Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 139.pdf/581

572 on a dark October night, with a fierce gale howling around them, nineteen human beings were separated from their ship, and drifted down on an ice floe, during six long dark months, exposed to all the severities of an Arctic winter, through Baffin's Bay to Davis' Straits, a distance, almost incredible to relate, of fifteen hundred miles! The only shelter that they had was that which their own resources could afford. Our author was one of this party, whose salvation, indeed, was mainly owing to his energy and skill as a hunter. It was he who, when hope was almost extinguished, succeeded in shooting some seals and a bear, and was thus instrumental in keeping his companions alive. In the official account, published by the United States government, of the cruise of the "Polaris," our author is spoken of in the following high terms: "The valuable services of Joe and Hans, as interpreters and hunters, often maintained the very lives of the ship's company." On being rescued from their floating prison by an English sealer, Hans was taken to America, in which country he remained for some months, until an opportunity offered of sending him back to Greenland. His astonishment at everything he saw in the United States is amusingly expressed in several pages. Sometimes his surprise was so great as to cause him to moralize, and to exclaim to his companion, Joe, "How wonderful that all these people subsist from the trifle that the soil produces; behold the numberless houses, the charming shores yonder, and this calm sea, how inviting!"

When Sir George Nares sailed in command of our last Arctic expedition he expressly called in at the little Danish settlement of Proven, on the west coast of Greenland, in order to secure the services of Hans, as hunter and interpreter to one of his ships. In this he was successful, and although he was informed that his wife and family could not accompany him, as in previous expeditions, he was easily induced to try his fortunes once more in the far north. His services during that expedition are thus alluded to by Captain Nares in his official account: "All speak in the highest terms of Hans the Eskimo, who was untiring in his exertions with the dog sledge and in procuring game." The same fits of despondency seem to have attacked him during the winter on board the "Discovery" as he was subject to in the American expeditions. He always seemed to be under the impression that he was regarded with disfavor by a portion of the crew, and that they had resolved to flog him, if not to kill him. It appears to be the fashion among the Eskimo when feeling depressed to run away from their comrades, and seek relief either in solitude or death. The author describes at page thirty-eight the disappearance of a young Eskimo, whose desertion and consequent death was attributed by several of the members of Dr. Hayes' expedition to the ill-treatment he received from Hans himself; and at page ninety he gives an account of his own desertion from the "Discovery" because he thought that some of the crew had conspired against him to flog him. This so preyed upon his mind that he resolved to run away, although he naively remarks, "Our captain likes me; perhaps he will send people in search of me"! After he had gone a short distance from the ship he very wisely halted, knowing, as he said, that he*, would be searched for. He was soon found and brought on board, but not, however, before he had caused a great deal of anxiety to all on board, who were apprehensive for his safety, exposed as he was for some hours to a temperature many degrees below zero. Hans, undoubtedly, regarded himself as one of the most important members in each and all of the expeditions with which he was connected. According to his own account, he was invariably consulted as to the route to be adopted, and on other matters, as the following- lines will show: "When we were going, our captain said, * Now show us the road; go ahead of us, and we will follow.'" Again: "The captain used to question me,4 Which way are we to go? ' I answered, 4 Look here, this will be better.' It was lucky the5com-mander treated me as a comrade"! Speaking of Captain Nares, he says: "The captain of our other ship was beyond all praise; one might think he neither slept nor ate. Sitting in his look-out in the mast, he sometimes took his meat there. On account of his extraordinary skill in ice-navigation, he was our leader." A vein of simplicity pervades the whole book, though strongly marked by egotism, but this is hardly to be wondered at, more especially when we are told that the work was almost entirely written from memory; the few notes that the author possessed being in all probability those taken during the time he was serving with the last English expedition. In making even those few notes the author was doubtless prompted by observing so many men belonging to the crew of the "Discovery" keeping regular written journals. Hans is now, we 