Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 1.djvu/50

Rh you see ice? His prayer was that he might arrive home, and once more look upon his native land—it mountains, its snows, its ice—and upon his wife and his little ones; he would then ask no more of earth. We had sighted the Labrador coast on our way, and after that we sailed several days without seeing ice. Kudlago kept incessantly asking if we saw the ice, thinking, if so, we must be near to his home; but, poor fellow, he was still far away when his final moments came. He died in lat. 63° N. when near the coast of Greenland, and about 300 miles from his native place.

Suitable preparations were soon made for his burial in the sea, and as I had always thought a "burial at sea" must be a scene of great interest, the one I now witnessed for the first time most strongly impressed itself upon me. Never did I participate more devoutly in what then seemed to me the most solemn scene of my life. There before us was the "sheeted dead," lying amidships on the gangway board, all in readiness for burial. The whole ship's company, save a solitary man at the wheel, had assembled in sorrowful silence around our departed friend, to pay the last respect we could to him. By the request of Captain B, who was bound by strong ties of friendship to Kudlago, I had consented to take an active part in the services. I therefore proceeded to make such remarks as were deemed proper for the occasion. These were succeeded by my reading portions of appropriate exhortations from the "Masonic Manual," after which I read a prayer from the same excellent work. In this all seemed deeply, solemnly interested.

During these services the breezes of heaven were wafting us on—silently, yet speedily to the north. At a given signal from the captain, who was standing on my right, the man at the helm luffed the ship into the wind and deadened her headway. William Sterry and Robert Smith now stepped to the gangway, and holding firmly the plank on which was the shrouded dead—a short pause, and down sank the mortal part of Kudlago, the noble Esquimaux, into the deep grave—the abyss of the ocean! Oh what a scene! How solemn in its grandeur