Page:The open Polar Sea- a narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States" (IA openpolarseanarr1867haye).pdf/65

 was no public stock from which to supply my wants; and so great and universal had been the ravages of disease among the animals, that many hunters were wholly destitute, and none were in possession of their usual number. He however at once dispatched a courier to Upernavik, and others to various small settlements, and thus heralded the news that any hunter who had an extra dog would find a market for it by bringing it forthwith to Pröven or Upernavik.

This action of the Chief Trader was the more appreciated that it was disinterested, and was uncalled for either by any official demands which were laid upon him, or by any special show of dignity or importance with which the insignificant schooner lying in the harbor could back up my claims. The State Department at Washington had, at my solicitation, requested from the Danish Government such recognition for me as had been hitherto accorded to the American and English naval expeditions; but the courteous response which came in the form of a command to the Greenland officials to furnish me with every thing in their power did not reach the settlements until the following year. The commands of his Majesty the King could not, however, have stood me in better stead than the gentlemanly instincts of Mr. Hansen.

There is little in the history of Pröven, either past or present, that will interest the readers of this narrative. What there is of it stands on the southern slope of a gneissoid spur which forms the terminus of one of the numerous islands of the vast archipelago lying between the peninsula of Svarte Huk and Melville Bay. A government-house, one story high and plastered over with pitch and tar, is the most conspic