Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 2.djvu/101

 CHAPTER V.

following day, Monday, August 12th, 1861, Suzhi and myself remaining at Oopungnewing, the rest of my company set out in the boat for the main land on a tuktoo hunt. My time was occupied in taking observations, writing, and examining the island, while Suzhi was busily engaged in dressing sealskins for jackets, and "milling" old native boots—that is, making the soles soft and pliant by chewing them. During the day I heard some extraordinary noises, like the rumblings of an earthquake. I had noticed the same on our way from Cape Cracroft, but now the sound was so loud that I could not help asking Suzhi if she knew what it was. She replied that it came from the Kingaite side of the waters; and, from what I afterward learned, it must have been caused by large masses of ice—icebergs—from Grinnell Glacier falling into the sea. The distance traversed by the thundering sound thus occasioned was about forty miles. At other times, while in this bay, I have felt the earth tremble from the same cause. In the evening Suzhi and I took a walk round to the north side of the island. We had not gone far when she asked me, in her native tongue, "Do you see walrus?" pointing to a long white line running up the mountain's side. I looked, and at