Polk County news-gazette. (Benton, Tenn.) 190?-191?, 1910-12-08

at AunOOtOk OF TO join the ESklmQ
in perilous expeditions over the ice OF
foot up and down the coast Mea
was the quest, meat which would YIELD
light and fire and sustenance during
; the long months of darkness.
Some of the women had QUILTED
the white stranger among them with g
complete suit of furs, and though he
donned them early in October fol
weeks and months thereafter he was
at hand grips with the cold hour upon
hour. The author said that during the
course of a bear hunt in which he
joined with the Eskimos and which
carried the sledge party far north into
Kane Basin, his thermometer, which
was only designed to register fifty de-
grees below zero, dropped to that
point and stayed there for days on
end. Whitney's feet were frozen re-
peatedly, his face cracked and frosted
and the hours he spent in his sleeping
bag of heavy skins were of misery
only shade less acute than when he
was exposed to the cutting blasts on
the march.
The Awful Arctic Night.
OF the darkness Whitney writes
| this in his book:
mo words can adequately describe
the awful pail of the Arctic night 1t
Is unreal and terrible. Even the
moonlight is unnatural. casting upon
the snow and ice, the wind swept
rocks, and the people themselves a
shade of CHASTITY indefinable greenish
yellow.
Shifting shadows fit among NOV
ing ice masses like wraiths of depart
ed spirits. A deathlike silence pre-
walls, to be broken only BY Thy start
ling and unexpected. UraSaat Aaf "a
glacier with a sound of mighty hun
derclap or the smashing togetlkr of
great ice foes with report like
heavy cannon.
The author had many occasions to
witness the peculiar neurotic reac-
ton caused by the darkness and the
silence upon his Eskimo companions.
Time and again one of them went
"problokto," that is sort of insane
frenzy would seize an individual
cause him to strip off his clothes and |
run naked over the ice and snow un- |
til he was captured and overpowered |
by his companions. The fits came on |
without warning, were violent and |
left the victim weak and depressed |
for hours after.
The terror of these sudden gusts of |
madness sank in upon the marooned
white hunter He would be called out
of his sleeping bag by cries from the
igloos, rush out into the sickly moon
light to see some naked, raving figure
Swimming over the white snow field
shrieking to the stars.
All the world seemed fairy. The
silence, the Pickering of the aurora,
the showers of meteors which fire.
quently streaked the sky like fire
flakes from flights or rockets, these
were the conditions which fostered
madness. Yet in picturing the terror
of the long night Whitney takes oc-
casion to marvel at the tremendous
optimism of the little people who live
in this desolate land.
Eskimo Optimism.
"Eskimos are optimists," he says
"Pessimists have no place in the
Arctic or any other far wilderness,
for that matter, wherC today,S dan-l
gers and difficulties are real am suf-
ficient unto themselves. Dc lsg his
best with today and providing so far
as circumstances will permit for the
future, the Eskimo gives no other |
thought to tomorrow than buoyant
reliance that It will take care Of It.
self, just as yesterday did.
"A pessimist who constantly wor-
ries about the morrow would posi-
lively hypnotic himself to death in
these lands in very short time. Pes
simism has been the real cause Of
many casualties among Arctic ex-
plorers." ,
The billiards came continually to
the life that the white
stranger had to lead during the dark
ness. Some of the most vivid pes. !.
sages in his book are those which de-
pict the raging Of the storms which
swept down from the north, carrying
snow as hard as shot, destroying and /,
everything in their pas
sage.
For days on end Whitney did not
dare to leave his shack at Annootok
10 go fifty yards to the nearest igloo ,
because of the binding fury OF the
tempest. He would have been lost ,
4 dozen steps beyond his own tunnel
entrance. Yet so pressing is the need I
Of food among the Eskimos that be-
tween the ragings of the storms they /
made venturesome excursions after
meat and Whitney accompanied them
On many of these hunts. Ii
One occasion when a party OF which | /