Left on Labrador Part 17

"Try it."

Kit then pointed to the one who was talking with me, and said "_kina_"

to the other. She did not seem to understand at first: but, on a repet.i.tion of the question, replied, "_We-we_;" at which her companion looked suddenly around. Then they talked with each other a moment.

_We-we_, as I afterwards learned, meant _white goose_. I then put the same question to _We-we_, pointing to the other.

"_Caubvick_," she replied.

Just then Wade pa.s.sed us; and, lo! he had a white-gloved damsel on his arm, promenading along the deck as big as life.

"What's her name?" cried Kit.

"_Ikewna_," he replied over his shoulder.

How he had found out he would never tell us; perhaps in the same manner we had done.

"I declare, Wade's outdoing us!" exclaimed Kit. "But we can promenade too."

I then pointed to Wade and _Ikewna_, and then to _We-we_ and myself, offering my arm.

"_Abb_," she said; and we started off.

Kit and _Caubvick_ followed. After all, walking with an Esquimau belle is not so very different from walking with a Yankee girl: only I fancy it must have looked a little odd; for, as I have already stated, they wore long-legged boots with very broad tops coming above the knee, silver-furred seal-skin breeches, and a jacket of white hare-skin (the polar hare) edged with the down of the eider-duck. These jackets had at least one very peculiar feature: that was nothing less than a tail about four inches broad, and reaching within a foot of the ground. I have no doubt they were in _style_: still they did look a little singular, to say the least.

Meanwhile the others were not idle spectators, judging from the loud talking, _yeh-yeh-ing_, and unintelligible lingo, that resounded all about. We saw Raed paying the most polite attentions to a very chubby, fat girl with a black fur jacket and yellow gloves.

"What name?" demanded Kit as we promenaded past.

"_Pussay_," replied Raed, trying to look very sober.

The word _pussay_ means a seal; and in this case the name was not much misplaced. _We-we_ (white goose) was, to my eye, decidedly the prettiest of the lot; _Caubvick_ came next; and, as we promenaded past Wade, we kept boasting of their superior charms as compared with _Ikewna_. Our two both wore white jackets; while Wade's wore a yellow one, of fox-skin.

"How about refreshments!" cried Wade at length. "We ought to treat them, hadn't we?"

"That's so," said Raed. "Captain, have the goodness to call Palmleaf, and bid him bring up a box of that candy."

The captain came along.

"Didn't you see the rumpus?" he asked.

"Rumpus?"

"Yes; when Palmleaf came on deck just after the women came on board.

They were afraid of him. He came poking his black head up out of the forecastle, and rolling his eyes about. If he had been the Devil himself, they couldn't have acted more scared. I had to send him below out of sight, or there would have been a general stampede. The men are afraid of him. I don't understand exactly why they should be."

None of us did at the time; but we learned subsequently that the Esquimaux attribute all their ill-luck to a certain fiend, or demon, in the form of a huge black man. We have, therefore, accounted for their strange fear and aversion to the negro on that ground. They thought he was the Devil,--their devil. So Hobbs brought up the candy.

Raed pa.s.sed it round, giving each of our visitors two sticks apiece.

This was plainly a new sort of treat. They stood, each holding the candy in their hands, as if uncertain to what use it was to be put.

Raed then set them an example by biting off a chunk. At that they each took a bite. We expected they would be delighted. It was therefore with no little chagrin that we beheld our guests making up the worst possible faces, and spitting it out anywhere, everywhere,--on deck, against the bulwarks, overboard, just as it happened. The most of them immediately threw away the candy; though _We-we_ and _Caubvick_, out of consideration for our feelings perhaps, quietly tucked theirs into their boot-legs. There was an awkward pause in the hospitalities.

Clearly, candy wouldn't pa.s.s for a delicacy with them.

"Try 'em with cold boiled beef!" exclaimed the captain.

Luckily, as it occurred, Palmleaf had lately boiled up quite a quant.i.ty. It was cut up in small pieces, and distributed among them; and, at the captain's suggestion, raw fat pork was given the men. This latter, however, was much too salt for them: so that, on the whole, our refreshments were a failure. It is doubtful if they liked the cooked meat half so well as they did the raw, reeking flesh of the bear.

By way of making up for the candy failure, we gave them each two common tenpenny nails, and two sticks of hardwood the size we burned in the stove. With these presents they seemed very well pleased, particularly with the wood. But, on finding we were disposed to give, the most of them were not at all modest about asking for more. A general cry of "_Pillitay_" ("Give me something") arose. We gave them another stick of wood all round; at which their cries were redoubled.

In short, they treated us very much as some earnest Christians do the Lord,--asked for everything they could think of. Old Trull was especially pestered by one woman, who stuck to him with a continuous whine of "_Pillitay, pillitay!_" He had already given her his jack-knife, and now borrowed it to cut off several of the bra.s.s b.u.t.tons on his jacket. But so far was she from being satisfied with this sacrifice, that she instantly began _pillitaying_ for the rest of them. The old man thought that this was carrying the thing a little too far.

"Ye old jade!" he exclaimed, out of all patience. "Ye'd beg me stark naked, I du believe!"

But still the woman with outstretched hand cried "_Pillitay!_" Finally the old chap in pure desperation caught out his tobacco to take a chew. Eying her a moment, he bit it off, and put the rest in her hand with a grim smile. The woman, following his example, forthwith bit off a piece, and chewed at it for a few seconds, swallowing the saliva; then turned away sick and vomiting. She didn't _pillitay_ him any more.

To the honor of maidenhood, I may add that _We-we_, _Caubvick_, _Ikewna_, and _Pussay_ were exceptions to the general rule of beggary.

They asked us for nothing. Something seemed to restrain them: perhaps the attentions we had shown them. Be that as it may, they fared the better for it. Wade led off by giving _Ikewna_ a broad, highly-colored worsted scarf, which he wrapped in folds about her fox-jacket, covering it entirely, and giving her a very _distingue_ look. Not to be behind, Kit and I gave to _We-we_ and _Caubvick_ three yards of bright-red flannel apiece; also a red-and-black silk handkerchief each to wear over their shoulders, and two ma.s.sive (pinchbeck) breast-pins.

These latter articles did make their little piercing black eyes sparkle amazingly.

How long they would have stayed on board, Heaven only knows,--all summer, perhaps,--had not the captain given orders to have the schooner brought round. The moment the vessel began to move, they were seized with a panic, lest they should be carried off from home. The men were over into their _kayaks_ instantly. Having got rid of them, "The Curlew" was again hove to, while the _oomiak_ was brought under the stairs. We bade a hasty farewell to the Husky belles, and handed them into their barge. On the whole, we were not much sorry to be rid of them; for though they were human beings, and some of the young girls not without their attractions, yet it was humanity in a very crude, raw state. In a word, they were savages, dest.i.tute to a lamentable extent of all those finer feelings and sentiments which characterize a civilized race. The roughest of our Gloucester lads were immeasurably in advance of them; and Palmleaf, but recently a lash-fearing slave, seemed of a higher order of beings.

They were gone; but they had left an odor behind. We had to keep Palmleaf burning coffee on a shovel all the rest of the evening; and, for more than a month after, we could smell it at times,--a "sweet _souvenir_ of our Husky beauties," as Wade used to put it.

There is something at once hopeless and pitiful about this people.

There is no possibility of permanently bettering their condition. Born and living under a climate, which, from the gradual s.h.i.+fting of the pole, must every year grow more and more severe, they can but sink lower and lower as the struggle for existence grows sharper. There is no hope for them. Their absurd love of home precludes the possibility of their emigrating to a warmer lat.i.tude. Pitiful! because, where-ever the human life-spark is enkindled, his must be a hard heart that can see it suffering, dying, without pity.

CHAPTER VIII.

The Husky Chief.--Palmleaf Indignant.--A Gun.--Sudden Apparition of the Company's s.h.i.+p.--We hold a Hasty Council.--In the Jaws of the British Lion.--An Armed Boat.--Repel Boarders!--Red-Face waxes wrathful.--Fired on, but no Bones Broken.

By the time we had fairly parted from our Esquimau friends it was near eleven o'clock, P.M.,--after sunset. Instead of standing out into the straits, we beat up for about a mile along the ice-field, and anch.o.r.ed in thirteen fathoms, at about a cable's length from the island, to the east of the ice-island. The weather had held fine. The roadstead between the island and the main was not at present much choked with ice. It was safe, to all appearance. We wanted rest. Turning out at three and half-past three in the morning, and not getting to bunk till eleven and twelve, made an unconscionable long day. Once asleep, I don't think one of us boys waked or turned over till the captain stirred us up to breakfast.

"Six o'clock, boys!" cried he. "Sun's been up these four hours!"

"Don't talk about the sun in this lat.i.tude," yawned Raed. "I can sit up with him at Boston; but he's too much for me here."

While we were at breakfast, Weymouth came down to report a _kayak_ coming off.

"Shall we let him come aboard, sir?"

"Oh, yes!" said the captain.

"Let's have him down to breakfast with us for the nonce!" cried Kit.

"Here, Palmleaf, set an extra plate, and bring another cup of coffee."

"And see that you keep out of sight," laughed the captain: "the Huskies don't much like the looks of you."

"I tink I'se look as well as dey do, sar!" exclaimed the indignant cook.