Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1888-01-13

four dogs were curled up abaft the main
hatch, the former of which might do for
fuel and the latter for food in case of an
emergency or too long cruise.
AT first the trip was not a very severe
one as long as they could feel the protec-
ton of the coast, but the further away
they got the higher the waves were swell
ing, and in the course of two or three
hours the surf was dashing over the
weather side and flying in fine spray and
froth across the little cold weather cruis-
ers and making things uncomfortable
generally.
There was some compacted snow under
the lee of line of high hummocks that
had once marked the place of the reef
from which the storm had torn the great
foe, and here our three EsEimos busted
themselves in building comfortable igloo
or snow house. which would protect
them from the weather, and two smaller
ones were made alongside. one to store
the meat to keep it from the hungry dogs
and the other to protect the dogs them
selves 1t is very seldom that these peo-
pie ever build such snow kennels for their
dogs, however cold or stormy the weather,
but now the flying spray freezing on their
fur and the want of something to do to
distract their attention from their peril
Gus situation, determined them to build
snow house for these animals.
Their war vessel seemed to be of the
ram order, and of the most beligerent
class, too, for it went crashing fore and
aft into every other ship of its own kind,
without regard to its size, and the Eskimo
crew were often RECALLED with a view of
boreal battle in which missiles of ice.
score of times greater than Krupp ever
dreamed Of were hurled backward and
forward by the contending foes as they
came crashing together.
The snow hut built and everything
being housed, they had time to look
their situation fairly in the face, and it
was not a very inviting one. The danger
of life, it is true, was not as great as less
experienced persons might infer from such
a situation. and these great ice fields, tough
as oak. in the depth of an Arctic winter,
very seldom went to pieces, and when
they did it was because two greater foes
would crush them between them, and on
to the surviving fields the men would
escape. But if the storm continued long
they might get 50 far away that the
lighter southern winds would never watt
them back, or at least before the summer
was on them and the ice became so rot
ten that it was likely to go to pieces in a
storm from the mere motion of the waves
and be reduced to such small cakes that
each and all were constantly overturning,
SO that life would be as unsafe as that of
bug on lot of floating sawdust in a
rapid.
Again, their ship might bring into a
foreign port from which, though safe,
they could never return, or only after q
long interval; for there was case among
the Iwillik Eskimo, man whom they
had left that very morning, who, some
twenty years before had been carried
away by an ice foe and landed three
weeks later on the southern shore of
Southampton Island, and from there had
been long, lonesome year and half
getting from the natives of that strange
land back to his beloved Iwillik, where
his friends and relatives had long since
given him up as having joined that great
Eskimo majority in the land where the
fountains spouted pure seal oil and the
houses where built of blocks of frozen
reindeer anu walruS meat.
The only chance of sudden danger was
in case the foe should, in some of its
collisions with others, split directly
through their snow house and drop them
in the sea. But such chance for vio-
lent collision was hourly growing less,
for toward the weather side a long line
of other ice cakes torn from the wide
shore ice or blown out of some big inlet
was forming veritable ice pack-or a
long but continuous string of ice cakes of
all sizes, from the largest foes to the
smallest pieces, and oftentimes but few
hundred yards wide, but a number of
miles in length-and where the pack
forms nature has built as good break
water to stop the furious waves and
breakers of sea as any ever devised by
the art of man. was once on a sailing
vessel off the mouth of Hudsons strait
and in a bowling storm that made it
impossible for a land crab like myself
to keep my feet under me on the deck.
We were lacking up and down
in front of an ice pack trying
to get through, an attempt that
would have been suicide if we had
plunged into the grinding ice. \ break
was finally found, however, and through
it we sailed, finding ourselves between
two ice packs half mile apart, but OK
tending for miles in length, and as soon
as we got through the sea was smoothed
down to half its dimensions. Getting
through the next ice pack the water was
as still as river, although wind was
blowing that sent US blowing along at
! twelve knots an hour
By 2 O'Clock p. m. darkness had set in
and they were at their wits end to know
what to do for light, although they had
all the walrus blubber needed from which
to extract the oil, but they were without
the semblance of a lamp in which to burn
it. Nannook, however, overcome this
by fashioning one from the inch thick
hide of the walrus, sewing it with seal
skin thongs cut from the dog harness,
while wicking was had by cutting up
Ikqueesik's wooden tobacco bag, and
matches were plentiful enough among
all my hired natives who smoked
tobacco, and both Nannook and TX
queesik stood well toward the head