Page:The open Polar Sea- a narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States" (IA openpolarseanarr1867haye).pdf/88

 many of the icebergs which troubled us so much, and which have supplied materials for this too long description.

At length a strong breeze came moaning among the bergs, and sent us on our way rejoicing. In the evening; of August 21st we were moored in a little harbor scarcely large enough for the schooner to turn round. We lay abreast of a rocky slope on which were pitched a few seal-skin tents, inhabited by a set of well-to-do-looking Esquimaux. I noticed two or three native huts, overgrown with moss and grass, and one, better looking than the rest, in which Jensen, my interpreter, informed me that he had resided. The place is called Tessuissak, which means "the place where there is a bay." Sonntag went ashore with his sextant and "horizon," to find out its exact position in the world, an event which had not before come to pass in its history, and which I fear was not duly appreciated by its inhabitants.

We should have been away in a couple of hours; but Jensen discovered that his team was scattered, and many of the animals could not be found until after much searching. Meanwhile some ice drifted across the mouth of the harbor, and hermetically sealed us up.

At last the dogs were all aboard, something over thirty in number. The poor ones I had either given away or exchanged, and we had four superb teams. Thirty wild beasts on the deck of a little schooner! Think of it, ye who love a quiet life and a tidy ship! Some of them were in cages arranged along the bulwarks; others running about the deck; all of them badly frightened, and most of them fighting. They made day and night hideous with their incessant howling.