Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 1.djvu/179

158 "After we had again descended into our cabin, so strong was the impression of awe left upon us that the captain said to me, "'Well, during the last eleven years I have spent mostly in these northern regions, I never have seen anything of the aurora to approach the glorious vivid display just witnessed. And, to tell you the truth, Friend Hall, I do not care to see the like ever again.'" That this display was more than ordinarily grand was evidenced by the testimony of the Innuits, particularly Tookoolito, who, when she came on board a few days afterwards, stated that she had been much struck by its remarkable brilliancy, and that "it had exceeded in beauty and magnificence all displays ever before witnessed by her." I would here make the remark that the finest displays of the aurora only last a few moments. Though it may be playing all night, yet it is only now and then that its grandest displays are made. As if marshalling forces, gathering strength, compounding material, it continues on in its silent workings. At length it begins its trembling throes; beauty anon shoots out here and there, when all at once the aurora, flashes into living hosts of powdered coruscating rainbows, belting the heavenly dome with such gorgeous grandeur sometimes that mortals tremble to behold! On October 13th we had an unexpected arrival. A steamer and a sailing vessel were observed coming up from sea, and in the evening both vessels anchored on the opposite side of Field Bay. In a short time we ascertained that the strangers were well-known English whalers, being no less than the famous Captain Parker, of the True-love, and his son, commanding the steam-ship Lady Celia. They had come from Cornelius Grinnell Bay in less than a day, leaving Captain Allen, of the Black Eagle, there. Intelligence of our schooner's wreck had reached them at that place a few days after it had occurred, an Esquimaux and his wife having travelled by land and carried the news. Directly there was an opportunity I paid a visit to the