Robert Michael Ballantyne
The Giant of the North: Pokings Round the Pole
Chapter Six.
Future Plans Discussed and Decided
Away to the northward of the spot where the Whitebear had been wrecked there stretched a point of land far out into the Arctic Ocean. It was about thirty miles distant, and loomed hugely bluff and grand against the brilliant sky, as if it were the forefront of the northern world. No civilised eyes had ever beheld that land before. Captain Vane knew that, because it lay in latitude 83 north, which was a little beyond the furthest point yet reached by Arctic navigators. He therefore named it Cape Newhope. Benjy thought that it should have been named Butterface-beak, because the steward had been the first to observe it, but his father thought otherwise.
About three miles to the northward of this point of land the Eskimos were encamped. According to arrangement with the white men they had gone there, as we have said, in charge of the dogs brought by Captain Vane from Upernavik, as these animals, it was thought, stood much in need of exercise.
Here the natives had found and taken possession of a number of deserted Eskimo huts.
These rude buildings were the abodes to which the good people migrated when summer heat became so great as to render their snow-huts sloppily disagreeable.
In one of the huts sat Chingatok, his arms resting on his knees, his huge hands clasped, and his intelligent eyes fixed dreamily on the lamp-flame, over which his culinary mother was bending in busy sincerity. There were many points of character in which this remarkable mother and son resembled each other. Both were earnest—intensely so—and each was enthusiastically eager about small matters as well as great. In short, they both possessed great though uncultivated minds.
The hut they occupied was in some respects as remarkable as themselves. It measured about six feet in height and ten in diameter. The walls were made of flattish stones, moss, and the bones of seals, whales, narwhals, and other Arctic creatures. The stones were laid so that each overlapped the one below it, a very little inwards, and thus the walls approached each other gradually as they rose from the foundation; the top being finally closed by slabs of slate-stone. Similar stones covered the floor—one half of which floor was raised a foot or so above the other, and this raised half served for a seat by day as well as a couch by night. On it were spread a thick layer of dried moss, and several seal, dog, and bear skins. Smaller elevations in the corners near the entrance served for seats. The door was a curtain of sealskin. Above it was a small window, glazed, so to speak, with strips of semi-transparent dried intestines sewed together.
Toolooha’s cooking-lamp was made of soapstone, formed like a clam-shell, and about eight inches in diameter; the fuel was seal-oil, and the wick was of moss. It smoked considerably, but Eskimos are smoke-proof. The pot above it, suspended from the roof, was also made of soapstone. Sealskins hung about the walls drying; oily mittens, socks and boots were suspended about on pegs and racks of rib-bones. Lumps of blubber hung and lay about miscellaneously. Odours, not savoury, were therefore prevalent—but Eskimos are smell-proof.
“Mother,” said the giant, raising his eyes from the flame to his parent’s smoke-encircled visage, “they are a most wonderful people, these Kablunets. Blackbeard is a great man—a grand man—but I think he is—”
Chingatok paused, shook his head, and touched his forehead with a look of significance worthy of a white man.
“Why think you so, my son?” asked the old woman, sneezing, as a denser cloud than usual went up her nose.
“Because he has come here to search for nothing.”
“Nothing, my son?”
“Yes—at least that is what he tried to explain to me. Perhaps the interpreter could not explain. He is not a smart man, that interpreter. He resembles a walrus with his brain scooped out. He spoke much, but I could not understand.”
“Could not understand?” repeated Toolooha, with an incredulous look, “let not Chingatok say so. Is there anything that passes the lips of man which he cannot understand?”
“Truly, mother, I once thought there was not,” replied the giant, with a modest look, “but I am mistaken. The Kablunets make me stare and feel foolish.”
“But it is not possible to search for nothing,” urged Toolooha.
“So I said,” replied her son, “but Blackbeard only laughed at me.”
“Did he?” cried the mother, with a much relieved expression, “then let your mind rest, my son, for Blackbeard must be a fool if he laughed at you.”
“Blackbeard is no fool,” replied Chingatok.
“Has he not come to search for new lands here, as you went to search for them there?” asked Toolooha, pointing alternately north and south.
“No—if I have understood him. Perhaps the brainless walrus translated his words wrongly.”
“Is the thing he searches for something to eat?”
“Something to drink or wear?”
“No, I tell you. It is nothing! Yet he gives it a name. He calls it Nort Pole!”
Perhaps it is needless to remind the reader that Chingatok and his mother conversed in their native tongue, which we have rendered as literally as possible, and that the last two words were his broken English for “North Pole!”
“Nort Pole!” repeated Toolooha once or twice contemplatively. “Well, he may search for nothing if he will, but that he cannot find.”
“Nay, mother,” returned the giant with a soft smile, “if he will search for nothing he is sure to find it!”
Chingatok sighed, for his mother did not see the joke.
“Blackbeard,” he continued with a grave, puzzled manner, “said that this world on which we stand floats in the air like a bird, and spins round!”
“Then Blackbeard is a liar,” said Toolooha quietly, though without a thought of being rude. She merely meant what she said, and said what she meant, being a naturally candid woman.
“That may be so, mother, but I think not.”
“How can the world float without wings?” demanded the old woman indignantly. “If it spinned should we not feel the spinning, and grow giddy?”
“And Blackbeard says,” continued the giant, regardless of the questions propounded, “that it spins round upon this Nort Pole, which he says is not a real thing, but only nothing. I asked Blackbeard—How can a world spin upon nothing?”
“And what said he to that?” demanded Toolooha quickly.
“He only laughed. They all laughed when the brainless walrus put my question. There is one little boy—the son I think of Blackbeard—who laughed more than all the rest. He lay down on the ice to laugh, and rolled about as if he had the bowel-twist.”
“That son of Blackbeard must be a fool more than his father,” said Toolooha, casting a look of indignation at her innocent kettle.
“Perhaps; but he is not like his father,” returned Chingatok meekly. “There are two other chiefs among the Kablunets who seem to me fine men. They are very young and wise. They have learned a little of our tongue from the Brainless One, and asked me some questions about the rocks, and the moss, and the flowers. They are tall and strong. One of them is very grave and seems to think much, like myself. He also spoke of this Nothing—this Nort Pole. They are all mad, I think, about that thing—that Nothing!”
The conversation was interrupted at this point by the sudden entrance of the giant’s little sister with the news that the Kablunets were observed coming round the great cape, dragging a sledge.
“Is not the big oomiak with them?” asked her brother, rising quickly.
“No, we see no oomiak—no wings—no fire,” answered Oblooria, “only six men dragging a sledge.”
Chingatok went out immediately, and Oblooria was about to follow when her mother recalled her.
“Come here, little one. There is a bit of blubber for you to suck. Tell me, saw you any sign of madness in these white men when they were talking with your brother about this—this—Nort Pole.”
“No, mother, no,” answered Oblooria thoughtfully, “I saw not madness. They laughed much, it is true—but not more than Oolichuk laughs sometimes. Yes—I think again! There was one who seems mad—the small boy, whom brother thinks to be the son of Blackbeard—Benjay, they call him.”
“Hah! I thought so,” exclaimed Toolooha, evidently pleased at her penetration on this point. “Go, child, I cannot quit the lamp. Bring me news of what they say and do.”
Oblooria obeyed with alacrity, bolting her strip of half-cooked blubber as she ran; her mother meanwhile gave her undivided attention to the duties of the lamp.
The white men and all the members of the Eskimo band were standing by the sledge engaged in earnest conversation when the little girl came forward. Captain Vane was speaking.
“Yes, Chingatok,” he said, looking up at the tall savage, who stood erect in frame but with bent head and his hands clasped before him, like a modest chief, which in truth he was. “Yes, if you will guide me to your home in the northern lands, I will pay you well—for I have much iron and wood and such things as I think you wish for and value, and you shall also have my best thanks and gratitude. The latter may not indeed be worth much, but, nevertheless, you could not purchase it with all the wealth of the Polar regions.”
Chingatok looked with penetrating gaze at Anders while he translated, and, considering the nature of the communication, the so-called Brainless One proved himself a better man than the giant gave him credit for.
“Does Blackbeard,” asked Chingatok, after a few seconds’ thought, “expect to find this Nothing—this Nort Pole, in my country?”
“Well, I cannot exactly say that I do,” replied the Captain; “you see, I’m not quite sure, from what you tell me, where your country is. It may not reach to the Pole, but it is enough for me that it lies in that direction, and that you tell me there is much open water there. Men of my nation have been in these regions before now, and some of them have said that the Polar Sea is open, others that it is covered always with ice so thick that it never melts. Some have said it is a ‘sea of ancient ice’ so rough that no man can travel over it, and that it is not possible to reach the North Pole. I don’t agree with that. I had been led to expect to fall in with this sea of ancient ice before I had got thus far, but it is not to be found. The sea indeed is partly blocked with ordinary ice, but there is nothing to be seen of this vast collection of mighty blocks, some of them thirty feet high—this wild chaos of ice which so effectually stopped some of those who went before me.”
This speech put such brains as the Brainless One possessed to a severe test, and, after all, he failed to convey its full meaning to Chingatok, who, however, promptly replied to such portions as he understood.
“What Blackbeard calls the sea of old ice does exist,” he said; “I have seen it. No man could travel on it, only the birds can cross it. But ice is not land. It changes place. It is here to-day; it is there to-morrow. Next day it is gone. We cannot tell where it goes to or when it will come back. The very old ice comes back again and again. It is slow to become like your Nort Pole—nothing. But it melts at last and more comes in its place—growing old slowly and vanishing slowly. It is full of wonder—like the stars; like the jumping flames; like the sun and moon, which we cannot understand.”
Chingatok paused and looked upwards with a solemn expression. His mind had wandered into its favourite channels, and for the moment he forgot the main subject of conversation, while the white men regarded him with some surprise, his comrades with feelings of interest not unmingled with awe.
“But,” he continued, “I know where the sea of ancient ice-blocks is just now. I came past it in my kayak, and can guide you to it by the same way.”
“That is just what I want, Chingatok,” said the Captain with a joyful look, “only aid me in this matter, and I will reward you well. I’ve already told you that my ship is wrecked, and that the crew, except those you see here, have left me; but I have saved all the cargo and buried it in a place of security with the exception of those things which I need for my expedition. One half of these things are on this sledge,—the other half on a sledge left behind and ready packed near the wreck. Now, I want you to send men to fetch that sledge here.”
“That shall be done,” said Chingatok. “Thanks, thanks, my good fellow,” returned the Captain, “and we must set about it at once, for the summer is advancing, and you know as well as I do that the hot season is but a short one in these regions.”
“A moment more shall not be lost,” said the giant.
He turned to Oolichuk, who had been leaning on a short spear, and gazing open-mouthed, eyed, and eared, during the foregoing conversation, and said a few words to him and to the other Eskimos in a low tone.
Oolichuk merely nodded his head, said “Yah!” or something similarly significant, shouldered his spear and went off in the direction of the Cape of Newhope, followed by nearly all the men of the party.
“Stay, not quite so fast,” cried Captain Vane.
“Stop!” shouted Chingatok.
Oolichuk and his men paused.
“One of us had better go with them,” said the Captain, “to show the place where the sledge has been left.”
“I will go, uncle, if you’ll allow me,” said Leo Vandervell.
“Oh! let me go too, father,” pleaded Benjy, “I’m not a bit tired; do.”
“You may both go. Take a rifle with you, Leo. There’s no saying what you may meet on the way.”
In half-an-hour the party under Oolichuk had reached the extremity of the cape, and Captain Vane observed that his volatile son mounted to the top of an ice-block to wave a farewell. He looked like a black speck, or a crow, in the far distance. Another moment, and the speck had disappeared among the hummocks of the ice-locked sea.
Chapter Seven.
Difficulties Encountered and Faced
They had not quite doubled the Cape of Newhope, and were about to round the point which concealed the spot that had been named Wreck Bay, when they suddenly found themselves face to face with a Polar bear!
Bruin was evidently out for an evening stroll, for he seemed to have nothing particular to do.
Surprise lit up alike the countenances of the men and the visage of the bear. It was an unexpected meeting on both sides. The distance between them was not more than thirty feet. Leo was the only one of the party who carried a rifle. More than once during the voyage had Leo seen and shot a bear. The sight was not new to him, but never before had he come so suddenly, or so very close, upon this king of the Arctic Seas. He chanced at the time to be walking a few yards in advance of the party in company with Oolichuk and Benjy.
The three stopped, stared, and stood as if petrified.
For one moment, then they uttered a united and half involuntary roar.
Right royally did that bear accept the challenge. It rose, according to custom, on its hind legs, and immediately began that slow, but deadly war-dance with which the race is wont to preface an attack, while its upper lip curled in apparent derision, exposing its terrible fangs.
Leo recovered self-possession instantly. The rifle leaped to his shoulder, the centre of the bear’s breast was covered, and the trigger pulled.
Only a snap resulted. Leo had forgotten to load! Benjy gasped with anxiety. Oolichuk, who had held himself back with a sparkling smile of expectation at the prospect of seeing the Kablunet use his thunder-weapon, looked surprised and disappointed, but went into action promptly with his spear, accompanied by Akeetolik. Leo’s rifle, being a breech-loader, was quickly re-charged, but as the rest of the party stood leaning on their spears with the evident intention of merely watching the combat, the youth resolved to hold his hand, despite Benjy’s earnest recommendation to put one ball between the bear’s eyes, and the other into his stomach.
It was but a brief though decisive battle. Those Eskimos were well used to such warfare.
Running towards the animal with levelled spears, the two men separated on coming close, so that Bruin was forced to a state of indecision as to which enemy he would assail first. Akeetolik settled the point for him by giving him a prick on the right side, thus, as it were, drawing the enemy’s fire on himself. The bear turned towards him with a fierce growl, and in so doing, exposed his left side to attack. Oolichuk was not slow to seize the opportunity. He leaped close up, and drove his spear deep into the animal’s heart—killing it on the spot.
Next day the party returned to the Eskimo camp with the sledge-load of goods, and the bear on the top.
While steaks of the same were being prepared by Toolooha, Captain Vane and his new allies were busy discussing the details of the advance.
“I know that the difficulties will be great,” he said, in reply to a remark from the interpreter, “but I mean to face and overcome them.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Alf, who was rather fond of poetry:—
“To dare unknown dangers in a noble cause,
Despite an adverse Nature and her tiresome Laws.”
“Just so, Alf, my boy, stick at nothing; never give in; victory or death, that’s my way of expressing the same sentiment. But there’s one thing that I must impress once more upon you all—namely, that each man must reduce his kit to the very lowest point of size and weight. No extras allowed.”
“What, not even a box of paper collars?” asked Benjy.
“Not one, my boy, but you may take a strait-waistcoat in your box if you choose, for you’ll be sure to need it.”
“Oh! father,” returned the boy, remonstratively, “you are severe. However, I will take one, if you agree to leave your woollen comforter behind. You won’t need that, you see, as long as I am with you.”
“Of course,” said Alf, “you will allow us to carry small libraries with us?”
“Certainly not, my lad, only one book each, and that must be a small one.”
“The only book I possess is my Bible,” said Leo, “and that won’t take up much room, for it’s an uncommonly small one.”
“If I only had my Robinson Crusoe here,” cried Benjy, “I’d take it, for there’s enough of adventure in that book to carry a man over half the world.”
“Ay,” said Alf, “and enough of mind to carry him over the other half. For my part, if we must be content with one book each, I shall take Buzzby’s poems.”
“Oh! horrible!” cried Benjy, “why, he’s no better than a maudlin’, dawdlin’, drawlin’, caterwaulin’—”
“Come, Benjy, don’t be insolent; he’s second only to Tennyson. Just listen to this morceau by Buzzby. It is an Ode to Courage—
“‘High! hot! hillarious compound of—’”
“Stop! stop! man, don’t begin when we’re in the middle of our plans,” interrupted Benjy, “let us hear what book Butterface means to take.”
“I not take no book, massa, only take my flute. Music is wot’s de matter wid me. Dat is de ting what hab charms to soove de savage beast.”
“I wouldn’t advise you try to soothe a Polar bear with it,” said Leo, “unless you have a rifle handy.”
“Yes—and especially an unloaded one, which is very effective against Polar bears,” put in the Captain, with a sly look. “Ah, Leo, I could hardly have believed it of you—and you the sportsman of our party, too; our chief huntsman. Oh, fie!”
“Come, uncle, don’t be too hard on that little mistake,” said Leo, with a slight blush, for he was really annoyed by the unsportsmanlike oversight hinted at; “but pray, may I ask,” he added, turning sharply on the Captain, “what is inside of these three enormous boxes of yours which take up so much space on the sledges?”
“You may ask, Leo, but you may not expect an answer. That is my secret, and I mean to keep it as a sort of stimulus to your spirits when the hardships of the way begin to tell on you. Ask Chingatok, Anders,” continued the Captain, turning to the interpreter, “if he thinks we have enough provisions collected for the journey. I wish to start immediately.”
“We have enough,” answered Chingatok, who had been sitting a silent, but deeply interested observer—so to speak—of the foregoing conversation.
“Tell him, then, to arrange with his party, and be prepared to set out by noon to-morrow.”
That night, by the light of the midnight sun, the Eskimos sat round their kettles of bear-chops, and went into the pros and cons of the proposed expedition. Some were enthusiastically in favour of casting in their lot with the white men, others were decidedly against it, and a few were undecided. Among the latter was Akeetolik.
“These ignorant men,” said that bold savage, “are foolish and useless. They cannot kill bears. The one named Lo, (thus was Leonard’s name reduced to its lowest denomination), is big enough, and looks very fine, but when he sees bear he only stares, makes a little click with his thunder-weapon, and looks stupid.”
“Blackbeard explained that,” said Oolichuk; “Lo made some mistake.”
“That may be so,” retorted Akeetolik, “but if you and me had not been there, the bear would not make a mistake.”
“I will not go with these Kablunets,” said Eemerk with a frown, “they are only savages. They are not taught. No doubt they had a wonderful boat, but they have not been able to keep their boat. They cannot kill bears; perhaps they cannot kill seals or walruses, and they ask us to help them to travel—to show them the way! They can do nothing. They must be led like children. My advice is to kill them all, since they are so useless, and take their goods.”
This speech was received with marks of decided approval by those of the party who were in the habit of siding with Eemerk, but the rest were silent. In a few moments Chingatok said, in a low, quiet, but impressive tone: “The Kablunets are not foolish or ignorant. They are wise—far beyond the wisdom of the Eskimos. It is Eemerk who is like a walrus without brains. He thinks that his little mind is outside of everything, and so he has not eyes to perceive that he is ignorant as well as foolish, and that other men are wise.”
This was the severest rebuke that the good-natured Chingatok had yet administered to Eemerk, but the latter, foolish though he was, had wisdom enough not to resent it openly. He sat in moody silence, with his eyes fixed on the ground.
Of course Oolichuk was decidedly in favour of joining the white men, and so was Ivitchuk, who soon brought round his hesitating friend Akeetolik, and several of the others. Oblooria, being timid, would gladly have sided with Eemerk, but she hated the man, and, besides, would in any case have cast in her lot with her mother and brother, even if free to do otherwise.
The fair Tekkona, whose courage and faith were naturally strong, had only one idea, and that was to follow cheerfully wherever Chingatok led; but she was very modest, and gave no opinion. She merely remarked: “The Kablunets are handsome men, and seem good.”
As for Toolooha, she had enough to do to attend to the serious duties of the lamp, and always left the settlement of less important matters to the men.
“You and yours are free to do what you please,” said Chingatok to Eemerk, when the discussion drew to a close. “I go with the white men to-morrow.”
“What says Oblooria?” whispered Oolichuk when the rest of the party were listening to Eemerk’s reply.
“Oblooria goes with her brother and mother,” answered that young lady, toying coquettishly with her sealskin tail.
Oolichuk’s good-humoured visage beamed with satisfaction, and his flat nose curled up—as much as it was possible for such a feature to curl—with contempt, as he glanced at Eemerk and said—
“I have heard many tales from Anders—the white man’s mouthpiece—since we met. He tells me the white men are very brave and fond of running into danger for nothing but fun. Those who do not like the fun of danger should join Eemerk. Those who are fond of fun and danger should come with our great chief Chingatok—huk! Let us divide.”
Without more palaver the band divided, and it was found that only eight sided with Eemerk. All the rest cast in their lot with our giant, after which this Arctic House of Commons adjourned, and its members went to rest.
A few days after that, Captain Vane and his Eskimo allies, having left the camp with Eemerk and his friends far behind them, came suddenly one fine morning on a barrier which threatened effectually to arrest their further progress northward. This was nothing less than that tremendous sea of “ancient ice” which had baffled previous navigators and sledging parties.
“Chaos! absolute chaos!” exclaimed Alf Vandervell, who was first to recover from the shock of surprise, not to say consternation, with which the party beheld the scene on turning a high cape.
“It looks bad,” said Captain Vane, gravely, “but things often look worse at a first glance than they really are.”
“I hope it may be so in this case,” said Leo, in a low tone.
“Good-bye to the North Pole!” said Benjy, with a look of despondency so deep that the rest of the party laughed in spite of themselves.
The truth was that poor Benjy had suffered much during the sledge journey which they had begun, for although he rode, like the rest of them, on one of the Eskimo sledges, the ice over which they had travelled along shore had been sufficiently rugged to necessitate constant getting off and on, as well as much scrambling over hummocks and broken ice. We have already said that Benjy was not very robust, though courageous and full of spirit, so that he was prone to leap from the deepest depths of despair to the highest heights of hope at a moment’s notice—or vice versa. Not having become inured to ice-travel, he was naturally much cast down when the chaos above-mentioned met his gaze.
“Strange,” said the Captain, after a long silent look at the barrier, “strange that we should find it here. The experience of former travellers placed it considerably to the south and west of this.”
“But you know,” said Leo, “Chingatok told us that the old ice drifts about just as the more recently formed does. Who knows but we may find the end of it not far off, and perhaps may reach open water beyond, where we can make skin canoes, and launch forth on a voyage of discovery.”
“I vote that we climb the cliffs and try to see over the top of this horrid ice-jumble,” said Benjy.
“Not a bad suggestion, lad. Let us do so. We will encamp here, Anders. Let all the people have a good feed, and tell Chingatok to follow us. You will come along with him.”
A few hours later, and the Captain, Leo, Alf, Benjy, Chingatok, and the interpreter stood on the extreme summit of the promontory which they had named Cape Chaos, and from which they had a splendid bird’s-eye view of the whole region.
It was indeed a tremendous and never-to-be-forgotten scene.
As far as the eye could reach, the ocean was covered with ice heaped together in some places in the wildest confusion, and so firmly wedged in appearance that it seemed as if it had lain there in a solid mass from the first day of creation. Elsewhere the ice was more level and less compact. In the midst of this rugged scene, hundreds of giant icebergs rose conspicuously above the rest, towering upwards in every shape and of all sizes, from which the bright sun was flashed back in rich variety of form, from the sharp gleam that trickled down an edge of ice to the refulgent blaze on a glassy face which almost rivalled the sun himself in brilliancy. These icebergs, extending as they did to the horizon, where they mingled with and were lost in the pearl-grey sky, gave an impression of vast illimitable perspective. Although no sign of an open sea was at first observed, there was no lack of water to enliven the scene, for here and there, and everywhere, were pools and ponds, and even lakes of goodly size, which had been formed on the surface by the melting ice. In these the picturesque masses were faithfully reflected, and over them vast flocks of gulls, eider-ducks, puffins, and other wild-fowl of the north, disported themselves in garrulous felicity.
On the edge of the rocky precipice, from which they had a bird’s-eye view of the scene, our discoverers stood silent for some time, absorbed in contemplation, with feelings of mingled awe and wonder. Then exclamations of surprise and admiration broke forth.
“The wonderful works of God!” said the Captain, in a tone of profound reverence.
“Beautiful, beyond belief!” murmured Alf.
“But it seems an effectual check to our advance,” said the practical Leo, who, however, was by no means insensible to the extreme beauty of the scene.
“Not effectual, lad; not effectual,” returned the Captain, stretching out his hand and turning to the interpreter; “look, Anders, d’ye see nothing on the horizon away to the nor’ard? Isn’t that a bit of water-sky over there?”
“Ya,” replied the interpreter, gazing intently, “there be watter-sky over there. Ya. But not possobubble for go there. Ice too big an’ brokkin up.”
“Ask Chingatok what he thinks,” returned the Captain.
Chingatok’s opinion was that the water-sky indicated the open sea. He knew that sea well—had often paddled over it, and his own country lay in it.
“But how ever did he cross that ice?” asked the Captain; “what says he to that, Anders?”
“I did not cross it,” answered the Eskimo, through Anders. “When I came here with my party the ice was not there; it was far off yonder.”
He pointed to the eastward.
“Just so,” returned the Captain, with a satisfied nod, “that confirms my opinion. You see, boys, that the coast here trends off to the East’ard in a very decided manner. Now, if that was only the shore of a bay, and the land again ran off to the nor’ard, it would not be possible for such a sea of ice to have come from that direction. I therefore conclude that we are standing on the most northern cape of Greenland; that Greenland itself is a huge island, unconnected with the Polar lands; that we are now on the shores of the great Polar basin, in which, somewhere not very far from the Pole itself, lies the home of our friend Chingatok—at least so I judge from what he has said. Moreover, I feel sure that the water-sky we see over there indicates the commencement of that ‘open sea’ which, I hold, in common with many learned men, lies around the North Pole, and which I am determined to float upon before many days go by.”
