At midday of May 1st, their observation showed them that they were in latitude 68° and longitude 56° 32′. The temperature had risen, the thermometer standing at 25° above zero.
The doctor amused himself with watching the gambols of a she-bear and two cubs on some pack-ice near the shore. Accompanied by Wall and Simpson, he tried to chase them in a canoe; but she was in a very peaceful mood, and ran away with her young, so that the doctor had to give up his attempt.
During the night a favorable breeze carried them well to the north, and soon the lofty mountains of Disco were peering above the horizon; Godharn Bay, where the governor of the Danish settlements lived, was left on the right. Shandon did not consider it necessary to land, and he soon passed by the canoes of the Eskimo, who had put out to meet him.
The island of Disco is also called Whale Island; it is from here that, on the 12th of July, 1845, Sir John Franklin wrote to the Admiralty for the last time, and it was also here that Captain MacClintock stopped on his way back, bringing too sure proofs of the loss of that expedition.
This coincidence was not unknown to the doctor; the place was one of sad memories, but soon the heights of Disco were lost to view.
There were many icebergs on its shores, which no thaws ever melt away; this gives the island a singular appearance from the sea.
The next day, at about three o’clock, Sanderson’s Hope appeared in the northeast; land lay about fifteen miles to starboard; the mountains appeared of a dusky red hue. During the evening many finbacks were seen playing in the ice, and occasionally blowing.
It was in the night of May 3rd, that the doctor for the first time saw the sun touch the horizon without setting; since January 31st its orbit had been getting longer every day, and now there was unbroken daylight.
For those who were unaccustomed to it, this continuance of the day is a cause of perpetual surprise, and even of weariness; it is difficult to believe how necessary the darkness of the night is for the eyes; the doctor actually suffered from the continual brilliancy, which was increased by the reflection from the ice.
May 5th the Forward passed the sixty-second parallel. Two months later they would have met numerous whalers in these latitudes; but the straits were not yet free enough to allow easy ingress into Baffin’s Bay.
The next day, the brig, after passing Woman’s Island, came in sight of Upernavik, the northernmost station of Denmark in these lands.
X
Dangerous Sailing
Shandon, Dr. Clawbonny, Johnson, Foker, and Strong, the cook, got into one of the boats and made their way to shore.
The Governor, his wife and five children, all Eskimo, received their visitors kindly. The doctor, who was the philologist of the party, knew enough Danish to establish friendly relations; moreover, Foker, the interpreter of the party as well as ice-master, knew a dozen or two words of the language of the Greenlanders, and with that number of words one can express a great deal, if he is not too ambitious.
The Governor was born on the island of Disco, and he has never left the place; he did the honors of his capital, which consisted of three wooden houses, for himself and the Lutheran minister, of a school, and shops which were supplied by what was cast upon the shore from wrecked ships. The rest of the town consisted of snow huts, into which the Eskimo crawl through a single opening.
A great part of the population came out to meet the Forward, and more than one of them went as far as the middle of the bay in his kayak, fifteen feet long and two broad at the widest part.
The doctor knew that the word Eskimo meant “eater of raw fish”; but he knew too that this name is considered an insult in this country, so he forbore giving it to the inhabitants of Greenland.
And yet, from the oily sealskin clothes and boots, from their squat, fat figures, which make it hard to distinguish the men from the women, it was easy to declare the nature of their food; besides, like all fish-eating people, they were somewhat troubled by leprosy, but their general health was not impaired by it.
The Lutheran minister and his wife, with whom the doctor had promised himself an interesting talk, happened to be away on the shore of Proven, south of Upernavik; hence he was compelled to seek the company of the Governor. The chief magistrate did not appear to be very well informed: a little less, he would have been a fool; a little more, and he would have known how to read.
In spite of that, the doctor questioned him about the commerce, habits, and manners of the Eskimo; and he learned, by means of gestures, that the seals were worth about forty pounds when delivered at Copenhagen; a bearskin brought forty Danish dollars, the skin of a blue fox four, and of a white fox two or three dollars.
In order to make his knowledge complete, the doctor wanted to visit an Eskimo hut; a man who seeks information is capable of enduring anything; fortunately the opening of these huts was too small, and the enthusiastic doctor could not get through. It was fortunate for him, for there is nothing more repulsive than the sight of that crowd of living and dead objects, of seal’s bodies and Eskimo-flesh, decayed fish and unclean clothing, which fill a Greenland hut; there is no window to renew that suffocating air; there is only a hole at the top of the cabin which lets the smoke out, but gives no relief to the stench.
Foker gave all these details to the doctor, but he none the less bewailed
