Morning journal and courier., 1882-12-20


 skin clothing for tobacco, ammunition and rum the latter articles they did not get. We had just taken a bowhead whale, and permis- sion being given, the natives completely stripped the whale of its black skin, which is about an inch thick all over the body. They devoured the blubber ravenously as wolves. AS the ice receded north, the ships advanced. Whales being scarce, visiting from one ship to another was frequent.
 Two ships would come close together and the captains would address each other :
 'Where are you bound ?''
 "Nowhere. Where are you going ?"
 ''I am following you"
 Come aboard"
 F'Al right"
 ''I am from Vermont" " said one of the crew of a visiting ship to the man next to him. "Where are you from ?" Massachusetts. How'll you trade jack knives? ?" By the lst of July we had progressed as far north as Icy Cape, the highest point reached by Capt. Cook, the great circunlnayigator, who fell at Kalakakua bay, Hawaii.
 About 90 miles off this cape the ship con- menced killing walrus on the ice few years ago whalemen harpooned walrus from their whaleboats Now it is difficult to get within gunshot of them. To kill them, they must be shot in the neck, and if the first shot fails they will all jump off the ice. However, should they stand fire, more than half fall overheard and sink. walrus produces about 17 gallons of oil and five pounds of ivory
 In the latter part of July the ships came to an anchor at Point Barrow. The northern coast of Alaska is low, level and marshy, without tree or shrub. Mosquitoes, large and fierce, darken the air and sing in dismal chorus from Cape Lisbourne to Point Bar row. Point Bar :ow is long, narrow benin sula, on which there is considerable settle ment of Esquimaux The natives have driftwood stuck up on end on each side of the peninsula, to direct the flight of wild ducks across given point, where they con ceai themselves behind breastwork to either shoot or kill them with slings they fly over. The Esquimaux eat every part of an animal or fowl Even the entrails are utiliz- ed, and of walrus they even eat the hide, which is often more than an inch in thick ness. When any game Is brought in 1t IS buried; if the weather is fine they will cook it, otherwise they eat it raw. In the winter these people live in underground houses, in summer they live in tents made of walrus hide, but these of Point Barrow have plent- ifuI supply of canvas from the sails of num- erous whale ships wrecked in that vicinity, and all their tents are made of this canvas. They seem to be we'll supplied with guns in nearly every tent there was 8 breach loading rife, and shotguns of ancient and modern patterns were scattered around in great pro fusion. In the summer time they travel along the coast iu their skin canoes. In win ter they hitch their dogs to sledges and move over the ice. On the eastern extremity of Point Bar :ow the Esquimaux lay their dead wrapped in canvas, with their personal prop erty beside them, exposed to the elements and wild beasts There were about as many dead as live natives on the point. All the Esquimaux bear the imprint of intense suf- fering, their faces being covered with hair like wrinkles. Contact with civilization has been most fatal to the Esquimaux. Besides supplying them with rum, communicating to them foul diseases the Americans have wan. f0r1u be 6a. pendence for food. Walrus getting scarce and wild, and are practically beyond their reach. Starvation has already made heavy inroads among them.
 The first week in August the ships sailed | around to the eastward of Point Barrow. The northern coast of Alaska was explored l by Captain Beechy of the Russian navy in | 1816 He named all the prominent points and islands But, like Columbus, he had not | much luck in naming places, as later expler gave the places new names. Owing to i the nearness of the ice to the shore, unsettled | weather and shallowness of the water, most | of the ships abandoned this part of the | whaling grounds on the 18th of August, and | moved westward to a point northeast of Herald Island, at the southern edge of the | ice Here is where most of the ships caught 1 their whales cruising high as the ice would | permit, between 72o and 74' north latitude. l Found few polar bears on the ice. One | swan to the ship, distance of twenty miles |
 
 vorable weather, we SAW the aurora only five | or six times, and only once in it's glory. That was on the 9th of September, soon after the | nights began to grow dark great bunch of yellow light gathered in the southeast. Then as if an explosion had taken place, the light branched out and shot across the sky in all directions like many rockets. These golden spangles would tremble and vibrato, twist and turn, vanish and appear, recoil and | shoot forth again, finally gathering into a golden curtain of celestial grandeur with waves of green and purple. July 23d and 9th were the only two summer like days, l the temperature reaching 5S0 The thirty l one whaling vessels that went into the Arctic averaged six bowhead whales each. The most of these vessels will discharge at San Francisco The others will go direct to Pan Seven of the vessels hail from San Francisco the others belong to New Bed ford. The Abraham Barker took twenty-five whales of all kinds this season, eight hump | back, ten sperm and seven bowheads. If a ship gets eight bowheads or the equivalent of other kinds the officers and crew will re- csive much money as they would in year in deep water ships.