Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 1.djvu/206

 CHAPTER X.

month of December came in, as I have previously said, with a great calm of four days, and though the ice was then much broken up, making a transit to the shore difficult, yet I contrived to frequently land for exercise, and to see more of Innuit life.

One day, while walking near a channel between two islands, I heard a very remarkable echo, of so striking a character that an Innuit boy and three dogs, near at hand, could hear my voice only through its reflected sound. The tide was out, leaving a rock bluff on the opposite side of the channel, whence the sound was reverberated. After giving utterance to my voice, in one second of time the echo came back to me, thus making, the distance across 550 feet, as sound travels 1100 feet per second. On December 8th, at noon, the thermometer was at zero, and on the 9th, 15° below zero, or 47° degrees below the freezing point. Yet, strangely to me, the cold was not felt so much as I should have supposed. The ice was solid around us, and our good ship quite laid up in winter quarters. Now and then we could hear some heavy and startling cracks, as if disruption was about to take place; but nothing of any note occurred to disturb or to vary the usual monotonous life on board. Visits from the Esquimaux were made daily, and often we had several sleeping on the cabin floor and on sea-chests in impromptu beds made of sails, thick wearing apparel, &c.