Mrs. Grundy. (Tracy City, Tenn.) 1903-1930, 1910-12-15

at Annootok or to Join the Eskimos
in perilous expeditions over the ice on
foot up and down the coast. Meat
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
complete suit Of furs, and though he
| donned them early in October for
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 Whitneys 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:
NO 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 the start
ling and unexpected cracking OF a
. glacier with a sound Of mighty thun-
derclap or the smashing together OF
!. great ice foes with a 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 a sort of insane
frenzy would seize an individual,
cause him to strip OF 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 oil
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.
uuently streaked the sky like fire
: flakes from flights or rockets, these
= were the conditions which fostereC
madness. Yet in picturing the terror
of the long night Whitney takes &C
casion to marvel at the tremendous
=. optimism of the little people who live
: in this desolate land,
!. Eskimo Optimism.
n "Eskimos are optimists,' he says
;. "Pessimists have no place in tn,
q Arctic or any other far wilderness
/. for that matter. where today's dan
- gers and difficulties are real and SUI
, fcient unto themselves. Doing hi
a. best with today and providing so ia
II as circumstances will permit for tn
a future. the Eskimo gives no othe
% thought 10 tomorrow than buoyan
reliance that it VIII take care of II
= self, Just as yesterday did.
~ a pessimist who constantly wor
h ries about the morrow would pos
!, lively hypnotic himself to death Il
% these lands in a very short time. Pc:
o. simism has been the real cause O
. many casualties among Arctic e.
" plorers."
: The billiards came continually t
, complicate the life tina. the whit
stranger had to lead during the darl
10 ness Some OF the most vivid pal
sages in his book are those which d,
e pict the raging of the storms whic
y swept down from the north, earryin
st snow as hard as shot. destroying an
10 obliterating everything in their pa
sage.
II For days on end Whitney did nc
y dare TO leave his shack at Annooto
n TO go fifty yards to the nearest iglo
he because of the binding fury of til
I'd tempest. He would have been loi
ly a dozen steps beyond his own tunn'
N entrance. Yet so pressing is the nee
OF food among sAs Eskimos that b
o. tween the ragings OF the storms the
Of made venturesome excursions afts
r. meat and Whitney accompanied tby
lie on many Of these hunts.
* One occasion when party of whic