The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1873-06-14

proceeded. there discovered the old
men and women deeply absorbed in the |
performance Of some unholy rite over the
person Of sick Innuit-a young girl.
The low monotonous ehantings Of the
sayages, occasionally broken by the sup
pressed sobs and moaning Of the poor
creature in her pain, the grim swarthy
faces Of the old wives, spectrally illumina-
ted by the fitful CLEANS from the stone
lamps, together with the continuous oscilla-
tions Of their dark bodies swaying awk-
wardly to and fro in time TO the rude
intonations of their barbarous song, made
up scene as wild and unearthly as any
have ever beheld. The Innuits' idea Of
heaven is the same happy hunting-ground
which has universal credence among the
aboriginees of the States, and like them
they always bury their dead fully equipped
and provisioned for the savage elysium.
The internal regions was pictured to me by
an old squaw as place not Of everlasting
lire, but down ever so far beneath the
surface Of the earth, where the heat was
very great, in fact, almost insuferable, and
where noxious insects in myriads upon
myriads preyed upon the unlucky damned
Of the Esquimaux. amused myself with
the reflection that, as far as the vermin are
concerned, the Innuits' home on earth
was about as near an approach to the
torments Of an Esquimaux hell as one
could well conceive, and l doubted very
much whether the hardened old sinner
after a long life in his arctic home, would
be very much annoyed by the punishment
inflicted by his creeping friends in the
lower regions. When we had been con-
fined about two months to our eglows at
Quakjug, we were honored with visit
from Ug jack, chief of all the Innuits in
Cumberland Gulf. He came down to us
from the northward, ostensibly to pay us
visit Of state, but in reality to obtain n
supply of whiskey and tobacco. There
was no distinctive feature about Ug jack
to distinguish him from any of his race.
! had the distinguished honor of being
presented to him, when we smoked and
chatted quite freely. Esquimaux royalty
rather gained the ascendancy in that tete a
tete, for its representative both out-talked,
out-smoked and out-drank me. | must
confess, even before his Majesty became
drunk, that was not impressed with the
regality of his remarks. His ideas we're
anything but princely, nor did his address
manifest that degree of confidence which
the consciousness of supremacy always ex-
hibits, even as evinced in the lofty bearing
and extreme haughtiness of petty Co
manche brave.
had thought that up to the 9th of
March had experienced the utmost ex-
tremity Of Arctic cold, but | think we far
exceeded all former frigid sufferings and
trials. The wind commenced blowing
violent gale from the northwest about day
light, soon after which our mercury ther-
mometer passed the 50th degree below
zero, and formed solid mass in the bulb.
Our spirit instrument graduated for a
much greater fall, gradually dropped after
the gale set in, and reached at noon the
fearfully unprecedented figure of ~ de-
grees below zero, actually 104 degrees
from the freezing point. With very
small house unusually tight and imper-
vious to the weather, in which was crowded
thirty-two persons, enveloped in furs and
wrapped in the heaviest Mackinaw blank
cts, and with two roaring coal fires, kept
burning constantly, it was impossible to
preserve even the natural warmth of the
body, and several were badly frozen in
passing few feet from the snow houses
to the galley through passage only six
feet long. Indeed, one of the severest
trials we were called upon to sustain, was,
beyond doubt, the sufferings from the
severe climate, and nothing more distintct-
ly marked the extremity of the cold than
the singularly strange Transformations that
were wrought in various articles of ship
stores. Potatoes assumed the appearance
and were as brittle as paving stones; but
ter and lard suggested veracious recollec-
tions Of Irish and Caracca marbles, and a
slab OF yellow pine was so thoroughly in
fused with frost that, when dropped upon
the ice it gave out ring as clear as solid
steel. This extreme temperature, with
the darkness and gloom of long winter,
told frightfully upon our health and spirits.
In course OF time our faces assumed
livid paleness, like plants growing in dark
ness we became moody and dreamy,
and a strange apathy peryaded all. This
uninterrupted cold compelled constant con-
hnement to the narrow limits Of our house,
and the lack OF exercise and the monoto-
nous diet soon brought the scurvy in our
midst, and before the dread curse left us
many poor fellow was consigned to an
icy grave. In March We just began to see
the beginning Of the end of a long dreary
season OF trigid agony. The southerly
gales became more frequent, and the ice
grew weaker and weaker day by day. The
sun had not yet made his appearance, and
the eye was wearied with the everlasting
vista of snow and ice. Before us lowered
hundreds OF monster bergs, and field upon
field Of huge hummocks stretched far away
in the dim distance vast eternity of frozen
water heapedin strange incongruous masses
and Illuminated only by the ftful flashes
h. ID