Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 26.djvu/791

Rh is over. The whale-boats must be got ready for the spring fishing. New Eskimos, who have been engaged by the station for the next month, come down daily, with their families and all their goods, to take up their abodes at Kikkerton. The boats are dug out from the deep snow, the oars and sails are looked after, the harpoons are cleaned up and sharpened, and everything is in busy preparation. The boats are made as comfortable as possible, with awnings and level floors, for their crews are not to come to the shore again for about six weeks.

By the beginning of May, the arrangements having been completed, the boats are put upon the sledges, and, under the direction of native drivers, are drawn by dog-teams, with their crews, to the edge of the ice. The sledges being heavily laden, and food for the dogs having to be provided by hunting, the day's stages are short. Arrived at the floe-edge, the sledges are unloaded and the boats are launched. Here is a profusion of seals and birds of all kinds, and the chase is opened without delay upon everything that is useful and can be shot. Sledges are regularly sent back to Kikkerton with skins and meats for the families of the Eskimos, while the blubber is packed in tubs which are kept ready on the spot.

The most important object of the expedition is the whale. Harpoons and lines are always in readiness for the contest with the mighty monster. The whale-fishery has been so often described that I pass over the already well-enough known details of the exciting chase. The peculiar circumstances in the sound give to the capture here a character which is exhibited in no other region. The boats go back to the north with the breaking up of the ice, and the fishing closes in July. The Eskimos are paid off and dismissed, and resume their reindeer-hunting, while the whites are glad to enjoy some rest after weeks of exhausting labor.

Unless the results of the whale-fishery improve within a short time, the period can not be far distant when the last of the whites will abandon the unprofitable land. Then the Eskimos, who can no longer live without powder and shot, will be compelled to remove from the sound and make their home on the shores of Davis Strait, which is visited every year by ships; and Cumberland Sound may, perhaps, become more desolate than it was before its apparently inexhaustible richness in whales attracted whole fleets to its waters, and gave the region an important place in the world's trade.

When our ship, the German schooner Germania, was about to enter the port of Kikkerton in the summer of 1883, there came a boat-load of Eskimos to offer us their help. I had not formed a good opinion of the appearance of these people, but I was really astonished at the figures I saw. The little bandy-legged fellows who ran laughing and chewing over the deck of the vessel, with their long black hair, flat faces, and dripping eyes, made an extremely repulsive impression; and when we were visited by a boat-load of women, among whom were a