most pleasing fruits of their conquest. 
From Mexico they transplanted it into their other dependencies, so that in America its 
present range of cultivation extends from 20° North latitude to Guayaquil and Bahia. 
It has even been introduced into Africa and Asia, in return for the many useful trees 
that have been imported from the old into the new world. 

The cacao-tree seldom rises above the height of twenty feet, its leaves are large, 
oblong, and pointed. The flowers, which are of a pale red color, spring from the large 
branches, and even from the trunk and roots. The fruits are large, oval, pointed pods, 
about five or six inches long, and containing in five compartments from twenty to forty 
seeds—the well-known cacao of commerce—enveloped in a white, pithy substance. 

The trees are raised from seed, generally in places screened from the wind. As 
they are incapable of bearing the scorching rays of the sun, particularly when young, 
bananas, maize, manioc, and other broad-leaved plants are sown between their rows, 
under whose shade they enjoy the damp and sultry heat which is indispensable to their 
growth, for the Theobroma Cacao is essentially tropical, and requires a warmer 
climate than the coffee-tree or the sugar-cane. Two years after having been sown, the 
plant attains a height of three feet, and sends forth many branches, of which, however, 
but four or five are allowed to remain. The first fruits appear in the third year, but 
the tree does not come into full bearing before it is six or seven years old, and from 
that time forward it continues to yield abundant crops of beans during more than 
twenty years. At first the tender plants must be carefully protected from weeds and 


568 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


insects, but in after years they demand but little attention and labor, so that one negro 
suffices for keeping a thousand trees in order and collecting their produce. According 
to Herndon,* the annual produce of a thousand full-grown trees, in the plantations 
along the lower banks of the monarch of streams, amounts to fifty arrobes, that sell in 
Peru from two and a half to three milrees the arrobe ; and Wagner informs us that in 
Costa Rica a thousand trees yield about 1,250 pounds, worth twenty dollars the 
hundred weight. 

The beans when first collected from the ‘tree are possessed of an acrimony, which 
requires a slight fermentation to. change into the aromatic principle, to which they are 
indebted for their agreeable flavor. For this purpose they are thrown into pits, where 
they remain three or four days covered with a light layer of sand, care being taken to 
stir them from time to time. They are then taken out, cleaned, and laid out upon 
mats to dry in the sun. The management of the beans requires some caution, for if 
the fermentation is allowed to continue too long, they acquire a mouldy taste and smell, 
which they only lose on being roasted. When thoroughly dried (which is known by 
their hollow sound when shaken, and by the husk easily separating from the seed when 
pressed), they are packed in sacks or cases, and sent as soon as possible to the market, 
a rapid sale being extremely desirable, as it is very difficult to preserve them from 
insects, more particularly from the cockroaches. Cacao is chiefly used under the form 
of chocolate. The beans are roasted, finely ground, so as to convert them into a per- 
fectly smooth paste, and improved in flavor by the addition of spices, such as the sweet- 
scented vanilla, a short notice of which -will not be out of place. 


Like our parasitical ivy, the Vanilla aromatica, a native of torrid America, climbs 
the summits of the highest forest-trees, or creeps along the moist rock’crevices on the 
banks of rivulets. The stalk, which is about as thick as a finger, bears at each joint 
a lanceolate and ribbed leaf, twelve inches long and ‘three inches broad: The large 
flowers, which fill the forest with their delicious odors, are white intermixed with stripes 
of red and yellow, and are succeeded by long and slender pods containing many seeds 
imbedded in a thick oily and balsamic pulp. These pods seldom ripen in the wild 
state, for the dainty monkey knows no greater delicacy, and his agility in climbing 
almost always enables him to anticipate man. At present the vanilla is cultivated not 
only in Mexico, where the villages Papantla and Misantla annually produce about 
19,000 pounds or two millions of pods (worth at Vera Cruz a shilling the pod), but 
in Java, where ‘the industrious Dutch have acclimatized it since.1819.. It-is planted 
under shady trees on a damp ground, and grows luxuriantly.,; but as a thousand blos- 
soms on an average produce but one pod, it must always remain a rare and costly spice. 
Had the ancients known vanilla they would, no doubt, have deemed it more worthy to 
be the food of the Olympic 75 than their fabled ambrosia. 


Although but little known oe the confines of its native country, Gade (to be 
earefully distinguished from Cocoa and Cacao), is beyond all doubt one of the most 
remarkable productions of the tropical zone, and deserves the more to be noticed as the 
time is, perhaps, not far distant, when it will assume a conspicuous rank in the markets 
of the world. | 

* Valley of the Amazons. 


COCA—ITS USES AND ABUSES. 569 


The sultry valleys on the eastern slopes of the Peruvian and Bolivian Andes are 
the seat of the Erythroxylon Ooca, which like the coffee-tree bears a lustrous green 
foliage, and white blossoms ripening into small, scarlet berries. These, however, are 
not used, but the leaves, which when brittle enough to break on being bent, are 
stripped from the plant, dried in the sun, and closely packed in sacks. The naked 
shrub soon gets covered with new foliage, and after three or four months its leaves are 
ready for a second plucking, though in some of the higher mountain-valleys it can 
only be stripped once a year. Every eight or ten years the plantations require to be 
renewed, as the leaves of the old shrubs are less juicy, and consequently of inferior 
quality. Like the coffee-tree, the coca shrub thrives only in a damp situation, under 
shelter from the sun ; and for this reason maize, which rapidly shoots up, is generally 
sown between the rows of the young plants. Ata later period, when they no longer 
need this protection, care must be taken to weed the plantation, and to loosen the soil 
every two or three months. 

The local consumption of coca is immense, as the Peruvian Indian reckons its habitual 
use among the prime necessaries of life, and is never seen without his leathern pouch 
or chuspa, filled with a provision of the leaves, and containing besides a small box of 
powdered unslaked lime. At least three times a day he rests from his work to chew 
his indispensable coca. Carefully taking a few leaves out of the dag, and removing 
their midribs, he first masticates them into the shape of a small ball, which is called an 
acullico ; then repeatedly inserting a thin piece of moistened wood like a toothpick 
into the box of unslaked lime, he introduces the powder which remains attached to it 
into the acullico until the latter has acquired the requisite flavor. The saliva, which 
is abundantly secreted while chewing the pungent mixture, is mostly swallowed along 
with the green juice of the plant. When the acullico is exhausted, another is imme- 
diately prepared, for one seldom suffices. The corrosive sharpness of the unslaked 
lime requires some caution, and an unskilled coca-chewer runs the risk of burning 
his lips, as, for ‘instance, the celebrated traveler Tschudi, who, by the advice of his 
muleteer, while crossing the high mountain-passes of the Andes, attempted to make an 
acullico, and instead of strengthening himself as he expected, merely added exeru- 
ciating pain to the fatigues of the journey. The taste of coca is slightly bitter and 
aromatic, like that of bad green tea, but the addition of lime or of the sharp ashes of 
the quinoa, renders it less disagreeable to the European palate. 

It is a remarkable fact that the Indians who regularly use coca require but little 
food, and when the dose is augmented are able to undergo the greatest fatigues, without 
tasting almost anything else. Pdoppig ascribes this astonishing increase of endurance 
to a momentary excitement, which must necessarily be succeeded by a corresponding 
collapse, and therefore considers the use of coca absolutely hurtful. Tschudi, however, 
is of opinion that its moderate consumption far from being injurious, is, on the con- 
trary, extremely wholesome, and cites the examples of several Indians who, never 
allowing a day to pass without chewing their coca, attained the truly patriarchal age 
of one hundred and thirty years. The ordinary food of these people consists almost 
exclusively of roasted maize or barley, which is eaten dry without any other addition : 
and the obstinate obstructions caused by these mealy aliments are obviated by the tonic 
effects of the coca, which thus removes the cause of many maladies. It may be 
remarked, that a similar reason is assigned for the custom of areka and betel chewing 


570 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


in Southern Asia. As an instance of the wonderful strengthening properties of the 
coca, Tschudi mentions the case of an Indian called Hatun Huamang or the ‘‘ Great 
Vulture,’’ whom he employed during five consecutive days and nights in making the 
most laborious excavations, and who never ate anything all the time, or slept more than 
two hours a night. But every three hours he chewed about half an ounce of the leaves, 
and constantly kept his acullico in his mouth. When the work was finished, this Indian 
accompanied T'schudi during a ride of twenty-three leagues, over the high mountain- 
plains, constantly running alongside of the nimbly-pacing mule, and never resting but 
for the purpose of preparing an acullico. When they separated, the ‘‘ Great Vulture ” 
told Tschudi that he would willingly do the same work over again, provided only he 
had a plentiful allowance of coca. He was sixty-two years old, according to the testi- 
mony of the village priest, and had never been ill all his life. 

Tschudi often found that coca is the best preservative against the asthmatic symp- 
toms which are produced by the rapid ascension of high mountains. While hunting 
in the Puna, at an elevation of 14,000 feet above the level of the sea, he always 
drank a strong infusion of coca before starting, and was then able to climb among the 
rocks, and to pursue his game, without any greater difficulty in breathing than would 
have been the case upon the coast. Even after drinking a very strong infusion, he 
never experienced, any symptoms of cerebral excitement, but a feeling of satiety, and 
though he took nothing else at the time, his appetite returned only after a longer 
interval than usual. 

If the moderate use of coca is thus beneficial in many respects, its abuse is attended 
with the same deplorable consequences as those which are observed in the oriental 
opium-eaters and smokers, or in our own incorrigible drunkards. The confirmed coca- 
chewer, or coquero, is known at once by his uncertain step, his sallow complexion, his 
hollow, lack-lustre black-rimmed eyes, deeply sunk in the head, his trembling lips, kis 
incoherent speech, and his stolid apathy. His character is irresolute, suspicious, and 
false ; in the prime of life he has all the appearances of senility, and in later years 
sinks into complete idiocy. Avoiding the society of man, he seeks the dark forest, or 
some solitary ruin, and there, for days together, indulges in his pernicious habit. 
While under the influence of coca, his excited fancy riots in the strangest visions, now 
revelling in pictures of ideal beauty, and then haunted by dreadful apparitions. 
Secure from intrusion, he crouches in an obscure corner, his eyes immovably fixed upon 
one spot; and the almost automatic motion of the hand raising the coca to the mouth, 
and its mechanical chewing, are the only signs of consciousness which he exhibits. 
Sometimes a deep groan escapes from his breast, most likely when the dismal solitude 
around him inspires his imagination with some terrific vision, which he is as little able 
to banish as voluntarily to dismiss his dreams of ideal felicity. How the coquero 
finally. awakens from his trance, Tschudi was never able to ascertain, though most 
likely the complete exhaustion of his supply at length forces him to return to his 
miserable hut. 

No historical record informs us when the use of the coca was introduced, or who 
first discovered the hidden virtues of its leaves. When Pizarro destroyed the empire 
of Atahualpa he found that it played an important part in the religious rites of the 
Incas, and that it was used in all public ceremonies, either for fumigation or as an 
offering to the gods, The priests chewed coca while performing their rites, and the 


fh 


USES AND ABUSES OF COCA—CINNAMON. 571 


favor of the invisible powers was only to be obtained by a present of these highly 
valued leaves. No work begun without coca could come to a happy termination, and 
divine honors were paid to the shrub itself. 

After a period of more than three centuries, Christianity has not yet been able to 
eradicate these deeply rooted superstitious feelings, and everywhere the traveler still 
meets with traces of the ancient belief in its mysterious powers. ‘To the present day, 
the miners of Cerro de Pasco throw chewed coca against the hard veins of the ore, and 
affirm that they can then be more easily worked,—a custom transmitted to them from 
their forefathers, who were fully persuaded that the Coyas, or subterranean divinities, 
rendered the mountains impenetrable unless previously propitiated by an offering of 
coca. Even now the Indians put coca into the mouths of their dead, to insure them a 
welcome on their passage to another world; and whenever they find one of their 
ancestral mummies, they never fail to offer it some of the leaves. 

During the first period after the conquest of Peru, the Spaniards endeavored to 
extirpate by all possible means the use of coca, from its being so closely interwoven 
with the Indian superstitions; but the proprietors of the mines soon became aware 
how necessary it was for the successful prosecution of their undertakings; the planters 
also found after a time that the Indians would not work without it. Private interest 
prevailed, as it always does in the long run, over religious zeal and despotic interdic- 
tions, and in the last century we even find a Jesuit, Don Antonio Julian, regretting 
that the use of coca had not been introduced into Hurope instead of tea or coffee. 
When we consider its remarkable properties, it is indeed astonishing that it has so 
long remained unnoticed. Were it concealed in the interior of Africa, or extremely 
difficult to procure, this neglect could be more easily accounted for; but hundreds of 
vessels annually frequent the harbors of Peru and Bolivia, where it may be obtained 
in large quantities, and yet it has only been rarely and in small quantities imported 
into Kurope, and, as far as I can learn, never into the United States. 


Although the Cinnamon tree, that beautiful laurel, whose bark furnishes the most 
exquisite of all the spices of the Hast, is indigenous in the forests of Ceylon; yet as no 
author previous to the fourteenth century mentions its aromatic rind among the pro- 
ductions of the island, there is every reason to believe that the cinnamon, which in 
the earlier ages was imported into Europe through Arabia, was obtained first from 
Africa, and afterwards from India. Cinnamon figures largely among the ingredients 
used by the Hebrews for the holy anointing oil and sacred perfumes. Some, indeed, 
but with no good reason, have supposed that the substance so designated was the 
gum of a species of the aloe, and aver that cinnamon itself was unknown to the 
Hebrews, Greeks and Romans. That the Portuguese, who had been mainly attracted 
to the East by the fame of its spices, were nearly twenty years in India before they 
took steps to obtain a footing at Colombo, proves that there can have been nothing 
very remarkable in the quality of the spice at the beginning of the sixteenth century, 
and that the high reputation of the Ceylon cinnamon is comparatively modern, and 
attributable to the attention bestowed upon its preparation for market by the Portu- 
guese, and afterwards on its cultivation by the Dutch. Long after the appearance of 
Europeans in Ceylon, cinnamon was only found in the forests of the interior, where it 
was cut and brought away by the Ohadias, an emigrant tribe, which, in consideraticn 


572 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


of its location in villages, was bound to go into the woods to cut and deliver, at certain 
prices, a given quantity of cinnamon properly peeled and ready for exportation. This 
system remained unchanged so long as Portugal was master of the country; but the 
forests in which the spice was found being exposed to constant incursions from the 
Kandyans, who sought every opportunity to obstruct and harass the Chalias and 
peelers, the Dutch were compelled to form enclosed plantations of their own within 
range of their fortresses. The native chieftains, fearful of losing the profits derived 
from the labor of the Chalias, who were attached as serfs to their domains, and whose 
work they let out to the Dutch, were at first extremely opposed to this innovation, and 
endeavored to persuade the Hollanders that the cinnamon would degenerate as soon as 
it was artificially planted. The withering of many of the young trees seemed to justify 
the assertion; but on a closer examination it was found that boiling water had been 
poured upon the roots. A law was now passed declaring the wilful injury of a cinna- 
mon plant a crime punishable with death, and by this severity the project was saved. 

The extent of the trade during the time of the Dutch may be inferred from the 
fact, that the five principal cinnamon-gardens around Nejombo, Colombo, Barberyn, 
Galle, and Maduro were each from fifteen to twenty miles in circumference. Although 
they were only first planted in the year 1770, yet before 1796, when Colombo was 
taken by the English, their annual produce amounted to more than 400,000 lbs. of 
cinnamon, as much as the demands of the market required. The profits must have 
been enormous, for cinnamon was then at least ten times dearer than at present, the 
trade being exclusively in the hands of the Dutch East Indian. Company, which, in 
order to keep up the price, restricted the production to a certain quantity, and watched 
over its monopoly with the most jealous tyranny. No one was’allowed to plant cinna- 
mon or to peel it, and the selling or importing of a single stick was punished as a 
eapital offence. ; 

When the English took possession of the island, the monopoly was ceded to the 
East India Company for an annual sum of £60,000 until 1823, when the colonial 
government undertook the administration of the cinnamon-gardens for its own account. 
In 1831 the produce sank to £16,000 sterling, and in the following year the ancient 
monopoly was abandoned ; the government ceased to be the sole exporters of: cinnamon, 
and thenceforward the merchants of Colombo and Galle were permitted.to take a 
share in the trade, on paying to the crown an export duty of three shillings a pound. 
This was afterwards reduced to one shilling, and ultimately totally abolished ; as not 
alone India and Java, but also Martinique, Guiana, and Mauritius, where-the cinnamon 
tree had been introduced, were found capable of producing the spice; and the cheap 
substitute of Cassia, a still more formidable competitor, was arriving in Kurope in large 
quantities from South China and the Trans-Gangetic peninsula. In Java alone the 
export of cinnamon, which in the year 1835 amounted only ito:2,200 lbs., increased so 
rapidly that in 1845 it had already risen to 134,000 lbs;, and as it can there be more 
cheaply produced, and the Dutch government was wise enough to limit the export 
duty to one half-penny a pound, an unrestricted free ‘trade was evidently the only 
means for preventing Ceylon from being entirely supplanted in the markets of the 
world. Under these circumstances, the Singhalese cinnamon has lost its ancient 
excellence, less care has been given of late years to the production of the finest 
qualities for the Kuropean market, and the coarser and less valuable shoots have been 


CINNAMON GARDENS OF CEYLON. | 573 


cut and peeled in larger proportions than formerly. Hence the gross quantity exported 
from Ceylon in 1857 (887,959 Ibs.) was nearly double that of 1841. 

The cinnamon gardens, whose beauty and luxuriance has been so often vaunted by 
travelers, have partly been sold, partly leased to private individuals; and though less 
than a century has elapsed since they were formed by the Dutch, they are already 
becoming a wilderness. Those which surround Colombo on the land side exhibit the 
effects of a quarter of a century of neglect, and produce a feeling of disappointment 
and melancholy. The beautiful shrubs which furnish this spice have been left to 
the wild growth of nature, and in some places are entirely supplanted by an undere- 
growth of jungle, while in others a thick cover of climbing plants conceals them 
under heaps of verdure and blossom. It would, however, be erroneous to sup- 
pose that the cinnamon-gardens have been universally doomed to the same neglect, 
and many beautiful gardens still exist. The aspect of a well-conditioned cinnamon- 
garden is rather monotonous; for, though the trees when left to their full growtb 
attain a hight of forty or fifty feet, and a thickness of from eighteen to twenty 
inches, yet, as the best spice is furnished by the shoots that spring from the roots after 
the chief stem has been removed, they are kept as a kind of coppice, and not allowed 
to rise higher than ten feet. The shrubs planted in regular rows, four or five feet 
apart, consist of four or five shoots whose slender stems, very much resembling those 
of the hazel tree, are leafed from top to bottom. The leaf when first developed is 
partly of a bright red, and partly of a pale yellow; it soon, however, assumes a green 
hue, and when at its full growth is on the upper surface of a dark olive color, and on 
the under side of a lighter green; it somewhat resembles that of the bay, but is longer 
and narrower. ‘The flowers bloom in January, and grow on foot-stalks rising from the 
axillee of the leaves and the extremities of the branches, clustering in bunches, which 
resemble in size and shape those of the lilac, but they are white with a brownish tinge 
in the center. Though their smell has been frequently extolled as very fragrant, yet 
it is weak, and by no means agreeable, resembling that of animal albuminous liquids. 
The flowers are followed by one-seeded berries, of the shape of an acorn, but not so 
large as a common pea. 

The plants are propagated by seeds or saplings. In two years the shoots are fit for 
cutting, being then about half an inch thick; but as the shoots are continually cut as 
soon as they have obtained the proper size, a full-grown trunk never forms, so that the 
more or less voluminous root-stalk is the only criterion of age. The peeling of the 
rind takes place twice a year, from May to June, and in November, as at that time, in 
consequence of the heavier rains, and the increase of sap, it can be more easily 
detached from the wood. The epidermis having been scraped off, the bark is placed 
on mats to dry in the sun, when it curls up, and acquires a darker tint. The smaller 
pieces are then put inside the larger, and the whole closes together into the tubular 
form, in which it is sold in the shops. The finer sort is as thin as parchment, light 
brown, and extremely aromatic. 

From the American ‘‘ Cyclopzedia of Biblical Literature’ we abridge an admirable 
account of this plant: ‘‘ Cinnamon was probably an article of commerce in ancient 
Babylon. The Hebrews received it through the Midianites and Nabathzans, who 
brought it from the Arabian Gulf. It seems that the Arabians at an early period had 
commercial intercourse with Ceylon and Continental India. The term itself occurs in 


574 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


many Greek authors. Herodotus, writing 400 years before the Christian era, describes 
Arabia as the last inhabited country toward the south, and the only region which 
produces frankincense, myrrh, cinnamon, cassia, and ledanum. He states that the 
Arabians, however, were ignorant of the particular spot where cinnamon grew. It was 
not till the time of Dioscorides, Galen, and the circumnavigation of the Hrythraan 
Sea (B. C. 200,) that we get any definite information. Galen says that cinnamon and 
cassia are so much alike that it is not an easy matter to distinguish one from the other, 
Cinnamon of the best quality is imported at the present day from Ceylon and the 
Malabar coast. It comes in bales and chests, the bundles weighing about a pound 
each. The pieces consist of slender compound quills about three feet long, each 
enclosing several smaller quills. These are thin, smooth, and of a brownish color; of 
a warm, sweetish, and agreeable taste, and fragrant odor; but several kinds are known 
in modern markets, as they were in ancient times. The best kinds of cinnamon are 
obtained from twigs and shoots; those of less than half an inch, or more than three 
inches in diameter, are not peeled. When the bark is partially dry the smaller quills 
are introduced into the larger ones, and in this way congeries of quills are formed, 
often measuring forty inches in length. The quills are then thoroughly dried in the 
sun, and made into bundles with pieces of split bamboo twigs. 

‘* An oil of cinnamon is prepared by macerating the coarser pieces of the bark, after 
being reduced to a coarse powder, in sea-water for two days, and then distilling it. A 
fatty substance is also obtained by bruising and boiling the ripened fruit, when an 
oily substance floats on the surface, which on cooling concretes into a whitish, rather 
hard, fatty matter. As the oil burns with a delightful fragrance, the kings of Kandy 
used to burn it in their audience chambers when receiving foreign ambassadors. The 
wood also is pervaded with the same grateful perfume, and walking-sticks and small 
articles of furniture made from it are highly prized. 

‘Cassia bark is with difficulty distinguished from Cinnamon, except by experts. 
During the palmy Dutch days there were professional tasters who were able to dis- 
criminate between half a score of different qualities of cinnamon; and they were 
required when on duty to live wholly on rice, bread, and fruits, so as not to impair 
the keenness of their gustatory sensibilities. They, of course, were quite able to dis- 
tinguish between cinnamon and cassia; the more readily because the latter left a bitter 
taste in the mouth. Chemistry distinguishes them still more readily ; for a decoction 
of cassia, when treated with a tincture of iodine, gives a blue color, which cinnamon 
does not. At the present day, cinnamon has to a great extent lost its favor as a con- 
diment. The principal consumers of it are the chocolate-makers of France, Spain, 
Italy and Mexico. The Germans, Turks and Russians prefer cassia, on account of its 
stronger flavor. Not very long since a large quantity of cinnamon, worth a dollar a 
pound, was sent by mistake to Constantinople, where it could not be sold even at the 
price of cassia, worth only a seventh as much, which was in great demand.” 


Nutmegs and Cloves, the costly productions of the remotest isles of the Indian 
Ocean, were known in Europe for centuries before the countries where they grow had 
ever been heard of. Arabian navigators brought them to Egypt, where they were 
purchased by the Venetians and sold at an enormous profit to the nations of the west. 
But, as is well known, the commercial grandeur of the city of the Lagunes was 


CINNAMON—NU. MEGS—CLOVES. 578 


suddenly eclipsed after Vasco de Gama discovered the new maritime road to the East 
Indies, round the Cape of Good Hope (1498); and when, a few years later, the 
countrymen of the great navigator conquered the Moluccas (1511), they for a short 
time monopolized the whole spice trade much more than their predecessors had ever 
done before. But here also as in Ceylon the Portuguese were soon obliged to yield to 
a stronger rival ; for the Dutch now appeared upon the scene, and by dint of enter- 
prise and courage soon made themselves masters of the Indian Ocean. In 1605 they 
drove the Portuguese from Amboyna, and before 1621 had elapsed, the whole of the 
Moluccas were in their possession. Five-and-twenty years later, Ceylon also fell into 
their hands, and thus they became the sole purveyors of Europe with cinnamon, cloves 
and nutmegs. Unfortunately, the scandalous manner in which they misused their 
power throws a dark shade over their exploits. For the better to secure the monopoly 
of the spice trade, they declared war against nature itself, allowed the trees to grow 
only in particular places, and extirpated them everywhere else. Thus the planting of 
the nutmeg tree was confined to the small islands of Banda, Lonthoir, and Pulo Aij, 
and that of the clove to Amboyna. Wherever the trees were seen to grow in a wild 
state, they were unsparingly rooted out, and the remainder of the Moluccas were occu- 
pied and subjugated for no other reason. 

The natives were treated with unmerciful cruelty, and blood flowed in torrents to 
keep up the prices of cloves and nutmegs at an usurious hight. When these spices 
accumulated in too large a quantity for the market, they were thrown into the sea or 
destroyed by fire. Thus M. Beaumare, a French traveler, relates that on June 10, 
1760, he beheld near the Admiralty at Amsterdam a blazing pile of these aromatics, 
valued at four millions of florins, and an equal quantity was to be burnt the next day. 
The air was perfumed with their delicious fragrance, the essential oils freed from their 
confinement distilled over, mixing in one spicy stream, which flowed at the feet of the 
spectators; but no one was suffered to collect any of this, or, on pain of heavy punish- 
ment, to rescue the smallest quantity of the spice from the flames. But the reign 
of monopoly has ceased even in the remote Moluccas, and their ports are now, at 
length, thrown open to the commerce of all nations; for the spice trees having been 
transplanted into countries beyond the control of the Dutch, the ancient system could 
not possibly be maintained any longer. 

The clove tree belongs to the far-spread family of the myrtles; the small lanceolate 
evergreen leaves resemble those of the laurel, the flowers growing in bunches at the 
extremity of the branches. When they first appear, which is at the beginning of the 
rainy season, they are in the form of elongated greenish buds, from the extremity 
of which the corolla is expanded, which is of a delicate peach-blossom color. When 
ithe corolla begins to fade, the calyx turns yellow, and then red; the calyces with 
their embryo-seed are in this stage of their growth beaten from the tree, and, after 
being dried in the sun, are known as the cloves of commerce. If the fruit be allowed 
to remain on the tree after arriving at this period, the calyx gradually swells, the seed 
enlarges, and the pungent properties of the clove are in great part dissipated. The 
whole tree is highly aromatic, and the foot-stalks of the leaves have nearly the same 
pungent quality as the calyx of the flowers. Clove trees as an avenue to a residence 
are perhaps unrivalled; their noble hight, the beauty of their form, the luxuriance 
of their foliage, and, above all, the spicy fragrance with which they perfume the air, 


576 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


produce, on driving through a long line of them, a degree of exquisite pleasure only 
to be enjoyed in the clear, light atmosphere of these latitudes. 

Cloves contain a very large proportion of essential oil, which combined with a pecu- 
liar resin gives them their pungent aroma. It seems, however, to require a combina- 
tion of favorable circumstances of climate and soil for the full development of their | 
virtues; for, though the tree is found in the larger islands of Eastern Asia, and in 
Cochin China, it has there little or no flavor, and the Moluccas seem to be the only 
place where the clove comes to perfection without being cultivated. Though it is at 
present planted in Zanzibar, Cayenne, Bourbon, Trinidad, and other places, yet 
Amboyna still furnishes the best quality and the largest quantity, exporting annually 
about a million of pounds. 


In spite of the endeavors of the Dutch to confine the Vutmeg tree to the narrow 
precincts of Banda, it has likewise extended its range not only over Sumatra, Mau- 
ritius, Bourbon, and Ceylon, but even over the western hemisphere. It is of a more 
majestic growth than the clove, as it attains a hight of fifty feet, and the leaves, of a 
fine green on the upper surface, and gray beneath, are more handsome in the outline, 
and broader in proportion to the length. When the trees are about nine years old, 
they begin to bear. They are diecious, having male or barren flowers upon one tree, 
and female or fertile upon another. The flowers of both are small, white, bell-shaped, 
without any calyx; the embryo-fruit appearing at the bottom of the female flowers in 
the form of a little reddish knob. When ripe, it resembles in appearance and size 
a small peach, and then the outer rind, which is about half an inch thick, bursts at 
the side, and discloses a shining black nut, which seems the darker from the contrast 
of the leafy network of a fine red color with which it is enveloped. The latter forms 
the Mace of commerce, and having been laid to dry in the shade for a short time, is 
packed in bags and pressed together very tightly. The shell of the nut is larger and 
harder than that-of the filbert, and could not, in the state in which it is gathered, be 
broken without injuring the nut. On that account the nuts are successively dried in 
the sun and then by fire-heat, till the kernel shrinks so much as to rattle in the shell, 
which is then easily broken. After this the nuts are three times soaked in sea-water 
and lime; they are then laid in a heap, where they heat and get rid of their super- 
fluous moisture by evaporation. This process is pursued to preserve the substance 
and flavor of the nut, as well as to destroy its vegetative power. The kernel con- 
tains both a fixed oil, which is obtained by pressure, a pound generally yielding three 
ounces, and a transparent volatile oil, which may be obtained by distillation in the 
proportion of one thirty-second part of the weight of nutmeg used. The outer rinds 
are likewise not without use to the natives. They are laid in large heaps, and al- 
lowed to putrefy, when they get covered with a blackish mushroom, which is esteemed. 
as a great delicacy. | 


Pepper, although not so costly as cloves or cinnamon, is of a much greater com- 
mercial value, as its consumption is at least a hundred times greater. It grows on 
a beautiful vine, which, incapable of supporting itself, twines round poles prepared 
for it; or, as is more common in the Travancore plantations, the pepper vines are 
vianted near mango and other trees of straight high stems. As these are stripped of 


PEPPER—PIMENTO—GINGER. 577 


the lower branches, the vine embraces the trunk, covering it with elegant festoons and 
rich bunches of fruit in the style of the Italian vineyards. The leaf of the pepper 
plant is large, resembling that of the ivy, and of a bright green ; the blossoms appear 
in June, soon after the commencement of the rains; they are small, of a greenish 
white, and are followed by the pungent berries, which hang in large bunches, resem- 
bling in shape those of grapes, but the fruit grows distinct on little stalks like cur- 
rants. This valuable spice grows chiefly on the Malabar coast, in Sumatra, Borneo, 
Java, Singapore ; its cultivation has also been introduced in Cayenne and the West 
Indies. The black and white sorts of pepper are both the produce of the same plant. 
The best white peppers are supposed to be the finest berries which have dropped from 
the tree, and, lying under it, become somewhat bleached by exposure to weather ; the 
greater part of the white pepper used as a condiment is, however, the black merely 
steeped in water, and decorticated, by which means the pungency and real value of 
the spice are diminished ; but having a fairer and more uniform appearance when 
thus prepared, it fetches a higher price. 


Jamaica is the chief seat of the magnificent myrtle (Myrtus pimenta), which fur- 
nishes the Pimento—commonly called, by way of eminence, “ Spice,’’ or ** Allspice”’ 
—of commerce. This beautiful tree grows to the height of about thirty feet, with a 
smooth, brown trunk, and shining green leaves resembling those of the bay. In July 
and August a profusion of white flowers, filling the air with their delicious odors, 
forms a very pleasing contrast to the dark foliage of its wide-spreading branches. It 
grows spontaneously in many parts of the island, particularly on the northern side, 
in high spots near the coast. When a new plantation is to be formed, no regular 
planting or sowing takes place, for, as Edwards observes, “ the pimento tree is purely 
a child of nature, and seems to mock all the labors of man in his endeavors to extend 
or improve its growth ; not one attempt in fifty to propagate the young plants, or to 
raise them from the seeds in parts of the country where it is not found growing spon- 
taneously, having succeeded. For this reason, a piece of land is chosen, either in the 
neighborhood of a plantatation already formed, or in a part of the woodland where 
the pimento-myrtles are scattered in a native state. The land is then cleared of all 
wood but these trees, which are left standing, and the felled timber is allowed to re- 
main, where it falls to decay, and perishes. In the course of a year, young pimento 
plants are found springing up on all. parts of the land, produced, it is supposed, in 
consequence of the ripe berries having been scattered there by the birds, while the 
prostrate trees protect and shade the tender seedlings. At the end of two years the 
land is thoroughly cleared, and none but the most vigorous plants, which come to 
maturity in about seven years, are left standing.” The berries are carefully picked 
while yet green, since, when suffered to ripen, they lose their pungency. One person 
on the tree gathers the small branches, and three others, usually women and children, 
find full employment in picking the berries from them. The produce is then exposed 
to the sun for about a week, when the berries lose their green hue and become of a 
reddish brown. When perfectly dry, they are in a fit state for exportation. In favor- 
able seasons, which, however, seldom occur above once in five years, the pimento 
crop is enormous, a single tree having been known to yield one hundred weight of the 
dried spice. From its combining the flavor and properties of many of the oriental 


578 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


aromatics, pimento has derived its popular name of allspice, and, from its being 
cheaper than black pepper, its consumption is very great. 


Though but a lowly root, Ginger almost vies in commercial importance with the 
aromatic rind of the cinnamon-laurel, or the pungent fruit of the nutmeg-myrtle. 
The plant which produces this valuable condiment belongs to the tropical family of 
the Scitamineze, or spice-lilies, which also reckons among its members the Cardomum 
and the Curcuma. Its jointed tubers creep and increase under ground, and from 
each of them springs up an annual stem about two feet and a half high, with narrow - 
and lanceolate leaves. The flowering stalk rises directly from the root, ending in an 
oblong, scaly spike ; from each of these scales a single white and blue flower is pro- 
duced. Ginger is imported into this country, under the form of dried roots and as 
a preserve. We receive it both from the East and West Indies, but that from the 
latter is much superior in quality to the former. 


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HE ROBBER CRAB—MALAY ARCHIPELAGO 


T 


TROPICAL INSECTS. 581 


ANIMALS OF THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


CHAPTER VIII. 
INSECTS. 


Multitude of Tropical Insects—Beetles—Dragon Flies—Leaf Moths—The Leaf Butterfly— 
Fire Flies.—Jnsect Plagues: Mosquitoes—Chigoes, or Jiggers—The Filaria Medinensis— 
The Béte Rouge—Ticks—Land-Leeches—The Tsets¢ Fly—The Tsalt-Salya Locusts— 
Cockroaches—Enemies of the Cockroach.— Useful Insects: The Silk-Worm—The Cochineal 
Insect—The Gum-Lac Insect—Edible and Ornamental Beetles. 


AVING thus passed in rapid survey over the characteristic forms of the Vege- 
table World of the Tropics, we now proceed to the Animal Kingdom, com- 
mencing with Insects, and proceeding to Reptiles, Birds and Beasts. 

On advancing from the temperate regions to the pole, we find that insect life 
gradually diminishes in the same ratio as vegetable life declines. The reverse takes 
place on advancing towards the equator; for, as the sun rises more and more to the 
zenith, we find the insects gradually increasing with the multiplicity of plants, and at 
length attaining the greatest variety of form, and the highest development of number, 
in those tropical lands where moisture combines with heat in covering the ground with 
a dense and everlasting vegetation. Thus while not a single species of beetle is found 
on Melville Island, Greenland boasts of 11; Lapland of 813; Sweden of 2,083. In 
the milder climate of England their number increases to 2,263; in France it rises to 
4,200 ; and the hothouse temperature of Brazil, from Rio Janeiro to Bahia, fosters no 
less than 7,500 specific forms of beetle life. In Borneo Mr. Wallace collected 2,000 
distinct species of beetles within the space of a single square mile; some of them of 
forms to the oddity of which no parallel can be found elsewhere. Thus, also, while 
the whole of Europe and Siberia hardly possess more than 250 butterflies, the ex- 
plored parts of Brazil, which are very inferior in extent, have already furnished the 
naturalist with no less than 600 species, and no doubt contain many more. 

In the countries which, from the never failing abundance of food, and constant 
warmth, are most favorable to the multiplication of insects, these creatures may 
naturally be expected to attain the greatest size. Thus the European rhinoceros 
beetle, though an inch and a quarter long, is far surpassed by the Megasominac 
of torrid America. The colossal Hercules beetle attains a length of five or even six 
inches, and is distinguished, like the other species of the genus, by the singular horn- 
shaped processes rising from the head and thorax, which give it a very grotesque and 
even formidable appearance. Though but little is yet known of its economy, it most 
likely subsists upon putrescent wood, and evidently leads a tree life, like the other 


582 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


members of the family—the Elephant, the Neptune, the Typhon, the Hector, the 
Mars—whose very names indicate that they are giants in the insect world. These 
beeties excavate burrows in the earth, where they conceal themselves during the day, 
or live in the decomposed trunks of trees, and are generally of a dark, rich brown, or _ 
chestnut color... On the approach of night they run about the footpaths in woods, or 
fly around the trees to a great hight with a loud humming noise. Resembling the 
large herbivorous quadrupeds by their comparative size and horn-like processes, they 
are still further like them in their harmless nature, and thus deserve in more than one 
respect to be called the elephants among the insect tribes. 

The Goliaths of the coast of Guinea are nearly as large as the American giant 
beetles, and surpass them in brilliancy of coloring. Some years ago these huge 
beetles, which live exclusively on the juice of trees, were very rare, and brought 
extravagant prices. Thus, Mr. Swainson mentions £30 having been offered and 
refused for a single specimen, the proprietor demanding £50. The South American 
Inca beetles greatly resemble the African Goliaths, equalling them in size and beauty. 

Many of the tropical dragon-flies, grasshoppers, butterflies, and moths, are of no less 
colossal dimensions in their several orders than the giants among the beetles. The 
Lnbellula lueretia, a South American dragon-fly, measures five inches and a half in 
length; the giant Phasma is a span long; and the cinnamon-eating Atlas-moth of 
Ceylon often reaches the dimensions of nearly a foot in the stretch of its superior 
wings. 

In the tropical zone, where the prodigality of life multiplies the enemies which every 
creature has to encounter, we may naturally expect to find the insects extremely well 
provided with both passive and active means of defence. Many so closely resemble 
in color the soil or object on which they are generally found, as to escape even the eye 
of a hungry enemy. The wings of several Brazilian moths appear like withered 
leaves that have been gnawed round their margins by insects; and when these moths 
are disturbed, instead of flying away, they fall upon the ground like the leaf which 
they resemble, so that it 1s difficult, if not impossible, on such occasions to know what 
they really are. 

The illusion is still more complete when the likeness of form is joined to that of 
color, as in the walking leaf and walking-stick insects. Some, of an enormous length, 
look so exactly like slender dead twigs covered with bark, that their insect nature can 
only be discovered by mere accident. Upon being handled they feign death, and their 
legs are often knobbed, like the withered buds of trees. Some resemble living twigs, 
and are green; others such as are decayed, and are therefore colored brown. The 
wings of many put on the resemblance of dry and crumpled leaves, while those of 
others are vivid green, in exact accordance with the plants they respectively inhabit. 
Mr. Wallace describes the Kallima paralekta, a large beautifully colored butterfly 
when flying, but which, when alighted, can not be distinguished from a dead leaf, 
except upon the closest scrutiny. He had often seen it flying, but had never been 
able to capture one. At last actually saw one alight close by where he was standing; 
but it disappeared as if by magic. At last he detected it; and having secured it, was 
able to perceive how it was able to hide itself, when in plain view. ‘The upper end 
of the wings terminates in a fine point, while the lower wings are lengthened out into 
a short thick tail; between these points runs a dark line like the midrib of a leaf, 


THE LEAF BUTTERFLY—THE SOOTHSAYER. 583. 


with marks on each side resembling leaf-veins. When the wings are closely pressed 
together, the whole outline is exactly like that of a half-shrivelled leaf, which it then 
resembles in color. The tail of the hind wings forms a perfect stalk, and rests upon 
_ the twig, while the insect is supported by the middle pair of legs, which are hardly to 
be distinguished from the twigs around. The head is drawn back between the wings, 
at whose base is a notch to let it in. Knowing all this, one must look closely at the 
picture which he gives in order to distinguish the alighted butterfly from a leaf. 


0 
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THE LEAF BUTTERFLY. 


Another singular insect is the Mantis, or ‘‘ Soothsayer,”’ notable for its apparently 
feeble structure and voracious appetite. It is of slow movement, yet flies constitute a 
great part of its food. It steals cautiously upon its prey, and, when near enough, 
flings out its long fore-legs and grasps its prey. These legs are curiously constructed ; 
the tibia can be shut upon the sharp edge of the thigh, like a pair of shears, with 
which it can cut any slender substance, and even give a decidedly unpleasant nip upon 
the finger of the naturalist who incautiously seizes it. 

The Mantis, by the attitude it assumes when lurking for its prey or advancing upon 
it—which is done by the support of the four posterior legs only, whilst the head and 


584 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


prothorax. are raised perpendicularly from the body, and the exterior legs are folded in 
front—greatly resembles a person praying. Hence, in France it is called Le Pré- 
cheur, or Le Prie Dieu; the Turk says it points to Mecca; and several African tribes 
pay it religious observances. In reality, however, its ferocity is great; and the 
stronger, preying on the weaker of their own species, unmercifully cut them to pieces. 
Thus, two Mantes which Sir HE. Tennent enclosed in a box were both found dead a 
few hours after, severed limb from limb in their deadly fight. Within the space of a 
week, Burmeister saw a Mantis devour daily some dozens of flies, and occasionally 
large grasshoppers and young frogs, consuming, now and then, lizards three times its 
own length, as well as many large fat caterpillars. Hence it may be judged what 
ravages these strangely formed creatures must cause among all weaker beings which 
incautiously approach them, and that, far from being the saints, they are, in reality, 
the tigers of the insect world. 

Though the great majority of luminous animals are marine, frequently lighting up 
the breaking wave with millions of moving atoms, or spreading over the beach like a 
sheet of fire, yet several insects are also endowed with the same wonderful property. 
Our own fire-flies afford a charming spectacle. But this brilliancy is far surpassed by 
that of the phosphorescent beetles of the torrid zone. Thus the Cocujas of South 
America glows with such intensity, that if eight or ten of them are put into a vial the 
light will be sufficiently good to admit of writing by it. In Cuba is a magnificent 
fire-fly, which ladies often enclose in gauze nets, and wear as ornaments in the ball- 
room. When the Spaniards first visited Mexico, the wandering sparks of fire-flies 
were once mistaken for an army approaching with matchlocks; and in the West Indies 
the English, under Cavendish and Dudley, seeing an innumerable body of these insects, 
fancied that the Spaniards were advancing upon them in force, and fled to the vessels 
from which they had just landed. 


The insect tribes hold a kind of universal empire over the earth and its inhabit- 
ants, for nothing that possesses, or has possessed, life is secure from their attacks. 
To secure himself from their attacks, man must wage a perpetual warfare, and main- 
tain an ever-wakeful vigilance, for, though destroyed by thousands, new legions ever 
make their appearance, and to repose after a victory is equivalent to a defeat. In our 
temperate zone, where a higher cultivation of the ground tends to keep down the 
number of the lower animals, their persecutions, though frequently annoying, may 
still be borne with patience ; but in the tropical regions, where man is generally either 
too indolent or not sufficiently numerous to set bounds to their increase, the insects 
constitute one of the great plagues of life. We will first speak of some of these 
insect plagues : 

Along the low river-banks, and everywhere on hot and swampy grounds, the blood- 
thirsty mosquitoes appear periodically in countless multitudes, the dread of all who 
live in warm climates. Scarcely has the sun descended below the horizon, when these 
insects arise from the morass to disturb the rest of man and to render existence a tor- 
ment. Not satisfied with piercing the flesh with their sharp proboscis, which at the 
same time forms a kind of syphon through which the blood flows, these malignant 
gnats, of which there are many species, inject a poison into the wound, which causes 
inflammation, and prolongs the pain. 


MOSQUITOES—JIGGERS. 585 


In Angola, Livingstone found the banks of the river Seuza infested by legions of 
the most ferocious mosquitoes he ever met with during the course of his long travels. 
The torment which they inflicted was, he says, ‘‘ at least equal to a nail through the 
heel of one’s boot, or the toothache.” Edwards, on his voyage up the Amazon, was 
no less tormented by these troublesome pests. ‘ Nets were of no avail, even if the 
oppressive heat would have allowed them; for those which could not creep through 
the meshes would in some other way find entrance in spite of every precaution. 
Thick breeches they laughed at, and the interior of the cabin seemed a bee-hive. 
This would not do, so we tried the deck, but fresh swarms continually poured over us, 


THE MOSQUITO—NATURAL SIZE, AND MAGNIFIED. 


and all night long we were foaming with vexation and rage.”’ During his sojourn in 
the Peruvian forests, Tschudi lay for several days almost motionless, with a swollen 
head and limbs, in consequence of the bite of these intolerable flies; and although by 
degrees the skin became more accustomed to the nuisance, and swelling no longer fol- 
lowed, yet their sting never failed to cause great pain. During three months of the 
year they infest the province of Maynas to such a degree, that even the stoical Indians 
utter loud complaints, and the dogs endeavor to escape them by burying themselves in 
the sand. 

The Chegoe, Pique, or Jigger of the West Indies (Pulex penetrans), is another 
great torment of the hot countries of America. It looks exactly like a small flea, and 


586 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


a stranger would take it for one. However, in about four and twenty hours he would 
have several broad hints that he had made a mistake in his ideas of the animal. It 
attacks different parts of the body, but chicfly the feet, betwixt the toe-nails and the 
flesh. There it buries itself and causes an itching, which at first is not unpleasant, 
but after a few days gradually increases to a violent pain. At the same time a: small 
white tumor, about the size of a pea, and with a dark spot in the centre, rises under 
the skin. The tumor is the rapidly growing nest of the chegoe, the spot the little 
plague itself. And now it is high time to think of its extirpation, an operation in 
which the negro women are very expert. Gently removing with a pin the skin from 
the little round white ball or nest, precisely as we should peel an orange, and pressing 
the flesh all round, they generally succeed in squeezing it out without breaking, and 
then fill the cavity with snuff or tobacco, to guard against the possibility of a fresh 
colony being formed by some of the eggs remaining in the wound. New comers are 
particularly subject to these creatures. ‘ Hvery evening,” says Waterton, ‘‘ before 
sundown, it was part of my toilet to examine my feet and see that they were clear 
of chegoes. Now and then a nest would escape the scrutiny, and then I had to smart 
for it a day or two after.” Ifthe prompt extraction of the chegoe’s nests is neglected, 
the worm-like larvze creep out, continue the mining operations of their parent, and 
produce a violent inflammation, which may end in the mortification of a limb. It not 
unfrequently happens that negroes from sheer idleness or negligence in the first in- 
stance have been lamed for life and become loathsome to the sight. In such a state, 
these miserable objects are incurable, and death only puts an end to their sufferings. 

A still more dangerous plague, peculiar to the coast of Guinea and the interior of 
tropical Africa, to Arabia, and the adjacent countries, is the /ilaria medinensis of 
Linneus. This dreadful worm comes to the herbage in the morning dew, from whence 
it pierces the skin, and enters the feet of such as walk without shoes, causing the most 
painful irritations, succeeded by violent inflammation and fever. The natives extract 
it with the greatest caution by twisting a piece of silk round one extremity of the 
body and withdrawing it very gently. When we consider that this insidious worm is | 
frequently twelve feet long, although not thicker than a horse-hair, we can readily 
imagine the difficulty of the operation. If, unfortunately, the animal should break, 
the part remaining under the skin grows with redoubled vigor, and frequently occa- 
sions a fatal inflammation. 

Among the plagues of Guiana and the West Indies is a little insect in the grass 
and on the shrubs, which the French call Béte-rouge. It is of a beautiful scarlet 
color, and so minute that you must bring your eye close to it before you can perceive 
it. It abounds most in the rainy season. Its bite causes an intolerable itching, which, 
according to Schomburgk, who writes from personal experience, drives by day the 
perspiration of anguish from every pore, and at night makes one’s hammock resemble 
the gridiron on which Saint Lawrence was roasted. The best way to get rid of the 
plague is to rub the part affected with lemon-juice or rum. ‘‘ You must be careful not 
to scratch it,’? says Waterton. ‘‘ If you do so and break the skin, you expose your- 
self toa sore. The first year I was in Guiana the béte-rouge and my own want of 
knowledge, and, I may add, the little attention I paid to it, created an ulcer above 
the ankle which annoyed me for six months.” 

The blood-sucking Ticks are also to be classed among the intolerable nuisances of 


LAND-LEECHES—THE TSETSE. 587 


many tropical regions. A large American species called Garapata (Jxodes sanguisuga) 
fixes on the legs of travelers, and gradually buries its whole head in the skin, which 
the body, disgustingly distended with blood, is unable to follow. On being violently 
removed, the former remains in the wound, and often produces painful sores. The 
Indians returning in the evening from the forest or from their field labor generally 
bring some of these creatures along with them, swollen to the size of hazel-nuts. 
These ticks seem to have no predilection for any particular animal, but indiscrimi- 
nately fasten on all, not even sparing the toad or the lizard. 

Though countless hosts of ticks infest the Ceylonese jungle, though musquitoes 

without number swarm over the lower country, yet the Land-Leeches which beset the 
traveler in the rising grounds are a still more detested plague. In size they are about 
an inch in length, and as fine as a common knitting-needle, but capable of distention 
till they equal a quill in thickness and attain a length of nearly two inches. Their 
structure is so flexible that they can insinuate themselves through the meshes of the 
finest stocking, not only seizing on the feet and ankles, but ascending to the back and 
throat, and fastening on the tenderest parts of the body. The coffee planters who 
live among these pests are obliged, in order to exclude them, to envelop their legs in 
‘‘leech-gaiters,”’ made of closely woven cloth. “In moving, they have the power of 
planting one extremity on the earth and raising the other perpendicularly to watch for 
their victim. Such is their vigilance and instinct that, on the approach of a passer-by 
to a spot which they infest, they may be seen amongst the grass and fallen leaves, on 
the edge of a native path, poised erect, and preparing for their attack on man and 
horse. On descrying their prey, they advance rapidly by semicircular strides, fixing 
one end firmly and arching the other forwards, till by successive advances they can lay 
hold of the traveler’s foot, when they disengage themselves from the ground and 
ascend his dress in search of an aperture to enter. In these encounters the individuals 
in the rear of a party of travelers in the jungle invariably fare worst, as the leeches, 
once warned of their approach, congregate with singular celerity. Their size is so 
insignificant, and the wound they make so skilfully punctured, that both are certainly 
imperceptible, and the first intimation of their onslaught is the trickling of the blood, 
or a chill feeling of the leech when it begins to hang heavily on the skin from being 
distended by its repast. Horses are driven wild by them, and stamp the ground in 
fury to shake them from their fetlocks, to which they hang in bloody tassels. The 
bare legs of the palankin-bearers and coolies are a favorite resort, and their hands being 
too much engaged to be spared to pull them off, the leeches hang like bunches of 
grapes round their ankles; and I have seen the blood literally flowing over the edge 
of a Kuropean’s shoe from their innumerable bites. In healthy constitutions the 
wounds, if not irritated, generally heal, occasioning no other inconvenience than a 
slight inflammation and itching; but in those with a bad state of body, the punctures, 
if rubbed, are liable to degenerate into ulcers, which may lead to the loss of limb or 
of life. During the march of the troops in the mountains, when the Kandyans were 
in rebellion, in 1818, the soldiers, and especially the Madras Sepoys, with the pioneers 
and coolies, suffered so severely from this cause that numbers of them perished.” 

Among the many noxious insects destructive to the property of man, there is, 
perhaps, none more remarkable than the South African Tsetsé-fly (Glossina morst- 
tans), whose peculiar buzz, when once heard, can never be forgotten by the traveler 


= 


588 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


whose means of locomotion are domestic animals; for it is well known that the bite 
of this poisonous insect 1s certain death to the ox, horse, and dog. Fortunately it is 
limited to particular districts, frequently infesting one bank of a river while the other 
contains not a single specimen, or else traveling in South Africa would be utterly 
impossible, and we should now know no more of Lake Ngami or the Zambesi than we 
did thirty years since. In one journey Livingstone lost no less than forty-three fine 
oxen by the bite of the tsetsé. A party of Englishmen once attempted to reach 
Libebé, but they had only proceeded seven or eight days’ journey to the north of the 
Ngami, when both horses and cattle were bitten by the fly, and the party were in 
consequence compelled to make a hasty retreat. One of the number was thus deprived 
of as many as thirty-six horses, excellent hunters, and all sustained heavy losses in 
cattle. 

A most remarkable feature in the bite of the tsetsé is its perfect harmlessness in 
man and wild animals, and even calves, so long as they continue to suck the cow. 
The mule, ass, and goat enjoy likewise the same immunity, and many large tribes on 
the Zambesi can keep no domestic animals except the latter, in consequence of the 
scourge existing in their country. Dr. Livingstone’s children were frequently bitten, 
yet suffered no harm; and he saw around him numbers of zebras, buffaloes, pigs, 
pallahs and other antelopes, feeding quietly in the very habitat of the tsetsé, yet as 
undisturbed by its bite as oxen are when they first receive the fatal poison, which acts 
in the following manner: After a few days the eyes and nose begin to run, the coat 
stares as if the animal were cold, a swelling appears under the jaw, and, though the 
animal continues to graze, emaciation commences, accompanied with a peculiar flac- 
cidity of the muscles; and this proceeds unchecked until, perhaps months afterwards, 
purging comes on, and the animal, no longer able to graze, perishes in a state of 
extreme exhaustion. Those which are in good condition often perish, soon after the 
wound is inflicted, with staggering and blindness, as if the brain were affected by it. 
Sudden changes of temperature, produced by falls of rain, seem to hasten the progress 
of the complaint, but in general the emaciation goes on uninterruptedly for months ; 
and, do what one may, the poor animals perish miserably, as there is no cure yet 
known for the disease. 

The Abyssinian Tsalt-salya, or Zimb, described by Bruce, seems identical with the 
tsetsé, or produces at least similar symptoms. At the season when this plague makes 
its appearance, all the inhabitants along the sea-coast, from Melinde to Cape Gardafui, 
and to the south of the Red Sea, are obliged to retire with their cattle to the sandy 
plains to preserve them from destruction. 

The French traveler, D’Kscayrac, tells us of a fly in Soudan which leaves the ox 
uninjured, but destroys the dromedary. On account of this plague the camel is con- 
fined to the northern boundary of the Soudan, while the oxen graze in safety through- 
out the whole country. This fly has caused more migrations among the Arabs of the 
Soudan than all their wars; and in the dry season it even drives the elephant from 
Lake Tsad by flying into its ears. 

Though Locusts not seldom extend their ravages to the steppes of southern Russia, 
though they have been known to burst like a cloud of desolation over Transylvania 
and Hungary, and stray stragglers now and then even find their way to England, yet 
their chief habitat and birthplace is the torrid zone. They wander forth in countless 


LOCUSTS—COCKROACHES. 589 


multitudes, and at very irregular periods; but how it comes that they are multiplied 
to such an excess in particular years, and not in others, has never yet been ascertained, 
and perhaps never will be. They are armed with two pairs of strong mandibles; their 
stomach is of extraordinary capacity and power; they make prodigious leaps by means 
of their muscular and long hind legs; and their wings even carry them far across the 
sea. On viewing a single locust, one can hardly conceive how they can cause such 
devastations, but we cease to wonder on hearing of their numbers. 

From 1778 to 1780 the whole empire of Morocco was so laid waste by swarms 
of these insects, that a dreadful famine ensued. Mr. Barrow, in his travels, states 
that in the southern parts of Africa the whole surface of the ground might literally be 
said to be covered with them for an area of nearly 2,000 square miles. When driven 
into the sea by a north-west wind, they formed upon the shore, for fifty miles, a bank 
three or four feet high ; and when the wind was south-east, the stench was such as to 
be smelt at the distance of 150 miles. Major Moore observed at Poonah an army of 
locusts, which devastated the whole country of the Mahrattas, and most likely came 
from Arabia. Their columns extended in a width of 500 miles, and were so dense as 
to darken the light of the sun. It was a red species (not the common Gryllus migra- 
tortus), whose bloody color added to the terror of their appearance. 

In Central Africa, Anderson met with vast numbers of the larvze of the locust 
commonly called by the Boers ‘‘ Voet-gangers,” or pedestrians. In some places they 
might be seen packed in layers several inches in thickness, and myriads were crushed 
and maimed by the wagon and cattle. Towards nightfall they crawled on the bushes 
and shrubs, many of which, owing to their weight and numbers, were either bowed 
down or broken short off. They were of a reddish color, with dark markings; and 
as they hung thus suspended, they looked like clusters of rich fruit. These larvae 
are justly dreaded by the colonists, as nothing seems capable of staying their progress. 
Even rivers form no barrier to their march, as the drowning multitudes afford the 
survivors a temporary bridge; endeavors to diminish their numbers would appear like 
attempting to drain the ocean by a pump. On traveling on, next morning, the locust 
itself was encountered, and in such masses as literally to darken the air. The wagon, 
or any other equally conspicuous object, could not be distinguished at the distance of 
one hundred paces. The noise of their wings was not unlike that caused by a gale 
of wind whistling through the shrouds of a ship at anchor. During their flight num- 
bers were constantly alighting—an action which has not inaptly been compared to the 
falling of large snow-flakes. It is, however, not until the approach of night that the 
locusts encamp. Woe to the spot they select as a resting-place! The sun sets on a 
landscape green with all the luxuriance of tropical vegetation; it rises in the morning 
over a region naked as the waste of the Sahara. 

We are not wholly unacquainted with Cockroaches. The tropical plague of the 
cockroaches has been introduced into the temperate zone; but, fortunately, the giant 
of the family, the Blatta gigantea, a native of many of the warmer parts of Asia, 
Africa, and South America, is a stranger to our land; and the following truthful 
description of this disgusting insect at home gives us every reason to be thankful for 
its absence :—‘‘ They plunder and erode all kinds of victuals, dressed and undressed, 
and damage all sorts of clothes, especially such as are touched with powder, pomatum, 
and similar is iacimita everything made of leather; books, paper, and various other 

\ 


\ 


590 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


articles, which if they do not destroy, at least they soil, as they frequently deposit a 
drop of their excrement where they settle, and, some way or other, by that means 
damage what they cannot devour. They fly into the flame of candles, and sometimes 
into the dishes; are very fond of ink and of oil, into which they are apt to fall and 
perish, in which case they soon turn most offensively putrid—so that a man might as 
well sit over the cadaverous body of a large animal as write with the ink in which 
they have died. They often fly into persons’ faces or bosoms, and their legs being 
armed with sharp spines, the pricking excites a sudden horror not easily described. 
In old houses they swarm by myriads, making every part filthy beyond description 
wherever they harbor, which in the daytime is in dark corners, behind clothes, in 
trunks, boxes, and, in short, every place where they can lie concealed. In old timber 
and deal houses, when the family is retired at night to sleep, this insect, among other 
disagreeable properties, has the power of making a noise which very much resembles 
a pretty smart knocking with the knuckle upon the wainscoting. The Blatta gigantea 
in the West Indies is, therefore, frequently known by the name of the ‘Drummer.’ 
Three or four of these noisy creatures will sometimes be impelled to answer one 
another, and cause such a drumming noise that none but those who are very good 
sleepers can rest for them. What is most disagreeable, those who have not gauze 
curtains are sometimes attacked by them in their sleep; the sick and dying have their 
extremities attacked; and the ends of the toes and fingers of the dead are frequently 
stripped both of the skin and flesh.” 

According to Tschudi, the Cucaracha and Chilicabra—two large species of the 
cockroach—infest Peru in such numbers as almost to reduce the inhabitants to despair. 


Greedy, bold, cunning, they force their way into every hut, devour the stores, destroy — 


the clothes, intrude into the beds and dishes, and defy every means that is resorted to 
for their destruction. Fortunately, they are held in check by many formidable 
enemies, particularly by a small ant, and a pretty little bird (Zvroglodytes audaz) 
belonging to the wagtail family, which has some difficulty in mastering the larger 
cockroaches. It first of all bites off their head, and then devours their body, with the 
exception of their membranaceous wings. After having finished his repast, the bird 
hops upon the nearest bush, and there begins his song of triumph. 

Many other insect plagues might be added to the list, but those I have already 
enumerated suffice to reconcile us to our misty climate, and to diminish our longing 
for the palm groves of the torrid zone. 


After having described the miseries which the tropical insects inflict upon man— 
how they suck his blood, destroy his rest, exterminate his cattle, devour the fruits of 
his fields and orchards, ransack his chests and wardrobes, feast on his provisions, and 
plague and worry him wherever they can—I turn to the more agreeable task of re- 
counting their services, and relating the benefits for which he is indebted to them. 


Among the insects which are of direct use to us, the silk-worm (Bombyx mort) is 


by far the most important. Originally a native of tropical or sub-tropical China, 
where the art of making use of its filaments seems to have been discovered at a very 
early period, it is now reared in countless numbers far and wide over the western 
world, so as to form a most important feature in the industrial resources of Europe. 
Thousands of skilful workmen are employed in spinning and weaving its lustrous 


- es isis 


THE SILK-WORM—THE COCHINEAL INSECT. 591 


threads, and thousands upon thousands, enjoying the fruits of their labors, now clothe 
themselves, at a moderate price, in silken tissues which but a few centuries back were 
the exclusive luxury of the richest and noblest of the land. 

Besides the silk-worm, we find many other moths in the tropical zone whose cocoons 
might advantageously be spun, and only require to be better known to become con- 
siderable articles of commerce. The tusseh-worm (Bombyx mylitta) of Hindostan, 
which lives upon the leaves of the Rhamnus jujuba, furnishes a dark-colored, coarse, 
but durable silk ; while the Arandi (B. cynthia), which feeds upon the foliage of the 
eastor-oil plant (Atvcinus communis), spins remarkably soft threads, which serve the 
Hindoos to weave tissues of uncommon strength. In America there are also many 
indigenous moths whose filaments might be rendered serviceable to man, and which 
seem destined to great future importance, when trade, quitting her usual routine, shall 
have learnt to pry more closely into the resources of Nature. While the Cocci, or 
plant-bugs, are in our country deservedly detested as a nuisance, destroying the 
beauty of many of our garden plants by their blighting presence; while, in 1843, the 
Coccus of the orange trees proved so destructive in the Azores that the island of 
Fayal, which annually exported 12,000 chests of fruit, lost its entire produce from 
this cause alone, two tropical members of the family, as if to make up for the mis- 
deeds of their relations, furnish us—the one with the most splendid of all scarlet 
dyes, and the other with gum-lac, a substance of hardly inferior value. 

Our gardeners spare no trouble to protect their hot and greenhouse plants from the 
invasion of the Coccus hesperidum ; but the Mexican haciendero purposely lays out 
his Nopal plantations that they may be preyed upon by the Coccus cacti, and rejoices 
_ when he sees the leaves of his opuntias thickly strewn with this valuable parasite. 
The female, who from her form and habits might not unaptly be called the tortoise of 
the insect world, is much larger than the winged male, and of a dark-brown color, 
with two light spots on the back, covered with white powder. She uses her little legs 
only during her first youth, but soon she sucks herself fast, and henceforward remains 
immovably attached to the spot she has chosen, while her mate continues to lead a wan- 
dering life. While thus fixed like an oyster, she swells or grows to such a size that 
she looks more like a seed or berry than an insect; and her legs, antennze, and pro- 
boscis, concealed by the expanding body, can hardly be distinguished by the naked 
eye. Great care is taken to kill the insects before the young escape from the eggs, as 
they have then the greatest weight, and are most impregnated with coloring matter. 
They are detached by a blunt knife dipped in boiling water to kill them, and then 
dried in the sun, when they have the appearance of small, dry, shriveled berries, of a 
deep-brown purple or mulberry color, with a white matter between the wrinkles. The 
collecting takes place three times a year in the plantations, where the insect, improved 
by human care, is nearly twice as large as the wild coccus, which in Mexico is gath- 
ered six times in the same period. Although the collecting of the cochineal is exceed- 
ingly tedious—about 70,000 insects going to a single pound—yet, considering the 
high price of the article, its rearing would be very lucrative, if both the insect and the 
plant it feeds upon were not liable to the ravages of many diseases, and the attacks of 
numerous enemies. The conquest of Mexico by Cortez first made the Spaniards ae- 
quainted with cochineal. They soon learnt to value it as one of the most important 
products of their new empire ; and in order to secure its monopoly, prohibited, under 


592 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


pain of death, the exportation of the insect, and of the equally indigenous Nopal, or 
Cactus cochinellifer. Cochineal is now produced in the Canary Islands, Java, and 
Brazil ; but Mexico still furnishes the greater part produced. 

The Coccus which produces lac, or gum-lac, is a native of India, and thrives and 
multiplies best on several species of the fig-tree. A cheap method having been dis- 
covered within the last years of separating the coloring matter which it contains from 
the resinous part, it has greatly increased in commercial importance. 

In the tropical zone we find that not only many birds and several four-footed ani- 
mals live chiefly, or even exclusively, on insects, but that they are even consumed in 
large quantities, or eaten as delicacies, by man himself. The locust-swarms are wel- 
comed with delight by the Arab of the Sahara and the South African Bushman. After 
being partially roasted, they are either eaten fresh, or dried in hot ashes and stored 
away. The natives reduce them also to powder or meal, which, eaten with a little 
salt, is palatable even to Europeans; so that Livingstone, who, during his residence 
among the Bakwains, was often obliged to put up with a dish of locusts, says he 
should much prefer them to shrimps, though he would avoid both if possible. They 
evidently contain a great deal of nourishment, as the Bushmen thrive wonderfully on 
them, and hail their appearance as a season of plenty and good living. The food of 
John the Baptist was locusts and wild honey. 

Several of the large African caterpillars are edible, and considered as a great deli- 
cacy by the natives. Onthe leaves of the Mopané tree, in the Bushman country, the 
small larvee of a winged insect, a species of Psylla, appear covered over with a sweet 
gummy substance, which is collected by the people in great quantities, and used as 
food. Another species in New Holland, found on the leaves of the Eucalyptus, emits 
a similar secretion, which, along with its insect originator, is scraped off the leaves and 
eaten by the aborigines as a saccharine dainty. 

The chirping Cicada, or frog-hoppers, which Aristotle mentions as delicious food, 
though maccaroni has long supplanted them in the estimation both of the modern 
Greeks and of the Italians, are still in high repute among the American Indians. 
With the exception of one species (Cicada Anglica), these insects, equally remark- 
able for the rapidity of their flight and their faculty of emitting a loud noise, are un 
known in temperate zones. Several of the exotic species, when their wings are ex- 
panded, measure six inches in extreme length—a size superior to that of many of the 
humming-birds. The Goliath beetles of the coast of Guinea are roasted and eaten by 
the natives, who doubtless, like many other savages, not knowing the value of that 
which they are eating, often make a bonne bouche of what an entomologist would 
most eagerly desire to preserve. 

The Chinese, who allow nothing edible to go to waste, after unraveling the cocoon 
of the silk-worm, make a dish of the pups, which the Europeans reject with scorn ; 
and the grubs of several insects which thrive and increase in the Sago-tree, the Areca, 
and the Cocoa, are considered as great delicacies ; and many similar examples might 
be cited. | 

Several of the more brilliant tropical beetles are made use of as ornaments, not only 
by the savage tribes, but among nations which are able to command the costliest gems 
of the East. The golden elytra of the Sternocera chrysis and Sternocera sternicornis 
serve to enrich the embroidery of the Indian zenana, while the joints of the legs are 


ok pie 


eS 


ORNAMENTAL INSECTS. 593 


strung on silken threads, and form bracelets of singular brilliancy. The ladies in 
Brazil wear necklaces composed of the azure green and golden wings of lustrous 
Chrysomelidez and Curculionids, particularly of the Diamond beetle ( Hntimus nobilis) ; 
and in Jamaica, the elytra of the Buprestis gigas are set in ear-rings, whose gold green 
brilliancy rivals the rare and costly Chrysopras in beauty. 


The House-building Insects, Ants, Termites, Spiders, etc., form so notable a feature 
of the Insect World of the Tropics, that they deserve a chapter by themselves. 


594 THE TROPICAL WORLD, 


CHAPTER IX. 
ANTS—TERMITES—ANT-EATERS—SPIDERS—SCORPIONS. 


Ants: Vast Numbers of Ants in the Tropical World—Pain caused by their Bites—The Ponera 
Clavata—The Black Fire-Ant—The Dimiya of Ceylon—The Red Ant of Angola—The 
Vivagua of the West Indies—The Umbrella Ant—Household Plagues—Troubles of Natu- 
ralists—The Ranger Ants—The Bashikouay of Western Africa—House-Building Ants 
—Slaveholding Ants—Aphides, or Plant-Lice—Insect Cow-Keepers.—Termites: Their 
Ravages among Books and Furniture—Their Citadels—Domestic Economy—Defensive 
Warfare—American Termites—The Enemies of the Termites—How to Catch, Cook, and 
Eat them—The Marching Termite.—Ant-Eaters; The Great Ant-Bear—His Mode of 
Hunting—Mode of Defense—Anatomical Structure—Lesser Ant-Bears—Manides and Pan- 
golins—The Aard-Vark—Armadillos—The Porcupine Ant-Eater.—Sprders; Their Physical 
Structure—Their Webs—Means of Protection—Mode of Catching their Prey—Maternal 
Instinct—Their Enemies—Uses of Spiders.—Scorpions: Their Aspects and Habits—Their 
Venom. 


HE family of Ants is undoubtedly the most numerous of any in the whole circle 
of winged insects, as its colonies are not confined to one particular region, but 
are thickly planted over the greatest part of the habitable world. There is with us 
scarcely a field that does not contain millions; we cannot rest upon a bank without 
reclining upon the walls of their cities; their chief quarters, however, are established 
in the torrid zone, where they may truly be said to hold a despotic sway over the 
forest and the savanna, over the thicket and the field. It is hardly possible to pene- 
trate into a tropical wood without being reminded, by their stings and bites, that they 
consider the visit as an intrusion, while they themselves unceremoniously invade the 
dwellings of man, and lay ruinous contributions on his stores. The inconceivable 
number of their species defies the memory of the naturalist, to whom many are even 
still entirely unknown. From almost microscopical size to an inch in length, of all 
colors and shades between yellow, red, brown, and black, of the most various habits 
and stations, the ants of a single tropical land would furnish study for years to a 
zealous entomologist. Every family of plants has its peculiar species, and many trees 
are even the exclusive dwelling-place of some ant nowhere else to be found. In the 
scathes of leaves, in the corollas of flowers, in buds and blossoms, over and under the 
earth, in and out of doors, one meets these ubiquitous little creatures, which are un- 
doubtedly one of the great plagues of the torrid zone. ; 
While the ants of the temperate zones cause a disagreeable burning on the skin, by 
the secretion of a corrosive acid peculiar to the race, the sting or bite of many tropical 
species causes the most excruciating tortures. ‘‘I have no words,” says Schomburgk, 
‘to describe the pain inflicted upon me by the mandibles of the Ponera clavata, a 


ANTS AND THEIR BITES. 595 


large, and, fortunately, not very common ant, whose long black body is beset with 
single hairs. Like an electric shock the pain instantly shot through my whole body, 
and soon after acquired the greatest intensity in the breast, and over and under the 
arm-pits. After a few minutes I felt almost completely paralyzed, so that I could only 
with the greatest difficulty, and under the most excruciating tortures, totter towards 
the plantation, which, however, it was impossible for me to reach. I was found sense- 
less on the ground, and the following day a violent wound fever ensued.”” The Zrip- 
laris Americana, a South American tree, about sixty or eighty feet high, the branches 
of which are completely hollow and transversely partitioned at regular intervals, like 
the stems of the bamboo, is the retreat of one of the most terocious ants. Woe to the 
naturalist who, ignorant of the fact, endeavors to: break off a shoot of the Triplaris, or 
only knocks against the tree, for thousands will instantly issue from small round 
lateral openings in the plant, and fall upon him with inconceivable fury. The touch 
of a hot iron is not more painful than their bite, and the inflammation and pain last 
for several days after. 

The black fire-ant of Guiana, though very small, is capable of inflicting excessive 
pain. ‘‘ These insects,” says Stedman, ‘‘live in such amazing multitudes together, 
that their hillocks have sometimes obstructed our passage by their size, over which, 
if one chances to pass, the feet and legs are instantly covered with innumerable hosts 
of these creatures, which seize the skin with such violence in their pincers, that they 
will sooner suffer the head to be parted from the body than let go their hold. The 
burning pain which they occasion cannot, in my opinion, proceed from the sharpness 
of the pincers only, but must be owing to some venomous fluid, which they infuse, or 
which the wound imbibes from them. I can aver that I have seen them make a whole 
company hop about as if they had been scalded with boiling water.” 

Of the more than seventy species of ants which occur in Ceylon alone, Sir E. Ten- 
nent describes the Dimiya, or great red ant, as the most formidable. ‘‘ Like all their 
race, these ants are in perpetual motion, forming lines on the ground, along which 
they pass in continual procession to and from the trees on which they reside. They 
are the most irritable of the whole order in Ceylon, biting with such intense ferocity 
as to render it difficult for the unclad native to collect the fruit from the mango-trees, 
which the red ants especially frequent. They drop from the branches upon travelers 
in the jungle, attacking them with venom and fury, and inflicting intolerable pain 
both upon animalsand man. On examining the structure of the head through a micro- 
scope, I found that the mandibles, instead of meeting in contact, are so hooked as to 
cross each other at the points, whilst the inner line is sharply serrated throughout its 
entire length, thus occasioning the intense pain of their bite, as compared with that of 
the ordinary ant.” 

‘“‘ Having, while in Angola, accidentally stepped upon a nest of red ants,’’ says 
Livingstone, ‘‘ not an instant seemed to elapse before a simultaneous attack was made 
on various unprotected parts, up the trousers from below, and on my neck and breast 
above. ‘The bites of these furies were like sparks of fire, and there was no retreat. 
It is really astonishing how such small bodies can contain so large an amount of ill- 
nature. They not only bite, but twist themselves round after the mandibles are in- 
serted, to produce laceration and pain more than would be effected by the single wound.” 

But however formidable the weapons of the ants may be, yet the injuries they in- 


596 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


flict upon the property of man, pouring over his plantations like a flood, and sweeping 
away the fruits of his labors, are of a much more lasting and serious nature than their 
painful bite or venomous sting. | 

In the West Indies, the brown-black Viviagua, about one-third of an inch long, and 
with a prickly thorax, is the greatest enemy of the coffee plantations. In one day it 
will rob a full grown tree of all its leaves. It digs deep subterranean passages of con- 
siderable dimensions and irregular forms, with a great number of hand-high galleries 
branching out from the sides, and does even more harm to the coffee-plants by its mining 
operations, than by robbing them of their foliage. Attacked in their roots, they fall 
into what may be called a consumptive state, bear no fruit, and die after a few months’ 
lingering. The complete extirpation of the nest, and keeping up for some time a strong 
fire in the excavation, is the only means to subdue the evil, which leads to incalculable 
losses, when, through negligence, the Viviagua has once been allowed to multiply its 
numbers. 

Other species are no less destructive to the sugar plantations, either by settling in 
the interior of the stalks (like the Yormica analis), or by undermining the roots 
(like the Formica saccharivora), so that the plant becomes sickly and dies. About 
eighty years ago the island of Grenada was overrun by hosts of these devastating in- 
sects. Many household animals died from their attacks, and they effectually cleared 
the land of rats, mice, and reptiles. Streams of running water failed to interrupt 
their progress, and fire was vainly used to stop them, for millions rushed into the 
flames, and served as a bridge for the myriads that followed. All the means employed 
to save the sugar plantations from their fury proved ineffectual, until in the year 1780 
the plague was swept away at once by a dreadful tornado, accompanied by a deluge of 
rain. 

The Atta cephalotes, a species of ant distinguished by its large head, is the most 
formidable enemy of the banana and cassava fields. It lies in the ground and multi- 
plies amazingly ; in a very short time it will strip off the leaves of an entire field, and 
carry them to its subterranean abodes. Even where their nest is a mile distant from 
a plantation, these arch-depredators know how to find it, and soon form a highway, about 
half a foot broad, on which they keep up the most active communications with the 
object of their attack. In masterly order, side by side, one army is seen to move onwards 
towards the field, while the other is returning to the nest. In the last column each indi- 
vidual carries a round piece of leaf, about the size of a sixpence, horizontally over its 
head—a circumstance from which the insect has also been named the Umbrella Ant. 
If the distance is too great, a party meets the weary carriers half way, and relieves 
them of their load. Although innumerable ants may thus be moving along, yet none 
of them will ever be seen to be in the other’s way ; and all goes on with the regularity 
of clock work. A third party is no less actively employed on the scene or destruction, 
cutting out circular pieces of the leaves, which, as soon as they drop upon the ground, 
dre immediately seized by the attentive and indefatigable carriers. Neither fire nor 
water can prevent them from proceeding with their work. Though thousands may be 
killed, yet in less than an hour all the bodies will have been removed. Should the 
highway be closed by an insurmountable obstacle, another is soon laid out, and after a 
few hours the operations, momentarily disturbed, resume their former activity. The 
ants themselves, particularly the winged females, are considered a great delicacy by 


HOUSE ANTS—TRIALS OF NATURALISTS. 597 


the Indians, who eat the abdomen, either raw or roasted. The taste is said to be 
agreeably saccharine. 

Not satisfied with devouring his harvests, the tropical ants, as I have already men- 
tioned, leave man no rest even within doors, and trespass upon his household comforts 
in a thousand various ways. In Mainas, a province on the Upper Amazon, Professor 
Poéppig counted no less than seven different species of ants among the tormenting 
inmates of his hut. The diminutive red Amache was particularly fond of sweets. 
Favored by its smallness, it penetrates through the imperceptible openings of a cork, 
and the traveler was often obliged to throw away the syrup which in that humid and 
sultry country replaces the use of crystallized sugar, from its having been changed 
into an ant-comfit. This troublesome lover of sweets lives under the corner-posts of 
the hut, so that it is quite impossible to dislodge him. The number of the Puca tiese, 
ared ant, of the ordinary size, was still greater; the trunks and papers were swarming 
with it, in spite of every precaution, so that it was quite incomprehensible how it found 
means to overcome all the obstacles that had been devised against it. 

“‘The only possible way,” says Stedman, ‘‘of keeping the ants from the refined 
sugar is by hanging the loaf to the ceiling by a nail, and making a ring of dry chalk 
around it, very thick, which crumbles down the moment the ants attempt to pass it. 
I imagined that placing my sugar-boxes in the middle of a tub, and on stone surrounded 
by deep water, would have kept back this formidable enemy; but to no purpose: 
whole armies of the lighter sort, to my astonishment, marched over the surface, and 
but very few of them were drowned. ‘The main body constantly scaled the rock, and, 
in spite of all my efforts, made their entry through the keyholes, after which, the only 
way to clear the garrison is, to expose it to a hot sun, which the invaders can not bear, 
and all march off in a few minutes.” 

The devastations of the house-ants are peculiarly hateful to the naturalist, whose 
collections, often gathered with so much danger and trouble, they pitilessly destroy. 
Schomburgk suspended boxes with insects from the ceiling by threads strongly rubbed 
over with arsenic soap; but when, on the following morning. he wished to examine his 
treasures, instead of his rare and beautiful specimens he found nothing but a set of 
infamous red ants, who, crawling down the threads, had found means to invade the 
boxes and utterly to destroy their valuable contents. 

Wallace gives a feeling description of the ants of Dorey, one of the islands of the 
Indian Ocean: ‘One small black kind was excessively abundant. Almost every 
shrub and tree was more or less infested with it, and its large papery nests were 
everywhere to be seen. They immediately took possession of my house, building a 
large nest in the roof, and forming papery tunnels down almost every post. They 
swarmed on my table as I was at work setting out my insects, carrying them off from 
under my very nose, and even tearing them off from the cards on which they were 
gummed, if I left them for an instant. They crawled continually over my hands and 
face, got into my hair, and roamed at will over my whole body, not producing much 
inconvenience till they began to bite, which they would do on meeting with any 
obstruction to their passage, and with a sharpness which made me jump again, and 
rush to undress and turn out the offender. They visited my bed also, so that night 
brought no relief from their persecutions; and I verily believe that during my three 
and a half months’ residence at Dorey I was never for a single hour free from them. 


598 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


They were not nearly so voracious as many other kinds, but their numbers and 
ubiquity rendered it necessary to be constantly on guard against them.” | 

In countless multitudes the Ranger ants break forth from the primeval forest, 

marching through the country in compact order, like a well-drilled army. Every 
creature they meet in their way falls a victim to their dreadful onslaught. On the 
west coast of Africa is found a formidable species of the Ranger ant, there named the 
Bashikouay, of which Paul du Chaillu* furnishes a description, which we give, some- 
what abridged : 
“But more potent than snakes, lions, leopards, or gorillas, is a species of ant called 
the Bashikouay. It is the dread not only of man, but of every living thing from the 
elephant down to the smallest insect. A half inch is about the average length of 
one of these ants, though some are found of twice that length. Individually they are 
bold; the bull-dog has not more pluck and tenacity of grip. But their great power lies 
in the immense armies into which they organize themselves, and the military order 
which they preserve.”” When on the march, they often go in a column two inches 
broad and miles in length. Du Chaillu once saw such a column formed in close 
order, which occupied twelve hours, from sunrise to sunset, in passing the spot from 
which he watched them ; and as they marched by night as well as by day, he did not 
know how long the column had been passing before he saw it. All along the line 
were larger ants, evidently officers, standing outside the column until their squads had 
passed, when they moved on and joined them. How many millions upon millions 
there were in this army he did not venture to estimate. When on the march such a 
column comes to a small stream, they fling across it a living bridge. Choosing a place 
where the branch of a tree reaches nearly from one bank to the other, only somewhat 
lower down, the second of the pontoneers, as we may fairly call them, with his fore- 
claws grasps the hind-claws of the one in front, and lowers him over. A third does 
the same by the second ; and so on until the line is long enough to reach the desired 
point. Line after line is thus formed until a suspension bridge is constructed wide 
enough for the whole army to pass over. Imagine the strength of muscle which these 
creatures must possess to enable them to maintain their hold for hours. 

The marching column throws itself into line of battle with wonderful precision. 
When it sweeps over a country nothing can stay its progress. Du Chaillu was once 
plodding through the forest in search of game. Suddenly he was startled by a strange 
sound. It was caused by a rush of wild beasts. He thought he caught a glimpse 
of a gorilla; he was sure that he heard the heavy tread of elephants; and this was 
followed by a heavy crash as though a herd of these great creatures were rushing 
through the forest. Soon the air grew thick with insects. While wondering what 
this might mean, he felt the torments of innumerable bites, and in an instant he was 
almost covered by ants. He had encountered the skirmishers of a Bashikouay 
army. He set off at his utmost speed in the direction which the other fugitives 
had taken. Luckily his speed was greater than that of the ants, and as soon as he 
thought himself safe he stripped off his clothing. It fairly swarmed with ants who had 
buried themselves in the garments, striking their pincers clear through into the flesh 
beneath. They never let go their grip until they have taken out the flesh. Pull at 
one till his body is separated from the head, and the jaws still keep their hold. He 


* Wild Life under the Equator. 


THE BASHIKOUAY—HOUSE-BUILDING ANTS. 599 


had just resumed his garments when the main army came up, and he again took to 
flight, never stopping until he had crossed a stream and taken refuge in a swamp 
beyond. ) 

The Bashikouay can not bear the heat of the sun, and hence they are only found 
in regions covered by forests. If while on a march they come to an open place, they 
dig a tunnel three or four feet under ground, through which they pass to the jungles 
on the opposite side. When they enter a village the inhabitants run for their lives. 
In an incredibly short space of time every hut is cleared of vermin, and the only trace 
left of the invaders is the bones of rats and mice, and the horny wing-cases of insects. 
Nothing that breathes comes amiss to them. An antelope which had been shot by 
Du Chaillu was picked to the bones in a few hours. The carcass of an elephant 
would be cleared away as quickly as by a kraal of natives. They sometimes come 
upon a huge snake, lying torpid and gorged with food. In this case all is soon over 
with his serpentine majesty. But rats, mice, roaches, centipedes, scorpions, spiders, 
and such small pests, are the special prey of the Bashikouay. A swarm of them will 
kill a rat in two minutes, and devour him in about the same space of time. Upon the 
whole, they are a blessing to the human race in Western Africa, by keeping down the 
vermin, which would otherwise render the whole country uninhabitable. They will 
not touch vegetable matter. One might almost suppose that the author of the Book 
of Revelations had the Bashikouay in his mind when he speaks of the swarms of “lo- 
custs’? which rose from the bottomless pit at the sounding of the fifth trumpet, to 
whom ‘‘ it was commanded that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither 
any green thing, neither any tree;” but whose “torment was as the torment of a 
scorpion when he striketh a man.” Certain it is that the description fits the Bashi- 
kouay, while it is altogether inapplicable to the creature which we call the “locust,” 
whose only food is green things, and who have no tormenting bite. 


The wonderful societies of the ants, their strength and perseverance, their unwearied 
industry, their astonishing intelligence, are so well known, and have been so often and 
so admirably described, that it would be trespassing on the patience of my readers 
were I to enter into any lengthened details on the subject. And yet, the observations 
of naturalists have chiefly been confined to the European species, while the economy 
of the infinitely more numerous tropical ants, confined to countries or places hardly 
ever visited, or even unknown to civilized man, remains an inexhaustible field for 
future inquiry. 

The study of their various buildings alone, from the little we know of them, would 
occupy a zealous entomologist for years. Here we have an American species that 
forms its globular nest of the size of a large Dutch cheese, of small twigs artistically 
interlaced ; here another, which constructs its dwelling of dried excrements, attaching 
it to a thick branch; while a third (Formica bispinosa) uses the cotton of the Bom- 
baceze for its building material, and through the chemical agency of its pungent secre- 
tion converts it into a spongy substance. 

On the west coast of Borneo, Mr. Adams noticed two kinds of ants’ nests—one 
species of the size of a man’s hand, adhering to the trunk of trees, resembling, when 
cut through, a section of the lungs; the other was composed of small withered bits of 
sticks and leaves, heaped up in the axils.of branches, somewhat in the form of flat- 


600 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


tened cylinders and compressed cones. A third species, still more ingenious, con- 
structs its domicile out of a large leaf, bending the two halves by the weight of united 
millions till the opposite margins meet at the under surface of the mid-rib, where they 
are secured by a gummy matter. The stores and larve are conveyed into the nest so 
made by regular beaten tracks along the trunk and branches of the tree. 

On the large plains near Lake Dilolo, where water stands so long annually as to 
allow the lotus and other aqueous plants to come to maturity, Livingstone had occa- 
sion to admire the wonderful sagacity of the ants, whom he declares to be wiser than 
some men, as they learn by experience. When all the ant horizon is submerged a foot 
deep, they manage to exist by ascending to little houses, built of black tenacious loam, - 
on stalks of grass, and placed higher than the line of inundation. This must have 
been the result of experience, for if they had waited till the water actually invaded 
their habitations on the ground, they would not have been able to procure materials 
for their higher quarters, unless they dived down to the bottom for every mouthful of 
clay. Some of these upper chambers are about the size of a bean, and others as large 
as a man’s thumb. 

Two species of continental Europe, the Formica rubescens and sanguinea, are 
remarkable or infamous for their slave-making expeditions. Unable or unwilling to 
work themselves, they make war upon others for the sole purpose of procuring bonds- 
men, who literally and truly labor for them, and perform all the daily domestic duties 
of the community. | 

The Aphides, or plant-lice, eject a sweet, honey-like fluid, which may be correctly 
termed their milk, and which is so grateful to the ants, that they attend on the honey- 
flies for the sole purpose of gathering it, and literally milk them as we do our cows, 
forcing them to yield the fluid, by alternately patting them with their antenne. But 
the most extraordinary part of these proceedings is, that the ants not only consider the 
Aphides as their property, but actually appropriate to themselves a certain number, 
which they enclose in a tube of earth or other materials near their nest, so that they 
may be always at hand to supply the nourishment which they may desire. The yellow 
ant, the most remarkable ‘‘ cow-keeper’’ among our indigenous species, pays great 
attention to its herds, plentifully supplying them with proper food, and tending their 
young with the same tenderness which it exhibits towards its own. With the same 
provident care a large black ant of India constructs its nest at the root of the plant 
upon which its favorite species of aphis resides. The ants of tropical America, where 
no Aphides are found, derive their honey from another family of insects, the numerous 
and grotesquely-formed Membracidee, which are most abundant in the regions of Bra- 
zil, According to Mr Swainson, many of these little Membracidz live in families of 
twenty or thirty, all clustered together on the panicles of grasses, and on the tops of 
other plants, like the European plant-lice. These are regularly visited by parties of 
a little black ant, which may be seen going and coming to their heads, and attending 
them with the same care which the European ants bestow on the Aphides. To render 
the similarity with cattle still more complete, the Membracidze possess horns growing 
out of their heads, or are otherwise armed, while their large abrupt heads remind the 
entomologist of the bull or cow. The Mexican honey ants (Myrmecocystus Mexica- 
nus) are, if possible, still more remarkable, for here we see an animal rearing others 
of the same species for the purpose of food. Some of these ants are mainly distin- 


SLAVE-HOLDING ANTS—TERMITES. 601 


guished by an enormous swelling of the abdomen, which is converted into a mass like 
honey, and being unable, in their unwieldy condition, to seek food themselves, are fed 
by the laborers, until they are doomed to die for the benefit of the community. Whether 
this vast distension is the result of an intestinal rupture, caused by an excessive in- 
dulgence of the appetite, or whether they are purposely selected, confined, and over- 
fed, or wounded for the purpose, has not yet been ascertained. 


The Termites, or white ants, as they are commonly called, though they in reality 
belong to a totally different order of insects, are spread in countless numbers over all 
the warmer regions of the earth, emulating on the dry land the bore-worm in the sea; 
for when they have once penetrated into a building, no timber except ebony and iron- 
wood, which are too hard, or such as is strongly impregnated with camphor and 
aromatic oils, which they dislike, is capable of resisting their attacks. Their favorite 
food is wood, and so great are their multitudes, so admirable their tools, that in a few 
days they devour the timber work of a spacious apartment. Outwardly, the beams 
and rafters may seem untouched, while their core is completely consumed, for these 
destructive miners work in the dark, and seldom attack the outside until they have 
previously concealed themselves and their operations by a coat of clay. Scarcely any 
organic substance remains free from their attacks; and forcing their resistless way into 
trunks, chests, and wardrobes, they will often devour in one night all the shoes, boots, 
clothes, and papers they may contain. It is principally owing to their destructions, 
says Humboldt, that it is so rare to find papers in tropical America of an older date 
than fifty or sixty years. Smeathman relates that a party of them once took a fancy 
to a pipe of fine old Madeira, not for the sake of the wine, almost the whole of which 
they let out, but of the staves, which, however, may not have proved less tasteful 
from having imbibed some of the costly liquor. On surveying a room which had been 
locked up during an absence of a few weeks, Forbes observed a number of advanced 
works in various directions towards some prints and drawings in English frames; the 
glasses appeared to be uncommonly dull, and the frames covered with dust. Oa 
attempting to wipe it off, he was astonished to find the glasses fixed to the wall, not 
‘suspended in frames as he left them, but completely surrounded by an incrustation 
_ cemented by the white ants, who had actually eaten up the deal frames and back- 
boards and the greater part of the paper, and left the glasses upheld by the incrusta- 
tion or covered way which they had formed during their depredations. 

On the small island of Goree, near Cape Verde, the famous naturalist, Adanson, 
lived in a straw hut, which, though quite new at the time he took up his residence in 
it, became transparent in many places before the month was out. This might have 
been endured, but the villainous termites ravaged his trunk, destroyed his books, 
penetrated into his bed, and at last attacked the naturalist himself. Neither sweet 
nor salt water, neither vinegar nor corrosive liquids, were able to drive them away, 
and so Adanson thought it best to abandon the premises, and to look out for another 
lodging. 

One night, in Brazil, Von Martius was awakened by a disagreeable feeling of cold 
across his body. Groping in the dark, he found a cool greasy mass crawling right 
over the bed, and on a light being brought, saw to his astonishment that his rest had 
been disturbed by an innumerable host of white ants. The room having been unin- 


BU) THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


habited for some time, they had formed a clay nest in one of the corners, communi- 
cating with similar constructions under the roof, and the whole colony was now busy 
migrating. They formed a column about a foot and a half broad, and their multi- 
tudes poured along in one continuous stream, regardless of the fate of thousands of 
their companions, whom the naturalist scalded to death with boiling water. Their 
march ceased only with the dawn of day, and several baskets were filled with the 
bodies of the slain. 

But if the greedy termite destroys like the bore-worm many a useful work of man, 
its ravages are perhaps more than compensated by its services in removing decayed 
vegetable substances from the face of the earth, and thus contributing to the purity of 
the air and the beauty of the landscape. If the forests of the tropical world, where 
thousands of gigantic trees succumb to the slow ravages of time, or are suddenly pros- 
trated by lightning or the hurricane, still appear in all the verdure of perpetual youth, 
it is chiefly to the unremitting labors of the termites that they are indebted for their 
freshness. : 

Though belonging to a different order of the insect world, the economy of the 
termites is very similar to that of the real ants. They also form communities, divided 
into distinct orders—laborers (darve), soldiers (neuters), perfect insects; and they 
also erect buildings, but of a far more astonishing structure. Several of their species 
erect high, dome-like edifices, rising from the plain, so that at first sight they might be 
mistaken for the hamlets of the negroes; others build on trees, often at a considerable 
hight above the ground. These sylvan abodes are frequently the size of a hogshead, 
and are more generally found in the new world. 

The clay-built citadels or domes of the Termes bellicosus, a common species on the 
west coast of Africa, attain a hight of twelve feet, and are constructed with such 
strength that the traveler often ascends them to have an uninterrupted view of the 
grassy plain around. Only the under part of the mound is inhabited by the termites, 
the upper portion serving principally as a defence from the weather, and to keep up 
in the lower part the warmth and moisture necessary to the hatching of the eggs and 
cherishing of the young ones. In the center, and almost on a level with the ground, 
is placed the sanctuary of the whole community—the large cell, where the queen 
resides with her consort, and which she is doomed never to quit again, after having 
been once enclosed in it, since the portals soon prove too narrow for her rapidly 
increasing bulk. ncircling the regal apartment extends a labyrinth of countless 
chambers, in which a numerous army of attendants and soldiers is constantly in wait- 
ing. The space between these chambers and the external wall of the citadel is filled 
with other cells, partly destined for the eggs and young larvee, partly for store-rooms. 
The subterranean passages which lead from the mound are hardly less remarkable than 
the building itself. Perfectly cylindrical, and lined with a cement of clay, similar to 
that of which the hill is formed, they sometimes measure a foot in diameter. They 
run in a sloping direction, under the bottom of the hill, to a depth of three or four 
feet, and then ramifying horizontally into numerous branches, ultimately rise near to 
the surface at a considerable distance. At their entrance into the interior of the hill, 
they are connected with a great number of smaller galleries, which ascend the inside 
of the outer shell in a spiral manner, and winding round the whole building to the 
top, intersect each other at different hights, opening either immediately into the dome 


THE TERMITES AT HOME. 603 


in various places, and into the lower half of the building, or communicating with every 
part of it by other smaller circular passages. The necessity for the vast size of the 
main galleries underground, evidently arises from the circumstance of their being the 
great thoroughfare for the inhabitants, by which they fetch their clay, wood, water, or 
provisions, and their gradual ascent is requisite, as the termites can only with great 
difficulty climb perpendicularly. 


*THQAVLIO ALINUAL ¥ 


It may be imagined that such works require an enormous population for their con- 
struction ; and, indeed, the manner in which an infant colony of termites is formed 
and grows, until becoming, in its turn, the parent of new migrations, is not the least 
wonderful part of this wonderful insect’s history. At the end of the dry season, as 


604 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


soon as the first rains have fallen, the male and female perfect termites, each about the 
size of two soldiers, or thirty laborers, and furnished with four long, narrow wings, 
folded on each other, emerge from their retreats in myriads. After a few hours their 
fragile wings fall off, and on the following morning they are discovered covering the 
surface of the earth and waters, where their enemies—birds, reptiles, ants—cause so 
sweeping a havoc that scarce one pair out of many thousands escapes destruction. 
If by chance the laborers, who are always busy prolonging their galleries, happen to 
meet with one of these fortunate couples, they immediately, impelled by their instinct, 
elect them sovereigns of a new community, and, conveying them to a place of safety, 
begin to build them a small chamber of clay, their palace and their prison—for beyond 
its walls they never again emerge. Soon after the male dies, but, far from pining 
and wasting over the loss of her consort, the female increases so wonderfully in bulk 
that she ultimately weighs as much as 30,000 laborers, and attains a length of three 
inches, with a proportional width. This increase of size naturally requires a cor- 
responding enlargement of the cell, which is constantly widened by the indefatigable 
workers. Having reached her full size, the queen now begins to lay her eggs, and as 
their extrusion goes on uninterruptedly, night and day, at the rate of fifty or sixty in 
a minute, for about two years, their total number may probably amount to more than 
fifty millions. This incessant extrusion of eggs necessarily calls for the attention of a 
large number of the workers in the royal chamber, to take them as they come forth, 
and carry them to the nurseries, in which, when hatched, they are provided with food, 
and carefully attended till they are able to shift for themselves, and become in their 
-turn useful to the community. 

In widening their buildings according to the necessities of their growing population, 
from the size of small sugar-loaves to that of domes which might be mistaken for the 
hovels of Indians or negroes, as well as in repairing their damages, the termite workers 
display an unceasing and wonderful activity ; while the soldiers, or neuters, which are 
in the proportion of about one to every hundred laborers, and are at once distinguished 
by the enormous size of their heads, armed with long and sharp jaws, are no less re- 
markable for their courage and energy. When any one is bold enough to attack 
their nest and make a breach in its walls, the laborers, who are incapable of fight- 
ing, immediately retire, upon which a soldier makes his appearance, obviously for 
the purpose of reconnoitering, and then also withdraws to give the alarm. Two or 
three others next appear, scrambling as fast as they can one after the other; to these 
succeed a large body, who rush forth with as much speed as the breach will permit, 
their numbers continually increasing during the attack. These little heroes present 
an astonishing, and at the same time a most amusing spectacle. In their haste they 
frequently miss their hold, and tumble down the sides of their hill; they soon, how- 
ever, recover themselves, and being blind, bite everything they run against. If the 
attack proceeds, the bustle increases to a tenfold degree, and their fury is raised to its 
highest pitch. Woe to him whose hands or legs come within their reach, for they will 
make their fanged jaws meet at the very first stroke, drawing their own weight in 
blood, and never quitting their hold, even though they are pulled limb from limb. The 
courage of the bull-dog is as nothing compared to the fierce obstinacy of the termite- 
soldier. So soon as the injury has ceased, and no further interruption is given, the 
soldiers retire, and then you will sce the laborers hastening in various directions towards 


WARS OF THE TERMITES—THEIR ENEMIES. 605 


the breach, each carrying in his mouth a load of tempered mortar half as big as him- 
self, which he lays on the edge of the orifice, and immediately hastens back for more. 
Not the space of the tenth part of an inch is left without laborers working upon it at 
the same moment ; crowds are constantly hurrying to and fro; yet, amid all this activ- 
ity, the greatest order reizns—no one impedes the other, but each seems to thread the 
mazes of the multitude without trouble or inconvenience. By the united labors of 
such an infinite host the ruined wall soon rises again ; and Mr. Smeathman has ascer. 
tained that in a single night they will restore a gallery of three or four yards in length. 

In numbers and architectural industry the American Termites are not inferior to 
those of the old world. In the savannas of Guiana their sugar-loaf or mushroom: 
shaped, pyramidal or columnar hills are everywhere to be seen, impenetrable to the 
rain, and strong enough to resist even a tropical tornado. In many parts of the Bra- 
zilian campos or savannas the termite-hills, which are there generally of a more flat- 
tened form, are so numerous that one is almost sure to meet with one of them at the 
distance of every ten or twenty paces. The great ant bear digs deep holes into their 
sides, where afterwards small owls build their nests. Similar termite structures, of a 
dark-brown color, and a round form, are attached to the thick branches of the trees, 
and you will scarcely mect with a single specimen of the tall candelabra-formed cac- 
tuses (Cere?), so common on those high grass-plains, that is not loaded with their 
weight. 

In spite of their working in the dark, in spite of their subterranean tunnels, their 
strongholds, and the fecundity of their queens, the termites, even when their swarms 
do not expose themselves to the dangers already mentioned, are subject to the attacks 
of innumerable foes. One of their most ferocious enemies is a species of black ant, 
which, on the principle of setting one thief to catch another, is used by the negroes 
of Mauritius for their destruction. When they perceive that the covered ways of the 
termites are approaching a building, they drop a train of syrup as far as the nearest 
encampment of the hostile army. Some of the black ants, attracted by the smell and 
taste of their favorite food, follow its traces and soon find out the termite habitations. 
Immediately part of them return to announce the welcome intelligence, and after a few 
hours a black army, in endless columns, is seen to advance against the white-ant strong- 
hold. With irresistible fury (for the poor termites are no match for their poisonous 
sting and mighty mandibles), they rush into the galleries, and only retreat after the 
extirpation of the colony. Mr. Baxter once saw an army of black ants returning 
from one of these expeditions. ach little warrior bore a slaughtered termite in his 
mandibles, rejoicing no doubt in the prospect of a comfortable meal, or a quiet dinner- 
party at home. Even man is a great consumer of termites, and they are esteemed a 
delicacy by negroes and Indians, both in the old and in the new world. 

In some parts of the Hast Indies the natives have an ingenious way of emptying 
a termite hill, by making two holes in it, one to the windward and the other to the 
leeward, placing at the latter opening a pot rubbed with an aromatic herb to receive 
the insects, when driven out of their nest by a fire of stinking materials made at the 
former breach. Thus they catch great quantities, of which they make, with flour, a 
variety of pastry. In South Africa the general way of catching them is to dig into 
the ant-hill, and when the builders come forth to repair the damage, to brush them off 


quickly into the vessel, as the ant-eater does into his mouth. They are then parched 
89 


606 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


in iron pots over a gentle fire, stirring them about as is done in roasting coffee, and 
eaten by handfuls, without sauce or any other addition, as we do comfits. According 
to Smeathman, they resemble in taste sugared cream, or sweet almond paste, and are, 
at the same time, so nutritious, that the Hindoos use them as a restorative for debil- 
itated patients. 

While most termites live and work entirely under covered galleries, the Marching 
Termite (7. viarum) exposes itself to the day. Mr. Smeathman on one occasion, 
while passing through a dense forest, suddenly heard a loud hiss like that of a ser- 
pent; another followed, and struck him with alarm; but a moment’s reflection led 
him to conclude that these sounds proceeded from white ants, although he could not 
see any of their huts around. On following this noise, however, he was struck with 
surprise and pleasure at perceiving an army of these creatures emerging from a hole 
in the ground, and marching with the utmost swiftness. Having proceeded about a 
yard, this immense host divided into two columns, chiefly composed of laborers, about 
fifteen abreast, following each other in close order, and going straight forward. Here 
and there was seen a soldier, at a distance of a foot or two from the columns; many 
other soldiers were to be seen, standing still or passing about, as if upon the look-out 
lest some enemy should suddenly surprise their unwarlike comrades. But the most 
extraordinary and amusing part of the scene was exhibited by some other soldiers, who 
having mounted some plants, ten or fifteen inches from the ground, hung over the 
army marching below, and by striking their jaws upon the leaves at certain intervals, 
produced the noise above mentioned ; to this signal the whole army immediately re- 
turned a hiss, and increased their pace. The soldiers at these signal-stations sat quite 
still during these intervals of silence, except now and then making a slight turn of 
the head, and seemed as solicitous to keep their posts as regular sentinels. After 
marching separately for twelve or fifteen paces, the two columns of this army again 
united, and then descended into the earth by two or three holes. Mr. Smeathman 
watched them for more than an hour, without perceiving any increase or diminution of 
their numbers. 


Here, although quite out of place in a scientific point of view, we may introduce a 
few paragraphs respecting a class of animals known as Ant-eaters. and the modes in 
which they manage to secure their prey. 

The great Ant-bear is undoubtedly one of the most extraordinary denizens of the 
wilds of South America; for that a powerful animal, measuring above six feet from 
the snout to the end of the tail, should live exclusively on ants, seems scarcely less 
remarkable than that the whale nourishes his enormous body with minute pteropods 
and medusee. 

The vast mouth of the leviathan of the seas has been most admirably adapted to his 
peculiar food, and it was not in vain that Nature gave such colossal dimensions to his 
head, as it was necessary to find room for a gigantic straining apparatus, in which, on 
rejecting the engulphed water, thousands upon thousands of his tiny prey might 
remain entangled ; but the ant-bear has been no less wonderfully armed for the cap- 
ture of the minute animals on which he feeds; and if, on considering the use for 
which it was ordained, we become reconciled to the seeming disproportion of the 
whale’s jaws, the small and elongated snout-like head of the ant-bear will also appear 


THE ANT-BEAR. 607 


Iess uncouthly formed when we reflect that it is in exact accordance with the wants of 
the animal. For here no deep cavity was required for the reception of two rows 
of powerful teeth, as in most other quadrupeds, but a convenient furrow for a long 
and extensile tongue—the use of which will immediately become apparent on follow- 
ing the animal into the Brazilian campos, where the wonderful cities of the white ant 
are dispersed over the plains in such incalculable numbers. Approaching one of these 
structures, the ant-bear strikes a hcle through its wall of clay with his powerful 
crooked claws, and as the ants issue forth by thousands to resent the insult, stretches 
out his tongue for their reception. Their furious legions, eager for revenge, imme- 
diately rush upon it, and, vainly endeavoring to pierce its thick skin with their 
mandibles, remain sticking in the glutinous liquid with which it is lubricated from two 
very large glands situated below its root. When sufficiently charged with prey, the 
ant-bear suddenly withdraws his tongue and swallows all the insects. 

Without swiftness to enable him to escape from his enemies, for man is superior to 
him in speed; without teeth, the possession of which would assist him in self-defence ; 
without the power of burrowing in the ground, by which he might conceal himself 
from his pursuers; without a cave to retire to, the ant-bear still ranges through the 
wilderness in perfect. safety, and fears neither the boa nor the jaguar, for he has full 
reliance on his powerful fore-legs and their tremendous claws. Schomburgk had an 
opportunity of witnessing a young ant-bear make use of these formidable weapons. 
On the enemy’s approach it assumed the defensive, but in such a manner as to make 
the boldest aggressor pause; for, resting on its left fore-foot, it struck out so desper- 
ately with its right paw as would undoubtedly have torn off the flesh of any one that 
came in contact with its claws. Attacked from behind, it turned round with the 
rapidity of lightning, and on being assailed from several quarters at once, threw itself 
on its back, and, desperately fighting with both its fore-legs, uttered at the same time 
an anery growl of defiance. In fact, the ant-bear is so formidable an opponent that 
he is said not unfrequently to vanquish even the jaguar, the lord of the American 
forests, for the latter is often found swimming in his blood, with ripped up bowels, a - 
wound which, of all the beasts of the wilderness, the claws of the ant-bear are alone 
able to inflict. On seizing an animal with these powerful weapons, he hugs it close 
to his body, and keeps it there till it dies through pressure or hunger. Nor does the 
ant-bear, in the meantime, suffer much from want of aliment, as it is a well-known 
fact that he can remain longer without food than perhaps any other quadruped, so 
that there is very little chance indeed of a weaker animal’s escaping from his clutches. 

Peaceable and harmless, the ant-bear when unprovoked never thinks of attacking 
any other creature; and as his interests and pursuits do not interfere with those of the 
more formidable denizens of the wilderness, he would, without doubt, attain a good 
old age, and be allowed to die in peace, if, unfortunately for him, his delicate flesh 
did not provoke the attacks of the large carnivora and man. To be sure, the Indian 
fears his claws, and never ventures to approach the wounded ant-bear until he has 
breathed his last; nor can he be hunted with dogs, as his skin is of a texture that 
perfectly resists a bite, and his hinder parts are effectually protected by thick and 
shagey hair; yet, armed with the dreadful wourali poison, the Indian knows how to 
paralyze in a few minutes his muscular powers, and to stretch him dead upon the 
earth. A perfect forest vagabond, the ant-bear has no den to retire to, nor any fixed 


608 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


abode; his immense tail is large enough to cover his whole body, and serves him as a 
tent during the night, or as a waterproof mantle against the rains of the wet season, so 
that he might boast, like Diogenes, of carrying all he required about him. 

The peculiar position of his paws, when he walks or stands, is worthy of notice. 
He goes entirely on the outer side of his fore-feet, which are quite bent inwards, the 
claws collected into a point and going under the foot. In this position he is quite at 
ease, while his long claws are disposed of in a manner to render them harmless to him, 
and are prevented from becoming dull and worn, which would inevitably be the case 
did their points come in actual contact with the ground, for they have not that retrac- 
tile power which is given to animals of the feiine race, enabling them to preserve the 
sharpness of their ¢laws on the most flinty path. In consequence of its resting perpet- 
ually on the ground, the whole outer side of the foot is not only deprived of hair, but 
hard and callous, while, on the contrary, the inner side of the bottom of the foot is 
soft and hairy. 

Besides the great ant-bear, there are two other species of American ant-eaters, one 
nearly the size of a fox, and the smallest not much larger than a rat. Being provided 
with prehensile tails, they are essentially arboreal, while the great ant-bear, incapable 
of climbing, always remains on the ground, where, thanks to the abundance of his 
prey, he is always sure of obtaining a sufficient supply of food with very little trouble. 

The Manides, Pangolins, or scaly Ant-eaters of South Africa and Asia, resemble 
their kindred of America in having a very long extensile tongue, furnished with a 
glutinous mucus for securing their insect food, and in being destitute of teeth, but 
differ wholly from them in having the body, limbs, and tail covered with a panoply of 
large imbricated scales, overlapping each other like those of the lizard tribes, and also 
in being able to roll themselves up when in danger, by which their trenchant scales 
become erect, and present a formidable defensive armor, so that even the tiger would 
vainly attempt to overcome the Indian pangolin. The manides are inoffensive animals, 
living wholly on ants and termites, and chiefly inhabit the most obscure parts of the 
forest, burrowing in the ground to a great depth, for which purpose, as also for ex- 
tracting their food from ant hills and decaying wood, their feet are armed with power- 
ful claws, which they double up in walking, like the ant-bear of Brazil. 

Besides several species of manides, Africa possesses a peculiar class of ant-eaters in 
the Orycteropi, which are found from the Cape to Senegambia and Abyssinia, all over 
the sultry plains where their food abounds. Their legs are short, and provided with 
claws fit for burrowing in the earth, which they can do with great rapidity ; and when 
once the head and fore-feet have penetrated into the ground, their hold is so tenacious 
that even the strongest man is incapable of draggiug them from their hole. 

The Orycteropi, or earth-hogs (Aard varks) as they are called by the boors, from 
their habit of burrowing and their fancied resemblance to small short-legged pigs, have 
an elongated head, though less tapering than that of the American myrmecophagi, 
and are provided with peculiarly formed teeth, with a flat crown and undivided root, 
which is pierced with a multitude of little holes, like those of a ratan-cane when cut 
transversely, while the ant-bears have no teeth at all. Their way of feeding is the 
same, and to enable them to retain their nimble-footed prey, their tongue is likewise 
lubricated with a glutinous liquid. Their flesh is considered very wholesome and pal- 
atable, and at the Cape they are frequently hunted both by the colonists and the Hot- 


THE AARD-VARK—THE ARMADILLO. 609 


tentots. There are several species, all very much resembling each other: their stout 
body measures about five feet from the tip of the snout to the end of the tail, the 
latter being nearly half the length of the body. j 


THE AARD-VARK. 


The American Armadillos have many points in common with the myrmecophagi, 
manides, and orycteropi. They have neither fore nor canine teeth, but a number of 
conical grinders, and are distinguished by having the upper part of their bodies de- 
fended by a complete suit of armor, divided into joints or bands, folding one over the 
other like the parts of a lobster’s tail, so as to accommodate themselves to all the mo 
tions of the animal. In life this shell is very limber, so that the armadillo is able to 
go at full stretch, or to roll himself up into a ball as occasion may require. These 
animals are very common both in the forests and in the open plains of South America, 
where they burrow in the sand-holes like rabbits. The armadillo is seldom seen 
abroad during the day, and when surprised he is sure to be near the mouth of his hole; 
but after sunset he sallies forth in search of roots, grain, worms, insects, and other 
small animals, and when disturbed, coils himself up in his invulnerable armor like the 
hedge-hog, or squats close to the ground, or, if he has time enough, escapes by digging 
into the earth, a work which he performs with masterly dexterity. “As it often takes 
a considerable time to dig him out of his hole,” says Mr. Waterton, ‘it would be a 
Jong and laborious business to attack each hole indiseriminately, without knowing 


610 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


whether the animai were there or not. To prevent disappointment, the Indians care- 
fully examine the mouth of the hole, and put a short stick down it. Now if, on intro- 
ducing the stick, a number of mosquitos come out, the Indians know to a certainty 
that the armadillo is in it; whenever there are no mosquitos in the hole, there-is no 
armadillo. The Indian having satisfied himself that the armadillo is there by the mos- 
quitos which come out, he immediately cuts a long and slender stick, and introduces 
it into the hole ; he carefully observes the line the stick takes, and then sinks a pit in 
the sand to catch the end of it; this done, he puts it further into the hole, and digs 
another pit, and so on, till at last he comes up with the armadillo, which had been 
making itself a passage in the sand till it had exhausted all its strength through pure 
exertion. I have been sometimes three quarters of a day in digging out one arma- 
dillo, and obliged to sink half a dozen pits, seven feet deep, before I got up to it. 
The Indians and negroes are very fond of the flesh, but I considered it strong and 
rank. On laying hold of the armadillo,.you must be cautious not to come in contact 
with his feet ; they are armed with sharp claws, and with them he will inflict a severe 
wound in self-defence ; when not molested, he is very harmless and innocent.”’ 

But even the giant armadillo is a pigmy when compared to the extinct mail-clad 
animals, which at times of unknown antiquity peopled the plains of South America. 
Mr. Darwin saw, in the possession of a clergyman near Montevideo, the fragment of 
a tail of one of these monsters of the past, from which he conjectured that it must 
have been from six to ten feet long; and the glyptodon, of which the British College 
of Surgeons possesses an admirable specimen, and which, like the armadillos of the 
present day, was covered with a tesselated bony armor, was equal in size to the rhi- 
noceros! low formidable must have been the enemies which made it necessary for 
an animal like this to move about with harness on its back! 

The curious Echidna, or Porcupine Ant-eater (Hehidna hystrix) of Australia is a 
striking instance of those beautiful gradations so frequently observed in the animal 
kingdom, by which ercatures of various trives or genera are blended, as it were, or 
linked together, and of the wonderful diversity which Nature has introduced into the 
forms of creatures destined to a similar mode of life. It has the general appearance 
and external coating of the porcupine, with the mouth and peculiar generic characters 
of the ant-eaters. It is about a foot in length, and burrows with wonderful facility by 
means of its short muscular fore-feet and its sharp-pointed claws. When attacked, it 
rolls itself into a ball like the hedgehog, erecting the short. strong, and very sharp 
spines with which the upper parts of the body and tail are thickly coated. Australia 
is likewise the native country of another ant-eating animal, the marsupial Myrmecobius 
fasciatus. It is formed like a squirrel, and is of the size of the rat; its brown-red fur, 
with six or seven light yellow transverse bands over the back, gives it an elegant ap- 
pearance. It was discovered about thirty years ago in the neighborhood of Swan River. 


Here, as connected with the Ant family by their house-building character, and by 
their irritating bite, we may introduce the Spiders. 

An insect, half of whose body is generally fixed to the other by a mere thread, 
whose soft skin is unable to resist the least pressure, and whose limbs are so loosely 
attached to the body as to be torn off by the slightest degree of force, would seem 
utterly incapable of protecting its own life and securing that of its progeny. Such, 


SPIDERS AND THEIR WEBS. 611 


however, is the physical condition of spiders, who would long since have been extir- 
pated, if nature had not provided them with the power of secreting two liquids, the 
one a venom ejected by their mandibles, the other of a glutinous nature, transuded by 
papillee at the end of their abdomen. These two liquids amply supply the want of 
all other weapons of attack or defence, and enable them to hold their own against a 
host of enemies. With the former they instantly paralyze insects much stronger and 
much more formidable in appearance than themselves ; while with the latter they spin 
those threads which serve them in so many ways, to weave their wonderful webs, to 
traverse the air, to mount vertically, to drop uninjured, to construct the hard cocoons 
intended to protect their eggs against their numberless enemies, or to produce the soft 
down which is to preserve them from the cold. 

Preying on other insect tribes, which they attack with the ferocity of the tiger, or 
await in their snares with the patient artifice of the lynx, the spiders may naturally be 
expected to be most numerous in the torrid zone, where nature has provided them 
with the greatest abundance of food. There also, where so many beetles, flies, and 
moths attain a size unknown in temperate regions, we find the spiders growing to sim- 
ilar gigantic dimensions, and forming webs proportioned to the bulk of the victims 
which they are intended to ensnare. | 

By means of their monstrous webs many giant-spiders of the tropical zone are en- 
abled to entangle not only the largest butterflies and moths, but even small birds. 
Tremeyer tells us that there are spiders in Mexico which extend such strong nets 
across the pathways, that they strike off the hat of the passer by; and at Goree and 
in Senegal several spiders spin threads so strong as to be able to bear a weight of sev- 
eral ounces, and which no doubt would be made use of for twine, if the negroes did 
not already possess vegetable fibres in abundance fit for the purpose. In the for- 
ests of Java, Sir George Staunton saw spider-webs of so strong a texture that it re- 
quired a sharp knife to cut one’s way through them; and many other similar examples 
might be mentioned. These. large spiders so temptingly suspended in mid-air in the 
forest-glades, seem very much exposed to the attacks of birds, but in many cases it 
has pleased nature to invest them with large angular spines sticking out of their bodies 
in every kind of fashion. Some are so protected by these long prickles that their 
bodies resemble a miniature ‘‘ chevaux-de-frise,’’ and could not by any possibility be 
swallowed by a bird without producing a very unpleasant sensation in his throat. One 
very remerkable species ( Gasteracantha arcuata) has two enormous recurved conical 
spines, proceeding upwards from the posterior part of the body, and several times 
longer than the entire spider. 

Other araneze, to whom these means of defence have been denied, are enabled by 
their color to escape the attacks of many enemies, or to deceive the vigilance of many 
of their victims. Thus, those that spend their lives among the flowers and foliage of 
the trees are, in general, delicately and beautifully marked with green, orange, black, 
and yellow, while those which frequent gloomy places are clothed with a dark-colored 
and dingy garb, in accordance with their habits. In the forests about Calderas, in the 
Philippine Archipelago, Mr. Adams saw handsomely colored species of theridia crouch- 
ing among the foliage of the trees: while numbers of the same genus of a black color 
were running actively about among the dry dead leaves that strewed the ground, 
looking, at a little distance, like odd-shaped ants, and no doubt deceiving many an 


612 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


antagonist by this appearance. One species, which knew it was being watched, placed 
itself upon a diseased leaf, where it remained quite stationary until after the departure 
of the naturalist, who, had he not seen the sidelong movement of the cunning little 
creature in the first instance, would not have been able to distinguish its body from 
the surface of the leaf. While, in this case, dulness of color served as a defence, the 
vividly-colored spiders that live among the foliage and flowers no doubt attract many 
flies and insects by reason of their gaudily-tinted bodies. An exception to the general 
rule is, however, found in those very large and powerful species, which, if not rendered 
somewhat conspicuous to the sight of other insects, might do too much damage to the 
tribes which they keep in check. Most of these, therefore, have the thorax and abdo- 
men margined with a light color that contrasts strongly with that of their bodies, and, 
in many cases, gives timely warning of their approach. 

The spiders of temperate zones have generally a very repulsive appearance, while 
many of the tropical species are most splendidly ornamented, or rather illuminated, many 
of them by the vividness of their colors resembling the gaudy missals painted by monks 
in the Middle Ages. Thus, among the epeiras of the Philippian isles, are found white 
figures on a red ground; red, yellow, and black, in alternate streaks; orange marbled 
with brown, light green with white ocelli, yellow with light brown festoons, or ash-colored 
and chestnut bodies with crescents, horse-shoes, Chinese characters, and grotesque hiero- 
glyphics of every description. Unfortunately, these colors, lustrous and metallic as the 
feathers of the humming bird, are, unlike the bright colors of the beetle, totally dependent 
on the life of the insect which they beautify, so that it is impossible to preserve them. 

While most spiders obtain their food either by patiently waiting in ambush or by. 
catching it with a bound, the enormous mygales, or trap-door spiders, run about with 
great speed, in and out, behind and around every object, searching for what they may 
devour, and from their size and rapid motions exciting the horror of every stranger. 
Their body, which sometimes attains a length of three inches, while their legs embrace 
a circle of half a foot in diameter, is covered all over with brown, reddish brown, or 
black hair, which gives them a funereal appearance, while their long feelers armed 
with sharp hooks proclaim at once what formidable antagonists they must be to every 
insect that comes within their reach. Though some species are found in Southern ~ 
Europe, in Chili, or at the Cape, yet they are chiefly inhabitants of the torrid zone, 
both in the Old and the New World. Some of them weave cells between the leaves, in 
the hollows of trees or rocks, while others dig deep tubular holes in the earth, which 
they cover over with a lid, or rather with a door formed of particles of earth cemented 
by silken fibres, and closely resembling the surrounding ground. This door or valve 
is united by a silken hinge to the entrance at its upper side, and is so balanced that, 
when pushed up, it shuts again by its own weight; nay, what is still more admirable, 
on the interior side opposite to the hinge a series of little holes may be perceived, into” 
which the mygale introduces its claws to keep it shut, should any enemy endeavor to 
open it by force. The interior of the nest, which is sometimes nine inches deep, is 
lined with a double coat of tapestry, the one nearest the wall, which is of a coarser 
tissue, being covered with a pure white silken substance like paper. 

All species of spiders are gifted with the same maternal instinct, and resort to 
various methods for the purpose of securing their cocoons. The Theridion, when a 
seizure of the precious burden is threatened, tumbles together with it to the ground, 


ENEMIES OF THE SPIDER—USES OF THE SPIDER. 613 


and remains motionless, while the Thorinsa covers it with its body, and when robbed 
of it, wanders about disconsolate. In a forest of the Sooloo Islands, Mr. Adams 
found the ground literally overrun with a small black agile species of Lycosa, many 
of which had a white flattened globose cocoon affixed to the ends of their abdomen. 
It was most amusing to watch the care with which these jealous mothers protected the 
eradles of their little ones, allowing themselves to fall into the hands of the enemy 
rather than be robbed of the silken nests that contained them. 

If the spiders are at war with all other insects, and contribute to keep them within 
bounds by the destruction they cause among their ranks, they in their turn have to 
suffer from the attacks of many enemies. Several species of monkeys, squirrels, liz- 
ards, tortoises, frogs, and toads catch and devour them wherever they can. In Java 
and Sumatra, we even find several birds belonging to the order of sparrows that have 
been named Arachnothere, from their living almost exclusively on spiders. Armed 
with a prodigiously long recurved and slender beak, they know how to pursue them 
and drag them forth from the most obscure recesses. 

It is amongst the insects themselves, however, that the spiders have to fear their most 
numerous and formidable enemies. Independently of those which they find in their 
own class, the centipedes seize them beyond the possibility of escape; while several 
species of philanthus, pompilius, and sphex, more savage and poisonous than themselves, 
will rush upon spiders eight times their size and weight, and benumbing them with a 
sting, bear them off to their nests, to serve as food for their larvee. But the insects 
which in appearance are the tiniest and most delicate, are perhaps those which most 
cruelly wound the spiders, by attacking them in their eggs, which they watch over 
with such affection, as to be ever ready for them to make the sacrifice of their own 
lives. The Pimpla Arachnitor pierces with its invisible gimlet the tender skin of the 
spider’s ege, and, without tearing it, introduces its own eggs into the liquid. The 
pimpla’s egg soon comes to maturity, and the larva devours the substance of that of 
the spider, from whence a winged insect bursts forth—a phenomenon which made 
some naturalists, too hasty to judge from appearances, believe that spiders were able 
to procreate four-winged flies. 

Notwithstanding the disgust or horror which they generally inspire, the spiders are, 
with very rare exceptions, by no means injurious to man. However promptly their 
venom may act upon insects, even that of the largest species of Northern Europe pro- 
duces, on coming into contact with our skin, no pain or inflammation equalling in 
virulence that of the wasp, the bee, the gnat, or other insects of a still smaller size. 
The giant spiders of a sunnier sky, armed with more formidable weapons, naturally 
produce a more painful sting; but even here the effects have been much exaggerated, 
and the wonderful stories about the Sicilian tarantula’s bite, which we read of in Brydone 
and other authors, are nothing but fables raised upon a very slender foundation of truth. 
Azara mentions that several of his negroes having been bitten by the large Avicular 
mygale (JZ. avicalaria) of South America, a slight ephemeral fever was the only result. 

If thus, among the many species of spiders, hardly a single one may be said to be 
fcrmidable to man, the indirect services which they render him—by diminishing the 
number of noxious insects, or keeping in check the legions of gnats which irritate and 
annoy him by their attacks—are far from inconsiderable. Nor are they entirely with- 
out direct use. Several savage nations eat spiders, and the inhabitants of New Cale- 


614 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


donia reckon a large species of Epeira amongst the choicest delicacies of the land. 
Even in Europe some people enjoy a spider, and the famous astronomer Lalande was 
far from being singular in this respect. They are said to taste like filberts, and the 
proper way to eat them is to take off the legs, and to swallow the abdomen, after 
having washed and rubbed it with butter. The property of spiders’ webs to stop an 
hemorrhage or the bleeding of a wound is a well-known fact, and they have also been 
recommended as an anti-febrifuge. In several countries where the insects cause great 
ravages, the services of the spiders are duly appreciated. Thus in the West Indies, a 
large and formidable trap-door spider, which would make a European start back with 
horror, is looked upon with pleasure by the islanders of the torrid zone, who respect it 
as a sacred animal, by no means to be disturbed or harmed, as it delivers them from 
the cockroaches, which otherwise would overrun their dwellings. Those who do not 
possess these spiders take good care to purchase and transport them into their houses, 
expecting from them similar services to those we derive from a good domestic cat. 

When we consider the large size of many of the tropical spiders, and the strength 
of their threads, it seems probable that their cocoons might be put to some use. We 
are told by Azara, in his ‘‘ Travels to Paraguay,” that a spider exists in that country 
the silk of whose spherical cocoons, measuring an inch in diameter, is spun on account 
of its permanent orange color. The eyes and noses of the women employed in 
unravelling the cocoons are said to water considerably, though without their perceiving 
any pungent smell, or feeling any other inconvenience. This spider is, perhaps, the 
same as that which, according to M. de Bomare, is known in the interior of South 
America under the name of the silk-spider. Its cocoon is of the size of a pigeon’s 
egg, the silk is soft, and can be easily carded. Attempts have also been made in 
Europe to utilize the threads of the large indigenous spiders. About the beginning 
of the last century, M. Bon, a Frenchman, who seems to have been the first that ever 
put the idea into practice, collected a sufficient quantity to make some stockings and 
gloves, which he presented to the king, Louis XIV., and to the Academy of Sciences 
in Paris. His discovery caused some sensation at the time, and his dissertation on 
the subject was translated into all European languages, and at a later period even into 
the Chinese, by order of the Emperor Kien-Long. The celebrated Reaumur, however, 
who was commissioned by the Academy to report on M. Bon’s discovery, pointed out 
how difficult it would be to put it to any extensive use, as it would require no less 
than 55,296 of the Hpeira diadema to produce a single pound of silk ; and how were 
all these to be provided with flies ? 

If the extreme fineness of the spider’s threads is an obstacle to their being spun 
and woven, this property, united with their metallic brilliancy, renders them an excel- 
lent material for the construction of the micrometers used for astronomical purposes : 
the finest silver thread which it is possible to spin having a diameter of 5+ of an inch, 
while spiders’ threads measure only zy47 or even guyz. Troughton, an eminent 
English instrument maker, first thought of substituting them for the silver-threads 
then in use, and they were found to answer so well that since that time they have 
been constantly employed. 


The Scorpions, which even in Europe are reckoned among the most malignant in- 
sects, are truly terrific in the torrid zone, where they frequently attain a length of 


SCORPIONS. 615 


six or seven inches. Closely allied to the spiders, their aspect is still more repul- 
sive. Were one of the largest scorpions menacingly to creep up against you, with 
extended claws and its long articulated sharply-pointed tail projecting over its head, I 
think, despite the strength of your nerves, you would start back, justly concluding 
that a creature of such an aspect must necessarily come with the worst intentions. 
The poison of the scorpion is discharged like that of the snake. Near the tip of the 
crooked sting, namely, which terminates the tail, we find two or three very small fora- 
mina, through which, on pressure, the venom of the gland with which they are con- 
nected immediately issues forth. By means of this weapon, even the small Huropean 
scorpions are able to kill a dog, while the tropical giants of the race inflict wounds 
that become fatal to man himself. The sting of several South American scorpions 
produces fever, numbness of the limbs, tumors on the tongue, weakness of the sight, 
and other nervous symptoms, lasting twenty-four or forty-eight hours ; but the African 
scorpions seem to be still more formidable. Mr. Swainson informs us that the only 
means of saving the lives of English soldiers who were stung by those of Egypt, was 
the amputation of the wounded limb; and Professor Ehrenberg, who, while making 
his researches on the Natural History of the Red Sea, was stung five times by the 
Androctonus quinquestriatus, and funestus, says he can well believe, from the dreadful 
pains he suffered, that the poison of these scorpions may become fatal to women and 
children. A servant of Mr. Russegger, while emptying a trunk, was stung in the 
breast by a large scorpion, which had concealed itself among the linen. For hours 
the pain was dreadful, shooting from time to time through the whole nervous system, 
and almost depriving the patient of consciousness. A cold perspiration covered his 
brow, and it was only after the internal and external application of ammonia, one of 
the chief remedies for sustaining the sinking flame of life, that he at length felt some 
relief, though he had still to suffer several days from a strong fever. 

The scorpions live mostly on the ground, in gloomy recesses, and even in the nooks 
and corners of dwelling-houses, so that, in countries where they are known to abound, 
it is necessary to be very cautious in removing stones, pieces of wood, &c. Of a 
ferocious, cruel disposition, they are not onJy the foes of all other animals, but carry 
on a war of extermination among themselves, and are even said to kill and devour 
their own progeny, without pity, as soon as they are born ; thus rendering good service 
tu the community at large. Maupertuis once inclosed a hundred scorpions—a select 
and delightful party—in a box. Immediately a furious battle ensued—one against 
all, all against one—and in an hour’s time scarcely one of the combatants survived 
the conflict. 

The poison of the scorpion is lodged in its tail, but that of the centipede is in its 
jaws. These are likewise among the pests of tropical climates; for, although several 
are found in Europe, yet, from their small size, they are harmless to man. Those of 
India and South America, on the other hand, are enormous, frequently six or seven 
inches long, and their sting is no less painful and virulent than that of the dreaded 
ecorpion itself. 


616 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


CHAPTER xX. 
SERPENTS—LIZARDS—FROGS AND TOADS. 


Serpents: Rarity of Venomous Serpents—Habits and External Characteristics of Serpents— 
The Labarri—The Trigonocephalus—Antidotes to the Poison of Serpents—Sucking out 
the Venom—The Poison-Fangs—The Bush-Master—The Echidna Ocellata—Rattlesnakes 
—Their Enemy the Hog—The Cobra de Capello—The Haje—The Cerastes—Boas and 
Pythons—The Boa-constrictor—The Water Boa—Fascination by Snakes—Henderson’s 
Argument against It—Thorpe’s Reasons in its Favor—Du Chaillu on the Subject—Enemies 
of Serpents—The Secretary Bird—The Adjutant Bird—The Mongoos—Serpents Eating 
Serpents—The Locomotion of Serpents—Anatomy of their Jaws—A Serpentine Meal— 
Pet Serpents—Tree Snakes—Water Snakes—Stories of Enormous Snakes—Du Chaillu’s 
Big Snake—Wallace’s Bigger One.—JLizards: The Geckoe—Anatomy of its Feet—Their 
Wide Distribution—The Anolis—Its Combativeness—The Chameleon—Its Habits, Change 
of Color, and Characteristics—The Iguana—The Teju—Water Lizards—F lying Dragons— 
The Basilisk.—F’rogs and Toads: The Pipa Frog—Tree Frogs—Wallace’s Flying Frog— 
The Bahia Toad—The Giant Toad—The Musical Toad. 


N penetrating for the first time into a tropical forest, the traveler is moved by 
many conflicting emotions. ‘This luxuriance of vegetation, this abundance of 
blossoms, unite in raising the soul to the fullest enjoyment of the moment; and yet 
the heart is, at the same time, chilled with vague fears, that mix like a discordant 
sound with the harmonies of this sylvan world. For in the hollows of the tangled 
roots and in the dense underwood of the forest a brood of noxious reptiles loves to 
conceal itself, and who knows whether a snake, armed with poisonous fangs, may not 
dart forth from the rustling foliage. Gradually, however, these reflections wear 
away, and time and experience convince one that the snakes in the tropical woods are 
hardly more to be feared than in our own forests. These reptiles are, indeed, far 
from being of so frequent occurrence as is generally believed; and on meeting with a 
snake, there is every probability of its belonging to some harmless species, which show 
themselves much more frequently by day, and are by far more numerous. Even in 
India and Ceylon, where serpents are said to abound, they make their appearance so 
cautiously that the surprise of long residents is invariably expressed at the rarity with 
which they are to be seen. Dr. Russell, who particularly studied the serpents of 
India, found that, out of forty-three species which he himself examined, not more 
than seven were found to possess poisonous fangs; and Davy, whose attention was 
earefully directed to the snakes of Ceylon, came to the conclusion that but four out 
of the twenty species he could collect were venomous, and that of these only two 
were capable of inflicting a wound likely to be fatal to man. 
Sir E. Tennent, who frequently performed journeys of two to five hundred miles 
through the jungle without seeing a single snake, never heard, during his long resi- 


, Pe ee es 


VENOMOUS SNAKES—THEIR RARITY. 617 


dence in Ceylon, of the death of a European which was caused by the bite of one 
of these reptiles; and in almost every instance accidents to the natives happened at 
‘night, when the animal, having been surprised or trodden on, had inflicted the wound 
in self-defence. Thus, to avoid danger, the Singhalese, when obliged to leave their 
houses in the dark, carry a stick with a loose ring, the noise of which, as they strike it 
on the ground, is sufficient to warn the snakes to leave their path. During his five 
years’ travels through the whole breadth of tropical America, from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific, M. de Castelnau, although ever on the search, collected no more than ninety- 
one serpents, of which only twenty-one were poisonous. 

The habits of the venomous snakes, and the external characters by which they are 
distinguished from the harmless species, likewise tend to diminish the danger to be 
apprehended from them. Thus, their head is generally flat, broad, lanceolate ; they 
have an aperture or slit on each cheek, behind the nostrils, and an elongated vertical 
pupil like many other nocturnal animals. They are also generally slower and more 
indolent in their motions, and thus are more easily avoided. No venomous snake will 
ever be found on a tree; and on quietly approaching one in the forest or in the 
savanna, it will most likely creep away without disputing the path, as it is not very 
anxious uselessly to squandcr the venom which nature gave it as the only means for 
procuring itself food. 

‘There is not much danger in roving amongst snakes,’’ says Waterton, who, from 
spending many a month in tropical wilds, may justly be called an excellent authority, 
‘provided only that you have self:command. You must never approach them 
abruptly; if so, you are sure to pay for your rashness; because the idea of self- 
defence is predominant in every animal, and thus the snake, to defend himself from 
what he considers an attack upon him, makes the intruder feel the deadly effect of his 
envenomed fangs. The labarri snake is very poisonous, yet I have often approached 
within two yards of him without fear. I took care to advance very softly and gently, 
without moving my arms, and he always allowed me to have a fine view of him, 
without showing the least inclination to make a spring at me. He would appear to 
keep his eye fixed on me, as though suspicious, but that was all. Sometimes I have 
taken a stick ten feet long and placed it on the labarri’s back ; he would then glide 
away, without offering resistance. However, when I put the end of the stick abruptly 
to his head, he immediately opened his mouth, flew at it, and bit it.” But although 
accidents from venomous snakes are comparatively rare, yet the consequences are 
dreadful when they do take place, and the sight of a cobra or a trigonocephalus pre- 
‘paring for its fatal spring may well appall the stoutest heart. 

Prince Maximilian of Neu Wied, having wounded a tapir, was following the traces 
of his game along with his Indian hunter, when suddenly his companion uttered a loud 
scream. Ife had come too near a labarri snake, and the dense thicket prevented his 
escape. fortunately the first glance of the distinguished naturalist fell upon the rep- 
tile, which with extended jaws and projecting fangs was ready to dart upon the Indian, 
but at the same moment, struck by a ball from the prince’s rifle, lay writhing on the 
ground. The Indian, though otherwise a strong-nerved man, was so paralyzed by fear 
that it was some time before he could recover his self-possession—a proof, among others, 
that it is superfluous to attribute a fascinating power to the venomous snakes, as the 
effects of terror are quite sufficient to explain why smaller animals, unable to flee the 


618 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


impending danger, become their unresisting victims, and even seem, as it were, wan- 
tonly to rush upon destruction. But upon this subject we shall have more to say. 

A poor Indian girl that accompanied Schomburgk on his travels through the forests 
of Guiana was less fortunate than the Prince of Neu Wied’s companion. She was 
bitten by a trigonocephalus, and it was dreadful to see how soon the powers of life 
began to ebb under the fatal effects of the poison. The wound was immediately 
sucked, and spirits of ammonia, the usual remedy, profusely applied both externally 
and inwardly, but all in vain. In less than three minutes, a convulsive trembling 
shook the whole body, the face assumed a cadaverous aspect, dreadful pains raged in 
the heart, in the back, less in the wound itself; the dissolved blood flowed from the 
ears and nose, or was spasmodically ejected by the stomach ; the pulse rose to 120-130 
in the minute; the paralysis which first benumbed the bitten foot spread farther and 
farther, and in less than eight minutes the unfortunate girl was no longer to be recog- 
nized. ‘The same day the foot swelled to shapeless dimensions, and she lay senseless 
until, after an agony of sixty-three hours, death relieved her from her sufferings, 

A great many antidotes have been recommended against serpentine poison, but their 
very number proves their inefficacy. It is a well known fact that serpentine poison 
may be swallowed with impunity ; it shows its effects only on mixing directly with the 
blood. A tight ligature above the wound, along with sucking, burning, or cutting it 
out, are thus very rational remedies for preventing the rapid propagation of the venom. 
Suction is, however, not always unattended with danger to the person who undertakes 
the friendly office. Thus Schomburgk relates the misfortunes of a poor Indian, whose 
son had been bitten in the cheek. The father instantly sucked the wound, but a hollow 
tooth conveyed the poison into his own body. His cheek swelled under excruciating 
pains, and without being able to save his son, his own health and vigor were forever lost ; 
for such are the dreadful consequences of this poison, that they incurably trouble the 
fountains of life. The wound generally breaks open every year, emitting a very offen- 
sive odor, and causes dreadful pains at every change of the weather. Although all 
the venomous snakes produce morbid symptoms nearly similar, yet the strength of the 
poison varies according to the species of the serpent, and to the circumstances under 
which it is emitted. It is said to be most virulent during very hot weather, or when 
the animal is about to cast its skin. The effects are naturally more powerful and 
rapid when a larger quantity of poison flows into the wound, and a snake with exhausted 
supplies from repeated bitings will evidently strike less fatally than another whose 
glands are inflated with poison after a long repose. 

Before describing some of the most conspicuous of the venomous serpents, a few 
words on the simple but admirable mechanism of their delicate but needle-like fangs 
will not be out of place. Towards the point of the fang, which is invariably situated 
in the upper jaw, there is a little oblong aperture on the convex side of it, and through 
this there is a communication down the fang to the root, at which lies a little bag con- 
taining the poison. Thus, when the point of the fang is pressed, the root of the fang 
also presses against the bag and sends up a portion of the poison it contained. The 
fangs being extremely movable, can be voluntarily depressed or elevated ; and as from 
their brittleness they are very liable to break, nature, to provide for a loss that would 
be fatal, has added behind each of them smaller or subsidiary fangs ready to take 
their place in case of accident. 


THE BUSHMASTER—RATTLESNAKE—COBRA. 619 


UWnrivalled in the display of every lovely color of the rainbow, and unmatched in 
the effects of his deadly poison, the Bushmaster or Counacutchi (Lachesis rhombeata) 
glides on, sole monarei of the forests of Guiana or Brazil, as both man and beast fly 
before him. In size ko surpasses most other venomous species, as he sometimes grows 
to the length of fourteen feet. Gencrally conceated among the fallen leaves of the 
forest, he lives on small birds, reptiles, and mammalians, whom he is able to pursue 
with surprising activity. Fortunately, the bushmaster is a rare serpent, frequenting 
only the deepest shales of the thicket, where in the day-time he generally lies coiled 
upon the ground. Still rarer. though if possible yet more formidable, is a small brown 
viper (Echidna ocellata), which infests the Peruvian forests. Its bite is said to be 
able to kill a strong man within two or three minutes. The Indian, when bitten by it, 
does not even attempt an antidote against the poison, but stoically bids adieu to his 
comrades, and lays himself down to die. 

The illfamed, wide extended race of the rattlesnakes, which ranges from South 
Brazil to Canada, belongs exclusively to the new world. They prefer the more ele- 
vated, dry, and stony regions, where they lie coiled up in the thorny bushes, and only 
attack such animals as come too near their lair. Their bite is said to be able to kill a 
horse or an ox in ten or twelve minutes ; but, fortunately, they are afraid of man, and 
will not venture to attack him unless provoked. When roused to anger they are, how- 
ever, very formidable, as their fangs penetrate through the strongest boot. One of the 
most remarkable features of their organization is a kind of rattle terminating the tail, 
and consisting of a number of pieces inserted into each other, all alike in shape and 
size, hollow, and of a thin, elastic, brittle substance, like that of which the scales are 
externally formed. When provoked, the strong and rapid vibratory motions imparted 
to the rattle produce a sound which has been compared to that of knife grinding, but 
it is never loud enough to be heard at any distance, and becomes almost inaudible in 
rainy weather. 

Naturalists distinguish at least a dozen different species of rattlesnakes, the com- 
monest of which are the Boaquira (Crotalus horridus), which frequents the warmest 
regions of South America, and the Durissus ( C. durissus), which has chosen the United 
States for its principal home. The chief enemy of this serpent is the hog, whom it 
dreads so much that on seeing one it immediately loses all its courage, and instantly 
takes to flight. But the hog, who smells it from afar, draws nearer and nearer, his 
bristles erected with excitement, seizes it by the neck, and devours it with great com- 
placency, though without touching the head. As the hog is the invariable companion 
of the settler in the backwoods, the rattlesnake everywhere disappears before the ad- 
vance of man, and it is to be hoped that a century or two hence it will be ranked among 
the extinct animals. The American Indians often regale on the rattlesnake. When 
they find it asleep, they put a small forked stick over its neck, which they keep im- 
movably fixed to the ground, giving the snake a piece of leather to bite, and this 
they pull back several times with great force, until they perceive that the poison-fangs 
are torn out. They then cut off the head, skin the body, and cook it as we do eels. 
The flesh is said to be white and excellent. 

None of the American snakes inhabit the Old World, but in the East Indies and 
Ceylon other no less dangerous species appear upon the scene, among which the 
celebrated Cobra de Capello is one of the most deadly. A few years since, a cobra 


§20 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


in the British Zodlogical Gardens destroyed its keeper. In a fit of drunkenness, the 
man, against express orders, took the reptile out of its cage, and placing its head 
inside his waistcoat, allowed it to glide round his body. When it had emerged from 
under his clothes on the other side, apparently in good humor, the keeper squeezed its 
tail, when it struck him between his eyes. In twenty minutes his consciousness was 
gone, and in less than three hours he was dead. As long as the cobra is in a quiet 
mood, its neck is nowhere thicker than its head or other parts; but as soon as it is 
excited, it raises vertically the anterior part of its trunk, dilates the hood on each side 
of the neck, which is curiously marked in the center in black and white, like a pair 
of spectacles, and then swells out to double its former proportions, and advances 
against the aggressor by the undulating motion of the tail. It is aot only met with 
in the cultivated grounds and plantations, but will creep into the hoases and insinuate 
itself among the furniture. This is the snake so frequently exhibited by the Indian 
jugglers, who contrive by some unknown method to tame them so far that they will 
perform certain movements in cadence, and dance to the sound of music, with 
which the cobra seems much delighted, keeping time by a graceful motion of the head, 
erecting about half its length from the ground and following the few simple notes of 
the conjuror’s flute with gentle curves like the undulating lines of a swan’s neck. 

The Keyptian Haje (Naja Haye), a near relation of the Indian cobra, is most likely 
the asp of ancient authors, which the celebrated Cleopatra chose as the instrument of 
her death, to avoid figuring in the triumph of Augustus. Like the cobra, it inflates 
its neck when in a state of excitement, and as it raises its head on being approached, 
as if watchful for its safety, it was venerated by the ancient Kgyptians as a symbol of 
divinity, and as the faithful guardian of their fields. Divine honors have, however, 
much more frequently been paid to the venomous snakes from the terror they inspire, 
than from far-fetched notions of beneficence. The Cerastes, or horned-viper, one of 
the most deadly serpents of the African deserts, is frequently exhibited by Egyptian 
jugglers, who handle and irritate it with impunity: they are supposed to render them- 
selves invulnerable by the chewing of a certain root, but most likely, as in the case 
of the cobra-charmers, their secret consists in their courage and perfect knowledge of 
the animal’s nature. 

Although the Boas and Pythons are unprovided with venomous fangs, yet,-from 
their enormous size, they may well be ranked among the deadly snakes; for, as 
Waterton justly remarks, ‘it comes to nearly the same thing in the end whether the 
victim dies by poison from the fangs, which corrupts his blood and makes it stink 
horribly, or whether his body be crushed to mummy and swallowed by a Python.” 
The kingly Jiboya (Boa-constrictor) inhabits the dry and sultry localities of the Bra- 
zilian forests, where he generally conceals himself in crevices and hollows in parts but 
little frequented by man, and sometimes attains a length of thirty feet. To catch his 
prey he ascends the trees, and lurks, hidden in the foliage, for the unfortunate agutis, 
pacas, and capybaras, whom their unlucky star may lead within his reach. When 
full-grown he seizes the passing deer ; but in spite of his large size he is but little feared 
by the natives, as a single blow of a cudgel suffices to kill him. Prince Maximilian 
of Neu Wied tells us that the experienced hunter laughs when asked whether the 
Jiboya attacks and devours man. 

The Sucuriaba, Anaconda, or Water Boa (Hunectes murinus), aS it is variously 


SERPENT FASCINATION. 621 


named, attains still larger dimensions than the constrictor, as some are said to have 
been found of a length of forty feet. It inhabits the large rivers, lakes, and marshy 
grounds of tropical America, and passes most of its time in the water, now reposing 
on a sand-bank, with only its head above the surface of the stream, now rapidly swim- 
ming like an eel, or abandoning itself to the current of the river. Often, also, it suns 
itself on the sandy margin of the stream, or patiently awaits its prey, stretched out 
upon some rock or fallen tree. With sharp eye it observes all that swims in the 
waters as well as all that flies over them, or all that comes to the banks to quench its 
thirst ; neither fish nor aquatic bird is secure from the swiftness of its attack, and woe 
to the capybara that comes within the grasp of its folds. Such is its voracity, that 
Firmin found in the stomach of an Anaconda a large sloth, an Ieuana nearly four 
feet long, and a tolerably-sized Ant-bear, all three nearly in the same state as when 
they were swallowed—a proof that their capture had taken place within a short time. 
As is commonly the case with reptiles, the water-boa is very tenacious of life, and 
though the head may be nearly severed from the trunk, the entrails taken out of the 
body, and the skin detached, it will still move about for a considerable time. The 
boas principally inhabit America, although some species are likewise met with in Asia. 
But the more formidable pythons are confined to the hot regions of the Old World. 
They are said to enlace even the tiger or the lion in their fatal embrace ; and to judge 
by their size and strength, this assertion seems by no means improbable. 

The alleged power of fascination in snakes is now abandoned by most naturalists ; 
and all the authenticated facts in relation to it seem to be capable of being otherwise 
explained. Dr. Henderson, a very close American observer, relates* some incidents 
bearing on this question. ‘‘ Some field hands, ‘‘ he says, ‘‘ while at work in the field, 
killed a rattlesnake of such unusual size that they were induced to bring it to the 
house that the family might see it. Its head was chopped off and left in the field. 
~The snake was laid under some shade trees, upon the branches of which a pair of 
mocking-birds had built their nest. The birds soon discovered the snake, and at 
once sounded their notes of alarm and distress. They commenced approaching, and 
finally came in immediate contact with the snake. In short, they exhibited all the 
phenomena of the fascinated in perfection, except that they did not jump into the 
snake’s mouth, which, fortunately for them, was a mile distant. I have frequently 
heard it asserted that the snake, after fascinating the bird, opens its mouth and the 
bird jumps into it. To test the truth of this, I caught a black adder, and tying one 
end of a piece of twine around his neck, I made the other end fast to some shrubbery 
in which a pair of mocking-birds had made their nests. The snake was soon dis- 
covered by the birds, and in a short time they were as much fascinated as birds ever 
become. They approached the reptile with feathers reversed, uttering their notes of 
alarm, and were a dozen times in contact with him. On the other hand, the snake 
seemed only bent on escaping, and had neither time nor inclination to exert his famed 
power of fascination. It was exerted, however, to its fullest extent, as far as the birds 
were concerned. At length the snake, in his efforts to escape, brought his body so far 
through the loop of twine around his neck that he was suffocated. This made ne 
difference, and the birds continued to be as much fascinated after as before his death. 
They were several times driven away, but would as often return. In these instances 


is * Harper’s Magazine, April, 1856. 


622 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


what becomes of the alleged wonderful power of the serpent’s eye? Two kirds were 
apparently charmed at one and the same time by a single snake, and that a dead one. 
The real fact is, that the so-called fascination is seen in perfection only during the 
period of incubation, and while the birds are rearing their young. ‘There is a marked 
difference between the actions of the birds during this period and at other times. 
Now, animals of every species either eat or are eaten by other species; and each race 
has its own peculiar modes of attack, defence, and escape. The snake knows that 
other animals hold him in great terror ; but that birds will approach him if he remains 
perfectly still. When he perceives that the birds have seen him, he remains perfectly 
still. The birds know that their young will approach the snake and fall a prey to him. 
If it be in the breeding season, parental instinct or affection impels them to attack the 
enemy, and so it often sacrifices its own life to save that of its offspring. Parental 
solicitude overcomes its natural timidity. Indeed the birds on these occasions seem to 
lose their senses altogether, precisely as a human parent might do under similar 
circumstances.”’ 


y Saks = cy 
aa 5 . ES ee x st SS oe Pr HOP EP: 


RATTLESNAKE CHARMING A RABBIT. 
} 


Still, however, we must admit that the subject of snake fascination is in a measure 
an open question. Mr. T. B. Thorpe, another close observer of the habits of the 
animal world, is fully convinced of the existence of this power, and cites many inci- 


SERPENT FASCINATION. 623 


dents in proof of his theory, accompanying them with drawings of the reptile in flagrante 
delictu.* He shows one snake in the attitude, as he believes, of charming a wild-cat ; 
and another when charming a rabbit. In this latter illustration the rabbit certainly 
looks as though he was fascinated. He believes also that they have this power 
over man, and adduces several instances in corroboration. And even further, he 
believes that this power exists in the dead reptile. He sums up his conclusions thus: 
‘«The food of the rattlesnake is in a great measure composed of small animals or birds 
superior to it in fleetness, and it has no power to seize its prey except when it is coiled 
up, and consequently incapable of giving chase. In addition, the reptile, while 
attempting to seize its prey, emits a strong odor, which no doubt has a stupefying 
effect upon its victim. Now, as the rattlesnake never steals upon any object, and is 
perfectly incapable of seizing its food except when it is coiled up and stationary, how 
would it ever obtain subsistence if nature had not given it the power to attract its 
prey within its deadly reach? Although it is disputed by most naturalists that snakes 
have the power of fascination, yet to me it seems as if nothing relating to their natural 
history is more fully substantiated. People living in crowded cities who receive from 
abroad ‘specimens’ preserved in alcohol and bottled, or write dissertations from 
examination of the ‘stuffed skin,’ must be assured, from what they see before them, 
that the power of fascination is a fable; and as doubting is a safe form of unbelief, it 
is freely expressed. The rattlesnake, nevertheless, has certainly an eye of command 
as had Napoleon; and the power of the reptile’s gaze is not only acknowledged by 
the humbler class of animals, but man, with all his superior powers, has felt a thrill 
of helplessness pass through his soul as he beheld that mysterious eye glaring full 
upon him. Approach a rattlesnake, and with the first convenient thing dash out his 
brains; but dare not to make a close examination of the death-dealing object before 
you. If its spiral motions once find a response in the music tune-markings of your 
own mind; if you look into those strange orbs that seem to be the openings into 
another world; if that forked tongue plays into your presence until you find it as 
vivid as the lightning’s flash; and, meanwhile, the hum of those rattles begins to con- 
fuse your absorbed senses, you will be conscious of some terrible danger; that you 
stand upon some dread precipice; that your blood is starting back from your heart; 
and you can only break through the charm with an effort that requires the whole of 
your resolution.” 

Paul du Chaillu also—no mean authority on the subject—firmly believes in this 
power of fascination ; and gives an instance in point :t ‘‘I shall never forget that one 
day, as I lay ill under that big tree, I spied an enormous snake folded among the 
branches of another tree not far from me. My attention had been drawn to that tree 
by the cries of a squirrel. The snake was charming the poor little squirrel. How 
nice the squirrel was; how beautiful his little tail; how black and bright seemed his 
little eyes. His little feet were moving onward toward the snake; his little tail was 
up, and he chippered as he advanced toward certain death. The snake was still as 
death ; not one of his folds could have been seen moving. How black and shiny the 
ugly creature was, and what a contrast with the green leaves of the trees. Part of 
his body was coiled on the limb of the tree. How fixedly he looked on the squirrel. 
His head was triangular, and’ he belonged to that family of snakes that spend the 


* Harper’s Magazine, March, 1855. + Wild Life Under the Equator, 161. 


624 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


greatest portion of their lives on trees. Nearer and nearer the squirrel came; louder 
and louder were his chipperings; he tried to run away, but could not. At last he 
came within a foot of the snake. There was a pause; then suddenly, like a flash of 
lightning, the snake sprang. The poor little squirrel was in the folds of the ugly 
reptile, and I soon saw his body gradually disappearing into its inflated mouth, and 
the broken silence of the forest resumed its sway.”” Here I leave the vexed question 
of serpentine fascination, with the expression of my own opinion that, while much can 
be said on both sides, yet, upon the whole, the nays have it. 


CHARMING THE SQUIRREL. 


The various serpent tribes are exposed to the attacks of many enemies, who fortu- 
nately keep their numbers within salutary bounds, and avenge the death of the count- 
less insects, worms, toads, frogs, and lizards, that fall a prey to their strength or their 
venom. Several species of rapacious and aquatic birds live upon snakes, the American 
ostrich thins their ranks wherever he can, and the African “ Secretary” is renowned for 
his prowess in serpentine warfare. ‘The battle was obstinate,’ says Le Vaillant, 
describing one of these conflicts, ‘‘and conducted with equal address on both sides. 
The serpent, feeling the inferiority of his strength, in his attempt to flee, and regain 
his hole, employed that cunning which is ascribed to him, while the bird, guessing his 
design, suddenly stopped him, and cut off his retreat by placing herself before him at 
a single leap. On whatever side the reptile endeavored to make its escape, his enemy 
was still found before him. Then, uniting at once bravery and cunning, he erected 
himself boldly to intimidate the bird, and hissing dreadfully, displayed his menacing 
throat, inflamed eyes, and a head swollen with rage and venom. Sometimes this 
threatening appearance produced a momentary suspension of hostilities, but the bird 
soon returned to the charge, and covering her body with one of her wings as a buck- 


SOME SERPENT-DESTROYERS. 625 


ler, struck her enemy with the horny protuberances upon the other, which, like little 
clubs, served the more effectually to knock him down as he raised himself to the 
blow ; at Jast he staggered and fell, the conqueror then despatched him, and with one 
stroke of her bill laid open his skull.”’ The secretary-eagle has now been successfully 
acclimatized in the West Indies, where he renders himself useful by the destruction 
of the venomous snakes with which the plantations are infested. 

Gravely, ‘‘ with measured step and slow,” like a German philosopher cogitating 
over the nature of the absolute, but, as we shall presently see, much more profitably 
engaged, the ‘‘ Adjutant’ wanders among the reeds on the banks of the muddy 
Ganges. The aspect of this colossal bird, measuring six feet in hight and nearly 
fifteen from tip to tip of the wings, is far from being comely, as his enormous bill, his 
naked head and neck, except a few straggling curled hairs, his large craw hanging 
down the forepart of the neck like a pouch, and his long, naked legs, are certainly no 
features of beauty. Suddenly he stops, dips his bill among the aquatic plants, and 
immediately raises it again triumphantly into the air, for a long snake, despairingly 
twisting and wriggling, strives vainly to escape from the formidable pincers which 
hold it fast. The bird throws back his head, and the reptile appears notably dimin- 
ished in size ; a few more gulps, and it has entirely disappeared. And now the sedate 
bird continues his stately promenade with the self-satisfied mien of a merchant who 
has just made a successful speculation, and is engaged in the agreeable calculation of 
his gains. But lo! again the monstrous bill descends, and the same scene is again 
repeated. The good services of the Giant Heron in clearing the land of noxious rep- 
tiles, and the havoc he is able to make among their ranks, may be judged of by the 
simple fact, that on opening the body of one of them, a land-tortoise ten inches long 
and a large black cat were found entire within it, the former in the pouch, as a kind 
of stock in trade, the latter in the stomach, all ready for immediate consumption. 

Trusting to his agility and the certainty of his eye, the Indian Ichneumon or Mon- 
goos attacks without hesitation the most venomous serpents. The cobra, which drives 
even the leopard to flight, rises before the little creature with swelling head and fury 
in its eye; but swift as thought, the ichneumon, avoiding the death-stroke of the pro- 
jecting fangs, leaps upon its back, and fastening his sharp teeth in the head, soon 
despatches the helpless reptile. 

The serpents sometimes even feed upon their own brethren. Thus a rat-snake in 
the Zodlogical Gardens was once seen to devour a common Coluber natrix, but not 
having taken the measure of his victim, he could not dispose of the last four inches 
of his tail, which stuck out rather jauntily from the side of his mouth, with very much 
the look of a cigar. After a quarter of an hour the tail began to exhibit a retrograde 
motion, and the swallowed snake was disgorged, nothing the worse for his living sep- 
ulchre with the exception of the wound made by his partner when he first seized him. 
A python in the same collection, who had lived for years on friendly terms with a 
brother nearly as large as himself, was found one morning sole tenant of his den. As 
the cage was secure, the keeper was puzzled to know how the serpent had escaped. 
At last it was observed that the remaining inmate had swollen remarkably during the 
night, when the truth came out. It was, however, the last meal of the fratricide, for 
in some months he died. 

When we consider that the snakes have neither legs, wings, nor fins, and are indeed 


626 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


deprived of all the usual means of locomotion, the rapidity of their progress is not 
a little surprising. On examining the anatomical structure of their body, however, it 
will be remarked that while we have only twelve pair of ribs united in front by the 
breast-bone and cartilage, the snake has often more than three hundred, unconnected 
in front, and consequently much more free in their motions, a faculty which is still in- 
' ereased by the great mobility of the spondyli of the backbone. Between the ribs and 
the broad transverse scales or plates which exist on the belly of all such serpents as 
move rapidly, we find numerous muscles connecting them one with another, and thus, 
amply provided with a whole system of strong pulleys and points of attachment, the 
reptile, bringing up the tail towards the head, by bending the body into one or more 
curves, and then again resting upon the tail and extending the body, glides swiftly 
along, not only upon even ground, but even sometimes from branch to branch, as the 
smallest hold suffices for its stretching out its body a foot’s length into the air, and 
thus reaching another sallying point for further progress. | 

The anatomy of the serpent’s jaws is no less remarkable than the mechanism of its 
movements. In spite of their proverbial wisdom, snakes would not be able to exist 
unless they were able to swallow large animal masses at atime. For, however rapid 
their motions may be, those of their prey are in general still more active, and thus 
they are obliged to wait in ambush till a fortunate chance provides them with a copious 
meal. The victim is often much more bulky than the serpent itself; but still, without 
tearing it to pieces, it is able to engulph it in his swelling maw. For the two halves 
of its lower jaw do not coalesce like ours into one solid mass, but are merely connected 
in front by a loose ligament, so that each part can be moved separately. The bones 
of the upper jaw and palate are also loosely attached or articulated one with the 
other, and thus the whole mouth is capable of great distension. By this mechanism, 
aided by the numerous sharp teeth, which are so many little hooks with the point 
curved backwards, each side of the jaws and mouth being able to act as it were inde- 
pendently of the other, alternately hooks itself fast to the morsel, or advances to fasten 
itself farther on in a similar manner, and thus the reptile draws itself over its prey, 
somewhat in the same way as we draw a stocking over our leg, after having first, by 
breaking the bones, fashioned it into a convenient mass, and rendered its passage more 
easy by lubricating it with its saliva. Slowly the huge lump disappears behind the 
jaws, descends lower and lower beneath the scales, which seem ready to burst asunder 
with distension, and then the satisfied monster coils himself up once more to digest his 
meal in quiet. The time required for this purpose varies of course according to the 
size of the morsel; but often weeks, or even months, will pass before a boa awakens 
from the lethargic renose in which—the image of disgusting gluttony—he lies plunged 
after a superabundant meal. 

A huge python in the Zodlogical Gardens fasted the almost incredible time of 
twenty-two months, having probably prepared himself for his abstinence by a splendid 
gorge ; and Duméril mentions a rattlesnake in the Jardin des Plantes which likewise 
took no nourishment during twenty-one months, but then, as if to make up for lost 
time, swallowed three hares within five days. The reptiles in the British Zoological 
Gardens are offered food once a week, but even then their appetites are frequently not 
yet awakened, though great care is taken never to spoil their stomachs by excess. 

Though generally the objects of abhorrence and fear, yet serpents sometimes render 


/ 


MAGNITUDE OF SNAKES. 627 


themselves useful or agreeable to man. Thus the rat-snake of Ceylon ( Coryphodon 
Blumenbachiz), in consideration of its services in destroying vermin, is often kept as a 
household pet, and so domesticated by the natives as to feed at their table. The beau- — 
tiful coral-snake (laps corallinus) is fondled by the Brazilian ladies, but the domes- 
tication of the dreaded cobras as protectors in the place of dogs, is still more remark- 
able.. They glide about the house, going in and out at pleasure, a terror to thieves, 
but never attempting to harm the inmates. 

The Tree-snakes offer many beautiful examples of the adaptation of color to the 
animal’s pursuits, which we have already had occasion to admire in our brief review 
of the tropical insect world. They are frequently of an agreeable green or bluish 
hue, so as hardly to be distinguishable from the foliage among which they seek their 
prey, or where they themselves are liable to be seized upon by their enemies. They 
are often able vertically to ascend the smoothest trunks and branches, in search of 
squirrels and lizards, or to rifle the nests of birds. 

The Water-snakes which infest some parts of the tropical seas, though far from 
equalling in size the vast proportions of the fabulous sea-serpent, are very formidable 
from their venomous bite. They have the back part of the body and tail very much 
compressed and raised vertically, so as to serve them as a paddle with which they 
* rapidly cleave the waters. 

Of enormous snakes, whose dimensions exceed all credibility, the old writers are 
full, One can there find them of any length he pleases, a few yards more or less being 
of no consequence. Thus the famous serpent which in Africa stopped the march of 
the Roman army of Atilius Regulus, is said to have been one hundred and twenty feet 
in length. A recent traveler in Ceylon, while acknowledging that thirty feet was the 
utmost for which he was prepared to vouch personally, was, as he says, credibly assured — 
that one had been lately killed which measured forty-five feet in length, with a circum- 
ference of six feet; and he was told of another, killed in India not long ago, which 
attained the respectable length of sixty feet. But passing over these quite suspicious 
narratives, we find accounts of serpents quite long enough to satisfy any reasonable 
desire. 

Equatorial Africa appears to be a favorite abode for the serpentine family ; and if 
any of monstrous size exist there, they could hardly escape the keen eyes of Paul du 
Chaillu. He thus describes the death of the largest one of which we notice any 
mention in his books:* ‘‘ After resting a little while we continued our course till 
we reached the top of a very high mountain, whence I could see all the country round. 
I was sitting under a very large tree, when suddenly looking up, I saw an immense - 
serpent coiled upon the branch of a tree just above me. I rushed out, and taking 
good aim with my gun, I shot my black friend in the head. He let go his hold, tum- 
bled down with great force, and after writhing convulsively for a time, he lay before 
me dead. He measured thirteen feet in length, and his ugly fangs proved that he 
was venomous. My men cut off the head of the snake, and divided the body into as 
many parts as there were people. Then they lighted a fire, and roasted and ate it on 
the spot. They offered me a piece, but though I was very hungry, I declined. When 
the snake was eaten, I was the only individual in the company that had an empty 
stomach.” 


* Stories of the Gorilla Country, 59. 


628 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


But Wallace goes beyond Du Chaillu in his accounts of the actual size of serpents 


existing in the almost unexplored Malayan islands. He says:* “One day my boy Ali 
came home with a story of a big snake. He was walking through some high grass, 
and stepped on something which he took for a small fallen tree; but it felt cold and 
yielding to his feet, and far to the right and left there was a waving and rustling of 
the herbage. He jumped back in affright, and prepared to shoot ; but could not get 


WU) 
7 


KILLING THE SNAKE—CENTRAL AFRICA. 


a good view of the creature, and it passed away, he said, like a tree being dragged 
through the grass. As he had several times already shot large snakes, which he de- 
clared were all as nothing compared with this, I am inclined to believe it must have 
really been a monster. Such creatures are rather plentiful here, for a man close by 
showed me on his thigh the marks where he had been seized by one close to his house. 


* Malay Archipelago, 892. 


LIZARDS—GECKOES—ANOLIS. 629 


It was big enough to take the man’s thigh in his mouth, and he would probably have 
been killed and devoured by it, had not his cries brought out his neighbors who 
destroyed it with their choppers. As far as I could make out, it was about twenty 
feet long ; but Ali’s was probably much larger.”’ 


The Tropical World may well be called the head-quarters of the lizard race, as 
nowhere else do these reptiles appear in such multitudes or in such diversified forms 
of genera and species. The stranger is astonished by their numbers as soon as he sets 
foot on a tropical shore ; for on all sides, on the sands and in the forests, on soft banks 
and hard rocks, on trees and on the ground, lizards of every variety of size, form, and 
color, are seen darting, climbing, crawling, and rustling. 

The Geckoes, one of the family, may be fairly claimed as belonging to domestic 
animals, since they take up their abode in the dwellings of man, where they make 
themselves useful by the destruction of spiders, flies, and other noxious or disagreeable 
insects, which they almost always swallow whole, their throat being as broad as the 
opening of their jaws. During the daytime they generally remain concealed in some 
dark crevice or chink, but towards evening they may be seen running along the steepest 
walls with marvelous rapidity, in keen pursuit of their prey, frequently standing still, 
nodding with their head, and uttering shrill tones, most likely by smacking their tongue 
against the palate. Their flattened flexible body seems to mould itself into the hol- 
lows, in which they often remain motionless for hours, and their generally dull color 
harmonizes so well with their resting-places, as to render them hardly distinguishable ; 
a circumstance which answers the double purpose of masking their presence from the 
prey for which they lie in wait, and from the enemies that might be inclined to feast 
upon them. Among these, some of the smaller birds of prey—hawks and owls—are 
the most conspicuous, not to mention man, the arch-persecutor of almost every animal 
large enough to attract his notice. 

How comes it that these nocturnal lizards, seemingly in defiance of the laws of 
gravitation, are thus able to adhere to our ceilings or any other overhanging surfaces ? 
An inspection of the soles of their broad feet will soon solve the enigma, for all their 
toes are considerably dilated on their margins, and divided beneath into a number of 
transverse lamellze, parallel to each other, and generally without any longitudinal fur- 
row. From these a fluid exudes which serves to attach the animal to the surface. They 
are also generally provided with sharp and crooked claws, retractile and movable, like 
those of a cat, and which render them good service in climbing the trees. 

In spite of their harmless nature, the Geckoes—their real utility being forgotten 
over imaginary grievances—nowhere enjoy a good reputation, probably in consequence 
of their ugliness and the wild expression of their large eyes. They are accused of 
tainting with a virulent secretion every object they touch, and of provoking an erup- 
tion on the skia merely by running over it—a popular prejudice which naturally causes 
many a poor inoffensive Gecko’s death. They abound all over the torrid zone, even in 

the remote islands of the Pacific, such as Tahiti and Vanikoro. Duméril enumer- 
ates fifty-five different species, only two of which are indigenous in Southern Europe, 
while India monopolizes no less than thirteen for her share. 

The graceful Anolis are peculiar to America. By the structure of their feet, pro- 
vided with long unequal toes, they are related to the Geckoes, but are distinguished 


630 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


from them by a more slender form of body, by their extremely long thin tail, and a 
large neck-pouch, which dilates under the influence of excitement. These small and 
nimble creatures, the largest species seldom exceeding eight inches in length, are as 
touchy as fighting cocks. On approaching them, they instantly blow up their pouch, 
open widely their diminutive jaws, and spring upon the aggressor, striving to bite him 
with their teeth, which, however, are too small to do much harm. Among each other 
they live in a perpetual state of warfare. As soon as one Anolis sees another, he 
makes a rapid advance, while his adversary awaits him with all the courage of a gal- 
lant knight. Before beginning the conflict, they make all sorts of menacing gestures, 
convulsively nodding their heads, puffing up their pouches, until finally they close in 
desperate struggle. If they are of equal strength, the battle remains for some time 
undecided. At length the vanquished Anolis turns and runs away, but he may think 
himself fortunate if he escapes with the loss of his tail. Many of them are thus 
deprived of this ornamental appendage, which they voluntarily leave behind to avoid 
a still greater disaster, and then they become timid, melancholy, and fond of retire- 
ment, as if ashamed of being seen, only regaining their spirits when, by a wonderful 
power of reproduction, the amputated tail has been replaced by another. 

Like many other lizards, the Anolis possesses the faculty of changing color when 
under the influence of excitement; but of all animals, whether terrestrial or marine, 
none is more famous or remarkable in this respect than the Chameleon. It frequently 
happens that man, not satisfied with the wonders which nature everywhere exposes to 
his view, adds to their marvels others of his own invention, and thus many a fable has 
been told about the Chameleon. It has been said, for instance, that it could emulate 
all the colors of the rainbow; but the more accurate observations of modern natural- 
ists have shown that the whole change, which takes place most frequently when the 
Chameleon is exposed to full sunshine or under the influence of emotion, consists in its 
ordinary bluish-ash color turning to a green or yellowish hue, with irregular spots of a 
dull red. Like many other reptiles, the Chameleon has the power of inflating its 
lungs and retaining the air for a long time, so as one moment to appear as fat and 
well fed as an alderman, and the next as lean and bony as a hungry disciple of the 
muses. These alternating expansions and collapses seem to have a great influence on 
the change of color; which, however, according to Milne Edwards, is principally 
owing to the skin of the animal consisting of two differently colored layers, placed 
one above the other, and changing their relative positions under the influence of 
excitement. ; | 

In our northern regions the captive Chameleon cuts but a sorry figure ; but in his 
own sunny regions, which extends from southern Spain and Sicily to the Cape, and 
eastwards from Arabia and Hindostan to Australia, it is said to be by no means 
deficient in beauty, in spite of its strangely-formed keel-like head, its enormously pro- 
jecting eyes, and its granulated skin. Its manner of hunting for the little winged 
insects that form its principal food is very peculiar. Although the movements of its 
head are very limited, on account of the shortness of its neck, this deficiency is amply 
supplied by the wide range of its vision, each eye being able to move about in alli 
directions independently of the other. Thus, while one of them attentively gazes 
upon the heavens, the other minutely examines the ground, or while one of them rolls 
in its orbit, the other remains fixed; nay, their mobility is so great, that without even 


THE CHAMELEON—IGUANAS—THE TEJU. 621 


moving its stiff head, this wonderful lizard, like Janus, the double-faced god of ancient 
Rome, can see at the same time all that goes on before and behind it. When an in- 
sect comes flying along, the chameleon, perched on a branch, and half concealed between 
the foliage, follows it in all its movements by means of his powerful telescopes, until 
the proper moment for action appears. Then, quick as thought, he darts forth, even 
to a distance of five or six inches, his long fleshy glutinous tongue, which is moreover 
furnished with a dilated and somewhat tubular tip, and driving it back with the same 
lightning-like velocity, engulfs his prey. This independence of the eyes is owing to 
the imperfect sympathy which subsists between the two lobes of the brain and the two 
sets of nerves which ramify throughout the opposite sides of its frame. Hence also 
one side of the body may be asleep while the other is vigilant, one may be green 
while the other is ash-blue, and it is even said that the Chameleon is utterly unable to 
swim, because the muscles of both sides are incapable of acting in concert. Destined 
for a life upon trees, he is provided with organs beautifully adapted for supporting 
himself on the flexible branches ; for besides the cylindrical tail nearly as long as his 
body which he coils round the boughs, his five toes are united two and three by a 
common skin, so as to form, as it were, a pair of pincers or a kind of hand, admirably 
suited for a holdfast. 

Among the Jguanas, a huge lizard tribe, characterized by a keel-like back and 
tail, and a large full-toothed throat-pouch, the common or great American Guana 
(Iguana tuberculata) deserves particular notice, as its white flesh is considered a 
great delicacy in Brazil and the West Indies. Notwithstanding its large size, for it 
not seldom attains a length of four or five feet, aud the formidable appearance of its 
serrated back, it is in reality by no means of a warlike disposition, and so stupid that, 
instead of endeavoring to save itself by a timely flight, it merely stares with its large 
eyes, and inflates its pouch, while the noose is passing round its neck to drag it forth 
from its hole. The Bahama islands abound with Guanas, which form a great part of 
the subsistence of the inhabitants. They are caught by dogs, trained for the purpose, 
in the hollow rocks and trees where they nestle, and are either carried alive for sale to 
Carolina, or kept for home consumption. They feed wholly on vegetables and fruit, 
particularly on a kind of fungus, growing at the roots of trees, and on the fruits of the 
different kinds of ananas, whence their flesh most likely acquires its delicate flavor. 

The famous South American monitory lizard or Teju, (Zeus monitor,) is one of the 
largest and most beautiful of the whole race, as he measures no less than five feet from 
the snout to the tip of the tail, which is nearly twice as long as the body, while his 
black color, variegated with bright yellow bands and spots, produces an agreeable and 
pleasing effect. The head is small, the snout gradually tapers, the limbs are slender, 
and the tail, which is laterally compressed, gradually decreases towards the extremity. 
The Teju lives in cavities and hollows, frequently under the roots of trees. When 
pursued, he yuns rapidly straight forward to his burrow; but when his retreat is inter- 
cepted, he defends himself valiantly, and proves a by no means contemptible an- 
tagonist, as he is able to bite through a thick boot, and a stroke with his strong and 
muscular tail will completely disable a dog. Though the Monitor generally lives on 
land, he is an excellent swimmer, and catches many a fish in its native element. His 
chief food, however, consists in various fruits, rats, mice, birds, and he also devours a 
large number of the eggs and young of the alligator. 


632 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


The large Water-lizards (Hydrosaurt) frequent the low river banks or the margins 
of springs, and although they may be seen basking on rocks or on the dead trunk of 
some prostrate tree in the heat of the sun, yet they appear more partial to the damp 
weeds and undergrowth in the neighborhood of water. Their gait has somewhat more 
of the awkward lateral motion of the crocodile, than of the lively action of the smaller 
saurians. When attacked, they lash violently with their tail, swaying it sideways with 
great force like the cayman. These modern types of the Mososaurus and Iguanodon 
have a graceful habit of extending the neck, and raising the head to look about them, 
and as you follow them leisurely over the rocks, or through the jungle, they frequently 
stop, turn their heads round, and take a deliberate survey of the intruder. They are 
by no means vicious, though they bite severely when provoked, acting, however, al- 
ways on the defensive. On examining their stomachs, crabs, locusts, beetles, the 
remains of jumping fish, the scales of snakes, and bones of frogs and other small 
animals are discovered. Like that of the Iguanas, their flesh is delicate eating, re- 
sembling that of a very young sucking-pig. 

The formidable name of Flying Dragons has been given to a genus of small lizards, 
remarkable for the expansible cutaneous processes with which the sides are furnished, 
and by whose means they are enabled to spring with more facility from branch to 
branch, and even to support themselves for some time in the air, like the bat or flying- 
squirrel. The tiny painted Dragon of the Hast, the Flying Lizard of the woods, is 
fond of clinging with its wings to the smooth trunks of trees, and there remaining 
immovable, basking in the sun. When disturbed, it leaps and shuffles away in an 
awkward manner. One Mr. Adams had in his possession, reminded him of a bat when 
placed on the ground. Sometimes the strange creature would feign death, and re- 
main perfectly motionless, drooping its head, and doubling its limbs, until it fancied 
the danger over, then cautiously raising its crouching form, it would look stealthily 
around, and be off in a moment. The dragon consumes flies in a slow and deliberate 
manner, swallowing them gradually; its various species belong sarriee to India 
and the islands of the Eastern Archipelago. 

Who has not heard of the fatal glance of the Basilisk, which, according to poetical 
fancy obliged all other poisonous animals to keep at a respectful distance. The truth 
is, that the lizards that bear this dreaded name, which has been given them from the 
fanciful resemblance of their pointed occipital crest to a regal crown, are quite as 
harmless and inoffensive as the flying dragon. They are chiefly inhabitants of South 
America, where they generally lead a sylvan life, feeding on insects. 


A few words on Frogs and Toads shall close this rather miscellaneous chapter. Of 
the former there is none more famous than the hideous Pipa Surinamensis, which 
considerably exceeds in size the common toad, and whose deformity is often aggra- 
vated by a phenomenon unexampled in the rest of the animal world, namely, the 
young in various stages of exclusion, proceeding from cells dispersed over the back 
of the parent. It was for a long time supposed that the ova of this extraordinary 
reptile were produced in the dorsal cells without having been first excluded in the 
form of spawn; but it is now thoroughly ascertained that the female Pipa deposits 
her eggs or spawn at the brink of some stagnant water, and that the male collects or 
amasses the heap of ova, and deposits them with great care on the back of the female, 


FROGS AND TOADS. 633 


where, after impregnation, they are pressed into the cellules, which are at that period 
open for their reception, and afterwards close over them ; thus retaining them till the 
period of their second birth, which happens in somewhat less than three months, when 
they emerge from the back of the parent in their complete state. This species inhabits 
the obscure nooks of houses in Cayenne and Surinam, avoiding the light of day as if 
conscious of its unrivaled hideousness. 

A Brazilian tree-frog (Hyla crepitans), which adheres to the large leaves, not merely 
with its widened toes, but with its constantly viscid body, has a voice which sounds 
like the cracking of a large piece of wood, and generally proceeds from many throats 
at a time. On wandering through the forests of Brazil, Prince Maximilian of Neu 
Wied was often surprised by this singular concert issuing from the dark shades of the 
forest. A Surinam tree-frog (Myla micans) has the singular property of secreting a 
luminous slime, so as to look in the dark like a yellowish will-o’-the-wisp. Its voice 
is most disagreeable, and is said at times completely to overpower the orchestra of the 
theatre in Paramaribo, thus emulating the stentorian achievements of the Virginian 
bull-frog. 

Wallace describes a Flying Frog, of which he discovered a single specimen in the 
Island of Borneo. It was brought to him by a Chinese workman, who declared that 
he had seen it coming down in a slanting direction from the top of a high tree as it 
flew. Its toes were long, and fully webbed to the very extremities, so that when 
expanded they offered a surface much larger than the body. As the toes had dilated 
dises for adhesion, showing the creature to be a true tree-frog, it is difficult to imagine 
that this immense membrane of the toes, occupying in all twelve square inches, could 
be for the purpose of swimming only, which rendered the Chinaman’s account cred- 
ible. Wallace believes this to be the first instance known of a flying frog. The pic- 
ture which he gives of this creature is very remarkable. One can get a fair idea of 
it by imagining an ordinary frog, with a large expanded fan attached to each of the 
four limbs. 

Mr. Darwin thus describes a remarkable species of toad he noticed at Bahia. 
‘“‘ Amongst the Batrachian reptiles, I found only one little toad, which was most sin- 
gular from its color. If we imagine, first, that it had been steeped in the blackest 
ink, and then, when dry, allowed to crawl over a board freshly painted with the bright- 
est vermilion, so as to color the sides of its feet and parts of its stomach, a good idea 
of its appearance will be gained. If it is an unnamed species, surely it ought to be 
called diabolicus, for it is a fit toad to preach in the ear of Eve. Instead of being 
nocturnal in its habits as other toads are, and living in damp and obscure recesses, it 
crawls during the heat of the day about the dry sand hillocks and arid plains, where 
not a single drop of water can be found. It must necessarily depend on the dew for 
its moisture, and this probably is absorbed by the skin, for it is known that these rep- 
tiles possess great powers of cutaneous absorption. At Maldonado I found one in a 
situation nearly as dry as at Bahia Blanca, and, thinking to give it a great treat, car- 
ried it to a pool of water; not only was the little animal unable to swim, but I think 
without help would soon have been drowned.”’ 

The giant-toad (Bufo gigas, agua), frequents the Brazilian campos in such numbers 
that in the evening or after a shower of rain, when they come forth from their hiding- 
places to regale on the damp and murky atmosphere, the earth seems literally to swarm 


634 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


with them. They are double the size of our common toad, and are even said to attain, 
with their outstretched hind legs, a foot’s length, with a proportionate girth. Covered 
with unsightly warts, and of a dull gray color, their aspect is repulsive, and when 
excited, they eject a liquid which is very much feared by the natives. Their voice is 
loud and disagreeable, while Guinea possesses, in the Breviceps gibbosus, a small toad 
which is said to sing delightfully, ‘‘ charming the swamps with their melodious notes.”’ 

There is a very remarkable burrowing crustacean called the Robber Crab, (Page 
580,) Birgus latro. The Robber Crab inhabits the islands of the Indian Ocean, and 
is one of those crustacea which are able to exist for a long time without visiting the 
water, the gills being kept moist by means of a reservoir on each side of the cephalo- 
thorax, in which the organs of respiration lie. Only once in twenty-four hours does 
this remarkable crab visit the ocean, and in all probability enters the water for the 
purpose of receiving the supply which preserves the gills in working order. While 
walking, it presents a curious aspect, being lifted nearly a foot above the ground on 
its two central pairs of legs; and if it be intercepted in its retreat, it brandishes its 
formidable weapons, clattering them loudly, and always keeping its face towards the 
enemy. The food of the Robber Crab is of a very peculiar nature, consisting chiefly, 
if not entirely, of the cocoa-nut. According to Mr. Darwin, the crab seizes upon the 
fallen cocoa-nuts, and with its enormous pincers tears away the outer covering, reducing 
it to a mass of raveled threads. When the crab has freed the nut from the husk, it 
introduces the small end of a claw into one of the little holes which are found at one 
end of the cocoa nut, and by turning the claw backward and forward, as if it were a 
brad-awl, the crab contrives to scoop out the soft substance of the nut. 

According to the observations of Messrs. Tyerman and Bennett, the well-known 
missionaries to the South Seas, the Robber Crab has another method of getting at the 
cocoa-nut, and displays an instinctive knowledge of political economy which is very 
remarkable. ‘* These animals live under the cocoa-nut trees, and subsist upon the 
fruit which they find upon the ground. With their powerful front claws they tear off 
the fibrous husk ; afterward, inserting one of the sharp points of the same into a hole 
at the end of the nut, they beat it with violence against a stone until it cracks; the 
shell is then easily pulled to pieces, and the precious fruit within devoured at leisure.”’ 
We are informed that if the long and delicate antennae of these robust creatures be 
touched with oil, they instantly die. 

They are not found on any of these islands except the small coral ones, of which 
they are the principal occupants. The people here account them “ delicious food.” Mr, 
Darwin mentions that, in the Seychelles and elsewhere, there is a species which is in 
the habit of husking the nuts on the ground and then tapping one of the eyes with its 
great claw, in order to reach the kernel. Its congener here ascends the cocoa- 
nut trees, end having thrown down the nuts, husks them on the ground ; this opera- 
tion performed, again ascends with the nuts, which he throws down, generally break- 
ing them at the first attempt, but if not successful, repeating it till the object is attained. 

“The female differs from the male in having three flippers, well furnished with strong 
borers, on the right side of the sac.”” When full grown, this crab is more than two 
feet in length, and as may be seen by the illustration, is stoutly made in proportion to 
its length. The color of the creature is very pale brown, with a decided tinge of 
yellow. 


ALLIGATORS AND CROCODILES. §35 


CHAPTER XI. 
ALLIGATORS—CROCODILES—TORTOISES AND TURTLES. 


Auiyators and Crocodiles: Their Habits—Caymen, Gavials and Crocodiles—Mode of Seizing 
their Prey—Size of Alligators—Alligators on the Amazon—Alligator and Crane—Man- | 
Fating Alligators—Their Contests—Tenacity of Life—Laying their Eggs—Tenderness for 
their Young—Their Enemies—Torpidity in the Dry Season—“ Playing ’Possum.”—Tor- 
toises and Turtles: The Galapago Islands—The Elephantine Tortoise—Rate of Traveling— 
Marsh Tortoises—Manufacture of Tortoise Oil—Turtles on the Amazon—Sea-Turtles— 
Their Enemies—Modes of Capturing Turtles—The Green Turtle—The Hawksbill Turtle 
—Barbarous Modes of Removing the Shell, and Selling the Meat—The Coriaceous Turtle. 


HERE was a time, long before man appeared upon the scene, when huge croco- 
diles swarmed in the rivers of the temperate zone. But the day when the 
ferocious, bone-harnessed Saurians lorded it in these streams has passed, never to 
return ; the diminished warmth of what are now the temperate regions of the globe 
having long since confined them to the large rivers and lagunes of the torrid zone. 
The scourge and terror of all that lives in the waters which they frequent, they may 
with full justice be called the very images of depravity, as perhaps no animals ia 
existence bear in their countenance more decided marks of cruelty and malice. The 
depressed head, so significant of a low cerebral development; the vast maw, garnished 
with formidable rows of conical teeth, entirely made for snatch and swallow; the 
elongated mud-colored body, with its long lizard-like tail, resting on short legs, stamp 
them with a peculiar frightfulness, and proclaim the baseness of their instincts. The 
short-snouted, broad-headed Alligators, or Caymen, belong to the New World; the 
Gavials, distinguished by their straight, long, and narrow jaw, are exclusively Indian ; 
while the oblong-headed Crocodiles are not only found in Africa and Asia, but like- 
wise infest the swamps and rivers of America. All these animals, however, though 
different, in form and name, have everywhere similar habits and manners; so that, in 
general, what is remarked of the one may be applied to the others. 

Awkward and slow in their movements on the land, they are very active in the 
water, darting along with great rapidity by means of their strong muscular tail and 
their webbed hind feet. They sometimes bask in the sunbeams on the banks of the 
rivers, but oftener float on the surface, where, concealing their head and feet, they 
appear like the rough trunk of a tree, both in shape and color, and thus are enabled 
the more easily to deceive and catch their prey. In America, many a slow-paced 
Capybara, or Water-pig, coming in the dusk of evening to slake its thirst in the 
lagune, has been suddenly seized by this insidious foe; and the Gangetic Gavial is 
said to make even the tiger his prey. When the latter quits the thick cover of the 
jungle to drink at the stream, the Gavial, concealed under water, steals along the 


636 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


bank, and, suddenly emerging, furiously attacks the tiger, who never declines the 
combat ; and though in the struggle the Gavial frequently loses his eyes and receives 
dreadful wounds on the head, he at length drags his adversary into the water, and 
there devours him. 

On the American streams, the stillness of the night is often interrupted by the 
clacking of the alligator’s teeth, and the lashing of his tail upon the waters. The 
singular and awful sound of his voice can also readily be distinguished from that 
of all the other beasts of the wilderness. It is like a suppressed sigh, bursting forth 
all of a sudden, and so loud as to be heard above a mile off. First, one emits this 
horrible noise; then another answers him; and far and wide the repetition of the 
sound proclaims that the alligators are awake. 

As in the case of snakes, the size to which alligators and crocodiles attain is grossly 
exaggerated. Thorpe was gravely assured by a gentleman, “ not given to big stories,” 
that he once saw an alligator whose jaws opened at least five feet ; and another gentle- 
man, and a Congressman to boot, persisted that he’ once shot in the Bay of Pascagoula 
an alligator twenty-one feet long. But a planter of a scientific turn of mind, residing in 
the noted alligator region of the Red River in Arkansas for years, made a standing offer 
of a hundred dollars for an alligator dead or dlive, of more than twelve feet in length. 
It is probable that since the introduction of steamers upon the Mississippi, and its 
lower tributaries, that the alligator finds so many enemies that he is eut off before 
reaching his full stature; for Audubon expressly affirms that he saw one who he 
judged to be some centuries old, who measured seventeen feet in length. In his time 
these monsters must have had a jolly time of it in the Red River, where he often saw 
hundreds of them at once, the smaller ones riding on the backs of the larger, and all 
of them groaning and bellowing like so many mad bulls ready for a fight, and so ut- 
terly indifferent to the presence of man that, unless shot at, they would take no notice 
of a boat at a few yards’ distance. 

South America is yet a secure home of the alligator, where undisturbed by man 
he attains his full size. Orton in ascending the river Guayas on the western coast, 
says that* ‘‘ the chief representative of animal life is the lazy, ugly alligator. Large 
numbers of these monsters may be seen on the mud-bank basking in the hot sun, or 
asleep with their mouths wide open. But upon the Amazon they bear the palm for 
ugliness, size, and strength. In the summer the main river swarnis with them; in 
the wet season they retreat to the interior lakes and forests. About Obidos where 
many of the pools dry up in the fine months, the alligator buries itself in the mud, 
and sleeps till the rainy season returns. It is scarcely exaggerating to say that the 
waters of the Solimoens are as well stocked with large alligators in the dry season as 
a ditch with us is with tadpoles in the summer. There are three or four species in 
the Amazon. The largest, the Jucaré-wassé of the natives, attains a length of twenty 
feet. Sluggish on land, the alligator is very agile in its native element. It never 
attacks man when on his guard, but is cunning enough to know when it may do this 


with safety. It lays its eggs, about twenty, at some distance from the river bank, 


covering them with sticks. They are about four inches long, of an elliptical shape, 
with a rough calcareous shell. Negro venders sell them cooked in the streets of 
Para.”’ 

* The Andes and the Amazon, 35, 296 


ALLIGATOR’S MODE OF SEIZING ITS PREY. 637 


Thorpe gives an account of the alligator’s method of securing his prey :* “ The 
tail of the alligator is his most efficient weapon of defense and attack. If one can 
keep out of its way, comparatively little harm may be expected. If any animal that 
he seeks for his prey is standing upon the edge of the water, the reptile will take its 
bearing and swim noiselessly toward the shore, occasionally bringing an eye to the 
surface for reconnoissance, then suddenly rising within striking distance will whirl 
round his tail with lightning rapidity, and generally bring the victim into his jaws. 
I was fishing on one occasion upon the Bayou Sara, a wild, desolate stream, and on 
the opposite bank I noticed a tall crane which for half an hour had been standing 
perfectly still and half-leg deep in the water, either reflecting upon the mutability of 
ornithological affairs, or watching for minnows. My attention was also arrested by the 
apparent phenomenon of a limb of a tree taking upon itself motion, and cautiously 
moving down the bank of the bayou toward the crane. The alligator—for such it 
was—by a strange sidelong motion, gradually reached his prey, but seemed in no 
haste to seize it. Fora long while he appeared to be sleeping on the bank; when 
suddenly he contracted himself into a halfcircle around the bird, opened his jaws, 
and drove the bird into them with a terrible certainty, and then with a nimble spring 
disappeared beneath the muddy current.” 


ALLIGATOR AND CRANE. 


The statement of Orton, that alligators rarely attack man, is hardly borne out by 
other authorities. Indeed it is said that as in the case of the lion, when they have 
once tasted human flesh they prefer it to that of any other animal. During Hum- 
boldt’s stay at Angostura, a monstrous Cayman seized an Indian by the leg while he 
was busy pushing his boat ashore in a shallow lagune, and immediately dragged him 
down into the deeper water. The cries of the unfortunate victim soon attracted a 
large number of spectators, who witnessed the astonishing courage with which he 


je * Harper’s Magazine, December, 1854, 


628 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


searched in his pocket for a knife. Not finding the weapon, he then seized the reptile 
by the head, and pressed his fingers into its eyes—a method which saved Mungo 
Park’s negro from a similar fate. In this case, however, the monster did not let go 
his hold, but disappearing under the surface with the Indian, came up again with him 
as soon as he was drowned, and dragged the body to a neighboring island. ‘‘ One 
Sunday evening,” says Waterton, ‘‘as I was walking with Don Felipe de Yriarte, Goy- 
ernor of Angostura, on the bank of the Orinoco—‘ Stop here a minute or two,’ said 
he to me, ‘ while I recount a sad accident. One fine evening, last year, as the people 
of Angostura were sauntering up and down in the Alameda, I was within twenty 
yards of this place, when I saw a large Cayman rush out of the river, seize a man, 
and carry him down, before anybody had it in his power to assist him. The screams 
of the poor fellow were terrible, as the Cayman was running off with him. He plunged 
into the river with his prey ; we instantly lost sight of him, and never saw or heard 
him more.’ ’’? Humboldt also relates that, during the inundations of the Orinoco, alli- 
gators will sometimes make their appearance in the very streets of Angostura, where 
they have been known to attack and drag away a human prey. 

Even among each other, these ferocious animals frequently engage in deadly con- 
flict. Thus Schomburgk once saw a prodigiously large Cayman seize one of a 
smaller species by the middle of the body, so that the head and tail projected on both 
sides of its muzzle. Now both of them disappeared under the surface, so that only 
the agitated waters of the otherwise calm river announced the death-struggle going on 
beneath ; and then again the monsters reappeared, wildly beating the surface ; so that 
it was hardly possible to distinguish here a tail, or there a monstrous head, in the 
seething whirlpool. At length, however, the tumult subsided, and the large Cayman 
was seen leisurely swimming to a sand-bank, where he immediately began to feed 
upon his prey. 

The same traveler relates an interesting example of the Cayman’s tenacity of life. 
One of them having been wounded with a strong harpoon, was dragged upon a sand- 
bank. Here the rays of the sun seemed to infuse new life into the monster, for, 
awaking from his death-like torpidity, he suddenly snapped about him with such rage 
that Schomburgk and his assistants thought it prudent to retreat to a safer distance. 
Seizing a long pole, the bravest of the Indians now went towards the Cayman, who 
awaited the attack with wide-extended jaws, and plunged the stake deep into his maw 
—a morsel which the brute did not seem to relish. Meanwhile two other Indians 
approached him from behind, and kept striking him with thick clubs upon the extrem- 
ity of the tail. At every blow upon this sensitive part, the monster bounded in the 
air and extended his frightful jaws, which were each time immediately regaled with a 
fresh thrust of the pole. After a long and furious battle, the Cayman, who measured 
twelve feet in length, was at last slain. Another remarkable instance of the vitality 
of the common crocodile is mentioned by Sir E. Tennent. A gentleman at Galle 
having caught on a baited hook an unusually large one, it was disembowelled by his 
coolies, the aperture in the stomach being left expanded by a stick placed across it. 
On returning, in the afternoon, with a view to secure the head, they found that the 
creature had crawled for some distance, and made its escape into the water. 

Like the sea-turtles, the crocodiles generally deposit their eggs, which are about the 
size of those of a goose, and covered with a calcareous shell, in holes made in the 


ENEMIES OF THE ALLIGATOR. 639 


sand, leaving them to be hatched by the warm rays of the tropical sun. In some parts 
of America, however, they have been observed to resort to a more ingenious method, 
denoting a degree of provident instinct which could hardly have been expected in a 
cold-blooded reptile. Raising a small hillock on the banks of the river, and hollowing 
it out in the middle, they collect a quantity of leaves and other vegetable matters, in 
- which they deposit their eggs. These are covered with the leaves, and are hatched 
by the heat extricated during their putrefaction, along with that of the atmosphere. 

The female Cayman continues for some time after their birth to watch over her 
young with great care. One day, as Schomburgk, accompanied by an Indian, was 
busy fishing on the banks of the Essequibo, he suddenly heard in the water a strange 
noise, resembling the mewing of young cats. With eager curiosity he climbed along 
the trunk of a tree overhanging the river, about three feet above the water, and saw 
beneath him a brood of young alligators, about a foot and a half long. On his seizing 
and lifting one of them out of the water, the mother, a creature of prodigious size, sud- 
denly emerged with an appalling roar, making desperate efforts to reach her wriggling 
and screeching offspring, and increasing in rage every time Schomburgk tantalized her 
by holding it out to her. Having been wounded with an arrow, she retired for a few 
moments, and then again returned with redoubled fury, lashing the waters into foam by 
the repeated strokes of her tail. Schomburgk now cautiously retreated, as in case of a 
fall into the water below, he would have had but little reason to expect a friendly re- 
ception, the monster pertinaciously following him to the bank, but not deeming it ad- 
visable to land, as here it seemed to feel its helplessness. The scales of the captured 
young one were quite soft and pliable, as it was only a few days old, but it already had 
the peculiar musk-like smell which characterizes the full-grown reptile. 

The young of the crocodiles have no less numerous enemies than those of the 
snakes. Many an ego is destroyed in the hot sand by small carnivora, or birds, before 
it can be hatched; and as soon as the young creep out of the broken shell, and 
instinctively move to the waters, the Ichneumon—a kind of weasel, to whom, on this 
account, the ancient Kgyptians paid divine homage—or the long-legged Heron gobble 
up many of them, so that their span of life is short indeed. In the water they are not 
only the prey of various sharp-toothed fishes, but even of the males of their own spe- 
cies, while the females do all they can to protect them. Even the full-grown crocodile, 
in spite of its bony harness, is not exempt from attack. Thus, in the river of Tabasco, 
a tortoise of the genus Cinyzxis, after having been swallowed by the alligator, and, 
thanks to its shelly case, arriving unharmed in its stomach, is said to have eaten its 
way out again with its sharp beak, thus putting the monster to a most excruciating 
death. Even man not only kills the hideous reptiles in self-defence, or for the sake of 
sport, but for the purpose of regaling upon their flesh. In the Siamese markets and 
bazaars, crocodiles, large and small, may be seen hanging in the butchers’ stalls, instead 
of mutton or lamb; and Captain Stokes, who more than once supped off alligators 
steaks, informs us that the meat is by no means bad, and has a white appearance like 
veal. 

[have already mentioned, in the chapter on the Llanos, that in many tropical coun- 
tries the aridity of the dry season produces a similar torpidity in reptile life to that 
which is caused by the cold of winter in the higher latitudes. In Ceylon, when the 
water-courses begin to fail and the tanks become exhausted, the marsh-crocodiles are 


640 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


sometimes encountered wandering in search of water in the jungle ; but generally, 
during the extreme drought, they bury themselves in the sand where they remain in a 
state of torpor, till released by the recurrence of the rains. Sir Emerson Tennent, 
whilst riding across the parched bed of a tank, was shown the recess, still bearing the 
form and impress of the crocodile, out of which the animal had been seen to emerge 
the day before. A story was also related to him of an officer who, having pitched his 
tent in a similar position, had been disturbed during the night by feeling a movement 
of the earth below his bed. from which, on the following day, a crocodile emerged, 
making its appearance from beneath the matting. 

Like many other of the lower animals, the crocodile, when surprised, endeavors to 
save itself by feigning death. Sir Emerson Tennent relates an amusing anecdote 
of one that was found sleeping several hundred yards from the water. ‘‘ The terror 
of the poor wretch was extreme when he awoke and found himself discovered and 
completely surrounded. He was a hideous creature, upwards of ten feet long, and 
evidently of prodigious strength, had he been in a condition to exert it; but consterna- 
tion completely paralyzed him. He started to his feet, and turned round in a circle, 
hissing and clacking his bony jaws, with his ugly green eye intently fixed upon us. 
On being struck, he lay perfectly quiet and apparently dead. Presently he dooked 
round cunningly, and made a rush towards the water; but on a second blow he lay 
again motionless, and feigning death. We tried to rouse him, but without effect ; 
pulled his tail, slapped his back, struck his hard scales, and teased him in every way, 
but all in vain. Nothing would induce him to move, till, accidentally, my son, a boy 
of twelve years old, tickled him gently under the arm, and in an instant he drew it 
close to his side, and turned to avoid a repetition of the experiment. Again he was 
touched under the other arm, and the same emotion was exhibited, the great monster 
twisting about like an infant to avoid being tickled.” 


In the South Sea, exposed to the vertical beams of the equatorial sun, lies a large 
group of uninhabited islands, on whose sterile shores you would look in vain for the 
palms, bananas, or bread-fruit trees of more favored lands, as rain falls only upon 
the hights, and never descends to call forth plenty on the arid coasts. And yet this 
desolate group offers many points of interest to the naturalist, for the Galapagos or 
Tortoise Islands represent, as it were, a little world in themselves, a peculiar creation 
of animals and plants, reminding us, more strongly than the productions of any other 
land, of an earlier epoch of planetary life. Here are no less than twenty-six different 
species of land-birds, which, with one single exception, are found nowhere else. 
Their plumage is homely, like the flora of their native country; their tameness so 
great that they may be killed with a stick. A sea-mew, likewise peculiar to this 
group, mixes its shriek with the hoarse-resounding surge ; lizards, existing in no other 
country, swarm about the shore; and the gigantic land-tortoise (Zestudo indica, 
elephantina), although now spread over many other countries, is supposed by Mr. 
Darwin to have had its original seat in the Galapagos, where it was formerly found 
in such vast numbers as to have given the group its Spanish name. If the seafarer 
visits these treeless shores, which as yet produce nothing else worth gathering, it is 
chiefly for the purpose of catching a few of these huge animals, which, in spite of 
frequent persecutions, still amply reward a short sojourn with a rich supply of fresh 


TURTLES ON THE AMAZON. 641 


meat. Their capture costs nothing but the trouble, for man has not yet drawn the 
boundary marks of property over the tenantless land. The elephantine tortoise 
inhabits as well the low and sterile country, where it feeds on the fleshy leaves of the 
cactus, as the mountainous regions where the moist trade-wind calls forth a richer 
vegetation of ferns, grasses, and various trees. On this meagre food, which seems 
hardly sufficient for a goat, it thrives so well that three men are often scarcely able to 
lift it, and it not seldom furnishes more than 200 pounds of excellent meat. 

The tortoises, when moving towards any definite point, travel by night and day, 
and arrive at their journey’s end much sooner than would be expected. The inhabit- 
ants, from observations on marked individuals, consider that they can move a distance 
of about eight miles in two or three days. One large tortoise, which I watched, 
I found walked at the rate of sixty yards, in ten minutes, that is, three hundred and 
sixty in the hour, or four miles a day, allowing also a little time for it to eat on the 
road. The flesh of this animal is largely employed, both fresh and salted, and a beau- 
tifully clear oil is prepared from the fat. When a tortoise is caught, the man makes a 
slit in the skin near its tail, so as to see inside its body, whether the fat under the dor- 
sal plate is thick. If it is not, the animal is liberated, and it is said to recover soon 
from this strange operation. 

The marsh tortoises, or Hmyde, have their chief seat in tropical America and the 
Indian Archipelago, where an abundance of swamps, lagoons, lakes, pools, and gently- 
flowing rivers favors the increase of their numbers. They play an important part in 
the domestic economy of the Indians along the great streams of the New World, the 
deep rolling Orinoco or the thousand-armed Amazon. During the dry season, all 
the neighboring tribes are busy collecting the countless eggs which the cold-blooded 
creatures confide to the life-awakening powers of the heated sands: partly for their 
own consumption, and partly for the manufacture of oil. According to Herndon* from 
five to six thousand jars of mantega, or tortoise-oil are annually gathered on the banks 
of the Marafion. Each animal furnishes on an average eighty eggs, and forty tortoises 
are reckoned for each jar, which contains forty-five pounds, and is worth about six shil- 
lings on the spot. The manufacturing process, which is carried on in a most primitive 
manner, exhales an insupportable stench. The eggs, namely, are thrown into a boat, 
and trodden to pieces with the feet. The shells having been removed, the rest is left 
for several days to putrefy in the sun. The oil which collects on the surface of the de- 
composing mass is then skimmed off, and boiled in large kettles. The neighboring 
strand swarms with carrion vultures, and the smell of the offal attracts a number of 
alligators, all hoping to come in for their share of the feast. 

‘Turtles,’ says Orton,f ‘‘are perhaps the most important product of the Amazon. 
The largest and most abundant species is the Zortaruga grande. It measures, when 
full grown, nearly three feet in length and two in breadth. Every house has a little 
pond in the back yard to hold a stock of turtles in the wet season. It furnishes the 
best meat on the Upper Amazon. We found it very tender, palatable, and wholesome : 
those who are obliged to live on it for years, however, say that’ it is very cloying. Every 
part of the creature is turned to account. The entrails are made into soup; sausages 
are made of the stomach; steaks are cut from the breast, and the rest is roasted in the 
shell. The turtle lays its eges, generally between midnight and dawn, on the central 


* Exploration of the Valley of the Amazon. + The Andes and the Amazon, 297, 


642 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


and highest part of the islets in the river, or about a hundred feet from the shore. The 
Indians say it will lay only where itself was hatched out. With its hind flippers it digs 
a hole two or three feet deep, and deposits in it from eighty to one hundred and sixty 
eggs. These are covered with sand, and the next comer makes another deposit on 
the top, and so on until the pit is full. The Indians are very expert in finding the 
nests. Guided approximately by the tracks of the turtle, they thrust a stick into the 
sand, and whenever it goes down easily they commence digging with their hands, and 
invariably strike eggs. The turtles are caught for the table as they return to the river 
after laying their eggs. To secure them it suffices to turn them over on their backs. 
The turtles certainly have a hard time of it. Alligators and large fishes swallow the 
young ones by hundreds ; jaguars pounce upon the full grown ones as they crawl over 
the plains, and vultures and ibises attend the feast. But man is their most formidable 
foe. The destruction of turtle life on the Amazon is incredible. It is calculated that 
fifty millions of eggs are annually destroyed. Thousands of those that escape capture 
in the egg are collected as soon as hatched, and devoured ; the remains of the yolk in 
their entrails being considered a great delicacy. An unknown number of full-grown 
turtles are eaten by the natives on the banks, while every steamer, schooner and canoe 
that descends the Amazon is laden with turtles for the tables of Mandos, Santarem, 
aud Paré. When we consider also that all the mature turtles that are taken are 
females, we wonder that the race is not well-nigh extinct. They are in fact rapidly 
decreasing in numbers. A large turtle which twenty years ago could be bought for 
fifty cents, now commands three dollars. One would suppose that the males being 
unmolested, would far outnumber the other sex; but they are in fact immensely less 
numerous than the females.”’ : 

The marsh-tortoises may be said to form the connecting link between the eminently 
aquatic marine, and river chelonians and the land-tortoises, as the formation of their 
feet, armed with sharp claws or crooked nails, and furnished with a kind of flexible 
web, connecting their distinct and movable toes, allows them both to advance much 
quicker on the dry land than the latter, and to swim rapidly either on the surface or in 
the depth of the waters. According to the more or less terrestrial habits of the vari- 
ous species, the feet are more or less webbed, for in those that habitually remain on the 
banks of the lagoons, the connecting membrane is confined to the basis of the toes, while 
in others, that but rarely come on shore, it sometimes reaches to the extremity of the 
claws, another beautiful example of the foresight of the Almighty in adapting organic 
structure to the wants of His creatures. The marsh-tortoises, being endowed with 
more rapid power of locomotion, are not vegetarians like the land-tortoises, but chiefly 
live on mollusks, fishes, frogs, toads, and annelides. Although the eggs are palatable, 
the flesh is generally too coarse even for the craving appetite of an Indian. 

Sea turtles differ in many respects from those of the rivers. During the Brazilian 
summer (December, January, February), colossal turtles are seen everywhere swim- 
ming about along the coast, raising their thick round heads above the water, and wait- 
ing for the approach of night to land. The neighboring Indians are their bitterest 
enemies, killing them whenever they can. Thus these dreary sand coasts, bounded on 
one side by the ocean and on the other by gloomy primeval forests, offer on all sides 
pictures of destruction, for the bones and shells of slaughtered turtles everywhere be- 
strew the ground. Two parallel grooves indicate the path of the turtle after landing ; 


MODES OF CATCHING TURTLES. 643 


they are the marks of the four large and long fin-shaped feet or paddles, and between 
them may be seen a broad furrow where the heavy body trailed along the ground. On 
following these traces about thirty or forty yards shore-upwards, the huge animal may be 
found sitting in a flat excavation formed by its circular movements, and in which one- 
half of its body is imbedded. It allows itself to be handled on all sides without 
making the least attempt to move away, being probably taught by instinct how useless 
all endeavors to escape would be. A blowing or snorting like that of a goose when 
any one approaches its nest, at the same time inflating its neck a little, are the sole 
sions of defence which it exhibits. Similar scenes take place during the dry season, 
throughout the whole of the tropical zone, on every sandy, unfrequented coast : for the 
same instinct which prompts the salmon to swim stream-upwards, the cod to seek eleva- 
ted submarine banks, or the penguin to leave the high seas and settle for the sum- 
mer on some dreary rock, attracts also the turtles from distances of fifty or sixty 
leagues to the shores of desert islands or solitary bays. 

The enemies of the marine chelonians are no less numerous than those of the terres- 
trial or fluviatile species. While the full-grown turtles, as soon as they leave the 
water, are exposed to the attacks of many ravenous beasts, from the wild dog to the 
tiger or jaguar, storks, herons, and other strand or sea-birds devour thousands upon 
thousands of the young before they reach the ocean, where sharks and other greedy 
fishes still further thin their ranks, so that but very few escape from the general massa- 
cre, and the whole race can only maintain itself by its great fecundity. 

Of all the foes of the turtle tribe there is, however, none more formidable than 
man, as even on the most lonely islands the seafarer lies in wait, eager to relieve the 
monotony of his coarse fare by an abundant supply of their luscious flesh. On the 
Isle of Ascension, the head-quarters of the finest turtle in the world, all the move- 
ments of the poor creatures are carefully watched, and when, after having deposited 
their eggs in the sand, they waddle again towards the sea, their retreat is often inter- 
cepted, for two stout men running up to the unfortunate turtle after the completion 
of her task, one seizes a fore-flipper and dexterously shoves it under her belly, to serve 
as a purchase; whilst the other, avoiding a stroke which might lame him, cants her 
over on her back, where she lies helpless. From fifteen to thirty are thus turned in a 
night. In the bays, when the surf or heavy rollers prevent the boats being beached 
to take on board the turtles when caught, they are hauled out to them by ropes. 

The way by which the turtles are most commonly taken at the Bahama Islands is 
by striking them with a small iron peg of two inches long, put in a socket at the end 
of a staff of twelve feet long. Two men usually se‘ out for this work in a canoe, one 
to row and gently steer the boat, while the other stands at the end of it with his 
weapon. ‘The turtles are sometimes discovered by their swimming with their head 
and back out of the water, but they are more often seen lying at the bottom, a fathom 
or more deep. Ifa turtle perceives he is discovered, he starts up to make his escape; 
the men in the boat, pursuing him, endeavor to keep sight of him, which they often 
lose and recover again by the turtle putting his nose out of the water to breathe. 

On Keeling Island, Mr. Darwin witnessed another highly interesting method of 
eatching turtle: “The channel was exceedingly intricate, winding through fields of 
delicately-branched corals. We saw several turtles, and two boats were then em- 
ployed in catching them. The method is rather curious: the water is so clear and 


644 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


shallow that, although at first a turtle quickly dives out of sight, yet in a canoe, om 
boat under sail, the pursuers, after no very long chase, come up to it. A man, stand- 
ing ready in the bows, at this moment dashes through the water upon the turtle’s 
back ; then clinging with both hands by the shell of the neck, he is carried away till 
the animal becomes exhausted and is secured. It was quite an interesting chase to 
see the two boats thus doubling about, and the men dashing into the water trying to 
seize their prey.”’ 

The Green turtle (Chelonia midas), which has been known to attain a length of 
seven feet, and a weight of 900 lbs., is most prized for its flesh; but the Hawksbill 
( Chelonia imbricata), which hardly reaches one third of the size, is of far greater com- 
mercial value, the plates of its shell being stronger, thicker, and clearer than those of 
any other species. It is caught all over the tropical seas, but principally near the 
Moluccas, the West Indian and the Fiji Islands, where it is preserved in pens by the 
chiefs, who have a barbarous way of removing the valuable part of the shell from the 
living animal. A burning brand is held close to the outer shell, until it curls up and 
separates a little from that beneath. Into the gap thus formed a small wooden wedge 
is then inserted, by which the whole is easily removed from the back. When stripped, 
the animal is again put into the pen, where it has full time for the growth of a new 
shell—for though the operation appears to give great pain, it is not fatal. 

A similar cruel method of removing the tortoise’s shell by heat is resorted to in 
Ceylon ; but the mode in which the flesh of the edible turtle is sold piecemeal, while 
it is still alive, by the fishermen of that island, is still more repulsive, and a disgrace 
to the Colonial Government, which allows it to be openly practised. ‘‘ The creatures,”’ 
says Sir Emerson Tennent, ‘‘ are to be seen in the market-place undergoing this fright- 
fal mutilation, the plastron and its integuments having been previously removed, and 
the animal thrown on its back, so as to display all the motions of the heart, viscera, 
and lungs. A broad knife, from twelve to eighteen inches in length, is first inserted 
at the left side, and the women, who are generally the operators, introduce one hand 
to scoop out the blood, which oozes slowly. The blade is next passed round till the 
lower shell is detached and placed to one side, and the internal organs exposed in full 
action. Hach customer, as he applies, is served with any part selected, which is cut 
off as ordered, and sold by weight. ach of the fins is thus successively removed, 
with portions of the fat and flesh, the turtle showing by its contortions that each act 
of severance is productive of agony. In this state it lies for hours writhing in the 
sun, the heart and head being usually the last pieces selected ; and till the latter is 
cut off, the snapping of the mouth, and the opening and closing of the eyes, show that 
life is still inherent, even when the shell has been nearly divested of its contents.’’ 

The Coriaceous turtle (Sphargis coriacea), of a more elongated form than the other 
species, and whose outer covering, marked along its whole length by seven distinct, 
prominent, and tuberculated ridges, is not of a horny substance, but resembles strong 
leather, grows to the greatest size of all the marine chelonians, some having been taken 
above eight feet in length, and weighing no less than 1,600 lbs., so that even the 
crocodile can hardly be compared to it in bulk. While the land-tortoises can scarcely 
be said to have a voice, merely hissing or blowing when irritated or seized, the coria- 
ceous turtle, when taken in a net or seriously wounded, utters loud shrieks or cries 
which may be heard at a considerable distance. 


BIRDS OF THE TROPICAL WORLD. 645 


CHAPTER XII. 
BIRD-LIFE IN THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


Difficulties of the Subject— Wide Range of Birds—The Toucan—Humming-Birds—Cotingas 
—The Campanero, or Bell-Bird—The Realejo, or Organ-Bird—The Manakins—The Cock 
of the Rock—The Troopials—The Baltimore Oriole—The Cassiques—The Mocking-Bird 
—The Toropishu—The Tunqui—Goat-Suckers—The Cilgero—Flamingos—The Ibis— 
Spoon-Bills—Birds of the New and the Old World—Sun-Birds—Honey-Eaters—The Ocel- 
lated Turkey—The Lyre-Bird—Birds of Paradise—Fables respecting them—Their Char- 
acter and Habits—Their Dancing-Parties—Mode of Shooting and Snaring them—The 
Australian Bower-Bird—The Brush-Turkey—The Adjutant—The Copper-Smith—The 
Indian Baya—The Tailor-Bird—The Grosbeak—The Korwé—Parrots—The Brazilian 
Love-Parrot—Their Powers of Mimicry—Cockatoos—Macaws—The Ara—Paroquets— 
The Ostrich—His Swiftness of Foot—Modes of Capturing it—Stratagems to Save its Young 
—its Enemies—Its Young—Resemblance to the Camel—Its Powers of Digestion—Uses of 
its Eggs—The Rheas—The Cassowary—The Emu. 


SEFUL in many respects to man, no class of animals are more agreeable to 
him than that of birds, whether they are considered for the beauty of their 
plumage, the grace of their movements, the melody of their voice, or the ingenuity 
with which they construct their nests. Their study forms one of the most attractive 
departments in the range of natural history. But it is also one of the most difficult, 
especially in regions which are covered with dense and matted forests. Thus it is by 
no means surprising that so many secrets yet veil the life of tropical birds, and com- 
paratively little is known of their habits and modes of existence. We can hope only 
to present a few of the salient features of bird-life in the tropics, reserving for another 
chapter the birds of prey. 

Many families of birds have a wide range over the whole earth. Falcons hover 
over the Siberian fir-woods as over the palm-forests of the Amazon. In every 
zone are found woodpeckers, owls, and martins; while thrushes enliven with their 
song both the shades of the beech-woods and the twilight of the cocoa-nut groves. In 
the north and in the south, fly-catchers carry destruction among the numerous insect 
tribes ; in every latitude, crows cleanse the fields of vermin; and swallows, pigeons, 
ducks, gulls, petrels, divers, and plovers frequent the fields and lakes, the banks and 
shores, in all parts of the world. 

Thus the class of birds shows us a great similarity in the distribution of its various 
forms all over the earth; and we find the same resemblance extending also to their 
mode of life, their manners, and their voice. The woodpeckers make everywhere the 
forest resound with the same clear note, and the birds of prey possess in every clime 
the same rough screech so consonant to their habits, while a soft cooing everywhere 
characterizes the pigeon-tribes. But, notwithstanding this general uniformity and this 


646 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


wide range of many families of birds, each zone has at the same time its peculiar orni- 
thological features, that blend harmoniously with the surrounding world of plants and 
animals, and, taking a prominent part in the aspect of nature, at once attract the atten- 
tion of the stranger. In this respect, as in so many others, the warmer regions of the 
globe have a great advantage over those of the temperate and glacial zones; and here, 
where warmth and moisture call forth an exuberant vegetation, they produce an equal 
multiplicity of animal forms, among which many birds rival the most gorgeous flowers 
by the splendor of their plumage. 

On turning to each continent in particular, we again find each endowed with its 
peculiar genera of birds, and thus, though tropical America has many of its feathered 
tribes in common with the torrid zone of the Old World, it enjoys the exclusive pos: 
session of the Toucans, Colibris, Crotophagi, Jacamars, Anis, Dendrocolaptes, Mana- 
kins, and Tangaras; while the Calaos, the Souimangas, the Birds of Paradise, and 
many others, are confined to the eastern hemisphere. A complete review of all these 
various forms of the feathered creation would fill volumes. My narrow limits neces- 
sarily confine me to a brief account of those tribes which are either the most remark- 
able, or the most widely different from the birds which we are accustomed to see in the 
temperate zones. 

By their enormous bill, which might seem rather adapted to a bird of ostrich-like 
dimensions than to one not much larger than a crow, the toucans are distinguished 
from all the other feathered races of America. The use of this enormous beak puzzles 
naturalists. ‘‘ How astonishing are the freaks of nature,’’ writes Sydney Smith. “To 
what purpose, we say, isa bird placed in the woods of Cayenne, with a bill a yard long, 
making a noise like a puppy-dog, and laying eggs in hollow trees? The toucan, to be 
sure, might retort, ‘To what purpose are certain foolish, prating members of Parliament 
created, pestering the House with their ignorance and folly, and impeding the business 
of the country?’ There is no end to such questions ; so we will not enter into the 
metaphysics of the toucan.” The bill, though certainly much less than a yard long, 
is big enough to give the bird a very awkward appearance ; but the beauty of its col- 
oring soon reconciles the eye to its disproportionate size: for the brightest red, varie- 
gated with black and yellow stripes on the upper mandible, and a stripe of the liveliest 
sky-blue on the lower, contribute to adorn the bill of the Bouradi, as one of the three 
toucan species of Guiana is called by the Indians. Unfortunately, these briiliant 
tints fade after death. The plumage of this strange bird rivals the beak in beauty of 
coloring, and the feathers are frequently used as ornaments by the Brazilian ladies, ag 
well as by the Indian tribes that roam through the vast forests of South America. The 
toucans are generally seen in small flocks or troops, and from this it might be supposed 
they were gregarious; ‘‘ but upon a closer examination,” says Waterton, “ you will find 
it has only been a dinner-party which breaks up and disperses towards roosting-time.”” 
While thus assembled, discord never ceases to reign, for there is hardly a more quarrel- 
some and imperious bird than the toucan. A bird with so strange a beak must natu- 
rally be expected to feed and drink in a strange manner. When the toucan has seized 
a morsel, he throws it into the air and lets it fall into his throat; when drinking, he 
dips the point of his mandibles into the water, fills them by a powerful inspiration, and 
then throws back the head by starts. The tongue is also of a very singular form, 
being narrow and elongated, and laterally barbed like a feather. The toucans are very 


TOUCANS—HUMMING-BIRDS—BELL-BIRDS. 647 


noisy birds. In rainy weather their clamor is heard at all hours of the day, and in 
fair weather at morning and evening. The sound which the Bouradi makes is like the 
clear yelping of a puppy dog, and you fancy he says ‘‘ pia-po-o-co,”’ and thus the 
South American Spaniards call him Piapoco. 

To paint the Humming-bird with colors worthy of its beauty, would be a task as 
difficult as to fix on canvas the glowing tints of the rainbow, or the glories of the 
setting sun. The Indians of the Amazon call it “a living sun-beam.” Unrivalled 
in the metallic brilliancy of its plumage, it may truly be called the bird of paradise; 
and had it existed in the Old World it would no doubt have claimed the title instead of 
the splendid bird which has now the honor to bear it. See with what lightning speed 
it darts from flower to flower ; now hovering for an instant before you, as if to give youan 
opportunity of admiring its surpassing beauty, and now again vanishing with the ra- 
_ pidity of thought. But do not fancy that these winged jewels of the air, buzzing 
like bees round the blossoms less gorgeous than themselves, live entirely on the honey- 
dew collected within their petals; for on opening the stomach of one of them, dead 
insects are almost always found there, which its long and slender beak, and cloven ex- 
tensile tongue, like that of the woodpecker, enable it to catch at the very bottom of 
the tubular corollas. 

The torrid zone is the chief seat of the humming-birds, but in summer they wander 
far beyond its bounds, and follow the sun in his annual declensions to the poles. Thus, 
in the north, they appear as flying visitors on the borders of the Canadian lakes, and 
on the southern coast of the peninsula of Alaska; while in the southern hemisphere 
they roam as far as Patagonia, and even as Tierra del Fuego; visiting in the northern 
hemisphere the confines of the walrus, and reaching in the south the regions of the 
penguins and the lion-seal ; advancing towards the higher latitudes with the advance 
of summer, and again retreating at the approach of autumn. All attempts to. trans- 
port them alive to Kurope have hitherto been fruitless. Latham relates that a young 
man cut off the branch on which a humming-bird was breeding, and took it on board 
the ship which conveyed him to England. The mother soon grew tame, and took the 
biscuit and honey, that was offered her ; she also c6ntinued to breed during the pas- 
sage, but died as soon as the young crept out of the shell. These came alive to Eng- 
land, and withstood during two months the uncongenial climate. 

Next to the humming-birds the Cotingas display the gayest plumage. They are, 
however, not often seen, for they lead a solitary life in the moist and shadowy forests, 
where they feed on the various seeds and fruits of the woods. One species is attired 
in burning scarlet, others in purple and blue, but they are all so splendidly adorned 
that it would be difficult to say which of them deserved the prize for beauty. Most 
of the Cotingas have no song; the nearly related snow-white Campanero or Bell-Bird, 
however, amply makes up for the deficient voice of his cousins, by the singularity and 
sweetness of his note. He is about the size of a jay. On his forehead rises a singu- 
lar spiral tube nearly three inches long. It is jet black, dotted all over with small 
white feathers. It has a communication with the palate, and when filled with air looks 
like a spire, when empty it becomes pendulous. ‘‘ His note is loud and clear, like the 
sound of a bell, and may be heard at the distance of three miles,” says Waterton. 
“Three miles!” exclaims Sydney Smith, dubiously ; ‘‘ this little bird being more pow- 
erful than the belfry of a cathedral ringing for a new dean! It is impossible to con- 


648 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


tradict a gentleman who has been in Cayenne; but we are determined as soon as 4 
Campanero is brought to England, to make him toll in a public place, and have the 
distance measured.”” ‘‘In the midst of these extensive wilds,’’ continues Waterton, 
‘generally on the dried top of an aged mora, almost out of gun-reach, you will see the 
Campanero. No sound or song from any of the winged inhabitants of the forest. 
causes such astonishment as his toll. With many of the feathered race he pays the 
common tribute of a song to early morn, and even when the meridian sun has shut in 
silence the mouths of almost the whole of animated nature, the Campanero still cheers 
the forest; you hear his toll, and then a pause for a minute; then another toll, and 
then a pause again, and then a toll and again a pause. Then he is silent for six or 
eight minutes, and then another toll, and soon. He is never seen to feed with the other 
Cotingas, nor is it known in what part of Guiana he makes his nest.”” But the most 
remarkable songster of the Amazonian forest is the Realejo, or Organ-Bird. Its notes 
are as musical as the flageolet. It is the only songster which makes any impression 
on the natives. 

In the deep forests, which they never quit for the open plains, reside the Manakins 
(Pipra,) pretty little birds, whose largest species scarcely attain the dimensions of the 
sparrow, while the smallest are hardly equal to the wren. The plumage of the full- 
grown male is always black, enlivened by brilliant colors, that of the female and of the 
young birds greenish. Their flight is rapid but short, and they generally roost on the 
middle branches of the trees. In the morning they unite in little troops, and seek 
their food, which consists of insects, and small fruit, uttering at the same time their 
weak but melodious notes. As the day advances they separate and seek the deepest 
forest-shades, where they live in solitude and silence. 

The famous orange-colored Cock of the Rock of Guiana (Rupicola aurantia,) which 
owes its name to its comb-like crest, is nearly related to the manakins. It is a great 
rarity, even in its own country, and as it dwells in the most secluded forests, is but sel- 
dom seen by travelers. Schomburgk relates the following wonderful story of the bird, 
which, if not proceeding from so trustworthy a source, might almost be considered fab- 
ulous. ‘‘A troop of these beautiful birds was celebrating its dances on the smooth 
surface of a rock; about a score of them were seated on the branches as spectators, 
while one of the male birds, with proud self-confidence, and spreading tail and wings, 
was dancing on the rock. He scratched the ground or leaped vertically into the air, 
continuing these saltatory movements until he was tired, when another male took his 
place. The females, meanwhile, looked on attentively, and applauded the performance 
of the dancers with laudatory cries. As the feathers are highly prized, the Indians lay 
in wait with their blow-pipes near the places where the Rupicolas are known to dance. 
When once the ball has begun, the birds are so absorbed by their amusement, that the 
hunter has full time to shoot down several of the spectators with his poisoned arrows, 
before the rest take the alarm.”’ 

On penetrating into the wilds of Guiana, the pretty songsters called Troopials, pour 
forth a variety of sweet and plaintive notes. Resembling the starling by their habits, 
they unite in troops, and live on insects, berries, and seeds. The Variegated Troopial 
( Oriolus varius) displays a wonderful instinct in the construction of his nest, which he 
generally builds on fruit-trees ; but when circumstances force him to select a tree whose 
branches have far less solidity, as, for instance, the weeping-willow, his instinct almost 


TROOPIALS—ORIOLES—CASSIQUES—THE MOCKING-BIRD. 649 


rises to a higher intelligence. First, he binds together, by means of bits of straw, the 
small and flexible branches of the willow, and thus forms a kind of conical basket in 
which he places his nest, and instead of the usual hemispherical form, he gives it a more 
elongated shape, and makes it of a looser tissue, so as to render it more elastic and bet- 
ter able to conform to the movements of the branches when agitated by the wind. 

The neat little black and orange Baltimore Oriole (/cterus Baltimore) constructs a 
still more marvellous nest on the tulip trees, on whose leaves and flowers he seeks the 
caterpillars and beetles which constitute his principal food. When the time comes for 
preparing it, the male picks up a filament of the 7illandsia usneordes and attaches it 
by its two extremities to two neighboring branches. Soon after, the female comes, 
inspects his work, and places another fibre across that of her companion. Thus by 
their alternate labors a net is formed, which soon assumes the shape of a nest, and as 
it advances towards its completion, the affection of the tender couple seems to increase. 
The tissue is so loose as to allow the air to pass through its meshes, and as the parents 
know that the excessive heat of summer would incommo‘e their young, they suspend 
their nest so as to catch the cooler breeze of the north-east when breeding in Louisi- 
ana; while in more temperate regions, such as Pennsylvania and New York, they 
always give it a southern exposure, and take care to line it with wool or cotton. Their 
movements are uncommonly graceful; their song is sweet; they migrate in winter 
towards more southerly regions, Mexico or Brazil, and return after the equinox to the 
United States. 

The Cassiques, which are nearly related to the troopials or orioles, are no less remark- 
able for their architectural skill. They suspend their large pendulous nests, which are 
often above four feet long, at the extremities of branches of palm trees, as far as pos- 
sible from all enemies that might by climbing reach the brood, often choosing, for still 
further protection, trees on which the wasps or maribondas have already built their nests, 
as these are adversaries whose sharp stings no tiger-cat or reptile would desire to face. 
The nest of the Cassicus cristatus is artificially woven of lichens, bark-fibres, and the 
filaments of the tillandsias, while that of the Tupuba (Cassicus ruber), which is 
always suspended over the water, consists of dry grasses, and has a slanting opening 
in the side, so that no rain can penetrate it. On passing under a tree, which often 
contains hundreds of e¢assique nests, one cannot help stopping to admire them, as they 
wave to and fro, the sport of every storm and breeze, and yet so well constructed as 
rarely to be injured by the wind. Often numbers of one species may be seen weaving 
their nests on one side of a tree, while numbers of another species are busy forming 
theirs on the opposite side of the same plant; and what is, perhaps, even still more 
wonderful than their architectural skill, though such near neighbors, the females are 
never observed to quarrel ! 

The Cassicus persicus, a small black and yellow bird, somewhat larger than the 
starling, has been named the Mocking-Bird, from his wonderful imitative powers. He 
courts the society of man, and generally takes his station on a tree close to his house, 
where for hours together he pours forth a succession of ever-varying notes. If a 
toucan be yelping in the neighborhood, he immediately drops his own sweet song, and 
answers him in equal strain. Then he will amuse his audience with the cries of the 
different species of the woodpecker, and when the sheep bleat he will distinctly answer 
them. Then comes his own song again, and if a puppy dog or a guinea fowl interrupt 


650 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


him, he takes them off admirably, and by his different gestures during tke time, you 
would conclude that he enjoys the sport. 

Wild and strange are the voices of many of the American forest-birds. In the 
Peruvian woods the black Toropishu (Cephalopterus ornatus) makes the thicket re- 
sound with his hoarse ery, resembling the distant lowing of a bull; and in the same 
regions the fiery-red and black-winged Tunqui (Rupicola Peruviana) sends forth a 
note, which might readily be mistaken for the grunting of a hog, and strangely con- 
trasts with the brilliancy of his plumage. But of all the startling cries that issue 
from the depths of the forest, none is more remarkable than the Goatsucker’s lament- 
able wail. ‘Suppose yourself in hopeless sorrow,” says Waterton, “ begin with a 
high loud note, and pronounce ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! each note lower and lower till the 
last is scarcely heard, pausing a moment or two between every note, and you will have 
some idea of the mourning of the largest goatsucker in Demarara. Four other species of 
goatsucker articulate some words so distinctly, that they have received their names from 
the sentences they utter, and absolutely bewilder the stranger on his arrival in these parts. 
The most common one sits down close by your door, and flies or alights three or four 
yards before you, as you walk along the road, crying, ‘‘ Who are you, who-who-who- 
who are you?” . Another bids you, “ Work away, work-work-work away.” <A third 
cries mournfully, “ Willy come go, Willy-Willy-Willy come go.”’ And high up in 
the country, a fourth tells you to, “‘ Whip-poor-Will, whip-whip-whip poor- Will.” 

While the goatsucker makes the forest resound with his funereal tones, other birds 
of the forest pour forth the sweetest notes. Dressed in a sober cinnamon brown robe, 
with blackish olive-colored head and neck, the Organist ( Zroglodytes leucophrys) en- 
livens the solitude of the Peruvian forests. The astonished wanderer stops to listen 
to the strain, and forgets the impending storm. The Cilgero, a no less delightful song- 
ster, frequents the mountain regions of Cuba, and the beauty of his notes may be 
inferred from the extravagant price of several hundred dollars, which the rich Hav- 
anese are ready to pay for a captive bird. 

The same beauty of plumage which characterizes so many of the American forest- 
birds, adorns, likewise, the feathered tribes of the swamp and the morass, of the river 
and the lake. Nothing can exceed in beauty a troop of deep red Flamingos (Pheni- 
copterus ruber) on the green margin of a stream. Raised on enormous stilts, and 
with an equally disproportionate length of neck, the flamingos would be reckoned 
among the most uncouth birds, if their splendid robe did not entitle them to rank 
among the most beautiful. They always live in troops, and range themselves, whether 
fishing or resting, like soldiers, in long lines. One of the number acts as sentinel, and 
on the approach of danger gives a warning scream, like the sound of a trumpet, when, 
instantly, the whole troop, expanding their flaming wings, rise loudly clamoring into the 
air. These strange-formed birds build in the swamps high conical nests of mud, in 
the shape of a hillock with a cavity at top, in which the female generally lays two 
white eggs of the size of those of a goose, but more elongated. The rude construc- 
tion is sufficiently high to admit of her sitting on it conveniently, or rather riding, as 
the legs are placed on each side at full length. Their mode of feeding is no less 
remarkable. Twisting their neck in such a manner that the upper part of their bill is 
applied to the ground, they at the same time disturb the mud with one of their webbed: 
feet, thus raising up from the water insects and spawn, on which they chiefly subsist. 


TROPICAL BIRDS OF BOTH HEMISPHERES. 651 


The Rose colored Flamingo, with red wings and black quills, adorns the creeks and 
rivers of tropical Africa and Asia, and in warm summers extends his migrations as far 
northwards as Strasburg on the Rhine. The sight of a troop of flamingos approach- 
ing on the wing, and describing a great fiery triangle in the air, is singularly majestic. 
When about to descend, their flight becomes slower, they hover for a moment, then 
their evolutions trace a conical spire, and, finally alighting, they immediately arrange 
themselves in long array, place their sentinels, and begin their fishing operations. 

The scarlet American Ibis, with black-tipped wings, though inferior in size to his 

‘celebrated cousin, the sacred bird of the Egyptians, far surpasses him in beauty. Six 

feet high, stately as a grenadier of the guards, the American Jabiru stalks along the 
banks of the morasses. His plumage is white, but his neck and head are black, like 
his long legs; his conical, sharp, and powerful black bill, is a little recurved, while 
that of the stork, to whom he is closely related, is straight. He destroys an incred- 
ible number of reptiles and fishes, and, being very shy, is difficult to kill, Two sim- 
ilar species, respectively inhabit Western Africa and Australasia. The roseate American 
Spoon-bill is particularly remarkable for his curious large beak, dilating at the top 
into a broad spoon or spatula, which, though not possessed of great power, renders 
him excellent service in disturbing the mud and seizing the little reptiles and worms 
he delights to feed on. The Jacana possesses enormously long and slender toes, armed 
with equally long spine-like claws. While pacing the ground they seem as inconvenient 
as the snow-shoes of a Laplander, and yet nothing can be more suitable for a bird des- 
tined to stalk over the floating leaves of the Nelumbos and Nympheas, and to seek 
for water insects on this unstable foundation. The jacana is found all over tropical 
America, and is also called the “ Surgeon,” from the nail of his hinder toe being sharp 
and pointed like a lancet. 

All these strange and wondrous birds, and numberless others, whose mere enumer. 
ation would be fatiguing to the reader, justify the ornithological reputation of the woods 
and swamps of tropical America. And indeed the feathered races nowhere find a richer 
field for their development than here, where the vegetable world revels in luxuriant 
growth ; and myriads of insects, peopling the forest, the field, and the water, furnish 
each kind according to its wants with an inexhaustible supply of food. The cireum- 
stance that man but thinly inhabits these wilds, is another reason which favors the mul- 
tiplication of the feathered tribes ; for, in Europe also, birds would no doubt be far 
more numerous, if the farmer, the sportsman, and so many other enemies were not 
continually thinning their ranks. To these elements of destruction they are far less 
exposed in tropical America, and being comparatively but little disturbed, they reign, 
as it were, over the forest and the open field, over the mountain and the plain, over the 
river and the leke. 

Although in the torrid zone we hardly ever meet with a single aboriginal species of 
plant or animal common to both hemispheres, yet the analogy of climate everywhere 
produces analogous organic forms, and when on surveying the feathered tribes of 
America, we are struck by any bird remarkable for its singularity of shape or mode of 
life, we may expect to find its representative in Asia, Africa, or Australia. Thus the 
enormous beak of the toucan is emulated or surpassed by that of the Indian Calao, or 
Rhinoceros Hornbill, whose twelve-inch long, curved, and sharp-pointed bill is, moreover, 
surmounted with an immense appendage, in the form of a reverted horn, the use of 


652 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


which belongs as yet to the secrets of nature. While the toucans are distinguished by 
a gaudy plumage, the calaos are almost entirely decked with a robe black \as that of 
the raven, and enhancing the beautiful red and orange colors of their colossal beak. 
Generally congregating in small troops like the toucans, they inhabit the dense forests, 
where they live chiefly on fruits, seeds, and insects, which they also swallow whole, 
throwing them up into the air and catching them as they fall. The clapping together of 
their mandibles causes a loud and peculiar noise, which towards evening interrupts the 
silence of the forest. The flight of a bird burdened with such a load must naturally be 
short : they hop upon their thick clumsy feet, and generally roost upon the highest trees. 

The brilliant Sun-birds or Suimangas ( Cinnyris,) belonging to the order of the Cer- 
thias or creepers, are the colibris of the old world, equally ethereal, gay, and sprightly 
in their motions, flitting briskly from flower to flower, and assuming a thousand lively 
and agreeable attitudes. As the sunbeams glitter on their bodies, they sparkle like so 
many gems. As they hover about the honey-laden blossoms, they vibrate rapidly their 
tiny pinions, producing in the air a slight whirring sound, but not so loud as the hum- 
ming noise produced by the wings of the colibris. Thrusting their slender beaks into 
the deep-cupped flowers, they probe them with their brush-like tongues for insects and 
nectar. Some are emerald green, some vivid violet, others yellow with a crimson wing, 
and rivalling the colibris by the metallic lustre of their plumage, they surpass them by 
their musical powers, for while the latter can only hum, the sun-birds accompany their 
movements with an agreeable chirp. 

The nearly-related Melithreptes, or Honey-eaters of the South Sea Islands, distin- 
guished by a very long curved beak, and a tongue split into two slender filaments, fur- 
nish the chief ornaments of the Polynesian kings and chieftains. Thus the famous 
royal mantle of Taméhaméha the Great is completely covered with the golden plumage 
of the Melithreptes pacificus, and as this not very common brown-colored bird has only 
three or four yellow feathers in each wing, it may easily be conceived that the most 
costly brocades of Lyons are far from equalling in value this splendid robe of state, 
which is no less than ten feet long and seven feet broad. Even the small diadems 
made of the feathers of this bird, which are worn by the ladies of rank in the Sandwich 
Islands, are worth several hundred dollars. Idols or mantles of the Polynesians, deco- 
rated with the scarlet feathers of the Mdelithreptes vestiarius are frequently met with 
in ethnographical museums. 

While the superb Ocellated Turkey of Honduras (Meleagris ocellata) displays with 
all the pride of a peacock, the eye-like marks of his tail and upper coverts, the no less 
beautifully spotted Argus, a bird nearly related to the gold and silver pheasants which 
have been introduced from China into the European aviaries, conceals bis splendor in 
the dense forests of Java and Sumatra. The wings of this magnificent creature, 
whose plumage is equally remarkable for variety and elegance, consist of very large 
feathers, nearly three feet long, the outer webs being adorned with a row of large eyes, 
arranged parallel to the shaft ; the tail is composed of twelve feathers, the two middle 
ones being about four fect in length, the next scarcely two,and gradually shortening 
to the outer ones. Its voice is plaintive and not harsh, as in the Indian peacock, which 
Alexander the Great is said to have first introduced into Hurope, though its feathers 
had many centuries before been imported by the Phoenicians. The Peacock is still 
found wild in many parts of Asia and Africa, but more particularly in the fertile plains 


THE LYRE-BIRD—BIRDS OF PARADISE. 653 


of India. Another species, nearly similar in size and proportions, but distinguished by 
a much longer crest, inhabits the Javanese forests. 

Though of less dazzling splendor than this peacock’s tail, that of the Menura, or 
Lyre-bird, is unrivalled for its elegance. Fancy two large, broad, black and brown- 
striped feathers, curved in the form of a Grecian lyre, and between both, other feath- 
ers whose widely-distanced silken barbs envelope and surmount them with a light and 
airy gauze. No painter could possibly have imagined anything to equal this master- 
piece of nature, which its shy possessor conceals in the wild bushes of Australia. 

The lyre-bird is constantly engaged in traversing the brush from mountain top 
to the bottom of the gullies, whose steep and rugged sides present no obstacle to 
its long legs and powerful muscular thighs. When running quickly through the 
brush, it carries the tail horizontally, that being the only position in which it could be 
borne at such times. Besides its loud, full cry, which may be heard at a great distance, 
it has an inward and varied song, the lower notes of which can only be heard when 
you have stealthily approached to within a few yards of the bird when it is singing. 
Its habits appear to be solitary, seldom more than a pair being seen together. It 
constructs a large nest, formed on the outside of sticks and twigs, like that of a magpie, 
and lined with the inner bark of trees and fibrous roots. | 

But of all the tropical birds there are none so absolutely distinctive of the equatorial 
regions as the Birds of Paradise, which are found only in some of the islands of the 
Malay Archipelago. Until about 1868 really nothing was known to Europeans 
respecting these birds, which in gorgeousness of coloring and elegance of form and 
plumage surpass all others. Stuffed skins of these birds, curiously prepared, have 
long been found in European museums, and from these the strangest descriptions have 
been given, which still find place in books upon Natural History. When the early 
navigators reached the Moluccas in search of cloves and nutmegs, they were presented 
with dried skins of a kind of bird so beautiful as to excite even their wonder and 
admiration. Malay traders called them ‘‘God’s Birds,” and the Portuguese re-named 
them ‘‘ Birds of the Sun.”’ A learned Dutchman, who wrote in Latin, gave them the 
name which they now bear. These skins were always without feet or wings, and it 
was said, and currently believed, that no one had ever seen one of them alive; that 
they lived only in the air, and, being destitute of feet, never alighted; but as they 
were equally without wings, how they managed to keep afloat in the air was a mystery 
of which no solution was attempted. It was not till generations had passed that it 
was discovered that the natives, in preparing the skins, cut off their very serviceable 
legs and wings, and so arranged what was left as to give the greatest possible promi- 
nence to their flowing tail-plumage. One fable was thus displaced; but everything 
else remained unknown. 

In 1862 Mr. Alfred Russell Wallace, an English naturalist, set himself seriously at 
work to investigate the Natural History of the Malay Islands; and to his work,* 
published in 1868, which we have already had frequent occasion to cite, we are 
indebted for about all that is really known respecting the Birds of Paradise; and this 
cost him five successive voyages, each occupying in preparation and execution nearly a 
year. He describes and illustrates eighteen different species. In all of these, it must 
be borne in mind that the brilliant colors and remarkable plumage belong to the 


* The Malay Archipelago. 
49 


654 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


males ; the females being throughout very plain looking personages. ‘The Birds of 
Paradise,’ he says, ‘‘are a group of moderate-sized birds, allied in structure and 
habits to crows and starlings; but they are characterized by extraordinary develop- 
ments of plumage which are unequaled by any other family of birds. In several 


AW 
i 


WY 48 
Val 
= 


NATIVES OF ARU SHOOTING THE GREAT BIRD OF PARADISE. 


species large tufts of delicate, bright-colored feathers spring from each sidé of the body 
beneath the wings, forming trains, fans, or shields; and the middle feathers of the tail 
are often elongated into wires, twisted into the most fantastic shapes, or adorned with 
the most brilliant metallic tints. In another set of species these accessory plumes 


) 


BIRDS OF PARADISE—THE BOWER-BIRD. 655 


spring from the head, the back, or the shoulders; while the intensity of color and 
of metallic lustre displayed by their plumage is not to be equaled by any other birds, 
except perhaps by the Humming-birds, and is not surpassed even by these.” 

Of the eighteen species described by Mr. Wallace, perhaps the most remarkable is 
the great Bird of Paradise (Paradisea apoda) which measures seventeen or eighteen 
inches from the beak to the tip of the tail. The body, wings, and tail are brown, 
deepening on the breast to purple. The head is yellow, the throat of emerald green. 
From each side of the body, beneath the wings, springs a dense tuft of long delicate 
plumes, sometimes two feet in length, of the most intense golden-orange color, very 
glossy, but changing towards the tips into a pale brown. This tuft of plumage can 
be elevated and spread out at pleasure, so as almost to conceal the body of the bird. 
They moult in January and February; and are in full plumage in May. At this 
time the males assemble early in the morning to exhibit themselves in a singular man- 
ner which the natives call their ‘ Saccleli’”’ or dancing-parties. The ball-room is a 
huge tree, whose wide branches afford them abundant space for display. On one of 
these trees a score of males will assemble, raise their wings, and keep them in constant 
vibration ; flying now and then from branch to branch, so that the whole tree is alive 
with their waving plumes. When at the utmost point of excitement, the wings are 
raised over the head, the plumes expanded until they form two magnificent fans, over- 
shadowing the whole body, while the yellow head and green throat form.a foundation 
and support for the golden glory which waves above. When seen in this attitude the 
Bird of Paradise really deserves its name, and must be ranked as one of the most 
- beautiful of living things. 

This habit enables the natives of Aru to obtain specimens with more ease. As soon 
as they find that the birds have fixed upon a tree on which to assemble, they build a 
little shelter of palm-leaves in a convenient place among the branches, and the hunter 
ensconces himself in it before daylight, armed with his bow and a number of arrows 
terminating in a round knob. <A boy waits at the foot of the tree, and when the birds 
come at sunrise, and a sufficient number have assembled, and have begun to dance, 
the hunter shoots with his blunt arrow so strongly as to stun the bird, which drops 
down and is secured without its plumage being injured by a drop of blood. The rest 
take no notice, and fall one‘after another till some of them take the alarm. 

Another species, the Red Bird of Paradise, found in some parts of New Guinea, is 
caught in a very ingenious manner. There is a large tree bearing a red fruit of which 
these birds are especially fond. The hunters fasten this fruit on a stout forked stick, 
and provide themselves with a fine strong cord. They then find out some tree in the 
forest upon which these birds are accustomed to perch ; and climbing up it, fasten the 
stick to a branch, and arrange the cord in a noose so ingeniously that when the bird 
comes to eat, its legs are caught; and by pulling the end of the cord, which hangs to 
the ground, it comes down free from the branch, and brings down the bird. Some- 
times when this favorite food is abundant elsewhere, the hunter sits from morning to 
night under his tree, and often for two or three whole days in succession, without get- 
ting even a bite ; while at other times, if very lucky, he may get two or three birds 
a day. 

The ornithological wonders of Australia are inferior to those of no other part of the 
world. Can anything, for instance, be more extraordinary than the constructions of 


656 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


the Bower-birds, which are built not for the useful purpose of containing the young, 
but purely as a playing place or an assembly room? ‘‘ The structures of the spotted 
bower-bird,” says Mr. Gould, ‘‘ are in many instances three feet in length. They are 
outwardly built of twigs, and beautifully lined with tall grasses, so disposed that their 
heads nearly meet; the decorations are very profuse, and consist of bivalve shells, 
crania of small mammalia, and other birds. Evident and beautiful indications of de- 
sign are manifest throughout the whole of the bower and decorations formed by this 
species, particularly in the manner in which the stones are placed within the bower, 
apparently to keep the grasses with which it is lined fixed firmly in their places. 
These stones diverge from the mouth of the run on each side, so as to form a little 
path, while the immense collection of decorative materials, bones, shells, &c., are 
placed in a heap before the entrance of the avenue, this arrangement being the same 
at both ends. I frequently found these structures at a considerable distance from the 
rivers, from the borders of which they alone could have procured the shells and small 
round pebbly stones; their collection and transportation must, therefore, be a task of 
great labor and difficulty. As these birds feed almost entirely upon seeds and fruits, 
the shells and bones can not have been collected for any other purpose than ornament ; 
besides, itis only those that have been bleached perfectly white in the sun, or such as 
have been roasted by the natives, and by this means whitened, that attract their atten- 
tion.”’ For what purpose these curious bowers are made is not yet, perhaps, fully 
understood ; they are certainly not used as a nest, but as a place of resort, where the 
assembled birds run through and about the bower in a playful manner, and that so 
frequently that it is seldom entirely deserted. The proceedings of these birds have 
not been sufficiently watched to render it certain whether the runs are frequented 
throughout the whole year or not, but it is highly probable that they are merely re- 
sorted to as a rendezvous or playing ground at the pairing time, and during the period 
of incubation. 

The Talegalla or Brush-turkey is no less interesting. In appearance it is very like 
the common black turkey, but is not quite so large : the extraordinary manner in which 
its eggs are hatched constitutes its singularity. It collects together a great heap of de- 
caying vegetables as the place of deposit of its eggs, thus making a hot-bed, arising 
from the decomposition of the collected matter, by the heat of which the young are 
hatched. This mound varies in quantity from two to four cart loads, and is of a per- 
fectly pyramidical form: it is not, however, the work of a single pair of birds, but is 
the result of the united labor of many, and the same site appears to be resorted to for 
several years in succession. ‘‘The mode,” says Mr. Gould, ‘‘in which the materials 
composing these mounds are accumulated is equally singular, the bird never using its 
bill, but always grasping a quantity in its foot, throwing it backwards to one common 
center, and thus clearing the surface of the ground to a considerable distance so com- 
pletely that scarcely a leaf or blade of grass is left.” The heap being accumulated 
and time allowed for a sufficient heat to be engendered, the eggs, each measuring not 
less than four inches in length—an enormous size, considering the bulk of the bird— 
are deposited, not side by side, as is ordinarily the case, but planted at the distance of 
nine or twelve inches from each other, and buried at nearly an arm’s depth perfectly 
upright, with the large end upwards; they are covered up as they are laid, and 
allowed to remain until hatched. After six weeks of burial, the egos, in succession 


THE BRUSH-TURKEY—THE ADJUTANT—BIRD-CRIES. 657 


and without any warning, give up their chicks—not feeble, but full-fledged and strong, 
so that at night they scrape holes for themselves, and lying down therein are covered 
over by the old birds and thus remain until morning. The extraordinary strength of 
the newly-hatched birds is accounted for by the size of the shell, since in so large a 
space it is reasonable to suppose that the young ones would be much more developed 
than is usually found in eggs of smaller dimensions. 

It is not to be wondered at that in the tropical world, where lizards, snakes, and 
frogs attain such extraordinary dimensions, the cranes or stork tribes, which chiefly 
live upon these reptiles, should also grow to a more colossal size than their Huropean 
representatives. Thus, while torrid America boasts of the Jabiru, Africa and India 
possess the still larger Argala, or Adjutant, whose feeding exploits and ugliness have 
already been mentioned in the chapter on snakes. His beak, measuring sixteen inches 
in circumference at the base, corresponds with his appetite. He is soon rendered fa- 
miliar with man, and when fish or other food is thrown to him, he catches it very nim- 
bly and immediately swallows it entire. A young bird of this kind, about five feet in 
hight, was brought up tame and presented to a chief on the coast of Guinea, where 
Mr. Smeathman lived. It regularly attended the hall at dinner-time, placing itself 
behind its master’s chair, frequently before any of the guests entered. The servants 
were obliged to watch it carefully, and to defend the provisions by beating it off with 
sticks ; still it would frequently snatch off something from the table, and one day pur- 
loined a whole boiled fowl, which it swallowed in an instant. It used to fly about the 
island, and roost very high among the silk-cotton trees ; from this station, at the dis- 
tance of two or three miles, it could see when the dinner was carried across the court, 
when, darting down, it would arrive early enough to enter with some of those who 
carried in the dishes. Sometimes it would stand in the room for half an hour after 
dinner, turning its head alternately as if taking a deep interest in the conversation. 
These birds are found in companies, and when seen at a distance near the mouths of 
rivers, advancing towards an observer, it is said that they may be easily mistaken for 
canoes on the surface of a smooth sea; and when on the sand-banks, for men and 
women picking up shell fish on the beach. 

The tropical forests of the eastern hemisphere resound with bird-cries no less appall- 
ing, wild, or strange than those of the western world. In the close jungles of Ceylon 
one occasionally hears the call of the Copper-smith (Aegalasara Indica, ) whose din 
resembles the blows of a smith hammering a caldron, or the strokes of the great 
orange-colored Woodpecker (Lrachypterus aurantius,) as it beats the decaying trees 
in search of insects; but of all the yells that fancy can imagine there is none to equal 
that of the Singhalese Devil-bird, or Gualama. ‘Its ordinary cry,” says Mr. Mit- 
ford, ‘‘is a magnificent clear shout like that of a human being, and which can be 
heard at a great distance, and has a fine effect in the silence of the closing night. It 
has another cry like that of a hen just caught; but the sounds which have earned for 
it its bad name, and which I have heard but once to perfection, are indescribable ; the 
most appalling that can be imagined, and scarcely to be heard without shuddering. I 
can only compare it to a boy in torture, whose screams are being stopped by being 
strangled. On hearing this dreadful note the terrified Singhalese hurries from the 
spot, for should he chance to see the bird of ill omen he is sure that his death is nigh. 
A servant of Mr. Baker’s, who had the misfortune of seeing the dreaded gualama, 


658 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


from that moment took no food, and thus fell a victim to his superstitious despair. 
This horror of the natives explains the circumstance that it is not yet perfectly ascer- 
tained whether the devil-bird is an owl (Syrnium) or a night-hawk. 

The wonderful pendulous nests of the American Cassiques are equalled, if not 
surpassed, by those of the Indian Baya. These birds are found in most parts of 
Hindostan ; in shape they resemble the sparrow, as also in the brown feathers of the 
back and wings; the head and breast are of a bright yellow, and in the rays of a 
tropical sun have a splendid appearance when flying by thousands in the same grove. 
They make a chirping noise, but have no song; they associate in large communities, 
and cover clumps of palmyras, acacias, and date-trees with their nests. These are 
formed in a very ingenious manner by long grass woven together in the shape of a 
bottle, and suspended by so slender a thread to the end of a flexible branch that even 
the squirrel dare not venture his body on so fragile a support, however his mouth may 
water at the eggs and prey within. ‘These nests contain several apartments, appro- 
priated to different purposes: in one the hen performs the office of incubation; another, 
consisting of a little thatched roof, and covering a perch without a bottom, is occupied 
by the male, who cheers the female with his chirping note. 

The Tailor-bird of Hindostan (Sylvia sutoria) is equally curious in the structure 
of its nest, and far superior in the elegance and variety of its plumage, which in the 
male glows with the varied tints of the colibri. The little artist first selects a plant 
with large leaves, and then gathers cotton from the shrub, spins it to a thread by 
means of its long bill and slender feet, and then, as with a needle, sews the leaves 
neatly together to conceal its nest. 

On turning to the wilds of Africa, the Grosbeak affords us a no less wonderful 
example of nest-building; for here we find, not one single pair, but hundreds living 
under the same roof, perfectly resembling that of a thatched house, and with a project- 
ing ridge, so that it is impossible for any reptile to approach the entrances concealed 
below. ‘‘ Their industry,” says Paterson, ‘‘seems almost equal to that of the bee. 
Throughout the day they appear to be busily employed in carrying a fine species of 
grass, which is the principal material they employ for the purpose of erecting this 
extraordinary work, as well as for additions and repairs. Though my short stay in 
the country was not sufficient to satisfy me, by ocular proof, that they added to their 
nest as they annually increased in numbers, still from the many trees which I have 
seen borne down by the weight, and others which I have observed with their boughs 
completely covered over, it would appear that this really was the case. When the tree 
which is the support of this aérial city is obliged to give way to the increase of weight, 
it is obvious they are no longer protected, and are under the necessity of rebuilding in 
other trees. One of these deserted nests I had the curiosity to break down, so as to 
inform myself of its internal structure, and I found it equally ingenious with that of 
the external. There are many entrances, each of which forms a separate street with 
nests on both sides, at about two inches distant from each other.”’ 

Though far less ingenious, yet the nest of the Korwé (Zockus oigjthvia pany is 
too curious to be passed over in silence. The female having entered her breeding- 
place, in one of the natural cavities of the mopane tree, a species of bauhinia, the 
male plasters up the entrance, leaving only a narrow slit by which to feed his mate, 
and which exactly suits the form of his beak. The female makes a nest of her own 


HOUSE-BUILDING BIRDS. 659 


feathers, lays her eggs, hatches them, and remains with the young till they are fully 
fledged. During all this time, which is stated to be two or three months, the male 
continues to feed her and the young family. The prisoner generally becomes quite 
fat, and is esteemed a very dainty morsel by the natives, while the poor slave of a 
husband gets so lean and weak, that on the sudden lowering of the temperature, which 
sometimes happens after a fall of rain, he is benumbed, falls down, and dies. 

All pensile birds are remarkable for the eccentricity of shape and design which 
marks their nests ; though they agree in one point, that they dangle at the end of 
twigs, and dance about merrily at every breeze. Some are long, others short ; some 
have the entrance at the side, others at the bottom, others near the top. Some are 
hung like hammocks from one twig to another ; others are suspended to the extremity 
of the twig itself; while others built in palms, which have no true branches, and no 
twigs at all, are fastened to the extremities of the leaves. Some are made of fine 
fibres, and others of the coarsest straws. Some are so loose in their texture that the 
egos can be plainly seen through them; while others are so strong and thick, that one 
might suppose them to be constructed by a professional thatcher. 

The illustration on the following page presents a group of nests of several species of 
the African Weavers. In the right-hand upper corner are the curious nests of the 
Mahali Weaver (Pliopasser mahali) accompanied by the birds themselves. Although 
the bird measures only six inches in length its nest is of considerable size, and is 
formed of quite stout substances. In shape it is not unlike an ordinary Florence 
flask, only three times the size, with the neck shortened and widened. Its surface, 
however, is rough, the large straws of which it is composed pointing downwards to 
the entrance of the nest, which is at the bottom. Next below are three rows of the 
nests of the Spotted-back Weavers (Ploceus spilonatus), which are represented as at- 
tacked by monkeys, some of whom, assailed by the birds, are getting well-ducked for 
their pains. Still below, rather in the background, are two nests of the Ploceus Ca- 
pensis, woven into palm-leaves. Below this, in the left corner, is a nest of the Yellow- 
Weaver (Ploceus ocularius), shaped somewhat like a chemist’s retort, with the bulb 
uppermost, or more nearly like a huge old-fashioned pistol, hanging butt upward. The 
nest is made of grass about as large as a small twine, interwoven with great skill. 
This is only partly shown. At the right corner is a nest of the Taha Weaver (Huplec- 
tes taha), a pretty little bird, which is no great favorite with the African farmers, for 
it is very numerous, especially in cultivated regions, and has no scruples about helping 
itself to the produce of the gardens, whose owners are obliged to keep up a keen 
watch if they expect to secure a fair share of the crops. Lastly, in the bottom centre, 
is the nest of the Yellow capped Weaver (Ploceus icterocephalus). This nest is re- 
markable for the extreme neatness and compactness of its structure. The body of the 
nest is of seed-stems so closely interwoven that it can be handled, or even kicked like 
a foot-ball, without being destroyed. The interior is lined with layers of flat leaves, 
kept in place by their own elasticity, which afford a smooth, soft resting-place for the 
eggs and young birds. 

Parrots have so many points of resemblance to monkeys in their tastes and habits, 
that notwithstanding their different appearance, one might almost be tempted to call 
them near relations. As the monkey never sets foot on the ground if he can help it, 
but springs from branch to branch of trees, so the parrot is rarely seen walking. His 


660 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


SS 


AFRICAN WEAVERS. 


PARROTS—MONKEYS. 661 


flight is rapid, but of short duration ; so that evidently neither the ground nor the air 
was destined for his habitual abode. In climbing, however, he shows an uncommon 
expertness and agility, unlike that of any other quadruped or bird, as the organ he 
chiefly uses for the purpose is his beak. He first seizes with his powerful mandibles 
the branch he intends to ascend, and then raises his body one foot after the other ; or, 
if he happens to have a sweet nut in his bill which he is anxious to preserve, he presses 
his lower mandible firmly upon the branch, and raises himself by the contraction of the 
muscles of his neck. On descending, he first bends his head, lays the back of his beak 
upon the branch, and while the extended neck supports the weight of the body, brings 
down one foot after the other. While accidentally walking on even ground, he also 
frequently uses his upper mandible as a kind of crutch, by fixing its point or its back 
upon the ground ; for the formation of his toes is such, that he can walk but very 
slowly, and consequently requires the aid of that singular support. But if the toes of 
the parrot are but ill adapted for walking, they render him valuable services in seizing 
or grasping his food. They even form a kind of hand, with which, like the monkey, 
he conveys the morsel to his beak. This easily cracks the hardest nutshells, after 
which the broad and fleshy tongue adroitly extracts the kernel. 

Tn his free state the parrot lives only upon nuts and seeds; when captive, however, 
he becomes omnivorous, like man his master, eats bread and meat, sugar and pastry, 
and is very fond of wine, which has a most exhilarating effect on his spirits. Like 
most monkeys, the parrots are extremely social. At break of day they generally rise 
in large bands, and with loud screams fly away to seek their breakfast. After having 
feasted together, they retire to the shady parts of the forest as soon as the heat begins 
to be oppressive, and a few hours before the setting of the sun reappear in large troops. 

_ If the monkeys are distinguished by a strong: affection for their young, the parrots 
may well be cited as models of connubial love, for when once a pair has been united, 
its attachment remains unaltered unto death. Far more than the turtle-dove, the little 
passerine parrot (Psittacus passerinus) of Brazil, or the Psittacus pullarius, or love- 
parrot of Guinea, deserves to be celebrated by poets as the emblem of conjugal affec- 
tion. Never seen but in each other’s company, each delights to imitate the actions of 
the other, feeding, sleeping, bathing together ; and when one dies, the other soon fol- 
lows its partner. A gentleman who had lost one of a pair of these inseparables, at- 
tempted to preserve the other by hanging up a looking-glass in its cage. At first the 
joy of the poor bird was boundless, as he fancied his mate restored to his caresses ; but 
soon perceiving the deception, he pined away and died. 

_ Another point of resemblance between the parrots and monkeys is their talent 
for mimicry ; but while the latter, favored by the similarity of their organization to 
that of man, strive to copy his gestures and actions, the former endeavor to imitate his 
voice and to repzat his words, an attempt facilitated by the extreme mobility of their 
tongue and upper mandible, no less than by the peculiar construction of their larynx 
or windpipe. The talent. of speech has not been given to all the parrots alike. The 
beautiful American Aras, for instance, are in this respect remarkably stupid, while the 
purple Lory of the East Indies, and the gray African parrot ( Psittacus erithacus,) are 
remarkable for their linguistic attainments. They are often able to retain whole songs 
and sentences, and to repeat them with astonishing exactness. Thus Le Vaillant 
mentions a grav parrot he saw atthe Cape, who was able to repeat the whole of the 


662 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


Lord’s Prayer in Dutch, throwing himself at the same time on his back, and folding 


the toes of both his feet. The gray parrot not only imitates the voice of man, but has 
also a strong desire to do so, which he manifests by his attention in listening, and by 
the continuous efforts he makes to repeat the phrases he has heard. He seems to im- 
pose upon himself a daily task, which even occupies him during sleep, as he speaks in 
his dreams. His memory is astonishing, so that a cardinal once gave a hundred gold 
crowns for one of these birds that correctly repeated a long prayer; and M. de la 
Borde told Buffon he had seen one that was fully able to perform the duties of a ship’s 
chaplain. 

All parrots are more or less susceptible of education, and, particularly when caught 
young, grow very much attached to the master that feeds them. Those that are sent 
to Europe are generally taken from the nest, and thus never have experienced the 
sweets of freedom; but they are also frequently caught full grown. The South 
American Indians know how to strike them with small arrows, whose points are blunted 
with cotton, so as to stun without killing them; or else, under the trees on which they 
perch, they light a fire of strong-smelling weeds, whose vapors cause them to drop to 
the ground. These captives are frequently extremely stubborn; but blowing the 
fumes of tobacco into their face until they fall asleep is an infallible remedy to cure 
them of their obstinacy, this operation being so little to their taste that it need hardly 
ever be repeated twice. Parrots are known to attain a very great age. One that was 
brought to Florence in 1633, and belonged to the Grand Duchess of Tuscany, died in 
1743, having thus lived more than a century in exile. Although preéminently 
tropical, like the colibris, several parrots range far within the temperate zone, as they 
are found in the Southern hemisphere at the Straits of Magellan and on the Macquarie 
Islands, and in the Northern, in Ohio and Kentucky, whee the Carolina parrot is 
often seen in great numbers during the summer. 

The Cockatoos are distinguished from the other parrots by a crest or tuft of legen 
feathers on the head, which they can raise and depress at pleasure. They inhabit the 
East Indies and Australia, and have generally a white or roseate plumage. Their 
chief resorts are dense and humid forests, and they frequently cause great devasta- 
tions in the rice plantations, often pouncing to the number of six or eight hundred 
upon a single field, and destroying even more than they devour, as they seem to be 
possessed of the mania to break and tear everything their beak can lay hold of. They 
walk less awkwardly than most other parrots. The great white cockatoo (Cacatua 
cristata), who is able to erect his beautiful yellow crest to the hight of five inches, 
as a cock does his comb, is the species most frequently seen in Kurope. This bird is 
half-domesticated in several parts of India, as it builds its nest under the roofs of 
houses, and this tameness results from its intelligence, which seems superior to that 
of other parrots. It listens attentively, but vainly strives to repeat what is said. As 
Australia, the land of anomalies in natural history, possesses a black swan, it also 
gives birth to a splendid black cockatoo (Cacatua Banksiz), the finest and the rarest 
of the whole genus. 

The magnificent Macaws, or Aras, of South America are distinguished by having 
their cheeks destitute of feathers, and their tail feathers long. Their size and splendid 
plumage render them fit ornaments of princely gardens, but their loud and piercing 
screams would prove a great annoyance to the inmates of humbler dwellings. ‘* Supe- 


MACAWS—PAROQUETS—OSTRICHES. 663 


rior in size and beauty to every parrot of South America,’ says Waterton, ‘‘ the Ara 
(Macrocercus macao) will force you to take your eyes from the rest of animated na- 
ture, and gaze at him: his commanding strength; the flaming scarlet of his body ; 
the lovely variety of red, yellow, blue, and green, in his wings ; the extraordinary 
length of his scarlet and blue tail, seem all to form and demand for him the title of 
Emperor of all the parrots.” | 

The Paroquets, or Parakeets, are smaller than the common parrots, and have longer 
tails. There are numerous species, some distinguished by a very long pointed tail, 
and collar-like mark round the neck, which inhabit the Asiatic continent and islands ; 
and others, natives of Australia, which are distinguished by their color being gor- 
geously variegated and peculiarly mottled on the back, by their tail feathers not being 
pointed, and by their being furnished with elongated tarsi adapted for running on the 
ground. To the former belongs the beautiful ring paroquet, which is supposed to 
have been the first bird of the parrot kind known to the ancient Greeks, having been 
brought from the island of Ceylon, after the Indian expeditions of Alexander the 
Great ; to the latter, the elegant green parakeet, which in the hot seasons congregates 
about the pools in almost incredible numbers. Though capable of a rapid and even 
flight, and frequently at great altitudes, it is generally found running over the ground, 
and treading its way among the grasses to feed on the seeds. It can easily be domes- 
ticated, and a more elegant or beautiful pet can scarcely be conceived. 

It is a strange fact that the parrots, that will eat nux vomica without danger, expire 
in convulsions after having tasted parsley, another proof of the truth of the saying 
that what is poison for one creature is food for another. 

In the African plains and wildernesses, where the lion seeks his prey, where the 
pachyderms make the earth tremble under their weighty strides, where the giraffe 
plucks the high branches of the acacia, and the herds of the antelope bound along: 
there also dwells the Ostrich, the king of birds, if size alone give right to so proud a 
title ; for neither the condor nor the albatross can be compared in this respect to the 
ostrich, who raises his head seven or eight feet above the ground, and attains a weight 
of from two to three hundred pounds. His small and weak wings are incapable of 
carrying him through the air, but their flapping materially assists the action of his 
legs, and serves to increase his swiftness when, flying over the plain, he ‘‘ scorns the 
horse and its rider.”’ His feet appear hardly to touch the ground, and the length 
between each stride is not unfrequently from twelve to fourteen feet, so that for a time 
he might even outstrip a locomotive rushing along at full speed. 

Not only by his speed is the ostrich able to baffle many an enemy, the strength of 
his legs also serves him as an excellent means of defence ; and many a panther or wild 
dog coming within reach of his foot has had reason to repent of its temerity. But in 
spite of the rapidity of his flight, during which he frequently flings large stones back- 
wards with his foot, and in spite of his strength, he is frequently obliged to succumb 
to man, who knows how to hunt him in various ways. Unsuspicious of evil, and 
enjoying the full liberty of the desert, a troop of ostriches wanders through the plain, 
the monotony of which is only relieved here and there by a clump of palms, a patch 
of candelabra-shaped tree-euphorbias, or a vast and solitary baobab. Some leisurely 
feed on the sprouts of the acacias, the hard dry leaves of the mimosas, or the prickly 
naras, whose deep orange-colored pulp forms one of their favorite repasts; others 


66 4 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


agitate their wings and ventilate the delicate plumage, the possession of which is soon 
to prove so fatal to them. No other bird is seen in their company—for no other bird 
leads a life like theirs; but the zebra and the antelope are fond of associating with 
the ostrich, desirous perhaps of benefiting by the sharpness of his eye, which is capable 
of discerning danger at the utmost verge of the horizon. But in spite of its vigilance, 
misfortunes are already gathering round the troop, for the Bedouin has spied them 
out, and encircles them with a ring of his fleetest coursers. In vain the ostrich seeks 
to escape. One rider drives him along to the next, the circle gradually grows nar- 
rower and. narrower, and, finally, the exhausted bird sinks upon the ground, and 
receives the death-blow with stoical resignation. But the exertion of a long protracted 
chase is not always necessary to catch the ostrich ; for before the rainy season, when 
the heat is at its hight, he is frequently found upon the sand with outstretched wings 
and open beak, and allows himself to be caught after a short pursuit by a single horse- 
man, or even by a swift-footed Bushman. 

To surprise the cautious seal the Northern Esquimaux puts on a skin of the animal, 
and imitating its motions mixes among the unsuspicious herd; and, in South Africa, 
we find the Bushman resort to a similar stratagem to outwit the ostrich. He forms a 
kind of saddle-shaped cushion, and covers it over with feathers, so as to resemble the 
bird. The head and neck of an ostrich are stuffed, and a small rod introduced. Pre- 
paring for the chase, he whitens his black legs with any substance he can procure, 
places the saddle on his shoulders, takes the bottom part of the neck in his right hand, 
and his bow and poisoned arrows in his left. Under this mask he mimics the ostrich 
to perfection, picks away at the verdure, turns his head as if keeping a sharp look-out, 
shakes his feathers, now walks, and then trots, till he gets within bow-shot, and when 
the flock runs, from one receiving an arrow, he runs too. Sometimes, however, it 
happens that some wary old bird suspects the cheat, and endeavors to get near the 
intruder, who then tries to get out of the way, and to prevent the bird from catching 
his scent, which would at once break the spell. Should one of the birds: happen to 
get too near in pursuit, he has only to run to windward, or throw off his saddle, to 
avoid a stroke from a wing which would lay him prostrate. | ; 

The Bushman frequently has recourse to a much simpler plan. Having discovered 
the nest of an ostrich, he removes the eggs as the first fruits of conquest, and then, 
concealing himself in the empty cavity, patiently waits for the return of the bird, 
which he generally dispatches with one of those poisoned arrows which make inered- 
ible havoc among the wild herds of the bush or the savannah. According to Dr. Liv- 
ingstone, the venom most generally employed is the milky juice of the tree-euphorbia, 
which is particularly hurtful to the equine race. When it is mixed with the water of 
a pond, a whole herd of zebras will fall dead from the effects of the poison before 
they have moved away two miles; while on oxen and men it acts as a drastic purga- 
tive only. This substance is used all over the country, though in some places the 
venom of serpents and a certain bulb, Amaryllis toxicaria, are added, in order to 
increase the virulence. A slender reed only slightly barbed with bone or iron, but 
imbued with this poison, is sufficient to destroy the most powerful animal. Thus we 
find the African savage subdues the beasts of the field by similar means to those which 
are used by the wild nations on the banks of the Orinoco or the Amazon. | 

The ostrich generally passses for a very stupid animal, yet to protect its young it 


HABITS OF THE OSTRICH. 665 


has recourse to various cunning stratagems. Thus Andersson and Galton, while tray- 
ersing a barren plain, once hit upon a male and female ostrich, with a brood of young 
ones about the size of ordinary barn-door fowls. This was a sight they had long been 
looking for, having been requested by Professor Owen to procure a few craniums of 
the young ostrich, in order to settle certain anatomical questions ; so forthwith dis- 
mounting from their oxen, they gave chase, which proved of no ordinary interest. 
Says Andersson: ‘‘ The moment the parent birds became aware of our intention, they 
set off at full speed, the female leading the way, the young following in her wake, 
and the male, though at some little distance, bringing up the rear of the family party. 
It was very touching to observe the anxiety the old birds evinced for the safety of 
their progeny. Finding that we were quickly gaining upon them, the male at once 
slackened his pace, and diverged somewhat from his course ; but, seeing that we were 
not to be diverted from our purpose, he again increased his speed, and with wings 
drooping, so as almost to touch the ground, he hovered round us, now in wide circles, 
and then decreasing the circumference till he came almost within pistol-shot, when he 
abruptly threw himself on the ground and struggled desperately to regain his legs, as 
it appeared, like a bird that had been badly wounded. Having previously fired at 
him, I really thought he was disabled, and made quickly towards him. But this was 
only a ruse on his part; for on my nearer approach he slowly rose, and began to run 
in an opposite direction to that of the female, who by this time was considerably ahead 
with her charge. After about an hour’s severe chase, we secured nine of the brood ; 
and though it consisted of about double that number, we found it necessary to be con- 
tented with what we had bagged.” 

While breeding, the ostrich likewise resorts to various artifices to remove intruders 
from its rude nest, which is a mere cavity scooped out a few inches deep in the sand 
and about a yard in diameter. Thus Thunberg relates that riding past a place where 
a hen-ostrich sat on her nest, the bird sprang up and pursued him, in order to draw 
off his attention from her young ones or her eggs. Every time the traveler turned his 
horse toward her, she retreated ten or twelve paces, but as soon as he rode on, pursued 
him again. Is it not truly wonderful how parental affection at the approach of danger 
seems to rouse the intelligence of an animal to higher exertions, and to raise it above 
its usual sphere ! 

The instinet of the ostrich in providing food for its young is no less remarkable, for 
it is now proved that this bird, far from leaving its eggs, like a cold blooded reptile, to 
be vivified by the sun, as was formerly supposed, not only hatches them with the 
greatest care, but even reserves a certain portion of eggs to provide the young with 
nourishment when they first burst into life: a wonderful provision, when we consider 
how difficult it would be for the brood to find any other adequate food in its sterile 
haunts. In Senegal, where the heat is extreme, the ostrich, it is said, sits at night 
only upon those eggs which are to be rendered fertile, but in extra-tropical Africa, 
where the sun has less power, the mother remains constant in her attentions to the 
egos both day and night. The number of eggs which the ostrich usually sits upon is 
ten; but the Hottentots, who are very fond of them, upon discovering a nest, seize 
fitting opportunities to remove one or two at a time; this induces the bird to deposit 
more, and in this manner she has been known, like the domestic hen, to lay between 
forty and fifty in a season. 


666 , THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


But the ostrich has other enemies besides the savage or the hungry traveler to fear 


for its young brood. Thus the natives about the Orange River assert that, when the - 


birds have left their nest in the middle of the day in search of food, a white vulture 
may be seen soaring in mid air, with a stone between his talons. Having carefully 
surveyed the ground below him, he suddenly lets fall the stone, and then follows it in 
rapid descent. On running to the spot you will find a nest of probably a score of eggs, 
some of them broken by the vulture who used this ingenious device for procuring him- 
self a dainty meal. 

Almost as soon as the chicks of the ostrich (which are about the size of pullets) 
have escaped from the shell, they are able to walk about and to follow the mother, on 
whom they are dependent for a long time. And here again we find a wonderful pro- 
vision of nature in providing the young of the ostrich with a color and a covering ad- 
mirably suited to the localities they frequent. The color is a kind of pepper-and-salt, 
agreeing well with the sand and gravel of the plains, which they are in the habit of 
traversing, so that you have the greatest difficulty in discerning the chicks even when 
crouching under your very eyes. The covering is neither down nor feathers, but a 
kind of prickly stubble, which no doubt is an excellent protection against injury from 
the gravel and the stunted vegetation amongst which they dwell. 

The ostrich resembles in many respects the quadrupeds, and particularly the camel, 
so that it may almost be said to fill up the chasm which separates the mammalia from 
the birds, and to form a connecting link between them. We indeed hesitated in this 
work whether to place the ostrich among birds or animals. Both the ostrich and the 
dromedary have warty excrescences on the breast upon which they lean whilst repos- 
ing, an almost similarly formed foot, the same muscular neck; and when we consider 
that they both feed upon the most stunted herbage, and are capable of supporting 
thirst for an incredibly long time, being, in fact, both equally well formed for living 
on the arid plains, it is certainly not to be wondered at that the ancients gave the 
ostrich a name betokening this similitude (Struthiocamelus,) and that the fancy of the 
Arabs ascribes its original parentage to a bird and to a dromedary. 

It is difficult to ascertain what the tastes of the ostrich may be while roaming the 
desert, but when in captivity no other bird or animal shows less nicety in the choice of 
its food, gobbling down with avidity stones, pieces of wood and iron, spoons, knives, 
and other articles of equally light digestion that may be presented to it. Thus it has 
always been far-famed for the wonderful powers of its stomach, and many amusing an- 
ecdotes are told of its voracity. A batch of these birds having once been brouyht to 
a small town for the inspection of the curious, a respectable matron, anxious to obtain 
a sight of the strange creatures, hastily shut up her house, and, key in hand, hurried 
to the spot where they were kept. Scarcely had she arrived, when one of them gravely 
stalked up, as if to thank her for her visit, and suddenly bending its long neck, to her 


horror, snatched the key out of her hand, and swallowed it in a trice ; so that the in- | 


dignant old lady—thus shut out of her own house—vowed that if all the beasts of 
Africa were to pass her door, she would not so much as open it to look at them. 
‘Nothing,’ says Methuen, speaking of a domesticated ostrich, “‘ disturbed its diges- 
tion—dyspepsia (happy thing) was undreampt of in its philosophy. One day a Mus- 
covy-duck brought a promising race of ducklings into the world, and with maternal pride 
conducted them forth into the yard. Up with solemn and measured stride walked the 


THE OSTRICH—THE EMU—THE CASSOWARY. 667 


ostrich, and, wearing the most mild and benignant cast of face, swallowed them all, 
one after the other, like so many oysters, regarding the indignant hissings and bristling 
plumage of the hapless mother with stoical indifference.”? Baron Aucapitaine relates 
that he every evening used to regale a tame ostrich with a newspaper, which the bird 
completely swallowed, thus literally stuffing itself with all the knowledge of the day. 

The costly white plumes of the ostrich, which are chiefly obtained from the wings, 
form a considerable article of commerce, having been prized in all ages for the ele- 
gance of their long, waving, loose, and flexible barbs. The thinner the quill and the 
longer and more wavy the plume, the more it is prized. From seventy to ninety 
feathers go to the pound; but a single bird seldom furnisaes more than a dozen, as 
many of them are spoilt by trailing or some other accident. 

In the Zell, or the cultivated coast districts of Algeria, the ostrich is often domesti- 
cated, particularly on account of its eggs, which weigh three pounds, and are equiva- 
lent to twenty-four of the common fowl’s eggs. It might be supposed that one of 
these giant eges would be too much for the most vigorous appetite, yet Andersson saw 
two natives despatch five of them in the course of an afternoon, besides a copious al- 
lowance of flour and fat. According to the taste of this Swedish Nimrod, they afford 
an excellent repast; while Dr. Livingstone tells us they have a strong, disagreeable 
flavor, which only the keen appetite of the desert can reconcile one to. But as there 
is no accounting for tastes, the Romans seemed to have prized it; and Firmus, one of 
their pseudo-emperors, most likely desirous of emulating the gormandizing powers of 
the bird on which he fed, is said to have devoured a whole ostrich at one sitting. 
Even the ege-shell has its value, and is an excellent vessel for holding liquids of any 
kind. The Bushmen have hardly any other household utensil. By covering it with 
a light network it may be carried slung across the saddle. Grass and wood serve as 
substitutes for corks. 

Though not possessing the true camel-bird, America has the large Rheas, which 
from their size and similar habits have been styled the ostriches of the New World, 
though differing in many essential characters. One species, the Rhea Darwinii, in- 
habits Patagonia, while the Emu or Nandu (Rhea Americana) is found throughout 
the whole eastern part of South America, from Buenos Ayres to the Orinoco, wherever 
open plains, pampas, campos, or savannas, invite it to take up its residence. The 
nandu is not near so tall as the true ostrich, scarcely rising above four feet, and is of 
a uniform gray color except on the back, which has a brown tint. The back and rump 
are furnished with long feathers, but not of the same rich and costly kind as those 
which adorn the African ostrich. Its feeble wings merely serve to accelerate its flight, 
serving it as oars or sails, particularly when running with the wind. It is not easily 
caught, as it not only runs ¥ery fast, but in zigzag lines, so that the horse, rendered 
giddy by so many evolutions, at length drops down with its rider. 

The galeated Cassowary, (Casuarius galeatus), thus called from its head being sur- 
mounted by a kind of horny helmet, is a native of Java and the adjacent isles. The 
skin of the head and upper part of the neck is naked, of a deep blue and fiery red 
tint, with pendant caruncles similar to those of the turkey-cock. It is much inferior 
in size to the ostrich, and its wings are reduced to so rudimentary a state, consisting 
merely of five long bristles, without any plumes, that they are even unable to assist it 
in running. All its feathers are of the same kind, being entirely designed for cover- 


668 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


ing, and resemble at a little distance a coat of coarse or hanging hair. It feeds on 
fruits, eggs of birds, and tender herbage, and is said to be as voracious as the ostrich. 
The cassowary is a very swift runner ; striking out alternately with one of its robust 
powerful legs, it projects its body violently forward with a bounding motion far sur- 
passing the speed of the horse. 

The Australian Emu (Dromaius Nove Hollandia) is allied to the cassowary, 
though differing in many external characters. Both the helmet, and the long pens or 
quills observable in the wings of the latter, are here wanting; its neck and legs are 
longer, its feathers, for the most part gray and brown mixed, are not so filiform, and 
its beak also is differently shaped. In size it more nearly approaches the ostrich, 
rising to a hight of seven feet, and from its great muscular power is able to run so 
quickly as to distance the swiftest greyhound. Incessant persecutions have driven it 
far away from the colonized parts of the country ; but it has still a vast range in the 
wilds of the interior. It lives on fruits, eggs, and even small animals, which it swal- 
lows entire. 


- 


THE CLIMBERS OF THE TROPICAL WORLD. 669 


CHAPTER XIII. 
THE CLIMBERS: BATS, SLOTHS, AND SIML&. 


Bats: Their Wonderful Organization—The Fox-Bat—Eaten by the Malays—Vampire Bats 
—Their Blood-sucking Propensities—The Horseshoe Bat—The Nycteribia—The Flying 
Squirrel—The Galeopithecus—The Anomalurus.—Zhe Sloth: Pitiful Description given 
of Him—His beautiful Organization for his peculiar Mode of Life—His rapid Movements 
in the Trees—His Means of Defense—His Tenacity of Life—The Unau—The Ai— 
Gigantic Primeval Sloths.——Monkeys: Good Climbers, but bad Walkers—Imperfectly 
known to the Ancients—Similitudes and Differences between Man and Apes—The Chim- 
panzee—The Gorilla—Du Chaillu’s First Encounter with a Gorilla—The Gorilla and her 
Young—The Orang-Utan, or Mias—Wallace’s Accounts of Shooting the Orang—Their 
Tenacity of Life—Size of the Orang—The Orang as a Combatant—The Orang fighting 
the Crocodile and Python—Habits of the Orang—Wallace’s Young Pet Orang—The 
Gibbons—Monkeys of the Old and New Worlds—The Semnopitheci—The Proboscis 
Monkey—The Sacred Ape of the Hindus—The Cercopitheci—The Magots—The Cyno- 
cephali, or Baboons—The Maimon—The Great Baboon of Senegal—The Derryas—The 
Loris—Monkeys of the New World—Monkeys Distinguished by their Tails and Teeth— 
The Wourali Poison—The Indian Blow-Pipe—Mildness of American Monkeys—The 
Howling Monkeys—The Spider-Monkeys—The Fox-tail Monkeys—The Saimaris—Noc- 
turnal Monkeys—The Domesticated Nocturnals—The Squirrel-Monkey. 


7 XK are accustomed to consider all animals as embraced in one of three great 
divisions: Beasts, or those that walk upon the earth; Birds, or those that 
fly in the air; Fishes, those that swim in the water. But closer investigation shows 
us that this division is wholly inaccurate. There are walkers upon earth, as the 
ostrich, which are not beasts; swimmers in the water, as the whale, which are not 
fishes ; and flyers in the air, like the bat, which are not birds. Then there are others 
whose home is neither upon the earth, in the air, nor in the water. Though some are 
able to fly a little in the air, others to walk a little on the ground, their home is upon 
the branches of trees, their occupation is climbing. We will, regardless of other 
peculiarities, designate them as climbers; and will in this chapter group together a few 
species which are notably characteristic of the Tropical World ; commencing with those 
which, like the bat, most nearly resemble birds, and ending with those which, like the 
monkey tribe, most nearly resemble man. 


When the sun has disappeared below the horizon. and night falls on the landscape, 
which a little while ago was bathed in light, then from hollow trees, and creviced rocks, 
and ruined buildings, a strange and dismal race comes forth. Silently hovering 
through the glades of the woods, or skimming along the surface of the streams, it 
eatches the crepuscular or nocturnal moths, and serves like the swallow by day to 


check the exuherant multiplication of the insect tribes. But while man loves the 
43 


670 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


swallow, and suffers him to build his nest under the eaves of his dwelling, he abhors 
the bat, which like an evil spirit avoids the light of day, and seems to feel happy only 
in darkness. The painter gives to his angels the white pinions of the swan, while his 
demons are made to bear the black wings of the bat. 

And yet most species of the bat are most inoffensive creatures; while a closer 
inspection of their wonderful organization proves them to be far more deserving of ad- 
miration than of repugnance. Can anything be better adapted to its wants than the 
delicate membrane, which, extending over the long, slim fingers, can be spread and 
folded like an umbrella, so as to form a wing when the animal wishes to fly, and to 
collapse into a small space when it is at rest? How slight the bones, how light the 
body, how beautifully formed for flight! Admire also the tiny unwebbed thumb. 
which serves the bat to hook itself fast while resting, or to clip off the wings of the 
flies or moths, which it never devours with the rest of the body. But the exquisite 
acuteness of the senses of smell, feeling, and hearing in the bat is still more wonder- 
ful than its delicate flying apparatus. Naturalists, more curious than humane, have 
blinded bats, and seen, to their astonishment, that they continued to fly about, as if 
still possessed of the power of vision. They always knew how to avoid branches sus- 
pended in the room in which they were flitting, and even flew betwixt threads hung 
perpendicularly from the ceiling, though these were so near each other, that they 
were obliged to contract their wings in order to pass through them. To explain these 
wonderful phenomena, Spallanzani and other naturalists of the last century believed 
the bats to be endowed with a sixth sense; but Carlyle found that, on closing the ears 
of the blinded creatures, they lose their wonderful power, and hit against the sides of 
the room, without being at all aware of their situation. How they are able to distin- 
guish night from day when shut up in a dark box, is a fact still unexplained. As 
long as the sun stands above the horizon, they will remain perfectly quiet, but as soon 
as twilight begins to darken the earth, a strange piping and chirping and scratching is 
heard within the lightless dungeon, and scarcely has the lid been raised, when the 
prisoners rapidly escape. 

Though the temperate regions possess many bats, yet they are most numerous and 
various in the woody regions of the tropical zone, where the vast numbers of the insect 
tribes and forest fruits afford them a never-failing supply of food. There also they 
attain a size unknown in our latitudes, so that both from their dimensions and their 
physiognomy, many of the larger species have obtained the name of flying dogs or 
flying-foxes. 

On approaching a Javanese village, you will sometimes see a stately tree, from 
whose branches hundreds of large black fruits seem to be suspended. A strong smell 
of ammonia and a piping noise soon, however, convince you of your mistake, and a 
closer inspection proves them to be a large troop of Kalongs or Fox-bats (Pteropus) 
attached head downwards to the tree, where they rest or sleep during the day time, 
and which they generally quit at sunset, though some of them differ so much from the 
usual habits of the family as to fly about in the broad light of day. 

It is said that it must have been a very hungry man who first ate an oyster ; and 
we are not told that the omniverous Chinese have yet got as far as to include bats 
among their edibles; but Mr. Wallace* assures us that the natives of Batchian, one 


* Malay Archipelago, 341. 


FLYING-FOXES—BATS—VAMPIRES. 671 


of the Malay islands, “consider the great ugly flying-foxes an especial delicacy. At 

about the beginning of the year they come in large flocks to eat fruit, and congregate 
during the day on some small islands in the bay, hanging by thousands on the trees, 
especially on dead ones. They can then be easily caught or knocked down with sticks, 
and are brought home by basketfuls. They require to be carefully prepared, as the 
skin and fur has a powerful foxy odor; but they are generally cooked with abundance 
of spices and condiments, and are really very good eating, something like hare.” 

The phyllostomidee, a species of bat distinguished by having the orifices of the nos- 
tril placed in a kind of membranous scutcheon, surmounted by a leaf-like expansion, 
like the head of a lance, and supposed to extend in an extraordinary degree the sense 
of smelling, are exclusively confined to the western continent. These phyllostomidze 
are remarkable for their blood-sucking propensities, and under the name of Vampires 
have brought the whole race of the large tropical bats into evil repute. 

Prince Maximilian of Neu Wied often saw by moonshine, or in the twilight, the 
Guandiru (Phyllostoma hastatum), a bat five inches long, and measuring twenty-three 
inches with outstretched wings, hover about his horses and mules while grazing after 
their day’s journey. The animals did not seem incommoded by its presence, but on 
the following morning, he generally found them covered with blood from the shoulders 
to the hoofs. The muscular under-lip of the phyllostoma can be completely folded 
together in the shape of a sucking-tube, which, after the sharp canine teeth have pen- 
etrated the skin, continues to pump forth the blood. Even man himself is liable to 

the attacks of the larger phyllostomide. 

‘«« Some years ago,” says Mr. Waterton, ‘‘ I was in Demarara with a Scotch gentle- 
man, by name Tarbet. We hung our hammocks in the thatched loft of a planter’s 
house. Next morning I heard this gentleman muttering in his hammock, and now 
and then letting fall an imprecation or two, just about the time he ought to have been 
saying his morning prayers. ‘ What is the matter, Sir?’ said I, softly: ‘is anything 
amiss?’ ‘ What’s the matter?’ answered he surlily ; ‘why, the vampires have been 
sucking me to death.’ As soon as there was light enough, I went to his hammock, 
and saw it much stained with blood. ‘There,’ said he, thrusting his foot out of the 
hammock, ‘ see how these infernal imps have been drawing my life’s blood.” On exam- 
ining his foot, I found the vampire had tapped his great toe: there was a wound 
somewhat less than that made by a leech; the blood was still oozing from it. I con- 
jectured he might have lost from ten to twelve ounces of blood. Whilst examining 
it, I think I put him into a worse humor by remarking that an European surgeon 
would not have been so generous as to have blooded him without making a charge. 
He looked up in my face, but did not say a word ; I saw he was of opinion that I had 
better have spared this piece of ill-timed levity.” 

Captain Stedman, while in Surinam, was attacked in a similar way. “ On waking. 
he says, “about four o’clock one morning in my hammock, I was extremely alarmed 
at finding myself weltering in congealed blood, yet without feeling any pain whatever. 
Having started up, I ran for the surgeon, with a fire-brand in one hand, and all over be- 
smeared with gore. The mystery, however, was soon solved, for I then found I had 
been bitten by the vampire or spectre of Guiana.”’ Other instances of the same kind 
are mentioned by Tschudi, Schomburgk, Azara (who was phlebotomized no less than 
four times by the vampire,) and other naturalists of equal repute, so that there is no 


99 


672 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


reason to doubt the fact. The general food of the phyllostomidee consists, however, in 
vespertine and nocturnal moths, and Waterton is of opinion that they also partake of 
vegetable food. The Vampire (Phyllostoma spectrum.) in general, measures about 
twenty-six inches from wing to wing extended, so that his dimensions are not equal to 
those of the oriental kalong. Like the flying foxes, he may sometimes be seen in the 
forest hanging in clusters, head downwards, from the branch of a tree. Some of the 
phyllostomidze have a tongue once as long again as the head, and armed at the extrem- 
ity with recurved bristles, like that of the wood-pecker, no doubt a very serviceable 
instrument for extracting insects from the narrow hollows and crevices of trees and 
rocks. 

The Rhinolophi or Horse-shoe Bats of the old continent, have also a more or less 
complicated nasal appendage, or foliaceous membrane at the end of the nose, but dif- 
fering in its conformation, from that of the phyllostomidze. They are insectivorous, like 
most of their order, and none of them seem to indulge in the blood-sucking propen- 
sities of the large American vampires. They chiefly inhabit the tropical regions of 
Africa and Asia, and more particularly the Indian archipelago, but the Rhinolophus 
unihastatus ranges in Kurope as far as England. 

Numerous genera and species of tropical bats, distinguished from each other by the 
formation of their teeth, lips, nostrils, heads, wings, and tails, have already been 
classified by naturalists ; but many, no doubt, still live unknown in their gloomy 
retreats, for who is able to follow them into the obscure nooks of the forest, or in intri- 
cate caverns, and accurately to observe them during their nocturnal rambles? It may 
give an idea of their vast numbers throughout the torrid zone, when we hear that in 
Ceylon alone about sixteen species have been identified, and of these two varieties are 
peculiar to the island. Unlike the sombre bats of the northern climates, the colors of 
some of them are as brilliant as the plumage of a bird, bright yellow, deep orange, or 
of a rich ferruginous brown, thus contradicting the general belief which attires noc- 
turnal animals in vestures as dark as their pursuits. y 

The torrid zone, which produces the largest bats, also gives birth to the tiniest repre- 
sentatives of the order, such as the minute Singhalese variety, (Scotophilus Coroman- 
delicus,) which is not much larger than the humble-bee, and of a glossy black color. 
‘Tt isso familiar and gentle,” says Sir J. KE. Tennent, “that ib will alight on the 
cloth during dinner, and manifests so little alarm that it seldom makes any effort to 
escape before a wine-glass can be inverted to secure it.”” The fur of this pretty little 
creature, like that of many other bats, is frequently found infested with a most singular 
insect. Unlike most parasites, which are either extremely sluggish in their movements, 
or even condemned to utter immobility, the velocity of the Nycteribia is truly mar- 
vellous; and, as its joints are so flexible as to yield in every direction, it tumbles 
through the fur of the bat, rotating like a wheel on the extremities of its spokes, or 
like the clown in a pantomime, hurling himself forward on hands and feet alternately. 
To assist its mountebank movements, each foot is armed with two sharp hooks, with 
elastic pads opposed to them, so that the hair can not only be rapidly seized and firmly 
clasped, but as quickly disengaged as the creature whirls away in its headlong career. 
But the strangest peculiarity of the Nycteribia is the faculty which it possesses of 
throwing back or inverting its head so completely, that the under side becoming upper- 
most, the mouth, the eyes, and the antennz are completely hid between its shoulders, 


FLYING ANIMALS—THE SLOTH. 673 


and then again projecting it forward by a suddeu jerk of its long, flexible neck. By 
means of this wonderful organization, tae nimble parasite feels completely at home in 
the furry coat which has been assigned to it as a pasture ground, and whisks along as 
easily through the hairy thicket as the monkey through the bush-ropes of the forest. 

Though incapable of a prolonged flight like the bats, several other tropical quadrupeds 
have been provided with extensions of the skin, which give them the power of supporting 
themselves for some time in the air, and of making prodigious leaps. Thus, by means 
of an expansile furry membrane reaching from the fore feet to the hind, the Flying 
Squirrels (Pteromys) bound, or rather swiftly sail, to the distance of twenty fathoms 
er more, and thus pass from one tree to another, always directing their flight ob- 
liquely downwards. They very rarely descend to the ground, and when taken or 
placed on it, run or spring somewhat awkwardly with their tail elevated, beginning to 
climb with great activity as soon as they reach a tree. 

The Galeopitheci are in like manner enabled to take long sweeping leaps from tree 
to tree, by means of an extension of their skin between the anterior and posterior 
limbs on each side, and between the posterior limbs, including also the tail. These 
extraordinary animals are natives of the islands of the Indian archipelago. They in- 
habit lofty trees in dark woods, to which they cling with all four extremities. During 
the day time, they suspend themselves like bats from the branches, with their heads 
downwards, but at night they rouse themselves and make an active search for food, 
which consists of fruits, insects, eggs, and birds. They are inoffensive, but on at- 
tempting to seize them, they inflict a sharp scratch with their trenchant nails. 

The Anomaluri of the west coast of Africa, which have only been known to the 
world since 1842, and possess a most remarkable tail, covered on the lower surface of 
its base with imbricated horny scales, resemble the galeopitheci by the wing-like ex- 
pansion of their skin, and no doubt the investigations of travelers will bring to light 
other animals endowed with similar parachutes. 


‘The piteous aspect, the sorrowful gestures, the lamentable ery of the Sloth ali 
combine to excite commiseration. While other animals assemble in herds, or roam in 
pairs through the boundless forest,’’ so writes an eminent naturalist, “the sloth leads 
a ionely life in those immeasurable solitudes, where the slowness of his movements 
exposes him to every attack. Harmless and frugal, like a pious anchorite, a few 
coarse leaves are all he asks for his support. On comparing him with other animals, 
you would say that his deformed organization was a strange mixture of deficiency and 
superabundance. He has no cutting teeth, and though possessed of four stomachs: 
he still wants the long intestines of ruminating animals. His feet are without soles? 
nor can he move his toes separately. His hair is coarse and wiry, and its dull color 
reminds one of grass withered by the blasts of surly winter. His legs appear de- 
formed by the manner in which they are attached to the body, and his claws seem 
disproportionately long. Surely a creature so wretched and ill-formed stands last on 
the list of all the four-footed animals, and may justly accuse Nature of step-motherly 
neglect !”’ 

When seeing a captured sloth painfully creeping along on even ground, sighing and 
moaning, and scarcely advancing a few steps after hours of awkward toil, the observer 
might well be disposed to acquiesce in the foregoing remarks, and to fancy he had 


674 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


discovered a flaw among the general beauty of the Creator’s works; but let him view 
the animal in the situation for which it was ordained, and he will soon retract his hasty 
judgment, and discover it to be no less perfect in its kind, and no less admirably fitted 
for its sphere of existence, than the most highly organized of the mammalian tribes. 
For the sloth, in his wild state, spends his whole life in the trees, and never once 
touches the earth but through force or by accident. Like the monkey, he has been 
formed for an exclusively sylvan life, high above the ground, in the green canopy of 
the woods ; but while the nimble simize constantly live upon the branches, the sloth is 
doomed to spend his whole life under them. He moves, he rests, he sleeps suspended 
from the boughs of trees, a wonderfully strange way of life, for which no other 
four footed animal of the Old or the New World has been destined. 

And now examine his organization with reference to this peculiar mode of exist- 
ence, and all his seeming deficiencies and deformities will appear most admirably 
adapted to his wants, for these strong, muscular, preposterously long fore-feet, while 
the hinder extremities are comparatively short and weak, these slender toes armed 
with enormous claws, are evidently as well suited for clasping the rugged branch as 
the enormous hind legs of the kangaroo for bounding over the arid plain. Indeed, in 
every case, we shall find the fundamental type or idea of the four extremities belong. 
ing to the vertebrated animals most admirably modified according to their wants: here 
shortened, there prolonged ; here armed with claws, there terminating in a hoof; here 
coalescing to a tail, there assuming the shape of a fin ; here clothed with feathers to 
cleave the air, there raised to the perfection of the human hand, the wonderful instru- 
ment of a still more wonderful intelligence ; and who, seeing all this, can possibly 
believe that the world is ruled by chance, and not by an all-pervading and almighty 
power? Thus the sloth, so helpless when removed from his native haunts, is far from 
exhibiting the same torpidity in his movements when seen in the place for which Na- 
ture fitted him. 

“ One day, as we were crossing the Essequibo,” says Mr. Waterton, ‘‘ I saw a large 
sloth on the ground upon the bank; how he had got there nobody could tell; the 
Indian said he had never surprised a sloth in such a situation before: he would hardly 
have come there to drink, for both above and below the place the branches of the trees 
touched the water, and afforded him an easy and safe access to it. Be this as it may, 
though the trees were not above twenty yards from him, he could not make his way 
through the sand time enough to escape before we landed. As soon as we came up 
to him, he threw himself upon his back, and defended himself in gallant style with 
his fore legs. ‘Come, poor fellow!’ said I to him, ‘if thou hast got into a hobble 
to-day, thou shalt not suffer for it; I’ll take no advantage of thee in misfortune ; the 
forest is large enough both for thee and me to rove in. Go thy ways up above, and 
enjoy thyself in these endless wilds; it is more than probable thou wilt never have 
another interview with man. So fare thee well.’ On saying this I took up a long 
stick which was lying there, held it for him to hook on, and then conveyed him to a 
high and stately mora. He ascended with wonderful rapidity, and in about a minute 
he was almost at the top of the tree. He now went off in a side direction, and caught 
hold of the branch of a neighboring tree ; he then proceeded towards the heart of the 
forest. I stood looking on, lost in amazement. at his singular mode of progress. I 
followed him with my eye till the intervening branches closed in betwixt us, and then 


HABITS OF THE SLOTH—MEGATHERIUMS—MYLODONS. 675 


Jost sight forever of the sloth. I was going to add that I never saw a sloth take to 
his heels in such earnest, but the expression will not do, for the sloth has no heels.” 

The Indians, to whom no one will deny the credit of being acute observers of animal 
life, say that the sloth wanders principally when the wind blows. In calm weather he 
remains still, probably not liking to cling to the brittle extremity of the branches, lest 
they should break under his weight in passing from one tree to another; but as soon 
as the breeze rises, the branches of the neighboring trees become interwoven, and then 
he seizes hold of them and pursues his journey in safety. There is seldom an entire 
day of calm in the forests of Guiana. The trade-wind generally sets in about ten 
o’clock in the morning, and since the sloth, as we have just seen, is able to travel at a 
good round pace when he has branches to cling to, there is nothing to prevent him 
making a considerable way before the sun sinks and the wind goes down. During 
night, and while reposing in the day-time, the sloth constantly remains suspended by 
his feet, for his anatomy is such that he can feel comfortable in no other position. In 
this manner he will rest for hours together, expressing his satisfaction by a kind of 
purring, and from time to time his dismal voice may be heard resounding through the 
forest, and awakening at a distance a similar melancholy cry. 

The color of the sloth’s hair so strongly resembles the hue of the moss which grows 
on the trees, that the European finds it very difficult to make him out when he is at 
rest, and even the falcon-eyed Indian, accustomed from his earliest infancy to note the 
slightest signs of forest life, is hardly able to distinguish him from the branches to 
which he clings. This no doubt serves him asa protection against the attacks of many 
enemies; but, far from being helpless, his powerful claws and the peculiarly enduring 
strength of his long arms, make very efficient weapons of defence against the large tree- 
snakes that may be tempted to make a meal of him. 

The sloth possesses a remarkable tenacity of life, and withstands the dreadful effects 
of the wourali poison of the Macushi Indians longer than any other animal. Schom- 
burgk slightly scratched a sloth in the upper lip, and rubbed a minimum of the venom 
in the wound, which did not even emit a drop of blood; he then carried the animal to 
a tree, which it began to climb, but after having reached a hight of about twelve feet, 
it suddenly stopped, and swinging its head about from side to side, as if uncertain 
which way to go, tried to continue its ascent, which, however, it was unable to accom- 
plish. First it let go one of its fore-feet, then the other, and remained attached with 
its hind legs to the tree until, these also losing their power, it fell to the ground, 
where, without any of the convulsive motions or the oppressive breathing which gener- 
ally mark the effect of the wourali, it expired in the thirteenth minute after the poison 
had been administered. 

The sloths attain a length of about two feet and a half, and form two genera—the 
Unaus, with two-toed fore-feet, and three-toed hinder extremities, and the Ais, with 
three toes on each foot. The former have forty-eight ribs, the latter only thirty-two. 
Their way of living is the same, and their range is limited to the forests of Guiana 
and the Brazils. They bring forth and suckle their young like ordinary quadrupeds, 
and the young sloth, from the moment of its birth, adheres to the body of its parent 
till it acquires sufficient size and strength to shift for itself. 

Sloth-like animals of colossal dimensions—Megatheriums, Mylodons—extinct long 
before man appeared upoa the scene, inhabited the forests of South America during 


676 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


the tertiary ages of the world. From the dentition of the mylodon, it may be con- 
cluded that, like the sloth of the present day, this monstrous animal fed on the leaves 
or slender terminal twigs of trees; but while the former, from the comparatively light 
weight of his body, is enabled to run along the under side of the boughs till ke has 
reached a commodious feeding-place, the elephantine bulk of the mylodon evidently 
rendered all climbing utterly impossible. first scratching away the soil from the roots 
of the tree on whose foliage he intended to feast, he next grasped it with his long fore- 
legs, and rocking it to and fro, to right and left, soon brought it to the ground, for 
‘‘extraordinary must have been the strength and proportions of that tree,” says 
Professor Owen, ‘‘ which in such an embrace could long withstand the efforts of its 
ponderous assailant.” 


In the midst of tropical vegetation, the Simiz, or Monkey and Ape tribes, lead a free 
forest life, for which they might well be envied. ‘The green canopy of the woods 
protects them at every season of the year from the burning rays of a vertical sun, 
flowers of the most delicious fragrance embalm the air they breathe, and an endless 
supply of fruits and nuts never allows them to know want, for should the stores near 
at hand be exhausted, an easy migration to some other district soon restores them to 
abundance. With an agility far surpassing that with which the sailor ascends the 
rigging, and climbs even to the giddy top of the highest mast, they leap from bush- 
rope to bush-rope, and from bough to bough, mocking the tiger-cat and the boa, which 
are unable to follow them in their rapid evolutions. Formed to live on trees, and not 
upon the ground, they are as excellent climbers as they are bad pedestrians. Both 
their fore and hind feet are shaped as hands, generally with four fingers and a thumb, 
so that they can seize or grasp a bough with all alike. 

Buffon erroneously remarks of the chimpanzee, that he always walks erect, even 
when carrying a weight; but this ape, as well as the other anthropomorphous simie, 
proves by the slowness and awkwardness of his movements, when by chance he walks 
upon even ground, that this position is by no means natural to him, or congenial to his 
organization. Man alone, of all creatures, possesses an upright walk ; the ape, on the 
contrary, always stoops, and not to lose his equilibrium when walking, is obliged to 
place his hands upon the back of his head, or on his loins. Thus, in his native wilds, 
he rarely has recourse to this inconvenient mode of progression, and when forced by 
some chance or other to quit the trees, he leans while walking upon the finger-knuckles 
of his anterior extremities, a position which in fact very much resembles walking on 
all-fours. It is, indeed, only necessary to compare the long, robust, and muscular 
arms of the chimpanzee with his weaker and shorter hind-fect, to be at once convinced 
that ‘he was never intended for walking. But see with what rapicity, with what power 
and grace he moves from branch to branch, his hind-legs serving him only as holdfasts, 
while his chief strength is in his arms. The tree is, without all doubt, for him what 
the earth is for us, the air for the bird, or the water for the fish. 

We cannot wonder at the ancients having known but few species of the simiz, as 
these animals chiefly belong to the torrid zone, with which the Greeks and Romans 
were so imperfectly acquainted. It is only since a wide extent of the tropical regions 
has been opened by trade or conquest to European research, that many of the mys- 
teries of monkey-existence have been brought to light from the darkness of the pri- 


MONKEYS—DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THEM AND MEN. 677 


meval forest, and particularly within the last twenty years, naturalists and travelers 
have devoted so much attention to this interesting family, that while in the year 1840 
only 128 species were known, their numbers had increased in 1852 to no less than 
210, a stately list, to which, since then, many more have been added, and which even 
now is far from being closed. 

The simize of the Old World are all distinguished by the common character of a 
narrow septum or partition of the nose like that of man, and by the same number of 
teeth, each jaw being provided with ten grinders, two canine teeth, and four incisors, 
as in the human race. 

The large apes, or tailless monkeys, resemble us besides in many other respects, as 
well in their external appearance as in their anatomical structure ; and form, as it 
were, the caricature of man, both by their gestures and by glimpses of a higher intel- 
ligence. 

Creatures so remarkably endowed have naturally at all times attracted a great share 
of attention, for if even the lowest links in the chain of animated beings lay claim to 
our interest, how much more must this not be the case with beings whose faculties 
seem almost to raise them to the rank of our relations. The question how far this 
similarity extends has naturally given rise to many acute investigations and been differ- 
ently answered, according as naturalists were more or less inclined to depress man to 
the level of the ape, or to widen the gulf between them. The former, pointing to the 
brutality of the lowest savages, would willingly make us believe that we are nothing 
but an improved edition of the Uran, while the latter complacently cite in favor of 
their opinion, the incommensurable distance which exists between even the most de- 
graded specimens of humanity and the most perfect quadrumana. Man alone is capable 
of continually progressive improvement ; in him alone each generation inherits the ac- 
quirements of its fathers and transmits the growing treasure to its sons, while the ape, 
like all other animals, constantly remains at the same point. The lowest savage knows 
how to make fire ; the ape, though he may have seen the operation performed a thou- 
sand times, and have enjoyed the genial warmth of the glowing embers, will never 
learn the simple art. His hairy skin is a sufficient proof of his low intellect, an 
infallible sign that, as he never would be able to provide himself with an artificial 
clothing, Nature was obliged to protect him against the inclemencies of the cold nights 
and the pouring rain. As man advances in age, his mind acquires a greater depth 
and a wider range. In the ape, on the contrary, signs of a livelier intelligence are 
only exhibited during youth, and as the animal waxes in years, its physiognomy ac- 
quires a more brutal expression ; its forehead recedes, its jaws project, and instead of 
expanding to a higher perfection, its mental faculties are evidently clouded by a pre- 
mature decline. 

Both in Africa and Asia, we find large anthropomorphous apes, but while the chim- 
panzee and the gorilla exclusively belong to the African wilds, the orang and the gib- 
bons are confined to the torrid regions of South Asia. 

The Chimpanzee (Simia troglodytes) attains a hight of about five feet, but seems 
much smaller from his stooping attitude. He inbabits the dense forests on the west 
coast of Africa, particularly near the river Gaboon, and as his travels are faciltated 
by his fatherland not being too far distant from Europe, there is hardly a Zoological 
Garden of any note that does not exhibit a chimpanzee among its lions. Une of the 


678 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


finest specimens ever seen was kept a few years since in the Jardin des Plantes in 
Paris, where the mild climate, agreeable diet (he drank his pint of Bordeaux daily), 
and lively society of the French maintained him in wonderful health and spirits. 

The body of the chimpanzee is covered with long hair on the head, shoulders, and 
back, but much thinner on the breast and belly. The arms and legs are not so dis- 
proportionate as those of the orang, the fore-fingers not quite touching the knees when 
the animal stands upright. The upper part of the head is very flat, with a retiring 
forehead, and a prominent bony ridge over the eye-brows, the mouth is wide, the ears 
large, the nose flat, and the face of a blackish-brown color. 

From this short notice it will be seen at once that while the Chimpanzee has not 
the least claim to beauty, he is yet far from equalling the hideous deformity of the 
Gorilla, whom M. Du Chaillu, the first white man who ever saw the creature alive, has 
so prominently introduced to public notice. This savage animal, which is covered 
with black hair like the chimpanzee, and resembles it in the proportion of its body and 
limbs, though its form is much more robust, unites a most ferocious and undaunted 
temper with an herculean bodily strength, and is said to hold undisputed dominion 
of the hill-forests in the interior of Lower Guinea, forcing even the panther to 
ignominious flight. To kill a gorilla is considered by the negroes as a most courageous 
exploit; and Dr. Savage, an American missionary on the coast of Guinea, who, in a 
memoir published at Boston in the year 1847, was the first to point out the generic 
differences between this formidable ape and the chimpanzee, tells us that a slave having 
shot a male and female gorilla, whose skeletons afterwards came into his possession, 
was immediately set at liberty and proclaimed the prince of hunters. 

Du Chaillu’s description® of his first encounter with an adult gorilla, which entirely 
agrees with the accounts given to Dr. Savage by the natives of the mode of attack 
of this monstrous creature, shows that this distinction was by no means unmerited, and 
that it requires all the coolness and determination of an accomplished sportsman to 
face an animal of such appalling ferocity and power. 

‘‘The underbrush swayed rapidly just ahead, and presently before us stood an 
immense male gorilla. He had gone through the jungle on his all-fours, but when he 
saw our party he erected himself, and looked us boldly in the face. He stood about a 
dozen yards from us, and was a sight I think I shall never forget. Nearly six feet 
high (he proved four inches shorter,) with immense body, huge chest, and great 
muscular arms, with fiercely glaring, large, deep-gray eyes, and a hellish expression 
of face, which seemed to me like some nightmare vision; thus stood before us the 
king of the African forest. He was not afraid of us. He stood there and beat his 
breast with his huge fists, till it resounded like an immense bass-drum, which is their 
mode of offering defiance, meantime giving vent to roar after roar. The roar of the 
gorilla is the most singular and awful noise heard in these African woods. It begins 
with a sharp bark like an angry dog, then glides into a deep bass roll which literally 
and closely resembles the roll of distant thunder along the sky, for which I have 
been sometimes tempted to take it when I did not see the animal. So deep is it that 
it seems to proceed less from the mouth and throat than from the deep chest and vast 
paunch. His eye began to flash deeper fire as we stood motionless on the defensive, 
and the crest of short hair which stands on his forehead began to twitch rapidly up and 


* Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa, 98. 


THE GORILLA. 679 


down, while his powerful fangs were shown as he again sent forth a thunderous roar. 
And now truly he reminded me of nothing but some hellish dream-creature ; a being 
of that hideous order, half-man, half-beast, which we find pictured by old artists in 
some representations of the infernal regions. He advanced a few steps, then stopped 
to utter that hideous roar again, advancel again, and finally stopped when at a 
distance of about six yards from us. And here, just as he began another of his roars, 
beating his breast in rage, we fired and killed him. With a groan which had something 
terribly human in it, and yet was full of brutishness, he fell forward on his face. The 
body shook convulsively for a few minutes, the limbs moved about ina struggling way, 
and then all was quiet—death had done its work, and I had leisure to examine the 
huge body. It proved to be five feet eight inches high, and the muscular development 
of the arms and breast showed what immense strength he had possessed.”’ 

Du Chaillu’s account of the gorilla was at first received with incredulity by some 
prominent British naturalists; they could not believe that it was left for a young 
American to bring to light a creature so far exceeding in size and ferocity anything 
of the kind before known. But fortunately he had brought home with him a number 
of skeletons, skulls, and stuffed skins of the creatures ; and among them, as it hap- 
pened, was the skin of the very one whose death is described above. This skin 
measured about five feet eight inches as it stood stuffed. Had the lower limbs of the 
animal been as long in proportion to its hight as those of a man, the whole hight 
would have considerably exceeded six feet ; while the muscular developments were 
enormous. If one will imagine a boxing-glove furnished with huge fingers and claws, 
he will get a fair idea of the paw. This collection after having been inspected by 
thousands in America, was shipped to London, and the impugners of Du Chaillu 
came to signal grief. Many of these specimens were purchased for the British Mu- 
seum, where they now are. Du Chaillu, in another work,* gives some account of the 
gorilla at home, and in the bosom of his family : 

‘* Now and then I could see the foot prints of gorillas that had wandered, like 
myself, through the woods, but these foot-prints were several days old. I came to a 
place where pine-apple plants were abundant, and where the gorillas had evidently 
feasted on the leaves, for thousands of them had been plucked out, and only the white 
part eaten. Here and there a young pine-apple had been partially eaten away, one or 
two bites taken, and the fruit then thrown aside. I had to be very careful in walking, 
for fear of making a noise, for the ferest not being dense, gorillas could have seen me 
at a long distance. After awhile I came toa place where a large male gorilla had 
been. The foot-prints were of enormous size, and he must have been a monstrous fel- 
low. I could see by the foot prints of the monster that he had been on all-fours, and 
suddenly had raised himself to an erect posture ; while the bending of a branch about 
eight or nine feet high, just above the marks, showed that the animal had supported 
himself by it. I left the place, and continued my ramble; when in the far distance 
I spied a gorilla. It was a female, and she did not see me. I hid myself behind a 
tree, and watched all her movements unseen. She was seated on the ground before 
a cluster of pine-apples, quietly eating one. She soon threw it away, and plucked 
some of the leaves, She grinned now and then, probably from the pleasure the food 
gave her; when suddenly, to my utter astonishment, a little gorilla, about two and a 


* Wild Life under the Equator, 78. 


6380 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


half feet in hight, came running to its mother, who gave a kind of chuckle that very 
much resembled the ‘click’ of the Bushmen of Southern Africa. I began to be 
terribly excited. I must kill the mother, and try to capture the young one. Unfortu- 
nately there were many intervening trees, and she was about a hundred yards off. 
How could the bullet from my rifle reach her? Thad just left my place of concealment, 
when she perceived me. She uttered a piercing ery, and disappeared, with her young 
one following her.” 


FEMALE GMRILL& AND YOUNG. 


Du Chaillu, in his various expeditions, which occupied in all twelve years, brought 
away thirty-one gorilla skins and skeletons, captured more than a dozen young ones, 
and altogether saw more than three hundred of the animals. We give from his book 
last cited one more picture of the domestic life of the gorilla : 

‘The bog was like one of the worst kind we have in America in the overflowed 
and woody land of the Western country ; only here were creepers, thorny bushes, 
hanging lianas, and grass that cuts like a razor. We entered the swamp, and came 
to a dry spot, when we spied a female gorilla and her young baby. The baby was 
very small, and a very dear little baby it was to its mother, for she appeared to look 
at it with great fondness. I was spell-bound, and could not raise my gun to fire; there 
was something too human in that mother and her offspring. lt hung by her breast ; 
but unlike our babies, who have to be entirely supported, its little hands clutched its 
mother’s shoulder and helped to support itself. The little fellow gave a shrill and 
plaintive ery, and crawled from its mother’s arms to her breast io be fed ; and the 
mother lowered her head and looked at her child, while with its little fingers it pressed 
her breast so that the milk should come more freely. On a sudden the mother gave 
a tremendous ery, and before I knew it she had disappeared in the forest.” 

As the gorilla is wholly confined to a belt in equatorial Africa, so the great Orang: 
outang (Simia satyrus) or Mias, as it is called by the natives, is only found in Bornes 


THE ORANG-OUTANG, OR MIAS. 681 


‘ 


and Sumatra. To Mr. Wallace we are indebted for by far the most reliable account 
of this great ape, which until Du Chaillu’s discovery of the gorilla was supposed to be 
the largest of the species. We give, much abridged, portions of his account : 

‘“T was out collecting insects, not more than a quarter of a mile from the house, 
when [ heard a rustling in a tree near, and looking up saw a large red-haired animal 
moving slowly along, hanging from the branches by its arms. It passed on from tree 
to tree till it was lost in the jungle. About a fortnight afterward I heard that one 
was feeding in a tree in the swamp, and taking my gun I was fortunate enough to find 
it. As soon as I approached, it tried to conceal itself among the foliage ; but I got 
a shot at it, and the second barrel caused it to fall down almost dead, the two balls 
having entered the body. This was a male, about half-grown, being scarcely three 


FEMALE ORANG-OUTANG. 


feet high. Soon after I shot another about the same size. I gave it two shots, one 
of which lodged in the body, the other broke its arm. Two Dyaks ran up to it, and 
each seized hold of a hand. But although one arm was broken, and it was only half- 
grown, it was too strong for them, drawing them up towards its mouth notwithstanding 
all their efforts so that they were obliged to let go. It now began climbing the tree, 
and I shot it through the heart. A week after, I fired at one on a high tree. On 
seeing me it began howling in a strange voice like a cough, and seemed in a great 
‘rage, breaking off branches with its hands, and throwing them down, and then made 
off over the tree-tops. A week after I found another, which behaved in a similar 
manner. I shot at it five times, and it remained dead on the top of the tree, sup- 
ported in a fork, whence it was brought down by some Dyaks who climbed up for it. 
This was the first full-grown specimen I had obtained ; but it was a female, and not 
nearly so large or remarkable as the full-grown males. It was, however, three feet six 
inches high, and its arms stretched out to a width of six feet six inches. I preserved 
the skin of this animal, from which the above picture, from a photograph, was taken. 
‘“‘Ten days after, I succeeded in shooting a full grown male. My assistant told 


682 | THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


me that a great mias was feeding in the woods. Accompanied by two Dyaks, 
we hurried to the place. I heard a slight rustling sound overhead, but could see 
nothing. Then [ again heard the rustling, but louder, and perceived a great red hairy 
body and a huge black face gazing down from a great hight, as if wanting to know 
what was making such a disturbance below. I fired, and he made off, so that I could 
not then tell whether I had hit him. We followed and I got four more shots at 
him, but he was always more or less protected by a huge branch on which he was 
walking. Once, while loading, I had a splendid view of him, moving along the limb 
in a semi-erect posture, and showing him to be an animal of the largest size. As 
length he got to one of the loftiest trees of the forest, and we could see one leg 
hanging down useless, having been broken by a ball. He now fixed himself in a fork, 
and seemed disinclined to move. I therefore fired again, when he moved off, and was 
obliged to get on some lower trees, on the branches of one of which he fixed himself 
in such a position that he could not fall, and lay all in a heap, as if dead or dying. I 
sent for axes, and the tree was soon cut through ; but it was so held up by jungle-ropes 
and climbers to the adjoining trees that it only fell in a sloping position. The mias 
did not move, and I began to fear that after all we should not get him, as it was near 
evening, and half a dozen more trees would have to be cut down before the one he was 
on would fall. As a last resource, we all began pulling at the creepers, which shook 
the tree very much, and he came down with a‘crash and a thud like the fall of a giant. 
And a giant he was, his head and body being full as large as a man’s. His hight, 
measuring fairly from the top of the head to the heel, was four feet two inches. The 
body just below the arms was three feet two inches round, and was quite as long as a 
man’s, the legs being exceedingly long in proportion. On examination we found he 
had been terribly wounded. Both legs were broken, one hip-joint and the root of the 
spine completely shattered, and two bullets were found flattened on his neck and jaws ; 
yet he was still alive when he fell. Another individual of about the same size was 
afterwards twice shot, causing him to loose his hold of the branch and fall flat on his 
face half buried in the swamp, where he lay for some minutes groaning and panting. 
Suddenly he raised himself up nearly erect, and catching hold of a small tree, began to 
ascend it. Another shot through the back caused him to fall down dead. A flattened 
bullet was found in his tongue, having entered the lower part of the abdomen, and 
completely traversed the body, fracturing the first cervical vertebra. Yet it was after 
receiving this fearful wound that he had risen and began climbing with considerable 
facility.” 

These two orangs are the largest of which we have any reliable accounts ; although 
there are doubtful stories in various books of individuals much larger—as high as five 
feet two inches. How easy it is to be deceived in estimating, without actual measure- 
ment, the hight of these animals, is shown in the case of a Sumatran orang, whose 
skin is now in the Calcutta museum. The captain and crew who killed him declared 
that he looked taller than the tallest man, and they supposed him to be at least seven 
feet high ; but when he was killed and lay upon the ground, they found that he was 
only about six feet. The skin shows that he was really less than four feet. Mr. 
Wallace admits that the largest orangs are much less than the gorilla, ‘‘I have 
myself,’ he says, ‘‘ examined seventeen freshly-killed orangs, all of which were care- 
fully measured ; and also obtained skeletons of two killed by others. Of these sixteen 


HABITS OF THE ORANG-OUTANG. 683 


were adults, nine being males and seven females. The large adult males only varied 
- from four feet one inch to four feet two inches in hight, measured fairly to the heel, so 
as to give the hight of the animal as if it stood perfectly erect. The extent of the 
outstretched arms was from seven feet two inches to seven feet eight inches; and the 
width of the face from ten to thirteen and a half inches. The largest orang measured 
by Temminck was four feet high. Of twenty-five specimens collected by Schlegel 
and Miller, the largest measured four feet one inch; and the largest skeleton in the 
Calcutta museum was four feet one and a half inch. My specimens were all from the 
north-west coast of Borneo, those of the Dutch from the south and west coasts; and 
no specimen has yet reached Hurope exceeding these dimensions, although the total 
number of skins and skeletons must exceed a hundred.”’ 

The orang is a formidable opponent. ‘‘ One day,” says Wallace, ‘‘some Dyaks 
saw a large orang feeding by the river side. On being alarmed he fled to the jungle, 
and a number of men armed with spears and choppers ran out to intercept him. The 
man in front tried to run his spear through the animal’s body ; but the orang seized it 
in his hands, and in an instant got hold of the man’s arm, which he seized in his 
mouth, making the teeth meet in the flesh above the elbow, which he tore and lacerated 
in a dreadful manner. Had not the others been close behind, the man must have 
been more seriously injured, if not killed, for he was quite powerless; but they soon 
destroyed the creature with their spears and choppers. The man remained ill for a 
long time, and never fully recovered the use of his arm. The Dyaks declare that the 
orang is attacked by only two creatures. One old chief, of whom I inquired, said to 
me, ‘No animal is strong enough to hurt the mias, and the only creature he ever 
fights with is the crocodile. When he goes to seek food by the river, the crocodile 
sometimes tries to seize him ; but the mias gets upon him and beats him with his hands 
and feet, and tears him and kills him. I once saw such a fight, and believe that the 
mias is always the victor.’ Another chief told me, ‘The mias has no enemies; no 
animals dare attack it but the crocodile and the python. He always kills the croco- 
dile by main strength, standing upon it, pulling open its jaws, and ripping up its 
throat. If a python attacks a mias, he seizes it with his hands, and then bites it, and 
soon kills it. The mias is very strong; there is no animal in the jungle so strong 
as he.’ ”’ 

The habits of the orang, as described by Wallace are somewhat peculiar: ‘In 
making his way through the forest, he walks deliberately along some of the larger 
branches, in the semi-erect attitude which the great length of his arms and the shortness 
of his legs cause him naturally to assume ; and the disproportion between these limbs 
is increased by his walking on his knuckles, and not on the palm of his hand, as we 
should do. He seems always to choose those branches which intermingle with an 
adjoining tree, on approaching which he stretches out his long arms, and seizing the 
opposing boughs grasps them together with both hands, and then deliberately swings 
across to the next branch, on which he walks along as before. He never jumps or 
springs, or appears to hurry himself, and yet manages to get along almost as fast as 
a person can run through the forest beneath. He makes a nest in which to sleep, by 
breaking off boughs and laying them across each other. The natives say that he makes 
a new one each night, but I think this hardly probable, or their remains would be 
much more abundant. The Dyaks say that when it is very wet, he covers himself 


684 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


over with large leaves or ferns, which has perhaps led to the st tory of his making a 
hut in the trees. He does not leave his bed till the sun has well risen, and has dried 
the dew upon the leaves. He feeds all through the middle of the day, but seldom 
returns to the same tree two days in succession. They do not seem much alarmed at 
man, as they often stared down upon me for several minutes, and then only moved 
away slowly to an adjoining tree. I never saw two full-grown animals together ; but 
both males and females are sometimes accompanied by half-grown young ones, while 
at other times three or four young ones were seen in company. ‘Their food consists 
almost wholly of fruit, with occasionally leaves, buds, and young shoots. They seem 
to prefer unripe fruits, some of which are very sour. others intensely bitter. In other 
cases they eat only the small seeds of a large friuc, and they almost always waste and 
destroy more than they eat. The durion* is an especial favorite, and quantities — 
of this delicious fruit are destroyed whenever it grows surrounded by forest. but they 
will not cross clearings to g+ at them. It seems wonderful how the animal can tear 
open this fruit, the outer co’ ring of which is so thick and tough, and closely covered 
with strong conical spines. They probably bite off a few of these at first, and then, 
making a small hole, tear open the fruit with their powerful fingers. The orang 
rarely descends to the ground except when, pressed by hunger, it seeks for succulent 
shoots by the river-side, or in very dry weather, has to search for water, which it 
generally finds in the hollows of leaves. Once only I saw two half-grown orangs on 
the ground in adry hollow. They were playing together, standing erect, and grasping 
each other by the arms. It may be safely stated, however, that the orang never walks 
erect, unless when using its hands to support itself by branches overhead, or when 
attacked. Representations of its walking with a stick are entirely imaginary.” 

Mr. Wallace once caught a very young orang, not more than a foot long, which 
proved a very amusing pet, quite unlike a young gorilla which Du Chaillu attempted 
to tame. “ While carrying it home,” he says, ‘‘it got his fingers in my beard, and 
grasped so tightly that I had great difficulty in getting free, for the fingers are habit- 
ually bent inward at the last joint, so as to form complete hooks. I had no milk to 
give it, and was obliged to feed it with rice-water from a bottle with a quill in the 
cork, which after a few trials it learned to suck very well. When I put my finger in 
its mouth, it sucked with great vigor, drawing in its cheeks with all its might, and 
only after persevering a long time would it give up in disgust, and set up a scream, 
very like that of a baby in similar circumstances. When handled or nursed, it was 
very quiet and contented, but when laid down by itself would invariably ery. I found 
it necessary to wash it every day, and it soon began to like the operation, and when it 
was dirty would begin crying, and not leave off until I carried it to the spout, when 
it immediately became quiet, though it would wince a little at the first rush of the 
cold water, and make ridiculously wry faces while the stream was running over its 
head. It enjoyed the wiping and rubbing dry amazingly, and when I brushed its 
hair seemed to be perfectly happy. After the first week I found I could feed it better 
with a spoon, and gave it a little more varied and more solid food. Well-soaked bis- 
cuit, mixed with a little egg and sugar, and sometimes sweet potatoes were readily 
eaten. It would lick its lips, draw in its cheeks, and turn up its eyes with an expres- 
sion of the most supreme satisfaction when it had a mouthful particularly to its taste ; 


* Concerning this fruit see ante, 557. 


A PET ORANG-OUTANG—THE GIBBONS. 685 


“but when its food was not sufficiently sweet or palatable, it would turn the mouthful 
about with its tongue for a moment, as if trying to extract what flavor there was, and 
then push it all out between its lips. If the same food was continued, it would set 
up a scream, and kick about violently exactly like a baby in a passion. After I had 
had the little mias about three weeks I obtained a young monkey which, though small 
was very active, and could feed itself. I placed it in the same box with the mias, and 
they soon became excellent friends, neither exhibiting the least fear of the other. The 
little monkey would sit upon the other’s stomach, or even on its face, without the 
least regard for its feelings. While I was feeding the mias, the monkey would sit by, 
picking up all that was spilt, and as soon as I had finished would pick off what was 
left sticking to the mias’s lips, and then pull open its mouth to see if any was left 
inside ; afterwards lying down on the poor creature’s stomach as on a comfortable 
cushion. The little helpless mias would submit to all these insults with the most exem- 
plary patience, only too glad to have something warm near it, which it could clasp 
affectionately in its arms. After five weeks it cut its two upper front teeth; but in all 
this time it had not grown the least bit, remaining both in size and weight the same as 
when [ first procured it. This was no doubt owing to the want of milk or other 
equally nourishing food. At length it was taken seriously ill, the symptoms being 
exactly those of intermittent fever, accompanied by watery swellings on the feet and 
head. It lost all appetite for its food, and after lingering a week, a most pitiable 
object, it died, having been in my possession nearly three months. I much regretted 
the loss of my little pet, which I had at one time looked forward to bringing up to 
years of maturity, and taking home to England. It had afforded me daily amusement 
by its curious ways and the inimitably ludicrous expression of its little countenance. 
Its weight was three pounds nine ounces, its hight fourteen inches, and the spread of 
its arms twenty-three inches.” 

We have dwelt at some length upon the Gorilla and the Orang-outang, because they 
are the largest of the monkey tribes; and because until within a few years very little 
has been positively known of them; and it is believed that no living specimen of 
either has ever been seen away from their native homes. We shall pass rapidly over 
a few of the most remarkable of the monkey tribes. 

The series of the large anthropomorphous apes closes with the Gibbons. Their 
arms, which reach to the ankle joints when the animal is standing erect, are longer 
than those of the uran ; their brain, and consequently their intelligence, is less devel- 
oped ; and moreover, like all the following simize of the Old World, they possess cal- 
losities on each side of the tail. Their size is inferior to that of the orang, and their 
body is covered with thicker hair, gray, brown, black, or white — according to the 
species — but never parti-colored, as is the case with many of the long-tailed monkeys. 
To the gibbons belong the black Siamang of Sumatra — who, assembled in large 
troops, hail the first blush of early morn, and bid farewell to the setting sun with 
dreadful clamors — the black, white-bearded Lar of Siam and Malacca, and the Wou- 
Wou (Hylobates leuciscus) who, hanging suspended by his long arms, and swinging to 
and fro in the air, allows one to approach within fifty yards, and then, suddenly drop- 
ping upon a lower branch, climbs again leisurely to the top of the tree. He is a quiet, 
solitary creature of a melancholy peaceful nature, pursuing a harmless life, feeding 
upon fruits ik vast untrodden recesses of the forest ; and his peculiar noise is in 


686 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


harmony with the sombre stillness of these dim regions, commencing like the gurgling 
of water when a bottle is being filled, and ending with a long, loud wailing ery, which 
resounds throughout the leafy solitude to a great distance, and is sometimes responded 
to from the depths of the forest by another note as wild and melancholy. 

We shall see that the American monkeys are totally different from those of the Old 
World ; but also in the eastern hemisphere, each part of the world has its peculiar 
families and genera of simiz. Thus, besides the orang-outang and the gibbon, Asia 
exclusively possesses the semnopitheci and the macaques, while Africa, besides the 
chimpanzee and the gorilla, enjoys the undivided honor of giving birth to the families 
of the cercopitheci, mangabeys, colobi, magots, and baboons. The Semnopitheci are 
characterized by a short face, rounded ears, a slender body, short thumbs, and a strong 
muscular tail, terminated by a close tuft of hair, and surpassing in length that of all 
the other quadrumana of the Old World. To this genus belongs the celebrated Pro- 
hoscis Monkey (Semnopithecus nasicus) of Borneo, who is distinguished from all 
other simize by the possession of a prominent nasal organ, which lends a highly ludi- 
crous expression to the melancholy aspect of his physiognomy. When excited and 
anery, the female resembles some tanned and peevish hag, snarling and shrewish. 
When they sleep, they squat on their hams, and bow their heads upon the breast. 
When disturbed, they utter a short impatient cry, between a sneeze and a scream, like 
that of a spoilt and passionate child. When they emit their peculiar wheezing or hiss- 
ing sound, they avert and wrinkle the nose, and open the mouth wide. In the male, 
the nose is a curved, tubular trunk, large, pendulous, and fleshy; but in the female 
it is smaller, recurved, and not flesh-like. | 

Under the ugly form of the Huniman (Semnopithecus entellus), the Hindoos ven- 
erate the transformed hero who abstracted the sweet fruit of the mango from the garden 
of a giant in Ceylon, and enriched India with the costly gift. As a punishment for 
this offense he was condemned to the stake, and ever since his hands and face have 
remained black. Out of gratitude for his past services, the Hindoos allow him the 
free use of their gardens, and take great care to protect him from sacrilegious Euro- 
peans. While the French naturalist Duvaucel was at Chandernagore, a guard of pious 
Brahmins was busy scaring away the sacred animals with cymbals and drums, lest the 
stranger, to whom they very justly attributed evil intentions, might be tempted to add 
their skins to his collection. | 

The semnopitheci are scattered over Asia in so great a multiplicity of forms, that 
Ceylon alone possesses four different species, each of which has appropriated to itself 
a different district of the wooded country, and seldom encroaches on the domain of 
its neighbors. When observed in their native wilds, a party of twenty or thirty of the 
Wanderoos of the low country, the species best known in Kurope (Presbytes cephalop: 
terus), is generally busily engaged in the search for berries and buds. They are sel- 
dom to be seen on the ground, and then only when they have descended to recover 
seeds or fruit that have fallen at the foot of their favorite trees. In their alarm, when 
disturbed, their leaps are prodigious, but generally speaking their progress is made 
not so much by leaping as by swinging from branch to branch, using their powerful 
arms alternately, and when baffled by distance, flinging themselves obliquely so as to 
catch the lower bough of an opposite tree ; the momentum acquired by their descent 
being sufficient to cause a rebound, that carries them again upwards till they can grasp 


SEMNOPITHECI—CYNOPITHECI—CYNOCEPHALI. 687 


a higher branch, and thus continue their headlong flight. -In these perilous achieve- 
ments wonder is excited less by the surpassing agility of these little creatures, frequently 
encumbered as they are by their young, which cling to them in their career, than by 
the quickness of their eye and the unerring accuracy with which they seem to calcu- 
late almost the angle at which a descent would enable them to cover a given distance, 
and the recoil to elevate themselves again to a higher altitude. The African Colobi 
greatly resemble the Asiatic Semnopitheci, but differ by the remarkable circumstance 
of having no thumb on the hands of their anterior extremities. The Cercopitheci 
likewise possess a large tail, which is, however, not more or less pendulous, as in the 
semnopitheci, but generally carried erect over the back. They have also a longer face, 
and their cheeks are furnished with pouches, in which, like the pelican or the hamster, 
they are capable of stowing part of their food. 

The tribes of the mangabeys, macaques, magots, and cynopitheci form the links 
between the cercopitheci and the baboons. Their shape is less slender than that of the 
former, their frontal bone is more developed, particularly above the eye-brows, and 
their face is longer. They are all of them provided with cheek-pouches. Several of 
the macaques have a very short tail, and the magots, or Barbary apes, and the cyno- 
pithecus of the Philippine Islands, have none, thus resembling the large anthropo- 
morphous apes, but widely differing from them in other respects. The Magot is the 
only European species, and seems exclusively confined in that part of the world to the 
rock of Gibraltar, though some authors affirm that it is found in other parts of Anda- 
lusia, and even in the province of Grenada. 

The Cynocephali (Baboons and-Mandrills) show at once by their Greek name that 
a dog-like snout gives them a more bestial expression than belongs to the rest of the 
monkey tribes, and that of all the simize of the Old World they are most widely dis- 
tant from man. In size they are only surpassed by the gorilla and the orang; and if 
in the latter the physiognomy becomes more brutal in its expression with advancing 
age, this degradation is much greater in the baboons. ‘Their canine teeth in particular 
acquire a greater sharpness than those of almost every other carnivorous animal, so 
that these malignant and cruel animals, armed with such powerful weapons, may well 
be reckoned among the most formidable of the wild beasts of Africa. As if to render 
them complete pictures of depravity, their manners also are so shamelessly filthy that 
the curiosity they excite soon changes into horror and disgust. 

The short-tailed mandrills inhabit the west coast of Africa. The Maimon is the 
most remarkable of the whole genus for brilliancy and variety of color; its furrowed 
cheeks are magnificently striped with violet, blue, purple, and scarlet, so as more to 
resemble an artificial tattooing than a natural carnation. As the creature increases in 
age, the nose also becomes blood-red. On the loins the skin is almost bare, and of a 
violet-blue color, gradually altering into a bright blood-red, which is more conspicuous 
on the hinder parts, where it surrounds the tail, which is generally carried erect. 

The real baboons are distinguished from the mandrills by a long tail, terminated by 
a tuft of hair. The great baboon of Senegal (Cynocephalus sphinx) is by no means 
devoid cf intelligence, and learns many tricks when taught from early youth. His 
temper, however, is brutal and choleric, though less so than that of the Chacma ( Qyno- 
cephalus porcarius), or pig-faced baboon, which is found in the vicinity of Cape Town, 
amung others on the celebrated Table Mountain. It frequently commits great devasta- 


688 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


tions in the fields. Young chacmas are often kept as domestic animals, performing 
the offices of a mastiff, whom they greatly surpass in strength. Thus they immedi- 
ately announce by their growling the approach of a stranger, and are even employed 
for a variety of useful purposes which no dog would be able to perform. Here one is 
trained to blow the bellows of a smith ; there another to guide a team of oxen. When 
a stream is to be crossed, the chacma immediately jumps upon the back of one of the 
oxen, and remains sitting till he has no longer to fear the wet, which he loves as little 
as the cat. 

In Abyssinia, Nubia, and South Arabia we find the Derryas (C. hamadryas), 
which enjoyed divine honors among the ancient Egyptians. The general color of the 
hair is a mixture of light-gray and cinnamon, and in the male that of the head and 
neck forms a long mane, falling back over the shoulders. The face is extremely long, 
naked, and of a dirty flesh-color. This ugly monkey was revered as the symbol of 
Thoth, the divine father of literature and the judge of man after death. Formerly 
temples were erected to his honor, and numerous priests ministered to his wants; but 
now, by a sad change of baboon fortune, he is shot without ceremony, and his skin 
pulled over his ears to be stuffed and exhibited in profane museums. 

In the forests of tropical Africa and Asia we find a remarkable group of animals, 
which, though quadrumanous like the monkeys, essentially differs from them by pos- 
sessing long curved claws on the index, or also on the middle finger of the hinder 
extremities; by a sharp, projecting muzzle, and by a different dentition. The Loris, 
remarkable for the slowness of their gait and their large glaring eyes, are exclusively 
natives of the East Indies; the Galagos, which unite the organization of the monkeys 
with the graceful sprightliness of the squirrels, are solely confined to Africa, where 
they are chiefly found in the gum-forests of Senegal; the Tarsii, thus named from 
their elongated tarsii, giving to their hinder limbs a disproportionate length, are re- 
stricted to part of the Indian archipelago ; but the large island of Madagascar, where, 
strange to say, not a single monkey is found, is the chief seat of the family, being the 
exclusive dwelling-place of the short-tailed Indri, (whom, from his black, thick fur and 
anthropomorphous shape, one would be inclined to reckon among the gibbons), and of 
the long-tailed Lemurs or Makis. All these gentle and harmless animals are arboreal 
in their habits, avoid the glaring light of day under the dense covert of the forest, and 
awaken to a more active existence as soon as night descends upon the earth. Then 
the loris, who during the day have slept clinging to a branch, prowl among the forest 
boughs in quest of food. Nothing can escape the scrutiny of their large, glaring eyes; 
and when they have marked their victim, they cautiously and noiselessly approach till 
it is within their grasp. The Galagos have at night all the activity of birds, hopping 
from bough to bough on their hind limbs only. They watch the insects flitting among 
the leaves, listen to the fluttering of the moth as it darts through the air, lie in wait for 
it, and spring with the rapidity of an arrow, seldom missing their prize, which is caught 
by the hands. They make nests in the branches of trees, and cover a bed with grass 
and leaves for their little ones. The tarsii leap about two feet at a spring, and feed 
chiefly on lizards, holding their prey in their fore-hands, while they rest on their 
haunches. | 

The monkeys of the New World differ still more widely from those of the Old than 
the copper-colored Indian from the woolly negro. One sees at once on comparing 


MONKEYS OF THE OLD AND THE NEW WORLD. 689 


them that whole oceans roll between them, that they have not migrated from one 
hemisphere to another, but belong to two different phases of creation. While the 
nasal partition of the Old World simiz is narrow as in man, it is broad without excep- 
tion in all the American monkeys, so that the nostrils are widely separated and open 
sideways. The dental apparatus is also different, for while the monkeys of the eastern 
hemisphere have thirty-two teeth, those of the western world generally possess thirty- 
six. The tailless monkeys or apes, and the short-tailed baboons, with a dog-like pro- 
jecting snout and formidable fangs, are peculiar to the eastern hemisphere, and it is 
only there that we find almost voiceless simiz, while the American quadrumana are 
all of them tailed, short-snouted, and generally endowed with stentorian powers. 
Finally, it would be as useless to look among the western monkeys for cheek-pouches 
and sessile callosities, as among those of the Old World for prehensile tails. 

In the boundless forests of tropical South America, the monkeys form by far the 
greater part of the mammalian inhabitants, for each species, though often confined 
within narrow limits, generally consists of a large number of individuals. The various 
arboreal fruits which the savage population of these immeasurable wilds is unable to 
turn to advantage, fall chiefly to their share; many of them also live upon insects. 
They are never seen in the open campos and savannas, as they never touch the ground 
unless compelled by the greatest necessity. The trees of the forest furnish them with 
all the food they require in inexhaustible abundance. For their perpetual wanderings 
from branch to branch, nature has bountifully endowed many of them not only with 
robust and muscular limbs, and large hands, whose moist palms facilitate the seizure 
of a bough, but in many cases also with a prehensile tail, which may deservedly be 
called a fifth hand, and is hardly less wonderful in its structure than the proboscis of 
the elephant. Covered with short hair, and completely bare underneath towards the 
end, this admirable organ rolls round the boughs as though it were a supple finger, 
and is at the same time so muscular, that the monkey frequently swings with it from 
a branch like the pendulum of a clock. 

Scarce has he grasped a bough with his long arms, when immediately coiling his 
fifth hand round the branch, he springs on to the next, and secure from a fall, hurries 
so rapidly through the crowns of the highest trees that the sportsman’s ball has scarce 
time to reach him in his flight. When the Miriki (Ateles hypoxanthus), the largest 
of the Brazilian monkeys, sitting or stretched out at full length, suns himself on a 
high branch, his tail suffices to support him in his aerial resting-place, and even when 
mortally wounded, he remains a long time suspended by it, until life being quite 
extinct, his heavy body, whizzing through the air, and breaking many a bough as it 
descends, falls with a loud crash to the ground. The famous wourali poison is alone 
eapable of instantly annihilating his muscular powers, and of sparing the wounded 
animal a long and painful agony. Slow and with noiseless step, so as scarcely to dis- 
turb the fallen leaves beneath his feet, the wily Indian approaches. His weapons are 
strange and peculiar, and of so slight an appearance as to form a wondrous contrast to 
their terrific power. A colossal species of bamboo (Arundinaria Schomburgkit), 
whose perfectly cylindrical culm often rises to the hight of fifteen feet from the root 
before it forms its first knot, furnishes him with his blow-pipe, and the slender arrows 
which he sends forth with unerring certainty of aim are made of the leaf-stalks of a 
species of palm tree (Maximiliana regia), hard and brittle, and sharp-pointed as a 


690 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


needle. One would hardly suppose these fragile missiles capable of inflicting the 
slightest wound at any distance, and yet they strike more surely and effectually than 
the rifleman’s bullet, for their point is dipped in the deadly juice of the Strychnos 
Urari, whose venomous powers are not inferior to those of the dreaded bushmaster or 
the fatal cobra. 

The savage tribes of the South American woods know how to poison their arrows 
with the juices of various plants, but none equals this in virulence and certainty of 
execution, and yearly the Indians of the Orinoco, the Rio Negro, and even of the 
Amazon, wander to the Camuku Mountains to purchase by barter the renowned 
Urari or Wourali poison of the Macusis. How they made the discovery of its powers 
is unknown ; at all events the combination of so many means for the attainment of 
the end in view — the preparation of the voisor, the blow-pipe, the arrows — denotes 
a high degree of ingenuity, and shows at once the infinite superiority of the savage 
over the monkey. In a less concentrated’ or diluted form the wourali poison merely 
benumbs or stuns the faculties without killing, and is thus made use of by the Indians 
when they wish to catch an old monkey alive and tame him for sale. On his falling 
to the ground they immediately suck the wound, and wrapping him up in a straight- 
jacket of palm leaves, dose him for a few days with sugar-cane juice, or a strong solu- 
tion of saltpetre. This method generally answers the purpose, but should his stubborn 
temper not yet be subdued, they hang him up in smoke. Then after a short time his 
rage gives way, and his wild eye, assuming a plaintive expression, humbly sues for 
deliverance. His bonds are now loosened, and even the most unmanageable monkey 
seems henceforward totally to forget that he ever roamed at liberty in the boundless 
woods. | 

In general, however, the American simize are distinguished by a much milder dis- 
position than those of the eastern hemisphere, and retain at an advanced age the play- 
ful manners of their youth. They are commonly more easy to tame, and learn many 
little tricks which are taught with much greater difficulty to their restless Asiatic or 
African cousins. Their weakness, their short canine teeth, their good temper, render 
them harmless play-fellows, and thus they are generally preferred in Kurope to the 
Old World monkeys, though they are not so lively, and constantly have a more or less 
dejected mien, as if they still regretted the primitive freedom of the forest. 

The American monkeys may be conveniently divided into two large groups; with 
or without a prehensile tail. To the first great subdivision belong the Howling 
Monkeys or Aluates (Mycetes), the Spider Monkeys (Ateles), the Sajous, and several 
other intermediate genera. | 

The Aluates are chiefly remarkable for their stentorian powers, which no other 
animal can equal or approach. When the nocturnal howl of the large red Aluate 
(Mycetes ursinus) bursts forth from the woods, you would suppose that all the beasts 
of the forest were collecting for the work of carnage. Now it is the tremendous roar 
of the jaguar as he springs on his prey ; now it changes to his terrible and deep-toned 
growlings as he is pressed on all sides by superior force ; and now you hear his last 
dying moan, beneath a mortal wound. Some naturalists have supposed that these 
awful sounds can only proceed from a number of the red monkeys howling in concert, 
but one of them alone is equal to the task. In dark and cloudy weather, and just 
before a squall of rain, the aluate often howls in the day-time; and on advancing 


VARIOUS MONKEY-TRIBES. 691 


cautiously to the high and tufted tree where he is sitting, one may then have a won- 
_derful opportunity of seeing the large lump in his throat, the sounding-board which 
gives such volume to his voice, move up and down as he exerts his stentorian lungs. 
Péppig compares the howling of the aluate to the noise of ungreased cart wheels, but 
very much stronger, and affirms that it may be heard at the distance of a league. 

Like the African Colobi, the Ateles, or Spider Monkeys, have no thumb on their 
fore-hands; their voice is a soft and flute-like whistling, resembling the piping of a 
bird. It is said that when a mother burthened with her young hesitates to take too 
wide a leap, paterfamilias seizes the branch she intends to reach, and swings himself 
to and fro with it, until his companion is able to attain it by a spring. But when a 
young monkey that is already sufficiently strong is fearful, the mother, to give him 
courage, repeats the manceuvre several times before him. The spider monkeys live in 
more or less numerous troops, and chiefly subsist on insects, though when near the sea 
they will also come down upon the beach and feed on mollusks, particularly on 
oysters, whose shells they are said to crack with a stone. 

The second group'of American monkeys, consisting of those with a non-prehensile 
tail, comprises the sakis, the saimiris, the ouistitis, ete. The Sakis, or Fox-tailed 
Monkeys, are distinguished by their bushy tail, which, however, in some species, is 
very short. They usually live in the outskirts of forests, in small societies of ten or 
twelve. Upon the slightest provocation, they display a morose and savage temper, 
and, like the howling monkeys, utter loud cries before sunrise and after sunset. 

The elegant ease of their movements, their soft fur, the large size of their brilliant 
eyes, and their little round face, entitle the Saimiris to be called the most graceful of 
monkeys. Humboldt, who frequently observed them in tropical America, tells us 
that they are extremely affectionate, and that when offended, their eyes immediately 
swim in tears. On speaking to them for some time, they listen with great attention, 
and soon lay their tiny hand upon the speaker’s mouth, as if to catch the words as 
they pass through his lips. They recognize the objects represented in an engraving 
even when not colored, and endeavored to seize the pictured fruits or insects. The 
latter, and particularly spiders, which they catch most dexterously with their lips or 
hands, seem to be their favorite food. The weak little creatures are very fond of 
being carried about by larger monkeys, and cling fast to their back. At first the 
animal to which they thus attach themselves endeavors to get rid of its burden; but 
finding it impossible, it soon becomes reconciled to its fate, and after a short time an 
intimate affection arises between them, so that when the saimiri is busy chasing insects, 
his friend, before leaving the spot, first gives him notice by a gentle cry. A similar 
dependent and affectionate intercourse is not rare among other species of monkeys. 

The habits of the Nyctopitheci, or nocturnal monkeys, bear a great resemblance to 
those of the bats or flying foxes. The shy and quiet little animals sleep by day con- 
cealed in the dense thickets of the forest. Their eye and motions are completely 
feline. Those which Von Martius observed in his collection, crept by day into a 
corner of the cage, but after sunset their agility made up for their diurnal torpor. 

In Guiana, Schomburgk met with the Myctipithecus trivirgatus as a domestic 
animal. ‘‘ A very neat little monkey, shy of light as the owl or the bat. A small 
round head, extremely large yellow eyes, shining in the dark stronger than those of 
the cat, and tiny short ears, give it a peculiarly comical appearance. When disturbed 


692 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


in its diurnal sleep and dragged forth to the light, its helpless movements excite com- 
passion ; it gropes about as if blind, and lays hold of the first object that comes 
within its reach, often pressing its face against it to escape the intolerable glare. The 
darkest corner of the hut is its seat of predilection, where it lies during day in a per- 
fect asphyxia, from which it can only be roused by blows. But soon after sunset it 
leaves its retreat, and then it is impossible to see a more lively, active, and merry 
creature. From hammock it springs to hammock, generally licking the faces of the 
sleepers, and from the floor to the rafters of the roof, overturning all that is not 
sufficiently fastened to resist its curiosity.”’ Its voice is remarkably strong, and, ac- 
cording to Humboldt, is said to resemble the jaguar’s roar, for which reason it is called 
the Tiger Monkey in the missions along the Orinoco. It lives chiefly on nocturnal 
insects, thinning their ranks like the bat, but is also said to prey upon small birds like 
the owl. 

The Ouistitis, or Squirrel Monkeys, are distinguished from all the other American 
quadrumana ‘by the claws with which all their fingers except the thumbs of their hands 
are provided, and which render them excellent service in climbing. They have a very 
soft fur, and are extremely light and graceful in their movements, as well as elegant 
in their forms. The young are often not bigger than a mouse, and even a full-grown 
ouistiti is hardly larger than a squirrel, whom it resembles both in its mode of life, 
and by its restless activity, as its little head is never quiet. They use their tail, 
which in many species is handsomely marked by transverse bars, as a protection 
against the cold, to which they are acutely sensitive. Their numerous species are dis- 
persed over all the forests of tropical America, where they live as well upon fruits and 
nuts as upon insects and eggs; and when they can catch a little bird, they suck its 
brain with all the satisfaction of an epicure. They are easily tamed, but very sus- 
picious and irritable. Audouin made some interesting observations on a pair of tame 
ouistitis, which prove their intelligence to be far superior to that of the squirrels, to 
whom they are so often compared. One of them having one day, while regaling on a 
bunch of grapes, squirted some of the juice into its eye, never failed from that time to 
close its eyes while eating of the fruit. Ina drawing they recognized not only their 
own likeness, but that of other animals. Thus the sight of a cat, and what is still 
more remarkable, that of a wasp, frightened them very much, while at the aspect of 
any other insect, such as a cricket or a cockchafer, they at once rushed upon the 
engraving, as if anxious to make a meal of the object that deluded them with the 
semblance of life. 


BEASTS AND BIRDS OF PREY. 693 


CHAPTER XIV. 
TROPICAL BEASTS AND BIRDS OF PREY. 


Variety of Carnivorous Creatures.—Birds of Prey: The Condor—His Marvelous Flight—His 
Cowardice—Modes of Capturing them—The Turkey-Buzzard, or Carrion Vulture—The 
King of the Vultures—The Urubu—Capable of Domestication—The Harpy Eagle— 
The Sociable Vulture—The Bacha—The Fishing Eagle—The Musical Sparrow-Hawk— 
The Secretary Eagle.—Beasts of Prey: The Lion—Fictitious Character ascribed to him 
—Mode of Seizing his Prey—Lions and Giraffe—Lion and Hottentot—Andersson and a 
Lion—Livingstone’s narrow Escape—Lion-Hunting in the Atlas—By the Bushmen—Cap- 
turing their Young—Former and present Range of the Lion—Lion and Rhinoceros— 
Livingstone’s Estimate of the Lion—The Tiger—Their Ravages in Java—Wide Range of 
the Tiger—Tiger-Hunting in India—Escape from a Tiger—Animals announcing the Ap- 
proach of a Tiger—Turtle-hunting Tigers—The Panther and Leopard—The Cheetah— 
The Hyena—The Spotted and Brown Hyenas—The Felide of New World—The Jaguar 
—Hunting the Jaguar—The Cougar, or Puma—The Ocelot—The Jaguarandi—The 


Tiger-Cat. 


LMOST all birds and a considerable proportion of animals are carnivorous, and 
notwithstanding their differences in size, may be strictly designated as Birds 
and Beasts of Prey. The fox and weasel are as strictly beasts of prey as the lion and 
the tiger ; the sparrow and robin, although seeds and fruit form part of their food, are as 
truly birds of prey as the eagle and the vulture. A sparrow will, indeed, in the course. 
of a single day, probably destroy more individual living creatures than an eagle will 
in his whole life-time ; a fox in a year more than a lion in the half century which he 
is supposed to live. We shall here, however, confine ourselves wholly to the larger 
species of birds and beasts of prey, commencing with the former. 

The flight of the Condor is truly wonderful. From the mountain-plains of the 
Andes, the royal bird, soaring aloft, appears only like a small black speck on the sky, 
and a few hours afterwards he descends to the coast and mixes his loud screech with 
the roar of the surf. No living creature rises voluntarily so high, none traverses in 
so short a time all the climates of the globe. He rests at night in the crevices of the 
rocks, or on some jutting ledge; but as soon as the first rays of the sun light the 
summits of the mountains, while the darkness of night still rests upon the deeper 
valleys, he stretches forth his neck, shakes his head as if fully to rouse himself, stoops 
over the brink of the abyss, and flapping his wings, dives into the aerial ocean. At 
first his flight is by no means strong; he sinks as if borne down by his weight, but 
soon he ascends, and sweeps through the rarified atmosphere without any perceptible 
vibratory motion of the wings. ‘‘ Near Lima,” says Mr. Darwin, ‘‘ I watched several 
condors for nearly half an hour without once taking off my eyes. They moved in 
large curves, sweeping in circles, descending and ascending without once flapping. 


694 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


As they glided close over my head, I intently watched from an oblique position the 
outlines of the separate and terminal feathers of the wing; if there had been the 
least vibratory movement these would have blended together, but they were seen dis- 
tinct against the blue sky. The head and neck were moved frequently and apparently 
with force, and it appeared that the extended wings formed the fulcrum on which the 
movements of the neck, body, and tail acted. If the bird wished to descend, the 
wings were for a moment collapsed, and then, when again expanded with an altered 
inclination, the momentum gained by the rapid descent seemed to urge the bird up- 
wards with the even and steady movement of a paper kite.’ 

According to Humboldt and D’Orbigny, the condor is a contemptible coward, whom 
the stick of a child is able to put to flight. Far from venturing to attack any full- 
grown, larger animal—the llama, the ox, or even man, as former travelers asserted— 
he feeds, like other vultures, only upon dead carcasses, or on new-born lambs and 
calves, whom he tears from the side of their mothers. He thus does so much damage 
to the herds, that the shepherds pursue and kill him whenever they can. As even a 
bullet frequently glances off from his thick feathery coat, the natives never use fire- 
arms for his destruction, but make use of various traps, of the sling, or of the bolas, 
which they are able to throw with such marvelous dexterity. In the Peruvian province 
of Abacay, an Indian provided with cords conceals himself under a fresh cow’s skin, 
to which some pieces of flesh are left attached. The condors soon pounce upon the 
prey, but while they are feasting he fastens their legs to the skin. This being accom- 
plished, he suddenly comes forth, and the alarmed birds vainly flap their wings, for 
other Indians hurry towards them, throw their mantles or their lassos over them, and 
carry the condors to their village, where they are reserved for the next bull-fight. 
For a full week before this spectacle is to take place, the bird gets nothing to eat, and 
is then bound upon the back of a bull which has previously been scarified with lances. 
The bellowing of the poor animal, laserated by the famished vulture, and vainly 
endeavoring to cast off its tormentor, amuses what may well be called the ‘‘ swinish 
multitude.’’ In the province of Huarochirin there is a large natural funnel-shaped 
excavation, about sixty feet deep, with a diameter of about eighty feet at the top. A 
dead mule is placed on the brink of the precipice. The tugging of the condors at the 
dead carcass causes it to fall into the hole; they follow it with greedy haste, and 
having gorged themselves with food, are unable again to rise from the narrow bottom 
of the funnel. Tschudi saw the Indians kill at once, with sticks, twenty-eight of the 
birds which had been thus entrapped. In a somewhat similar manner condors are 
caught in Peru, Bolivia, and Chili, as far as their range extends, and are frequently 
brought to Valparaiso and Callao, where they are sold for a few dollars to the foreign 
ships, and thence conveyed to Europe. | 

The condor, though a very large bird, about four feet long, and measuring at least 
three yards from tip to tip of his extended wings, is far from attaining the dimensions 
assigned to him by the earlier writers and naturalists, who, emulating Sindbad the Sailor, 
in his account of the roc, described him as a giant whose bulk darkened the air. For- 
tunately the works of nature do not require the exaggerations of fiction to be rendered 
interesting, and the marvels of organic nature which scientific inquiries reveal are far 
more wonderful than any which romancers may invent. 

While the condor is considered an enemy to man, the Gallinazos, Turkey-buzzards, 


VULTURES—BUZZARDS. 695 


or common American Carrion Vultures ( Vultur aura, V. urubu), are very serviceable 
to him, by consuming the animal offals which, if left to putrefaction, would produce a 
pestilence. Thus they generally, in tropical America, enjoy the protection of the law, 
a heavy fine, amounting in some towns to $300, being imposed upon the offender 
who wantonly kills one of these scavengers. It is consequently not to be wondered 
at that, like domestic birds, they congregate in flocks in the streets of Lima, and sleep 
upon the roofs of the houses. In 1808, Waterton saw the vultures in Angostura as 
tame as barn-fowls; a person who had never seen one would have taken them for . 
turkeys. They were very useful to the citizens; had it not been for them, the refuse 
of the slaughter-houses would have caused an intolerable nuisance. The Aura is dark- 
brown black, with a red and naked head and neck, covered with wrinkles and warts ; 
the Urubu is very similar, only the head and neck are gray-black, but equally wrinkled 
and ugly. The latter ranges over South America in countless numbers, as D’Orbigny 
witnessed on a visit to a hacienda on the river Plata, where 12,000 oxen had been 
killed for salting. During this wholesale massacre, which lasted several months, the 
bones and entrails were cast along the banks of the stream, where at least 10,000 
urubus had congregated to enjoy the banquet. It is a remarkable fact that, though 
hundreds of gallinazos may be feeding upon a carcase, they immediately retire when 
the King of the Vultures (Sarcoramphus papa) makes his appearance, who yet is not 
larger than themselves. Perching on the neighboring trees, they wait till his majesty 
—a beautiful bird, with head and neck gaudily colored with scarlet, orange, blue, 
brown and white—has sufficiently gorged himself, and then pounce down with increased 
voracity upon their disgusting meal. According to Humboldt, they are intimidated 
by the greater boldness of the sarcoramphus. The true reason of their homage, how- 
ever, seems to be the fear they entertain for the more powerful beak of the ‘‘ king,” 
who, from a similar motive, gives way to the still mightier condor. 

The Indians of Guiana sometimes amuse themselves with catching one of the urubus 
by means of a piece of meat attached to a hook, and decking him with a variety of 
strange feathers, which they attach to him with soft wax. Thus travestied, they turn 
him out again among his comrades, who, to their great delight, fly in terror from the 
nondescript ; and it is only after wind and weather have stripped him of his finery 
that the outlaw is once more admitted into urubu society. When full of food this vul- 
ture, like the other members of his tribe, certainly appears an indolent bird. He will 
stand for hours together on the branch of a tree, or on the top of a house, with his 
wings drooping, or after rain, spreading them to catch the rays of the sun. But when 
in quest of prey, he may be seen soaring aloft on pinions which never flutter, and 
which at the same time carry him with a rapidity equal to that of the golden eagle. 
Scarcely has he espied a piece of carrion below, when, folding his broad wings, he 
descends with such speed as to produce a whistling sound, resembling that of an arrow 
cleaving the air. 

The gallinazos when taken young can be so easily tamed that they will follow the 
person who feeds them for many miles. Relying on their inviolability, the gallinazos, 
like chartered libertines, are uncommonly bold, and during the distributions of meat 
to the Indians, which regularly take place every fortnight in the South American 
Missions, they not seldom come in for their share by dint of impudence. In Concep- 
zion de Mojos, an Indian told M. D’Orbigny, who was present on one of those occasions, 


696 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


that he would soon have the opportunity of seeing a most notorious thief, well known 
by his lame leg ; and the bird, making his appearance soon after, completely justified 
his reputation. The traveler was also informed that this urubu knew perfectly well 
the days of distribution in the different missions; and eight days later, while witness- 
ing a similar scene at Magdalena, twenty leagues distant, he heard the Indians exclaim, 
and looking up saw his lame acquaintance of Concepcion hurrying to the spot, with 
the anxious mien of one that is afraid of missing a meal. The padres in both missions 
assured him that the vulture never failed to make his appearance at the stated time ; 
a remarkable instance of memory, or highly developed instinct in a bird. ‘If you 
dissect a vulture,’ says Waterton, ‘that has just been feeding on carrion, you must 
expect that your olfactory nerves will be somewhat offended with the rank effluvia 
from his craw, just as they would be were you to dissect a citizen after the lord-mayor’s 
dinner. If, on the contrary, the vulture be empty at the time you commence the oper- 
ation, there will be no offensive smell, but a strong scent of musk.” 

The Harpy Eagle (Thrasaétus harpyia) is one of the finest of all the rapacious 
birds. The enormous development of his beak and legs, and his consequent strength 
and power in mastering his prey, correspond with his bold and noble bearing, and the 
fierce lustre of his eye. His whole aspect is that of formidably organized power, and even 
the crest adds much to his terrific appearance. ‘‘ Among many singular birds and 
curiosities,” says Mr. Edwards, in his ‘‘ Voyage up the Amazon,” ‘‘ that were brought 
to us, was a young harpy eagle, a most ferocious looking character, with a harpy’s 
crest and a beak and talons in correspondence. He was turned loose into the garden, 
and before long gave us a sample of his powers. With erected crest and flashing 
eyes, uttering a frightful shriek, he pounced upon a young ibis, and quicker than 
thought had torn his reeking liver from his body. The whole animal world there was 
wild with fear.” ) 

The harpy attains a greater size than the common eagle. He chiefly resides in the 
damp lowlands of tropical America, where Prince Maximilian of Neu Wied met with 
him only in the dense forests, perched on the high branches. The monkey, vaulting 
by means of his tail from tree to tree, mocks the pursuit of the tiger-cat. and boa, but 
woe to him if the harpy spies him out, for, seizing him with lightning-like rapidity, he 
cleaves his skull with one single stroke of his beak. Fear seems to be totally unknown 
to this noble bird, and he defends himself to the last moment. D’Orbigny relates 
that one day, while descending a Bolivian river in a boat with some Indians, they 
severely wounded a harpy with their arrows, so that it fell from the branch on which 
it had been struck. Stepping out of the canoe, the savages now rushed to the spot 
where the bird lay, knocked it on the head, and tearing out the feathers of its wings, 
brought it for dead to the boat. Yet the harpy awakened from his trance, and furi- 
ously attacked his persecutors. Throwing himself upon D’Orbigny, he pierced his 
hand through and through with the only talon that had been left unhurt, while the 
mangled remains of the other tore his arm, which at the same time he lacerated with 
his beak. Two men were hardly able to release the naturalist from the attacks of the 
ferocious bird. 

On turning from the New to the Old World, we find other but not less interesting 
predatory birds sweep through the higher regions of the air in quest of prey. The 
gigantic oricou, or Sociable Vulture ( Vultur auricularis), inhabits the greater part of 


VULTURES—FALCONS—EAGLES. 697 


Africa, and builds his nest in the fissures of rocks on the peaks of inaccessible moun- 
tains. In size he equals the condor, measuring upwards of ten feet across the wings 
expanded, and his flight is not less bold ; leaving his lofty cavern at dawn, he rises 
higher and higher, till he is lost to sight ; but, though beyond the sphere of human 
vision, the telescopic eye of the bird is at work. The moment any animal sinks to the 
earth in death, the unseen vulture detects it. Does the hunter bring down some large 
quadruped beyond his powers to remove, and leave it to obtain assistance ?—on his 
return, however speedy, he finds it surrounded by a band of vultures, where not one 
was to be seen a quarter of an hour before. Le Vaillant having once killed three 
zebras, hastened to his camp, at about a league’s distance, to fetch a wagon; but on 
returning he found nothing but the bones, at which hundreds of oricous were busy 
picking. Another time having killed a gazelle, he left the carcase on the sand, and 
retired into the bushes to observe what would happen. First came crows, who with 
loud croakings wheeled round the dead animal ; then, after a few minutes, kites and 
buzzards appeared, and finally he saw the oricous descending in spiral lines from an 
enormous hight. They alighted upon the gazelle, and soon hundreds of birds of prey 
were assembled. Thus the small robbers had first pointed out the way to those of 
middle size, who in their turn roused the attention of the bandits of a higher order ; 
and none of them came too short, for after the powerful oricous had dismembered the 
carcase, some very good morsels remained for the buzzards, and ~ hones furnished 
excellent pickings for the crows. 

The Bacha (Falco bacha) inhabits India and Africa, where kd sits es days on the 
peak of precipitous cliffs, on the look out for rock-rabbits (Hyrax capensis). These 
poor animals, who have good reason to be on their guard, venture only with the great- 
est caution to peep out of their caves and crevices in which they take up their abode, 
and to which they owe their Dutch name of ‘‘klipdachs.’”? Meanwhile the bacha re- 
mains immovable, as if he were part of the rock on which he perches, his head muffled 
up in his shoulders, but watching with a sharp eye every movement of his prey, until, 
finally, some unfortunate klipdachs venturing forth, he darts upon him like a thunder- 
bolt. If this rapid attack proves unsuccessful, the bacha slinks away, ashamed, like 
a lion that has missed his spring, and seeks some new observatory, for he is well aware 
that no rock-rabbit in the neighborhood will venture to stroll out during the remainder 
of the day. But if he succeeds in seizing the klipdachs before it has time to leap 
away, he carries it to a rocky ledge, and slowly tears it to pieces. The terrible cries 
of the animal appear to sound like music in his ears, as if he were not only satisfying 
his hunger but rejoicing in the torments of an enemy. This scene of cruelty spreads 
terror far and wide, and for a long time no klipdachs will be seen where the bacha has 
keld his bloody repast. 

The Fishing Eagle of Africa ( Halietus vocifer), first noticed by Le Vaillant, may be 
seen hovering about the coasts and river-mouths of that vast continent. He is never 
found in the interior of the country, as the African streams are but thinly stocked 
with fish, which form his principal food. Elastic and buoyant, this agile dweller in 
the air mounts to soaring heights, scanning with sharp and piercing eye the motions 
of his prey below. Energetic in his movements, impetuous in his appetites, he pounces 
with the velocity of a meteor on the object of his wishes, and with a wild and savage 
joy tears it to pieces. His whole sense of existence is the procuring of food, and for 


698 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


this he is ever on the alert, ever ready to combat, to ravage, and destroy. He gen- 
erally devours his prey on the nearest rock, and loves to return to the same spot where 
the bones of gazelles and lizards may be seen lying about, a proof that his appetite is 
not solely confined to the finny tribes. When these birds are sitting, they call and 
answer each other with a variously-toned shriek, which they utter under curious move- 
ments of the head and neck. 

While all other predatory birds croak or shriek, the musical Sparrow-Hawk of Africa 
(Melherca musicus) pours forth his morning and evening notes to entertain his mate 
while she is performing the duties of incubation. Every song lasts a minute, and then 
the hunter may approach, but during the pause he is obliged to remain perfectly quiet, 
as then the bird hears the least noise and immediately flies away. 

The prowess of the Secretary-eagle (Serpentarius eristatus) attacking the most 
venomous serpents has already been mentioned in the chapter on those noxious rep- 
tiles. The long legs of this useful bird, which owes its name of “ Secretary ” to the crest 
on the back of its head, reminding one of the pen stuck behind the ear, according to 
the custom of writing clerks, might give one reason to reckon it, at first sight, among 
the cranes or storks, but its curved beak and internal organization prove it to belong 
to the falcon tribe. Its feet being incapable of grasping, it keeps constantly on the 
ground in sandy and open places, and runs with such speed as to be able to overtake 
the most agile reptiles. The destruction it causes in their ranks must be great indeed, 
for Le Vaillant mentions that having killed one of these birds he found in its crop 
eleven rather large lizards, three serpents of an arm’s length, and eleven small tor- 
toises, besides a number of locusts, beetles, and other insects. 


The majestic form, the noble bearing, the stately stride, the fine proportions, the 
piercing eye, and the dreadful roar of the Lion, striking terror into the heart of every 
other animal, all combine to mark him with the stamp of royalty. All nerve, all 
muscle, his enormous strength shows itself in the tremendous bound with which he 
rushes upon his prey, in the rapid motions of his tail, one stroke of which is able to 
fell the strongest man to the ground, and in the expressive wrinkling of his brow. No 
wonder that, ever inclined to judge from outward appearances, and to attribute to ex- 
ternal beauty analogous qualities of mind, man has endowed the lion with a nobility 
of character which he in reality does not possess. For modern travelers, who have 
had occasion to observe him in his native wilds, far from awarding him the praise of 
chivalrous generosity and noble daring, rather describe him as a mean spirited robber, 
prowling about at night-time in order to surprise a weaker prey. 

The lion is distinguished from all other members of the feline tribe by the uniform 
color of his tawny skin, by the black tuft at the end of his tail, and particularly by the 
long and sometimes blackish mane, which he is able to bristle when under the influence 
of passion, and which contributes so much to the beauty of the male, while it is wanting 
in the lioness, who is very inferior in size and comeliness to her stately mate. His 
chief food consists of the flesh of the larger herbivorous animals, very few of which 
he is unable to master, and the swift-footed antelope has no greater enemy than he. 
Concealed in the high rushes on the river’s bank, he lies in ambush for the timorous 
herd, which at night-fall approaches the water to quench its thirst. Slowly and cau- 
tiously the children of the waste advance ; they listen with ears erect, they strain their 


THE LION AND HIS PREY. 699 


eyes to penetrate the thicket’s gloom, but nothing suspicious appears or moves along 
the bank. Long and deeply they quaff the delicious draught ; but suddenly with a 
giant spring, like lightning bursting from a cloud, the lion bounds upon the unsuspect- 
ing revellers, and the leader of the herd lies prostrate at his feet, while his companions 
fly into the desert. ; 


aX wll 


yen 


i 


LIONS PULLING DOWN A GIRAFFE. 


Andersson is one of the very few who have ever had an opportunity of seeing the 
lion seizing his prey in broad daylight. Late one evening he had badly wounded a 
lion ; and on the following morning set out with his attendants, following the bloody 
tracks of the animal. ‘‘ Presently,’’ he writes, ‘‘ we came upon the ‘ spoor’ of a whole 
troop of lions, as also that of a solitary giraffe. So many tracks confused us, and 
while endeavoring to pick out from the rest those of the wounded lion, I observed my 
native attendants suddenly rush forward, and the next instant the jungle re-echoed 
with the shouts of triumph. Thinking they had discovered the lion we were in pur- 
suit of, I also hurried forward ; but imagine my surprise when emerging into an open- 
ing in the jungle I saw, not a dead lion, as I expected, but five living lions—two 
males and three females—two of whom were in the act of pulling down a splendid 
giraffe, the other three watching close at hand, and with devouring louks, the deadly 


700 TH TROPICAL WORLD. 


strife. The scene was of so imposing a nature that for the moment I forgot I carried 
agun. ‘The natives, however, in anticipation of a glorious gorge, dashed madly for- 
ward, and with the most piercing shrieks and yells compelled the lions to a hasty 
retreat. When I reached the giraffe, now stretched at full length on the sand, it made 
a few ineffectual attempts to raise its neck; its body heaved and quivered for a mo- 
ment, and the nex instant the poor animal was dead. It had received several deep 
gashes about the fianks and chest, caused by the claws and teeth of its fierce assail- 
ants. The strong and tough muscles of the neck were also bitten through. All 
thought of pursuing the wounded lion was now out of the question. The natives 
remained gorging on tue carcass of the giraffe until it was devoured. A day or two 
afterward, however, I had the good fortune to fall in with my royal antagonist, and 
finished him without difficulty.” 

During the day-time the lion seldom attacks man, and sometimes even when meet- 
ing a traveler he is said to pass him by unnoticed ; but when the shades of evening 
descend, his mood. undergoes a change. After sunset it is dangerous to venture into 
the woody and wild regions of Mount Atlas, for there the lion lies in wait, and there 
one finds him stretched across the narrow path. It is then that dramatic scenes of 
absorbing interest not unfrequently take place. When, so say the Bedouins, a single 
man thus meeting with a lion is possessed of an undaunted heart, he advances towards 
the monster brandishing his sword or flourishing his rifle high in the air, and, taking 
good care not to strike or to shoot, contents himself with pouring forth a torrent of 
abuse: ‘‘Oh, thou mean-spirited thief! thou pitiful waylayer! thou son of one that 
never ventured to say zo/ think’st thou I fear thee? Kmnowest thou whose son I am? 
Arise, and lot me pass!’? The lion waits till the man approaches quite near to him ; 
then he retires, but soon stretches himself once more across the path; and thus by 
many a repeated trial puts the courage of the wanderer to the test. All the time the 
movements of the lion are attended with a dreadful noise, he breaks numberless 
branches with his tail, he roars, he growls ; like the cat with the mouse, he plays with 
the object of his repeated and singular attacks, keeping him perpetually suspended 
between hope and fear. If the man engaged in this combat keeps up his courage,— 
if, as the Arabs express themselves, ‘‘he holds fast his soul,” then the brute at last 
quits him and seeks some other prey. But if the lion perceives that he has to do 
with an opponent whose courage falters, whose voice trembles, who does not venture 
to utter a menace, then to terrify him still more he redoubles the described manoeuvres, 
He approaches his victim, pushes him from the path, then leaves him and approaches 
again, and enjoys the agony of the wretch, until at last he tears him to pieces. 

The lion is said to have a particular liking for the flesh of the Hottentots, and it is 
surprising with what obstinacy he will follow one of these unfortunate savages. Thus 
Mr. Barrow relates the adventure of a Namaqua Hottentot, who, endeavoring to drive 
his master’s cattle into a pool of water enclosed between two ridges of rocks, espied a 
huge lion couching in the midst of the pool. ‘Terrified at the unexpected sight of such 
a beast, that seemed to have his eyes fixed upon him, he instantly took to his heels. 
In doing this he had presence of mind enough to run through the herd, concluding 
that if the lion should pursue he would take up with the first beast that presented 
itself. In this, however, he was mistaken. The lion broke through the herd, making 
directly after the Hottentot, who, on turning round and perceiving that the monster 


ENCOUNTERS WITH LIONS. 701 


had singled him out, breathless and half dead with fear, scrambled up one of the tree- 
aloes, in the trunk of which a few steps had luckily been cut out to come at some 
birds’ nests that the branches contained. At the same moment the lion made a spring 
at him, but missing his aim, fell upon the ground. In surly silence he walked round 
the tree, casting at times a dreadful look towards the poor Hottentot, who screened 
himself from his sight behind the branches. Having remained silent and motionless 
for a length of time, he at length ventured to peep, hoping that the lion had taken 
his departure, when, to his great terror and astonishment, his eyes met those of the 
animal, which, as the poor fellow afterwards expressed himself, flashed fire at him. In 
short, the lion laid himself down at the foot of the tree, and did not remove from the 
place for twenty-four hours. At the end of this time, becoming parched with thirst, 
he went to a spring at some distance in order to drink. The Hottentot now, with 
trepidation, ventured to descend, and scampered off home, which was not more than a 
mile distant, as fast as his feet could carry him. 

On account as well of the devastations which he causes among the herds as of the 
pleasure of the chase, the lion is pursued and killed in North and in South Africa 
wherever he appears: a state of war which, as may well be supposed, is not without 
danger for the aggressive party. Thus Andersson once fired upon a black-maned 
lion, one of the largest he ever encountered in Africa. Roused to fury by the slight 
wound he had received, the brute rapidly wheeled, rushed upon him with a dreadful 
roar, and at the distance of a few paces, couched as if about to spring, having his 
head imbedded, so to say, between his fore paws. Drawing a large hunting-knife, and 
slipping it over the wrist of his right hand, Andersson dropped on one knee, and thus 
prepared, awaited the onset.of the lion. it wac an awful moment of suspense, and 
his situation was critical in the extreme. Still his presence of mind, (a most indis- 
pensable quality in a South African hunter,) never for a moment forsook him ; indeed, 
he felt that nothing but the most perfect coolness and absolute self-command would be 
of any avail. He would now have become the assailant; but as, owing to the inter- 
vening bushes and clouds of dust raised by the lion’s lashing his tail against the 
ground, he was unable to see his head, while to aim at any other part would have 
been madness, he refrained from firing. Whilst intently watching every motion of the 
lion, the animal suddenly made a prodigious bound; but whether it was owing to his 
not perceiving his intended victim, who was partially concealed in the long grass, and 
instinctively threw his body on one side, or to miscaiculating the distance, he went 
clear over him, and alighted on the ground three or four paces beyond. Quick as 
thought Andersson now seized his advantage, and wheeling round on his knee, dis- 
charged his second barrel ; and as the lion’s broadside was then towards him, lodged 
a ball in his shoulder, which it completely smashed. The infuriated animal now made 
a second and more determined rush; but, owing to his disabled state, was happily 
avoided, though only within a hair’s breadth, and giving up the contest, he retreated 
into a neighboring wood, where his carcass was found a few days after. 

Dr. Livingstone once had a still more narrow escape, for he was actually under the 
paws of a lion, whose fury he had roused by firing two bullets at him. ‘‘I was upon 
a little hight ; he caught my shoulder as he sprang, and we both came to the ground 
bvelow together. Growling horribly close to my ear, he shook me as a terrier-dog does 


arat. The shock produced a stupor, similar to that which seems to be felt by a mouse 
45 


702 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


after the first shake of the cat. It caused a sort of drowsiness in which there was no 
sense of pain nor feeling of terror, though quite conscious of all that was happening. 
It was like what patients partially under the influence of chloroform describe, who see 
all the operation, but feel not the knife. This singular condition was not the result 
of any mental process; the shake annihilated fear, and allowed no sense of horror in 
looking round at the beast. This peculiar state is probably produced in all animals 
killed by the carnivora; and if so, isa merciful provision by our benevolent Creator 
for lessening the pain of death. Turning round to relieve myself of the weight, as he 
had one paw on the back of my head, I saw his eyes directed to Mebalwé, who was 
trying to shoot him at a distance of ten or fifteen yards. His gun, a flint one, missed 
fire in both barrels; the lion immediately left me, and attacking Mebalwé, bit his 
thigh. Another man attempted to spear the lion while he was biting Mebalwé. He 
left Mebalwé and caught this man by the shoulder ; but at that moment the bullets he 
had received took effect, and he fell down dead. The whole was the work of a few 
moments, and must have been his paroxysm of dying rage. A wound from this 
animal’s tooth resembles a gun-shot wound ; it is generally followed by a great deal 
of sloughing and discharge, and pains are felt in the part periodically ever afterwards. 
I had on a tartan jacket on the occasion, and I believe that it wiped off all the virus 
from the teeth that pierced the flesh, for my two companions in this affray have both 
suffered from the peculiar pains, while I have escaped with only the inconvenience of a 
false joint in my limb. The man whose shoulder was wounded showed me his wound 
actually burst forth afresh on the same month of the following year.” 

In the Atlas, the lion is hunted in various ways. When he prowls about the 
neighborhood of a Bedouin encampment, his presence is announced by various signs. 
At night his dreadful roar resounds; now an ox, now a foal is missing from the herd ; 
at length even a member of the tribe disappears. Terror spreads among all the tents, 
the women tremble for their children, everywhere complaints are heard. The warriors 
decree the death of the obnoxious neighbor, and congregate on horse and on foot at 
the appointed hour and place. The thicket in which the lion conceals himself during 
the day-time has already been discovered, and the troop advances, the horsemen bring- 
ing up the rear. About fifty paces from the bush. they halt, and draw up in ‘three 
rows, the second ready to assist the first in case of need, the third an invincible reserve 
of excellent marksmen. Then commences a strange and animated scene. The first 
row abusing the lion, and at the same time sending a few balls into his covert to 
induce him to come out, utters loud exclamations of defiance. ‘‘ Where is he who 
fancies himself so brave, and ventures not to show himself before men? Surely it is 
not the lion, but a cowardly thief, a son of Scheitan, on whom may Allah’s curse rest !” 

At length, the roused lion breaks forth. A momentary silence ensues. © The lion 
roars, rolls flaming eyes, retreats a few paces, stretches himself upon the ground, rises, 
smashes the branches with his tail. The front row gives fire, the lion springs forward, 
if untouched, and generally falls under the balls of the second row, which immediately 
advances towards him. This moment, so critical for the lion, whose fury is fully ex- 
cited, does not end the combat till he is hit in the head or in the heart. Often his 
hide has been pierced by a dozen balls before the mortal wound is given, so that. 
sometimes in case of a prolonged contest several of the hunters are either killed or 
wounded. The horsemen remain as passive spectators of the fray so long as the lion 


LION-HUNTING. 703 


keeps upon hilly ground ; but when driven into the plain, their part begins, and a new 
combat of a no less original and dramatic character commences ; as every rider, accord- 
ing to his zeal or courage, spurs his horse upon the monster, fires upon him at a short 
distance, then rapidly wheels as soon as the shot is made, and reloads again, to prepare 
for a new onset. The lion, attacked on all sides and covered with wounds, fronts 
everywhere the enemy, springs forward, retreats, returns, and only falls after a glorious 
resistance, which must necessarily end in his defeat and death, as he is no match for a 
troop of well-mounted Arabs. After he has spent his power on a few monstrous 
springs, even an ordinary horse easily overtakes him. One must have been the wit- 
ness of such a fight, says Dumas, to form an idea of its liveliness. Every rider utters 
loud imprecations, the white mantles that give so spectral an appearance to their dusky 
owners, fly in the air like ‘‘ streamers long and gay,” the carbines glisten, the shots 
resound, the lion roars; pursuit and flight alternate in rapid succession Yet in spite 
of the tumult accidents are rare, and the horsemen have generally nothing to fear but 
a fall from their steed, which might bring them under the claws of their enemy, or, 
what is oftener the case, the ball of an incautious comrade. 

The Arabs have noticed that the day after the lion has carried away an animal, he 
generally remains in a state of drowsy inactivity, incapable of moving from his lair. 
When the neighborhood, which usually resounds with his evening roar, remains quiet, 
there is every reason to believe that the animal is gorged with his gluttonous repast. 
Then some huntsman, more courageous than his comrades, follows his trail into the 
thicket, levels his gun at the lethargic monster, and sends a ball into his head. Some- 
times even, a hunter, relying on the deadly certainty of his aim, and desirous of acquir- 
ing fame by a display of chivalrous courage, rides forth alone into the thicket, on a 
moonlight night, challenges the lion with repeated shouts and imprecations, and lays 
him prostrate before he can make his fatal bound. 

Dr. Livingstone informs us that the Bushmen likewise avail themselves of the tor- 
pidity consequent upon a full meal, to surprise the lion in his slumbers: but their 
mode of attack is very different from that practiced by the fiery Arabs of Northern 
Africa. One discharges a poisoned arrow from the distance of only a few feet, while 
his companion simultaneously throws his skin-cloak over the beast’s head. The sudden 
surprise makes him lose his presence of mind, and he bounds away in the greatest 
confusign and terror. The poison which they use is the entrails of a caterpillar named 
N’ewa, half an inch long. They squeeze out these, and place them all around the 
bottom of the barb, and allow the poison to dry in the sun. ‘‘ They are very careful 
in cleaning their nails after working with it, as a small portion introduced into a scratch 
acts like morbid matter in dissection wounds. The agony is so great that the person 
cuts himself, calls for his mother’s breast, as if he were returned in idea to his child- 
hood again, or flies from human habitations_a raging maniac. The effects on the lion 
are equally terrible. He is heard moaning in distress, and becomes furious, biting the 
trees and ground in rage.”’ 

The Arabs of the Atlas consider it much less dangerous to hunt the lion himself 
than to rob him of his young. Daily about three or four o’clock in the afternoon, 
the parent lions roam about, most likely to espy some future prey. They are seen 
upon a rising ground surveying the encampment, the smoke arising from the tents, the 
places where the cattle are preserved, and soon after retire with a deep growl. During 


704 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


this absence from their den, the Bedouins cautiously approach to seize the young, 
taking good care to gag them, as their cries would infallibly attract the parent lion. 
After a razzia like this, the whole neighborhood increases its vigilance, as for the next 
seven or eight days the fury of the lion knows no bounds. 

In ancient times, the lion was an inhabitant of south-eastern Europe. Herodotus 
relates that troops of lions came down the, Macedonian mountains, to seize upon the 
baggage camels of Xerxes’ army, and even under Alexander the Great, the animal, 
though rare, was not yet completely extirpated. In Asia also, where the lion is at 
present confined to Mesopotamia, the northern coast of the Persian Gulf, and the 
north-western part of Hindostan, he formerly roamed over far more extensive domains. 
_ The Asiatic lion differs from the African, by a more compressed form of the body, a 
shorter mane, which sometimes is almost entirely wanting, and a much larger tuft of 
hair at the end of the tail. Africa is the chief seat of the lion, the part of the world 
where he appears to perfection with all the attributes of his peculiar strength and 
beauty. There he is found in the wilds of the Atlas as in the high mountain-lands 
of Abyssinia, from the Cape to Senegal, and from Mozambique to Congo; and more 
than one species of the royal animal, not yet accurately distinguished by the natural- 
ists, roams over this vast expanse. The lion is frequently brought to Europe and 
America, and forms one of the chief objects of attraction in zodlogical gardens. 
When taken young, he easily accustoms himself to captivity, and even propagates 
within his prison bounds, but the cubs born in our climate generally die young. 

That the lion is at times bold and ferocious enough is abundantly testified by all 
the hunters who within the last few years have narrated their adventures in Southern 
Africa, but all of them also give equal testimony to his usual cowardice, when not 
pressed by hunger. Livingstone, indeed, has a most republican contempt for the so- 
called “ royal-beast,” although he bears on his person proofs that he is not to be wholly 
despised. According to him the lion is nothing better than an overgrown hulking cat, 
not a match in fair fight for the buffalo, and always careful to give a wide berth to 
the rhinoceros. Andersson relates the only instance which has come within our obser- 
vation where a lion assailed a rhinoceros. He had wounded a rhinoceros, and, he 
writes, ‘while following up the trail of the animal, we came to a spot where one or 
two lions, taking advantage of his crippled condition, had evidently attacked him, and 
after a desperate struggle had been compelled to beat a precipitate retreat. This is 
the only instance I know of lions daring to attack rhinoceroses, though I have seen it 
stated in print, that not only will they assail, but can master the horned monster.’’ 
His picture of this scene is given on page 503 of this volume. 

According to Livingstone, if a traveler encounters a lion by daylight, he turns tail 
and sneaks out of sight like a scared greyhound. All the talk about his majestic roar 
is sheer twaddle. It takes a keen ear to distinguish the voice of the lion from that 
of the silly ostrich. When the lion grows old, he leads a miserable life. Unable to 
master the larger game, he prowls about the villages in hopes to pick up a stray goat. 
A woman or a child does not come amiss. When the natives hear one prowling about 
the villages, they say, ‘‘ His teeth are worn; he will soon kill men,” and thereupon 
turn out and put an end to him; “and this,” says Livingstone, ‘is the only founda- 
tion for the common belief that when the lion has once tasted human flesh he will eat 
nothing else.’? When an aged lion lives far from human habitations so that he can not 


THE LION AT HOME~—THE TIGER. 705 


get goats or children, he is often reduced to such straits as to be obliged to make his 
meals of mice and such small prey. “Upon the whole,” concludes Livingstone, ‘‘ in 
the dark, or at all hours when breeding, the lion is an ugly enough customer ; but if 
a man will stay at home by night, and not go out of his way to attack him, he runs 
less risk in Africa of being devoured by a lion, than he does in our cities of being run 
over by an omnibus.” 

The lion reigns in Africa, but the Tiger is lord and master of the Indian jungles. 
A splendid animal—elegantly striped with black on a white and golden ground; 
graceful in every movement, but of a most sanguinary and cruel nature. The length- 
ened body resting on short legs wants the proud bearing of the lion, while the naked 
head, the wildly rolling eye, the scarlet tongue constantly lolling from the jaws, and 
the whole expression of the tiger’s physiognomy indicate an insatiable thirst of blood, 
a pitiless ferocity, which he wreaks indiscriminately on every living thing that comes 
within his grasp. In the bamboo jungle on the banks of pools and rivers, he waits 
for the approaching herd; there he seeks his prey, or rather multiplies his murders, 
for he often leaves the carcase of the axis or the nylghau still writhing in the agony 
of death to throw himself upon new victims, whose bodies he rends with his claws, 
and then plunges his head into the gaping wound to absorb with deep and luxurious 
draughts the blood whose fountains he has just laid open. 

Nothing can be more delightful than the aspect of a Javanese savannah, to which 
clumps of noble trees, planted by Nature’s hand, impart a park-like character ; yet 
even during the day-time, the traveler rarely ventures to cross these beautiful wilds 
without being accompanied by a numerous retinue. In Italy armed guards are neces- 
sary to scare the bandit ; here the tiger calls for similar precautions, The horses fre- 
quently stand still, trembling all over, when their road leads them along some denser 
patch of the jungle, rising like an island from the grassy plain, for their acute scent 
informs them that a tiger lies concealed in the thicket, but a few paces from their path. 
It is a remarkable fact that the peacock and the tiger are so frequently seen together. 
The voice of the bird is seldom heard during the day-time, but as soon as the shades 
of evening begin to veil the landscape, his loud and disagreeable screams awaken the 
echoes, announcing, as the Javanese say, that the tiger is setting forth on his mur- 
derous excursions. ‘Then the traveler carefully bolts the door of his hut, and the sol- 
itary Javanese retreats to his palisaded dwelling, for the tyrant of the wilderness is 
abroad. At night his dreadful roar is heard, sometimes accompanied by the peacock’s 
discordant voice. Even in the villages, thinly scattered among the grass or alang- 
wilds of Java, there is no security against his attacks, in spite of the strong fences 
with which they are enclosed, and the watch fires carefully kept burning between 
these and the huts. 

India, South China, Sumatra, and Java, are the chief seats of the tiger, who is un- 
known both in Ceylon and Borneo, while to the north he ranges as far as Manchuria 
and the Upper Obi, and Yennisei, (55°—56° N. lat.) <A species of tiger identical 
with that of Bengal is common in the neighborhood of Lake Aral, near Sussae (45? 
N. lat.), and Tennant mentions that he is found among the snows of Mount Ararat in 
Armenia. As Hindostan is separated from these northern tiger haunts by the great 
mountain chains of Kuen-Lun (35° N.), and of Mouztagh (42° N. lat ), each cov- 
ered with perpetual snows, mere summer excursions are quite out of the question, and 


706 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


it is evident that the animal is able to live in a much more rigorous climate than is 
commonly imagined. ven in India the tiger is by no means confined to the sultry 
jungle, for we learn from Mr. Hodgson’s account of the mammalia of Nepaul, that in 
the Himalaya he is sometimes found at the very edge of the perpetual snow. 

Tiger-hunting is a chief pleasure of the Indian rajahs and zemindars, who, anxious 
that their favorite amusement may suffer no diminution, forbid any one else to chase on 
their domains, however much their poor vassals may have to suffer in consequence. 
But the delight they take in tiger shooting never leads the cautious Nimrods so far as 
to endanger their precious persons. On some trees of the jungle a scaffolding is pre- 
pared, at a ludicrous hight for his highness, who, at the appointed hour, makes his 
appearance with all the pomp of a petty Asiatic despot. The beating now begins, 
and is executed by a troop of miserable peasants, who most unwillingly submit to this 
forced and unpaid labor, which is the more dangerous for them as they are dispersed 
in a long line, instead of forming a troop, the only way to secure them against the 
‘attacks of the tiger. Thus they advance with a dreadful noise of drums, horns, and 
pistol-firing, driving the wild beasts of the jungle towards the scaffolding of their lord 
and master. At first the tigers, startled from their slumbers, retreat before them, but 
generally on approaching the scaffolding they guess the danger that awaits them, and 
turn with a formidable growl upon the drivers. Sometimes, however, they summon 
resolution to rush with a few tremendous bounds through the perilous pass, and their 
flight is but rarely impeded by the ill-aimed shots of the ambuscade. Nevertheless, 
great compliments are paid to the noble sportsman for his ability and courage, and 
nobody says a word about the poor low-born wretches, that may have been killed and 
mutilated by the infuriated brutes. 

Colonel Rice, an English hunter, managed his tiger-shooting excursions on a very 
different plan. Provided with excellent double-barrelled rifles, and accompanied by a 
troop of well-armed, well-paid drivers, and a number of courageous dogs, he boldly 
entered the jungle to rouse the tiger from his lair. In front of the party generally 
marched the shikarree or chief driver, who, attentively reconnoitering the traces of the 
animal, pointed out the direction that was to be followed. On his right and left hand 
walked the English sportsmen, fully prepared for action, and behind them the most 
trustworthy of their followers, with loaded rifles ready for an exchange with those that 
had been discharged. Then followed the music, consisting of four or five tambourines, 
a great drum, cymbals, horns, a bell, and the repeated firing of pistols, and convoyed 
by men armed with swords and long halberds. A few slingsmen made up the rear, 
who were constantly throwing stones into the jungle over the heads of the foremost of 
the party, and even more effectually than the noise of the music drove the tiger from 
his retreat. From time to time one of the men climbed upon the summit of a tree to 
observe the movements of the grass. The whole troop constantly formed a close body. 
The tiger in cold blood never dares to attack a company that announces itself in so 
turbulent a manner. If he ventures it is only with half a heart; he hesitates, stops at 
a short distance, and gives a hunter time to salute him with a bullet. While strictly 
following an order of march like the one described, the drivers run little risk, even in 
the thickest jungle; but the difficulty is to keep them together, as the least success 
immediately tempts them to disperse. 

On one of these hunting expeditions Ensign Elliott, a friend of the Colonel’s, had 


PERILS OF TIGER-HUNTING. 707 


an almost miraculous escape. Accompanied by about forty drivers, they had entered 
a jungle, which did not seem to promise much sport, and had mounted with their rifles 
upon some small trees to await the issue of the explorations, when suddenly their 
people roused a beautiful tiger, who advanced slowly towards them. They remained 
perfectly silent, but one of their followers, posted upon another tree and fearing they 
might be surprised by the animal, called out to them to be upon their guard. This 
was enough to make the tiger change his direction, so that they had scarcely time to 
send a bullet after him. His loud roar announced that he was wounded, but the dis- 
tance was already too great to admit of his being effectually hit a second time, so that 
the impatient sportsmen now pursued him with more eagerness than caution. At the 
head of their troop, they marched through the jungle, following the bloody trail of the 
animal, until at length they emerged into an open country, when all further traces 
were lost. In vain some of their people climbed upon the highest trees; nothing was 
to be perceived either in the bushes or in the high grass. Meanwhile the Englishmen 
slowly walked on, about twenty paces in advance, attentively gazing upon the ground, 
when suddenly with a terrific roar the tiger bounded upon Colonel Rice from a hollow, 
concealed beneath the herbage. The gallant sportsman had scarcely time to fire both 
his barrels at the head of the monster, who, diverted from the attack by this warm 
reception, now made an enormous spring at Ensign Elliott before he had time to aim. 
All this was the work of a moment, for, on turning towards the tiger, the Colonel saw | 
his unfortunate friend prostrate under the paws of the furious brute. Immediately 
the shikarree with admirable coolness handed him a freshly loaded rifle. He dis- 
charged one of the barrels without effect, but was then obliged to pause, as the tiger 
had seized his friend by the arm, and was dragging him towards the hole from whence 
he had sprung forth. Thus it was absolutely necessary that the next shot should hit 
the animal in the brain, as any other wound not immediately fatal would only have 
increased its fury. Closely following the tiger, and watching all his movements with 
the most intense attention, the Colonel, after having aimed several times, at length fired 
and hit the temple of the tiger, who fell over his victim a lifeless corpse. Fortunately, 
the Ensign was not mortally wounded, the stroke of the tiger’s paw, which had been 
aimed at his head, having been parried by his rifle. The blow, however, had been so 
furious as to flatten the trigger, and thus he escaped with a terrible wound in the arm. 

The tiger is particularly fond of dense willow or bamboo bushes on swampy ground, 
as he there finds the cool shades he requires for his rest during the heat of the day, 
after his nocturnal excursions. It is then very difficult to detect him, but the other 
inhabitants of the jungle, particularly the peacock and the monkey, betray his pres- 
ence. ‘The scream of the former is an infallible sign that the tiger is rising from his 
lair; and the monkeys, who during the night are so frequently surprised by the 
panther or the boa, never allow their watchfulness to be at fault during the day. 
They are never deceived in the animal, which slinks into the thicket. If it is a deer 
or a wild boar, they remain perfectly quiet; but if it is a tiger or a panther, they 
utter a cry, destined to warn their comrades of the approach of danger. When, on 
examining a jungle, the traveler sees a monkey quietly seated on the branches, he 
may be perfectly sure that no dangerous animal is lurking in the thicket. During the 
night the ery of the jackal frequently announces the tiger’s presence. When one of 
these vile animals is no longer able to hunt from age, or when he has been expelled 


798 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


from his troop, he is said to become the provider of the tiger, who, after having satiated 
himself on the spoil, leaves the remains to his famished scout. 

The tiger, who on the declivities of the Himalaya tears to pieces the swift-footed 
antelope, lacerates on the desert sand coasts of Java the tardy tortoise, when at night- 
fall it leaves the sea to lay its eggs in the drift-sand at the foot of the dunes. Hun- 
dreds of tortoise skeletons lie scattered about the strand, many of them five feet long 
and three feet broad ; some bleached by time, others still fresh and bleeding. High in © 
the air a number of birds of prey wheel about, scared by the traveler’s approach. 
Here is the place where the turtles are attacked by the wild dogs. In packs of from 
twenty to fifty, the growling rabble assails the poor sea animal at every accessible 
peint, gnaws and tugs at the feet and at the head, and succeeds by united efforts in 
turning the huge creature upon its back. Then the abdominal scales are torn off, and 
the ravenous dogs hold a bloody meal on the flesh, intestines, and eggs of their defence- 
less prey. Semetimes, however, the turtle escapes their rage, and dragging its lacer- 
ating tormentors along with it, succeeds in regaining the friendly sea. Nor do the 
dogs always enjoy an undisturbed repast, often during the night, the lord of the wil- 
derness, the royal tiger, bursts out of the forest, pauses for a moment, casts a glance 
over the strand, approaches slowly, and then with one bound, accompanied by a ter- 
rific roar, springs among the dogs, scattering the howling band like chaff before the 
wind. And now is the tiger’s turn to feast; but even he, though rarely, is sometimes 
disturbed by man. Thus on this lonely, melancholy coast, wild dogs and tigers wage 
an unequal war with the inhabitants of the ocean. : 

After the tiger and the lion, the Panther and the Leopard are the mightiest felidee 
of the Old World. Although differently spotted—the ocelli or rounded marks on the 
panther being larger and more distinctly formed—they are probably only varieties of 
one and the same species, as many intermediate individuals have been observed. Both 
animals are widely diffused through the tropical regions of the Old World, being na- 
tives of Africa, Persia, China, India, and many of the Indian islands; so that they 
have a much more extensive range than either the tiger or the lion. The manner in 
which they seize their prey, lurking near the sides of woods, and darting forward with 
a sudden spring, resembles that of the tiger, and the chase of the panther is said to 
be more dangerous than that of the lion, as it easily climbs the trees and pursues its 
enemy upon the branches. 

The Cheetah, or hunting leopard (Gueparda jubata, guttata), whick inhabits the 
greater part of both Asia and Africa, exhibits in its form and habits a mixture of the 
feline and canine tribes. Resembling the panther by its spotted skin, it is more ele- 
vated on its legs and less flattened on the fore part of its head. Its brain is more 
ample, and its claws touch the ground while walking, like those of the dog, which it 
resembles still further by its mild and docile nature. In India and Persia, where the 
cheetahs are employed in the chase, they are carried chained and hoodwinked to the 
field in low cars. When the hunters come within view of a herd of antelopes, the 
cheetah is liberated, and the game is pointed out to him: he does not, however, im- 
mediately dash forward in pursuit, but steals along cautiously till he has nearly ap- 
proached the herd unseen, when with a few rapid and vigorous bounds, he darts on 
the timid game and strangles it almost instantaneously. Should he, however, fail in 


HY HZNAS—THE AMERICAN FELIDZ. 709 


his first efforts and miss his prey, he attempts no pursuit, but returns to the call of his 
master, evidently disappointed, and generally almost breathless. 

While the sanguinary felidze may justly be called the eagles, the carrion feeding © 
_ Hyeenas are the vultures, among the four-footed animals. Averse to the light of day, 
like the owl and the bat, they conceal themselves in dark caverns, ruins, or burrows, 
as long as the sun stands above the horizon; but at night-fall they come forth from 
their gloomy retreats with a lamentable howl or a satanic laugh, to seek their disgust- 
ing food on the fields, in churchyards, or on the borders of the sea. From the pro- 
digious strength of their jaws and their teeth, they are not only able to masticate tene 
dons, but to crush cartilages and bones ; so that carcases almost entirely deprived of 
flesh still provide them with a plentiful banquet. Though their nocturnal habits and 
savage aspect have rendered them an object of hatred and disgust to man, they seem 
destined to fill up an important station in the economy of nature, by cleansing the 
earth of the remains of dead animals, which might otherwise infect the atmosphere 
with pestilential effluvia. 

The striped hyzena is a native of Asiatic Turkey, Syria, and North Africa, as far as 
the Senegal, while the spotted hyana ranges over South Africa, from the Cape to 
Abyssinia. Both species attain the size of the wolf, and have similar habits. As the 
shark follows the ship, or the crow the caravan, they are said to hover about the march 
of armies, as if taught by instinct that they have to expect the richest feast from the 
insanity of man. The moonlight falling on the de: cypresses and snow-white tombs 
of the Oriental churches not seldom shines upon hungry byzenas, busily employed in 
tearing the newly-buried corpses from their graves. A remarkable peculiarity of the 
spotted hyzsena is that when he first begins to run he appears lame, so that one might 
almost fancy one of his legs was broken; but after a time this halting disappears, and 
he proceeds on his course very swiftly. 

The brown hyzena, which is found in South Africa, from the Cape to Mozambique 
and Senegambia, and has a more shaggy fur than the preceding species, has very dif- 
ferent habits. He is particularly fond of the crustacese which the ebbing flood leaves 
behind upon the beach, or which the storm casts ashore in great quantities, and exclu- 
sively inhabits the coasts, where he is known under the name of the sea-shore wolf. His 
traces are everywhere to be met with on the strand, and night after night he prowls 
along the margin of the water, examining the refuse of the retreating ocean. 


The same radical differences which draw so wide a line of demarcation between the 
simize of the Old and the New World are found also to distinguish the feline races of 
both hemispheres, so that it would be as vain to search in the American forests and 
savannas for the Numidian lion, or the striped tiger, as on the banks of the Ganges or 
the Senegal for the tawny puma or the spotted jaguar. While in the African plains 
the swift-footed spring-bok, or the koodoo, unrivaled among the antelopes for his bold 
and widely-spreading horns, falls under the impetuous bound of the panther—or while 
the tiger and the buffalo engage in mortal combat in the Indian jungle—the blood- 
thirsty Jaguar, concealed in the high grass of the American llanos, lies in wait for the 
wild horse or the passing steer. The arrival of the Spaniards in the New World, so 
destructive to most of the Indian tribes with whom they came in contact, was beneficial 
at least to the large felidee of tropical America, for they first introduced the horse and 


710 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


the ox into the western hemisphere, where these useful animals, finding a new and 
congenial home in the boundless savannas and pampas, which extend almost uninter- 
ruptedly from the Apure to Patagonia, have multiplied to an incredible extent. Since 
then the jaguar no longer considers the deer of the woods, the graceful agouti, or the 
slow capybara as his chief prey, but rejoices in the blood of the steed or ox, and is 
much more commonly met with in the herd-teeming savannas than in the comparatively 
meagre hunting-grounds of the forest. 

Of all the carnivora of the New World, perhaps with the sole exception of the 
grizzly and the polar bears, the tyrants of the North American solitudes, the jaguar is 
the most formidable, resembling the panther by his spotted skin, but almost equaling 
the Bengal tiger in size and power. He roams about at all times of the day, swims 
over broad rivers, and even in the water proves a most dangerous foe, for when driver 
to extremities he frequently turns against the boat, and forces his assailants to seek 
their safety by jumping overboard. Many an Indian, while wandering through thinly 
populated districts, where swampy thickets alternate with open grass plains, has been 
torn to pieces by the jaguar, and in many a lonely plantation the inhabitants hardly 
venture to leave their enclosures after sunset, for fear of his attacks. During Tschudi’s 
sojourn in Northern Peru, a jaguar penetrated into the hut of an Englishman who 
had settled in those parts, and dragging a boy of ten years out of his hammock, tore 
him to pieces and devoured him. Far from being afraid of man, this ferocious animal 
springs upon him when alone, and when pressed by hunger will even venture during 
the day-time into the mountain villages to seek its prey. The distinguished traveler 
whom I have just quoted mentions the case of an Indian in the province of Vito, who 
hearing during the night his only pig most piteously squealing, rose to see what was 
the matter, and found that a jaguar had seized it by the head, and was about to carry 
it away. Eager to rescue his property, he sprang forward, and seizing the pig by the 
hind legs, disputed its possession with the beast of prey, that with eyes gleaming 
through the darkness, and a ferocious growl, kept tugging at its head. This strange 
struggle between the undaunted Indian and the jaguar lasted for some time, until the 
women coming out of the hut with lighted torches put to flight the monster, which 
slowly retreated into the forest. The same traveler relates that in some parts the 
jaguars had increased to such a degree, and proved so destructive to the inhabitants, 
that the latter were obliged to emigrate, and settle in less dangerous districts. Thus, 
the village of Mayunmarca, near the road from Huanta to Anco, had been long since 
abandoned, and the neighborhood was still considered so dangerous that few Indians 
ventured to travel through it alone. 

The chase of these formidable animals requires great caution, yet keen sportsmen 
will venture, single-handed, to seek the jaguar in his lair, armed with a blow-pipe and 
poisoned arrows, or merely with a long and powerful lance. The praise which is due 
to the bold adventurers for their courage is, however, too often tarnished by their 
cruelty. Thus, a famous jaguar hunter once showed Péppig a large cavity under the 
tangled roots of a giant bombax-tree, where he had some time’back discovered a 
female jaguar with her young. Dexterously rolling down a large stone, he closed the 
entrance, and then with fiendish delight slowly smoked the animals to death, by apply- 
ing fire from time to time to their dungeon. Having lost one half of his scalp in a 
previous conflict with a jaguar, he pleaded his sufferings as an excuse for his barbarity. 


THE JAGUAR—THE COUGAR—WILD-CATS. — 711 


Tv attack these creatures with a lance, a sure arm, a cool, determined courage, and 
great bodily strength and dexterity are required ; but even these qualities do not 
always ensure success if the hunter is unacquainted with the artifices of the animal. 
The jaguar generally waits for the attack in a sitting posture, turning one side towards 
the assailant, and, as if unconcerned, moves his long tail to and fro. The hunter, 
carefully observing the eye of his adversary, repeatedly menaces him with slight thrusts 
of his lance, which a gentle stroke of the paw playfully wards off; then seizing a 
favorable moment, he suddenly steps forward and plunges his weapon into his side. 
If the thrust be well aimed, a second is not necessary, for pressing with his full weight 
on the lance, the huntsman enlarges and deepens the mortal wound. But if the stroke 
is parried or glances off, the jaguar, roused to fury, bounds on his aggressor, whose 
only hope now lies in the short knife which he carries in his girdle. Those who are 
less inclined to desperate conflicts destroy the jaguar by poisoned pieces of meat, or 
else they lay pitfalls for him, when they kill him without running any personal risk. 

The Cougar, or the Puma, as he is called by the Indians, is far inferior to the 
jaguar in courage, and consequently far less dangerous to man. On account of his 
brownish-red color and great size, being the largest felis of the New World, he has 
also been named the American lion, but he has neither the mane nor the noble bearing 
of the ‘‘ king of animals.”” In spite of his strength he is of so cowardly a dispositicn 
that he invariably takes to flight at the approach of man, and consequently inspires no 
fear on being met with in the wilderness; while even the boldest hunter instinctively 
starts back, when, winding through the forest, he suddenly sees the sparkling eye of 
the jaguar intently fixed upon him. The puma has a much wider range than the 
jaguar, for while the latter reaches in South America only to the forty-fifth degree of 
latitude, and does not rove northwards beyond Sonora and New Mexico, the former 
roams from the Straits of Magellan to the Canadian lakes. The jaguar seldom ascends 
the mountains to a greater hight than 3,000 feet, while in the warmer lateral valleys 
of the Andes the puma frequently lies in ambush for the vicufias at an elevation of 
10,000 feet above the level of the sea. He can climb trees with great facility, ascend- 
ing even vertical trunks, and, like the lynx, will watch the opportunity of springing 
on such animals as happen to pass beneath. No less cruel than cowardly, he will 
destroy without necessity forty or fifty sheep when the occasion offers, and content him- 
self with licking the blood of his victims. When caught young, he is easily tamed, 
and, like the common cat, shows his fondness at being caressed by the same kind of 
gentle purrings. Tschudi informs us that the Indians of the northern provinces fre- 
quently bring pumas to Lima, to show them for money. They either lead them by a 
rope, or carry them in a sack upon their back, until the sight-seers have assembled in 
sufficient number. 

Besides the puma or the jaguar, tropical America possesses the beautifully varie- 
gated Ocelot (Melis pardalis) ; the Oscolio (Felis dogaster); the spotless, black-gray 
Jaguarundi (/. jaguarundi), which is not much larger than the European wild-cat ; 
the long-tailed, striped, and spotted Margay, or Tiger-cat, and several other felide. 
All these smaller species hardly ever become dangerous to man, but they cause the 
death of many an acouchi and ecavy ; and, with prodigious leaps, the affrighted monkey 
flies from their approach into the deepest recesses of the forest. 


712 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


CHAPTER XV. 
THE ELEPHANT, RHINOCEROS, HIPPOPOTAMUS, CAMEL, ZEBRA. 


The Great Tropical Pachydermati.—7he Elephant: Difference between the tame and wild 
Elephant—His Instinctive Timidity—Acuteness of His Senses—His Sagacity in Climbing 
Hiils—Uis wonderful Trunk—His Tusks—Elephant Herds—The Rogue, or. Solitary Ele- 
phant—The Asiatic and African Species—The African Elephant tamed in Ancient Times— 
Present Range of the African Elephant—Native Modes of Hunting the African Elephant— 
The Elephant and the Rifle—Perils of Elephant-Hunters—Elephant-Hunting in Abyssinia— 
The Asiatic Elephant—Elephant-Hunting in Ceylon—The Panickeas, or Native Elephant- 
Hunters—Elephantine Head-Work—Obstinate Brutes.—The Rhinoceros :—Range and Char- 
acter of the Rhinoceros—Two Species, the Black and the White—Size of the Rhinoceros— 
Acuteness of its Senses—Its winged Attendant—Its parental Affection—Its nocturnal 
Habits—Modes of Hunting the Rhinoceros—The One-Horned or Indian Rhinoceros—The 
Two-Horned Rhinoceros of the Malay Archipelago—Rhinoceros-Paths in Java.—The Hip- 
popotamus :—Is the Hippopotamus the Behemoth of Job ?*—Habits of the Hippopotamus— 
Its uncouth Aspect—Rogue Hippopotami—Intelligence of the Hippopotamus—Uses of its 
Skin and Teeth—Mode of Killing the Hippopotamus.—Zhe Camel: Its Adaptation to the 
Tropical Sand-Wastes—Its Physical Organization adapted to its Mode of Life—Its Foot 
and its Stomach—Its Desert Home—The Camel and the Arab—The T'wo-Humped and 
One-Humped Camels—The Camel an immemorial Serf—Its Aspect and Temper.— The 
Giraffe: Beauty of the Giraffe—Its Means of Defense—Its special Organization—The 
Lion and the Giraffe—The Giraffe known to the Ancients.—Zebra and Quaggas: Their 
Abundance in Southern Africa—Distinction Between the Quagga and the Zebra—Capacity 
for Domestication—Their Union for Defense—The Gnu, the Quagga, and the Zebra—The 
Zebra the Tiger-Horse of the Ancients—The African Boar—The Malayan Babirusa. Finis. 


MONG the animals belonging to the Tropical World there are none more dis- 
tinctive than the great Pachydermati, the Elephant, the Rhinoceros, and the 
Hippopotamus. To these huge beasts, the largest that walk the earth, we propose to 
devote a chapter ; supplementing it with a few pages concerning the Giraffe, the Camel, 
and a few other animals of large size, exclusively tropical. First and foremost we will 
speak of the Elephant : 

A tamed elephant, as we see him in menageries, ene to go through his round 
of tricks for the amusement of everybody who will pay the required quarter of a dol- 
lar, is apparently a stupid beast. He seems a very mountain of flesh, covered with a 
loose and ill-fitting skin. His great, clumsy legs look like those of a gouty alderman ; 
he writhes his huge trunk about with an air of hopeless imbecility ; ali his energies 
seem to be concentrated upon the feat of conveying to his mouth the apples and nuts 
held out to him by gaping urchins. A very different animal is the same elephant in 
his native haunts. There he is the keenest wariest, and most cunning of beasts. 
The little sharp eye is alight with intelligence ; the ponderous ears are alive to the 


THE ELEPHANT. 713 


faintest sound ; the long swaying trunk, merely as an organ of smell, has an acute- 
ness unmatched by the keenest dog that ever tracked game. He has, moreover, a 
courage, and when irritated, a ferocity, surpassed by no other animal; so that one 
needs to be a bold and wary hunter who assails him in his native haunts. 

Yet, when unmolested by man, who is his chief;and almost only enemy, the elephant 
is the image of strength and good-nature, loving the shady forest and the secluded 
lake. Disliking the glare of the midday sun, he spends the day in the thickest woods, 
devoting the night to excursions and to the luxury of the bath, his great and innocent 
delight. Though the earth trembles under his strides, yet like the whale, he is timid ; 
but this timidity is accounted for by his small range of vision. Anything unusual 
strikes him with terror, and the most trivial objects and incidents, from being imper- 
tectly discerned, excite his suspicions. An instinctive consciousness that his superior 
bulk exposes him to danger from sources that might be harmless in the case of lighter 
animals is probably the reason why the elephant displays a remarkable reluctance 
to face the slightest artificial obstruction on his passage. Even when enraged by a 
wound, he will hesitate to charge his assailant across an intervening hedge, suspecting 
it may conceal a snare or pitfall, but will hurry along it to seek for an opening. Un- 
like the horse, he never gets accustomed to the report of fire-arms, and thus he never 
plays an active part in battle, but serves in a campaign only as a common beast of 
burden, or for the transport of heavy artillery. To make up for his restricted vision, 
his neck being so formed as to render him incapable of directing the range of his eye 
much above the level of his head, he is endowed with a remarkable power of smell, 
and a delicate sense of hearing, which serve to apprise him of the approach of danger. 

Although, from their huge bulk, the elephants might be supposed to prefer a level 
country, yet, in Asia at least, the regions where they most abound are all hilly and 
mountainous. In Ceylon, particularly, there is not a range so high as to be inacces. 
sible to them, and so sure-footed are they, that provided there be solidity to sustain 
their weight, they will climb rocks and traverse ledges, where even a mule dare not 
venture. Hooker admired the judicious winding of the elephant’s path in the Hima- 
layas, and Tennent describes the sagacity which he displays in laying out roads, or 
descending abrupt banks, as almost incredible. His first manceuvre is to kneel down 
close to the edge of the declivity, placing his chest to the ground, one fore-leg is then 
cautiously passed a short way down the slope, and if there is no natural protection to 
afford a firm footing, he speedily forms one by stamping into the soil, if moist, or kick- 
ing out a footing,if dry. This point gained, the other fore-leg is brought down in 
the same way, and performs the same work, a little in advance of the first, which is 
thus at liberty to move lower still. Then first one and then the second of the hind- 
legs is carefully drawn over the side, and the hind-feet in turn occupy the resting- 
places previously used and left by the fore ones. The course, however, in such pre- 
cipitous ground is not straight from top to bottom, but slopes along the face of the 
bank, descending till the animal gains the level below. This an elephant has done at 
an angle of forty-five degrees, carrying a houdah, its occupant, his attendant, and 
in much less time than it takes to describe the operation. 

The stomach of the elephant, like that of the camel or the lama, is provided with 
a cavity, serving most probably as a reservoir for water against the emergencies of 
thirst ; but the most remarkable feature in the organization of the ‘‘ Leviathan of the 


714 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


Land ”’ is his wonderful trunk, which, uniting the flexibility of the serpent with a 
giant’s power, almost rivals the human hand by its manifold uses and exquisite deli- 
eacy of touch. Nearly eight feet in length and stout in proportion to the massive 
size of the whole animal, this miracle of nature, at the volition of the elephant will 
uproot trees or gather grass ; raise a piece of artillery or pick up a comfit ; kill a man 


or brush off a fly. It conveys the food to the mouth, and pumps up the enormous 


draughts of water, which, by its recurvature, are turned into and driven down the 
capacious throat, or showered over the body. Its length supplies the place of a long 
neck, which would have been incompatible with the support of the large head and 
weighty tusks. A glance at the head of the elephant will show the thickness and 
strength of the trunk at its insertion; and the massy arched bones of the face and 
thick muscular neck are admirably adapted for supporting and working this incom- 
parable instrument, which is at the same time the elephant’s most formidable instru- 
ment of defense, for, first prostrating any minor assailant by means of his trunk, he 
then crushes him by the pressure of his enormous weight. 

The use of the elephant’s tusks is less clearly defined. Though they are frequently 
described as warding off the attacks of the tiger and rhinoceros, often securing the 
victory by one blow, which transfixes the assailant to the earth, it is perfectly obvious, 


both from their almost vertical position and the difficulty of raising the head above 


the level of the shoulder, that they were never designed for weapons of attack. No 
doubt they may prove of great assistance in digging up roots, but that they are far 
from indispensable, is proved by their being but rarely seen in the females, and by 
their almost constant absence in the Ceylon elephant, where they are generally found 
reduced to mere stunted processes. 

Elephants live in herds, usually consisting of from ten to twenty individuals, and 
each herd is a family, not brought together by accident or attachment, but owning a 
common lineage and relationship. In the forest several herds will browse in close 
contiguity, and in their expeditions in search of water they may form a body of possi- 
bly one or two hundred, but on the slightest disturbance, each distinct herd hastens 
to re-form within its own particular circle, and to take measures on its own behalf for 
retreat or defense. Generally the most vigorous and courageous of the herd assumes 
the leadership: his orders are observed with the most implicit obedience, and the de- 
votion and loyalty evinced by his followers are very remarkable. In Ceylon this is 
more readily seen in the case of a ‘‘ tusker” than any other, because in a herd he is gen- 
erally the object of the keenest pursuit by the hunters. On such occasions the ele- 
phants do their utmost to protect him from danger; when driven to extremity, they 
place their leader in the centre, and crowd so eagerly in front of him that the sports- 
men have to shoot a number which they might otherwise have spared. 

When individuals have been expelled from a herd, or by some accident or other have 
lost their former associates, they are not permitted to attach themselves to any other 
family, and ever after wander about the woods as outcasts from their kind. Rendered 
morose and savage from rage and solitude, the rogue elephants become vicious and 
predatory ; and so sullen is their disposition, that although two may be in the same 
vicinity, there is no known instance of their associating, or of a rogue being seen in 
company with another elephant. These rogue elephants seem to belong, however, 
wholly to the Asiatic variety ; at least, we find no special mention of them by African 


ASIATIC AND AFRICAN ELEPHANTS. 715 


hunters. Mr. 8S. G. Baker, now Sir Samuel Baker, since noted for his exploration of 
the source of the Nile, was long ago a noted elephant-hunter in Ceylon, and his book 
«The Rifle and the Hound in Ceylon” abounds with incidents of adventure and dar- 
ing in shooting these rogues. ‘‘ Deprived,’’ he says,“of the ameliorating influence of 
female society, the old rogue becomes doubly vicious. He appears to be in bad humor 
with the world generally, and with himself in particular, spending the greatest part of 
his time when not feeding, in pacing back and forth, with his tail cocked in the air, 
ready for a rush upon any one that approaches his haunts.” Their pluck is equal to 
their cunning. When they travel in the day-time, they always go with the wind, and, 
nothing can follow on their track without their knowledge. When the rogue is pur- 
sued in the open forest or on the naked plain he usually retreats; but the chances are 
ten to one that he is merely enticing the hunter to follow him into some favorite haunt 
among the dense jungle, from which he will charge at some unexpected moment. 

The elephant inhabits both Asia and Africa, but each of these two parts of the world 
has its peculiar species. The African elephant is distinguished by the lozenge-shaped 
prominences of ivory and enamel on the surface of his grinders, which in the Indian 
elephant are narrow, tranverse bars of uniform breadth; his skull has a more rounded 
form, and is deficient in the double lateral bump conspicuous in the former; and he 
has only fifty-four vertebree, while the Indian has sixty-one. On the other hand, he 
possesses twenty-one ribs, while the latter has only nineteen. His tusks are also much 
larger, and his body is of much greater bulk, as the female attains the stature of the 
full-erown Indian male. The ear is at least three times the size, being not seldom 
above four feet long, and broad, so that Dr. Livingstone mentions having seen a negro, 
who under cover of one of these prodigious flaps effectually screened himself from the 
rain. All these differences of character appeared so great to M. Cuvier as to induce 
him to consider the African elephant as a peculiar genus. 

Ancient medals representing large-eared elephants drawing chariots, are conclusive 
of the fact that the Romans knew how to catch and tame the African elephant. He 
was even considered more docile than the Asiatic, and was taught various feats, as 
walking on ropes and dancing. The elephants with which Hannibal crossed the Alps, 
as well as those which. Pyrrhus led into Italy, must undoubtedly have been African. 
At present he is only killed for his ivory, his hide, his flesh, or from the mere wanton- 
ness of destruction. The Cape colonists, to whom his services might be of great im- 
portance, have never made the attempt to tame him, nor has one of this species ever 
been exhibited in England ; but the big-eared, large-tusked African elephant is the one 
best known in American menageries. 

The African elephant has a very wide range, from Caffraria to Nubia, and from the 
Zambesi to Cape Verde, and the impenetrable deserts of the Sahara alone prevent him 
from wandering to the shores of the Mediterranean. Although in South Africa the 
persecutions of the natives, and of his still more formidable enemies the colonists and 
English huntsmen, have considerably thinned his numbers, and driven him farther and 
farther to the north, yet in the interior of the country he is still met with in prodigious 
numbers. Dr. Barth frequently saw large herds winding through the open plains, 
and swimming in majestic lines through the rivers, with elevated trunks, or bathing in 
the shallow lakes for coolness or protection against insects. 

Livingstone gives us many interesting accounts of the different modes of South 


716 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


African elephant-hunting. The natives of the south bank of the Zambesi erect stages 
on high trees overhanging the paths by which the elephants come, and then use a large 
spear with a handle nearly as thick as a man’s wrist, and four or five feet long. When 
the unfortunate animal comes beneath, they throw the spear, and if it enters between 
the ribs above, as the blade is at least twenty inches long by two broad, the motion of 
the handle, as it is aided by knocking against the trees, makes frightful gashes within, 
and soon.causes death. They kill them also by means of a spear inserted in a beam 
of wood, which being suspended on the branch of a tree by a cord attached to a latch, 
fastened in the path and intended to be struck by the animal’s foot, leads to the fall 
of the beam, and the spear being poisoned causes death in a few hours. The Bush- 
men select full-moon nights for the chase, on account of the coolness, and choose the 
moment succeeding a charge, when the elephant is out of breath, to run in and give 
him a stab with their long-bladed spears. The huge creature is often bristling with 
missile weapons like a porcupine, and though singly none of the wounds may be 
mortal, yet their number overpowers him by loss of blood. On the sloping banks of 
the Zouga the Bayeiye dig deep pitfalls to entrap the animals as they come to drink ; 
but though these traps are constructed with all the care of savage ingenuity, old 
elephants have been known to precede the herd and whisk off their coverings all the 
way down to the water; or, giving proof of a still more astonishing sagacity, to have 
actually lifted the young out of the pits into which they had incautiously stumbled. 

A much more formidable enemy of this noble animal than the spears or pitfalls of 
the African barbarians is the rifle, particularly in the hands of a European marksman ; 
for while the Griquas, Boers, and Bechuanas generally stand at the distance of a hun- 
dred yards or more, and of course spend all the force of their bullets on the air, the 
English hunters, relying on their steadiness of aim, approach to within thirty yards of 
the animal, where they are sure not to waste their powder. It requires no little nerve 
to brave the charge of the elephant, the scream or trumpeting of the brute, when 
infuriated, being more like what the shriek of a steam-whistle would be to a man 


standing on the dangerous part of a railroad, than any other earthly sound; a horse 


unused to it will sometimes stand shivering instead of taking his rider out of danger, 
or fall paralyzed by fear, and thus expose him to be trodden into a mummy, or, dash- 
ing against a tree, crack his skull against a branch. 

Kven the most experienced hunters have many dangers to encounter while facing 
their gigantic adversary. Thus, on the banks of the Zouga in 1850, Mr. Oswell had 
one of the most extraordinary escapes from a wounded elephant perhaps ever recorded 
in the annals of the chase. Pursuing the brute into the dense thick thorny bushes 
met with on the margin of that river, and to which the elephant usually flees for 
safety, he followed through a narrow pathway by lifting up some of the branches, and 
forcing his way through the rest; but when he had just got over this difficulty, he saw 


the elephant, whose tail he had but got glimpses of before, now rushing full speed 


towards him. There was then no time to lift up the branches, so he tried to force his 
horse through them. He could not effect a passage, and as there was but an instant 
between the attempt and failure, the hunter tried to dismount; but in doing this, one 
foot was caught by a branch, and the spur drawn along the animal’s flank ; this made 
him spring away, and throw the rider to the ground with his face to the elephant, 
which, being in full chase, still went bn. Mr. Oswell saw the huge fore foot about to 


ELEPHANT-HUNTING IN ABYSSINIA AND INDIA. 717 


descend on his legs, parted them, and drew in his breath, as if to resist the pressure 
of the other foot, which he expected would next descend on his body. His relief may 
be imagined, when he saw the whole length of the under part of the enormous brute 
pass over him, leaving him perfectly unhurt. 

In Abyssinia the elephant is hunted in an original manner. The men, who make 
this their chief occupation, dwell constantly in the woods, and live entirely upon the 
flesh of the animals they kill. They are exceedingly agile and dextrous, both on 
horseback and on foot; indispensable qualities, partly inherited and partly acquired by 
constant practice. Completely naked, to render their movements more easy, and te 
prevent their being laid hold of by the trees and bushes; two of these bold huntsmen 
get on horseback ; one of them bestrides the back of the steed—a short stick in one 
hand, the reins in the other—while behind him sits his companion, armed with a sharp 
broad-sword. As soonas they perceive a grazing elephant, they instantly ride up to 
him, or cross him in all directions if he flies, uttering at the same time a torrent of 
abuse, for the purpose, as they fancy, of raising his anger. With outstretched trunk 
the elephant attempts to seize the noisy intruders, and following the perfectly trained 
horse, which, springing from side to side, leads him along in vain pursuit, neglects flight 
into the woods, his sole chance of safety, for while his whole attention is fixed on the 
rapid movements of the horse, the swordsman, who has sprung unperceived from its 
back, approaches stealthily from behind, and with one stroke of his weapon, severs the 
tendon just above the heel. The disabled monster falls shrieking to the ground, and 
incapable of advancing a step, is soon dispatched. The whole flesh is then cut off his 
bones into thongs, and hung like festoons upon the branches of trees till perfectly dry, 
when it is taken down and laid by for the rainy season. 

The Asiatic elephant inhabits Hindostan, the Chin-Indian peninsula, Sumatra, Bor- 
neo, and Ceylon. In the latter island especially, he was formerly found in incredible 
numbers, so that thirty years ago, an English sportsman killed no less than 104 ele- 
phants in three days. Major Rogers shot upwards of 1,400; Captain Galloway has 
the credit of slaying more than half that number ; Major Skinner almost as many, and 
less persevering aspirants follow at humbler distances. A reward of a few shillings 
a head, offered by the government for taking elephants, was claimed for 3,500 de- 
stroyed in part of the northern provinces alone, in less than three years prior to 1848, 
and between 1851 and 1856 a similar reward was paid for 2,000 in the southern 
provinces. In consequence of this wholesale slaughter, it cannot be wondered at that 
the Ceylon elephant has entirely disappeared from districts in which he was formerly 
numerous, and that the peasantry in some parts of the island have even suspended the 
ancient practice of keeping watchers and fires by night to drive away the elephants 
from the growing crops. ‘The opening of roads, and the clearing of the mountain- 
forests of Candy for the cultivation of coffee, have forced the animals to retire to the 
low country, where again they have been followed by large parties of European 
sportsmen ; and the Singhalese themselves being more freely provided with arms than 
in former times, have assisted in the work of extermination. The practice in Ceylon 
is to aim invariably at the head; and, generally speaking, a single ball planted in the 
forehead ends the existence of the noble creatures instantaneously. 

In India and Ceylon, elephants have been caught and tamed from time immemorial, 


and when we compare their colossal strength with the physical weakness of ‘yan, it 
46 


718 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


surely must be considered a signal triumph of his intelligence and courage, that he is 
able to bend such gigantic creatures to his will. The professional elephant-catchers 
of Ceylon, or Panickeas, as they are called, are particularly remarkable for their daring 
and adroitness. Their ability in tracing their huge game, rivaling that of the Ameri- 
can Indian in following the enemy’s trail, has almost the certainty of instinct, and 
hence their services are eagerly sought by the European sportsmen who go down into 
their country in search of game. So keen is their glance, that almost at the top of 
their speed, like hounds running breast-high, they will follow the course of an elephant 
over glades covered with stunted grass, where the eye of a stranger would fail to dis- 
cover a trace of its passage, and on through forests strewn with dry leaves, where it 
seems impossible to perceive a footstep. Here they are guided by a bent or broken 
twig, or by a leaf dropped from the animal’s mouth on which they can detect the 
pressure of a tooth. If at fault, they fetch a circuit like a setter, till lighting on 
some fresh marks, they go ahead again with renewed vigor. So delicate is the sense 
of smell in the elephant, and so indispensable is it to go against the wind in approach- 
ing him, that the Panickeas on those occasions when the wind is so still that its diree- 
tion cannot be otherwise discerned, will suspend the film of a gossamer to determine 
it, and shape their course accordingly. 

On overtaking the game, their courage is as conspicuous as their sagacity. If they 
have confidence in the sportsman’for whom they are finding, they will advance to the 
very heel of the elephant, slap him on the quarter, and then convert his timidity into 
anger, till he turns upon his tormentor, and exposes his heavy front to receive the 
bullet which is awaiting him. So fearless and confident are they, that two men with- 
out aid or attendants will boldly attempt to capture the largest-sized elephant. Their 
only weapon is a flexible rope made of buffalo’s hide, with which it is their object to 
secure one of the hind-legs. This they effect either by following in his footsteps when 
in motion, or by stealing close up to him when at rest, and, availing themselves of the 
propensity of the elephant at such moments to swing his feet backwards and forwards, 
they contrive to slip a noose over his hind-leg. 

At other times, this is achieved by spreading the noose on the ground, partially 
concealed by roots and leaves, beneath a tree on which one of the party is stationed, 
whose business it is to lift it suddenly by means of a cord, raising 1t on the elephant’s 
leg at the moment when his companion has succeeded in provoking him to place his 
foot within the circle, the other end having been previously made fast to the stem of 
the tree. Should the noosing be effected in open ground, and no tree of sufficient 
strength at hand round which to wind the rope, one of the Moors, allowing himself 
to be pursued by the enraged elephant, entices him towards the nearest grove, when 
his companion, dexterously laying hold of the rope as it trails along the ground, sud- 
denly coils it round a suitable stem, and brings the fugitive to a stand still. On find- 
ing himself thus arrested, the natural impulse of the captive is to turn on the man 
who is making fast the rope, a movement which it is the duty of his colleague to pre- 
vent by running up close to the elephant’s head, and provoking him to confront him 
by irritating gesticulations and incessant shouts of dah! dah! a monosyllable, the 
sound of which the elephant peculiarly dislikes. Meanwhile the first assailant having 
secured one noose, comes up from behind with another, with which, amidst the vain 
rage and struggles of the victim, he entraps a foreleg, the rope being as before se- 


CAPTURE OF ELEPHANTS. 7 


cured to another tree in front, and the whole four feet having been thus entangle | 

the capture is completed. A shelter is then run up with branches to protect him from 
the sun, and the hunters proceed to build a wigwam for themselves in front of their 
prisoner, kindling their fires for cooking, and making all the necessary arrangements 
for remaining day and night on the spot, to await the process of subduing and taming 
his rage. 

Picketed to the ground like Gulliver by the Lilliputians, the elephant soon ceases 
to struggle, and what with the exhaustion of ineffectual resistance, the constant annoy- 
ance of smoke, and the liberal supply of food and water with which he is indulged, 
a few weeks generally suffice to subdue his spirit, when his keepers at length venture 
to remove him to their own village, or to the seaside for shipment to India. No part 
of the hunter’s performances exhibits greater skill and audacity than this first forced 
march of the recently captured elephant. As he is still too morose to submit to be 
ridden, and it would be equally impossible to lead or drive him by force, the ingenuity 
of the captors is displayed in alternately irritating and eluding his attacks, but always 
so attracting his attention, as to allure him along in the direction in which they want 
him to go. 

My limits forbid me entering upon a detailed account of the great elephant-hunts 
of India and Ceylon, where whole herds are driven into an inclosure and entrapped 
in one vast decoy. This may truly be called the sublime of sport, for nowhere is it 
conducted on a grander scale, or so replete with thrilling emotions. The keddah or 
corral, as the enclosure is called, is constructed in the depth of the forests, several 
hundred paces long, and half as broad, and of a strength commensurate to the power 
of the animals it is intended to secure. Slowly and cautiously the doomed herds are 
driven onwards from a vast circuit by thousands of beaters in narrowing circles to the 
fatal gate, which is instantly closed behind them, and then the hunters, rushing with 
wild clamor and blazing torches to the stockade, complete the terror of the bewildered 
animals. Trumpeting and screaming with rage and fear, they rush round the corral at 
a rapid pace, but all their attempts to force the powerful fence are vain, for wherever 
they assail the palisade, they are met with glaring flambeaus and bristling spears, and 
on whichever side they approach, they are repulsed with shouts and discharge of mus- 
ketry. For upwards of an hour their frantic efforts are continued with unabated en- 
ergy, till at length, stupified, exhausted, and subdued by apprehension and amaze- 
ment, they form themselves into a circle, and stand motionless under the dark shade 
of the trees in the middle of the corral. The artist, on the page 470 of this volume, 
has given a picture of a herd of captured elephants thus ‘‘ tied up.” 

To secure the entrapped animals, the assistance of tame elephants or decoys is neces- 
sary, who, by occupying their attention and masking the movements of the nooser, give 
him an opportunity of slipping one by one a rope round their feet until their capture is 
completed. The quickness of eye displayed by the men in watching the slightest move- 
ment of an elephant, and their expertness in flinging the noose over its foot, and at- 
taching it firmly before the animal can tear it off with its trunk, are no less admirable 
than the rare sagacity of the decoys, who display the most perfect conception of the 
object to be attained, and the means of accomplishing it. Thus Sir Emerson Tennent 
saw more than once, during a great elephant hunt which he witnessed in 1847, that 
when one of the wild elephants was extending his trunk, and would have intercepted 


720 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


the rope about to be placed over his leg, the decoy, by a sudden motion of her own 
trunk, pushed his aside and prevented him; and on one occasion, when successive etf- 
forts had failed to put the noose over the leg of an elephant who was already secured 
by one foot, but who wisely put the other to the ground as often as it was attempted to 
pass the noose under it, he saw the decoy watch her opportunity, and when his foot was 
again raised, suddenly push in her own leg beneath it, and hold it up till the noose was 
attached and drawn tight. Apart from the services which from their prodigious strength 
the tame elephants are alone capable of rendering, in dragging out and securing the 
captives, it is perfectly obvious that, without their sagacious codperation, the utmost 
prowess and dexterity of the hunters would not avail them to enter the enclosure un- 
supported, or to ensnare and to lead out a single captive. 

It must not be supposed, however, that every elephant thus corraled is secured. 
Sometimes one will, by the use of a little “ Head-work,” try to get free from the cords 
which have bound his legs. His buttings and pitchings are a sight to behold. At other 
times an “ obstinate brute ’’ will lie down, refuse to take food, and in a short time die 


AN OBSTINATE BRUTE. 


without any perceptible disease. The natives say that he dies of a broken heart, and 
that the animal thus lost is likely to be the very finest of the whole herd. 

It may easily be imagined that the passage from a life of unfettered liberty in the 
cool and sequestered forest to one of obedience and labor, must necessarily put the 
health of the animal to a severe trial. Official records prove that more than half of 
the elephants employed in the public departments of the Ceylon government die in 
one year’s servitude, and even when fully trained and inured into captivity, the work- 
ing elephant is always a delicate animal, subject to a great variety of diseases, and 
consequently often incapacitated from labor. Thus, in spite of his.colossal strength, 
which can not even be employed to its full extent, as it is difficult to pack him with- 
out chafing the skin and wagons of corresponding dimension to his muscular powers 


ee es 


THE RHINOCEROS. — 72] 


would utterly ruin the best constructed roads, it is very doubtful whether his services 

_ are in proportion to his cost, and Sir Emerson Tennent is of opinion that two vigorous 
dray horses would, at less expense, do more effectual work than any elephant. Most 
likely from a comparative calculation of this kind, the strength of the elephant estab- 
lishments in Ceylon has been gradually diminished of late years, so that the govern- 
ment stud, which formerly consisted of upwards of sixty elepiants, is at present re- 
duced to less than one-quarter of that number. 


V 
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A LITTLE HEAD WORK. 


The Rhinoceros has about the same range as the elephant, but is found also in the 
island of Java, where the latter is unknown. Although not possessed of the ferocity 
of carnivorous animals, the rhinoceros is completely wild and untamable; the image 
of a gigantic hog, without intelligence, feeling or docility ; and if in bodily size and 
colossal strength it, of all other land animals, most nearly approaches the elephant, it 
is infinitely his inferior in point of sagacity. The latter, with his beautiful, good- 
natured, intelligent eye, awakens the sympathy of man; while the rhinoceros might 
figure as the very symbol of brutal violence and stupidity. 

It was formerly supposed that Africa had but one rhinoceros, but the researches 
of modern travelers have discovered no less than four different species, two white and 
two black, each of them with two horns. The black species are the Borelo of the 
Bechuanas, and the Keitloa, which is longer, with a larger neck and almost equal 
horns. In both species the upper lip projects over the lower, and is capable of being: 
extended like that of the giraffe, thus enabling the animal to pull down the branches 
on whose foliage he intends to feast. Both the Borelo and the Keitloa are extremely 
ill-natured, and, with the exception of the buffalo, the most dangerous of all the wild 
animals of South Africa. The white species are the Monoho (fA. simus.) and the 
Kobaaba (2. Oswellis,) which is distinguished by one of its horns attaining the 
prodigious length of four feet. | 

Although the black and white rhinoceros are members of the same family, their 
mode of living and disposition are totally different. The food of the former consists 
almost entirely of roots, which they dig up with their larger horn, or of the branches 


722 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


and sprouts of the thorny acacia, while the latter exclusively live on grasses. Per- 


haps in consequence of their milder and more succulent food, they are of a timid - 


unsuspecting nature, which renders them an easy prey, so that they are fast melting 
away before the onward march of the European trader ; while the black species, from 
their great ferocity and wariness, maintain their place much longer than their more 
timid relations. The different nature of the black and white rhinoceros shows itself 
even in their flesh, for while that of the former, living chiefly on arid branches, has a 
sharp and bitter taste, and but little recommends itself by its meagerness and tough- 
ness—the animal, like the generality of ill-natured creatures, being never found with 
an ounce of fat on its bones—that of the latter is juicy and well-flavored, a delicacy 
both for the white man and the negro. | 

The shape of the rhinoceros is unwieldy and massive ; its vast paunch hangs down 
nearly to the ground ; its short legs are of columnar strength, and have three toes on 
each foot ; the mis-shapen head has long and erect ears, and ludicrously small eyes; 
the skin, which is completely naked, with the exception of some coarse bristles at the 
extremity of the tail, and the upper end of the ears, is comparatively smooth in the 
African species, but extremely rough in the Asiatic, hanging in large folds about the 
animal like a mantle ; so that, summing up all these characteristics, the rhinoceros has 
no reason to complain of injustice, if we style it the very incarnation of ugliness. From 
the snout to the tip of the tail, the African rhinoceros attains a length of from 15 to 
16 feet, a girth of from 10 to 12, a weight of from 4,000 to 5,000 pounds; but in 
spite of its ponderous and clumsy proportions, it is able to speed like lightning, par- 
ticularly when pursued. It then seeks the nearest wood, and dashes with all its 
might through the thicket. The trees that are dead or dry are broken down as witha 
cannon shot, and fall behind it and on its sides in all directions; others that are more 
pliable, greener, or full of sap are bent back by its weight and the velocity of its 
motions, and restore themselves like a green branch to their natural position, after the 
animal has passed. They often sweep the incautious pursuer and his horse from the 
ground, and dash them in pieces against the surrounding trees. 

The rhinoceros is endowed with an extraordinary acuteness of smell and hearing; 
-he listens with attention to the sounds of the desert, and is able to scent from a great 
distance the approach of man ; but as the range of his small and deep-set eyes is im- 
peded by his unwieldy horns, he can only see what is immediately before him, so that 
if one be to the leeward of him, it is not difficult to approach within a few paces. 
The Kobaaba, however, from its horn being projected downwards, so as not to obstruct 
the line of vision, is able to be much more wary than the other species. To make up 
‘for the imperfection of sight, the rhinoceros is frequently accompanied by a bird 
(Buphaga africana) which seems to be attached to it like the domestic dog to man, 
‘and warns the beast of approaching danger by its ery. It is called Kala, by the 
Bechuanas, and when these people address a superior, they call him “ My Rhinoceros ”’ 
by way of compliment, as if they were the birds ready to do him service. 

The black rhinoceroses are of a gloomy, melancholy temper, and not seldom fall 
into paroxysms of rage without any evident cause. Seeing the creatures in their wild 
haunts, cropping the bushes, or quietly moving through the plains, you might take 
‘them for the most inoffensive, good-natured animals of all Africa, but when roused to 
“passion there is nothing more terrific on earth. All the beasts of the wilderness are 


HUNTING THE RHINOCEROS 723 


afraid of the uncouth Borelo. The lion silently retires from its path, and even the 
elephant is glad to get out of the way. Yet this brutal and stupidly hoggish animal 
is distinguished by its parental love,.and the tenderness which it bestows on its young 
is returned with equal affection. European hunters have often witnessed that when 
the mother dies, the calf remains two full days near the body. 

Although not gregarious, and most generally solitary or grazing in pairs, yet fre- 
quently as many as a dozen rhinoceroses are seen pasturing and browsing together. 
As is the case with many other inhabitants of the tropical wilderness, the huge beast 
awakens to a more active life after sunset. It then hastens to the lake or river to 
slake its thirst or to wallow in the mud, thus covering its hide with a thick coat of 
clay, against the attacks of flies ; or to relieve itself from the itching of their stings, it 
rubs itself against some tree, and testifies its inward satisfaction by a deep-drawn 
grunt. During the night, it rambles over a great extent of country, but soon after 
sunrise seeks repose and shelter against the heat under the shade of a mimosa, or the 
projecting ledge of a rock, where it spends the greater part of the day in sleep, either 
stretched at full length or in a standing position. Thus seen from a distance, it might 
easily be mistaken for a huge block of stone. 

The rhinoceros is hunted in various manners. One of the most approved plans is 
to stalk the animal, either when feeding or reposing. If the sportsman keep well 
under the wind, and there be the least cover, he has no difficulty in approaching 
the beast within easy range, when, if the ball be well directed, itis killed on the spot. 
But by far the most convenient way of destroying the animal is to shoot it from a cover 
or a screen, when it comes to the pool to slake its thirst. Occasionally it is also taken 
in pitfalls. Contrary to common belief, a leaden ball (though spelter is preferable) 
will easily find its way through the hide of the African rhinoceros, but it is necessary 
to be within thirty or forty paces of the brute, and desirable to have a double charge 
of powder. The most deadly part to aim at is just behind the shoulder; a ball 
through the center of the lobes of the lungs is certain to cause almost instantaneous 
death. A shot in the head never or rarely proves fatal, as the brain, which, in pro- 
portion to the bulk of the animal, does not attain the three-hundredth part of the size 
of the human cerebrum, is protected, besides its smallness, by a prodigious case of 
bone, hide, and horn. However severely wounded the rhinoceros may be, he seldom 
bleeds externally. ‘This is attributable in part, no doubt, to the great thickness of the 
hide and its elasticity, which occasions the hole caused by the bullet nearly to close 
up, as also from the hide not being firmly attached to the body, but constantly moving. 
If the animal bleed at all, it is from the mouth and nostrils, which is a pretty sure 
sion that it is mortally hurt, and will soon drop down dead. It is remarkable that the 
rhinoceros, when hit by a fatal bullet, does not fall upoa one side, but generally sinks 
on its knees, and thus breathes its last. 

From what has been related of the fury of the rhinoceros, its pursuit must evidently 
be attended with considerable danger, and thus the annals of the wild sports of Southern 
Africa are full of hair breadth escapes from its terrific charge. The rhinoceros ig 
hunted for its flesh, its hide (which is manufactured into the best and hardest leather 
that can be imagined), and its horns, which, being capable of a high polish, fetch at 
the Cape a higher price than ordinary elephant ivory. It is extensively used in the 
manufacture of sword-handles, drinking-cups, ramrods for rifles, and a variety of other 


(24 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


purposes. Among Oriental princes, goblets made of rhinoceros-horn are in high 
esteem, as they are supposed to have the virtue of detecting poison by causing the 
deadly liquid to ferment till it flows over the rim, or, as some say, to split the eup. 
The number of rhinoceroses destroyed annually in South Africa is very considerable. 
Captain Harris, who onve saw two-and-twenty together, shot four of them one after the 
other to clear his way. Messrs. Oswell and Varden killed in one year no less than 
eighty-nine ; and in one journey, Andersson shot, single-handed, nearly two thirds of 
this number. It is thus not to be wondered at that the rhinoceros, which formerly 
ranged as far as the Cape, is now but seldom found to the south of the tropie. The 
progress of African discovery bodes no good to him or to the hippopotamus. 

The single-horned Indian rhinoceros was already known to the ancients, and not 
unfrequently doomed to bleed in the Roman ampbhitheatres. One which was sent to 
King Emanuel of Portugal in the year 15138, and presented by him to the Pope, had 
the honor to be pictured in a wood cut by no less an artist than Albrecht Durer himself. 
Latterly, rhinoceroses have much more frequently been sent to Europe, particularly 
the Asiatic species, and all the chief zodlogical gardens possess specimens of the un- 
wieldy creature. 

In its native haunts, the Indian rhinoceros leads a tranquil, indolent life, wallowing 
on the marshy border of lakes and rivers, and occasionally bathing itself in their 
waters. Its movements are usually slow, and it carries its head low like the hog, 
plowing up the ground with its horn, and making its way by sheer force through the 
jungle. Though naturally of a quiet and inoffensive disposition, it is very furious 
and dangerous when provoked or attacked, charging with resistless impetuosity, and 
trampling down or ripping up with its horn any animal which opposes it. 

Besides the single-horned species which inhabits the Indian peninsula, Java, and 
Borneo, Sumatra possesses a rhinoceros with a double horn, which is, however, distin- 
guished from the analogous African species by the large folds of its skin, and its 
smaller size. It is even asserted that there exists in the same island a hornless spe- 
cies, and another with three horns. There surely can be no better proof of the diffi- 
culties which Natural History has to contend with in the wilder regions of the tropical 
zone, and of the vast field still open to future zodlogists, than that, in spite of all in- 
vestigations and travels, we do not yet even know with certainty all the species of so 
large a brute as the rhinoceros. 

In Java, this huge pachyderm is met with in the jungles of the low country, but its 


chief haunts are the higher forest-lands, which contain many small lakes and pools, - 


whose banks are covered with high grasses. Here and there, also, the woods are in- 
terspersed with dry pasture-grounds, and even in the interior of the forests, numerous 
species of gramineze are found increasing in number as they rise above the level of: 
the sea. In these solitudes, which are seldom visited by man, the rhinoceros finds all 
that it requires for food and enjoyment. As it is uncommonly shy, the traveler rarely 
meets it, but sometimes, while threading his way through the thicket, he may chance 
to surprise wild steers and rhinoceroses grazing on the brink of a pool, or quietly lying 
in the morass, The grooved paths of the rhinoceros, deeply worn into the solid rock, 
and thus affording proof of their immemorial antiquity, are found even on the summits 
of mountains above the level of the sea. They are frequently uscd for the destruction 
of the animal, for in the steeper places, where, on climbing up or down, it is obliged 


— 


THE HIPPOPOTAMUS. 725 


to stretch out its body, so that the abdomen nearly reaches the ground, the Javanese 
fix large scythe-like knives into the rock, which they cover with moss and herbage, 
thus forcing the poor rhinoceros to commit an involuntary suicide, and teaching him, 
though too late to profit by his experience, how difficult it is to escape the cunning of 
man, even on the mountain peak. 


‘‘ Behold now Behemoth, which I made with thee ; he eateth grass as an ox; his 
bones are as strong pieces of brass; his bones are like bars of iron; he lieth under 
the shady trees in the covert of the reed and fens. The shady trees cover him with 
their shadow ; the willows of the brook compass him about. Behold he drinketh up 
a river; he trusteth that he can draw up Jordan into his mouth.” Thus, in the book 
of Job, we find the Hippopotamus portrayed with few words but incomparable power. 
How tame after this noble picture must any lengthened description appear ! * 

According to the inspired poet, the hippopotamus seems anciently to have inhabited 
the waters of the Jordan, but now it is nowhere to be found in Asia; and even in 
Africa the limits of its domain are perpetually contracting before the persecutions of 
man. It has entirely disappeared from Egypt and the rivers of the Cape Colony, 
where Le Vaillant found it in numbers during the last century. In many respects a 
valuable prize; of easy destruction, in spite, or rather on account of its size, which 
betrays it to the attacks of its enemies ; a dangerous neighbor to plantations, it is con- 
demned to retreat before the waves of advancing civilization, and would long since 
have been extirpated in all Africa, if the lakes and rivers of the interior of that vast 
den of barbarism were as busily plowed over as ours by boats and ships, or their 
banks as thickly strewn with towns and villages. 

For the hippopotamus is not able, like so many other beasts of the wilderness, to 
hide itself in the gloom of impenetrable forests, or to plunge into the sandy desert, 
traversed by the Bedouin on his dromedary; it requires the neighborhood of the 
stream, the empire of which it divides with its amphibious neighbor the crocodile. 
Occasionally during the day it is to be seen basking on the shore amid ooze and mud, 
but throughout the night the unwieldy monster may be heard snorting and blowing 
during its aquatic gambols; it then sallies forth from its reed-grown coverts to graze 
by the light of the moon, never, however, venturing to any distance from the river, 
the stronghold to which it betakes itself on the smallest alarm. 

In point of ugliness the hippopotamus, or river-horse, as it has also very inappropri- 
ately been named, might compete with the rhinoceros itself. Its shapeless carcass 
rests upon short and disproportioned legs, and, with its vast belly almost trailing upon 
the ground, it may not inaptly be likened to an overgrown “prize-pig.”” Its immensely 
large head has each jaw armed with two formidable tusks, those in the lower, which 
_ are always the largest, attaining at times two feet in length; and the inside of the 
mouth is said to resemble a mass of butcher’s meat. The eyes, which are placed in 
prominences like the garret windows of a Dutch house, the nostrils, and ears, are all 
on the same plane, on the upper level of the head, so that the unwieldy monster, 


* It should be noted, however, that it is not altogether certain that the Hippopotamus is 
really the Behemoth of Job. Dr. Thomson, than whom there can hardly be better authority, 
in his admirable work “The Land and the Book,” argues plausibly that Behemoth is the 
Syrian Buffalo. 


726 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


when immersed in its favorite element, is able to draw breath, and to use three senses 
at once for hours together, without exposing more than its snout. The hide, which is 
upwards of an inch and a half in thickness, and of a pinkish brown color, clouded 
and freckled with a darker tint, is destitute of covering, excepting a few scattered hairs 
on the muzzle, the edges of the ears and tail. Though generally mild and inoffensive, 
it is not to be wondered at that a creature like this, which when full grown attains a 
length of eleven or twelve feet, and nearly the same colossal girth, affords a truly 
appalling spectacle when enraged, and that a nervous person may well lose his presence 
of mind when suddenly brought into contact with the gaping monster. 

As among the sperm-whales, sea-bears, elephants, and other animals, elderly males 
are sometimes expelled from the herd, and, for want of company, become soured in their 
temper, and so misanthropic as to attack every boat that comes near them. The herd 
is never dangerous except when a canoe passes into the midst of it when all are asleep, 

‘and some of them may strike it in terror. To avoid this, it is generally recommended 

to travel by day near the bank, and by night in the middle of the stream. The 
‘* solitaires,’’ or “rogue-hippopotami,” frequent certain localities well known to the in- 
habitants of the banks, and, like the outcast elephants, are extremely dangerous. Dr. 
Livingstone, passing a canoe which had been smashed to pieces by a blow from the 
hind foot of one of them, was informed by his men that, in case of a similar assault 
being made on his boat, the proper way was to dive to the bottom of the river, and 
hold on there for a few seconds, because the hippopotamus, after breaking a canoe, 
always looks for the people on the surface, and if he sees none, soon moves off. He 
saw some frightful gashes made on the legs of the people who, having had the misfor- 
tune to be attacked, were unable todive. One of these “‘ bachelors ”’ one day actually 
came out of his lair, and, putting his head down, ran with very considerable speed 
after the missionary and his party ; and another time they were nearly overturned by 
a hippopotamus striking the canoe with itsforehead. The butt was so violent as to tilt 
one of the boatmen out into the river, while the rest sprang to the shore, which was 
only about ten yards off; the beast looking all the time at the canoe, as if to ascertain 
what mischief it had done. 

In rivers where it is seldom disturbed, such as the Zambesi, the hippopotamus puts 
up its head openly to blow, and follows the traveler with an inquisitive glance, as if 
asking him, like the ‘‘ moping owl”’ in Grey’s Elegy, why he came to molest its ‘* ancient 
solitary reign?” but in other rivers, such as those of Londa, where it is much in dan- 
ger of being shot, the hippopotamus takes good care to conceal its nose among water- 
plants, and breathe so quietly that one would not dream of its existence in the river, 
except by footprints on the banks. Notwithstanding its stupid look—its prominent eyes 
and naked snout giving it more the appearance of a gigantic boiled ealf’s head than 
anything else—the huge creature is by no means deficient in intelligence, knows how 
to avoid pitfalls, and has so good a memory that, when it has once heard a ball whiz 
about its ears, it never after ceases to be cautious and ‘‘ wide awake” at the approach 
of danger. Being vulnerable only behind the ear, however, or in the eye, it requires 
the perfection of rifle-practice to be hit ; and once in the water, is still more difficult to 
kill. It dives and swims with all the ease of a walrus or a sea-elephant, its huge body 
being rendered buoyant by an abundance of fat. 

Its flesh is said to be delicious, resembling the finest young pork, and is considered 


HUNTING THE HIPPOPOTAMUS. 727 


as preat a delicacy in Africa asa bear’s paw or a bison’s hump in the prairies of North 
America. The thick and almost inflexible hide may be dragged from the ribs in strips, 
like the planks froma ship’s side. These serve for the manufacture of a superior de- 
scription of sjambok, the elastic whip with which the Cape boer governs his team of 
twelve oxen or more, while proceeding on a journey. In Northern Africa it is used to 
chastise refractory dromedaries or servants ; and among the collection brought by Du 
Chaillu from Equatorial Africa were several whips of hippopotamus-hide, which any 
one who has had opportunity of examination would pronounce to be among the most 
effective instruments of flagellation ; and the ancient Hgyptians employed it largely in 
the manufacture of shields, helmets, and javelins. But the most valuable part of the 
hippopotamus is its teeth (canine and incisors), which are considered greatly superior 
to elephant ivory, and when perfect and weighty, will fetch as much as one guinea per 
pound, being chiefly used for artificial teeth, since it does not readily turn yellow. 
Many a belle, whose fascinating ‘‘ivories ’? are the wonder of her admirers, is in- 
debted for them to the ugly river-horse. All these qualities and uses to which the 
hippopotamus may be applied are naturally so many prices set upon its head ; and the 
ravages it occasions in the fields are another motive for its destruction. On the White 
Nile the peasantry burn a number of fires, to keep the huge animal away from their 
plantations, where every footstep ploughs deep furrows into the marshy ground, to the 
great injury of the harvest. At the same time, they take care to keep up a prodigious 
clamor of horns and drums, to scare away the ruinous brute, which, as may well be 
imagined, is by no means s0 great a favorite with them as with the visitors of the Zodlogi- 
eal Gardens. ; 

They have besides another, and, where it takes effect far more efficacious method of 
freeing themselves from the depredations of this animal. They remark the places it 
most frequents, and there lay a large quantity of pease. When it comes on shore 
hungry and voracious, it falls to eating what is nearest, and fills its vast stomach with 
the pease, which soon occasion an insupportable thirst. The river being close at hand, 
it immediately drinks whole buckets of water, as if it were intent upon swallowing up 
not merely the little Jordan, but the whole Nile itself, which, by swelling the pease, 
cause it to blow up, like an overloaded mortar. 

The natives on the Teoge, and other rivers that empty themselves into Lake Ngami, 
kill the hippopotamus with iron harpoons, attached to long lines ending with a float. 
A huge reed raft, capable of carrying both the hunters and their canoes, with all that 
is needful for the prosecution of the chase, is pushed from the shore, and afterwards 
abandoned to the stream, which propels the unwieldy mass gently and noiselessly for- 
ward. Long before the hippopotami can be seen, they make known their presence 
by awful snorts and grunts, whilst splashing and blowing in the water. On approach- 
ing the berd—for the gregarious animal likes to live in troops of from twenty-five to 
thirty—the most skillful and intrepid of the hunters stands prepared with the harpoons, 
whilst the rest make ready to launch the canoes should the attack prove successful. 
The bustle and noise caused by these preparations gradually subside. At length not 
even a whisper is heard, and in breathless silence the hunters wait for the decisive 
conflict. The snorting and plunging become every moment more distinct; a bend 
in the stream still hides the animals from view; but now the point is passed, and 
monstrous figures, that might be mistaken for shapeless cliffs, did not ever and anon 


728 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


one or the other of them plunge and reappear, are seen dispersed over the troubled 
waters. On glides the raft, its crew worked up to the highest pitch of excitement, 
and at length reaches the herd, which, perfectly unconscious of danger, continue to 
enjoy their sports. Presently one of the animals is in immediate contact with the raft. 
Now is the critical moment ; the foremost harpooner raises himself to his full height to 
give the greater force to the blow, and the next instant the iron descends with uner- 
ring accuracy, and is buried deep in the body of the bellowing hippopotamus. The 
wounded animal plunges violently and dives to the bottom, but all its efforts to escape 
are as ineffectual as those of the seal when pierzed with the barbed iron of the 
Greenlander. 3 

As soon as it is struck, one or more of the men launch a canoe from the raft, and 
hastening to the shore with the harpoon line, take a round turn with it about a tree, 
so that the animal may either be brought up at once, or should there be too great a 
strain on the line, “ played,”’ like a trout or salmon by the fisherman. Sometimes both 
line and buoy are cast into the water, and all the canoes being launched from off the 
raft, chase is given to the poor brute, who whenever he comes to the surface is saluted 
with a shower of javelins. A long trail of blood marks his progress, his flight becomes 
slower and slower, his breathing more oppressive, until at last, his strength ebbing away 
through fifty wounds, he floats dead on the surface. 

But as the whale will sometimes turn upon his assailants, so also the hippopotamus 
not seldom makes a dash at his persecutors, and either with his tusks, or with a blow 
from his head, staves in or capsizes the canoe. Sometimes even, not satisfied with 
wreaking his vengeance on the craft, he seizes one or other of the crew, and with a 
single grasp of his jaws, either terribly mutilates the poor wretch or even cuts his body 
fairly in two. : 

The natives of Southern Africa also resort to the ingenious plan of destroying the 
hippopotamus by means of a downfall, consisting of a log of wood with stones attached 
to it to increase its weight, and a harpoon affixed to its lower end. This formidable 
weapon depends from the branch of an overhanging tree by means of a line, which is 
then made to cross horizontally the pathway which the hippopotamus is in the habit of 
frequenting during the night, at a short distance from the ground. When the animal 
comes in contact with the line, which is secured on either side of the path by a small 
peg, it snaps at once, or is disengaged by means of a trigger. The liberated down- 
fall instantly descends with the rapidity of lightning, and the harpoon is driven deep 
into the back of the monster, who, bellowing with pain, plunges into the river, where 
he soon after dies in excruciating torments. 


A few tropical animals, for which we have heretofore found no appropriate place, yet 
remain to be considered. Foremost of these is the Camel. In many respects, the 
vast sandy deserts of Asia and Africa remind one of the ocean. There is the same 
boundless horizon, the same unstable surface, now rising, now falling with the play of 
the winds; the same majestic monotony, the same optical illusions, for as the thirsty 
‘mariner sees phantom palm-groves rise from the ocean, thus also the sand waste trans- 
forms itself, before the panting caravan, into the semblance of a refreshing lake. Here 
we see islands, verdant oases of the sea—there, oases, green islands of the desert : 
here, sand-billows—there, water waves, separating widely different worlds of plants 


THE CAMEL. 729 


and animals; here, the ship, the camel of the ocean—there, the dromedary, the ship 
of the desert. 

But for the camel, the desert itself would ever have remained impassable and un- 
known to man. On iv alone depends the existence of the nomadic tribes of the Orient, 
the whole commercial intercourse of North Africa and South-west Asia, and no wonder 
that the Bedouin prizes it, along with the fruit-teeming date-palm, as the most precions 
gift of Allah. Other animals have been formed for the forest, the water, the savan- 
na; to be the guide, the carrier, the companion, the purveyor of all man’s wants in 
the desert, is the camel’s destiny. Wonderfully has he been shaped for this peculiar 
life; formed to endure privations and fatigues under which all but he would sink. On 
examining the camel's foot, it will at once be seen how well it is adapted for walking 
on a loose soil, as the full length of its two toes is provided with a broad, expanded, 
and elastic sole. Thus the camel treads securely and lightly over the unstable sands, 
while he would either slip or sink on amuddy ground. He can support hunger longer 
than any other mammiferous animal, and is satisfied with the meanest food. Frugal, 
like his lord the wiry Bedouin, the grinding power of his teeth and his cartilaginous 
palate enable him to derive nutriment from the coarsest shrubs, from thorny mimosas 
and acacias, or even from the stony date-kernels, which his master throws to him after 
having eaten the sweet flesh in which they are imbedded. 

For many days he can subsist without drinking, as the pouch-like cavities of his 
stomach—a peculiarity which distinguishes him from all other quadrupeds, perhaps, 
with the sole exception of the elephant—form a natural cistern or reservoir, whose 
contents can be forced upwards by muscular contraction to meet the exigencies of the 
journey. It is frequently believed that this liquid remains constantly limpid and pal- 
atable, and that in cases of extreme necessity camels are slaughtered to preserve the 
lives of the thirsty caravan ; but according to Russegger these accounts are fabulous, ss, 
particularly after a long abstinence from drinking, the dromedary’s supply is nothing 
but a most nauseous mixture of putrid water and half digested food, from which even 
Tantalus would turn away disgusted. But the ‘‘ ship of the desert ’’ is not only pro- 
vided with water for the voyage, but also with liberal stores of fat, which are chiefly 
accumulated in the hump; so that this prominence, which gives it so deformed an ap- 
pearance, is in reality of the highest utility—for should food be scarce, and this is 
almost always the case while journeying through the desert, internal absorption makes 
up in some measure for the deficiency, and enables the famished camel to brave fer 
some time longer the fatigues of the naked waste. Yet all mortal endurance has its 
limits, and even the camel, though so well provided against hunger and thirst, must 
frequently succumb to the excess of his privations, and the bleached skeletons of the 
much enduring animal strewed along the road mark at once the path ef the caravan 
and the dreadful sufferings of a desert-journey. 

But even these horrid wastes, where the glowing Khamsin whirls the sands in suffo- 
cating eddies, have beauties of their own. Particularly when the full moon shines in 
the dark blue sky, bespangled with constellations of a brilliancy unknown to the 
northern firmament, when the mountains throw their dark shades far away over the 
yellow sands, and the picturesque effect of the scene is enhanced by the aspect of the 
tents, the watch-fires, and the reposing animals; then we may well conceive how the 
wandering Bedouin loves the desert no less than the mariner loves the ocean, or the 


730 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


Swiss peasant his snow-clad mountains; and how it inflames the imagination of the 
oriental poets to many a song, solacing the tediousness of the encampment, and handed 
on from one generation to another. 

To the camel the vagrant Arab owes his immemorial liberty and independence ; 
when attacked, he places at once the desert between the enemy and himself. Thus he 
has ever been indomitable, and when in other parts of the world we find that the fatal 
possession of an animal—the sable, the sea-otter—has entailed the curse of slavery 
upon whole nations, the dromedary in Arabia appears as the instrument of lasting 
freedom. Many a conquering horde has been stopped in its career by the desert, and 
while the false glory of the scourges of mankind that have so often thrown the East 
into bondage passed like a shadow, one century after another looks down from the 
hights of Sinai upon the free and unfettered sons of Ishmael. 

But the Arab too often tarnishes his liberty by crime, and degrades the “ship 
of the desert ’’ to be the accomplice of a robber. The Bedouin, anxious to pursue this 
base profession, inures himself, from an early age, to every fatigue, banishes sleep, 
patiently endures thirst, hunger and heat; and in the same manner accustoms his 
dromedary to every privation. A few days after the animal’s birth he folds its legs 
under its body, forces it to kneel, and loads it with a weight which is gradually 
increased as it increases in strength. Instead of allowing it to seek its food whenever 
it pleases, or completely satisfy its thirst, he accustoms it to perform longer and longer 
journeys without eating or drinking, trains it to equal the horse in swiftness, as it sur- 
passes him in strength—and when perfectly assured of its fleetness and endurance, 
loads it with the necessary provisions, rides away upon its back, waylays the traveler, 
plunders the secluded dwelling, and when pursued and forced to save his booty by a 
speedy flight, then shows what he and his dromedary can perform. Hurrying on day 
and night, almost without repose, or eating or drinking, he travels two hundred leagues 
in a week, and during this whole time his dromedary is allowed but one hour’s rest a 
day, and a handful of meal for food. On this meagre diet the unwearied animal often 
speeds on seven or eight days without finding any water ; and when by chance a pool 
or a spring lies on his way, he smells it at a distance of half a league, his. burning 
thirst imparts new vigor to his speed, and he then drinks at once both for the past and 
the future, as his journeys often last several weeks, and his privations endure as long 
as his journeys. 

While the Bactrian Camel, with a double hump, anges from Turkestan to China, the 
single-hump camel or Dromedary, originally Arabian, has spread in opposite directions 
towards the East Indies, the Mediterranean, and the Niger, and is used in Syria, Egypt, 
Persia, and Barbary, as the commonest beast of burden. It serves the robber, but it 
serves also the peaceful merchant, or the pilgrim, as he wanders to Mecca to perform 
his devotions at the prophet’s tomb. In long array, winding like a snake, the caravan 
traverses the desert. Each dromedary is loaded, according to its strength, with from 
six hundred to a thousand pounds, and knows so well the limit of its endurance, that 
it suffers no overweight, and will not stir before it be removed. Thus, with slow and 
measured pace, the caravan proceeds at the rate of ten or twelve leagues a day, often 
requiring many a week before attaining the end of its journey. 

When we consider the deformity of the camel, we cannot doubt that its nature has 
suffered considerable changes from the thraldom and unceasing labors of more than 


THE CAMEL—THE GIRAFFE. 731 


one millenium. Its servitude is of older date, more complete, and more irksome, than 
that of any other domestic animal: of older date, as it inhabits the countries which 
history points out to us as the cradle of mankind ; more complete, as all other domestic 
animals still have their wild types roaming about in unrestrained liberty, while the 
whole camel race is doomed to slavery; more irksome, finally, as it is never kept for 
Juxury or state like so many horses, or for the table like the ox, the pig, or the 
sheep, but is merely used as a beast of transport, which its master does not even give 
himself the trouble to attach to a cart, but whose body is loaded like a living wagon, 
and frequently even remains burdened during sleep. Thus the camel bears all the 
‘marks of serfdom. Large naked callosities of horny hardness cover the lower part of 
the breast and the joints of the legs; and although they are never wanting, yet they 
themselves give proof that they are not natural, but that they have been produced by 
an excess of misery and ill-treatment, as they are frequently found filled with a puru- 
lent matter. | 

The hardships of long servitude, which have thus gradually deformed the origin- 
ally, perhaps, not ungraceful camel, have no doubt also soured its temper, and ren- 
dered its character as unamiable as its appearance isrepulsive. ‘‘ It is an abominably 
ugly necessary animal,’ says Mr. Russell; ‘‘ ungainly, morose, quarrelsome, with 
tee-totalling propensities ; unaccountably capricious in its friendships and enmities ; 
delighting to produce with its throat, its jaws, its tongue, and its stomach, the most 
abominable grunts and growls. Stupidly bowing to the yoke, it willingly submits to 
the most atrocious cruelties, and bites innocent, well-meaning persons, ready to take its 
part. When its leader tears its nostril, it will do no more than grunt; but, ten against 
one, it will spit at you if you offer it a piece of bread. For days it will march along, 
its nose close to the tail of the beast that precedes it, without ever making the least 
attempt to break from the chain; and yet it will snort furiously at the poor European 
who amicably pats its ragged hide.’”? The camel seers to have been rather harshly 
dealt with in this description ; at any rate, it may plead for its excuse that it would be 
too much to expect a mild and amiable temper in a toil-worn slave. 


_ Which of all four-footed animals raises its head to the most towering hight? Is it 

the colossal elephant or the “ship of the desert?’? No doubt the former reaches 
many a lofty branch with its flexible proboscis, and the eye of the long-necked camel 
sweeps over a vast extent of desert; but the Giraffe embraces a still wider horizon, 
and plucks the leaves of the mokaala at a still greater hight. A strange and most 
surprising animal, almost all neck and leg, seventeen feet high against a length of 
only seven from the breast to the beginning of the tail, its comparatively small and 
slanting body resting on long stilts, its diminutive head fixed at th> summit of a col- 
umn ; and yet in spite of these apparent disproportions, which seem rather to belong 
to the world of chimeras than to the realities of nature, of so elegant and pleasing an 
appearance, that it owes its Arabic name, Xsrapha, to the graceful ease of its move- 
ments. The beauty of the giraffe is enhanced by its magnificently spotted skin, and 
by its soft and gentle eyes, which eclipse those of the far-famed gazelle of the East, 
and, by their lateral projection, take in a wider range of tke horizon than is subject 
to the vision of any other quadruped, so as even to be able to anticipate a threatened 
attack in the rear from the stealthy lion or any other foe of the desert. 


732 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


The long, black tail, invariably curled above the back, no doubt renders it good 
service against many a stinging insect; and the straight horns, or rather excrescences 
of the frontal bone, small as they are, and muffled with skin and hair, are by no means 
the insignificant weapons they have been supposed to be. ‘We have seen them 
wielded by the males against each other with fearful and reckless force,” says Maun- 
der, ‘‘ and we know that they are the natural arms of the giraffe most dreaded by the 
keeper of the present living giraffes in the ZoGlogical Gardens, because they are most 
commonly and suddenly put in use. The giraffe does not butt by depressing and sud- 
denly elevating the head, like the deer, ox, or sheep, but strikes the callous obtuse 
extremity of the horns against the object of his attack with a sidelong sweep of the 
neck. One blow thus directed at full swing against the head of an unlucky attendant 
would be fatal. The female once drove her horns in sport through an inch board.” 
The projecting upper lip of the giraffe is remarkably flexible, and its elongated pre- 
hensile tip, performing in miniature the part of the elephant’s proboscis, is of material 
assistance in browsing upon the foliage and young shoots of the prickly acacia, which 
constitute the animal’s chief food. With feet terminating in a divided hoof, and a 
ruminant like our ox, the giraffe has four stomachs, and an enormous intestinal length 
of 288 feet: a formation which bears testimony to the vast and prolonged powers of 
digestion necessary to extract nutrition from its hard and meagre diet. 

Ranging throughout the wide plains of Central Africa, from Caffraria to Nubia, the 
giraffe, though a gregarious animal, generally roams about only in small herds. It is, 
indeed, by no means common even at its head-quarters, and Captain Harris, who tray- 
ersed the desert as far as the Tropic of Capricorn, seldom found giraffes without 
having followed their trail, and never saw more than five-and-thirty in aday. Not- 
withstanding the rapidity with which the cameleopard strides along, the fore and hind 
leg on the same side moving together, instead of diagonally as in most other quadru- 
peds, yet a full gallop quite dissipates its power; and the hunters, being aware of this, 
always try to press the giraffes at once to it, knowing that they have but a short 
space to run before the animals are in their power. In doing this the old sportsmen 
are careful not to go too close to the giraffe’s tail; for this animal, says Dr. Living- 
stone, ‘‘can swing his hind foot round in a way which would leave little to choose 
between a kick with it and a clap from the arm of a windmill.” 

After man, the giraffe’s chief enemy is the lion, who often waits for it in the thick 
brakes on the margin of the rivers or the pools, and darts upon it with a murderous 
spring while it is slaking its thirst. Andersson, as we have already narrated,* once 
saw five lions, two of whom were in the act of pulling down a splendid giraffe, while 
the other three were watching close at hand the issue of the deadly strife ; and Captain 
Harris relates that, while he was encamped on the banks of a small stream, a ca- 
meleopard was killed by a lion whilst in the act of drinking, at no great distance from 
the wagons. It was a noisy affair; but an inspection of the scene on which it occurred 
proved that the giant strength of the victim had been paralyzed in an instant. Some- 
times the giraffe saves itself from the attacks of its arch-enemy by a timely flight ; but 
when hemmed in, it offers a desperate resistance, and in spite of its naturally gentle 
and peaceable disposition, gives such desperate kicks with its fore-feet as to keep its 
antagonist at a respectful distance, and finally to compel him to retreat. 


* Ante, p. 699. 


GIRAFFES—ZEBRAS— QUAGGAS. 733 


The Greeks and Romans were well acquainted with the giraffe; and Aristotle, de- 
scribing it under the name of hippardion, or panther-horse, probably knew it better 
than Buffon, who never saw more of it than a stuffed skin. Pliny relates that Julius 
Ceesar (45 8. c.) first exhibited it to the Romans in the amphitheatre, and from that 
time it often played a conspicuous part in the bloody spectacles with which the military 
despots of the declining empire used to entertain the rabble of Rome. Even during 
the middle ages giraffes were sometimes seen in Europe. The sultan of Egypt pre- 
sented the German emperor, Frederick II., with a cameleopard ; and Lorenzo de Medicis 
was honored with a similar gift. But since that time three full centuries elapsed be- 
fore a single giraffe was ever transported across the Mediterranean ; and when at length 
the wily old tyrant Mehemet Ali, who knew how to flatter the French while grinding 
his poor Fellahs, sent one of them to the Jardin des Plantes in 1827, it raised no less 
a sensation than if it had been the unicorn itself. Thenceforth, the spell being broken, 
many giraffes have been imported into Hurope and America. There are many analo- 
gies between the giraffe and the ostrich ; both long-legged, long-necked, fit for cropping 
the tall mimosas, or scouring rapidly the plain; both, finally, defending themselves by 
striking their feet forwards, the one against the jackal or hyzena, the other against the 
assaults of the formidable lion. 


As if to make up for the hideous deformity of the rhinoceros and hippopotamus, the 
African wilds exclusively give birth to the beautifully-striped Zebras, the most gor- 
geously attired members of the equine race. 

The tawny-colored Quagga, irregularly banded and marked with dark brown stripes, 
which, stronger on the head and neck, gradually become fainter, until lost behind the 
shoulders, has its high crest surmounted by a standing mane, banded alternately brown 
and white. It used formerly to be found in great numbers within the limits of the Cape 
Colony, and still roams in vast herds in the open plains farther to the north. Thus, 
in the desert of the Meritsane, Major Harris, after crossing a park of magnificent 
camel-thorn trees, soon perceived large herds of quaggas and brindled gnus, which con- 
tinued to join each other, until the whole plain seemed alive. The clatter of their 
hoofs was perfectly astounding, and could be compared to nothing but to the din of a 
tremendous charge of cavalry or the rushing of a mighty tempest. The accumulated 
numbers could not be estimated at less than 15,000, a great extent of country being 
actually chequered black and white with their congregated masses. 

The Douw, or Burchell’s Zebra, differs little from the common quagga in point of 
shape or size; but while the latter is faintly striped only on the head and neck, the 
former is adorned over every part of the body with broad black bands, beautifully 
contrasting with a pale yellow ground. Major Harris, who had many opportunites of 
seeing this fine species in a state of nature, remarks that, ‘‘ Beautifully clad by the 
hand of nature, possessing much of the graceful symmetry of the horse, with great 
bones and muscular power, united to easy and stylish action, thus combining comeli- 
ness of figure with solidity of form, this species, if subjugated and domesticated, would 
assuredly make the best pony in the world.’’ Although it admits of being tamed to a 
certain extent with the greatest facility—a half-domesticated specimen, with a jockey 
on its brindled back, being occasionally exposed in Cape Town for sale—it has hitherto 
contrived to evade the yoke of servitude. The senses of sight, hearing and smell, are 


734 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


extremely delicate. The slightest noise or motion, no less than the appearance of any 
object that is unfamiliar, at once rivets their gaze, and causes them to stop and listen 
with the utmost attention; any taint in the air equally attracting their olfactory 
organs. 

“ Tnstinct having taught these beautiful animals that in union consists their strength, 
they combine in a compact body when menaced by an attack, either from man or 
beast; and, if overtaken by the foe, they unite for mutual defence, with their heads 
together in a close circular band, presenting their heels to the enemy, and dealing out 
kicks in equal force and abundance. Beset on all sides, or partially crippled, they 
rear on their hinder legs, fly at their adversary with jaws distended, and use both 
teeth and heels with the greatest freedom.”’ 

The Gnu,and the common quagga, delighting in the same situation, not unfrequently 
herd together ; but Burchell’s Zebra is seldom seen unaccompanied by troops of the 
brindled Gnu, an animal differing very materially from its brothers of the same genus, 
from which, though scarcely less ungainly, it is readily distinguishable at a great dis- 
tance by its black mane and tail, more elevated withers, and clumsier action. 

Whilst the douw and the quagga roam over the plains, the zebra inhabits mountain- 
ous regions only. The beauty of its light symmetrical form is enhanced by the narrow 
black bands with which the whole of the white-colored body is covered. Buffon and 
Daubenton wished to see this elegant creature acclimatized in Europe, which would 
procure us a beast of burden stronger than the ass, and more beautiful in its naked- 
ness than the horse, even when adorned with the richest trappings. A king of Portu- 
gal used frequently to drive about with four zebras ; and, about the year 1761, two of 
these animals that were kept in the park of Versailles had been so far tamed as to allow 
themselves to be mounted. In spite of the proverbial obstinacy of the zebra, there 
are thus no insuperable obstacles to its domestication, and a course of training, contin- 
ued through several generations, would most likely subdue its reluctant nature as com- 
pletely as that of the original wild horse and ass. The zebra is supposed to be the 
real hippotigris, or tiger-horse of the ancients ; and this is the more probable, as he ranges 
much farther to the north than the quagga or the douw, and approaches the regions of 
Africa comprised within the Roman empire. Historians inform us that in the year 202 
after Christ, Plautius, a governor or prefect of Egypt sent several centurions to the 
island of the Erythraean Sea to fetch horses which ‘*looked like tigers.”’ The zebra 
seeks the wildest and most secluded spots, so that it is extremely difficult of approach. 
The herds graze on the steep hill-side, with a sentinel posted on some adjacent crag 
ready to sound the alarm in case of any suspicious approach to their feeding quarters ; 
and no sooner is the alarm given than away they scamper with pricked ears, and 
whisking their ears aloft, to places where few, if any, would venture to pursue them. 


We have styled the hippopotamus and the rhinoceros ‘‘ gigantic hogs,’ and such 
they are to all seeming. But in Southern Africa the real hog itself reaches a size and 
strength, of which we, who know only his tame, lazy kindred, can hardly form a con- 
ception. Thus Andersson incidentally mentions these animals. ‘‘ Wild boars,’’ he 
says, ‘‘ were rather numerous, and afforded us excellent coursing. The speed of these 
animals is surprisingly great. On open ground, when fairly afoot, I found the dogs 
no match for them. They fight desperately ; and I have seen wild boars individually 


THE WILD BOAR. 735 


keep off most effectually half a dozen fierce assailants. I have also seen them, when 
hotly pursued, attack and severely wound their pursuers.” 


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But of all the hog-tribe one of the most remarkable is the Babirusa, or ‘‘ pig-deer,”’ 
as it is called by the Malays, from its long and slender legs and curved tusks, which 


736 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


resemble horns. ‘‘ This extraordinary animal,’’ says Wallace, ‘‘ resembles a pig in its 
general appearance; but it does not dig with its snout, as it feeds on fallen fruits. 
The tusks of the lower jaw are very long and sharp; but the upper ones, instead of 
growing downward in the usual way, are completely reversed, growing upward out ot 
bony sockets, through the skin on each side of the snout, curving backward to near 
the eyes, and in old animals often reaching eight or ten inches in length.”’ As far as 
we know, no living specimen of this extraordinary creature has ever reached Europe 
or America ; but its skulls, and drawings therefrom, are found in our museums. The 
uses of its curious tusks, like those of the elephant, are a problem which naturalists 


have yet to solve. 

Here we bring to a close the results of our researches into some of the character- 
istic forms of Animal and Vegetable Life, as manifested in the Polar and Tropical 
Worlds, 


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SUMMARY OF ARCTIC EXPLORING EXPEDITIONS. 737 


ADDITIONAL CHAPTERS 


TO 


erie Polar Ar bat 


CHAPTER XLIII. 
SUMMARY OF ARCTIC EXPLORING EXPEDITIONS. 


Arctic America.—The Arctic Archipelago.—Baffin’s Bay and its Outlets.—Hudson’s Bay 
and its Outlets—Limits of Arctic America.—Physical Characteristics.—Icelanders the 
first Arctic Explorers. —The Brothers Zeni.—The Cabots.—Frobisher.— Davis. —Barentz.— 

‘The North-west Passage.—Henry Hudson.—Baffin.—Bering.—Hearne.—Phipps.—Cook.— 
Mackenzie.—Scoresby.—Buchan and Franklin.—Ross and Parry’s first Voyage.—Parry’s 
second Voyage.—Franklin, Richardson and Back’s first Overland Expedition.—Parry’s 
third Expedition.—Parry’s fourth Expedition Franklin, Richardson and Back’s second 
Overland Expedition—Beechey.—Parry’s Expedition beyond Spitzbergen.—Sir John 
Ross’s second Expedition.—Back and King —Back’s Great Fish River.—Back’s next Ex- 
pedition—Dease and Simpson.—Rae.—Franklin’s last Expedition —Its Sailing.—Last 
ever seen of it.—Expeditions in Search of Franklin.—Franklin’s Movements.—Fate of his 
Party —Moore and Kellett.—Richardson and Rae’s Overland Expedition.—Sir James 
Ross’s Expedition.—Expeditions of 1850.—Collinson and McClure.—Austin and Ommaney’s 
Expedition.—Sir James Ross.—Captain Penny.—The Prince Albert.—The Advance and 
Rescue.—First Traces of Franklin.—Sled and Boat Excursions.—Surmises.—Inglefield’s 
Surveys.—Expeditions of 1852.—Belcher’s Fleet.—Kellett’s Rescue of McClure.—The 
Resolute.—Kane’s Grinnell Expedition.—Rae’s Expedition on the Mainland of America.— 
Fate of Franklin’s Men ascertained.—Anderson’s Search.—McClintock’s Expedition.—The 
Marvelous Drift of the Fox—On the track of Franklin.—Discovery of Relics—The 
Mystery Solved.—Hayes’s Expedition.—The most Northern Land on the Globe.—Charles 
Francis Hall.—Expeditions since 1870. 


N this chapter it is proposed to give in chronological order a summary of the 

Arctic expeditions which have been undertaken on the American continent, by 
land or water. Many of them have been already described in detail in preceding 
chapters of “'The Polar World.” Reference will be made to these accounts, so that 
this chapter will serve as index and supplement to what has gone before. 

From its western extremity at the head of Bering’s Straits, about 160° W., 
through 65° of longitude to 95° W., the parallel of latitude of 70° N., forms the 
general northern boundary of the American continent. Some capes, however, 
project a little further northward, and many bays indent the coast line to the south ; 
but in about longitude 95°, Hudson’s Bay sets deeply in, and extends southward to 
about latitude 51°. On the eastern side of the bay, the shore of the continent runs 


738 THE POLAR WORLD. — 


northward to Hudson’s Straits, which open from the bay into the Northern Atlantic in 
about latitude 60° just opposite the southern extremity of the great continental island 
of Greenland,’ which marks the proper line between the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans. 
In the Arctic Ocean, between Greenland and Europe, lies the island of Iceland ;? 
north of which is Jan Meyen’s island ;° still further north, Spitzbergen ;* to the 
east and a little south of which is Nova Zembla,® off the northern coast of Asia, but 
a little south of its extreme northern headland. 

To the north of the continent, and extending to an unknown distance into the 
Polar Ocean, is an immense archipelago, the islands of which are separated by in- 
numerable sounds, channels, and straits, blocked up by ice during all but a few weeks: 
in every year, and sometimes wholly so for several successive years. It is in these 
bays and channels and along their shores, whether island or continent, that the naval 
Arctic explorations have been carried on. The maps which are now added to this 
volume furnish a clearer view of these and their relative positions than can be given 
by words. A few of them deserve especial mention in connection with Arctic ex- 
ploration. | 

The southernmost island is Southampton lying in Hudson’s Bay, at its head, 
and just opposite Hudson’s Straits. North and east of this is the great island, or 
probably group of islands, known as Cockburn Land, separating the channels and’ 
bays leading northward from Hudson’s Bay into Baffin’s Bay. LBaffin’s Bay, shaped 
not unlike the skin bottles of the ancients, with its broad mouth, Davis Straits, open- 
ing southward into the Atlantic, separates Cockburn Land from Greenland. Like the 
skin bottles to which we have compared it, it has several other natural openings, though 
these are for a great part of the year closed by ice. Opposite its mouth is Smith’s 
Sound, leading directly northward into the presumed open Polar Sea. In the middle, 
answering to one of the legs of the skin bottle, is Lancaster Sound, with its continua~- 
tions known as Barrow’s Strait, Melville Sound, and McClure’s Strait running due 
west, and forming a north-west passage to Bering’s Straits, though it has been only 
once traversed, by McClure and his party,° and probably will not be again within the 
life-time of any man now living. Along the northern side of Lancaster Sound are, 
among others, the islands of North Devon, Bathurst, and Melville, separated by Wel- 
lington Channel and Austin Strait. Along the southern side of Lancaster Sound are 
the islands of Cape York, separated by Prince Regent Inlet from North Somerset island, | 
which is separated from the island of North Wales. Lancaster Channel now expands 
into Melville Sound, which has on its south side Victoria Land and Prince Albert. 
Land, possibly one island, but perhaps several, separated from Banks’ Land by Prince 
of Wales Strait. 

Hudson’s Bay also communicates by a chain of winding channels and straits, or 
rather fiords, with Melville Sound, which together form also another north-west pass- 
age, every part of which has been traversed by some exploring vessel, though no one’ 
has been through more than a small part of it. ; ‘| 

The 60th parallel of north latitude may be considered as the southernmost limit of 
Arctic America. Here ice and snow have acquired absolute mastery over vegetation, © 
though toward the west the line of stunted forests reaches perhaps five degrees higher. 
All north of this is unfitted for the abode of civilized man. The whole region is a 


2P. 27, 362, et seq. 2P. 68. 3P, 146. 4P. 20, 131, 340. 5P. 147. 6P. 360. 


SUMMARY OF ARCTIC EXPLORING EXPEDITIONS. 739 


vast plain, rising only a few score yards, and never, as far as we know, more than a 
few hundred feet above the level of the icy sea. It was probably the first portion of 
the globe where dry land appeared above the waters; for, geologically speaking, all 
mountains and hills are of recent formation. They have risen from the ocean ; and if 
the present order of things continues for a sufficient number of millions of years, they 
will, by natural laws now in operation, be removed and cast into the depths of the sea. 
Every drop of water which falls upon a mountain and thence makes its way to the 
ocean, bears with it some part of the solid rock ; and so, in the course of ages, the 
Alleghanies and the Alps, the Andes and the Himalayas, will all be worn away. Great 
rivers flow sluggishly through this vast Arctic plain, and often spread out into shallow 
lakes. It is only by observing their course that we know that there is any water- 
shed. So closely do their head waters interlock, that with hardly a mile of portage a 
canoe starting from a river falling into Hudson’s Bay, might descend the Mackenzie! 
whose mouth is on the Arctic Ocean, or the Yukon? which falls into Bering’s Sea, a 
part of the Pacific. 

Leaving out of view the aborigines, of whom no man knows when or whence they 
came, the Icelanders were the first Arctic explorers in America. As early as 982, 
A. D.,? and perhaps still earlier, they discovered Greenland, and in the course of the 
next century founded a colony which flourished for many years. They penetrated, 
as far as Lancaster Sound, and built churches and convents, the ruins of which still 
exist along the coast of Greenland. It is evident that the climate was then far milder 
than it now is, probably not more severe than that of Norway or Canada in our day.* 
Apparently the increase of cold has been going on steadily within the last two and a 
half centuries, for Hudson and Davis seem to have found no difficulty in penetrating 
nearly as far to the north as recent explorers have been able to do even with the aid 
of steam. | : 

There is no record that the Pheenicians, the earliest navigators, ever approached the 
Arctic zone. The earliest Arctic voyage on record is that made in 1380 by two Venetian 
navigators named Zeni; but it is uncertain how far or even where they went. In 
1497 and subsequently the two Cabots projected a voyage to the North pole, and went 
as high as the middle of Davis Straits. Three-quarters of a century passed before 
another Arctic voyage was made in America, for the Cortereals, in 1500 hardly 
reached latitude 60°, and Willoughby in 1553 did not touch even Greenland.® 

In 1576-8 Frobisher made three voyages, and discovered the straits bearing his 
name, leading into Hudson’s Bay.’ These voyages are notable as the first in which 
there is any account of scientific observations being made. Davis, in 1585-7 made 
discoveries more important than had as yet been accomplished. He discovered the 
great strait that bears his name, and surveyed portions of the coast of Greenland.* In 
1596 Barentz, after having made two voyages to Nova Zembla, attempted the north- 
west passage from the west. He perished off the coast of Alaska, having barely 
penetrated the Arctic Ocean.° | 

The great object of Arctic voyages was now the discovery of a north-west passage, 
so that the nations of northern Europe might share in the rich commerce with India ; 
for Spain claimed, and was then powerful enough to make the claim good, the sole 
right of traversing the Atlantic and Indian Oceans in that direction. In 1607 Henry 


1p. 17. 2P. 278. 8P. 382. 4P, 29. 5 P. 835, 379. 6P. 336. TP. 387. 
8P. 387. 9. 188, 342, ; 


740 THE POLAR WORLD. 


Hudson was sent out by the Muscovite Company with the simple direction to steer 
straight for the North pole. He went between Spitzbergen and Greenland, and in the 
two following years between Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla, and convinced himself 
that there was no passage in that direction. He,then shot across to Labrador, search- 
ing southward for an opening through the continent, and discovered the bay of New 
York and the river which bears his name. On his last voyage in 1610 he sailed 
through the straits and into the great inland sea named after him, and went hundreds 
of miles further west than man had gone before. He was, after the Icelanders, the first 
explorer who wintered in Arctic America. In the following spring his crew mutinied, 
put him and seven companions, of whom all but one were invalids, into an open boat, 
which was cut adrift, and he disappeared forever from human eyes. A part of the 
crew were killed by the Esquimaux, and a part died of cold and famine, only a few 
returning to England. 

It was now fully believed that Hudson’s Bay opened at its other extremity into the 
Pacific, and several attempts were made to perform the north-west voyage from both 
sides of the continent ; the most notable was that of Baffin, who in 1616 surveyed the 
coasts of the bay which bears his name, and sailed for some distance up Lancaster 
Sound. For half a century more no other man went further north or as far west as he.” 

In 1741 Bering, having previously explored along the Arctic coasts of Kamchatka 
and in the sea named from him, tried to go still further north and east, with the hope 
of making the north-west passage from the west. He never saw the strait which bears 
his name, which had been discovered by Deschnew almost a century before. Al- 
though Bering touched upon the Arctic coast of America, he does not properly come 
within the category of American Arctic explorers.* 

In 1748 the British Parliament offered a reward of £20,000 to the crew of the ves- 
sel which should first make the north-west passage, and between 1769 and 1772 
Samuel Hearne made three overland journeys from Hudson’s Bay toward the north. 
He discovered the Coppermine River, which he traced to its mouth in a gulf of the Polar 
Sea, almost midway between Bering’s Strait and Baffin’s Bay. ‘The Parliamentary 
reward had been so far extended as to include any northern passage, and an additional 
reward of £5,000 was offered to any crew which should go within one degree of the 
North pole. 

Hitherto the hope of finding a passage for commerce had been the main incentive to 
Arctic voyagers ; but now this had been shown to be out of the question ; and there- 
after scientific discovery became the main object. Capt. Phipps, afterward Lord Mul- 
grave, in 1778, tried to reach the pole by way of Spitzbergen. He went as far north 
as 80° 48’ no further than Hudscn had gone more than sixty years before. In 1778 
Cook attempted the route by way of Bering’s Strait, and so confident was he of success 
that a vessel was sent to Baffin’s Bay to meet him. He however went no farther 
north than 70° 45’, passing the extreme northern point of the American Continent, and 
entering the Polar Sea. He saw, or thought he saw land still further north ; other 
navigators have seen similar appearances of land ; but it is not as yet certain how far to 
the west the great Polar archipelago extends. He headed eastward, but soon found 
his way blocked by solid ice. In August he turned southward, and in February, 
1779, was killed on the island of Hawaii.‘ 


IP. 342. 2P. 343. 3P, 197, 248. 4P, 344, 


SUMMARY OF ARCTIC EXPLORING EXPEDITIONS. 741 


In 1789 Mackenzie, in the employment of the North-west Fur Company, made an 
overland journey and reached the mouth of the great Polar river named after him, half 
way between the Coppermine and Bering’s Strait. The season appears to have been 
unusually mild, for he saw the dolphins sporting in a sea, open and free of ice beyond 
the reach of vision. If he had had a ship, in all probability he might have sailed clear 
to thé pole. The valley of the Mackenzie forms a partial exception to the otherwise 
barren character of the Arctic regions, for there are forests reaching almost to the 
shores of the Polar sea.’ 

In 1806, Scoresby, the elder, in the command of a whaling vessel, passed up 
between Greenland and Spitzbergen, and reached the latitude of about 81° within 
540 miles of the pole, and within, perhaps, a score of miles as far north as a vessel 
has ever gone, and within sixty miles as far as was reached by Kane or Morton, or 
Hayes, or any other man, unless, as is said, Hall, three weeks before his death, went 
fifty miles beyond. Before him the sea was open, and the absence of blink showed 
that no snowy land or icy sea lay before him. He wished to burst into that open sea 
which keel has never plowed, but his was a voyage for whales, and he had to subordi- 
nate his scientific aspirations to the pecuniary interests of the owners of the vessel.’ 

The year 1818 is memorable for two Arctic expeditions: one under Ross and 
Parry to discover the north-west passage, and the other under Buchan and Lieutenant 
(afterwards Sir John) Franklin, to reach the pole. The latter went between Green- 
land and Spitzbergen, and penetrated as far north as latitude 80° 34’, got caught in 
the ice, and was obliged to return. Ross, in command of the Isabella, and Parry, in 
the Alexander, sailed April 18, and on the 28th entered Lancaster Sound. After 
sailing sixty miles, land was seen apparently stretching from shore to shore; but the 
weather being threatening, the vessels were put about, and returned to England in 
the following month. Ross reported that the supposed sound was a mere bay, with. no 
opening into the ocean beyond ; Parry was as confident that it was a sound, and to 
test the correctness of this he was next year put in command of an expedition more 
completely equipped than any one which had ever before been fitted out.’ 

This expedition consisted of the Hecla, with the Griper as a consort. There were 
ninety-four men and provisions for two years. They sailed May 11, 1819, fell in 
with ice June 18, and were beleaguered on the 25th for a month. They entered 
Lancaster Sound, July 30, and laid their course up the channel. Parliament had 
offered a reward of £5,000 to the first crew which should reach the meridian of 110° 
W. Qn the 4th of September, Parry announced to his men that they had reached 
that. point, and the reward was theirs. They were now near the head of Melville 
Sound. On the 20th, they were beset in the ice, which did not break up till August 
2, of the following year. On the 15th they were again fast imbedded in ice, having 
made but a few miles beyond the point which they had gained the previous year. 
They then returned to England in good health, having settled two important points : 
first, that there was a channel running at least half way across.the continent, and pre- 
sumably the whole distance ; and secondly, that it was possible for white men to winter 
in the Arctic regions.* 

In the meanwhile, an overland expedition consisting of Franklin, Dr. (afterwards 
Sir John,) Richardson, Mr. (afterwards Sir George) Back, then a midshipman, Hood, 


1P. 27, 308. 2P. 344. 3P, 344. 4P. 348. 


742 THE POLAR WORLD. 


a lieutenant, Hepburn, a seaman, and some Canadian voyageurs, set out from the 
shore of Hudson’s Bay. They reached Fort Chipeweyan late in March, 1820, having 
traveled in the depth of winter on foot 856 miles, the mercury freezing solid in the 
bulb of the thermometer. In July they went 500 miles further to Fort Enterprise, 
where all the party wintered except Back who returned to Fort Chipeweyan, to send 
on provisions for the next year. He then returned, regaining Fort Enterprise, March 
17, 1821, having traveled more than 1100 miles, sometimes being without food for 
three days in succession, with the thermometer ranging from 47° to 57° below zero ; 
that is from 69° to 79° below freezing point. The whole party then set out inating 
their canoes eighty miles to the Coppermine River, which they descended to the sea, and 
then paddled eastward along the shore. After walking about 550 miles they found 
themselves at the foot of a deep bay, with provisions for only three days. They made 
one large canoe out of their two smaller ones, and tried to ascend Hood River. Hood 
and some of the Canadians broke down and could go no farther; Richardson re- 
mained with these. Back, with a few of the more vigorous, pushed on in the direc- 
tion of J*ort Enterprise to send back succor, while Franklin and the rest of the party 
followed on more slowly. These last, on reaching a depot found it deserted; but 
there were a few rejected deer skins and almost fleshless bones. Here they staid 
eighteen days, in the course of which they were joined by Richardson and Hepburn. 
Hood had been killed by a Canadian, who was in self-defence shot by Richardson. 
The other Canadians who had broken down had all died. At length on the 7th of 
November, when nearly all the remaining Canadians had perished, three Indians whom 
Back had sent thither, brought them some provisions. The survivors pushed forward 
and succeeded in rejoining Back, and returned to England in 1822." History 
records nothing of self-devotion which exceeds this of Richardson, Back, and Frank- 
lin, and never were honors and titles more worthily bestowed than upon them. 

The results of Parry’s expedition had been so considerable that another was fitted 
out in 1821 under his command. It consisted of the Hecla and Fury. Instead of 
entering Lancaster Sound they passed through Hudson’s Straits, and attempted to 
work their way north-westward through the channels winding among the islands. If 
they gained a little, the floating ice would in a few days sweep them back to a point 
which they had left weeks before, and they were obliged to pass the first winter on 
Melville’s peninsula which forms a part of the eastern shore of Hudson’s Bay. The 
ice did not break up till July 2, 1822, when they shot across the head of the bay, and 
found themselves at the entrance of a channel opening in the very direction they 
wished. This channel, which they named Fury and Hecla Straits, runs between ‘a 
projection of the continental shore and Cockburn Land. For sixty-five days they 
vainly tried to force their way through this narrow strait, and in all that time never 
were able to reach more than forty-five miles to the west. After passing the winter 
near the head of the Strait, the expedition returned to England in good health. It 
however gained one thing: it proved that a crew could pass two winters safely within 
the Polar circle.” 

In 1824, the Hecla and the Fury were again refitted and put under the command of 
Parry. After struggling from the middle of July, all through August, and till the 
middle of September, with the ice in Baffin’s Bay, they succeeded in entering Lan- 


1P. 347. 2P. 348, 


SUMMARY OF ARCTIC EXPLORING EXPEDITIONS. 743 


easter Sound, which they found almost clear. But in a few days ice began to form 
all around them, and the masses swept them back again into Baffin’s Bay. They got 
clear, and again entered Lancaster Sound, but could get only as far west as 80°, fully 
35° east of the point which Parry had reached in 1819. Here they wintered. In 
July the ice opened and they tried again; but the floating ice cut up the Fury 
so badly that they were obliged to abandon her, and the Hecla, with both crews, 
steered back for England.' The expedition accomplished nothing, beyond demon- 
strating the absolute uncertainty of voyaging in these channels. 

In 1825 the noble trio, Back, Franklin, and Richardson, started upon a new over- 
land expedition ; this time amply provided. Before winter set in they had struck 
Mackenzie River, and followed it down to the sea. In the summer of 1826 they sep- 
arated, Franklin and Back exploring the coast to the west of Mackenzie River, and 
Richardson the eastern shore of the Coppermine River. In the meantime Beechy, in 
the Blossom, was sent to Bering’s Strait to meet Parry and Franklin who it was hoped 
would have come together. Parry had put back, never having reached within 80 de- 
grees of longitude of Bering’s Straits ; but a boat expedition from the Blossom pushed 
so far eastward along the shore that it came within 150 miles of Franklin’s extreme 
westerly point.” 

In 1827 Parry, undeterred by the ill success of his last two expeditions, undertook 
an overland, or rather over-ice, expedition to the North pole, going by way of Spitz- 
bergen. A whaling captain who had gone to the north of Spitzbergen reported that 
the ice-fields there were free of crack or fissure so that for leagues upon leagues a sled 
could traverse them as if upon asmocth road. Parry’s flat-bottom boats were provided 
with a runner on each side of the keel, so that they could be used either as sleds or 
boats. By one or the other or by both he hoped to reach the pole. But he found 
the ice soft and slushy, with frequent hummocks which rendered sailing and sledding 
alike difficult. Still for 35 days he toiled cheerily on; but when at last he was able 
to take an observation he found that the great floe upon which he moved was drifting 
southward just about as fast as he was traveling northward, so that though in constant 
movement he was day after day occupying just the same spot in space. He had, how- 
ever, the honor of planting the British flag in latitude 82° 40’ 30”, the most northerly 
spot ever trodden by man, unless, indeed Hall may in his last expedition have gone as far. 
It is only 40 miles beyoud the extreme point of Hayes, and only 80 miles north 
of Scoresby’s extreme point, which he had reached without difficulty twenty-one years 
before.? This expedition does not, however, come within the list of Arctic explora- 
tions in America. This was Parry’s last expedition, though he lived 18 years after, 
and rose to be a knight and an admiral, and finally governor of Greenwich Hospital. 

In 1829 Captain (afterward Sir John) Ross desired to do something to make 
amends for his failure in 1819. Sir Peter Booth fitted him out with a small steamer 
called the Victory, the first time that steam was ever applied to Arctic navigation. 
The screw propeller was not then thought of; the Victory was an ordinary paddle 
wheel steamer. As second in command went his nephew, James Ross, afterward noted 
as an Arctic explorer. They passed through Hudson’s Strait, entered Prince Regent’s 
Inlet, August 9. The season was unusually favorable, the channel being free from 
ice, and by the 17th the Victory passed beyond Parry’s meridian of 110° W., and 


1P. 349. 2P. 350. 3P. 351. 


744 THE POLAR WORLD. 


during the next month worked its way along 300 miles of yet undiscovered coast, and 
went into winter quarters, October 7. The winter lasted eleven months. On Sep- 
tember 17, 1830, they got under weigh; the engine had been disabled and was 
thrown overboard. The vessel made only three miles, and on the 17th again went 
into winter quarters, from which they were released August 28, 1831; but after a 
month’s hard work, during which they only made four miles, was again laid up for the 
winter. Scurvy now broke out among the crew, and the experience of two years gave 
little ground for hope that the vessel could be extricated the next summer. It was 
resolved to abondon her, and with the boats fitted up as sledges make their way to the 
spot where the Fury had been wrecked ; for they knew that her boats and stores had 
been left there ; and there was good reason to hope still remained. They started on 
the 23d of April, and reached their destination July 1, 1832. They found the boats 
and provisions ; and in a month made an attempt to reach the open sea; but Barrow 
Strait was frozen solid, and they were forced to put back to Fury Beach, where they 
passed the winter of 1832-3. Several of the men died here. On the 8th of July 
they again put out. This time Barrow Strait was free of ice, and on the 26th of 
August they were descried by a vessel and taken on board. Strangely enough, this 
vessel was the Isabella, now a whaler, but the same which Ross had commanded on his 
first expedition. -No one on board could at first believe that this party were Ross and 
his surviving companions, who had been given up as dead for more than two years. 
When Ross reached England, in September, 1833, he was received with honors hardly 
less than those which greeted Columbus in Spain on his return from his first expedi- 
tion. The great towns presented him with the honorary gift of citizenship ; orders, and 
medals, and diplomas rained down upon him from foreign states and learned societies ; 
the Crown conferred upon him the honor of knighthood, and Parliament awarded him 
a grant of £5,000. The results of this expedition were not inconsiderable. A con- 
siderable space of shore line was mapped ; the magnetic pole of that year was ascertained 
to be in latitude 70° 5’ 17”, longitude 969 46’ 45”, upon a peninsula to which the 
name of Boothia has been given, jutting out northward from the Continent into the ar- 
chipelago between the head of Hudson’s Bay and Lancaster Sound. The greater part 
of these successes are, however, due to Commander (afterwards Sir James) Ross, of 
whom we shall have to speak hereafter. One other circumstance is notable in this 
expedition. It had passed five consecutive winters within the Arctic circle. Parry 
had demonstrated two winters could be passed by white men there without peril. Ross’s 
experience, confirmed by that of others, seemed to show that this was the limit. It re- 
mained for Hall to demonstrate that with proper regimen an Arctic winter or a series 
of them, is not specially unfavorable to human life." 

Three overland expeditions, in a measure connected with this of Ross, must have 
brief mention. In February, 1833, Back, accompanied by Dr. King as surgeon and 
naturalist, left England in search of Ross. They reached the Great Slave lake early 
in August, whence they pushed on north-eastward ; but returned to winter at Fort Reii- 
ance on the Great Slave lake, about latitude 62°. Here they suffered terribly from 
scarcity of food and cold, the thermometer at one time marking 70° below zero, or 102° 
below freezing point, the lowest as yet anywhere authentically noted. In the follow- 
ing April, when Back was about to start north-eastward, he received tidings that Ross 


1P. 351. 


SUMMARY OF ARCTIC EXPLORING EXPEDITIONS. 745 


and his party had been rescued. Hence arose the punning phrase, that although Back 
had not got Ross, Ross had got back. Back, however, resolved to accomplish some- 
thing, and pushed north-eastward. On the 28th of June he struck a great river con- 
siderably to the east of any which had been explored. The natives called it the 
Thlew-ee-choh, or Great Fish. It is since styled Back’s Great Fish river, and has a 
melancholy interest in connection with the fate of the last survivors of Franklin’s ex- 
pedition. Back followed this river to its mouth in a deep narrow bay which he vainly 
hoped would lead directly into the Polar sea. He explored a part to the east, but 
was finally obliged to put back about the middle of August. He reached England in 
September, 1835, and in the following June again set out in the Terror, hoping to fill 
up some blanks in Ross’s surveys of the coasts lying west of Prince Regent’s Inlet. 
But the expedition was fruitless. The vessel was so badly disabled by ice that they 
were obliged to put back before even entering upon their proposed field.* 

Simultaneously with this, the Hudson’s Bay Company sent two of their factors, 
Dease and Simpson, on an overland expedition. They were to strike Mackenzie 
River and follow it to the sea. In three successive seasons they traversed a long line 
of coast lying between the eastern point as yet reached from Bering’s Straits, and the 
western point reached from Hudson’s Bay.. Their discoveries in a geographical point 
of view were of considerable importance. They discovered two large rivers, which 
they named the Garry and the Colville, and saw to the north of them a great tract of 
land which they called Victoria Land ; from an icy promontory of which they saw 
what appeared to them an open sea free of ice, stretching north-eastward, while the 
coast of the continent tended south-eastward. ‘Their explorations nearly filled up the 
great gaps already left, and by the close of 1839, different parties of explorers, by dif- 
ferent routes, had traversed the whole space between DBaffin’s Bay and Bering’s 
Straits. Simpson, the hero of the expedition, did not live to receive the rewards 
which he had fairly won. While traveling overland from the Red [iver to the head 
waters of the Mississippi, on his way to England, he was murdered by one of his 
Indian guides.” 

In 1846, the Hudson Bay Company sent out Dr. John Rae, of whom we shall hear 
more, to settle some points in geography, which had been left undecided by Ross. 
The main thing established by this expedition was that the part known as Boothia 
was a peninsula belonging to the continent, and not an island of the northern archi- 
pelago, and that consequently there is no outlet from Prince Regent’s Inlet through 
the Gulf of Boothia, towards the west. 

We now come, in order of time, to Sir John Franklin’s last expedition, to which a 
special interest is attached on account of its disastrous result. [Franklin in 1845 was 
a hale man verging upon threescore. He had reached high honor in his profession, 
and was in possession of an ample fortune, derived only in part from his second wife, 
Jane Griffin, whom he had married in 1828. The achievement of a north-west passage 
had been the dream of his life. His early efforts in that direction have been already 
noted. He never forgot his aspirations while commanding a vessel in the Mediterra- 
nean, nor afterward while governor of Van Dieman’s Land almost at the opposite ex- 
tremity of the globe. In 1844 the British government resolved to place under his 
command what it was hoped would be the last expedition to solve the Arctic mystery. 


1P, 855. 2P. 355. 
48 


746 THE POLAR WORLD. 


It consisted of two vessels, the Erebus and Terror, both previously tried in Arctic seas, 
and each now fitted up with a small steam engine and a screw propeller. If by sail 
and oar alone so much had been done, what might not be hoped when steam was at 
hand to be used in case of need? Franklin was in immediate command of the Ere- 
bus, and Capt. F. M. R. Crozier of the Terror. The vessels left England May 19, 
1845, accompanied by a tender with additional stores, which were to be taken on board 
in Davis’s Straits. ‘he tender parted with them July 12th, bringing back the first 
and only dispatches ever sent. On the 26th a passing whaler caught sight of them 
moored fast to an iceberg near the center of Baffin’s Bay, apparently awaiting an op- 
portunity of entering Lancaster Sound. The orders from the admiralty were that he 
should push westward about latitude 74° 15’ to longitude 98° W., thence southward and 
westward to Bering’s Strait ; for the long line of surveys and explorations which have 
been noted, when joined together showed that there was a continuous water passage 
skirting the northern shore of the continent; and there was, moreover, fair ground 
for the belief that there was no permanent obstruction by ice. It was expected that 
the expedition would return in about two years, in 1847 or 1848, by way of Bering’s 
Straits, where another expedition was to be in waiting to convoy them home. ll told 
there were rated on the ships’ books 188 men; but of these, as afterwards ascertained, — 
nine had deserted, so that in all when they parted from their convoy there were 129. 
Of these not one was ever seen alive by civilized man, and not a spar or rope of either 
vessel, after that 26th of July, 1845. Toward the close of 1847, no tidings having 
been received, apprehensions began to prevail that some misadventure had occurred, 
and during the next twelve years numerous expeditions were fitted out for the discov- 
ety and relief of the missing men. ‘The narrative of these relief expeditions constitutes 
by far the most interesting chapter in the history of Arctic exploration.. Little by lit- 
tle isolated facts were brought to light, the sum of all being that after entering Lan- 
caster Sound the expedition wintered in the ice, on the shore of Barrow’s Strait, in lat- 
itude 70° 5’, longitude 98° 23’. In the summer of 1846 they ascended Wellington 
Channel to latitude 77°, returned by the west side of Cornwallis Island, and wintered 
in 1846-7 at Beechey Island, off the east shore of Cornwallis Island. Why Franklin 
deviated from his general orders to push on to the west must remain forever unknown ; 
we can only conjecture that the passage through Barrow’s Strait into Melville Sound 
was blocked up by ice. A paper found in 1859, near a cairn on Prince Williain’s 
Island, just south of latitude 70°, bearing date May 28, 1847, gives these particu- 
lars, and adds that all were well. Around the margin of this scrap of paper, but in~ 
a different hand, and bearing date April 25, 1848, was written, “Sir John Franklin 
died June 11, 1847. The ships Erebus and Terror were deserted April 22, 1848, 
five leagues N.N.W. of this, having been beset since September 12, 1846. The 
total loss by death, up to this date, has been nine officers and sixteen men. The 
officers and crews, under command of Capt. F. M. R. Crozier, landed here, latitude 
69° 37’, longitude 98° 4’ 15”, and start to-morrow, April 26, 1848, for Back’s 
Great Fish River.’ This is the only written record made by any of the party of 
this ill-fated expedition. From September 12, 1846, to April 22, 1848, the vessels 
seem to have drifted in the ice about 350 miles, through the narrow channels leading 
southward among islands southward from Barrow’s Straits. Low and where Frank- 
lin died, only a fortnight from the day when all were well, must probably remain for- 


SUMMARY OF ARCTIC EXPLORING EXPEDITIONS. TAT 


ever unknown on earth. All that we can know is that he died on his ship, locked 
fast in the ice, having never reached farther to the west than the place which had 
been set down as the real starting-point of the expedition. 

Back’s Great Fish River, on the continent, whither the 105 survivors bent their 
way, falls into a great estuary about 200 miles south of the spot where the Erebus and 
Terror were abandoned. Scattered indications were gathered from time to time from 
1854 to 1859, of the fate of a portion of this party, of whom a considerable part suc- 
ceeded in traversing Prince William’s Island or along its coast, and crossing the nar- 
row Simpson’s Strait which separates it from the continent. In the interval from 1854 
to 1859, scraps of information were picked up by different searching expeditions, all 
tending to the same point: That many years before a ship had been crushed by the 
ice in the deep channel lying off the north-west coast of King William’s Island, and 
another had been driven ashore ; that the people had gone away toward a great river, 
and that they had all died of starvation. Every indication showed that they had not suf- 
fered from any violence from the few natives of the region ; and there was some reason 
to suppose that a portion survived until the spring of 1851. It took years to gain even 
this much information. How and by whom it was acquired will best be shown in the 
accounts which follow of these various searching expeditions. 

When the year 1847 had passed, and no tidings came back from Franklin, appre- 
hension began to be excited, and in 1848 the British government sent out three ex- 
peditions for his succor. The Plover, Commodore Moore and Herald, Captain Kel- 
lett, were to enter Bering’s Strait, going at least as far up as Kotzebue Sound, just 
within the Arctic circle, and thence in boats examine the shore eastward. They were 
joined by the pleasure yacht Nancy Dawson, owned by Mr. Robert Dawson, who took 
an active part in all their operations. The vessels went beyond the point assigned, 
which they passed July 14, 1849, and stood on until they reached latitude 72° 51’, 
longtitude 163° 48’, when they were stopped by impassable ice. Boat expeditions 
had meanwhile been sent onward to search the coast as far as the mouth of Mackenzie 
River, about longtitude 135°, up which they were to make their way, and return over- 
land. A part of these boat expeditions went on, and a part returned to the ships, 
August 24, having explored the coast as far as Dease Inlet, about longitude 155°, 
without, of course, finding any trace of Franklin’s party, who were then dying on the 
other side of the continent. In the following summer, 1850, the two vessels explored 
the same ground, with a like want of success, and the Herald returned to England, 
Kellett, in the Plover, remaining, and wintering in Grantley Harbor, half way down 
Bering’s Straits. Of Kellett we shall hear again. 

Meantime a land party under Sir John Richardson and Dr. Rae had reached the 
Polar Sea in August, 1850, by way of Mackenzie River, whence they explored the 
coast for 800 miles eastward as far as the mouth of the Coppermine River about lon- 
gitude 116°. Richardson returned overland to England, Rae remained behind, and in 
1850 explored the shores of Wollaston Sound ; but still the icy desert told no tale of 
the lost navigators.» All these expeditions were confined to the region far to the 
west of any point reached by Franklin. 

Meanwhile Sir James loss had sailed from England, May 12, 1848, entered Lan- 
caster Sound, and explored its south side, and in the spring of 1849 searched along 


1P, 357. 


t48 THE POLAR WORLD. 


the eastern shores of North Somerset, in a channel along whose western side Franklin 
had been two years before helplessly drifting. He returned to England in November, 
1849, bringing back no tidings. 

In March, 1849, the British government offered a reward of £20,000 to any ex- 
ploring party from any country whatsoever, which should render efficient aid to 
Franklin and his party. The hope of gaining this reward partly, but much more a 
feeling of intense interest in the fate of the missing navigators, led to numerous 
searching expeditions. In 1850 there were eight in all, comprising eleven vessels. 
The result of all that had up to this time been learned was that Franklin had 
never reached as far as longitude 116° and that he was not to be looked for east of 
longitude 90°. There was then no indication that they had gone to the north of Lan- 
caster Sound, or that they had anywhere reached the continent and were making their 
way overland. ‘The probable field of search was thus, upon good grounds, reduced 
within narrow limits. They were to be looked for, with best hopes of success, among 
the group of ice-bound islands lying westward of Melville Island. Thither from both 
sides of the continent, the search was prosecuted in 1850 and the following years. 
In 1849 Lady Franklin, who devoted all her life and fortune to the search for her 
husband and his companions, had placed a supply of coals and provisions upon Cape 
Hay, on the south side of Lancaster Sound. Such a supply, left by Parry in 1824, 
had been in 1832 the means of preserving Sir John Ross and his men during their: 
long besetment. 

Apart from Rae, who as already mentioned, was continuing his searches on the con- 
tinent, the first expedition of 1850 was that by way of Bering’s Straits, consisting of 
the Enterprise, Captain Collinson, and the Investigator, Commander McClure. They 
were instructed to cruise in company as far to the eastward as they could go, to make 
friends of the natives ; to make deposits of provisions here and there, in hopes that 
they might prove of use ; and above all, to avoid any besetment by the ice. We fol- 
low McClure in the Investigator. In August, 1850, having got separated from his 
consort, he rounded the western point of the continent, and plunged into the Arctic 
seas, and thenceforward for three years was lost to human sight. He reached the 
eastern coast of Bank’s Land in September, 1850, and in October was frozen in and 
finally abandoned his ship in Mercy Bay on the north side of Bank’s Land, where in 
1854 he was rescued by an expedition sent by way of Baffin’s Bay, and returned to 
England. These first and last of all men have in person made the whole north-west 
passage, rounding the American continent from Bering’s Straits to Baffin’s Bay. 
Collinson, in the Knterprise, followed hard after McClure, went almost as far, and 
made many explorations, but finally returned by the way he had gone. 

The Baffin’s Bay expedition, sent out from England in the spring of 1850, consisted 
of the Resolute, Captain Austin, the Assistance, Captain Ommaney, sailing vessels, 
and the Pioneer and Intrepid, screw steamers, Capt. Sherrard Osborne. Their in- 
structions were to the same purport as those given to McClure and Collinson. The 
schooner Felix, with a small tender, the Mary, was also fitted out by private subscrip- 
tion, and placed under command of Sir James Ross. The expedition was provisioned 
for eighteen months and was to go along Lancaster Sound to the westward. The Lady 
Franklin, fitted out by Lady Jane Franklin, and commanded by Captain Penny, also 
sailed from England. lady Franklin also defrayed two-thirds of the cost of another 


SUMMARY OF ARCTIC EXPLORING EXPEDITIONS. 749 


expedition, consisting of the schooner Prince Albert, commanded by Charles Forsyth, 
and having on board William Parker Snow, a volunteer, who after much service in 
foreign seas, had acted as secretary to Macaulay, and aided him in the preparation of 
the manuscript of the History of England. An American expedition consisting of 
the Advance and the Rescue, under command of Lieutenant De Haven, was also sent 
out this year. It was fitted out nominally by the government, but mainly at the ex- 
pense of Henry Grinnell, a merchant of New York, whose name is also idvntified 
with the expeditions of Charles Francis Hall. On this expedition, as surgeon, was 
Dr. Elisha Kent Kane, who as commander of a subsequent one won as high honor as 
was ever achieved by any Arctic explorer. 

- All these vessels cruised over the same general region, and for the one purpose of 
discovering Franklin and his men. The first traces of them were found at Cape 
Riley by Ommaney, in the Assistance, August 23, 1850. This was afterward shown 
to be the place where Franklin had spent the winter of 1845-6. Here and close by, 
mainly by the American expedition. were discovered the embankment of a house, the 
working places of carpenters and armorers, the site of a small garden, empty meat 
cans, and pieces of wearing apparel which had been thrown away ; and also the graves 
of three men. But there were not the slightest traces to indicate in what direction 
Franklin had gone. 

All the vessels wintered not far from each other, and the spring of 1851 was de- 
voted to land expeditions which explored 672 miles of hitherto undescribed coast 
along the shores of Wellington Channel to the north and towards Melville Island to 
the west. One party, under Lieutenant McClintock, went farther west than had 
hitherto been reached, as far as longitude 114° 20’. rpm the tameness of the ani- 
mals here seen it was inferred that few if any human beings had ever been seen there. 
Kane came to the conclusion that after the breaking up of the ice in 1846, Franklin 
had gone up Wellington Channel to the north. So far he was right ; but ignorant of 
the fact, not known for years after, that Franklin had merely rounded Cornwallis 
Island, and’returned almost to the same point, he supposed that Franklin had sailed 
on northward into the great polar open sea, whose existence had now come to be 
accepted. 

The Prince Albert returned to England in the summer of 1851, carrying back the 
tidings of what had been discovered, and was sent back by Lady Franklin to explore 
the shores of Regent’s Inlet. She returned in 1853, having discovered nothing. 
The American expedition returned to New York in the autumn of 1851. Sir James 
Ross also returned, bringing nothing but vague rumor, afterward proved to be un- 
founded, that the Franklin party had been murdered by the Esquimaux at Wolsten- 
holme Sound, near the head of Baffin’s Bay. lady Franklin thereupon sent the 
screw steamer Isabel, Captain Inglefield, to explore this region. Inglefield left Eng- 
land in July, 1852, examined the Sound, but found no traces of Franklin, who had 
indeed never gone in that direction. He, however, sailed up Smith’s Sound, heading 
northward from Baffin’s Bay, and reached latitude 78° 28/ 21”, about 140 miles farther 
than any one had gone before on the American side of the polar regions. He thought 
that the climate was less rigid than it was further south; he also rendered it almost 
certain that Smith’s Sound was a strait connecting Baffin’s Bay with the Polar Ocean ; 
a theory which is confirmed by all subsequent explorations. 


750 THE POLAR WORLD. 


Meantime following out Kane’s Wellington Channel theory, Sir Edward Belcher 
was sent out in April, 1852, in the command of five vessels, the Assistance, Resolute, 
North Star, Pioneer, and Intrepid, the last two being steamers. The North Star was 
the store ship. The Assistance and Pioneer were to steer up Wellington Channel ; 
while the Intrepid and the Resolute, the latter commanded by Captain Kellett, were - 
to push westward in search of McClure and Collinson, who had not been heard from 
since they had sailed eastward from Bering’s Straits in 1850. The Resolute had a 
singular fate. After an unusually favorable voyage she reached Melville Island in 
September, 1852, and went into winter quarters, whence parties were sent out to 
explore the coast in various directions, one of which found a dispatch showing that 
McClure had been, and probably now was, at Mercy Bay, on the opposite side of. 
Bank’s Strait. Sledge parties were sent in that direction ; but before they returned 
they were anticipated. McClure had heard of the proximity of the Resolute, and one 
day a party of worn men were seen making their way over the uneven ice. It was 
McClure and his men. They were taken on board, and the Resolute set out upon her 
return voyage. She got as far as Beechey Island, when it was decided to abandon 
_her, May 15, 1854, all on board being taken off by the other vessels of Belcher’s 
expedition, and brought safely to England. Sixteen months after, September 15, 
1855, the American whaler George Henry, Captain Buddington, vessel and captain 
thereafter known in connection with Charles Francis Hall’s expeditions, while sailing 
in Baffin’s Bay came across an abandoned vessel. She was encumbered by ice but 
perfectly tight and sea-worthy. It was the Resolute. Without human guidance she 
had drifted 1200 miles through those dangerous seas. Buddington brought his prize 
home to New London, Connecticut ; she was purchased by the American government, 
thoroughly refitted, and by order of Congress presented to Queen Victoria. The 
British government had her stripped and laid up in ordinary in the navy yard at 
Woolwich. ) 

In April, 1853, the new American Grinnell expedition, the Advance, commanded 
by Dr. Kane, sailed from New York. ‘The story of this expedition has already been 
fully told in this volume,’ and will not here be repeated. No account of any Arctic 
expedition equals in interest this as detailed by Kane himself. Although fruitless as far 
as its main object of finding Franklin or the remains of his expedition, was concerned, 
it made valuable contributions to geographical knowledge. These may be thus 
summed up: 1. The survey and delineation of the north coast of Greenland to its 
apparent termination by a great glacier. 2. The survey of this glacier and its exten- 
sion northward. 3. The discovery of a large channel to the north-west, free of ice 
and apparently leading into an open sea. 4. The discovery and delineation of a large 
tract of land forming the northward extension of the American continent, or rather of 
Greenland. 5. The completed survey of the coast as far south and west as Cape 
Sabine in Smith’s Strait, connecting with the previous surveys of Captain Inglefield, 
and completing the circuit of the straits and bays opening from Davis’ Straits, and 
leading into the Polar Sea. 

In the meantime a land expedition under charge of Dr. Rae, had been exploring on 
the American mainland. In April, 1854, near Pelly Bay, on the Gulf of Boothia, he 
found Esquimaux who had in their possession various articles which had evidently 


1P., 365 et seq. 


SUMMARY OF ARCTIC EXPLORING EXPEDITIONS. 751 


belonged to Franklin or his officers. Close questioning disclosed the following facts : 
Some four years before some of their people while hunting seals on a large island, pre- 
sumably that which we know as King William’s, saw a party of white men, about 40 in 
number, they thought, going southward along the west shore of the island, they were 
dragging boats and sledges along with them. There was with them no one who could 
speak Esquimaux; but as far as could be learned from signs, their ships had been crushed 
and they were trying to get to a place where there were deer to shoot. They seemed 
to have plenty of ammunition, but to be short of provisions. They purchased some 
food of the natives and went on their way. When five years later the record was 
found on the island that Crozier and the surviving 105 had started for Back’s River, 
there could be no doubt that this party were those who then survived. But how 
many had died before this is unknown. Rae was clearly of the opinion that this party 
had died from starvation and not from any violence by the natives. The relics were 
purchased from the Esquimaux, and sent to England. Still later in the year but 
before the breaking up of the ice, the corpses of about thirty persons and some graves 
were discovered on the Continent, and on an island near by five more corpses. All 
the indications were that the men had broken up into small squads, who had wandered 
in different directions in search of food. 

In 1855, Mr. James Anderson was sent to search the region of the disaster. On 
June 30, a little way from Back’s River, he found natives who had many articles 
which had evidently belonged to the expedition. They said that the owners had all 
died of starvation. On the small island where the five men were said to have perished 
were a few articles, among others a stick upon which was rudely carved the name 
of Mr. Stanley, the surgeon of the Erebus, and a plank, having on it the word 
Terror. That was all; there were no corpses there nor a scrap of paper. This 
party were unable to search King William’s Island, presumably the main scene 
of the disaster. It was not, indeed, until four years later that the scrap of paper, 
already mentioned, was discovered, which told where and when the vessels had been 
lost, and that Franklin himself had died ten months before. 

In 1857, Lady Franklin fitted out, at her own expense, a new expedition in search 
of her husband, then dead for almost ten years, though no one as yet knew it. The 
Fox, a screw steamer of 177 tons, formerly a pleasure yacht, was purchased and fitted 
up. The crew consisted of 24 men all volunteers, and the command was confided to 
Captain Francis McClentock, who had already served in the Arctic Seas under Ross, 
Austin, and Belcher. The Fox left Aberdeen on July 1, 1857. The design was to 
explore a tract of about 300 miles square, lying west of Boothia, between the northern 
limits of the explorations of Rae and Anderson, and the southern ones of Sir James Ross 
and Belcher, and to the west as far as the track of McClure. By the middle of August 
the little vessel was far up Baffin’s Bay, and on the 17th was beset by the ice near the 
entrance of Lancaster Sound. For eight weary months she was held fast and ap- 
parently unmovable, by the solid pack which was, however, drifting slowly southward, 
and when finally released, April 25, 1858, she had been borne helplessly 1395 miles. 
MeClentock refitted at Holsteinborg, in Greenland, and boldly set out again. On the 
12th of July he sailed through Barrow’s Strait, and attempted to pass down through 
Peel’s Sound, but was stopped by the ice. Then he went north-eastward, skirting 
North £omerset, hoping to reach the mouth of Back’s River through a strait, since 


752 THE POLAR WORLD. 


uamed Franklin’s. This was obstructed by ice ; but he managed to push through on 
the 6th of September. Here again he was caught fast, and held for three weeks, 
when he took up winter quarters on the north side of the strait. Sledge expeditions 
were sent out in all directions; and on one of these McClentock, March 1, 1859, he 
learned from a party of Hsquimaux a ship had been crushed by ice in deep water off 
the north-west shore of King William’s Island. Slowly new scraps of information 
were gained, to the purport that when the vessel had gone down the men had moved 
toward a great river, that many of them had dropped down by the way, their bodies 
being found in the spring, and some of them buried ; but that all had died of starva- 
tion. McClentock had now got at last upon Franklin’s track, or rather that of the 
105 who had escaped after the wreck of the Erebus and Terror. 

The first trace of the long-lost crew was found near Cape Herschell. It was a 
bleached skeleton on the beach; near it were some fragments of clothing, a pocket- 
book and a few letters, which told nothing, for they were from home, addressed to, 
but not written by the person to whom they had belonged. The next day they came 
to a boat fitted up as a sledge, in which were two skeletons, two loaded guns, ammu- 
nition, chocolate, tea, tobacco, and some articles of silver plate, the marks on 
which showed that they had belonged to Franklin. At last, on the 6th of May, 
they came to a large cairn, and lying among some stones which had fallen from 
its top, was the paper containing the record already mentioned, upon which was 
written all that man can ever know of the fate of the Franklin expedition from July 
26, 1845, when the ships were seen moored to the iceberg in Baffin’s Bay, to April 
25, 1848, when the surviving 105 were on the point of setting off on their returnless 
journey towards Back River. 

Captain (now Sir Francis Leopold) McClentock, had thus supplied the last of the 
links in the story of the Franklin expedition. He had demonstrated that there was 
not a human probability that a man of them could now be living. He had also 
solved some of the great problems which had for eleven years occupied the mind of 
all Arctic explorers. He had also shown that Franklin, when finally beset, had 
really gone over the waters which linked together the explorations made from the 
east and west, and was, therefore, the actual discoverer of the long sought north-west 
passage, whose uselessness for all purposes was also demonstrated. 

Subsequent explorations are yet to be briefly noted. In July, 1860, Dr. Isaac I. 
Hayes succeeded, by aid of private subscriptions, in organizing an exploring expedi- 
tion. It consisted of fourteen men; sailed from Boston July 6; late in August was 
frozen in in latitude 78° in Smith’s Sound. He made boat and sledge expeditions to 
the north; and finally on May 18, 1861, with a single companion stood upon a pro- 
jecting headland, in latitude 81° 35’, which he ‘believed to be the most northern 
known land on the globe. Parry had indeed gone somewhat farther, but it was upon 
a floe of ice. No other man had before or has since gone so far north upon land, un- 
less indeed Hall, three weeks before his death, in 1871, went a degree beyond; a 
point which will, perhaps, never be settled. Before him Hayes saw a sea then en- 
cumbered by soft ice and floes, but which he thought would be free in summer ; but 
he had no boat, and was obliged to turn back, reaching New York in October, 1861. 

In 1860, Charles Francis Hall constituted himself an expedition to the Arctic re- 
gions. He lost his boat, and was obliged to confine his explorations within narrow 


——- ee opment 


SUMMARY OF ARCTIC EXPLORING EXPEDITIONS. 753 


limits. He returned to New York, after three years’ sojourn, having in the meanwhile 
done much for future service. In a previous chapter! full details of the expedition 
have been given. In 1864 he again set out, returningin 1869. In the following chap- 
ter will be told all that is known of this expedition, of which no full record has appeared. 
In 1871 he once more started upon what was to be his last expedition. Of this and 
of the marvelous escape of a portion of his men after his death, the next chapter will 
contain an account. 

Of late years the opinion has become prevalent that the most feasible way of 
reaching the open Polar Sea is by way of Spitzbergen or Nova Zembla ; that is, to 
the eastward of Greenland, and several European expeditions have gone in that direc- 
tion. It is argued that the warmer waters of the great oceanic current of the Gulf 
Stream, flowing as a surface current in this direction, keep the channels comparatively 
free of ice. Some indeed go further, and ascribe the existence of this assumed open 
sea to be owing to these currents. In 1868 a German expedition was organized by 
Dr. August Petermann of Gotha, the foremost geographer of the day. It consisted 
of a vessel of 80 tons, under command of Captain Koldeway, and left Bergen, in 
Norway, early in May. Koldeway went up between Greenland and Spitzbergen, 
reaching a point as high as 81° 5’ North, and returned in October. In 1868 the 
Swedish government also sent an expedition which sailed to the north of Spitzbergen, 
but accomplished little or nothing. In June, 1869, another German expedition of 
two vessels left Bremen. One of these, the Hansa, was in October wrecked in the 
ice near the eastern shore of Greenland. The crew escaped to an ice-field which 
was slowly drifting southward, and constantly diminishing in size as it came into 
warmer waters, until at last it was hardly larger than a raft. The men then took to 
their boats, and succeeded in reaching I'redericksthal, near Cape Farewell, the south- 
ern point of Greenland, and reached home in the summer of 1870. Their adven- 
tures while on this ice-field read strangely like those of the persons saved from Hall’s 
last expedition, to be narrated in the next chapter. Meanwhile the other vessel, the 
Germania, which had become separated from her consort, endeavored to reach high 
latitudes by keeping close along the eastern shore of Greenland. She turned back 
as winter set in, having apparently accomplished nothing toward solving the problem. 
But she discovered what was supposed to be a deep indentation in the shore, running 
north-westward, to which was given the name of Francis Joseph Bay. Hall’s last 
expedition discovered, on the opposite side of the Greenland coast, an apparent bay 
running north-eastward. Many circumstances combine to render it probable that 
these two supposed bays are a connected channel, forming the northern boundary of 
the island of Greenland. During 1869, 1870 and 1871, several other expeditions, 
among which was one conducted by James Lamont, an English gentleman of fortune, 
tried the way between Greenland and Spitzbergen, but none of them reached very 
high latitudes, or made any important discoveries. In June, 1871, Payer and Wey- 
precht, lieutenants in the Austrian navy, embarked at Tronsd, in Norway, on board 
a little trading vessel, and sailed between Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla. They 
reached only as high as latitude 78° 41’, but entered an almost open sea, in which 
navigation was impeded only by very light and scattered ice. Had they been fitted 
out for an extended cruise there seems good reason to suppose that they would have 


1P. 483, et seq. 


754 THE POLAR: WORLD. 


been able to sail fairly into the broad, open Polar Sea; but as it was, the vessel 
returned to Tronsé in October. Petermann believes that the results of this expedi- 
tion were of the highest geographical importance ; that it actually penetrated into the 
open sea by its most available entrance. ‘Two Norwegian captains, Tobiesen and 
Mack. subsequently confirmed the reports of Payer and Weyprecht. Another Nor- 
wegian, Captain Carlsen, sailed up the coast of Nova Zembla, and discovered, at the 
north-east extremity of the islend, the remains of the winter encampment established 
275 years before by the Dutch navigator Barentz, just as Hall, in his first expedition, 
found relics of the expedition of Frobisher, which had remained almost twenty years 
longer. Ulve and Smyth also sailed to the north of Spitzbergen, and found open 
water as high as latitude 80° 27’. In 1872 Octave Pavy, a young Frenchman 
resident of New Orleans, made proposals for an expedition, which was to leave San 
Francisco for Kamchatka, and endeavor to reach the Polar Sea by the way of Bering’s 
Strait. He projected an India rubber raft, which when inflated would carry the crew 
and 10.000 pounds of freight, but which was so light that when not in use it could 
be packed in a barrel, and so conveyed over land. But there is no account that this 
idea has been carried into effect. 

It remains only to describe, as far as is now known, the last Polar expedition 
_ xadertaken by Charles Francis Hall. 


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THE LAST EXPEDITION OF CHARLES FRANCIS HALL. 757 


CHAPTER XLIV. 
THE LAST EXPEDITION OF CHARLES FRANCIS HALL. 


Charles Francis Hall—His second Expedition.—His last Expedition.—The Polaris. —Officers 
and Crew.—Setting out.—A slight Dispute.—Off for the Pole —Hall’s farewell Dispatch. 
—The next Tidings.—The rescued Nineteen.—Their Story.—Voyage to the highest 
Latitudes.—Taking up Winter Quarters.—Hall’s last Sledge Journey.—His last Dispatch. 
—The Return to the Polaris.—Sickness and Death of Hall.—Buddington takes Command. 
—-Winter in the Ice.—Aspects of the Region.—Accident to the Polaris.—A Boat Expedi- 
tion.—Starting for Home.—The Polaris in Peril—Taking to the Ice.—The Separation.— 
The Parting on the Ice.—Herron’s Journal.— October: Abandoned —A Fortnight’s Wait- 
ing.— November: Trying for the Shore.—A Godsend.—Amusements.— Beginning to Drift. 
—Killing the Dogs —A Thanksgiving Dinner.—December: Adrift——Eating Seal Skin, and 
Fox Meat.—Game in the wrong Place.—A Christmas Dinner.—January : Unpleasant New 
Year’s.—Drifting Southward.—Another Godsend.—A Sight of the Sun. —Drifting on.— 
February: Snow Storms.—Narwhals and Seals.—Piles of Ice.—A Sight of Land.—Off 
from the Sealing Ground.—Provisions Short.—Ebierbing the main Stay.—Dovekies.— 
March: Seals, Birds, and Icebergs.—The Floe Splitting —On a Fragment.—More God- 
sends.—The first Day of Spring —Launching the Boat.—More Seals.—Rate of Drift.— 
Floe wearing away.— April; Taking to the Boat.—Ice and Water.—Repairing the Boat — 
Plenty of Seals.—Floe breaking up.—A Struggle for Existence.—Ebierbing and Hans to 
the Rescue.—A fearful Night.—Six Months adrift.—Stealing Food.—On short Allowance. 
—Thoughts of Cannibalism.—A Seal and three more Meals certain.—A dainty Repast — 
Swept over by the Sea.—The last ten Days.—Length of the Drift.—A hungry Bear and 
hungrier Men.—A desperate Risk—Seals again.—In fresh Peril.—A Steamer in Sight.— 
The Steamer Disappears.—Another Steamer in Sight.— Hopes and Fears.—The last Entry 
in Herron’s Journal—The Fog lifts—The Tigress—Saved at Last.—Wonders of the 
Drift.—Ebierbing the Hero.—Conduct of the Men.--Proposed Searches for the Polaris. 


N 1859, at a meeting of the New York Geographical Society, held in honor of 

Dr. Kane, a plain blunt man introduced himself to the President with the words, 

‘‘T want to go and find the bones of Sir John Franklin.” In a rather hesitating 

manner he proceeded to explain the plan which he had conccived in his Western 

home. Something in the manner of the man won the confidence of Henry Grinnell, 

and the result was that a scanty outfit was provided, and Charles Francis Hall set out 
on his first expedition, which has already been described in these pages. 

I first saw Hall immediately upon his return from this expedition. He brought 
his journal and notes to a publishing house for which I was acting as literary adviser, 
wishing to have them published. I saw at once that they were of unusual interest, 
and had no hesitation in advising that they should be prepared for the press ; and 
while this was in course of execution, I saw Hall almost every day. Many of the 
very best portions of the book were exact copies of bis original memoranda, written 
in an Esquimaux snow hut, with pencil, because ink could not be kept unfrozen. 


758 THE POLAR WORLD. 


Of his early life he said but little. About all which I call to mind was that he 
was born about 1823; had been brought up a blacksmith, had somehow drifted into 
journalism in Cincinnati, and that a desire to explore the unknown Arctic regions had 
for years becn growing upon him, until at last he had come to look upon it as his 
special mission to unravel the mystery of the fate of Franklin. Even when he set 
out upon his second expedition, he had a strong persuasion that some members of 
that party were still alive and might yet be rescued. 

In 1864 he sailed from New London, Conn., on his second expedition, in a whaling 
vessel, commanded by Captain Buddington of whom we shall hear more. With 
him went only the Esquimaux Ebierbing and his wife Tookoolito. He landed on 
the coast of Hudson’s Bay, penetrated to the north as far as Hecla and Fury Bay, 
and thence journeyed into King William’s land. In this region he spent four suc- 
cessive winters, living entirely among the Esquimaux, most of the time near Repulse 
Bay, acquiring a knowledge of their language and customs, and adapting himself to 
their habits and modes of life, and so fitting himself for the prosecution of a larger 
enterprise. By careful inquiry among the natives he satisfied himself of the truth 
of the reports that the bulk of Franklin’s party had died of starvation on King 
William’s land, and that only a small part of them had succeeded in passing to the 
main land. He brought back with him many relics, and convinced himself that 
before the final besetment Franklin had actually gone as far westward as any one 
has since gone, and was thus the actual discoverer of the long sought north-west pas- 
sage. He found, however, no traces of the records of the expedition; and it is 
probable that all were lost when the vessels were hastily abandoned. That the aban- 
donment was hasty, is shown by the fact that no stores or provisions appear to have 
been saved. 

Of this second expedition of Hall, the general results of which have been thus 
meagerly stated, I know that he had full notes ; and it was his purpose, after he had 
made one more expedition, in which he had full confidence that he would be able to 
reach the pole, whether it was upon land or in water, to combine the results of both 
in a work which should tell all that man could know of regions which human eye had 
never seen, and might not perhaps again see for generations. 

For long months he labored to induce the government to fit out another expedition, 
in which he was at last successful. What with government aid and the assistance of 
private individuals, nothing which human foresight could provide seemed wanting to 
ensure success, if this lay within the scope of human power. A steamer of 400 tons, 
known as the Periwinkle, also rigged as a schooner, was purchased, and fitted up and 
strengthened to adapt her for the new work. Six inches of solid oak planking was 
placed upon her sides ; her bows were built up so as to be almost a solid mass of tim- 
ber, sheathed with iron and ending in a sharp iron prow. ‘The screw was so arranged 
that it could be unshipped and placed upon deck, so as to be out of danger from the 
ice. Extra blades, rudder, spars and sails were provided. Boats were built for the 
special service. One of these, capable of carrying four tons, weighed only 250 
pounds, and was so constructed that it might be folded up at three minutes’ notice, 
and could be placed on a sledge, transported over snow or ice, and launched when- 
ever a piece of open water was reached, Nothing was spared to ensure to cfficers 
and men every comfort which could be attainable in the inhospitable region to which 


THE LAST EXPEDITION OF CHARLES FRANCIS HALL. 759 


they were bound. Of late, indeed, men have come forward to assert that the steamer 
was not fit for the service. But such certainly was not the judgment of Hall or of 
his associates, among whom were several men inured to Arctic navigation. A better 
vessel might doubtless have been built for the express purpose ; but it does not appear 
that there was then in this country, or in any other, a steamer better adapted to Arc- 
tic navigation. ‘The vessel was fittingly rechristened the Polaris—‘‘ The Polar Star.”’ 

Extraordinary care seems to have been taken in the selection of officers and crew. 
As for Hall himself, a careful investigation of all that has since come to light, shows 
that no other man possessed so many qualifications for the command. Light years in 
the Arctic regions had made him perfectly acquainted with the best means of pre- 
serving life and health. He had learned the language of the Esquimaux, of whose 
assistance he expected largely to avail himself. He certainly had the faculty of 
maintaining strict discipline, and at the same time of gaining the affection of those 
under him. It is true he was not a professional sailor or engineer; neither were 
Kane or Hayes—the two men whose names best deserve to be associated with his. 
In any case, even had he been a naval officer, the practical details of navigation must 
have been placed in charge of some one accustomed to voyaging in the ice. 

As far as man could judge, no better choice could have been made for sailing 
master than Sydney O. Buddington. He had been in a whaling vessel in eleven 
voyages, extending for more than thirty years, in these very regions. He had been 
in command of the vessel in which Hall had sailed upon his former expedition. Hall 
and others who had the best means of knowing the man deemed him the one for the 
place. If, as there is now reason to believe, his character sadly changed in conse- 
quence of a newly-acquired passion for liquor, no one had any good reason to antici- 
pate this. The assistant navigator was George E. Tyson; what will hereafter be said 
of him will evince his fitness for the post. The first mate, Hubbard .C. Chester, for 
aught that appears, was well chosen. As second mate went William Morton, who a 
score of years before had been the right-hand man of the lamented Kane. It was 
Morton who discovered what Kane firmly believed to be the edge of the open Polar 
Sea, although it is now known that this is but an expansion of Smith’s Sound, and 
that still north of it lies a frozen strait. Like the foot of the rainbow this sea seems 
to recede as we try to approach it. As chief of the scientific department was Emil 
Bessels, who had brought with him from his native Germany the highest testimonials ; 
und was endorsed by Petermann and Agassiz. He had also been a member of an 
Arctic expedition sent out by the Prussian government. Besides these there were 
Kmil Schumann, chief engineer, Frederick Meyer, meteorologist, R. D. W. Bryan, 
astronomer and chaplain, the faithful Esquimaux Ebierbing, his wife Tookoolito, and 
their child, ‘‘ Puny,” who had come to them in place of the little ‘‘ Butterfly,’? whom 
they had laid in a New England grave-yard. Ebierbing was to act as interpreter and 
hunter, dnd to him in the end was mainly owing the preservation of the nineteen 
persons whom we know to be the survivors of this expedition. The crew of all 
capacities numbered seventeen, of whom about half were Germans or Scandinavians. 
In Greenland they also took on board an Esquimaux, Hans Christian, to act as dog- 
driver, with his wife and three children, to whom another was born afterward. So 
that, all told, the entire expedition consisted of forty persons. 

The Polaris sailed from New York June 29, 1871, and reached St. John’s, New- 


760 THE POLAR WORLD. 


foundland, July 13, where the expedition was cordially welcomed by the governor 
and principal citizens. Thence they steamed up Davis’s Straits, reaching Holstein- 
borg, in Greenland, on the 31st. There they found a Swedish vessel, which was just 
about sailing for home. This reported that Baffin’s Bay was more free from ice than 
it had been for years. They awaited the arrival of the transport Congress, bearing 
additional stores and supplies, and in the meantime purchased dogs, furs, and other 
requisites. On the 17th of August the Polaris bade adieu to the Congress, and 
fairly set out on her expedition for the pole, touching successively at Upernavik and 
Kong-i-toke, where more dogs were procured. On the 22d they reached Tessuisac, 
in latitude 73° 30’, probably the most northern permanent settlement on the globe. 
Here Hall commenced penning a dispatch, to which on the two following days he 
added brief postscripts. 

There had been, as was reported by the Congress on her return, some disputes 
between Hall and his scientific associates. As far as we can judge from the scanty 
account, in Hall’s view the main object was to reach the pole, and to this everything 
else was to be subordinate ; in their view, quite naturally, scientific observation and 
research was the main thing. The instructions from the Secretary of the Navy seem 
to us to be so clear, as to leave no doubt that Hall’s view was the correct one. So 
at least it was decided by the commander of the Congress, and his decision seems to 
have met with prompt acquiescence. The dispute, whatever it was, was adjusted, and 
Hall writes in the highest spirits : 

‘August 22,1871. The prospects of the expedition are fine ; the weather beau- 
tiful, clear, and exceptionally warm. very preparation has been made to bid fare- 
well to civilization for several years, if need be to accomplish our purpose. Our 
coal-bunkers are not only full, but we have fully ten tons on deck, besides wood, 
planks, tar, and rosin in considerable quantities that can be used for steaming pur- 
poses in case of any emergency. Never was an Arctic expedition more completely 
fitted out than this. The progress of the Polaris so far has been quite favorable, 
making exceedingly good passages from port to port. The actual steaming or sailing 
time from Washington to New York was sixty hours ; and from that place to this— 
the most northern civilized settlement of the world, unless there be one for us to dis- 
cover at or near the North Pole—has been twenty days, seven hours, and thirty min- 
utes. There is every reason to rejoice that everything pertaining to the expedition, 
under the rulings of High Heaven, is in a far more prosperous condition than I had 
hoped or prayed for. We are making every effort to leave here to-morrow. 
August 23, Evening. We did not get under way to-day, as expected, because a 
heavy, dark fog has prevailed all day, and the same now continues. The venture of 
steaming out into a sea of undefined reefs and sunken rocks, under the present cir- 
cumstances could not be undertaken. August 24,1 P.M. The fog still con- 
tinues, and I decide that we cannot wait longer for its dispersion ; for a longér delay 
will make it doubtful of the expedition securing the very high latitude I desire to 
obtain before entering into winter quarters. A good pilot has offered to do his very 
best in conducting the Polaris outside of the most imminent danger of the reefs and 
rocks. Now, at half-past 1, P. M., the anchor of the Polaris has just been weighed, 
and not again will it go down, till, as I trust and pray, a higher, a far higher, latitude 
has been attained than ever before by civilized man. Governor Elberg is about 


THE LAST EXPEDITION OF CHARLES FRANCIS HALL. 761 


accompanying us out of the harbor and seaward. He leaves us when the pilot does. 
He has rendered to this expedition much service, and long will I remember him for his 
great kindness. JI am sure you and my country will fully appreciate the hospitality 
and co-operation of the Danish officials in Greenland as relating to our North Polar 
Expedition.—Now, at a quarter past 2, the Polaris bids adieu to the civilized world. 
Governor Elberg leaves us, promising to take these dispatches back to Upernavik, 
and to send them to our minister at Copenhagen by the next ship, which opportunity 
may not be till next year. God be with us.” 

The annual Danish vessel had left Greenland; and, as Hall had anticipated, nearly 
a year passed before there was any opportunity of sending this dispatch. When 
these hopeful words were read in the United States, whence they had come by way 
of Copenhagen, their writer had been dead nine months ; and, as the event proves, 
with him had perished all the high hopes which had been cherished of the success of 
his expedition. 

From that 24th of August, 1871, to the 30th of April, 1878, not a word of 

tidings of the expedition passed through the icy barriers of the Arctic circle. On 
this last day the staunch little steamer Tigress, built for the sealing trade in the 
Greenland Seas, and owned in Newfoundland, while steaming down the coast of 
Labrador, in about latitude 53° North, in a dense fog, came upon a patch of ice 
some twenty feet square—about as large as the floor of a small room. Upon this 
were human beings, who were taken on board and found to be a part of the crew of 
the Polaris. They proved to be Tyson, the assistant navigator, Meyer the meteorol- 
ogist, Jackson the cook, Herron the steward, five seamen, with the Hsquimaux 
Kbierbing and Tookoolito, and their child, Hans Christian, his wife and four children, 
the youngest only eight months old, six months and more of whose brief life had 
been passed upon the ice: in all nineteen souls. 
_ These were brought to St. John’s, Newfoundland, and in a few days the tidings of 
their rescue reached the United States. The Herald newspaper had at St. John’s, 
as almost everywhere else, a capable correspondent. He interviewed the persons, 
and on the 21st of May a long and full report of what they could tell appeared in 
the Herald. Meanwhile the government had dispatched a steamer from New York to 
bring the party to Washington, where they arrived early in June. They were all 
carefully examined by a commission consisting of the Secretary of the Navy, assisted 
by Commodore Reynolds, the senior officer of the Navy Department, himself an 
experienced explorer; Professor Spencer I’. Baird, Assistant Secretary of the Smith- 
sonian Institute, among the foremost scientists of the age, a warm personal friend of 
Hall, and an ardent promoter of the expedition; and Captain Howgate of the Signal 
Service. Their narrative to the Herald correspondent, and their testimony before 
this commission, agree in every essential respect, and embody all that we can at 
present hope to know of this expedition: all that we can ever hope to know, unless 
the Polaris herself and the remainder of her crew shall hereafter be found. 

On the 24th of August, as has been seen, the Polaris got safely out of the danger- 
ous harbor of Tessuisak, shot across the head of the stormy Melville Bay; passed 
Northumberland Island, and through Smith’s Sound ; and meeting little obstruction 
from ice, entered what Kane and Morton and Hayes believed the open Polar Sea, 
which however proved to be a mere expansion of the Sound, and to which the name 

49 


762 THE POLAR WORLD. 


of Kane Sea must hereafter be given. The Sound then narrowed, but with a deep 
indentation setting into the Greenland shore. Steaming northward through a channel 
apparently twenty-five or thirty miles wide, with high land on either side, in just a 
week they reached their highest northern point, which by Hall’s reckoning was in 
latitude 82° 29/ but which by Meyer’s subsequent and probably more accurate caleu- 
lations was in latitude 82° 16’, a difference of about fifteen miles. Here, on the 30th 
of August, the channel to which Hall gave the name of Robeson Straits, in honor of 
the Secretary of the Navy, was impassably blocked by heavy masses of floating ice. 
Hall took a boat and vainly sought to find a passage through the ice. To take a 
step backward was far from his purpose. He found a small bay where he hoped to 
make his winter quarters. A consultation was held, and, as it would seem, mainly 
through the influence of Buddington, it was decided not to lie up here. ‘To this bay 
Hall. gave the name of Refuse Harbor. The ice now took the matter into its own 
hands, and drifting slowly bore the Polaris southward for four days. On the 3d of 
September the pack opened, and the Polaris headed eastward into a small cove setting 
into the Greenland shore. The mouth of the cove was sheltered by a huge iceberg, 
and here it was decided to winter. ‘This cove, in latitude 81° 38’, was named -Polaris 
Bay, and the sheltering ice island was called Providenceberg. Here at midnight, on 
the 3d of September, Hall landed in a boat and raised the Stars and Stripes in the 
name of God and the President of the United States. Polaris Bay is, if all calcu- 
lations are correct, just three minutes of a degree, or about three miles further north 
than the farthest point reached by Hayes, by land on the opposite side of the strait, 
and about two hundred miles north of Kane’s famous winter quarters. 

The Polaris was moored fast to the iceberg, an observatory was established, and 
scientific work set about. Hall forthwith began to plan a sledge journey to the north. 
Taking with him only Chester the mate, and EKbierbing and Hans, with two sledges 
and fourteen dogs, he set out on the 10th of October. A fortnight, that is a week 
for advancing and the same for returning, was the period fixed for this expedition. 
On the evening of the 10th day he wrote his last dispatch, probably the last words 
he ever wrote, for the Secretary of the Navy. By a strange chance the draft of this 
dispatch has been preserved. Here follow the essential parts of it : 

“ Sixth Snowhouse Encampment, latitude 82° 3', longitude 61° 20’, October 20, 
1871. Myself and party left the ship in winter quarters, Thank God Harbor, to 
discover, if possible, a feasible route inland for my sledge journey, next spring, to 
reach the North Pole, purposing to adopt such a route if found better than a route 
over the old floes and hummocks of the strait. We arrived here on the afternoon of 
October 17, having discovered a lake and river on our way. Along the latter our 
route, a most serpentine one, which led us to this bay from the top of an iceberg near 
the mouth of the river, we could see that-this bay extended to the eastward and south- 
ward about fifteen miles. On arriving here we found the mouth of the bay open, the 
water having numerous seals in it, bobbing up their heads. This open water making 
close to both headlands, and the ice of Robeson Strait being on the move, debarred all 
chance of extending our journey up the strait. The mountainous land (none other 
being about here) will not admit of our journeying further north; and we commence 
our return to-morrow morning. To-day we are storm-bound at this our sixth 
encampment. We can see the land extending on the west side of the strait 


THE LAST EXPEDITION OF CHARLES FRANCIS HALL. 763 


to the north about seventy miles, thus making the land we discovered as far as 
latitude 83° 5’ N. There is the appearance of land further north, and extending 
more easterly, but a peculiarly dark nimbus cloud prevents my making a full deter- 
mination. Up to the time I and my party left the ship all have been well, and con- 
tinue with high hopes of accomplishing our great mission. We find this a much warmer 
country than we expected. The mountains on either side of Kennedy Channel and 
Robeson Strait were found entirely bare of snow and ice, with the exception of a gla- 
cier that we saw commencing in about latitude 80° 30’ N. on the east side of the 
Strait, and extending in an easterly direction as far as can be seen from the mountains 
near Polaris Bay.. We have found that the country abounds with live seals, game, 
geese, ducks, musk cattle, rabbits, wolves, foxes, bears, partridges, lemmings, etc., etc. 
Our long Arctic night commenced October 13, having seen only the upper limb of 
the sun above the glacier at meridian, October 13. This dispatch I finish at this mo- 
ment, twenty-three minutes past eight P. M., having written it with ink in our snow 
hut. Thermometer outside, 7°; yesterday all day, 20°0-28°.” 

There is a postscript dated next morning: ‘A copy of this dispatch was placed, 
October 21, 1871, in a pillar at Brevoort Cape” (the northern headland of the bay 
on which this encampment was situated). This dispatch, found in Hall’s writing desk, 
and first read in Washington in June, 1873, is a voice from beyond the grave certify- 
ing to the fact that up to this time nothing had occurred on the expedition to diminish 
the confident expectation which he entertained of complete success, and in connection 
with the former one is abundant refutation of the newspaper charges that there was 
anything lacking in the equipment of the Polaris. 

The return journey was naturally more rapid than the advance had been, and on 
the fourth day Hall and his companions regained the Polaris. He was to all appear- 
ances in his usual robust health, and certainly in his usual buoyant spirits. His great 
laugh, which all who knew him knew so well, rang out in the darkness of the Arctic 
night, and he thanked the men for having behaved so well while he had been absent. 
The change from a breezy temperature of 15 or 20 degrees below zero, to one of 60 
or 70 above, in the close cabin, probably somewhat affected him, and he declined any 
refreshments except a cup of coffee. He took a hot sponge bath, and retired to rest. 
In the morning he was seriously unwell, the chief symptoms being a burning in the 
throat and vomiting. For a week the disease made progress, and from all the evi- 
dence was accompanied by partial paralysis and delirium. rom this he partially re- 
covered, made some attempt to resume his work, and it was supposed that he would 
_be well in a few days. On the night of the 8th of November he had a fresh attack, 
and Tyson, going into his cabin, found him lying in his berth, breathing heavily, and 
insensible. He died during that night, and was buried three days after in a shallow 
grave dug with difficulty in the frozen ground. 

If the doctor was correctly understood, he pronounced the death to have been occa- 
sioned by apoplexy. Hall himself undoubtedly believed that he had been poisoned 
in the cup of coffee which he drank, and after his partial recovery was continually 
looking over medical books to find out the poison which would produce the symptoms 
which he experienced. Once he called the faithful Ebierbing, and pointing to some word 
in one of the books, said that this was what was making him sick. In his delirium 
he fancied that every one was trying to kill him. But the commission report: 


764 THE POLAR WORLD. 


‘‘ From personal examination of all the witnesses, we reach the unanimous opinion that 
the death of Captain Hall resulted naturally, from disease, without fault on the part 
of any one. During his illness he was under the medical care of Dr. Bessels, and as 
none of the persons now here are capable of giving a more particular account of the 
nature and symptoms of his fatal sickness, the return of the Polaris must be awaited 
for precise information.” 

Out of a thousand picked men it would be hard to select one whose chances of life 
were so good as those of Hall. He was slightly above the middle height, strongly 
built, with large head, broad chest, and muscular limbs. In all his habits he was 
strictly temperate, and even when he returned from his second expedition he pre- 
sented the ideal of robust health, as he did when he set out on his last one. The in- 
structions, however, had provided for the possible contingency of his death, in which 
event the command was to fall upon Buddington. The long winter was passed as 
usual in the Arctic regions, but without any suffering from want or even from cold. 
Indeed it seems fairly established that on the western continent at least the line of 
greatest cold runs considerably south of latitude 80°. The highest points where a 
continuous series of extreme cold have been noted are in about latitude 72° on the 
American continent and in Kamchatka. Scientific observations were carefully kept 
up, a considerable extent of coast was surveyed, and Ebierbing and Hans Christian 
hunted whenever opportunity presented, and with no inconsiderable success, the store- 
rooms of the Polaris being filled with skins and skeletons of musk oxen, bears, and 
other animals, with birds of many species, and their eggs, and other objects of natural 
history. To all appearance the waters were wholly destitute of fish; for although 
nets and lines were continually set, none were obtained. But marine invertebrata, 
such as jelly-fish and shrimps, were abundant, which were believed to constitute the 
chief food of the numerous seals. Many pieces of drift wood were picked up, the 
walnut, ash and pine being identified. These must have been drifted from a warmer 
climate, and have come either through Bering Straits from the west, or around the 
northern coast of Greenland from the east ; all the probabilities being in favor of the 
latter. Indeed it is more than probable that the northern coast of Greenland does 
not extend much nearer the pole than latitude 83°. As has been previously men- 
tioned, the Germania and Hansa expedition discovered an apparent sound stretching 
westward into the eastern shore of Greenland; and it is not improbable that this 
communicates with the one which the Polaris saw running north-eastward, and so 
defines the northern coast of Greenland. 

Two or three weeks after the death of Hall, a strong gale swept down from the 
north-east, forced the Polaris to drag her anchors, and drove her against the ice-island 
at the mouth of the cove, to which she was then made fast, and so remained until the 
following June. During the winter a pack of moving ice drove her higher up the 
berg, where her bow remained fixed, resting upon the ice-bed, while her stern swung 
up and down with the rising and falling tides. The strong stem-piece was strained, 
some of the planking started, and when at last she settled into the water she leaked 
somewhat ; but after being once cleared by the steam pumps, she was kept clear by 
working the ordinary deck pumps for about six minutes in an hour. 

Karly in June, Buddington ordered a boat expedition, under Chester and Tyson, 
to go up the shore as far as possible. One boat was crushed in the ice almost at the 


THE LAST EXPEDITION OF CHARLES FRANCIS HALL. 765 


outset ; but its place being supplied by the light canvas boat, before mentioned, a 
point was gained almost as far north as that which Hall had reached in his sledge 
journey. Here they remained until the middle of July, 1872, waiting for the ice to 
open, when they were recalled by Buddington, who had determined to return’ home 
as soon as the ice would permit. The party made their way overland, leaving the 
boats behind. From the data now accessible, this determination to return can hardly 
be censured, although Hall would not probably have consented had he been living. 
The Polaris had been much strained, and though there were abundance of stores 
from which overland parties could be supplied, the coal was getting short, and so the 
Polaris itself would hardly have been able to make her way again under steam far to 
the north. 

The Polaris got free early in August, and steamed cautiously down the western 
shore for a day, when she was beset in the ice, and was in imminent peril. On the 
16th the ship was made fast to a huge floe, in latitude 80° 2’, and drifted slowly up 
and down Smith’s Sound for two months, during which they only gained about a 
dozen miles to the south, bringing them near Northumberland Island, in latitude 79° ? 
53’, To be prepared for the worst, provisions were brought on deck, in readiness to 
be thrown upon the ice should it be necessary to abandon the vessel, and a canvas 
shelter was put up on the ice. 

On the 15th of October a violent gale set in from the south, driving the ice under 
the ship, pressing her fairly out of the water, and throwing her over on her beam 
ends. Some provisions and stores were thrown over, and half of the crew were 
ordered out to carry them further upon the ice. All the boats were lowered. In the 
middle of the night, in a violent storm, the Polaris broke loose, and in a few minutes 
was out of sight. Upon the ice were the nineteen persons already named. All 
through the night they labored to save the provisions; and when morning dawned 
attempted to reach the shore, which was in plain sight. During the day the Polaris 
hove in sight, at a distance of four or five miles, apparently approaching the floe 
under sail and steam. ‘Those on the ice were sure that they must be seen from the 
vessel, and that they would soon be taken on board. But the vessel changed her 
course, and soon disappeared. Not unnaturally they believed that they had been 
purposely abandoned. But the commission, upon a full review of all the circum- 
stances, came to the conclusion that there was no sufficient evidence that this was the 
case. <A few hours afterward, another glimpse was got of the Polaris. She appeared 
to be made fast to the shore or to the ice. From that day up to the middle of July, 
1873, when these pages are written, a period of more than nine months, no tidings 
of the Polaris have been received. It is indeed hoped that she is fast beset in the 
ice, but otherwise safe. If so, as there is no danger of starvation, it is believed that 
the crew, if not the vessel, may be rescued. 


We now turn to the fortunes of the nineteen who were left upon the ice, and who 
were finally rescued by the Tigress. In all the records of adventure and peril there 
is nothing which, for interest, exceeds this ; and of it we have an account, unique in 
its kind ; the only thing approaching it being the famous journal of Bligh and his 
party of seamen, who were set adrift from the ‘‘ Bounty” in 1789. Bligh, in an 
open boat, was adrift forty-six days under a torrid sun. These men, women and 


766 THE POLAR WORLD. 


children, for 195 days, drifted upon a cake of ice all through an Arctic winter. One 
of the party, John Heron, the steward, thirty-one years of age, born in Liverpool, 
but a citizen of the United States, kept from day to day a minute journal of all that 
occurred. From this, greatly abridged, our narrative will be drawn,.noting only the 
salient points, but preserving the words of the writer : 

‘* October 15th.—Gale from the S. W.; ship made fast to floe ; bergs pressed in 
and nipped the ship until we thought she was going down; threw provisions over- 
board, and nineteen souls got on the floe to receive them and haul them up on the 
ice. A large berg came sailing down, struck the floe, shivered it to pieces, and freed 
the ship. She was out of sight in five minutes. We were afloat on different pieces 
ef ice. We had two boats. Our men were picked up, myself among them, and 
landed on the main floe, which we found to be cracked in many places. We remained 
shivering all night. Saved very little provisions. 16¢4.—Morning fine ; light breeze 
from the N. The berg that did us so much damage half a mile to the N. H. of us. 
Plenty of open water. We lost no time in launching the boats, getting the provisions 
in and pulling around the berg, when we saw the Polaris. She had steam up, and 
succeeded in getting a harbor. In the evening we started with the boats for shore. 
Had we reached it we could have walked on board in one hour, but the ice set in so 
fast that we could not pull through it. We had a narrow escape in jumping from 
piece to piece until we reached the floe. We dragged the boat two or three hundred 
yards, and made for our provisions, which were on a distant part of the floe. We 
can not see our other boat ; the snow drift has covered our late tracks. 23d.—With 
the aid of a marine glass we discovered a boat, and at some distance therefrom a tent. 
The ice for a few miles is very thin; but we risked it, and returned to headquarters 
weak but thankful to God, and rejoicing for our increase of stores. We have now 
eleven bags of bread, thirteen cans of pemmican, eleven dozen cans of meats, soups, 
etc., and fourteen hams. 31s¢.—Sent Joe and Hans with a dog team to see how the 
ice will stand, as we intend starting to-morrow for shore. If the ice hold good we 
shall be there in two or three days. If we reach the shore we shall live better, as 
we may kill some game.” 

‘* November 2d.—Ice open and water all around us. We started before daylight 
with the dogs and sled, not knowing what had happened until we were nearly driven into 
the water. The ice closed in a little. We tried again, and ventured across on the 
other floe. Saved one rake, some of Joe’s clothing, three guns, and a few other 
things. When the men returned to the crack it was just opening; they had got 
across just in time, as the ice opened, and the floe has not been seen since. 3d. 
—Building snow houses. No chance now of getting ashore ; must now give that up. 
6th.—Joe caught a seal, which is aGodsend. Weare having a feast to-night; three- 
fourths of a pound of food toa man. Mr. Meyer made a pack of cards for us from 
some thick paper, and we are now playing euchre. We are a good deal further from 
land, and are drifting south pretty smart. 16¢h.—Joe saw three seals yesterday and 
a fox track, but got nothing. We have nothing to feed our dogs on. They got at 
the provisions to-day. We have shot five, leaving four. Shot some two weeks since. 
We are lining our new hut with canvas. 21s¢.—The natives caught two seals. 
They shot three, but lost one of them in the young ice. We shot two dogs. ‘They 
vot at our provisions. 28th.—Thanksgiving Day. We have had a feast : four pint 


THE LAST EXPEDITION OF CHARLES FRANCIS HALL. 767 


cans of mock turtle soup, six pint cans of green corn made into scouch. Afternoon, 
three ounces of bread, and the last of our chocolate.” 

‘* December 2d.—No open water has been seen for several days. Cannot catch any- 
thing. Land has been seen for several days; cannot determine which shore it is, 
east or west. It has been so cloudy that we cannot select a star to go by. Some 
think it is the east land ; I think it is the west. Boiled some seal-skin to-day and 
ate it, blubber, hair, and tough skin. The men ate it; I could not; the hair is too 
thick, and we have no means of getting it off. 6¢+.—A fox came too near the other 
day. Bill Lindemann shot him; skinned him, and cut him up for cooking. Fox in 
this country is all bones and hair, 8¢h.—All in good health. The only thing that 
troubles us is hunger ; that is very severe. We feel sometimes as though we could 
eat each other. Very weak, but, please God, we will weather it all. 20¢h.—Joe 
found a crack yesterday and three seals. Too dark to shoot. It is a good thing to 
have game underneath us; it would be much better for starving men to have them on 
the floe. To-morrow will be our shortest day; then the sun turns back. 24th.— 
Christmas Eve. We are longing for to-morrow, when we shall have quite a feast : 
half a pound each of raw ham, which we have been saving nearly a month for Christ- 
mas. A month ago our ham gave out ; so we saved this for the feast. Yesterday 9 
degrees below zero; to-day 4 degrees above. 25th.—Christmas Day. This is a 
day of jubilee at home, and certainly here for us; for besides the approaching day- 
light we have quite a feast to-day. One ounce of bread extra per man, which made 
our soup for breakfast a little thicker than for dinner. We had soup made from a 
pound of seal blood, which we had saved for a month ; a two-pound can of sausage 
meat, the last of our canned meat; a few ounces of seal, which we saved with the 
blood, all cut up fine ; last of our can of apples, which we saved also for Christmas. 
The whole was boiled to a thick soup, which I think was the sweetest meal I ever 
ate. This, with half a pound of ham and two ounces of bread, gave us our Christ- 
mas dinner. Then in the evening we had our usual thin soup.” 

“ January 1, 1873.—Poor dinner for New Year’s Day: mouldy bread, and short al- 
lowance. 2d.—Mr. Meyer took an observation last night. Latitude 72° 10’, longitude 
60° 40’. The news was so good” [i. e. in about nine weeks they had drifted south- 
ward something more than seven degrees, about 525 miles] ‘‘ that I treated myself 
to an extra pipe of tobacco. We are obliged to cook our meals over the lamp; slow 
work. Thermometer 31 degrees below zero. 16¢h.—Hans caught a seal to-day. 
Thank God, for we are very weak. Our light would have been finished to-morrow, 
aud our cooking also. But God sent this seal to save us. It has been so all the 
time. Just as we were played out, something came along. I am afraid I have a 
touch of the scurvy ; a little raw meat will drive it out, I hope. 19¢h.—Clear, light 
wind. Thermometer 39 degrees below zero. The sun has made his appearance to- 
day. I gave him three cheers, hoping we will be able to start ”’ [that is in the boats] 
‘‘in a month. ‘The sun has brought us luck in the way of a seal which Joe caught. 
27th.—The sun is out. Mr. Meyer took an observation. He makes latitude 69° 
32”. He thinks we are 42 miles from the shore. Godhaven, on the island of Disco, 
is in latitude 69° 13”. That leaves us nineteen miles north of our store-house, which 
I am afraid we will never see. God knows where we will fetch up.” 

“« February 4th. A gale from the west; very thick snow drift, I seldom see it snow 


768 THE POLAR WORLD. 


here ; for when it is blowing hard the snow comes like flour with the wind. Whether 
the snow falls or the wind takes it up from the ice I cannot tell; but it is so fine and 
thick you cannot see. There is no leaving the hut in such weather, as the snow is 
always either drifting or falling, with the blow, no matter from what quarter. All 
well but me. Ihave aslight touch of the scurvy ; but, please God, it will soon leave 
me. We hope when this blow is over, we shall see land and have a little open water. 
7th.—Hans caught a seal, and fired ata narwhal. Joe shot and killed a big fel- 
low, but could not get kim. He turned belly up and sank. He would have been 
food fora month. ‘There were a great many of them going north. It is their time of 
the year. 8th.—A pretty large crack around the floe. Shot five narwhals to-day, 
but could not get them, as they got away under the ice. Joe said a large fleet of 
them were going north, but could not find water, and so came back again. We can- 
not find any seals when they are about. Joe says the seals are not afraid of the nar- 
whals ; but I think they are. 16th.—Saw plenty of narwhals, I wish they would go 
away; they frighten the seals away, which we are so badly in want of. Our provisions 
are getting low. When you take a glass and look around, you see the ice in the dis- 
tance piled as high asa ship’s mast, so that it seems impossible to travel over it—cer- 
tainly not with a boat. Noland to beseen yet. We want water toescape. 19¢h.—The 
welcome cry this morning was, ‘‘ land ho!” to westward, Cape Walsingham. Now 
we will be out of the narrows. ‘The straits commence to widen here, so that we can 
travel fast if we cannot reach land. I’ve caught asmall seal to-day. 24th.—Can see 
the land, but cannot start. Such a quantity of light snow has fallen, and you sink 
into it so that it would be impossible to get the boat through it. Land is twenty 
miles off, I should say, and we appear to be leaving it. My advice is to start for it. 
We seem to have left the sealing ground. We cannot catch anything to speak of, and 
we have only three weeks’ provisions left. Captain Tyson and some of the men are 
afraid to venture in shore, and unwilling to leave the boat ; so we have made up our 
minds to stay, come down in our provisions, and trust in God, hoping we may come 
on better sealing ground. I asked the Esquimaux what they would do if they had 
not us to influence them. ‘They told me they would start for land directly they saw 
it. They do not like to speak their minds openly for fear something would happen, 
meaning that they would be blamed for it ; so they are silent following only the advice 
and opinions of others. Joe caught a very small seal, which is the eighth this month. 
He is very much to be praised, so is his wife Hannah. We may thank them and God 
for our lives and the good health we are in. We could never have gotten thus far 
without them. If we ever get outof this difficulty, they can never be paid too much. 
28th.—Followed up a bear track, but at a crack lost it, where he broke through the 
young ice and swam across. Shot a meal of dovekies, a kind of small bird, to-day, 
which we will have for breakfast to-morrow morning. Saw some seals to-day, but 
could not get them. Thermometer 28 to 23 degrees below zero.” 

‘© March 2d.—To-day God has sent us food in abundance. Joe shot an oogchook, 
one of the largest kind of seals: plenty of meat and oil, and forty-two dovekies. 
7th.—Immense icebergs all around the floe. There was a fearful noise all last night, 
which kept us all awake. The floe was cracking, splitting and working with a noise 
like a park of artillery and musketry. I expected to see it splitinto a thousand pieces 
every moment. Every man is complaining of headache from eating oogchook liver 


THE LAST EXPEDITION OF CHARLES FRANCIS HALL. 769 


They say it is dangerous to eat; but what is a hungry man to do? We have eaten 
the seals, hair, skin and every thing about them, and are glad to get them. 11¢h.— 
Blowing a strong gale yet. All hands were up last night and dressed and ready for 
a jump, for the ice was splitting, cracking and making a fearful noise all night. To-day 
has been a fearful day. Cannot see for snow drift. We know the floe is broken 
into small pieces. Weare afloat, jumping and kickingabout. 12¢4.—Last night was 
a fearful one of suspense : ice cracking and breaking ; the gale roaring, and the water 
swashing ; but where? We know it is all around us, but cannot see anything. Since 
one o’clock the wind has been going down, and now I can see around. A nice picture. 
Everything broken into small pieces. We are on the best piece. The snow houses 
are nearly covered. Afternoon. It has calmed down to a fine day, with a light 
breeze. Joe caught two seals, Hans one, and Captain Tyson one. Joe caught two 
dovekies, and the cook two, showing how good God is to us. 22d.—The first day of 
spring. The sun shines very powerfully, at least I think so. Thermometer 10 to 12 
degrees below zero. Joe caught two seals to-day. 380¢h.—Blowing a gale from W. 
N. W.; it looks fearful. last night the sight was dreadful. I went out, and there, 
within ten or twelve yards of the door of our hut, was a very large and ugly looking 
iceberg grinding against us. Our little floe gets smaller in open water. To-day we had 
the pleasure of launching the boat. We saw on a piece of ice a large seal. We fired 
and thought we had him. When we had pulled there with the boat, we found a large 
bladder-nose and her pup. She showed fight, but was soon killed, and, with her pup 
towed to our floe. The buck was shot but got under the young ice. When opened, 
we found considerable milk in her ; so we can have some good soup to-night, using the 
milk and two quarts of blood. 381st.—Strong wind W. N. W. Thick. Looks like 
clearing up. A seal and two calves killed by Joe; one calf by Hans. Mr. Meyer 
got an observation: latitude 59° 41’. That makes twenty-three miles per day that we 
have drifted the last five days, besides what eddying we have made with this W. wind. 
These seals have all been caught on the ice which drifted by us. Our piece of ice gets 
much smaller. Open water. Sometimes we get separated from the ice and it looks 
like the ocean which we have on one side of us—the H. side. We are nearly off Cape 
Farewell. Last night ran a very heavy sea; not a bit of ice to be seen as far as the 
eye could reach. ‘To-day closed around a little, but plenty of water. Dare not ven- 
ture in our open boats: we must watch and wait and trust in God Caught three 
more calves and one more seal. Heavy weather setting in; the floe wearing away 
rapidly. I must hope for the best. All well.’’ 

“‘ April 1st.—A fearful night, last night. Must leave our floe atonce. Got under 

way at 8 A. M., the boat taking in water, and loaded too deep. Threw overboard 
- one hundred pounds of meat, and must throw away all our clothes. Cannot carry any- 
thing with us but the tent, a few skins to cover us, a little meat, and our bread and 
pemmican. Made ten or fifteen miles S. and three or four W. We landed to lighten 
our boat, and pitched our tent, intending to stop all night. This piece of ice is crack- 
ing, and not very safe. Caught a young seal as soon as we gut on the ice, and after- 
ward two more. 20th.—Started at 5 A. M. Worked the oars two hours; then a 
breeze sprung up, and increased until it blew almost a gale. We had several narrow 
escapes with our boat before we could find a piece of ice safe enough to land on, and 
when we did so the boat was making water fast. When emptied we found a hole in 


770 THE POLAR WORLD. 


her side. Weather still very bad. We are in a bad fix. 3d—Repaired our boat 
and started at 8.49 A. M. Kept under way till 2.30 P. M., when we had to haul 
up on a piece of floe. We were beset by the ice and could not get through. We 
take seals whenever we want them, so that it is not necessary to croak any more until 
they get scarce. 5th.—Blowing a gale, and a fearful sea running. Two pieces broke 
from the floe. We are on one close to the tent. At 5 A. M. removed our things to 
the center. Another piece broke off, carrying Joe’s hut with it. We cannot do any- 
thing to help ourselves. Ifthe ice breaks up much more we must break up with it 
8th.—Last night, at 12 o’clock, the ice broke again right between the tent and the 
boat, which were so close together that a man could not walk between them. There 
the ice split carrying away the boat, the kyack, and Mr. Meyer. It was blowing and 
snowing, very cold, and a fearful sea running; the ice was breaking, lapping, and 
crashing. Mr. Meyer cast the kyack adrift, but it went to leeward of us. He can 
do nothing with the boat alone, and so they are lost to us unless God returns them. 
The natives went off on a piece of ice with their paddles and ice spears. We may 
never see them again. But we are lost without the boat, so that they are as well off. 
After an hour’s struggle we can make out, with what little light there is, that they 
have reached the boat, about half a mile off. There they appear to be helpless; the 
ice closing in all around ; and we can do nothing until daylight. Daylight at last, 3 
A.M. We see them with the boat, but they can do nothing with her. The kyack 
is the same distance off in another direction. We must venture off, for we may as 
well be crushed by the ice or drowned as to remain here without the boat. Off we 
venture for the boat, all but two, who dare not make the attempt. We jump from one 
piece to another, as the swell heaves it, and the ice comes close together; one piece 
being high the other low, so that you watch your time to jump. All who ventured 
reached the boat in safety, and after a long struggle got her safe tocampagain. Then 
we ventured for the kyack, and got it also. We have taken our tent down, and 
pitched it in the center of our little piece of ice, with our boat alongside. Joe has 
built another snow hut alongside the tent. 9¢4.—Blowing agale. The sea runs very 
high, threatening to wash us off any minute. ‘The ice is much slacker, and the water 
is coming nearer. Things look very bad. God knows how the night will end. EHve- 
ning. We are washed out of our tent, and Hannah from her snow hut. Have got 
everything in the boat ready for a start; but she can never live in such a sea. Land 
in sight. The women and children are in the boat ; we have not adry place in which 
to walk about, nor a piece of fresh-water ice to eat. The ice is closing in fast, and 
the sea going down. At midnight things look so quiet, and the ice is so closed around 
that we have pitched our tent, intending to have asleep, for we are worn out.” 

From April 10 to 16 (which completed just six months from the time when they 
took to the ice) they were prisoners on that bit; saw many seals, but could catch 
none, and starvation began to stare them in the face. Mr. Meyer froze his fingers 
and toes, and began to be very weak, hunger seeming to have more effect on him than 
on the others. 

‘¢ April 16th.—Wind increasing ; ice nearly the same ; no swell on. My head and 
face have swollen to nearly twice their usual size. I do not know the cause of it. 
We set an hour’s watch at night. Some one has been at the pemmican on his watch, 
and I know the man. He did the same thing in the winter, and I caught hin in the 


THE LAST EXPEDITION OF CHARLES FRANCIS HALL. 771 


act on the 7th. We shot the dogs last winter for stealing our provisions. If I had 
my way, with the consent of all hands, I would call out and shoot down that two- 
legged dog who has since been at them. We have but few days’ provisions left, and 
came down on them this morning. Weakening work, but it must be done to save 
life as long as we can, which cannot be long unless something good comes along, 
which I hope may soon happen. The only thing that troubles me is the thought of 
cannibalism. It is a fearful thought, but may as well be looked boldly in the face. 
If such things are to happen, we must submit. May God save us. 18¢h.—Joe saw 
a small hole in the water half a mile off. He took his gun and ventured over the 
loose ice. No sooner had he gotten there than he shot a seal, and sang out for the 
kyack, as the water was making rapidly. It took an hour to get the kyack there, 
and another to get it back. It is a nice-sized seal, and will give us three meals, raw, 
and save us from starvation for some days. We returned thanks to God for his mercy, 
for we have only a few pounds of bread and sufficient pemmican for to-night. We 
divided the seal very nicely, losing nothing but the gall. We divided it into sixteen 
parts. One man then turned his back and called out the names, each man stepping 
up and taking his share of meat, blubber and skin. The inside—heart, kidneys, liver, 
lights and stomach—were divided between the Esquimaux and us. We then gave 
some blubber and rags each, so that we got a fire under way and cooked some good 
soup from what at other times I would call offal. Cut up fine in a quart of soup, 
with a little blood, the mess was highly relished. 20¢h.—Blowing a gale somewhere. 
The swell is very heavy. The first warning we had, a sea struck us, washing over 
us, and carried away everything that was loose. This happened at 9 o’clock last 
night. We shipped sea after sea, five or ten minutes after each other, carrying away 
everything we had in our tent, skins, and most of our bed-clothes, leaving us desti- 
tute, with only the few things we could get into the boat. There we stood from 9 in 
the evening to 7 the next morning, enduring, I should say, what man never stood 
before. The few things we saved and the children were placed in the boat. The sea 
broke over us during that night and morning. Livery fifteen or twenty minutes a sea 
would come, lift the boat and us with it, carry us along the ice, and lose its strength 
near the edge, and sometimes on it. Then it would take us the next fifteen minutes 
to get back to a safe place, ready for the next roller. So we stood that long hour, 
not a word spoken but the commands to ‘ Hold on, my hearties ; bear down on her ; 
put on all your weight ;’ and so we did, bearing down and holding on like grim 
death. Cold, hungry, wet, and little prospect ahead. At seven o’clock there came 
close to us a small piece of ice, which rode dry, and we determined to launch the 
boat, and reach it or perish. The cook went overboard, but was saved. All well. 
Tired and sleepy.” 

There were to be but ten more days of this weary imprisonment; but into them 
were crowded as much of peril and endurance, as into any other period of equal 
length. An observation showed that they were in latitude 53° 57’. They had thus 
drifted through about twenty-seven degrees of latitude, a distance in a straight line 
from north to south of about 1875 miles. The entries for some days tell a uniform 
story: ‘‘ All hands wet ; hunger troubles us most ; cannot get the boat through the 
ice, and must wait for a change ; sometimes in sight of land, and then driven off; 
no birds and no seals.”’ Here is one episode in the monotony ; 


72 THE POLAR WORLD. 


“« April 22d.—Weather very bad. Last night commenced with snow squalls and 
sleet and finished with rain. Rained all the night and until twelve o’clock to-day. 
Still remains very thick. The ice in pash inclosed around us. It appears to me we 
are the sport and jest of the elements. The other night they played with us and our 
boat as though we were shuttlecocks. Men would never believe, nor could pen de- 
scribe, the scenes we have passed through and yet live. Here we are, half drowned, 
cold, and with no means of shelter. Everything wet, and no sun to dry it. The 
scene looks bad ; nothing to eat. Everything finished if some relief does not come 
along. Ido not know what will become of us. Fearful thoughts enter my head as 
to the future. Mr. Meyer is starving; he cannot last long in this state. Joe has 
been off on the ice three times to-day, the little way he can get, but has not seen 
anything. Chewed on a piece of skin this morning that was tanned and saved for 
clothing ; rather a tough and tasteless breakfast. Joe ventured off on the ice the 
fourth time, and after looking a good while from a piece of iceberg saw a bear coming 
slowly toward us. He ran back as fast as possible for his gun. All of us lay down 
and remained perfectly still, Joe and Hans going out some distance to meet the bear. 
Getting behind a hummock, they waited for him. Along came Bruin, thinking he 
was coming to a meal instead of furnishing one himself. Clack, bang! went two 
rifles, and down went Bruin to save a starving lot of men. The Lord be praised ; 
this is his heavenly work! We cannot catch seal for the pash ice, and we are on a 
bad sealing ground. He therefore sends a bear along where bears are seldom seen, 
and we certainly never expected to find one. The poor bear was hungry himself ; 
there was nothing in his stomach. Joe, poor fellow, looked very much down on our 
account. Everything looks bright again but the atmosphere ; it looks threatening.”’ 

‘“« April 25th.— Wind increased to a gale last night. Raining all night and day, 
with snow squalls. Launched the boat at 5 A. M. The case was desperate ; run- 
ning with a light patched boat, damaged as she is, and patched all over. But the 
piece of ice we were on had wasted away so much that it would never outride the 
gale. Our danger was very great; a gale of wind blowing ; a crippled boat, over- 
loaded, and a fearful sea running, filled with small ice as sharp as knives. But, 
thank God, we got safely through it. We are all soaking wet, in every thing we 
have, and no chance of drying anything. We have had neither sun nor moon nor 
star for a week. We have struck the sealmen’s grounds. I never saw such an 
abundance of seals before. They are in schools like porpoises. We hauled up on a 
floe after eight hours’ pull. Joe shot some seals, but they all sunk. Hard times. 
26th.—Joe shot a seal last evening, and so broke the charm. Hans shot one this 
morning. Ice very thick around. Started at half-past six A. M., and were beset 
two hours afterward. Pulled up on a small piece of ice, the best we could find. 
Snowing all day. Repaired the boat ; and the weather cleared up in the afternoon. 
Got some things dried a little, and half of us turned in. Hans shot a seal, making 
two to-day.” : 

April 28th.—Gale of wind sprung up; heavy sea running ; all ready and standing 
by the boat all night. Launched the boat, but could get nowhere for the ice. Hauled 
up on a piece of ice at 6 A. M., and had a few hours’ sleep, but were threatened to 
be mashed to pieces by icebergs. They were fighting quite a battle in the water, 
and bearing right for us. We launched the boat at 1 P. M., and got away, the 


THE LAST EXPEDITION OF CHARLES FRANCIS HALL. 773 


wind blowing moderately, and the sea going down. The ice is much slacker, and 
there is more water than I have seen yet. At 4.80 saw a steamer right ahead, and a 
little to the north of us. We hoisted the colors, and pulled until dark, trying to cut 
her off; but she does not see us. We found a small piece of ice, and boarded it 
for the night. The stars are out for the first time this week, and there is a new moon. 
Divided into two watches, four hours’ sleep each. Intend to start early. Joe had 
shot three young seals, which we had taken along in the boat. Cooked with a blub- 
ber fire ; and kept a good one all night, so that we could be seen. 29th.—Morning 
calm, water quiet. At daylight sighted the steamer five miles off; launched the boat 
and made for her. After an hour’s pull gained on her a good deal; another hour 
and we got fast in the ice, and could go no farther. Landed on a piece of ice and 
hoisted our colors on an elevated place. Fired three rounds from our rifles and pistols, 
making a considerable report, and were answered by three shots, the steamer heading 
for us. She headed for us N. then 8. E., and kept on so all day. We tried very 
hard to work through the ice, but could not. Very strange. I should think any sail- 
ing vessel, much more a steamer, could get through with ease. She was not more 
than five miles from us. Late in the evening she steamed away, bearing S. W. We 
gave her up. In the evening she hove in sight again, but further off. While looking 
at her another steamer hove in sight, so that we have two sealers near,—one on each 
side of us; but I do not expect to be picked up by either of them. Hans caught a 
seal, very small and young, a perfect baby of a seal. Dried most of our things to- 
day.” 

From the next and closing entry in Herron’s Journal itis probable that he was mis- 
taken in supposing that the party had been seen from the steamer. Probably the 
musketry which they fired was heard, and supposed to come from some unseen vessel, 
and was answered by the three guns from the steamer. At all events he was 
fortunately mistaken in his belief that they would not be picked up by the other 
steamer. 

‘* Wednesday, April 30th.—Five A. M., weather thick and foggy. Glorious sight 
when the fog broke: a steamer close to us. She sees usand bears down on us. We 
are saved, thank God! We are safe on board the Tigress of St. Johns, Captain 
Bartlett. He says the other steamer could not have seen us, as the captain is noted 
for his humanity. The Tigress musters 120 men, the kindest and most obliging I 
have ever met. Picked up in latitude 52° 30’ N.” 


Here closes this most remarkable journal, of which we have given only the leading 
points. That a party of nineteen persons, among whom were two women, and five 
children, one of them only two months old, should thus have drifted well nigh 2,000 
miles, for 195 days all through an Arctic winter of unusual severity, and come out 
not merely alive but in good health, is marvelous. Unless they had been forced to 
adopt Hall’s theory of living there as the Esquimaux live, it is hardly probable that 
they could have escaped. If they had been left on the ice with an abundance of ship’s 
stores, and so not been thrown mainly upon raw seal and blubber, most likely the 
scurvy would have swept them all away. But were it not for Ebierbing, or ay he is 
here called Esquimaux Joe, they would have caught but few seals, and so would have 
died of starvation. It is safe to believe that had he been with Sir John Franklin, the 


(74 THE POLAR WORLD. 


crews of the Erebus and Terror would have been saved. bierbing stands out every- 
where as the hero of this wonderful story. Hardly less is he the hero of Hall’s 
account of his first expedition ; and should the records of his second expedition ever 
be published, he will appear equally prominent there. The attachment of Kbierbing 
for Hall was something which has no counterpart, saving in that to Robinson Crusoe 
of his ‘‘ Man Friday.” To him also we owe the preservation of the last dispatch 
of Hall. It was contained in Hall’s writing desk, which was thrown upon the ice 
when the Polaris was left. All through that long drift the faithful Esquimaux kept 
guard over it. When provisions, clothing, and almost everything else was thrown 
overboard, he still held fast to that priceless document. If ever a man lived who 
deserves an ample reward while living, and a noble monument when dead, it is this 
little dusky Esquimaux, whose portrait appears in this volume, on page 434. 

Another thing which must strike every reader is the marvelous fidelity and brother- 
liness of that strange party on the ice. Saving for the three instances where one of the 
men appropriated a little of the scanty stock of provisions, there is not a word of im- 
putation of blame upon one of them. ‘The first thought of these sailors, comprising 
almost aS many nationalities as individuals, seems to have been for the Esquimaux 
women and their children. And even in the case of the one person who is mentioned 
with blame, any one who has felt for long weeks the keen gnawings of hunger, will 
be slow to pass a very severe censure. All this is the more remarkable from the fact 
that all this self-restraint was self-imposed. There was no one who really had any right 
to command, or any power to enforce an order. In his testimony before the commis- 
sioners, Herron says: ‘‘ Captain Tyson had command on the ice ; but he never seemed 
to take much of a lead. Everything seemed to goon very well. ‘There was not a 
great deal of commanding ; it wasnot wanted. When we did not do as he directed it 
turned out wrong.”’ 


The fate of the Polaris, and of the men left on board of her, is as yet uncertain. 
When last seen she seemed safe from present danger. She had an abundance of 
provisions on board, and so there is little apprehension that her crew have suffered 
starvation. But she was most likely badly crippled by the storm which separated her 
from the ice floe, and probably laid up at or near Northumberland Island. She had 
not a single boat left, so that the crew could not by that means make their escape to 
the Greenland settlements far to the south. ‘To ascertain the facts in the case, the 
Navy Department has promptly taken proper measures. The steamer Juniata, the 
best for the purpose at the disposal of the Department, has been sent to the Green- 
land ports ; but it is not expected that she can penetrate the icy region to the north. 
If by the time, say late in July, 1873, when she reaches Disco. no tidings has 
reached there of the Polaris, her work will have been accomplished. Meanwhile a 
more effective expedition has been organized. The Tigress, built expressly for navi- 
gation in the ice, has been purchased and brought to New York, there to be fitted up 
for a voyage to the far north. She set sail onthe 18th of July, with orders, first of 
all, to find if possible, the Polaris and her crew. That failing, she was to push north, 
ward, and endeavor to complete the work begun by Hall. At best, however, she 
cannot be expected to reach the icy seas during the summer of 1873. So that, 
assuming that she sets out from Greenland, in the summer of 1874, and finds tha 


THE LAST EXPEDITION OF CHARLES FRANCIS HALL. 775 


Polaris and her crew at or near Northumberland Island, another year must pass 
before we can know more than we now know of the results of Hall’s last expedition. 
Till then it is right and just that judgment should be suspended as to the real cause 
of the death of Hall, and the conduct of those who after that event had command in 
the expedition. 


Thus rests the matter in the closing days of July, 1873. 


776 


THE POLAR WORLD. 


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OFFICERS OF THE POLARIS. 


THE LAST EXPEDITION OF CHARLES FRANCIS HALL. 777 


CHAPTER XLV. 
THE FATE OF THE POLARIS. 


The Search for the Polaris.—The First Tidings.—Second Tidings of the Safety of the Crew. 
—The Search for the Tigress.—At Northumberland Island.—At Littleton Island.—Greet- 
ing by the Esquimaux.—Last of the Polaris.—The Abandoned Hut.—Close of the Search. 
—The Escape of the Crew of the Polaris——The Separation in the Ice.—®Beaching the 
Vessel.—Preparations for the Winter.—Forebodings for the Future.—Chester, the Right 
Man for the Emergency.—Building the Boats.—The Scurvy.—Getting off.—Skirting the 
Ice.—At Hakluyt Island.—Fighting a Whale-—The Rescue.—Arrival at Dundee.—Recep- 
tion of the News.—Results of the Expedition.—Finis. 


N the preceding chapter has been narrated the voyage of the Polaris to the most- 
extreme northern point ever as yet reached by civilized man, together with the 
untimely death of Charles Francis Hall, her noble commander, and the wonderful 
adventures of that portion of her crew who, on the 15th of October, 1872, became 
separated from the vessels. Mention has also been made of the two vessels, the large 
Juniata and the small Tigress, which were sent by the government of the United 
States to ascertain the fate of the Polaris, and, if possible, to rescue the remainder of 
her crew. This chapter will narrate the results of these efforts, and bring to a close 
the story of this remarkable exploring expedition. 

After the departure of the Tigress from New York, in July, 1873, weeks passed 
before any tidings came back from the Arctic regions, whither she had gone. But, 
on the 10th of September, the telegraph brought from St. Johns, Newfoundland, a 
brief dispatch to the effect, that the place where the people of the Polaris had passed 
the preceding winter had been found; that the vessel, herself, had been lost ; but 
that the crew had, a few weeks before, set off southward in boats, which they had con- 
structed, and that, in all likelihood, they had been picked up by some whaling vessel 
which would convey them either to Labrador or Europe. 

A week later came another telegram announcing that the Polaris party had all 
arrived safely in Dundee, Scotland, whither they had been brought by a whaling 
vessel. : 

The story of the search is best told by Commander Green, of the Tigress; what, in 
the meantime, happened to the people of the Polaris, must be learned from their own 
narratives. 

The Tigress reached the Arctic seas in safety, and on the 11th of August, 1873, 
steamed northward from Upernavik, heading for Tessuisak, which Hall, two years 
before, had styled the most northern known civilized settlement on the globe. At 


Tessuisak, not a word had been heard from the Polaris since she had so hopefully de- 
50 


778 THE POLAR WORLD. 


EQUATOR 


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TROPIC OF 


WESTERN HEMISPHERE. 


[In the Western Hemisphere, the Polar World includes the space between the 
Pole and latitude 50° North, and between the Pole and latitude 40° South. The 
Temperate Zones are between latitude 50° and 30° North, and 40° and 30° South. 
Thus in the Western Hemisphere the two Polar regions are 10° broader, and the 
Temperate Zones 10° narrower than in the Eastern Hemisphere. ] 


THE LAST EXPEDITION OF CHARLES FRANCIS HALL. 779 


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Tropical Zones in both hemispheres lie on each side of the Equator between latitude 
30° North, and 30° South.] 


780 THE POLAR WORLD. 


parted. A steam launch, the little Juniata, belonging to the large Juniata, was here. 
She had gone as far northward as she could, but had learned nothing of the Polaris. 

On the 12th of August the Tigress pointed her prow northward, and soon passed 
Cape York, keeping as close to the shore as the ice would permit, and all the time 
watching for any signal that might be made from the land. But the ice-bound coast 
gave back no signal that any human being saw the smoke from the steamer. 

On the 18th, the Tigress skirted Northumberland Island, near which, as was 
_ believed, and as is noted on the map, on page 756, Tyson and his party were sepa. 
rated from the Polaris; but some of that party, who were on board the Tigress, could 
not recognize the spot; and it was concluded that the separation had really taken 
place at some place still further northward. At 9 in the evening, of the 14th, as 
measured by the clock, though at this season, in these latitudes, there is scarcely any 
distinction between day and night, they brought up at Littleton Island, standing out 
darkly in the wintry sky. This looked like the place for which they were in search ; 
and a boat was lowered and sent to shore to learn, if might be, whether the Polaris 
had ever been there. The boat dodged among the icebergs and was soon lost to 
view ; but before long a faint sound of cheering was heard from the shore. In an 
hour or two the boat came back with tidings. ‘The crew had landed, and saw dimly 
in the distance a hut which had evidently been built by civilized men, while hurrying 
down to meet them were a half dozen Esquimaux, who told them, as well as they 


—— ee —— 
—— — 
—— 


DISCOVERY OF POLARIS CAMP. 


could, that this was the place where some white men had passed the preceding winter, 
but that they had gone away a moon or two before, about the time when the ducks 
began to hatch. 

These Esquimaux had been on a hunting expedition, and when they came here 
they found the big ship tied fast to the shore, and the white men living in the hut. 
When they went away, their head man had told the Esquimaux that they might have 
the ship, and all there was left on board. But not long after, a gale of wind came 


THE LAST EXPEDITION OF CHARLES FRANCIS HALL. 781 


on; the ship broke loose, and drifted a mile or two away, and then sunk in shallow 
water. An ice-floe, with a couple of icebergs, also drifted down, and grounded on 
the wreck. The bergs were still there, and for years to come these icy mountains will 
form a monument grander than man has ever built, to mark the resting-place of the 
Polaris. 

Every thing on shore confirmed the story of these Esquimaux. There stood a 
comfortable wooden house, built of planks and roofed with sails, with bunks, mattresses, 
and appliances for cooking, and a carpenter’s bench with fresh shavings near it. All 
around the hut were scattered provisions, stores, broken instruments, and fragments 
of books and papers, all in a useless condition. The whole place looked like a house 
from which the tenant had just removed, pitching out in confusion everything not 
worth carrying away. ‘There was not the slightest indication that there had been any 
violence, or any extraordinary suffering. The position of this camp is in latitude 78° 
23’ North, a little beyond the place which had been Hayes’ winter quarters in 1860- 
1861. 

The Tigress having learned here all that could be gathered from the Esquimaux, 
and picked up the few things worth carrying off, then steamed down Baffins’ Bay, 
looking in at Tessuisak and Upernavik, and reaching Disco on the 25th of August. 
Every thing showed that the missing men could be nowhere on the Greenland coast, 
and that they must either have been lost in the ice, or, as there was good reason to 
hope, had been picked up by some whaler. The work of search was accomplished, 
and the Tigress returned to New York. 


We now follow the fate of the men who had been left on board the Polaris on the 
15th of October, 1872. Their story in most respects confirms, and in some respects 
supplements that told by the nineteen from whom they had been separated. 

The Polaris had for a long time been leaking so badly that it had been resolved to 
abandon her, it being thought certain that she could float but a little longer. All 
hands were engaged, some on the vessel, some on the ice, in getting out every thing 
which could be of use for a sojourn, the length of which no man could know, in the 
unhospitable North. At this moment the hawsers which held the vessel to an ice-floe 
parted, and she drifted helplessly away. It is hard to say which were in the more 
hopeless condition, those on the quivering ice or those on the leaky Polaris. In all 
human probability, the fate of all was sealed. It was apparently only a question of 
time. Those on the vessel would most likely live the longer, for they had apparently 
more means of preserving life for a season. 

As it was clear that the Polaris could never reach any port, the most that could be 
done, was to endeavor to keep her afloat long enough to reach some place where she 
could be beached, and her provisions and stores could be saved. Her engines seem to 
have been frozen up so as to be useless ; but luckily a crack opened in the solid ice, 
and the wind was blowing sharply from a direction to take the vessel through the 
narrow passage. Probably the distance from shore was less than half a dozen miles, 
but it took twelve hours to bore through the slush. | 

The Polaris fairly beached, the next thing was to provide a shelter on shore, and to 
secure the stores for the long Arctic winter, which was now setting in. The vessel 
was soon reduced to little more than a hulk. The timbers between deck were torn 


782 THE POLAR WORLD. 


out, and the planks and boards removed. Ina few days, a hut was constructed of 
these planks, and roofed over with sails. Fortunately also, the party of Esquimaux 
made their appearance; and for a few bits of iron, and other things which to us seem 
paltry, but which to them are more valuable than gold or silver, they engaged to help 
in conveying the provisions, coal and stores from the vessel to the hut. Moreover, 
they had been unusually successful in their hunting, and had an abundance of skins, 
of which they were glad to dispose. These furnished materials from which warm, 
though far from inodorous clothing might be fashioned. 

The long winter, during which their nineteen comrades were performing their mar- 
velous drift on the ice, was passed with little actual discomfort. The snow, indeed, 
fell furiously, but it served to bank up their hut, and exclude the cold. The Polaris 
was a wood-pile ready at hand, sufficient to furnish fuel for a time.. Water could be 
had by melting the ice, of which the supply was unlimited. For a while, at least, 
they had provisions. 

But all these supplies would in time be consumed ; after which, death would stare 
them in the face. The great point came up, how they were to get away ; for it must 
be borne in mind, they had no good reason to suppose that for another year at least, 
any report of the probable loss of the Polaris, would reach the United States, and 
therefore there was no likelihood that any expedition would be sent for their relief. 
The boats had’ all been lost; and they had no means of making an overland journey 
over the rocks and ice. 

In great emergencies the right man sometimes comes to the front. So was it here. 
The right man for this emergency was not Buddington, the commander ; it was not 
Bessels, the scientist; it was not Bryan, the astronomer and chaplain. It was 
Chester, the mate. He, with the aid of Coffin, the carpenter, undertook to build 
a couple of boats, or rather scows, from the fragments of boards, pierced with nail- 
holes, which had formed the lining of the cabins. Week after week the work went 
slowly but surely on; and as the brief summer drew near, the boats were finished. 

But now appears an enemy more formidable than even cold or darkness. The 
scurvy made its appearance ; not, indeed, in a violent form, but there was, judging 
from all that the experience of others had taught, every reason to apprehend the worst. 
But here the teachings of the dead Hall, which he had learned during his long sojourn 
in the Arctic regions, came into play. The men abandoned the use of salted food, 
and betook themselves to raw walrus liver, and in a short time the dreaded enemy 
was vanquished. 

Luckily, also, the season was unusually early. The ice began to give way about 
the middle of June, and the party embarked in their frail boats. The chances were 
fearfully against their ever being able to escape from the icy walls of their prison ; 
and so, while the Juniata and Tigress were being fitted out to search for them, they 
were on their way. 

By day they rowed along, and by night drew up their little craft upon the ice, and 
prepared their only warm meal for the day. Their cooking apparatus was simply a 
modification of the Esquimaux lamp. For fuel they had oil; for wick, bits of rope ; 
for fire-place, a piece of an iron kettle. At Hakluyt Island, they were detained for 
several days by a violent snow-storm, which, however, proved to be a blessing in dis- 
guise ; for the island is a breeding place for the auks, who were just hatching their 


THE LAST EXPEDITION OF CHARLES FRANCIS HALL. 783 


young. It was for them a land of plenty, for the birds were so abundant that the 
supply was only limited by their power of consumption and of carrying away. 

Then they again set out, laboriously rowing through the slush, and skirting the solid 
ice-floes, until the 20th of July ; two days before the Tigress set out from New York 
in search of them, the party caught sight of a vessel. ‘They were discovered and taken 
on board. This proved to be the Ravenscraig, a Scottish whaler, by which they 
were taken up. ‘This whaler, not having her cargo filled up, and wishing to complete 
it, transferred the men to the Arctic, another steam-whaling vessel, which, being full, 
was starting homeward. They reached Dundee, Scotland, in the afternoon of Sep- 
tember 17. Before night closed, the telegraph had conveyed the news from Dundee 
to London, and thence across the Atlantic to America ; and the New York morning 
newspapers, of September 19, contained the report of the safety of the men of the 
Polaris. 

Here ends the story of the most remarkable of all Arctic voyages. Of the forty 
persons, men, women, and children who, at one time or another, took part in it, only 
one perished. But that was the one who, of all, could be least spared. With Hall, 
died out the heart and soul of the expedition. The men were subsequently brought 
to America. But so far as yet appears, they had nothing to tell of any value. Most 
likely the reports of the scientific portion will add a little to our knowledge of the 
natural history and meteorology of the Arctic regions. 

Still later, other expeditions have been proposed. But it may be confidently 
assumed that years more will elapse before anything important will be added to what 
is now embodied in “‘ The Polar World.” 


THE END. 


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A. 


Ape tig, Terre, discovery of, 402. 

Agouti, the, of Patagonia, 419. 

Agriculture, state of, in Iceland, 79. 

Aigun, treaty of, 196. 

Air, remarkable moisture of the, in Taimurland, 
228. 

, its perpetual motion in the Arctic zones, 225. 

Akurig, eider-ducks of, 81. 

Albasin, the Russian fort of, built, 195. 

——, destroyed by the Chinese, but rebuilt, 196. 

Albatross, wandering, of the Antarctic seas, 395. 

Alcyonians on the coasts of Greenland, 59. 

Aleutian Islands, causes which led to the discovery 
of the, 201. 

, extent of the, 270. 

Aleuts, their wretched condition under their mas- 
ters, 273. 

, their skill and intrepidity in hunting, 273- 
276. | 

Alexander, Cape, discovery of, 365. 

Island, discovery of, 401. 

Algerine pirates, ravages of, in Iceland, 95; and in 
the Westman Islands, 119. 

Alaska, discovery of, 202. 

, climate of the, 269. 

—, mountains and forests of, 269. 

——, purchase of, by the Americans, 277. 

——., telegraph through, 278. 

, travelling in, 278-289. 

, natives of, 278-289. 

——,, climate of, 284. 

—, food in, 287. 

Almannagja, description of the, 73. 

Altai Mountains, crossed by the Cossacks, 195. 

Alten, copper mines of, 128. 

Altenfjord, vegetation of the borders of the, 128. 

America, North, treeless zone of, 18-22. 

. character of the Conifere of, 23, 24. 

, range of the caribou, or reindeer, of, 36-39. 

-~—, the musk-ox of, 41. 

——., the white dolphin in the rivers of, 61. 

——, the blaek dolphin of, 61. 

, walruses of the shores of, 64. 

——,, history of the fur-trade of, 307 et seq. 

——,, first discoverers and settlers of, 335. 

America, North, destruction of the Greenland colo- 
nies, 335. 

, Subsequent discoveries, 335 et seq. 

——., attempts to discover the north-western pas- 
sage to India, 342 et seq. 

America, Russian, its transfer to the United States, 
272, note. 

Amoor, river, discovery of the, by the Russians, who 
relinquish it to the Chinese, 195, 196. 

——, the country annexed by Russia, 196. 


Anakerdluk, in North Greenland, buried forest oi 
29: 

Angekoks, or priests of the Esquimaux, 301. 

Animals, comparatively small number of, in the 
Arctic regions, 25. 

, the forests the head-quarters of many, 41. 

— of the Arctic Seas, 59. 

—— of the coasts of Spitzbergen, 1384. 

——,, fur-bearing, of Siberia, 209. 

——, the, of Taimurland, 227. 

—— of Nishne-Kolymsk, 239. 

—— of Newfoundland, 378. 

——, no land, in the Antarctic region, 394. 

—— of Patagonia, 418. 

Aniuj, vegetation of the valley of the, 235. 

, chief resource of the people of the, 237. 

Anjou, Lieut., his Arctic explorations, 233. 

Archangel, foundation of, 192. 

, New, site of the town of, 272. 

——, fur-trade of, 273. 

, medium of exchange at, 276. 

Archers, the Ostiaks as, 187. 


-Arctic regions, rivers of the, 17. 


——,, limits of the, 18. 

——,, the forests of the, 18-23. 

——, their treeless wastes, or Tundra, 18. 

——, in summer and winter, 19. 

——, their extent and boundaries, 21. 

, animal life in the, 25. 

——, influence of the sea and winds on the severity 
of the winter of the, 27. 

——,, the lowest temperatures felt by man, 27, 28. 

——., how man becomes accustomed to the rigors of 
the winter of the, 28. 

——, proofs of a former milder climate in the north- 
ern regions of the globe, 29. 

——., beauties of Nature in the, 31-33. 

——, land quadrupeds and birds of the, 84. 

——,, the seas of the, 49. 

—— compared with the Antarctic regions, 391. 

Arctic voyages of discovery, 385 et seg. 787 et seq 

Are Thorgilson, his Icelandic werks, 94. 

Argali (Ovis argalz) of Siberia, 41. 

Arrows of the Ostiaks, 187, 188. 

Ascidians on the coasts of Greenland, 59. 

Ash, the, in the Arctic regions, 24. 

Asia, treeless zone of, 18-22. 

Athabascan Indians, hunting-grounds of the, 327. 

Atlassoff, the Cossack, his treatment of the natives 
ot Kamchatka, 198. 

Atmosphere, transparency of the, in the Polar re- 
gions, 54, 55. 

——, phenomena of, reflection and refraction, and 
their probable causes, 55. 

Auk, the giant, its rarity at present in Iceland, 85. 

Aurora borealis, 33. 

——, splendor of the, in the Arctic regions, 33, 


788 


Aurora borealis, terror of the Lapps at the, 157. 

—, at Nulato, 281. 

Austin, Captain, his search for Franklin, 357. 

Avalanches of ice in Spitzbergen, 139. 

Awaklok and Myouk, their imprisonment on an 
iceberg, 298. 

Awatscha Bay, sea-birds of, 255. 

——,, its magnificence and extent, 256. 


B. 


Baaty Kwavy, his subjection of Russia, 191. 

Bachelor river, the, 412. 

Back (Mr., afterwards Sir George), his Arctic voy- 
ages, 346, 347, 349. 

——,, his search for Captain Ross, 354. 

——, his discovery of Great Fish River, 355. 

——, voyage in 1835, 355. 

Back’s river, discovery of, 355. 

Badarany, desert of swamps, the, 234. 

Baer, Herr von, his scientific journey to Nova 
Zembla, 151. 

Baffin, his voyages of discovery, 343. 

Baffin’s Bay, probable influence of the northerly 
winds on the depression of the temperature of, 
ills 

Baffin’s Bay, walruses of the coasts of, 64. 

, discovery of, 343. 

Balleny, his discoveries in the Antarctic ocean, 401. 

Islands, discovery of, 401. 

Banks’s Land, proofs of a former milder tempera- 
ture in, 29. 

Bards, or Scalds, of Iceland, 94. 

Barentz, William, visit of, to Spitzbergen, 138. 

, his voyages of discovery, 339. 

, his winter in Nova Zembla, 340. 

——,, his death, 342. 

Barley, cultivation of, in Norway, 124. 

Barren grounds, barrens, or tundri, Arctic belt of 
the, 18. 

——, causes of their barrenness, 18. 

——, their appearance in winter and in summer, 19. 

, indistinct and irregular boundaries of the, 21. 

, those of Newfoundland, 377. 

Barrow Point, traffic of, 302. 

Barter Reef, traffic of, 302. 

Bear, black, muskwa (Ursus americanus), value of 
the fur of the, 315. 

—, description of him, 315, 318. 

——, brown, of North America, 315. 

——. value of the skins of the young brown bear, 
ZA 

, grizzly, of the Rocky Mountains (Ursus fe- 
rox), 315. 

-~—, his skin, 315. 

_ ——, the polar, his mode of hunting, 65, 446, 448. 

——,, his favorite food and mode of seizing it, 65, 
447, 450, 451. 

, anecdote of one, 65. 

——,, instances of his sagacity, 65. 

——.,, parental care of the she-bear, 65. 

, her winter nursery, 65, 66. 
her internal store of food for her hyber aatiow 


Ge 
——, immense strength of claws and teeth. 66, 67. 
——,, his unwelcome visits to Iceland, 81. 
— of Spitzbergen, 137. 
—— of Nova Zembla, 149. 
, Lapp mode of hunting the, 164-166. 
——, Esquimaux methods of hunting the, 163. 


INDEX. 


Bear of Newfoundland, 378. 

—-—, abundance of, in Kamchatka, 258. 

——, sea-, value of the skins of the, in China, 374, 

, chase of the, in the Pribilow Islands, 274. 

families and battles, 274, 275. 

——, the Austral sea-, 399. 

——,, hunted by dogs, 453. 

Bear Island, or Cherie Island, account of, 143. 

——., climate of, 144. 

——, walruses of, 144. 

-—,, boat-voyages of Norwegian sailors from, 145. 

-—, discovery of, 340. 

——, surveyed by the Russians, 200. 

Beaver (Custor fiber), its skin the standard of ex-. 
change with the Canadian Indians, 313. 

, former enormous trade in the fur of the, 317. 

of Newfoundland, 378. 

Beaver Indians, their hunting-grounds, 327. 

Bee, sand (Andrena), of Nova Zembla, 154. 

Beech, Antarctic (Fagus betuloides), 410. 

Seay Captain, his voyage to Bering’s Straits, 

Beerenberg mountain, 146. 

Bering, Titus, never passed through the straits bear- 
ing his name, 197. 

, his second voyage, 201. 

——,, his second voyage of discovery, 248, 249. 

——, his bad conduct, 250. 

, his death, 252. 

Bering Island, Bering and Steller on, 251. 

Sea, description of the, 268. 

——, barren lands at, 22. 

, seals and walruses of, 63, 64. 

——,, its climate, 269. 

——,, character of the shores of the, 270. 

——, animals of the, 271. 

Bering’s Straits, view of the Old and New worlds in 
the, 271. 

, Captain Beechey’s voyage to, 350. : 

Belcher, Sir Edward, his search for Franklin, 359. 

Bellinghausen, his discovery of the islands Paul the 
First and Alexander, 401. 

Bellot, Lieut., his gallant search for Franklin, 359. 

, his death and monument, 362. 

Beluga, or white dolphin (Delphinus leucas), de- 
scription of the, 61. 

, domain of the, 61. 

Beluga Bay, visit of Von Baer’s party to, 151. 

Bennet, Stephen, his visit to Bear Island, 143, 144. 

Berry-gathering in Nishne-Kolymsk, 238. 

Bilberries of the Arctic regions, 24. 

Billings, voyage of, on the coast of Siberia, 201. 

Birch, paper, value of the, in North America, 304. 

Birch-trees in the Arctic regions, 24. 

Birds, flights of wild, in summer months, in the 
Tundra, 19. 

——, their migrations to and from high latitudes, 
43, 44, 67. | 

——, the polar singing-bird, the snow-bunting, 43. 

——, raptorial, of the Arctic regions, 43. 

——, enormous numbers of, along the Arctic shores, 
67. 

——, Icelandic, 81. 

—— of the coast of Norway, 124. 

of Spitzbergen, 133, 134, 137. 

—— of Nova Zembla, 154. 

——. a bird bazar, 154. 

——, abundance of sea-fowl on the coast of Kam- 
chatka, 255. 

——, Esquimaux mode of bird-catching, 295. 

——, abundance of, on the coast of Greenland, 388. 


INDEX, 


Birds of the coasts of the Antarctic sea, 394. 

of Patagonia, 419. 

Birkarls, their final subjugation of the Lapps, 156. 

Biscoe, his discovery of Enderby Land, and of Gra- 
ham Land, 401. 

Black death, ravages of the, in the North, 383. 

Blackfeet Indians, their wars with the Tinné and 
Crees, 319, 320. 

Bloody Falls, on the Coppermine river, 294. 

Boats of the Esquimaux, 293. 

, the birch-bark canoes of North America, 304. 

Bogberries of the Arctic regions, 24. 

Booth, Sir Felix, his Arctic expedition, 251. 

Bougainville, his voyage through the Strait of Ma- 
gellan, 414. 

Brandt, the Danish forester, his journey with Von 
Middendorff, 220. 

Brandy, fondness of the Samoiedes for, 171-173. 

drunk at Kolymsk, 238. 

Brant Ysbrantzoon, his voyages of discovery, 339. 

Bread of the poor Icelanders, 79. 

Bredal, Eric, his education of Lapps in Christianity, 
156. 

Bridges, swing, of Iceland, 111. 

Browne, T. Ross, 74, 95, 104, 115. 

Buchan, Captain, his Arctic voyage, 344. 

Bunting, its migrations to and from the north, 43. 

—, the Lapland (Centrophanes Lapponicus), lati- 
tudes inhabited by. the, 43, 44. 

Bunting, the snow, the polar singing-bird, 44. 

Bunting, its nest and food, 44. 

—— of Iceland, 81. 

of Spitzbergen, 137. 

Burglars, treatment of, in Russia, 206. 

Burrough, Stephen, his voyage to discover the 
north-eastern passage, 336. 

Busa, Jelissei, his ascent of the rivers Lena and 
Olekma, 195. 

——,, his discovery of the Tana, 195. 

——,, his residence among the Jukahirs, 195. 

Butter made from the reindeer milk, 36. 

Butterflies in Taimurland, 227. 

Byron, Commodore, his voyage through the Strait 
of Magellan, 414. 


C. 


CasBor, John and Sebastian, their re-discovery of 
parts of North America, 335. 

, their re-discovery of Newfoundland, 379. 

Canada, enterprise of the French settlers in, 396. 

, results of the English conquest of, 306. 

, history of the fur-trade of, 307. 

Cano, Sebastian el, his voyage round the globe, 413. 

Canoes, birch-bark, of North America, 34, 305. 

Cape, North, description of the, 129, 130. 

Caribou, or reindeer of North America, range of 
the, 36. 

Carrancha, the, of Patagonia, 419, 420. 

Cartier, Jacques, his voyages, 335. 

Caryophyllz, the, of the treeless zone, 21. 

Cascades of Iceland, 78. 

Castor and Pollux river, discovery of, 356. 

Castren, Matthias Alexander, account of him and 
of his journeys, 168-178. 

Catherine’s Foreland, Queen, 409. 

Cattle, value of, to the Icelands, 80. 

Cavendish, his voyages, 414. 

Chancellor, his discovery of the passage from Eng- 
land to the White Sea, 192. 


789 


Chancellor, his voyage to discover the north-eastern 
route to China, 336. 

——, his visit to Moscow, and subsequent fate, 336. 

Charles [X., King of Sweden, his kindness to the 
Lapps, 156. 

Chatanga river, scanty population of the, 220. 

——., Middendorff's journey to the, 220, 221. 

Chatangsk, Middendorff’s journey to, 221. 

Cheese made from reindeer milk, 36. 

Cherie Island, account of, 144. 

Chess-players of the Tungusi, 246, 

Chickweed, the, on the Mary Minturn river, 20. 

Chimengo, the, of Patagonia, 419. 

China, Castrén’s journey over the mountains into, 
ALi Ke 

Chinese take the Russian fort of Albasin, 195; and 
make the treaty of Nertschinsk with the Rus- 
sians, 196. 

-, the treaty broken by the Russians, who com- 

pel the Chinese to give them the Amoor, 196, 

Chinga (Mephitis ching), its foetid secretion, 316, 

Christian IV., King of Denmark, his treatment of 
the Lapp priests and sorcerers, 156. 

——,, his expedition to Greenland, 383. 

Christianity, introduction of, into Iceland, 92. 

Churches of the Icelanders, 104. 

Clavering, his voyage to Greenland, 386. 

Clerzy of the Lapps, their poverty and self-denial, 
157. 

——,, their sermons, 157. 

——,, those of Iceland all blacksmiths, 101, noée, 106. 

, their poverty, 106. 

Coal, does not exist in Iceland, 88. 

of Spitzbergen, 137. 

in Coal Bay, 149. 

Coal Bay, 145. 

Cochlearia fenestrata, the only esculent plant in 
Spitzbergen, 136, 142. 

Cod and cod-fishing of the coast of Iceland, 86, 87. 

, the, called stockfish, 87. 

——, the cod-fishery of Norway, 125-130. 

, wretched state of the fix~hermen, 127. 

——., exports of, to various countries, 129. 

——,, cod-fishery of Greenland, 388. 

——, value of the cod-fishery of Newfoundland 
379, 380. 

——, mode of fishing and curing the cod, 380. 

, dangers of the fishery, 381. 

, immense numbers of, 381. 

Cod-liver oil of Tromsé, 128. 

Collinson, Captain, his search for Franklin, 359, 
361. 

Commodore Islands, chase of the sea-bear on the, 
274. 

Condor, the, of Patagonia, 420. 

Conifer, Arctic forests almost confined to the, 24, 

, difference between the European and Asiatic 
and American species, 24. 

Constitution, Cape, discovery of, 369. 

Cook, his attempt to discover the northwest pas- 
sage, 344. 

Cook, Captain, his discovery of South Georgia, 393, 

, his Antarctic voyages, 401. 

Copper mines near Drontheim, 124, 

of Alten, 128. 

of Raipass, 128. 

Coppermine river, Dr. Richardson’s voyage to the, 
349. 

Cornelius Ryp, his voyages of discovery, 340, 341. 

Cornelius Corneliszoon, his voyages of discovery, 
339. 


790 INDEX. 


Cornicularie, carpets of, and the treeless zone, 21. 

Cortereal, his voyages of discovery, 325. 

Cossacks, Don, their depredations, 192. 

, their conquest of Siberia for the Czar, 193. 

, their privileges and duties in Nishne-Ko- 
lymsk, 236. 

Coureur des bois, the, of North America, 304. 

Cranberries of the Arctic regions, 24. 

Cree Indians, uses of the paper-birch-tree to the, 
305. 

, range of the various tribes of, 319. 

, their conquests of the Tinné, but subsequent 

defeat, 319, 320. 

, their wars with the Blackfeet, 320, 321 

——,, their character, 321. 

——, their customs, habits, and dress, 321, 322, 
323. 

——,, their wives and families, 323. 

——, their cradles, 323. 

——, their wigwams, or tents, 324. 

——., their medicine-men and vapor-baths, 324. 

——,, their games and sports, 324, 325. 

——,, their wooden figures for worship, 325. 

, their malicious or capricious spirit, called 

Kepoochican, 325. 

, their notion of the Great Spirit and of the 

Deluge, 325. 

, their Tartarus and Elysium, 325. 

, prospects of Christianity amongst them, 326. 

Cross, the game of, of the Cree Indians, 325. 

Crowe, Mr., his copper mines at Alten, 128. 

Crozier, Captain, his last voyage, 356. 

, the last heard of him, 364. 

, his Antarctic voyages} 402. 

Cruciferze, the, of the treeless zone, 20. 

Crustaceans, immense numbers of, on the coast of 
Greenland, 59. 

Cumberland Strait, Davis’s discovery of, 337, 338. 

Currents, magnificent system of, and their effects 
on the accumulation of ice, 56, 57. 


D. 


Dances of the Tchuktchi, 266. 

Darwin, Mr., his ascent of Mount Tarn, 411. 

Davis, John, his voyages to discover an Arctic pas- 
sage to India, 337. 

, his visit to Labrador, 338. 

, his subsequent life, 338. 

Davis’s Straits, probable influence of the northerly 
winds on the depression of the temperature of, 
27. 

, Sebastian Cabot’s discovery of, 335. 

Dead, reverence paid to the, by the Samoiedes, 181. 

Dease, Peter Warren, his land Arctic expedition, 
355. 

Death, black, its ravages in Iceland, 95. 

Deception Island, account of, 393. 

Deer, red (Cervus elephas), its habitat and uses to 
man, 40. 

Deer of Vogelsang and Treurenberg Bay, 137. 

Deluge, Cree legend of the, 325. 

Demidoff, foundation of the family of, 219. 

, their enormous wealth, 219. 

Deschnew, Semen, his the first and last voyage 
through Bering’s Strait, 197. 

Desolation, South, 412. 

Detti-foss, an Icelandic cascade, Mr. Gould’s de- 
scription of the, 78. 

Disco bay, icebergs formed in, 49. 


Divers, their migrations to and from the north, 42. 

Dog-rib Indians, hunting-grounds of the, 327. 

, their character, dress, and customs, 327, 329, 

——,, their want of hospitality, 329. 

——,, their honesty, 329. 

, their notions of a future life, 329. 

Dog, the reindeer of the Lapps, 161. 

, Wrangell’s dog-sledges on the Polar sea, 

239. 

, Icelandic, 80. 

——,, the, of the people of Kolymsk, 236. 

——, the Kamchatkan, and dog-sledges, 258, 259. 

——, their mode of foretelling storms, 259. 

——., mode of training sledge-dogs, 259. 

, trained by Esquimaux to attack the bear, 
297. 

——,, description of the, and dog-sledges of the Es- 

imaux, 299. 

qu, Dr. Kane’s Newfoundland and Esquimaux, 

367. 

, epidemic amongst the Esquimaux, 372. 

Dolgorouky, Prince, his exile to Siberia, 205. 

Dolphin, white, or beluga, of Nova Zembla, 154, 

, Greenland fishery of the, 387. 

Dolphins of the Polar seas, 61,-398. 

, the beluga, or white dolphin, 61. 

——.,, the black dolphin, ‘‘ ca’ing ” whale, or grind, 
61. 

——., the orc, or grampus, 62. 

- of Spitzbergen, 137. 

Drake, Sir Francis, his voyage through the Strait 
of Magellan, 414. 

Drifanda Foss, an icelandic cascade, 114. 

Drontheim, the red deer near, 40. 

, description of, 124. 

Ducks, wild, of the Arctic regions, 19. 

, their migrations to and from the north, 42. 

of Iceland, 81, 84. 

Dudinka, Castrén’s visit to, 176. 

Dungeness, Point, 409. 

Durfoorth, his voyage and death, 336. 

D’Urville, Dumont, his discoveries in the Antarctic 
ocean, 402. 

Dutch, their expeditions to discover an Arctic pas- 
sage to India, 339. 


E. 


EAGLE, the sea- (/Halietus albicilla), of the north, 
44, 
, his food, 44. 
——, white-tailed, of Iceland, 85. 
, value of the skins of the, 85. 
——, the, on the coast of Norway, 125. 

, in the Tundra in summer, 19. 
Ebierbing, 441, 466, 773, 774, 758-761, ~ 
Egede, Hans, his voyage to Greenland, 384. 
Egg-viare of the coast of Norway, 124. 


Egilson, Olaf, the Westman clergyman, his slavery | 


in Algiers, 118. 
Eider-duck, its migrations to and from the north, 
43. 


of Iceland, 81. 

——, breeding of, 83. 

, Mr. Shepherd’s visit to one of its head-quar- 
ters, 83. 

Elder, the, in the Arctic regions, 24. 

Elephant, sea-, of the Antarctic ocean, 399. 

Elk, or moose deer, of the forests of the north, 3% 

——., Cesar’s account of it, 39. | 

, its food and present habitat, 40. 


——- 


INDEX. 


Elk, its mode of defending itself, 40. 

Enara, Lake of, the Fisher Lapps of, 166. 

, description of the, 169. 

Enderby Land, discovery of, 401. 

English pirates, ravages of, in Iceland, 95. 

Erebus, mount, eruption of, 403. 

Eric the Red, his visit to Greenland, 382. 

Ermine (Mustela erminea) beauty and importance 
of the fur of the, 210. 

, those of the Hudson’s Bay Territory, 316. 

Esk, volcano, 146. 

Esquimaux (see also Innuits), their wide extension, 
290. 

——,, their own name of Innuit, 290. 

, character of the regions they inhabit, 290. 

, their physical character, habits, and man- 

ners, 290, 291. 

women, 291. 

——,, their dress and snow-huts, 291, 292. 

——, their boat, the kayak or baidar, 293. 

, their weapons, and fishing and hunting im- 

plements, 293, 294. 

, enmity between them and the Red Indians, 

294. 

, their chase of the reindeer, and bird-catching, 

295. 

, their whale and seal hunts, 295, 296. 

——,, their ‘‘ keep kuttuk,” 296. 

——, their bear and walrus hunts, 296, 298. 

~———,, their dogs and dog-sledges, 299. 

——,, their games and sports, 300. 

, constitution of their society, 300. 

——,, their angekoks, or priests, 300, 301. 

, their moral character, self-reliance, and in- 

telligence, 301, 302. 

, their maps, and predilection for commercial 

pursuits, 302. 

, their voracity, and seasons of abundance and 

distress, 302, 303. 

, their dépdts of food, 302, 303. 

——,, their wars with the Kutchin Indians, 333. 

——., their attack of Franklin’s boats, 349. 

, their hunting expeditions with Dr. Kane’s 

party, 370. 

, their ravages on the Greenland coast, 383. 

Europe, treeless zone of, 18-24. 

Evil Spirit of the woods of the Laplanders, 157. 

Exiles, Siberian, 204, 205. 

, annual number of, 206. 

Eyjafialla, eruption of, in 1821, 96. 

Eystein, King, his benevolence, 126. 


EF; 


Farrorz Isianps, chase of the black dolphin, or 
“‘ ca’ing” whale, in the, 61. 

Falkland Islands, climate of, 394. 

Famine, Port, rich vegetation of, 410, 414. 

Festuca of the Arctic regions, 20. 

Finback whales of Spitzbergen, 137. 

Finches in the Tundra in summer, 19. 

Finmark, trade and fisheries of the coast of, 129. 

Finnur Johnson, the Icelander, his ‘‘ Ecclesiastical 
History of Iceland,”’ 98. 

Fir, different species of, in Europe, Asia, and Amer- 
ica, 24. ° 

Fish, and fishing season of Iceland, 86. 

——, abundance of, in Kamchatka, 255. 

— of Newfoundland, 379. 

—— of Greenland, 387, 


791 


Fish river, Great, Back’s discovery of, 355. 

Fisher Lapps, account of the, 166. * 

Fiskernasset, cod-fishery of, 388. 

Fitzroy, Captain, his surveys of Patagonia and 
Tierra del Fuego, 415. 

Fjall Lappars, or Mountain Lapps, account of the, 
159. 


Flatey, eider-ducks of, 81, 82. 

Flat-fish, abundance of, on the coasts of Iceland, 87. 

Floki, the Viking, his visit to Iceland, 90. 

Flora of Spitzbergen, 136. 

Flowers of the Arctic regions, 20. 

of the island of St. Lawrence, 271. 

— of Taimurland, 226. 

—— of Unalaschka, 269. 

Fogs of the Arctic seas in summer, 54. 

near the island of St. Lawrence, 270. 

off Newfoundland, 380. 

Food, amount of, required by man in the Arctic re- 
gions, 28. 

Forest regions, Arctic, 18. 

, extent of the, 22. 

——,, character of the trees of the, 24. 

——., distinctive character of the forests, 25. 

——., characters of the Arctic forests of the Miocene 
period, 28, 29. 

, legions of gnats in the, 25. 

, changes being effected by the agency of man, 


25. 

Forests, the, head-quarters of many of the Arctic 
fauna, 41. 

, more in than above the earth in Nova Zembla, 

153. 

of Newfoundland, 376. 

Forget-me-not found in Nova Zembla, 153. 

Forster, Captain, his expedition to the Antarctic 
sea, 393. 

Fossils, Arctic, in New Siberia, 203. 

Foulke, Port, Dr. Hayes’s winter at, 372. 

Fox, the Arctic (Canis lagopus), its mode of protect- 
ing itself from the most intense cold, 42. 

Fox, the Arctic, its food and enemies, 42. 

of Spitzbergen, 137. 

in Nova Zembla, 154. 

found in Taimurland, 227. 

of Newfoundland, 378. 

——, black, of Siberia, value of the fur of the, 211. 

——, the Brazilian (Canis Azare), of Patagonia, 
419, 

, red (Vulpes fulvus), the, 211, 317. 

, value of the fur of the, 317. 

Fox Islands, discovery of the, 201. 

France, right of the people of, to fish on the banks 
of Newfoundland, 379. 

Franklin, Lieut. (afterwards Sir John), his first 
Arctic voyage, 344. 

, his first land journey, 346. 

. his second land journey to the shores of the 

Polar sea, 349. 

, loss of his first wife, 350. 

——., his last voyage, 356. 

, searching expeditions sent for him, 356. 

, his fate and that of his companions, 362-364. 

Franklin Island, discovery of, 403. 

Fraser river, voyage of Mackenzie down the, 308. * 

Frederick II., King of Denmark, his expedition to 
Greenland, 383. 

Frederick IV., his foundation of the Finmark mis- 
sion, 156. 

Friedrich, the Saxon bishop, introduces Christiani- 
ty into Iceland, 92. 


792 


Fritillaria Sarrana, used as food in Kamchatka, 258. 

Frobisher, Martin, his endeavors to discover an 
Arctic passage to India, 337. 

, discovery of relics of, 466. 

, his subsequent career, 337. 

Froward, Cape, scenery of, 410. 

Frozen sailor, 464. 

Fruits of the Arctic regions, 24. 

Fuego, Tierra del, climate of, 393. 

, origin of the name, 413. 

, Captain Fitzroy’s survey of, 415. 

, account of the Fuegians, 425. 

, degradation of the Fuegians, 425, 426, 

——,, their powers as mimics, 426. 

——,, their notions of trade, 427. 

, causes of their low state of civilization, 427. 

——,, their food, 428. 

——,, their dress, huts, arms, and ornaments, 428, 
429, 

——,, their cannibalism, 430. 

——,, their language, 430. 

, Captain Fitzroy’s three Fuegians, 430, 431. 

, missionary fabors, 431. 

, Captain Gardiner, 431. 

Fuel, kinds of, used in Iceland, 89. 

Fur, account of the Russian Fur Company, and its 
operations, 272. 

, account of the fur-trade of the Hudson’s Bay 

Company, 304 et seq. 

, trade in, at the fair of Obdorsk, 189. 

of Siberia, 208. 


, importance of the trade in, 212. 
of the Tchuktchi, 264. 


G. 


GABRIEL CHANNEL, williwaws of, 412. 

Gadflies which attack the reindeer, 38. 

Galictis vittata, the, of Patagonia, 418. 

Gambling of the Cree Indians, 324. 

Gardar, the northern pirate, his the first circum- 
navigation of Iceland, 90. 

Gardar’s Holm, or Gadar’s Island, Iceland so called, 
90. 

Gardiner, Captain, his mission to Fuegia, and mel- 
ancholy end, 431. 

Gawrilow, produce of the gold mine of, 218. 

Geese, wild, of the Arctic regions, 19. 

, snow, their migrations to and from the north, 

43. 


of Iceland, 81. 

‘‘George Henry,” the ship, 436. 

George, St., climate of the island of, 270. 

—,, sea-lions and guillemots of, 271. 

Georgia, South, discovery of, 393. 

Germany, the elk or moose-deer of, in the time of 
Cesar, 39. 

Geysir, the Great, description of the, 71. 

Gheritz, Dirck, his discovery of the New Shetland 
Islands, 392. 

Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, takes possession of New- 
foundland, 379. 

Ginklofi, or children’s disease, in the Westman 
Islands, 118. 

Gissur, his work on his voyages to the East, 94. 

, the Icelander, his learning and travels, 98. 

Gjas, or chasms, in Iceland, 76, 77. 

Glacier, the great, in the Gulf of Penas, 394. 

Glaciers, enormous dimensions of the, of the polar 
regions, 50, 


INDEX. 


Glaciers of Magdalena Bay, 135; ice cliffs and ava- 
lanches of, 135. 

of the Beerenberg mountain, 146. 

Glottoff, Stephen, his discovery of Kadiak, 202. 

Gioves, reindeer, of Tornea, 37. 

Glutton, or wolverine, strength and fierceness of 
the, 37. 

Glutton, its attack of the reindeer, 37, 38. 

, its voracity, 38, 

, found in Taimurland, 227. 

——,, those of North America, 316. 

, value and uses of the fur of the, 316. 

Gnats, legions of, in the forests and swamps, 26. 

Goda-foss, the, an Icelandic cascade, 78. 

Gold diggings of Eastern Siberia, 208. 

, description of the gold-fields, 214, 

Gomez, his voyages of discovery, 335. 

Goose, bean (Anser segetum), of Nova Zembla, 155. 

Goose, Brent, its migrations to and from the north, 
43. 

, its rapid flight, 43. 

Graah, Captain, his explorations of the coast of 
Greenland, 386. 

Graham Land, discovery of, 401. 

Grampus, or ore (Delphinus orca), description of 
the, 62. 

, his ferocity and mode of ploughing the seas, 

62. 


of Nova Zembla, 155. 
of the Antarctic Ocean, 398. 
, conflict of one with a whale, 398. 
Grasses, tufted, of the Arctic regions, 20. 
of the treeless zone, 21. 
, paramount importance of the grasses in Ice- 
land, 79. 
of Taimurland, 226. 
Greenland, vast ice-fields of, 27. 
, proofs of a former milder climate in, 29. 
, enormous dimensions of the glaciers of, 50. 
——,, the, whale, 60. 
——,, transparency of the water on the coast of, 59. 
, abundance of animal life in the seas of, 60. 
——.,, walruses of the coasts of the north of, 64. 
——., Kane’s sledge journey along the coast of, 367. 
, unknown extent of, 382. 
, ancient Scandinavian colonists of, 382. 
——., the name of, given to it, 382. 
—,, introduction of Christianity in, 382. 
, decline and fall of the country, 383. 
, subsequent explorations of, 383. 
——., Hans Egede, the pastor, his voyage to, 384. 
, foundation of Godthaab in, 384. 
, arrival of Herrenhuth mi-sionaries in, 384. 
, explorations of the coast of, 385. 
, present Danish settlements of, 386. 
, scanty population of, 386. 
——, mode of life of the people of, 386, 387, 389. 
, fisheries of, 388. 
, poorness of the land in, 388. 
, quantities of drift-wood at, 388. 
——, minerals of, 389. 
——,, Christianity in, 389. 
, Climate, mountains, and fjords of, 389. 
, ice-caves of the coast of, 390. 
, the capital of, 437. 
Greenlanders, their discovery of, and colonies in 
America, 335. 
, destruction of their colonies, 335. 
, their habits, 437. 
Greiffenfeld, his imprisonment in Munkholm, 124. 
Grinds, See Dolphins, black. 


INDEX. 793 


Grinnell Land, vegetation of, 20. 

, Dr. Hayes’s discoveries in, 372-374. 

Guanaco, the, of Patagonia, 419. 

Guano, circumstances which favor the deposit of, 
418. 

Guillemot, on the Pribilow Islands, 271. 

Gulf Stream, influence of, on the south and west 
coasts of Iceland, 79; and on the climate of 
Norway, 121. 

Gull, Ross’s, distance north at which it has been 
seen, 67. 

Gull, ivory, in Taimurland, 227. 

Gustavus I., King of Sweden, his kind treatment 
of the Lapps, 156. 


Gustavus Adolphus, his foundation of a school for. 


the Lapps, 156. 
H. 


Happocks, abundance of, on the coast of Iceland, 
87. 

Hakon, King of Norway, his annexation of Iceland, 
95. 

Hall, Charles Francis, his first Arctic expedition, 433 
et seq. His last expedition and death, 737 e¢ seq. 

, James, his voyage to Greenland, 383. 

Hammerfest, description of the town of, 129. 

, traffic of, 129. 

——,, the people of, 129. 

, cargoes of walruses and seals brought from 
Spitzbergen, 143. 

Hare, the fur of the, of Siberia, 212. 

, ice (Lepus glaciaizs), 317. 

found in Taimurland, 227. 

Hare Indians, hunting-grounds of the, 327. 

, their women, 328. 

Harold Haafager, or the Fair-haired, his establish- 
ment of an absolute monarchy in Norway, £0. 

, exodus caused by his tyranny, 91. 

Harp-seal of the Polar seas, 62. 

- Hatherton, Cape, discovery of, 365. 

Haven, Lieut. de, his search for Franklin, 357, 358. 

Hawks in the Tundra, in summer, 19. 

Hayes, Dr., his sledge journey over Kennedy Chan- 
nel, 368. 

, his Arctic voyage in 1860, 372-374. 

, his opinion as to what may be done in the 
Arctic regions, 374. 

Hecla, eruptions of, since the colonization of Ice- 
land, 95-97. 

““Hecla” and ‘Fury ” Straits, discovery of, 348. 

Heemskerk, his voyages of discovery, 340. 

Heineson, Mogens, the ‘‘sea-cock,” his voyage to- 
wards Greenland, 383. 

Hepburn, John, the sailor, his overland journey, 
346. 

Herald Island, discovery of, 360. 

Heimaey, or Home Island, description of, 116. 

Herring, the fishery of the coast of Norway, 125. 

, food for the rorqual, or fin-whales, 61. 

, abundance of the, on the coasts of Iceland, 
87. 

Hesperis, the, on the Mary Minturn river, 20. 

Hildringen, agriculture of, 124. 

Hobson, Lieut., his search for Franklin, 362, 364. 

Holme, the, of Norway, 124. 

Hood, Robert, his Arctic journey, 346. 

, murdered, 347. 

Horn, Cape, discovery of the passage round, 414. 

Horse, the, in Iceland, 80. 

of the Jakuts, 230-232. 


s 
al 


Hrafnagja, 75. 

Hudson, Henry, visit of, to Spitzbergen, 138. 

, his the first attempt to sail across the North 

Pole, 342. 

, his subsequent voyages and discoveries, 342. 

, his melancholy end, 343. 

IIudson’s Bay, barren lands of, 22. 

, characters of the Coniferz of, 24. 

——,, walruses of the coasts of, 64. 

, discovery of, 312. 

Hudson’s Bay Company, account of the fur-trade 
of the, 304. 

, the old coureur des bois and the modern voy- 

ageur of, 34, 305. 

, history of the, 307. 

, formation of a rival company, and subsequent 

amalgamation of the two, 307-310. 

, palmy days of the, 310, 

, its reconstruction in 1863, 310. 

, its trading-posts, and their management, 310, 

Olas 

, its efforts to civilize the native tribes, 312. 

——,the standard of exchange, the beaver-skin, 
313. 

, extent of the fur-trade of, 313. 

, account of the fur-bearing animals of the 
Territory, 318, 314. 

Hudson river, discovery of the, 342. 

Hudson’s Straits, Sebastian Cabot’s discovery of, 
335. 

Humboldt Glacier, the Great, 50. 

, Kane’s description of the, 367. 

Humming-bird on the peninsula of Aliaska, 269. 

in Newfoundland, 378. 

of Patagonia, 420. 

Huts of the Esquimaux, 293. 

of the Icelanders, 102. 

Hval6, island of, 129. 

Hvita river, in Iceland, 78. 


I. 


Ick, vast fields of, in the plateaus of Spitzbergen, 
Greenland, and Nova Zembla, 27. 

——., floating masses of, in the Polar seas, 45. 

, enormous extent of the Polar glaciers, 49, 50. 

, causes which prevent the accumulation of 

Polar ice, 55, 56. 

, a bad conductor of heat, 57. 

, ice-fields of Iceland, 69. 

, glaciers, ice-cliffs, and avalanches of Spitz- 

bergen, 135, 136. 

, Impediments offered by the hummocks to 

travellers on the Polar sea, 240. 

, icebergs of the Antarctic sea, 392. 

——, ice-caves of Greenland, 390. 

——., the great ice-barricr of the Antarctic Ocean, 
403. 

, pack-ice of the Antarctic Ocean, 404, 405, 

Icebergs, 46. 

, forms and size of, 48. 

, origin of, 48. 

, localities in which most of the icebergs of the 

North Atlantic are formed, 49. 

, Dr. Hayes’s description of, in a midnight sun, 
50. 

——,, how distinguished at night and in fogs, 52. 

——.,, dangers of collisions with, 52. 

——, protection to ships afforded by, 53. 

, dangers of anchoring to, 53. 


ToL 


Icebergs, “ calving” of, 54. 

, crumbling of, 54. 

Ice-blink, description of the phenomenon of, 54. 

, its advantages to the Arctic navigator, 54. 
Tce-fields, 46. 

, hummocks on, 46. 

, collision of, 48. 

, dangers caused by, to ships, 48. 

Tce-grotto of Surts-hellir, 77. 

Iceland, volcanic origin ef, 68. 

, the country in winter and in summer, 68, 79. 
——,, sterile portions of the island, 69. 

—, its immense ice-fields, 69. 

———, its lava-streams, 69, 77. 


, the burning mountains of Krisuvik, 69. 
, the mud-caldrons and hot springs, 70. 

, the Great Geysir, 71. 

, the Strokkr, 72. 

, crystal pools, 73. 

, the Almannagja, 73, 74. 

, the Surts-hellir, or caves of Surtur, 77. 

, Tivers and cascades of, 78. 

, influence of the ocean currents on the cli- 
mate, 78. 

, mean annual temperature, 79. 

, absence of trees in, 79. 

, vegetation and condition of agriculture, 79. 
indigenous land quadrupeds, 80. 

, cattle of the Icelanders, 8). 

——, beverages, 80. 

——, mole of shearing she>p, 80. 

, characteristics and number of horses, 80. 
——,, the reindeer, 80, 81. 

——,, the polar bear, 81. 

——,, the eider-duck, 81, 88. 

——.,, the giant auk, 83, 86. 

——., Icelandic fish and fishing season, 86, 87. 

, hospitality of the people, 87. 

, minerals of the country, 88. 

, fuel used by the Icelanders, 88. 

——.,, history of, 89. 

. Naddodr’s discovery of the Ice Land, 89; 
which he named Snowland, 9). 


called by him Gardar’s holm, 90. 


him Iceland, 20. 

——, foundation of Reykjavik by Ingolfr and Leif, 
90. 

, exodus from Norway to, 91. 

, introduction of the Norwegian language and 

eustoms, 91. 

, code of laws of Uffliot the Wise, 91. 

——,, the ancient Althing at Thingvalla, 91, 92. 


92. 
——, the golden age of Icelandic literature, 94. 


way, 99. 
, its subsequent misfortunes, 95, 
, volcanic eruptions, 95, 


——-, hope for the future of the islanders, 97. 
, account of the Icelanders of the present day, 
98. ‘ 


———,, the present capital, Reykjavik, 100. 
, State of trade in, 100. 

———., the merchant and the peasant, 101. 
, temperate habits of the people, 101. 
, condition cf agriculture, 102. 


,circumnavigated by the pirate Gadar, and | 


, visited by the viking Floki, and called by | 


, iniroduction of Christianity into the island, | 


, history of, annexation of the island to Nor-| 


, misery caused by the curse of monopoly, 97. | 


, Skalkott, the former capital of the island, 98. | 


eee ial aaa 


INDEX. 


Iceland, a harvest home, 102. 

, Winter life, 102, 108, 109. 

——, huts of the Ic landers, 102, 108. 

, churches, 104. 

, clergymen all blacksmiths, 101; note, 106; 

their poverty, 106-108. 

, the Iceland poet, John Thorlakson, 107. 

, education of the clergy and children, 108, 109. 

, industry and thirst fcr knowledge of the peo- 

ple, 109 ; their lanzuage, 109. 

, the library of Reykjavik, 109. 

——., the Icelandic Literary Society, 110. 

——,, Icelandic newspapers, 110. 

, health of the people, 110. 

, difficulties and expense of travelling, 110-113. 

—— mvss, eaten and exported by the Icelanders, 
79. 

—— moss, food for the deer of Spitzbergen, 137. 

-——.,, in the treeless zone, 21. 

Idols of the Samo‘edes, 180. ~ 

Igloolik, island of, 348. 

lligliuk, the Esquimaux, her intelligence and pas- 
sion for music, 348. 

Indians, Red, their enmity with the Esquimaux, 294. 

, their decimation by smallpox and drunken- 
ness, 308. 

——., efforts of the Hudson’s Bay Company to civ- 
ilize them, 312, 313. 

, the beaver skin their standard of exchange 
with the Company, 313. 

Taglefield, Captain, his search for Franklin, 359. 

, his discoverics, 365. 

Ingolfr, the Norwegian varl, his visit to Iceland, 
and foundation of Reykjavik, 90. 

Innuits, the. see a’so Esquimaux, 433, 467. 

——,, their character, 439, 461. 

amusement of, 440. 

their dwellings, 443, 457, 462. 

distress in winter, 444. 

seal, feasts of, 445. 

mode of capturing seals, 446, 448, 452. 

their dogs, 445, 450, 454. 

their opinion of the bear, 451. 

mode of hunting the walrus, 454. 

their implements, 456. 

mode of constructing an igloo, 457. 

their use of the reindeer, 458. 

their clothing, 460. 

reindeer feasts, 459. 

food and mode of eating, 460. 

their religious ideas, 460. 

treatment of the sick, 461. 

, gradual extinction, 462. 


~~ es ese BP wD eee eee ele 


~ 


| Insects of Taimurland, 227. 


Iri h colonists on the Westman Islands, 115. 

Irkutsk, extreme cold of, 208. \ 

, Wrangell’s visit to, 233. 

, summer flowers of, 235. 

Iron mines near Drontheim, 124. 

Isabella, Cape. discovery of, 365. 

Ishemsk, Castrén’s visit to, 174. ; 

, the Isprawnik of, and his wife, 174, 176. 

Islands within the Arctic Circle, barren grounds of 
th», 18. 

Isleif, the oldest chronicler of the North, 98. 

Issakow, of Kem, rounds the north-eastern exirem- 
ity of Nova Zembla, 150. 

Itilmenes, cruelty of their conquerors, the Rus- 
sians, 198. 

Ivan Wasiljewitsch I., first Czar of Russia, his de- 
feat of the Tarturs, 191. 


INDEX. 


Ivan Wasiljewitsch I., subdues the Great Novgo- 
rod, 191. 

, becomes head of the Greek orthodox Church 

and the first Czar, 192. 

, Chancellor’s visit to him at Moscow, 336. 

Ivan Wasiljewitsch II., his conquest of Kasan, 192. 
—, his surname of the Terrible, 192. 

Ivory, fossil, in the islands of New Siberia, 202. 

Iwalo river, in Lapland, Castrén’s journey on the, 
169. 


J. 


JAKOWLEW family, 219. 

——, their enormous wealth in gold mines. 219. 

Jakuts, the, confirmed by the Czar in their posses- 
sions, 199. 

, their snares and traps, 213. 

——,, their energy and cunning, 228. 

, their language, origin, character, and person- 

al appearance, 228. 

, their summer and winter huts, 229. 

——,, their horses, 230. 

, their powers of endurance and sharpness of 
vision, 230. 

——., their manufactures and articles of dress, 231. 

—, their gluttony, 231. 

——,, the universal carriers to the east of the Lena, 
231. 

——., their superstitions, 232. 

, their offerings of horsehair to the spirit of the 

mountains, 232. 

, their songs, 232. 

, wretched condition of the river, 252. 

Jakutsk, mean temperature of, in summer and win- 
ter, 27: 

—, extreme cold of, 208. 

——., gloomy appearance of the town, 233. 

——.,, trade of, 233. 

Jan Meyen, description of. 146. 

Jelly, made from the horns and claws of the rein- 
deer, 37. 

Jelly-fish (Pleurobrachi1 pileus) in the sea of Kara, 
151. , 

Jenissei river, Castrén’s journey to the, 176. 

Jeniseisk, Castrén’s visit to, 177. 

— ,, the ostrog of, founded, 195. 

Jyrfalcon (Falco gyrfalco), its head-quarters in Ice- 
land, 85. 

, former trade in the, 85. 

Jilibeambaertje, or Num, the Supreme Being of the 
Samoiedes, 179. 

“John, Gentleman,” the English pirate, 118. 

John’s, St., capital of Newfoundland, 878. 

Jckuls, or ice-mountains of Iceland, 68. 

J(kulsa iAxarfirdi river, in Iceland, 78. 

J‘kulsa river, in Iceland, 78. 

Jones’s Sound, discovery of the entrance to, 343. 

Jukahires, chief resource of those of the Aniuj, 
237. 

——., Jelissei Busa’s residence among the, 195. 


K. 


KAptiAk, island of, discovery of the, 202. 

Kaiak, island of, landing of Stella on the, 249. 

** Kalewala,” Castrén’s Swedish translation of the, 
170. 

Kamchatka, subjugation of, by the Russians, 198. 

, cruelty of the conquerors, 198. 


795 


Kamchatka, Steller’s scientific journey to, 248. 

, its climate and fertility, 254. 

——, abundance of fish in the rivers, 255. 

—.,, bir-catchers of, 255. 

—., population, 255. 

—, mountain chain and volcanoes, 256. 

——, climate and mineral springs, 256. 

——,, harbors and population, 256. 

——,, healthiness of the people, 257. 

——,, their food, 25s. 

——,, their animals, 258, 260. 

, character of the people, 260, 261. 

Kane, Dr., his Arctic voyages, 365, 

, his account of his first winter in Rensselaer 

Bay, 365. 

, his description of the Polar night, 366. 

, his sledge journey along ‘the coast of Green- 

land, 367. 

, his illness on the voyage and recovery, 368. 

——, resolves to winter a second time in Rensselaer 
Bay, 369. 

. departure and return of part of his crew, 369, 

370. 

, sufferings of his party, 371, 

——, abandonment of his ship, and boat journey to 
Upernavik, 371. 

——, his return to New York, and death, 372. 

Kara Gate, reached by Stephen Burrough, 336. 

Kara, Sea of, 147. 

, expeditions to the, 147. 

Kasan, Russian conquest of, 192. 

Kellett, Captain, his search for Franklin, 359. 

Kendall, Lizut., his voyage to the Coppermine 
river, 349. 

. his account of Deception Island, 393. 

Kennedy, William, his search for Franklin, 358. 

, his sledge journey with Bellot, 359. 

Kennedy Channel, Dr. Hayes’s sledge journey 
across, 368. 

, his voyage across, 373. 

Kerguelen Land, climate of, 393. 

Khipsack, destruction of the empire of the Khans 
of, 191. 

King, Captain, his survey of the Magellan Strait, 
415. 

King William’s Island, coast of, traced by Mr, 
Thomas Simpson, 356. 

Klofa j‘ kul, extent of the, 69. 

Knight, John, his melancholy Arctic voyage, 341. 

, murdered by the Esquimaux, 342, 

Koldewey, Captain, his journey towards the North 
Pole, 374. 

Kolwa, Castrén’s visit to, 174. 

Kolyma river, inundations of the, 237. 

Kolymsk, Ni hnei, foundation of the town of, 197. 

, Wrangell’s visit to, 234. 

——,, situation and climate of, 234. 

, vegetable and animal life, 235. 

——., population of the district, 236. 

——, dwellings of the Russian residents, 236. 

——, mode of life of the natives, 236, 237. 

——., their dogs, 236, 237. 

, berry-gathering in the district, 238. 


| ——, famine of the people, 238. 


, social parties at, 238. 

Koriaks, the, confirmed by the Czar in their pos- 
sessions, 199. 

Koronnoie Filippowskoi, Von Middendorff’s journey 
to, 221. 

Kostin Schar, visit of Von Baer to, 152. 

, storm in, 152. 


796 


INDEX. 


Kétlugja, eruptions of, since the colonization of , Lava streams of Iceland, 69, 77. 


Teciand, 95, 97. 

Krasnojarsk, Castrén’s visit to, 175, 176. 

, extravagance of the gold aristocracy of, 218. 

Krenitzin, his discovery of the peninsula of Aljaska, 
202. 

Kresdowesdwishensk, produce of the gold mine of, 
218. 

Krisuvik, burning mountains of, 69. 

Krotow, Lieutenant, lost off Nova Zembla, 147. 

Kutchin Indians, their dwelling-place, 331. 

, their personal appearance and dress, 331. 

——,, their medium of exchange, 331. 

——, their women and children, 332. 

——.,, their amusements, 332. 

——,, their wars with the Esquimaux, 333. 

——.,, their suspicious and timorous lives, 333. 

——, their mode of pounding the moose-deer, 333. 

——.,, their frequent distress, 334. 

, their huts, 334. 

Kutchum Khan, his conquest of Siberia, 192. 

, defeated by Yermak the robber, at Toboisk, 

193, 194. 

, his revenge, 194. 


L. 


LABRADOR, barren lands of, 22. 

, effect of the icy seas and cold currents on the 

climate of, 22. 

, discovered and colonized by Greenlanders, 
3309. 

Lachow Islands, discovery of the, 202. 

Lagarfliot river, in Iceland, 78. 

Lakes of Newfoundland, 377. 

Lambert, M. Gustave, his opinion as to the roate 
to the Pole, 375. 

Lancaster Sound, discovery of the entrance to, 343. 

Lapps, their history and conversion to Christianity, 
156. 

, poverty and self-denial of their clergy, 157. 

, their ancient gods and present superstitions, 

156, 157. 

,Evil Spirit of the woods, 157. 

, sorcery and witchcraft, 158. 

, their personal appearance, 158. 

Lappars, the Fjall, or Mountain Lapps, 159. 

, their dwellings, 159. 

——,, their reindeer pens, 160. 

-——, their summer and winter encampments, 161. 

——., their sledges and skates, 161. 

, natural beauties of their country, 162. 

——, their love of home, 162. 

——.,, their mode of hunting the bear and the wolf, 
163, 164. 

, the wealthy, and their mode of living, 164. 

——,, their annual visits to the fairs, 165, 

——,, their drunkenness, 165. 

, their worship of mammon, treasure hoard- 

ing, 166. 

, their fondness for brandy and tobacco, 165. 

——.,, their affectionate disposition, 166. 

——., the Skogslappars, or Forest Lapps, 166. 

, the Fisher, 166. 

Laptew, Lieut. Cheriton, his explorations of the 
coasts of Taimurland, 200. 

, his explorations to the east of the Lena. 200. 

Larch, the, of Siberia, 24. 

, of the Hudson’s Bay Territory, 24. 

Lawrence, St., climate and vegetation of the island 
of, 271 


, Streams of, thrown out by the great eruption 
of Skaptar Jékul, 95-97. 

Laxaa, or Salmon river, abundance of fish caught 
in the, 87, 

Leif, the Norwegian jar], his visit to Iccland, 90. 

, murdered by his Irish slaves, 91. 

Lemming, its habitat and food. 42. 

, exaggerations of Olaus Magnus and Pontop- 

pidan respecting the, 42. 

, its enemies, and accidents to which it is lia- 

ble, 42. 

of New Siberia, 27. 

of Nova Zembla, 154. 

Lena river, ascended by the Cossacks, 195. 

, Importance of the, 17. 

—w—., barren grounds near the, 22. 

—-, Wrangell’s journey down the, 233. 

Leprosy, or “‘ likthra,”’ of Iceland, 110. 

Lichens, gray, of the ‘‘ barren grounds,” 18. 

, food for the reindeer, 27. 

, the Lichen rangifcrinus, the food of the rein- 

deer, 36. 

of Nova Zembla, 153. 

of the Pribilow Islands, 271. 

Liddon, Lieut. M., his Arctic voyages, 345. 

Lindenow, Godske, his voyage to Greenland, 383, 

Lion, sea- (Otaria Steller), value of the skin of the, 
276. 

, the sea-, of the Antarctic Ocean, 399. 

Lister, Cape, discovery of, 389. 

Lithuania, the elk of, 39. 

Loaisa, Garcia de, his voyage round the globe, 413. 

Lofoten Islands, the, 125. 

, cod-fishery of the, 125, 126. 

Looming objects in the Arctic regions, 55. 

Loschkin, the walrus-hunter, his voyage on the coast 
of Nova Zembla, 147. 

Lostadius, the Lapp priest, his self-denial and pov- 
erty, 157. 

Loucheux. See Kutchin Indians. y 

Louis-Philippe Terre, discovery of, 402. 

Lovunnen, puffins of, 125. 

Lowenorn, his voyage to Greenland, 385. 

Liitke, Admiral, his endeavors to penetrate along 
the coast of Nova Zembla, 147. 

Lychnis, purple, of the Arctic regions, 20. 

Lynx, Canada, or pishu (Lynx Canadensis), 317. 

, value of the fur of the, 212, 317. 

Lyon, Captain, his unsuccessful voyage, 348. 


M. 


Mackenztr, Alexander, his voyages of discovery 
in North America, 308. 

Mackenzie river, importance of the, 17. 

, forests and barren lands near the, 22. 

, influence of the southerly winds on the tem. 

perature of the valley of the, 27. 

, dixcovery of the, 308. 

Maesnikow, Nikita, his gold-fields in Eastern Sibe 
ria, 214, 217, 218. 

Magdalena Bay, description of, 133. 

Magellan, Strait of, 408. 

, description of the, 408. 

, entrances to, 409. 

, opening into the Pacific, 411. 

———., discovery of the, by Magellan, 418, 

——,, Sir J. Narborough’s chart, 414. 

——, Captains King and F itzroy’s surveys of, 415. 


INDEX. 


Mager“, island of, 129. 

Magicians of the Samoiedes, 180, 181. 

Malewinsky, Lieutenant, his gold mine of Olginsk, 
218. 

Maelstrom, the, 126. 

Mammoth, fossil remains of the, in New Siberia, 
202. 

Man, his difficulty in establishing a footing in the 
Arctic regions, 17. 

, how he is able to stand the rigors of an Are- 
tic winter, 28. 

Maps of the Esquimaux, 302. 

Mariinsk, station of, built by the Russians, 196. 

, gold mine of, 217. 

Marshes of Newfoundland, 377. 

Marten, pine (Murtes abietum), the, 316. 

, value of the fur of the, 316. 

Mary Minturn river, flowers of, 20. 

Matiuschkin, his sledge journey over the Polar Sea, 
241, 

Matoschkin Schar, visits to, 147-152. 
Matthew, St., island of, inhospitable character of 
the, 271. ‘ 
Matthew’s Straits, visited by Rosmysslow, Pach- 
tussow, and Herr von Baer, 147-152. . 

McClintock, Lieut. (mow Sir Leopold), his search 
for Franklin, 360. . 

, his voyage in the “‘ Fox,” and discovery of 
the fate of Franklin and his companions, 362-364. 

McClure, Captain, his search for Franklin, 359-361. 

, his discovery of the north-west passage, 360. 

Mechan, Lieut., his search for Franklin, 260. 

Mediterranean, dried codfish sent to the, 129. 

Medusz, enormous numbers of, in the Polar world, 
59. 

, in the seas off Spitzbergen, 133. 

Melville Bay, enormous glaciers of, 49, 50. 

Melville Island, discovery of, 345. 

Mentschikoff, Prince, his exile and death in Siberia, 
205. 

——.,, his son restored to the honors of his house, 
205. 

Mercy Bay, discovery of, 361. 

Mercy, harbor of, 412. 

Middendorff, Von, his adventures in Taimurland, 
220. 

-—.,, his visit to the Chatanga river, 221. 

, his journey down the Taimur river to the 

Polar Sea, 221-223. 

, his return journey and illness, 223-225, 

, gratitude of the Samo‘edes, 224. 

, his observations on the climate and natural 
productions of Taimurland, 225. 

Midnight, silence of, in Spitzbergen, 135. 

Milk of the reindeer, 36. 

Minerals of Iceland, 88. 

Mink (Vison Americanus), value of the fur of the, 
316. 

Misery, Mount, 145. 

Mollusca, small, of the Polar Seas, 59. 

Moonlight nights in the Arctic regions, 32, 33. 

Morse. See Walrus. 

Morton, one of Kane’s crew, 868, discovers 
Washington land, 369 Hall’s last exped.,759. 

Mosquitoes of Nishne-Kolymsk, 235. 

Mosses, dingy, of the ‘* barren grounds,” 18. 

of Nova Zembla, 153. 

of the Pribilow Islands, 270, 271. 

Mourawieff, Count Nicholas, his annexation of the 
Amoor, 196. 

Mouse, field, of Spitzbergen, 137. 


97 


Muchamor, the fungus, used as food by the Kam- 
chatkans, 258. 

Mud-springs, boiling, of Iceland, 70. 

Minich, Marshal, his exile to Siberia, 205. 

, his return and subsequent life, 206. 

Munk, Jens, his voyages, 343. 

Munkholm, castle of, 124. 

Murderers, treatment of, in Russia, 206. 

Muscovy Company, its endeavors to discover a 
north-east passage to India, 336. 

Musk-ox (Ovibos moschatus), description of the, 40. 

, its former and present habitat, 40, 41. 

Musquash, musk-rat, or ondatra (fiber zibethicus), 
317. 

, Villages, 318. 

——, modes of catching the animal, 318. 

, value of the fur of the, 318. 

Mussels on the coast of Greenland, 59. 

Myvatn, ducks of the, 84. 


N. 


Nappopr, the Norwegian pirate, his discovery of 
Iceland, 89. 

Namar, or boiling mud-springs of Iceland, 70. 

Narborough, Sir John, his chart of the Strait of 
Magellan, 414. 

Narwhal, or sea-unicorn, domain of the, 60. 

, its tusk, 61. 

, Greenland fishery of the, 387. 

Narym, Castrén’s visit to, 175. 

Necromancy of the Samoiedes, 1£0. 

Nertschinsk, treaty of, 196. 

, criminals at the mines of, 206. 

Ness, Castrén’s visit to the Samo‘%ede village of, 172. 

Newfoundland, discovered and colonized by Green- 
landers, 335. 

, its desolate appearance, 376. 

——, its forests, marshes, and barrens, 376, 377. 

——., its lakes and ponds, 377, 378. 

——,, its fur-bearing animals, 378. 

———., its reindeer and wolves, 378. 

, its climate and inhabitants, ?78., 

, its capital, St. John’s, 578, 379. 

, history of the island, 379. 

, taken possession of by the English, 379. 

, tight of the French and Americans to fish 

on the banks of, 379. 

, the French town of Placentia, 379. 

——., the whole island ceded to England, 379. 

, importance of the cod-fisheries, 379. 

——, the great banks of, 380. 

, account of the mode of fishing, 380. 

, fogs and storms, 380, 381. 

, seal-catching, 381. 

Newspapers of Iceland, 110. 

Night of a Polar winter, Kane’s description of, 366. 

Nicolayevsk, station of, built by the Russians, 196. 

Noiba, gold-diggings on the, 216. 

Norfolk Bay, position and fur-trade of, 272. 

North-eastern route to India and China, Sebastian 
Cabot’s idea of, 335. 

, attempts to discover it. 335-337. 

North Pole, the first attempt to sail across the, 342. 

, the plan first suggested by Thorne, 342. 

——,, Scoresby’s near approach to the, 344 
—, Parry’s boat and sledge journey towards the, 
350. 

. Dr. Hayes’s opinion as to the practicability 

of reaching the, across Kennedy Cianncl, 374, 


798 


North Pole, opinions of other scientific authorities 
as to the best way to reach, 374. 

North-west passage <o India, attempts to discover 
the, 342, 343. 

——, M‘Clure’s discovery of the, 360. 

Company of Canada, formation and trade of 

the, 307. 

, its wars with the Hudson’s Bay Company, 
and final amalyamation, 808-310. 

Northumberlan | Sound, temperature of, 28. 

Notothenia, the, of the Antarct:c seas, 400. 

Norway, the lemming of the Dovrefjeld, in, 42. 

, an absolute monarchy established by Hurold 

Haarfager in, 90. 

, causes of the mild climate of the coast of, 121. 

, condition of the soil, and of the cultivators 

of it, 121-123. 

, constitution of, and education of the peuple, 

121. 

» population of, 121. 

, coast scenery of, 123, 

——.,, Drontheim and its industry, 124, 

——., birds of the coast of, 124, 125. 

, the herring and cod fisheries of, 125-128. 

Nova Zembla, investigations of the shores of, 147. 

, cireumnavigated by Pachtussow, 147, 148. 

, Meteorological observations of Ziwolka, 150. 

——, the clima'e of, 151. 

——, Von Buer’s scientific journey, 151. 

, Scientific results of his journey, 152, 153. 

, vegetation of, 153. 

, solitude and silence of, 154, 

, rarity of insects in, 154. 

, lemmings and foxes of, 154. 

—,, birds of, 154. 

, other animals of, 154, 155. 

, wintering of the Dutch under Barentz at, 340. 

Novgorod, the Great, subdued by the Czar Ivan L., 
191. 

Nowodsikoff, Michael, his discoveries, 201. 

Nudibranchiata, enormous numbers of, in the Polar 
seas, 59. 

Nullipores on the coast of Greenland, 59. 

Nun, or Jilibeambaertje, the Supreme Being of the 
Samozedes, 179. 


O. 


Oxsporsk, Castrén’s visit to, 174. 

—., description of the town, 188. 

. the fair at, 189. 

Obi river, importance of, 17. 

, barren grounds near the, 22. 

——., its importance to the Osiiaks, 185, 

——, Cuastrén’s journey to the, 174. 

——., misery caused by the overflow of the, 175. 

——, inhabitants of the banks of the, 175. 

Ochota river, the, 246. 

Ochotsk, sea of, reached by a party of Cossacks, 
195, 

, description of the town, 246. 

Olaf Truggeson, King of Norway, sends a mission- 
ary to Iceland, 93, 94. 

Olginsk, gold mine of, 218. 

Olonez, number of bears killed for their skins every 
year in, 212. 

Ommaney, Captain, his search for Franklin, 357. 

, his discovery of Franklin’s first winter-quar- 
ters, 357. 

Onkilon, or sedentary Tchuktchi, 267. 

——, their mode of life, 267. 


INDEX. 


Oraefa Jékul, height of, 69. 

——,, eruptions of, since the colonization of Iceland, 
95. 

Orange Island, visited by Barentz, 339. 

Ore. Sce Grampus. 

Osborne, Captain Sherard, his opinion as to the 
method of reaching the North Pole, 374. 

Ostiaks, their fishing-grounds on the Obi, 175. 

—, their summer huts and mode of lite, 185, 186. 

——, th ir poverty, 186. 

——., their winter huts, 186. 

——, th ir attachment to their ancient customs, 
186, 187." 

—, their clans, and princes, or chieftains, 187. 

.——., their excellence as archers, 187. 

——, their personal appearance, and customs, 1°8. 

, annual tribute levied by Yermak, the rokber, 

on them, 194. 

, confirmed by the Czar in the possession of 
their lands, 199. 

Ostrich, Darwin’s, of Patagonia, 420. 

Ostrownoje, town and fair of, 263-265. 

Otter, the sea-, or kalan (Ln/ydiis lutris), value of. 
the fur of the, 211, 212. 

——, description of, 211. 

, chase of the, in Kamchatka, 258, 

—— hunting of the Aleuts, 273. 

Otter, the fish- (Lu'ra Canadensis), 317. 

, fur of the, 317. 

Owl, its favorite food, 43. 

——., its winter in the highest latitudes, 43. 

Ox, the, in Iceland, 80. 

Oyster, most northerly limit where found, 126. 


P, 


PAcutTussow, his circumnavigation of the southern 
island of Nova Zembla, 148. 

. his second voyage and death, 149, 150. 

Pack-ice, 46. 

, its tendency to separate in calm weather, 54. 

Paikoff, his discovery of the Fox Islands, 201. 

Parrots of Patagonia, 420. 

Parry, Lieut. W. E. (afterwards Admiral Sir), his 
Arctic voyages, 344. 

——, his second voyage, 348. 

, his third voyage, 349. 

——., abandonment of the ‘‘ Fury,” 349. 

——,, his boat and sledge journey towards the Pole, 
350. 

, his subsequent career, 351. 

Parry, Mount, discovery of, 369. 

, Dr. Hayes’s journey to, 373, 374. 

——, Mountains, discovery of the, 403. 

P.sina river, scanty population of the, 220. 

Patagonia, Captain Fitzroy’s survey of, 416. 

——, the people of, 417, 420. 

, difference of climate between the east and 

west, 417. 

, aridity of the east of, 417, 418. 

——., large rivers of, 418. 

, animals of, 418, 419. 

——, introduction of the horse, 424. 

——, fashions of the Patagonians, 421. 

——,, their religious ideas, 421. 

——., their superstitions and astronomical knowl- 
edge, 422. 

——., their division into tribes, 422. 

——.,, their huts, 422. 

——., their trading routes, 423. 


INDEX. 


Patagonians, their system of government, and great 
eacique, 423. 

, their arms, amusements, and character, 424. 

Paul, St., climate of the island, 271. 

, chase of the sea-bear on the, 313. 

Paul the First, discovery of the Island of, 274. 

Pekan, or woodshock (J/art:s Canadensis), fur of 
the, 516. 

Penas, gulf of, glacier at the, 394. 

Penguin, the, of the Antarctic seas, 395. 

, its food, 397. 

Penny, Master, his search for Franklin, 357, 358. 

Peruvian current, influence of the, 394. 

Petermann, Dr. Augustus, his view of the route to 
the Pole, 374. 

Petrel, the giant (Procelaria gigantea), of the An- 
tarctic seas, 394. 

Petropavlosk, its population, 257. 


on, 256. 
Petschora river, 149. 
Philip’s bay, 409. 


Phipps, Captain (afterwards Lord Mulgrave), his | 


voyage to discover the north-west passage, 344. 
Pipit (Anthus pratensis), the, of Iceland, 81. 
Plachina, Castrén’s residence and study at, 176. 
Plover island, discovery of, 360. 

Plovers of Iceland, 81. 
Poland, the elk of, 39, 40. 
Pole, North, probable condition of the land (if any) 

at the, 27. 

Popow, Fedor, his discovery of the gold fields of 

Eastern Siberia, 214. 

Population of Norway, 122. 

Poiato, cultivation of, in Norway, 124. 

Pribilow Islands, climate of, 271. 

, sea-lions and guillemots of, 271. 

, chase of the sea-bear, 274. 

Prontschischtschew, his fruitless endeavors to dou- 
ble the capes of Taimurland, 200. 

, death of him and his wife, 20. 

Prussia, East, the elk of, 39, 40. 

Ptarmigan (Lagopus albus), its residence in thie high- 

est latitudes in winter, 43. 
of Spitzbergen, 137. 

——., its summer visits to Taimurland, 227. 

in the Tundra in summer, 19. 

Pteropods, food for the Greenland whale, 60. 
Puffins of Lovunnen island, 125. 

, mode of catching them, 125. 

Punta Arenas, colony of Germans at, 416. 
Pustosersk, visit of Castrén to, 171, 173. 

Pym, Lieut., his sledge journey of search for Frank- 

lin, 360. 


R. 


Racoon (Procyon lotor), 315, 378. 

-- value and trade in the skins of the, 816. 

Rae, Dr., his search for Sir John Richardson, 357. 

, his discoveries in the Arctic seas, 357. 

—-, his discovery of the fate of Franklin and his 
crew, 362. 

Raipass, copper mines at, 128. 

Ranunculus, snow (Ranunculus nivalis), of Nova 
Zembla, 153. 

Rat, musk-. See Musquash. 

Ravens of Iceland, 84. 

—, in Scandinavian mythology, 84, 85. 

, superstitions of the Icelanders respecting the, 

85. 


, unsuccessful attack of the English and I'rench | 


799 


Razor-bill, its nests on the most nort:.ern rocks, 67. 
Red-knife Indians, their hunting-grounds, 527. 
Red-pole, the, of Spitzbergen, 137. 
ted river colony, destruction of the, 308. 
| Red sharks of Iceland, 81. 
| Reindeer, its summer and winter quariers in the 
Arctic regions, 19. 
, food found by the, in Spitzbergen, 27. 
, its importance to inan in the northern regions, 
34. 
, its formation and adaptation to the circuts- 
stances in which it is placed, 34. 
——,, clattering sound of its feet, 34. 
——,, its antlers, 34. 
| ——, its young, 30. 
——, its milk, 36. 
——.,, its food and olfactory powers, 36. 
| ——, the caribou of North America, 36. 
, its geographical range in the Old and New 
World, 36. 
——,, its love of a cold climate, 36. 
, its services to man, 37. 
, its enemies, and disorders to which it is lia- 
ble, 37, 38. 
, a nuisance in Iceland, 81. 
of Spitzbergen, 137. 
——, the, pens of the Lapps, 160. 
——., milking the, 160. 
——,, the, sledges of the Lapps, 161. 
——, attempt made to acclimatize the, in Scotland, 
162. 
|——, ravages of wolves in herds of, 164. 
——., rich Lapp owners of herds of, 164. 
——., Lapp mode of killing the, 164. 
——,, its two annual migrations, 237. 
—— hunts of the Jukahires of the Aniuj, 237, 238. 
races of the Tchuktchi, 266. 
—— hunting of the Esquimaux, 295. 
. the Kutchin Indian mode of pounding the, 
333. 
, chase of the, in Greenland, 388. 
Rensselaer bay, temperature of, in mid-winter, 19, 
20. 
, Kane’s winters at, 365, 269. 
Resanow, Jakin, his gold-fields, 214. 
** Rescue,” wreck of the, 440. 
Reykjahlid, boiling mud-caldrons of, 70. 
Reykjavik, mean annual temperature of, 78. 
, the present capital of Iceland, 91. 
, account of, 99, 100. 
—-, the annual fair of, 100. 
, salary of the bishop of, 106. 
——, schools and library of, 108, 109. 
, the Icelandic Literary Society, 110. 
Rhinoceros remains found on the coast of X 
ern Siberia, 203. 
Richardson, Dr. (afterwards Sir John), his Arctie 
land voyages, 346, 349. 
——, dreadful sufferings of the partv, 546. 347. 
, his search for Sir John I‘ranklin, 306. 
Rivers discharging their waters into the Polar 
ocean, 17. 
of Iceland, 78. 
Rocky Mountains, the wild sheep of the, 41. 
Roebuck, near Lake Baikal, 40. 
Rorquals, or fin-whales, habitat and size o¢ the, 60. 
, their food, 60. 
Rosmvsslow, his investigations of the shores of 
Nova Zembla, 147. 
Ross, Capt. (afterwards Sir John), Arctic voyages 
; of, 344. 


800 


Ross, Sir John, his second journey, 351. 

——,, his five years in the Arctic Ocean, 351-354, 

——, his return home and honors, 304. 

—, Sir James, his Arctic voyages, 351. 

——, his search for Franklin, 357. 

——, his discoveries in the Antaretic Ocean, 402. 

, collision between his ships, the ‘‘ Erebus” | 

and ‘‘ Terror,” 405, 406. 

, his danger between two icebergs, 406. 

Rum, effects of, on an Iceland clergyman, 101. 

Rupert’s Land, held by the Hudson’s Bay Company, 
310. 

Russia, character of the conifer of, 23, 24. 

——,, the elk of the woods of the northern parts of, 
40. 

—, conquest of, by the Tartars under Baaty 
Khan, 191. 

——., liberated from the Tartar yoke by Ivan LI., 
191. 

, advances of, in Siberia, 195. 

, annexes the country of the Amoor, 196. 

——, condition of the natives under the yoke of, 
197, 198: 

—-, exiles from, to Siberia, 204-206. 

——,, value of the skins annually imported by, 212, 
213. 

——, life and dwellings in Nishne-Kolymsk, 236. 

, first treaty of commerce between England 
and, 336. 

——, Company, patent granted to the, to fish off 
Greenland, 138. 

Russian Fur Company, accouut of the, and its trade, 
272. 


S. 


SABINE, Mount, discovery of, 402. 

Sable, value of the, to the Cossack conquerors of 
Siberia, 195. 

——., importance and beauty of the fur of the, 209. 

——, hunting, 210. 

Sabrina Land, discovery of, 401, 402. 

Sagamen, or historians, of Iceland, 94. 

Sajan Mountains, Castrén’s journey over the, 177. 

Salmon, Alpine (Salmo alpinus), immense numbers 
of, in Nova Zembla, 155. 

Salmon, shoals of, in the rivers of the Arctic regions, 
ie 

——, abundance of, in Iceland, 87. 

——, of the Sea of Ochotsk, 246, 247. 

, abundance of, in Kamchatka, 255. 
Samoiedes, European, Castrén’s journey among the, 
170. 

——, their drunkenness, 171. 

——, their impatience of confinement, 171-173. 

——,, their barbarism, 179. 

, their Supreme Being, Num, or Jilibeambaert- 

je, 179. 

, their recourse to incantations, 180. 

—-, their idols, 180, 181. 

——, their reverence paid to the dead. 181. 

——,, their mode of taking an oath, 182. 

——,, their personal appearance and habits, 182. 

——, their wealth in reindeer, 183, 184. | 

——,, their entire number in Europe and Asia, 184. 

——.,, their traditions of ancient heroes, 184. 

——, confirmed by the Czar in their possessions, 
199, 

, the companions of Von Middendorff on his 
journey, 221, 225. 

Siimund Frode, his Icelandic works, 94. 


_— , their igloos, 449. 


INDEX. ; 


Sand-bee (4 ndrena) of Nova Zembla, 154. 

Sand-reed bread used in Ice!and, 79. 

Sarmiento, Pedro, his voyage, 414. 

Sawina river, 148. 

Saxifragas, the, of the treeless zone, 20. 

Scalds, or vards, of Iceland, 94. 

Scandinavia, character of the coniferz of, 22. 

Schalaurow, his journeys on the coast of Siberia, 
201. 

Scharostin, his residence at Spitzbergen, 142. 

Schelagskoi, Cape, rounded by Count Michael Stad- 
uchin, 197. 

, reached by Schalaurow, 201. 

Scoresby, Dr., his visit to Spitzbergen, 132. 

, Captain, his near approaci to the North Pole, 

344. 

, his voyage to Greenland, 385, 386. 

Scotia, Nova, discovered and cvloniz.d by Green- 
landers, 335. 

Scurvy in Spitzbergen, 140-142. 

» preservative against, 141. 

, Lapp mode of preventing the, 166. 

Sea, influence of the, on the severity of the Arctic 
winter, 27. 

Sea, Antarctic, compared with the Aretie regions, 
391. 

——, absence of vegetation in the, 391. 

—, causes of the inferiority of the Antaretie cli- 
mate, 891, 392. 

——, immensity of the icebergs of the, 392. 


/_——, the Peruvian current, 394. 


——,, birds of the coasts, 594. 

——, cetaceans, 397-399. 

——., Austral fishes, 400. 

——, voyages of discovery, 401. 

, Storms and pack-ice, 404 e¢ seq. 
Seas, Arctic, dangers peculiar to the, 45. 
——,, floating masses of ice, 45, 46. 

——, ice-blink, 54. 


| ——, summer fogs, 54. 


——,, clearness of the atmosphere and apparent near- 
ness of objects, 55. 

, phenomena of reflection and refraction of the 
atmosphere, 5d. 

——, causes which prevent the accumulation of 
Polar ice, 55-57. 

, the animals cf the, 40, 48, 44, 59. 

, Russian discoveries off the Siberian coast, 201 

et seq. 

, Von Middendorff’s journey down the Taimur 

river to the Polar sea, 221. 

, Wrangell’s nights on the Polar sea, 239. 

, his observations on the Polar sea, 240: 

——., Matiuschkin’s sledge journey, 241. 

, voyages of the English and Dutch, 335 e¢ 
seq. 

Sea-bear of Bering’s sea, 62. 

Sea-eagles of the coast of Norway, 125. 

Sea-elephant of the Antarctic Ocean, 898, 399. 

Sea-gulls of the coast of Norway, 124, 125. 

Sea-lion of Bering sea, 62. 

of the Pribilow Islands, 271. 


| Seal-fishing at Spitzbergen, 142. 


of Nova Zembla, 155. 

hunts of the Esquimaux. 295, 296. 

catching at Newfoundland, 381. 

hunting on the coasts of Greenland, 384, 446, 
Seals, the, of the Polar seas, 62. 

, their uses to man, 62, 446. 

—., the Antarctic. 399, 400. 


INDEX. 


Sea-otter, value of the skin and former numbers of 
the, 201, 202. 

Sedger river, romantic scenery of the, 410. 

Semple, Governor, murder of, 303. 

Sertularians on the coasts of Greenland, 59. 

S rvice-trees in the Arctic regions, 24. 

Shark, basking, on the northern coasts of Iceland, 
87. 

, its uses to the islanders, 87. 

, oil manufactured from its liver, 87. 

, the northern (Scymnus micrucephalus), abund- 

ance of, off Spitzbergen, 137. 

, fishery of, on the coast of Greenland, 387. 

Sheep, wild (Ocis montana), of the Rocky Mount- 
ains, description of the, 41. 

, the, of Iceland, and their enemies, 80. 

, mode of sheep-shearing, 80. 

Shetland Islands, New, account of the, 392, 393. 

Shrimps off Spitzbergen, 133. 

Siberia, extent of the treeless zone of, 22. 

, character of the coniferze of, 23, 24. 

——, the elk of, 39. 

——,, the roebuck and red deer of, 40. 

——,, the argali, or wild sheep of, 41. 

——,, the white dolphin in the rivers of, 61. 

, conquest of, by the Cossacks, for the Rus- 

sians, 193, 194. 

, final conquest of, by the Heese and foun- 

dation of Tobolsk, 195 et seq. i 

, condition of the natives of, under the dominion 

of Russia, 197, 198. 

; scientific expeditions sent. to, 200 et seq. 

, its past ages, 203. 

, its extent and capabilities, 204. 

——,, the exiles sent there, 204-206. 

——,, their condition there, 206. 

, condition of the West Siberian peasants, 207, 

208. 

, resources of the country, 208. 

, extremes of heat and cold, 208. 

, fur-bearing animals, 209 et seq. 

——,, the gold-fields of Eastern, and the miners, 214- 
216. 

, value of the produce of some of the mines, 

217, 218. 

, entire value of the produce of gold in 1856 

and 1860, 218. 

, luxury and extravagance caused by the 

wealthy gold speculators, 218, 219. 

, the gold of the Ural. 219. 

——, New, lemmings of, 27. 

——, discovery of the islands of, 201, 202. 

, fossil ivory of, 202. 

Sibir, the capital of the Tartars in Siberia, 192. 

, taken by Yermak, the robber, for the Czar, 
194. 

Simpson, Mr. Thomas, his Arctic land voyage, 355. 

——,, his discoveries, 356. 

, assassinated, 356. 

Sirowatsky, his discovery of the Archipelago of 
New Siberia, 203. 

Skalholt, the ancient capital of Iceland, account of, 
98. 

, ifs present condition, 99. 

, its meadow lands and scenery, 99. 

Skaptar jékul, 69 

, the great eruption of, in 1783, 95. 

Skates of Lapps, 161. 

- Skeidara, Mr. Holland’s journev across the, 111, 112. 

Skjalfandafljot river in Iceland, 78. 

Skogslappar, or Forest Lupps, account of the, 166. 


801 


Sledges of the Lapps, 161. 

——, the sacred sledge, Hahengau, of the Samoi- 
edes, 180. 

Smith’s Sound, temperature of, 27. 

, icebergs formed in, 48. 

——,, discovery of the entrance to, 343, 365. 

‘Smoke, valley of,” in Ieeland, 70. 

Snorri Sturleson, the Herodotus of the North, ac- 
count of him and his ‘‘ Heimskringla,” 94, 95. 

Snow-buntings of the ‘‘ barren grounds,” 18. 

Snow, its protection of the vegetation of the Arctic 
regions, 19. 

, warmth caused by, 19. 

, no land yet found covered to the water’s edge 

with etcrnal snow, 27. 

, amount of the fall of, in Taimurland, 225, 226. 

, probable diminution of the fall of, advancing 

towards the pole, 226. 

, its protection against cold, 226. 

Socialism among the Dog-rib Indians, 329, 

Solfataras of Iceland and Sicily compared, 88. 

Solovetskoi, convent of, 180. 

Sorcery of the Laplanders, 158. 

, of the Samoiedes, 180. 

Spain, salted cod-fish imported into, 129. 

Spasy, produce of the gold mine of. 218. 

Spirits, invisible, of the Samo‘edes, 180, 181. 

Spitzbergen, flowers of, 20. 

, vast fields of ice in the plateau of, 27. 

, food of the reindeer of, 27. 

. proofs of a former milder climate in, 29, 30. 

——.,, birds of, 43, 44. 

, apparent nearness of objects at, 

weather, 54. 

, the walrus of the coast of, 64. 

, description of the archipelago of, 131, 132. 

——, the west coast, 132. 

, Scoresby’s ascent of a mountain, and excur- 

sion along the coast, 132, 133. 

, Magdalena bay, 133-136. 

, ice-cliffs and avalanches of ice, 135. 

, scientific exploring expeditions sent to, 136. 

——, flora and fauna of, 136, 137. 

——, fisheries of, 139. 

, coal and drift-wood of, 137, 138. 

——, history of, 138. 

, attempts made to cclonize it, 139 -141. 

——.,, Russian hunters’ mode of wintering at, 142. 

——, walrus and seal-fishing at, 142. 

, discovery of, 340. 

Spout, the, of Newfoundland, 376. 

Springs, hot, of Iceland, 70. 

, the Geysir, 71. 

, the Strokkr, 72. 

Spruce fir of the Hudson’s Bay territory, 24. 

Squirrel, value of the fur of the, 212. 

Stadolski Island, visit of Pachtussow to, 148. 

Staduchin, Count Michael, his foundation of the 
town of Nishnei-Kolvmsk, 196, 197. 

navigates the sea eastward of Cape Schelag 
skoi, 197. 

Stawinen river, 148. 

Steller, G. W., notice of him, 248. 

, his scientific journey to Kamchatka, 248. 

, ill-treated by Bering, 250. 

——, his sufferings on Bering’s Island, 251. 

——., death of his commander, Bering, 252. 

——.,, his return to Kamchatka, 252. 

, persecuted by the Siterian authoritics, 253 

, bis death, 243. 

Stockfish of Iceland, 87. / 


in clear 


802 INDEX. 


Storms on the White Sea, 169. 

of the Tundras, 172, 173. 

of the Arctic zone, 225, 226. 

off Newfoundland, ‘81. 

in the Antarctic ocean, 404, 405. 

, the williwaws, or hurricane squalls, of the 
Strait of Magellan, 412. 

Strogonoff, foundation of the Russian family of, 192, 
193. 

Strokkr, description of the, 72. 

Strongbow Indians of the Rocky Mountains, the, 
327, 

Sukkertoppen, seen by Davis, 337. 

Sulphur of Iceland, 88. 

, compared with that of Sicily, 88. 

Summer,the perpetual daylight of, 36. 

. fogs of, 54. 

an Taimurland, 225. 

Sun, the midnight, effect of, on icebergs, 50-52. 

Sunset, magnificence of a, 52. 

Surgut, Castrén’s visit to, 175. 

Surts-hellir, or caves of Surtur, description of, 77. 

Suslik, the, of Siberia, 212. 

, value of its fur, 212. 


Svatoinoss, Cape, fossil ivory at, 202. 
Sviatoi-noss, doubled by the Russians, 200. 
Swans of Iceland, 8!, 84. 


JM 


TABIN, the imaginary Cape, of the Dutch naviga- 
tors, 339. 

Tadibes, or sorcerers of the Samoiedes, 180. 

, their dress and incantations, 180. 

Tagilsk, Nishne, the gold-producing town of, 219. 

Taiga, melancholy character of the, 230. 

, gold-fields of the, 213. 

Taimur Lake, visited by Lieut. Laptew, 20. 

, storm on the, 225, 

Taimur river, visited by Lieut. Laptew, 200. 

, Von Middendorff’s journey to the, 221-223. 

Taimurland, endeavors of Proutschischtschew to 
double the capes of, 200 | 

, Middendorff’s adventures in, 220, 221. 

, his observations on the climate and natural 

productions of, 225. 

, amount of the fall of snow in, 225, 226. 

Tana river, discovery of the, by Jelissei Busa, 195. 

Tarn Mount, Darwin’s ascent of, 411. 

Tartars, their subjection of the Russians, 191. 

driven out by Ivan I., 191. 

permanently overthrown by Ivan IT., 192. 

Tattooing, Cree Indian mode of, 323. 

Tchendoma, the, visited by Jelissei Busa, 195. 

Tchuktchi, barren grounds in the land of the, 21, 
22, 

——,, the land of the. 262. 

——, pipes of, 264. 

——.,, their short summer, 262. 

, ther independence and commercial enterprise, 

263. 

ladies, Matiuschkin’s visit to s°me, 269. 

, amusements of the people, 266. 

——., the wandering and sedentary, 267. 

——,, their mode of life, 267. 

, population of the land of the, 267. 

Tea-parties at Nishne-Kolymsk, 238. 

Temperature of Rensselaer bay in mid-winter, 19, 
20. 


, effect of the sea on, of the Arctic regiot.s, 27. | 


Temperature, influence of the winds on, 27. 
, former milder, of the Arctic regions, 29. 
, probable causes of the changes in the Arctie 
climate, 20s 
, the lowest ever felt by n man, 28. 
——, how manisenabled to bear extraordinary low, 
28. | 


of Iceland at different places, 78. 

Tennyson’s Monument, Dr, Kane's description of- 
307. 

Terror, Mount, 403. 

Terski Lapps, Castrén’s attempted journey to the, 
170. 

Thangbrand, Christian missionary to Iceland, 93, 
94. 

Thingvalla, plain of, 76. 

, site of the ancient Icelandic Althing at, 91, 
92. 

——,, pastor of, 104. 

——, church of, 105. 

Thingvalla Lake, in Iceland, 92. 

Thiorsa river, in Iceland, 78, 

Thorlakson, Jon, the poet of Iceland, azcount of 
him and his works, 107. 

Thorne, Robert, his oa eaee nie for sailing across the 
“Nor th Pole, 312. 

Thorwald the traveller, the first Christian Icclander, 
his career, 92, 93. 

Tides, effect ‘of the, in preventing: the accumulation 
of Polar ice, 57. 

Tinné Indians, defeated by the Ghee: 319. 

, their retaliation, 320. 

——,, their wars with the Blackfeet, 320. 

——,, their wigwans. or tents, 324. 

, various tribes of the, and their range, 327. 

——,, their appearance, manners, and customs, 327- 
329. 

——., improvements in their condition, 329, 330. 

——.,, their wives and children, 330. 

, their cruelty to the aged, 330. 

Tjumen, the first settlement of Russians in Siberia, 
195. 

, Steller’s grave at, 253. 

Tobacco, fondness of the Lapps for, 165, 167. 

. eagerness of the wild tribes of the North for, 
264. 

Tobolsk, battle of, 193, 195. 

, foundation of the city of, 195. 

, condition of the southern part, 207, 208. 

Tolstoi Ness, Castrén’s visit to, 177. 

Tolstych, Adrian, his discoveries, 201. 

Tomsk, criminals of, 206. 207. 

Tornea, reindeer gloves of, 37. 

Torsteinson Jon, the martyr of the Westman Isl- 
ands, 118. 

Tookoolito, 442, 466, 758, 759, 761. 

Train-oil of Troms6, 128. 

Transbaikalia, Castrén’s visit to, 177. 

Lravelling in Teena) 110, 111. 

Treeless zone of Europe, Asia, and America, 18- 22, 

Treurenberg bay, deer of, 137. 

Trolladyngja, eruptions of, since the colonization of 
Iceland, 94. 

Trons6, cod-fishery and cod-liver oil of, 128. 

—, description of the town and island, 128. 

Tschirigow, his voyages, 201. 

Tucutuco (Ctenomys Magellanica), the, of Patagonia, 
419. 

Tundri, or barren grounds of the Arctic regions, 18, 
19. 


of the European Samoiedes, 171. 


INDEX. 


Tundri, storms of the Tundras, 172. 

Tung-ower, or hot spring at Reikholt, in Iceland, — 
70. 

Tungusi, the, their relationship to the Mantchou, 
244. 

, their conquests and final subjugation by the , 

Russians, 244. 

, their intellectual development, 244. 

——,, their tribes and population, 244. 

——,, their wretcliedness, 244. 

, their manners and customs, 245. 

Tunguska river, gold-fields of the Upper, 214. 

Turkey-buzzard, the, of Patagonia, 419. 

Turuchansk, Castren’s visits to, 176, 177. 


Tyndall glacier, enormous size of, 50. 


U. 


Urr.iot the Wise, his first code of laws in Iceland, 
91. 

Unalaschka, climate of, 269. 

, vegetation of, 269, 270. 

, people of, 273. 

Union, Cape, Dr. Hayes’s sledge voyage to, 373, 374. 

United States, right of, to fish on the banks of New- 
foundland, 379. 

Ural Mountains, Castrén’s passage of the, 174. 

, first discovery of gold in the, 214. 

, quantity of gold found in the, 219. 

Ustsylmsk, Castrén’s visit to, and ill-treatment at, 
173, 174. 

Utzjoki, the pastor of, 169. 

Uusa river, Castrén’s journey up the, 174. 


We 


VaAAGE, cod-fishery of, 126. 

, ancient importance of, 126. 

Vancouver’s Island, placed under the management 
of the Hudson’s Bay Company, 310. 

Vapor baths of the Cree Indians, 324. 

Vare. the, of Norway,124. ~ 

Vegetation, protection afforded by snow to, 19. 

, distinctive characters of the Arctic forests, 

22-24. 

of the ‘‘ barren grounds,” 18, 21, 22. 

, length of time necessary for the formation of 


even small stems of trees in the Arctic regions, | 


25. 
, harmless character of the Arctic plants, 25. 
, no land vet discovered in which it is entirely 


subdued by winter, 27. 
, former, of the northern regions of the globe, 
29. 


of Spitzbergen, 136. 

of Nova Zembla, 152. 

of Taimurland, 226. 

of Kamchatka, 254. 

of the Bay of Awatscha, 256. 

of the Pribilow Islands, 271. 

of Newfoundland, 376. 

of Greenland, 388. 

, absence of, in the Anta:ctic regions, 391. 
of Port Famine, 410. ml 
Verchnei Ostrog, in Kamchatka, built, 198. 
Verazzani, his vovages, 335. 

Vestfjord, cod-fishery of the, 126. 

Victoria Land, discovery of, 402. 

Videy, cider-ducks of, 81, 82. 


803 


Vigr, eider-ducks of, 83. 

, Mr. Shepherd's visit to, 83, 84. 

Vikings, their courage and discoveries, 89. 

Virgins, Cape, 409. 

Vogelsang, deer of, 137. 

Volcanic eruptions in Iceland since its colonization, 
95. 

Volcanoes giving birth to Iceland, 68. 

, those now existing there, 69. 

——., the Esk, on Jan Meyen, 146. 

, of Kamchatka, 256. 

, eruption of Mount Erebus, 403. 

Vole, field (Arvicola economus), indigenous to Ice- 
land, 80. 

Voyageur, the, of North America, 304. 

, his life and character, 304, 305. 


W. 


WALRUS, or morse (Trichechus rosmarus), descripe 
tion of the, 62-64. 

, its affectionate temper, 64. 

, its parental love, 64. 

, its chief resorts and food, 64. 

fishing at Spitzbergen, 144. 

—w— hunted on Bear Island, 144. 

of Nova Zembla, 153. 

hunting on the coast of Aliaska, 275. 

——,, pieces of skin of, a medium of exchange, 276. 

, Esquimaux mode of hunting it, 298. 

Washington Land, discovery of, 369. 

, Dr. Hayves’s journey to, 573. 

Wassiljew, his visit to the Lena, 195. 

Wav gatz, island of, the sacred island of the Samo%- 
edes, 180. 

Weasel, the Siberian (Viverra Sibericu), the fur of, 
211. 

Weddell, Captain, his Antarctic voyages, 401. 

Welden, his visit to Bear Island, 144. 

Wellington Channel, temperature of, 28. 

, discovery of, 345, 

Wenjamin, the Archimandri‘e, 170. 

Western, Thomas, preaches Christianity to the 
Lapps, 156. 

Westman Islands, description of the, 114. 

, difficulty of access of the, 114. 

——,, how they became colonized, 115. 

——., Heimaey, or Home Island, 116. 

, food and trade of the pecple, 117. 

——,, population and mortality of the children, 118. 

, their sufferings from pirates, 118, 119. 

Weymouth, his vovage to Hudson’s Bay, 341. 

Whale, the Greenland (balena mysticetus), or 
smooth-back, 60. 

off Nova Zembla, 155. 

——.,, the white, or beluga, 61. 

——,, the ‘‘ca’ing,” 62. 

, a stranded, at Spitzbergen, 133, 

——, the fin-back, 59, 60. 

of Spitzbergen, 137. 

off Nova Zembla, 155. 

, smooth-backed, of the Antarctic seas, 397. 

, sperm, of the Antarctic Ocean, 398. 

Whalers, their dangers, in th> Arctic seas, 48. 

, depressing effect of the summer fogs, 54. 

——, their operations in the Polar seas, 59. 

——.,, whale chases of the Aleuts, 275. 

— ,, whale-hunts of the Esquimaux, 295. 

, abundance of whalesin the Antarctic seas. 397, 

, battle between a whale and a grampus, 398, 


804 


Whale Sound, enormous glaciers of, 50. 

White-fish, or Coregonus, of North America, 
310, 311. 

White Sea, Castrén’s journey to the, 170. 

——, Chancellor’s discovery of the passage 
from England to the, 192. 

, an English expedition in the, 3386. 

Whymper, Frederick, travels in Alaska, 277- 
289. 

Wilkes, Captain, his discoveries in the Antarc- 
tic Ocean, 402. 

Wilkes’s Land, discovery of, 402. 

Williwaws of the Strait of Magellan, 412. 

Willoughby, Sir Hugh, his voyage and death, 
336. 

Willow, polar (Salix polaris), of Nova Zembla, 
153. 


——, dwarf, of the treeless zone, 21. 

—., dwarf, on the shores of the rivers and 
lakes, 24. 

Wind-hole Strait of the Dutch navigators, 339. 

Winds, effects of the cold sea-winds on vegeta- 
tion, 22. 

, influence of the, on an Arctic climate, 27. 

Winter Harbor, Parry’s winter in, 545. 

Winteria Aromatica, the, 410. 

Witchcraft and witches of the Laplanders, 158. 

Wolf, its attack of the reindeer, 37, 38. 

, Lapp mode of hunting the, 164. 

, in Newfoundland, 378. 

Wolverine. (See Glutton.) 

, fur of the, 316. 

Wood, length of time necessary for the forma- 
tion of, in the Arctic regions, 25. 

Woman, dying, abandoned, 462. 


INDEX. 


Wrangell, Lieut. von, his services as an Arctie 

explorer, 233. 
, his journey to the shores of the Polar 

sea, 234. 

, his winters at Kolymsk, 288. 

——, his night on the Polar sea, 239. 

——,, his danger, and return to St. Petersburg, 
241-248. 

Wrestling for a wife among the Tinné Indians, 
330; and among the Kutchin Indians, 332. 


©: 


YENISEI river, importance of, 17. 

Yermak Timodajeff, the Cossack robber, 192. 
, his conquest of Siberia and death, 194. 

, his monument in Tobolsk, 194, 195. 
York roads, beauty of, 412. 

Yukon river, 278-289. 

, ice in, 288. 

Yukon, fort, 284. 


Z. 


ZEMBLA, Nova, vast ice-fields of, 27. 

——, mean temperature of, in summer and 
winter, 27. 

——, the narwhal of the seas of, 60. 

, the walruses of the coasts of, 64. 

pee ast Count, his interest in Greenland, 
384. 

Ziwolka, the Russian steersman, his voyages, 
149, 150. 

——, his meteorological observations, 150. 


THE TROPICAL WORLD. 


A. 


ARANEE. (See Spiders.) 

Aard-vark, or earth-hog, 608. 

Abyssinia, elephant-hunting in, 717. 

Acacias, 587. 

Adjutant bird, 625, 657. 

Africa, Savannas of, 503 ; hunting in, 504; lake 
region of, 506; insects of, 588, 598; serpents 
of. 627; monkeys of, 677; lions of, 700; 
elephants of, 715; rhinoceroses of, 721; hip- 
popotamus of, 725; camel of, 729; giraffe of, 
731; zebras and quaggas of, 738. 

Alligators, of the old and new world, 635; 
their prey, 635; size of, 686; crane caught 
by, 637; men caught by, 638; tenacity of 
Jife, 688; their young, 639; their enemies, 
639; torpidity in the dry season, 500, 639; 
feign death, 640; fights with the orang- 
outang, 683. 

Agassiz Louis: His collection of fishes, 520; 
account of natives of the Amazon, 521, 522; 
estimate of the productions of Amazonia, 


524; description of Brazilian coffee-planta- 
tions, 564; of the coffee-moth, 566. 

Agave-plant, the, 588. 

Alpaca, the, 483. 

Altos of Peru. (See Puna.) 

Aluates, or howling monkeys, 690. 

Amache, ant, 597. 

Amazon, River and Valley of, 517; extent of, 
518; lagoons, 518; inundations, 519; vege- 
tation of, 519; fishes of, 520; animal life of, 
520; natives of, 521; siesta on, 554; alliga- 
tors in, 686; turtles of, 641. 

Amphisbenas, 521. 

Anaconda, or water-boa, 620. 

Andersson, John, Notes of, 504, 665, 667, 700, 
701, 704, 724, 732, 7385. 

Andes, the ascent of, 490. : 

Animal life, general survey of, in different 
zones, O81. 

Animals: Alpaca, 483; boars, 735; babirusa, 
736 ; camel, 728; dromedary, 750 ; elephants, 
712; giraffes, 731; hippopotamus, 725; hu- 
anacu. 453; jaguar, 710; leopard, 708; lion, 


INDEX. 


698; puma, 710. quagga, 788; rhinoceros, 
721; sloth, 678; tiger, 705; vicuna, 483; 
wild-cats, 711; zebras, 733. 

Anomaluri, the, 673. 

Ant-bears, 606; ant-bear and jaguar, 607. 

Ant-hills, 602. 

Ants: Their numbers, 594; pain of their bite, 
595; destructive of plants, 596; household 
pests, 597; the bashikouay, 598; house- 
building ants, 599; slave-holding ants, 600. 

Apes. (See Monkeys.) 

Aphides, or plant-lice, furnish honey for ants, 
600. 


Arabia, coffee culture in, 565. 

Arabs, mode of hunting the lion, 702. 

Aras, or macaws, 662. 

Argala, or adjutant-bird, 625, 657. 

Armadillos, 609; extinct species, 610, 

Arrow-root, the, 555. 

Aru, how natives of, shoot birds of paradise, 
654. 

Atacama, Peruvian Desert, 508. 

Ateles, or spider-monkeys, 690. 

Atlas, Mount, Lion-hunting in, 700. 

Atmosphere, the: currents of, 475. 

Atolls, or coral islands, 478. 

Atta cephalotes, ant destructive of the banana, 
596. é 

Australia, coral reef of, 479; desert of, 508; 
birds of, 655; bower-bird of, 656; the tale- 
galla, 656 ; the emu of, 668. 


B. 


Baprrusa, the 736. 

Baboons. (See Monkeys.) 

Bacha, or African falcon, the, 697. 

Bamboos, uses of, 532. 

Banana, and plantain, 551. 

Banyan, or Indian fig-tree, 529. 

Baobab, the giant tree, 527; Mrs. Livingstone’s 
grave under, 523. 

Barth, Henry, Notes of, 504, 510, 715. 

Bashikouay ant, the, 598. 

Basilisk, the, 632. 

Bat, the, 669; character and habits, 670; the 
kalong, 670; eaten in Java, 670; the vam- 
pire, 671 ; horse-shoe bats, 672; small bat of 
Ceylon, 672. 

Beetles, abundance of in the tropical world, 
581; used for ornament, 592. 

Behemoth; is he the hippopotamus or the buf. 
falo? 725. 

Bell-bird, or campanero, 647. 

Béte-rouge, the, 587. 

Birds: the condor, 480, 498, 698; the asfir, 
509; the ostrich, 512, 668; the secretary, 
624; the adjutant, 625; general view of bird- 
life, 645; the toucan, 646; the humming- 
bird, 647; cotingas, 647; the campanero, 
647; manakins, 648; cock of the rock, 648 ; 
troopials, 648 ; orioles, 649; cassiques, 649 ; 
the mocking-bird, 649; the toropishu, 650; 
the tunqui, 650; goatsuckers, 650; the or- 
gan-bird, 650; the cilgero, 650; the flamingo, 
650; the ibis, 651; the jabiru, 651; the ja- 
cana, 651; the rhinoceros hornbill, 651; 
sun-birds, 652; honey-eaters, 652; ocel- 
lated turkey, 652; the lyre-bird, 653; birds 
of paradise, 653; the bower-bird, 656; the 
talegalla, 656; the coppersmith 657; the 


805 


devil-bird, 657; the tailor-bird, 658; the 
grosbeak, 658; the korwé, 658; weaving 
birds, 6.9; parrots, 659; cockatoos, 662; 
macaws, 662; paroquets, 663; the ostrich, 
663; rheas, 667; the cassowary, 667; the 
emu, 668; the condor, his character and 
flight, 693; mode of capturing, 694; the car- 
rion vulture, 695; the harpy eagle, 696; the 
sociable vulture, 696; the bacha, 697; the 
fishing eagle, 697; the sparrow-hawk, 698; 
the secretary eagle, 698. 

Boars, wild, chase of, 785. 

Boas, 620; the boa constrictor, 620; water 
boas, 500, 620. 

Bogotd, table land of, 495. 

Bolas, the, 502. 

Bon, M., his spider-thread stockings, 614. 

Borelo, or black rhinoceros, the, 721. 

Bo-tree, or Pippul, 530. 

Bower-bird, the, 656. 

Brazil, Agassiz’s estimate of its future, 523; 
coffee-culture in, 563; ants of, 601; toads of, 
638. 

Bread-fruit, 550. 

Bufo-gigas, or great toad of Brazil, 633. 

Buildings of ants, 602. 

Bushropes, or lianas, 515, 585. 

Butterflies, 582. 

Butterfly, the leaf, 583. 


C. 


Cacao, or chocolate, 567. 

Cactuses, 588. 

Camel, the, 728; ships of the land, 728; forma- 
tion of its foot, 729; its food, 729; its water- 
pouch, 729; its hump, and the uses of it, 
729; its desert home, 729; the camel and its 
master, 730; training for robbery, 730; en. 
durance of thirst, 780; distinction between 
the camel and the dromedary, 730; caravan 
journeys, 73; changes from servitude, 731 ; 
effects upon its temper, 731; excuses for its 
ill-temper, 731. 

Cameleorpard. (See Giraffe.) 

Campanero, or bell-bird, 647. 

Cassava, or Mandioca, 554. 

Cassia. (See Cinnamon.) 

Cassiques, 649. 

Cassowary, the, 667. 

Cattle and horses in America, 500. 

Caymen. (See Alligators.) 

Ceiba-tree, the, 531. 

Cerastes, the, 620. 

Ceylon, Game in, 505; parasitic and thorny 
plants of, 586; Cinnamon culture, 578; ants 
of, 595; serpents of, 616; alligators of, 640; 
turtles of, 644; birds of, 657; monkeys of, 
686; elephants of, 713; taming elephants, 
717; Panickeas, or elephant-catchers, 718; 
their mode of capturing the elephant, 718 ; 
elephant establishments of the government, 
721. 

Chacma, or pig-faced baboon, 687. 

Chaco, the grand, of Paraguay, 502. 

Chameleon, the, 6380. 

Charming, by serpents, 621. 

Chegoes or jiggers, 585. 

Cheetah, or hunting leopard, the, 708. 

Chelonians, or tortoises, 642, 

Chimpanzee, the, 677. 


506 


Chirimoya, the, 492, 556. 

Chocolate, 567. 

Church, F. A., his painting of the Heart of the 
Andes 491. 

Cicada, the, 592. 

Cilgero, the. 650. 

Cinnamon, 571; the Dutch monopoly of, 572; 
amount produced, 572; historical notices of, 
573; present consumption of, 574. 

Climbers, the, 669; the bat, 669; the flying 
squirrel, 673; the galeopitheci, 673; the 
anomaluri, 678; the sloth,673; monkeys, 676. 

Climbing plants, 535. 

Cloves, 574, 576. 

Cobra de Capello, the, 619. 

Coca, the leaves of, 568; effects of their use, 569. 

Cochineal insect, the, 591. 

Cockatoos, 662. 

Cock of the rock, 648. 

Cockroaches, 589. 

Cocoa, Cacao, and Coca,not to be confounded, 568. 

Cocoa palm, the, 588. 

Coffee, 562; home of the plant, 562; coffee 
countries, 568, 565; coffee plantations in 
Brazil, 664; gathering the berries, 565; 
enemies of the plant, 566. 

Coffee-bug, the, 566. 

Cotfee-moth, Mrs. Agassiz’s description of, 566. 

Colobi, the, 691. 

Columbus, and the Gulf-stream, 474. 

Condor, the, 480, 498; his character and flight, 
693 ; mode of capturing, 694. 

Coppersmith, bird, the, 657. 

Coqueros, or coca-chewers, 570. 

Coral, reefs and islands, 478, 479 

Cordilleras the, 490. 

Cotingas, 647. 

Cougar, or puma, the, 711. 

Crab, robber, the, 580. 

Crane, caught by alligator, 637. 

Crocodiles. (See Alligators.) 

Cubbeer-burr, a famous tree, 529. 

Currents of the ocean, 473; the equatorial cur- 
rent, 474; the Gulf Stream, 474. 

‘Cynocephali, monkeys, the, 687. 


D. 


Dancrine parties of birds of paradise, 655. 
Deryas, sacred monkey of Egypt, the, 688. 
Desplobado, the, 480, 482, 485. 

Deserts (See also Savannas.) Of Atacama, 
508; of Australia, 5 8; the Sahara, 509. 

Devil-bird of Ceylon, 657. 

Dioscorea or yam-plants, 555. 

Doldrums, or equatorial calm belts, 476. 

Dorey, ants of, 597. 

ldouw, or Burchell’s zebra, 734. 

Dragon trees, 528 

Dromedary, the. (See Camel.) 

Du Chaillu, Paul: Account of the bashikouay 
ant, 598; of squirrel charmed by serpent, 
624; kills large snake, 627; kills a gorilla, 
678; female gorilla and young, 679; number 
of gorillas seen by him, 680; whips of hippo- 
potamus-skin, 727. 

Durion, the, 557; favorite food of the orang- 
outang, 684. 

Dutch, their monopoly of spices, 572, 575. 

Dyaks, of Borneo, 631 ; contest with the orang- 
outang, 684, 


INDEX. 


E. 


EaG ie, the harpy, 696; the fishing, 698; the 


secretary, 698. 

Ecuador, characteristics of, 490. 

Edible insects, 592; edible spiders, 614. 

Elevation, its influence upon climate, 480, 485. 

Elephant, the, 712; difference between the 
tamed and wild, 712; timidity of the ele- 
phant, 713; his power of climbing, 713; his 
water-stomach, 7138; his trunk, and its uses, 
718; his tusks, and their possible uses, 714; 
elephant herds, 504, 714; tuskers, 714; rogue 
elephants, 714; distinction between African 
and Asiatic elephants, 715; elephants known 
to the ancients, 715; range of the African 
elephant, 715; how they are hunted by the 
natives, 716; by Europeans, 716; in Abys- 
synia, 716; the Asiatie elephant, 717; their 
abundance in Ceylon, 717; mode of cap- 
turing them, 718; behavior of the captured 
animals, 719; great elephant-hunts, 719; 
elephant-corral, 719; tied up, 470,719; tame 
elephants assisting to capture wild ones, 719; 
decoy-elephants, 720; an obstinate brute, 
720; a little head-work, 720; dying of a 
broken heart, 720; the elephant in captivity, 
720; value of their labor, 720. 

Elliott, Ensign, adventure with a tiger, 707. 

Emu, the, 667. h 

Emydz, or marsh-tortoises, 641. 

Enormous snakes, stories of, 627. 

Epiphytic plants, 535. 


F. 


FANGS, poison, of serpents, 618. 

Fascination of serpents, 621. 

Fire-ant of Guiana, 595, 

Fire-flies, 584. 

Fishing eagle, the, 698. 

Flamingo, the, 650. 

Flies, noxious, 587. 

Flying frog, Wallace’s, 633. 

Ylying lizards, 632. 

Flying squirrels, 673. 

Forests of the Tropical World, 514. 

Formica. (See Anis.) 

Fox-bat, or kalong, the, 670. 

Franklin, Dr., Account of Indian corn, 549. 

Frogs and toads: Gigantic of the Amazon, 520; 
the pipa, 632; Brazilian tree-frog, 683; Wal- 
lace’s flying trog, 633; singular toad at 
Bahia, 638; the bufo gigas, 634. 

Fruits and Plants of the Tropical World; the 
chirimoya, 492, 556; the leroshua, 504; the 
mokuri, the kengwe, the naras, 505; the 
date, 542; the litchi, 556; the mangosteen, | 
557; the mango, 557; the durion, 557. 


G. 


GALAGOS, semi-monkeys, the, 688. 
Galapagos, or Tortoise Islands, 640. 
Galeopitheci, the, 673. 

Gallinazos, or carrion vultures, 695. 
Gavials. (See Alligators.) 
Geckoes, the, 629. 

Gibbons, monkeys, the, 685. 
Ginger, 578. 


INDEX. 


Giraffe, the, 504; pulled down by lions, 699 ; 
its aspect, 731; its weapons of detence, 732; 
its anatomical structure, 7382; chase of the 
giraffe, 732 ; encounters with lions, 699, 782; 
Aristotle and Buffon on the giraffe, 783; 
giraffes in Europe and America, 783; analo- 
gies between the ostrich and the giraffe, 733. 

Glagah grass, the, 546. 

Gnu, the, 734. 

God’s birds, name for birds of paradise, 653. 

Goliath beetle, the, 582. 

Gorilla, the, 678; Du Chaillu’s adventures 
among, 678; female and young, 679. 

Gourds, esculent, ot the kalahari, 505. 

Graminea, or grasses, 532. 

Grosbeak, the, 658. 

Guachos of South America, 502. 

Gum-lac insect, 592. : 


H. 


Haye, serpent, the, 620. 

Harpy eagle, the, 696. 

Hendersoi;, A. M., on the fascination of ser- 
pents, 621. 

Himalayas, mountains of, 497. 

Hippopotamus, the, 725; is it the behemoth of 
Job ? 725; its ancient and present habitat, 
725; its mode of life, 725; its unpleasing 
aspect, 725; its inoffensive character, 726; 
the rogue hippopotamus, 726; intelligence 
of the hippopotamus, 726; whips of its hide, 
727; its ivory, 727; modes of destroying, 
727; spearing the hippopotamus, 728; the 
downfall, 728. 

Historical tree, the oldest, 530. 

Hog, the, destructive to the rattlesnake, 619. 

Honey-eaters, 652. 

Hornbill, the rhinoceros, 651. 

Horse, the, introduced into America, 500; in- 
fluence upon the natives, 502. 

House-building ants, 599. 

Humming-birds, 647. 

Huanacu, the, 483. 

Humboldt, A. Von: Notes of, 498, 517, 525, 
552, 601, 688, 691, 694. 

Huniman, the sacred monkey of India, 686. 

Hunting, of the vicuna, 484; of the gazelle, 
512; of the ostrich, 512, 664; of the lion, 
700 ; by the cheetah, 708; of the rhinoceros, 
723; of the hippopotamus, 727; of the wild 
boar, 7385. 

Hurricanes, velocity of, 477. 

Hyena, the, 709; different species of, 709. 

Hy drosauri, or water-lizards, 632. 


Tats, the, 651. 

Igaripés, or canoe paths of the Amazon, 518. 

Teuanas, 6381. 

Incas of Peru, 486; origin of their civilization, 
487 ; present aspect of their sacred island, 487 ; 
fountain of the Incas, 488; their great mil- 
itary roads, 489. 

Indians, of Ecuador, 493; of southern Africa, 
506; of the Amazon, 521; of the Malay isl- 
ands, 552. 

Insects, abundance of within the tropics, 581; 
beetles, 581 ; goliath, 582; leaf-butterfly, 582, 


807 


584 ; 
béte- 
O87 ; 


mantis or soothsayer, 5838; fire-flies, 
mosquitoes, 585; jiggers, 585; the 
rouge, 586; ticks, 587; land-leeches, 
the tsetsé, 587; Isalt-Salya, or zimb, 588; 
locusts, 588; cockroaches, 589; the silk- 
worm, 59U; the cochineal insect, 591; the 
gum-lac insect, 592; edible insects, 592; or- 
namentai insects, 598; aphides, or plant-lice, 
600. (See also Ants, Termites, and Spiders.) 

India-rubber tree, the, 536. ; 

Inundations, of the Amazon, 519. 

Islands: mostly tropical, 477; voleanic, 478 ; 
Fe Rese 478; volcanic, 479; how peopled, 
oe 


JABIRO, the, 651. 

Jacana, the, 651. 

Jaguar, the, 710; his ravages, 710; modes of 
hunting, 710. 

Java, coftee of, 568; Dutch monopoly of spices 
in, 575; bats in, 670. 

Jigger, or chegoe, the, 585. 


K. 


Kata, the rhinoceros-bud, 722. 

Kalahari, South African Savanna, 503; vege- 
tation of, 505; water in, 505; insects of, 506; 
water-finding ants, 506 ; inhabitants of, 506. 

Kalong, or fox-bat, the, 670. 

Keitloa, or black rhinoceros, the, 721. 

Kengwe, an African plant, 5(5. 

Khamsin, or simoom, the 511, 729. 

Kobaaba, or white rhinoceros, the 722. 

Korwé, the, 658. 


L. 


LABARRI snake, the 617. 

Ladang, or mountain rice, 546. 

Lake Region of Africa, 506. 

Land and Water, Proportions of, 473. 

Lasso, the, 501. 

Leeches, Land of, Ceylon, 587. 

Leichardt, Mr., explorations in Australia, 509. 

Lemurs, semi-monkeys, 688. 

Leopard, the, 708; the cheetah, or hunting 
leopard, 708. 

Leroshud, an African plant, 504. 

Llana, the, 483. 

Llanos, of Venezuela, the, 499; in the dry 
season, 500; in the wet season, 500. 

Lianas. (See Bushropes.) 

Life and cold, struggles between, 471. 

Lion, the, 504; lion and rhinoceros, 504, 704; 
general characteristics of the lion, 698; mode 
of seizing his prey, 699; lions and giraffe, 
699 ; lion and man, 700; hunting the lion on 
Mount Atlas, 700, 702; man-eating lions, 
700, 704; adventure of Hottentot with, 71, 
of Andersson with, 701; of Livingstone with, 
702; hunted by the Arabs, 702; by the 
Bushmen, 703; ancient range of, 704; pres- 
ont range of, 704; Livingstone’s opinion of, 
704. 

Litchi, the, 556. 

Livingstone, David: Notes of, 505, 527, 885, 


808 INDEX. 


Livingstone, David: Notes of, 588, 595, 600, |N utritive Plants of the Tropical World (Chap- 
667, 708, 704, 715, 726, 732. {| ter VI. See also Fruits and Plants.) Rice, 
Livingstone, Mrs., Grave of, 528. 545; Maize, 547; Millet, 550; bread-fruit, 
Lizards, 629; the geckoe, 629; the anolis, 630; 550: banana and plantain, 551; the sago- 
the chameleon, 630; the iguana, 681; ihe palm, 552 ; cassava, or mandioca, 554; yams, 


teja, 631; hy drosauri, or water lizards, 632; 555; sweet potato, 555; arrow-root, 550; 
flying- lizards, 632; the basilisk, 632. taro-root, 556. 

Locusts, 589. Nycteribia bats, 672. 

Loris, semi-monkeys, 688. Nyclopitheci, or nocturnal monkeys, 691. 


Love-Parrot, the, 661. 
Lyre-bird, the, 653. 


O. 
M. OcEAN AND ATMOSPHERE, the, 471. | 
M , 662. Ocean, the, extent of, 472; influence upon cli- 
Mace, oe. mate, 473; laws governing them, 475. 
Magdalena river, voyage up, 495. Okhotsk Sea, currents of, 475. ; 
Mahogany tree, the, 581. Orang-oatang, or mias, 680; Wallace’s account 
Maize, or Indian Corn, 547; its productive-| of 681; portrait of female, 631; strength 
ness, 548; Franklin’s account of, 549. and tenacity of life, 682; size of the largest, 
Malay Archipelago, the, productions and ani-| 682; a formidable opponent, 683 ; fights with 
mals of. (See Wallace.) the alligator and python, 6838; its habits and 
Manakins, birds, 648. ' food, 683; Wallace’s pet orang, 684. 
Mama Oella, legends of, 486. Orchids, 535. aes 
Manco Capac, legends of, 486. Orejones, of Bogota, 495. 
Mandrils, monkeys, the, 687. Organ-bird, the, 650. 
Mandioca, or Cassava, 554. Orioles, 648. 
Mango, the, 557. Ornamental insects, 592. 
Mangosteen, the, 557. ote or sociable vulture, 696. 
Manides, ant-eat 608. rotava, great dragon-tree of, 528. 
Mentia or set ihiaaar. ne 583. Orton, James: Notes from, 490, 493, 494, 498, 
Marching termite, the, 606. 0 _ ea sea ie, ae 3 
Mata, a plant of the Pana, 483. rye Meas tag steat scr 
Mppatherium, the, BB. oy Ostrich, the : Hunting of, 512, 664; the ostrich 
Wiican ban Geass "aphides 600. at home, 663; its enemies, 664, 666; its in- 
Mexico, auntie wal of, 496. stincts, 665; care for its young, 665; con- 
Mias, or orang-outang, 680. necting link between birds and quadrupeds, 
Millet, 550. : 666; its omniverous appetite, 666; vaiue of 
Mimosas, 534. its feathers and eggs, 667, 
Mocking-bird, the, 649. Ox, the, introduced into America, 500; their 
Mokuri, an African plant, 505. vast increase, 501. 
Monitor, lizard, 631. 
Monkeys, their habits and characteristics, 676 ; P 


place in the scale of being, 677 ; distinguished 

from the human race, 677 ; the chimpanzee, ee : 

677; the gorilla, 678; the orang-outang, or PACHYDERMATI of ine tropical world, 712. 
mias, 680; the gibbons, 685; the semno- cee, or native rice, 647. 

pitheci, 686; the huniman, 686; the cyno- | Pa!m-trees: The mauritiz, 499; on the Ama- 
cephali, baboons and mandrils, 687; difter-| 400; 469, 519; general characteristics, 538, 
ence between monkeys of the two hemi- 542; avenue of, at Rio Janeiro, 639; multi- 
spheres, 688; abundance of monkeys in plied uses of, 589; the saguer, and areca, 
South America, 689; miriki, 689; howling 540; the palmyra and talipot, 541 ; the date- 
monkeys, 690; spider-monkeys, 691; fox.| Palm, 642; oil palmis, 542; palms on the 
tail monkeys, 691; the Saimiris, 691; noc- Amazon, 543; the sago-palm, 552; future 


t 1 k 691 pat .|__ commercial value of the palm, 544. 

Lee, 692; squirvel eae yameas® ee Pampas, of South America, 499. (See also 
Monoho, or white rhinoceros, the 721. Savannas and Llanos.) Horses and cattle in, 
Monsoons, the, 476. 502, 2 
Mora-tree, the, 531, Panama railroad, forest on, 526. 

Mosquito, the, 585. Pandanus, or screw-pine, 533. 

Mountains: as influencing climate, 476. Pangolins, ant-eaters, 608. 

Mule, the ship of the desert of Atacama, 508. Panickeas, elephant-catchers of Ceylon, 718. 
Mundaaracus, of Amazonia’ pon Paradise, birds of, 653; early stories about, 
Mylodon, the, 675. f 658; Wallace’s account of, 653; shooting of, 


by natives of Aru, 654; the great bird of 
paradise, 655; snaring the red bird of para- 


N. dise, 655. 
Parasitic plants, 535. 
Naras, an African plant, 505. Paroquets, 663. 
Nests of weaving birds, 658. Parrots, 659. 
Nocturnal monkeys, 691. Peons, in South America, 522. 


Nutmegs, 574; Dutch monopoly of, 575. Pepper, 576. 


INDEX. 


Peru, ancient civilization of, 486. 

Pichincha, volcano, descent into, 494. 

Pimento, 577. 

Pippul, or Bo-tree, 530. 

Pique, or jigger,. 585. 

Plantain and banana, 551. 

Plant-lice, aphides, furnish honey to ants, 600. 

Plants, nutritive. (See Fruits and T’rees.) Rice, 
545; maize, 547; millet, 550; sugar-cane, 
559; coffee, 562; cacao, or chocolate, 567 ; 
vanilla, 568; coca, 568; cinnamon and cas- 
sia, 571; nutmegs and cloves, 574. 

Ponera clavata, ant, 594. 

Porocococa, on the Amazon, 518. 

Potato, the sweet, 555. 

Prey, beasts and birds of, 698. 

Puma, or cougar, American lion, the, 710. 

Puna, the, or table-land of Peru: its extent 
and character, 481; diseases of, 482; life in, 
482; vegetation of, 483; animals of, 484; 
climate of, 485. (See also T%ticaca.) 

Python, the, 620; contests with the orang- 
outang, 683. 


Q. 


Quaeea. (See Zebra.) 

Quinua, a plant of the Puna, 483. 

Quito, table-land of: its elevation, 489; ways 
of access, 490; approach from the Pacific 
coast, 491; the climate and productions, 
492; its fauna and flora, 492; the people, 
498; its surrounding volcanos, 494. 


R. 


Rassit, fascinated by serpent, 623. 

Rains and rain-fall, 476 ; at sea, 477; in various 
places, 477, 513. 

Ratans, 541. 

Rattlesnakes, 619; power of fascination, 621. 

Realejo, or organ-bird, the, 650. 

Red ant of Ceylon, 595. 

Reefs, 478. 

Rheas, or American ostriches, 667. 

Rhinoceros, the, 721; species of, 721; differ- 
ence between the white and the black, 721 ; 
general characteristics, 722; acuteness of its 
smell and hearing, 722; imperfection of its 
vision, 722; its bird attendant, 722; bad 
temper of the black species, 722; fondness 
for its offspring, 723; its nocturnal habits, 
723 ; hunting the rhinoceros, 728; its vitality, 
723; value of its ivory, 728; rhinoceros 
paths, 724; the Indian rhinoceros, 724. 

Rice, species and culture of, 545; rice lands of 
the United States, 546; enemies of the rice- 
plant, 547. 

Rice-bird, the, 547. 

Rice, Colonel, adventure with a tiger, 760. 

Roads of the Incas of Peru, 489. 

Hogue elephants, 714; rogue hippopotami, 


6. 
Robber crab, 580 and 634. 
8. 


Sace tt, dancing parties of birds, 655. 
Sacred island in Lake Titicaca, 485, 488. 


809 


Sago, mode of manufacturing, 552; productive- 
ness of the tree, 553. 

Sahara, Desert of, 509; Barth’s adventure in, 
510; oases in, 511; khamsin, or pestilential 
wind, 511; animals and birds of, 512; seasons 
of, 518. 

Saimiris, monkey, 691. 

Sakis, the, 691. 

Sandal-tree, the, 531. 

Sargasso Sea, the, 474. 

Sarumpe, a disease on the Puna, 482. 

Satinwood-tree, 530. 

Savannas and Deserts (Chapter III.) The 
Llanos of Venezuela, 4°9 ; the Pampas, 500; 
the Kalahari, 502; Lake Region of Africa, 
506. 

Sawa, or marsh rice, 546. 

Scorpions, 614 ; their aspect, 615; their venom, 
615. 

Seasons, the: Changes of, in different hemis- 
pheres, 476. 

Sea-weeds in the Sargasso Sea, 474. 

Secretary eagle, the, 624, 698. 

Semi-monkeys, lemurs, loris, etc., 688. 

Semnopitheci, monkeys, the, 686. 

Serpents: Rarity of venomous species, 616; 
danger from, 617; antidotes to their poison, 
618; mechanism of their poison-fangs, 618; 
the bushmaster, 619; rattlesnakes, 619; ex- 
tirpated by hogs, 619; the cobra, 620; the 
haje, 620; boas and pythons, 620; fascina- 
tion of serpents, 621; catching their prey, 
624; their bird enemies, 624; eating each 
other, 625; anatomical structure, 625; the 
formation of their jaws, 626; protracted fast- 
ings, 626; useful serpents, 627; tree-snakes 
and water-snakes, 627 ; enormous serpents, 
627; large snake killed by Du Chaillu, 627; 
larger one mentioned by Wallace, 628. 

Serpent-destroyers, 619, 624. 

Sikkim, the table-land of, 497. 

Silk-worm, the, 590. 

Silla, traveling by, 496. 

Simoom, the, 511, 729. 

Sjambok, whip of rhinoceros-hide, 727. 

Slave-hunting ants, 600. 

Sloth, the, 673; helplessness on the ground, 
674; activity on trees, 674; tenacity of life, 
675; gigantic fossil sloths, 676. 

Snakes. (See Serpents.) 

Soothsayer, or mantes, 583. 

Soroche, a disease on the Puna, 482. 

Sparrow-hawk, the, 698. 

Speke, John H., Account of the Lake Region 
of Africa, 507. 

Spices, 559; cinnamon, 571; nutmegs and 
cloves, 574; pepper, 576; pimento, 577 ; gin- 
ger, 578. 

Spiders : Numerous on the Amazon, 520; gen- 
eral characteristics of, 610; their venom, 
611; their webs, 611; neutral-colored spi- 
ders, 611; bright-colored spiders, 612; modes 
of life, 612; spider-eating birds, 618; insect 
enemies of the spider, 613; small effects of 
the bites of spiders, 6138; edible spiders, 614; 
possible industrial uses of their filaments, 614. 

Spider-monkeys, 691. 

Spider-webs, their fineness, 614. 

Spoonbills, 651. 

Squier, E. G.: Notes from, 481, 484, 487. 

Squirrel, charmed by serpent, 624; the flying- 
squirrel, 673. 


810 


Squirrel-monkeys, 692. 

Sturt, Mr., Explorations in Australia, 509. 

Sugar, manufacture of, 561. 

Sugar-cane, the, 559; its introduction into 
America, 560; characteristics of the plant, 
561. 

Sun-birds, 652. 

Sycamore, the, 529. 


T. 


TaBLe Lanps, of Peru, 480; of Quito, 489; 
Bogotdé, 495; of Mexico, 496; of the Hima- 
layas, 497. 

Tailor-bird, the, 658. 

Talegalla, or brush-turkey, the, 656. 

Tapir, the, 521. 

Tarantula, spider, exaggerated accounts of its 
venom, 614. 

Taro-root, the, 556. 

Tatooed Indians on the Amazon, 521. 

Teak-tree, the, 580. 

Teju lizard, the, 681. 

Tennent, Sir Emerson; Notes of, 527, 535, 616, 
638, 640, 644, 672, 718, 721. 

Termites, or white ants: Their habits and 
food, 601; destructiveness to books and fur- 
niture, 601; their uses, 602, their communi- 
ties, 602; their buildings, 602; their indus- 
try, 603; their military operations, 604; 
American termites, 605; mode of capture, 
605; marching termites, 606. 

Theobroma, or chocolate, 567. 

Thorny plants, 504, 536. 

Ticks, 586. 

Thorpe, T. B., on the fascination of serpents, 
622; on the size of alligators, 636. 

Tierras, climatic regions of Mexico, 496. 

Tiger, the, 705 ; appearance and habits, 705 ; his 
ferocity, 705 ; his present and former range, 
704 ; tiger-hunting by natives of India, 706 ; 
by English residents, 706; perilous adven- 
ture, 706; peacocks and monkeys warning 
against the tiger, 707; preying upon tor- 
toises, 708. 

Titicaca, the sacred Jake and island of Peru: 


elevation of the lake, 485; the sacred island, 
486. 
Toads. (See F’rogs.) 


Toropishu, the, 650. 

Tortoises. (See Turtles.) 

Toucan, the, 646. 

Trade winds, the, 476. 

Trees and Plants of the Tropical World: Mau- 
ritia palm, 499; the wait-a-bit thorn, 504; 
baobab, 527; dragon trees, 528; the syca- 
more, 529; banyan, 529; pippul, or bo-tree, 
530; the teak-tree, 530; satinwood, 530; 
sandal-wood, 5381; ceiba, 531; mahogany, 
531; mora, 531; bamboos (see under head) ; 
agave, 533; pandanus, 533; cactuses, 534; 
mimosas, 534; lianas, 5385; acacias, 5387; 
mangroves, 538; palms (see under head) ; rat- 
ans, 541; bread-fruit, 550; cinnamon, 572. 

Trigonocephalus snake, the, 618. 

Troopials, 648. 

Tropical World, the: Ocean and. Atmosphere 
of, 471-479. (Chapter I.)—Table-Lands and 
Plateaus of, 480-498. (Chapter II.)—Savan- 
nas and Deserts of, 499-513. (Chapter III.) 
Forests of, 514-524. (Chapter 1V.)—Charac- 


‘INDEX. 


teristic forms of Vegetation, 525-544. (Chap. 
ter V.)—Nutritive Plants of, 545-558. (Chap- — 
ter VI.)—Condiments and Spices, 559-578- 
(Chapter VII.)—Insects of, 581-593. (Chap- 
ter VIII.)—Ants, Spiders, and Scorpions, 
594-615. (Chapter [X.)—Serpents, Lizards, 
Frogs and Toads, 616-634. (Chapter X.)— 
Alligators, Crocodiles, and Turtles, 635-644, 
Chapter XI.)—Bird Life, 645-668. (Chapter 
XII.)—The Climbers, 669-692. (Chapter 
XIII.)—Beasts and Birds of Prey, 693-711. 
(Chapter XIV.)—The Elephant, Rhinoceros, 
Hippopotamus, Camel, and Zebra, 712-736. 
(Chapter XV.) 

Tschudi, von, Notes from, 484, 485, 569, 585, 
590, 694, 710, 711. 

Tsetsé-fly, the, 587. 

Tunqui, the 650. 

Pay the, ocellated, 652; the brush-turkey, 
656 

Turkey-buzzard, the, 694. 

Turtles, 640; their chief habitats, 641; slow 
travelers, 641; hunting their eggs on the 
Amazon, 641; Marsh-tortoises, 641; sea- 
turtles, 642; enemies of the turtle, 648; 
modes of taking, 643; barbarous treatment 
of, 644; vocal turtles, 644. 


U. 


Urvst, or carrion vulture, 695. 
Urquiza, General, his vast estates, 501. 
Umbrella ant, the, 596. 


WV. 


VANILLA, 568, 

Vampires, 671. 

paeeeaion, Tropical, characteristic Forms of, 
5. 

Veruga, poisoned water of the Puna, 482. 

Veta, a disease in the Puna, 482. 

Victoria regia, the, 536. 

Vicuna, the, 488; hunts of, 484. 

Vivagua-ant, the, 596. 

Volcanos: of Ecuador, 494; of Mexico, 497. 

Vulture, the carrion, 695; the sociable, 696. 


W. 


Wa.tace, ALFRED R.: Account of the bread. 
fruit, 550; the manufacture of sago, 552 
description of the durion, 557; of the leaf. 
butterfly, 582; ants in Dorey, 597; describes 
huge snake, 628; of a flying frog, 633; of 
birds of paradise, 653; of edible bats, 670; 
of the orang-outang, 681; his pet orang, 
684; notice of the babirusa, 736. 

Water: Proportion of to land, 472; relations 
to fertility, 475, 499, 525; obtaining in the 
Kalahari, 505. 

Waterton, William: Notes of, 617, 637, 646, 
650, 672, 674. 

Weaving-birds, and their nests, 659. 

Webs of spiders, 611. 

West Indies, sugar in, 561; coffee in, 568. 

Whirlwinds, 477. 

White Ants. (See Termites.) 

Wild-Cats, different species of, 711. 

Winds, as regulators of rain, 476. 


INDEX. 811 


Woods, ornamental of the Amazon, 524. Z 
Wourali poison, the, 690. : 


ZEBRA, the, 733; its appearance, 733; capacity 
Y for domestication, 733; habits, 738; ancient 
notices of, 734. 
Yam, the, 555. Zimb-fly, the, 588. 
Yriarteas, palms, tne, 543. Zones of the Earth, Limits of, 472. 


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