Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 1.djvu/231

210 While thus detained, I took the opportunity to have my hair cut by Tookoolito. It had grown to a great length, even to my shoulders, and I now found it very inconvenient. My beard, whiskers, and moustache were also shorn nearly close to my face. In musquito time they were serviceable, but now they had become quite an evil, owing to the masses of ice that clung to them. Indeed, on the previous night I had to lose a portion of my whiskers. They had become so ice-locked that I could not well get my reindeer jacket off over my head, therefore I used my knife, and cut longer attachments to them. I may here mention that, after this, when we vacated the snow-house, our dogs rushed in to devour whatever they could find, digestible or not digestible, and my locks were a portion of what they seized. In went my discarded hair to fill up their empty stomachs! A few days later, I saw the very same hirsute material, just as clipped from my head, lining a step leading to another igloo, having passed through the labyrinthian way from a dog's mouth onward.

About 4 Ebierbing ventured outside to see how matters looked, but he soon returned with the astounding news that the ice was breaking, and water had appeared not more than ten rods south of us! I looked, and, to my dismay, found that a crack or opening extended east and west to the land, distant about three miles! The gale had evidently set the sea in heavy motion somewhere, and its convulsive throbs were now at work underneath the ice close to and around us. It still blew very hard, but as yet the wind was easterly, and so far good, because, if a nearer disruption took place, we should be forced toward the land, but if it changed to north or north-west, away to sea we must go and perish!

Seriously alarmed, we consulted as to what was best to do—whether at once to hasten shoreward, or remain in the igloo and stand the chance. On shore, nothing but rugged precipices and steep mountains presented themselves; on the ice, we were in danger of our foundation giving way—that is, of being broken up, or else driven to sea. At length we decided