The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras/Chapter 2.VIII

Les Aventures du capitaine Hatteras - Seconde partie - 8

The next morning, as soon as the sun appeared, Clawbonny ascended the wall of rock which rose above Doctor's House; it terminated suddenly in a sort of truncated cone. The doctor reached the summit with some little difficulty, and from there his eye beheld a vast expanse of territory which looked as if it were the result of some volcanic convulsion; a huge white canopy covered land and sea, rendering them undistinguishable the one from the other.

The doctor, when he saw that this rock overlooked all the surrounding plain, had an idea,—a fact which will not astonish those who are acquainted with him.

This idea he turned over, pondered, and made himself master of by the time he returned to the house, and then he communicated it to his companions.

“It has occurred to me,” he said to them, “to build a lighthouse at the top of the cone up there.”

“A lighthouse?” they cried.

“Yes, a lighthouse; it will be of use to show us our way back at night when we are returning from distant excursions, and to light up the neighborhood in the eight months of winter.”

“Certainly,” answered Altamont, “such an apparatus would be useful; but how will you build if?”

“With one of the Porpoise's lanterns.”

“Very good; but with what will you feed the lamp? With seal oil?”

“No; it does n't give a bright enough light; it could hardly pierce the fog.”

“Do yon think you can get hydrogen from our coal and make illuminating gas?”

“Well, that light would not be bright enough, and it would be wrong to use up any of our fuel.”

“Then,” said Altamont, “I don't see—”

“As for me,” answered Johnson, “since the bullet of mercury, the ice lens, the building of Fort Providence, I believe Dr. Clawbonny is capable of anything.”

“Well,” resumed Altamont, “will you tell us what sort of a light you are going to have?”

“It's very simple,” answered the doctor; “an electric light.”

“An electric light!”

“Certainly; did n't you have on board of the Porpoise a Bunsen's pile in an uninjured state?”

“Yes,” answered the American.

“Evidently, when you took it, you intended to make some experiments, for it is complete. You have the necessary acid, and the wires isolated, hence it would be easy for us to get an electric light. It will be more brilliant, and will cost nothing.”

“That is perfect,” answered the boatswain, “and the less time we lose—”

“Well, the materials are there,” answered the doctor, “and in an hour we shall have a column ten feet high, which will be enough.”

The doctor went out; his companions followed him to the top of the cone; the column was promptly built and was soon surmounted by one of the Porpoise's lanterns.

Then the doctor arranged the conducting wires which were connected with the pile; this was placed in the parlor of the ice-house, and was preserved from the frost by the heat of the stoves. From there the wires ran to the lantern.

All this was quickly done, and they waited till sunset to judge of the effect. Al night the two charcoal points, kept at a proper distance apart in the lantern, were brought together, and flashes of brilliant light, which the wind could neither make flicker nor extinguish, issued from the lighthouse. It was a noteworthy sight, these sparkling rays, rivalling the brilliancy of the plains, and defining sharply the outlines of the surrounding objects. Johnson could not help clapping his hands.

“Dr. Clawbonny,” he said, “has made another sun!”

“One ought to do a little of everything,” answered the doctor, modestly.

The cold put an end to the general admiration, and each man hastened back to his coverings.

After this time life was regularly organized. During the following days, from the 15th to the 20th of April, the weather was very uncertain; the temperature fell suddenly twenty degrees, and the atmosphere experienced severe changes, at times being full of snow and squally, at other times cold and dry, so that no one could set foot outside without precautions.

However, on Saturday, the wind began to fall; this circumstance made an expedition possible; they resolved accordingly to devote a day to hunting, in order to renew their provisions.

In the morning, Altamont, the doctor, Bell, each one taking a double-barrelled gun, a proper amount of food, a hatchet, a snow-knife in case they should have to dig a shelter, set out under a cloudy sky.

During their absence Hatteras was to explore the coast and take their bearings. The doctor took care to start the light; its rays were very bright; in fact, the electric light, being equal to that of three thousand candles or three hundred gas-jets, is the only one which at all approximates to the solar light.

The cold was sharp, dry, and still. The hunters set out towards Cape Washington, finding their way made easier over the hardened snow. In about half an hour they had made the three miles which separated the cape from Fort Providence. Duke was springing about them.

The coast inclined to the east, and the lofty summits of Victoria Bay tended to grow lower toward the north. This made them believe that New America was perhaps only an island; but they did not have then to concern themselves with its shape.

The hunters took the route by the sea and went forward rapidly. There was no sign of life, no trace of any building; they were walking over a virgin soil.

They thus made about fifteen miles in the first three hours, eating without stopping to rest; but they seemed likely to find no sport. They saw very few traces of hare, fox, or wolf. Still, a few snow-birds flew here and there, announcing the return of spring and the arctic animals.

The three companions had been compelled to go inland to get around some deep ravines and some pointed rocks which ran down from Bell Mountain; but after a few delays they succeeded in regaining the shore; the ice had not yet separated. Far from it. The sea remained fast; still a few traces of seals announced the beginning of their visit, and that they were already come to breathe at the surface of the ice-field. It was evident from the large marks, the fresh breaking of the ice, that many had very recently been on the land.

These animals are very anxious for the rays of the sun, and they like to bask on the shore in the sun's heat.

The doctor called his companions' attention to these facts.

“Let us notice this place,” he said. “It is very possible that in summer we shall find hundreds of seals here; they can be approached and caught without difficulty, if they are unfamiliar with men. But we must take care not to frighten them, or they will disappear as if by magic and never return; in that way, careless hunters, instead of killing them one by one, have often attacked them in a crowd, with noisy cries, and have thereby driven them away.”

“Are they only killed for their skin and oil?” asked Bell.

“By Europeans, yes, but the Esquimaux eat them; they live on them, and pieces of seal's flesh, which they mix with blood and fat, are not at all unappetizing. After all, it depends on the way it's treated, and I shall give you some delicate cutlets if you don't mind their dark color.”

“We shall see you at work,” answered Bell; “I'll gladly eat it, Doctor.”

“My good Bell, as much as you please. But, however much you eat, you will never equal a Greenlander, who eats ten or fifteen pounds of it a day.”

“Fifteen pounds!” said Bell. “What stomachs!”

“Real polar stomachs,” answered the doctor; “prodigious stomachs which can be dilated at will, and, I ought to add, can be contracted in the same way, so that they support starving as well as gorging. At the beginning of his dinner, the Esquimaux is thin; at the end, he is fat, and not to be recognized! It is true that his dinner often lasts a whole day.”

“Evidently,” said Altamont, “this voracity is peculiar to the inhabitants of cold countries!”

“I think so,” answered the doctor; “in the arctic regions one has to eat a great deal; it is a condition not only of strength, but of existence. Hence the Hudson's Bay Company gives each man eight pounds of meat a day, or twelve pounds of fish, or two pounds of pemmican.”

“That's a generous supply,” said the carpenter.

“But not so much as you imagine, my friend; and an Indian crammed in that way does no better work than an Englishman with his pound of beef and his pint of beer a day.”

“Then, Doctor, all is for the best.”

“True, but still an Esquimaux meal may well astonish us. While wintering at Boothia Land, Sir John Ross was always surprised at the voracity of his guides; he says somewhere that two men—two, you understand—ate in one morning a whole quarter of a musk-ox; they tear the meat into long shreds, which they place in their mouths; then each one, cutting off at his lips what his mouth cannot hold, passes it over to his companion; or else the gluttons, letting the shreds hang down to the ground, swallow them gradually, as a boa-constrictor swallows an animal, and like it stretched out at full length on the ground.”

“Ugh!” said Bell, “the disgusting brutes!”

“Every one eats in his own way,” answered the American, philosophically.

“Fortunately!” replied the doctor.

“Well,” said Altamont, “since the need of food is so great in these latitudes, I'm no longer surprised that in accounts of arctic voyages there is always so much space given to describing the meals.”

“You are right,” answered the doctor; “and it is a remark which I have often made myself; it is not only that plenty of food is needed, but also because it is often hard to get it. So one is always thinking of it and consequently always talking of it!”

“Still,” said Altamont, “if my memory serves me right, in Norway, in the coldest countries, the peasants need no such enormous supply: a little milk, eggs, birch-bark bread, sometimes salmon, never any meat; and yet they are hardy men.”

“It's a matter of organization,” answered the doctor, “and one which I can't explain. Still, I fancy that the second or third generation of Norwegians, carried to Greenland, would end by feeding themselves in the Greenland way. And we too, my friends, if we were to remain in this lovely country, would get to live like the Esquimaux, not to say like gluttons.”

“Dr. Clawbonny,” said Bell, “it makes me hungry to talk in this way.”

“It does n't make me,” answered Altamont; “it disgusts me rather, and makes me dislike seal's flesh. But I fancy we shall have an opportunity to try the experiment. If I'm not mistaken, I see some living body down there on the ice.”

“It's a walrus,” shouted the doctor; “forward silently!”

Indeed, the animal was within two hundred feet of the hunters; he was stretching and rolling at his ease in the pale rays of the sun.

The three men separated so as to surround him and cut off his retreat; and they approached within a few fathoms? lengths of him, hiding behind the hummocks, and then fired.

The walrus rolled over, still full of strength; he crushed the ice in his attempts to get away; but Altamont attacked him with his hatchet, and succeeded in cutting his dorsal fins. The walrus made a desperate resistance; new shots finished him, and he remained stretched lifeless on the ice-field stained with his blood.

He was a good-sized animal, being nearly fifteen feet long from his muzzle to the end of his tail, and he would certainly furnish many barrels of oil.

The doctor cut out the most savory parts of the flesh, and he left the corpse to the mercies of a few crows, which, at this season of the year, were floating through the air.

The night began to fall. They thought of returning to Fort Providence; the sky had become perfectly clear, and while waiting for the moon to rise, the splendor of the stars was magnificent.

“Come, push on,” said the doctor, “it's growing late; to be sure, we've had poor luck; but as long as we have enough for supper, there's no need of complaining. Only let's take the shortest way and try not to get lost; the stars will help us.”

But yet in countries where the North Star shines directly above the traveller's head, it is hard to walk by it; in fact, when the north is directly in the zenith, it is hard to determine the other cardinal points; fortunately the moon and great constellations aided the doctor in determining the route.

In order to shorten their way, he resolved to avoid the sinuosities of the coast, and to go directly across the land; it was more direct, but less certain; so, after walking for a few hours, the little band had completely lost its way.

They thought of spending the night in an ice-house and waiting till the next day to find out where they were, even if they should have to return along the shore; but the doctor, fearing that Hatteras and Johnson might he anxious, insisted on their going on.

“Duke is showing us the way,” he said, “and he can't he wrong; he has an instinct which is surer than needle or star. Let us follow him.”

Duke went forward, and they all followed confidently. And they were justified in so doing. Soon a distant light appeared on the horizon; it was not to be confounded with a star in the low clouds.

“There's our light!” cried the doctor.

“Do you think so, Doctor!” asked the carpenter.

“I'm sure of it. Let us push on.”

As they approached the light grew brighter, and soon they enjoyed its full brilliancy; they advanced in full illumination, and their sharply cut shadows ran out behind them over the snow. They hastened their gait, and in about half an hour they were climbing up the stops of Fort Providence.