Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 2.djvu/155

136 I may here mention the singular action of the tides. While on our way hither I had heard the roar of waters, as if a heavy surf were beating on the shore, and I several times asked Suzhi what it meant. Her reply was "Tar-ri-o," meaning "the sea;" but as no severe storm had raged sufficiently to cause such an uproar of the waters, I replied, "Tarrioke na-me. Koong!"—not the sea; it is the river. Thereupon she appealed to her companions, both of whom confirmed her statement, saying it was the sea. When we were upon the island I was convinced that they were right. The sea—that is, the waters of the bay—came rushing up on the flood tide, and went out with the ebb in the impetuous manner already described. It will be recollected that I doubted Koojesse's judgment on the day we left our twelfth encampment, and crossed with a view of proceeding to Aggoun. He objected to making the attempt, asserting that there would be difficulty in doing it, owing to the shallow water and the tides. I now knew that he was right, and I well understood why the Innuits dreaded the trip, and held back. In commemoration of our providential escape, I called this place "Preservation Island." We remained on that island six hours, and at 6 resumed our trip. I found that the tide was quite eight feet higher when we left than when we put in to our place of refuge. How it could be so, and still be rushing past the island with such velocity that little headway could be made against it, I cannot explain. When the tide turned from ebb to flood we could see it coming in afar off! Its roar was like that of the sea raging in a storm. On it came with great volume and velocity. A person situated midway between some of the islands about there when a flood tide is commencing would have to run at full five miles an hour to escape being over-whelmed. The flood tide, indeed, seemed even swifter than the ebb. How long and anxiously I stood on Preservation Island, watching that incoming of the mighty waters! How I gazed at the boiling and the seething, the whirlpools—waterfalls—mill-races made by the tide as it rushed along!