winter approaches—esquimaux arrive—effect of a word—a sucking baby—prospects of trade.
for many days after the ship’s departure the work of completing the fort went forward with the utmost rapidity, and not until the houses and stores were rendered weather-tight and warm did stanley consider it advisable to send out hunting and fishing parties into the mountains. now, however, the frosts continued a great part of the day as well as during the night, so it was high time to kill deer and fish, in order to freeze, and so preserve them for winter’s consumption.
up to this time no further traces of esquimaux had been discovered, and stanley began to express his fears to frank that they had left the neighbourhood altogether, in consequence of the repeated attacks made upon them by indians. soon after this, however, the fur-traders were surprised by a sudden visit from a party of these denizens of the north.
it happened on the afternoon of a beautiful day towards the close of autumn, that charming but brief season which, in consequence of its unbroken serenity, has been styled the indian summer. the men had all been dispatched into the mountains in various directions, some to fish, others to shoot; and none were left at the fort except its commandant with his wife and child, and oolibuck the esquimau. stanley was seated on a stone at the margin of the bay, admiring the vivid alterations of light and shade, as the sun dipped behind the mountains of the opposite shore, when his eye was attracted towards one or two objects on the water near the narrows. presently they advanced, and were followed by several others. in a few minutes he perceived that they were esquimau canoes.
jumping hastily up, stanley ran to the fort, and bidding his wife and child keep out of sight, put two pair of pistols in his pockets and returned to the beach, where he found oolibuck gazing at the approaching flotilla with intense eagerness.
“well, oolibuck, here come your countrymen at last,” said stanley. “do they look friendly, think you?”
“me no can tell; they most too quiet,” replied the interpreter.
esquimaux in general are extremely noisy and full of animated gesticulation on meeting with strangers, especially when they meet on decidedly friendly terms. the silence, therefore, maintained by the natives as they advanced was looked upon as a bad sign. the fleet consisted of nine kayaks, and three large oomiaks full of women and children; and a curious appearance they presented at a distance, for the low kayaks of the men being almost invisible, it seemed as if their occupants were actually seated on the water. the oomiaks being much higher, were clearly visible. on coming to within a quarter of a mile of the fort, the men halted to allow the women to come up; then forming in a crescent in front of the oomiaks, the whole flotilla advanced slowly towards the beach. when within a hundred yards or so, stanley said, “now, oolibuck, give them a hail.”
“chimo! chimo! chimo-o-o!” shouted the interpreter.
the word acted like a talisman.
“chimo!” yelled the esquimaux in reply, and the kayaks shot like arrows upon the sand, while the women followed as fast as they could. in another minute a loud chattering and a brisk shaking of hands was taking place on shore.
the natives were dressed in the sealskin garments with which arctic travellers have made us all more or less acquainted. they were stout burly fellows, with fat, oily, and bearded faces.
“now tell them, oolibuck, the reason of our coming here,” said stanley.
oolibuck instantly began, by explaining to them that they had come for the purpose of bringing about peace and friendship between them and the indians; on hearing which the esquimaux danced and shouted for nearly a minute with joy. but when the interpreter went on to say that they intended to remain altogether among them, for the purpose of trading, their delight knew no bounds; they danced and jumped, and whooped and yelled, tossed up their arms and legs, and lay down on the sand and rolled in ecstasy. in the midst of all this, mrs stanley rushed out of the house, followed by edith, in great terror at the unearthly sounds that had reached her ears; but on seeing her husband and oolibuck laughing in the midst of the grotesque group, her fears vanished, and she stood an amused spectator of the scene.
meanwhile, stanley went down and stepped into the midst of one of the oomiaks, with a few beads and trinkets in his hands; and while oolibuck entertained the men on shore, he presented gifts to the women, who received them with the most childish demonstrations of joy. there was something irresistibly comic in the childlike simplicity of these poor natives. instead of the stiff reserve and haughty demeanour of their indian neighbours, they danced and sang, and leaped and roared, embraced each other and wept, with the most reckless indifference to appearances, and seemed upon all occasions to give instant vent to the feelings that happened to be uppermost in their minds. as stanley continued to distribute his gifts, the women crowded out of the other oomiaks into the one in which he stood, until they nearly sank it; some of them extending their arms for beads, others giving a jolt to the hoods on their backs, which had the effect of bringing to light fat, greasy-faced little babies, who were pointed to as being peculiarly worthy of attention.
at length stanley broke from them and leaped ashore, where he was soon followed by the entire band. but here new objects—namely, mrs stanley and edith—attracted their wondering attention. approaching towards the former, they began timidly to examine her dress, which was indeed very different from theirs, and calculated to awaken curiosity and surprise. the esquimau women were dressed very much like the men—namely, in long shirts of sealskin or deerskin with the hair on, short breeches of the same material, and long sealskin boots. the hoods of the women were larger than those of the men, and their boots much more capacious; and while the latter had a short stump of a tail or peak hanging from the hinder part of their shirts, the women wore their tails so long that they trailed along the ground as they walked. in some cases these tails were four and six inches broad, with a round flap at the end, and fringed with ermine. it was, therefore, with no little surprise that they found mrs stanley entirely destitute of a tail, and observed that she wore her upper garment so long that it reached the ground. becoming gradually more familiar, on seeing that the strange woman permitted them to handle her pretty freely, one of them gently lifted up her gown to see whether or not she wore boots; but receiving a somewhat prompt repulse, she began to caress her, and assured her that she did not mean to give offence.
by this time frank and some of the men had joined the group on the shore, and as it was getting late stanley commanded silence.
“tell them i have somewhat to say to them, oolibuck.”
the interpreter’s remark instantly produced a dead silence.
“now ask them if they are glad to hear that we are going to stay to trade with them.”
a vociferous jabbering followed the question, which, by oolibuck’s interpretation, meant that their joy was utterly inexpressible.
“have they been long on the coast?”
“no; they had just arrived, and were on their way up the river to obtain wood for building their kayaks.”
“did they see the bundle of presents we left for them at the coast?”
“yes, they had seen it; but not knowing whom it was intended for, they had not touched it.”
on being told that the presents were intended for them, the poor creatures put on a look of intense chagrin, which, however, passed away when it was suggested to them that they might take the gifts on their return to the coast.
“and now,” said stanley, in conclusion, “’tis getting late. go down to the point below the fort and encamp there for the night. we thank you for your visit, and will return it in the morning. good-night.”
on this being translated, the esquimaux gave a general yell of assent and immediately retired, bounding and shouting and leaping as they went, looking, in their gleesome rotundity, like the infant progeny of a race of giants.
“i like the look of these men very much,” said stanley, as he walked up to the house with frank. “their genuine trustfulness is a fine trait in their character.”
“no doubt of it,” replied frank. “there is much truth in the proverb, ‘evil dreaders are evil doers.’ those who fear no evil intend none. had they been indians, now, we should have had more trouble with them.”
“i doubt it not, frank. you would have been pleased to witness the prompt alacrity with which the poor creatures answered to our cry of chimo, and ran their kayaks fearlessly ashore, although, for all they knew to the contrary, the rocks might have concealed a hundred enemies.”
“and yet,” said frank, with an air of perplexity, “the esquimau character seems to me a difficult problem to solve. when we read the works of arctic voyagers, we find that one man’s experience of the esquimaux proves them to be inveterate thieves and liars, while another speaks of them as an honest, truthful people—and that, too, being said of the same tribe. nay, further, i have read of a tribe being all that is good and amiable at one time, and all that is bad and vile at another. now the conduct of these good-natured fellows, in reference to the bundle of trinkets we left at the mouth of the river, indicates a degree of honesty that is almost too sensitive; for the merest exertion of common-sense would show that a bundle hung up in an exposed place to public view must be for the public good.”
“nevertheless they seem both honest and friendly,” returned stanley, “and i trust that our experience of them may never change. to-morrow i shall give them some good advice in regard to procuring furs, and show them the wealth of our trading store.”
when the morrow came the visit of the esquimaux was returned by the entire force of fort chimo, and the childish delight with which they were received was most amusing. the childishness, however, was only applicable to these natives when expressing their strong feelings. in other respects, particularly in their physical actions, they were most manly; and the thick black beards and moustaches that clothed the chins of most of the men seemed very much the reverse of infantine. the children were so exactly like to their parents in costume that they seemed miniature representations of them. in fact, were a child viewed through a magnifying glass it would become a man, and were a man viewed through a diminishing glass he would become a child—always, of course, excepting the beard.
bryan became a special favourite with the natives when it was discovered that he was a worker in iron, and the presents with which he was overwhelmed were of a most extraordinary, and, in some cases, perplexing nature. one man, who seemed determined to get into his good graces, offered him a choice morsel of broiled seal. “no, thankee, lad,” said bryan; “i’ve had my brickfust.”
supposing that the broiling had something to do with the blacksmith’s objection, the esquimau hastily cut off a slice of the raw blubber and tendered it to him.
“d’ye think i’m a haythen?” said bryan, turning away in disgust.
“ah, try it, bryan,” cried la roche, turning from an esquimau baby, in the contemplation of which he had been absorbed—“try it; ’tis ver’ goot, i ’sure you. ver’ goot for your complaint, bryan. but come, here, vitement.—just regardez dat hinfant. come here, queek!”
thus urged, bryan broke away from his host (who had just split open the shinbone of a deer, and offered him the raw marrow, but without success), and, going towards la roche, regarded the baby in question. it was a remarkably fine child, seemingly about ten months old, with a round, rosy, oily face, coal-black hair, and large, round, coal-black eyes, with which it returned the stare of the two men with interest. but that which amused the visitors most was a lump of fat or blubber, with a skewer thrust through it, which its mother had given to the child to suck, and which it was endeavouring to thrust down its throat with both hands.
“come here, oolibuck; pourquoi is de stick?”
“ho, ho, ho!” laughed oolibuck. “dat is for keep de chile quiet; and de stick is for no let him choke; him no can swallow de stick.”
“musha! but it would stick av he did swallow it,” said bryan, turning away with a laugh.
in the course of the day stanley and frank conducted the natives to the fort, and having given them all an excellent dinner and a few gifts of needles, scissors, and knives, led them to the store, where the goods for trade were ranged temptingly on shelves round the walls. a counter encompassed a space around the entrance-door, within which the natives stood and gazed on wealth which, to their unsophisticated minds, seemed a dream of enchantment.
having given them time to imbibe a conception of the room and its treasures, stanley addressed them through the interpreter; but as reference to this worthy individual is somewhat hampering, we will discard him forthwith—retaining his style and language, however, for the benefit of his fellow-countrymen.
“now, you see what useful things i have got here for you; but i cannot give them to you for nothing. they cost us much, and give us much trouble to bring them here. but i will give them for skins and furs and oil, and the tusks of the walrus; and when you go to your friends on the sea-coast, you can tell them to bring skins with them when they come.”
“ye vill do vat you vish. ye most happy you come. ye vill hunt very mush, and make your house empty of all dese t’ings if ye can.”
“that’s well. and now i am in need of boots for my men, and you have a good many, i see; so, if you can spare some of these, we will begin to trade at once.”
on hearing this, the natives dispatched several of their number down to the camp, who soon returned laden with boots. these boots are most useful articles. they are neatly made of sealskin, the feet or soles being of walrus hide, and perfectly waterproof. they are invaluable to those who have to walk much in ice-cold water or among moist snow, as is the case in those regions during spring and autumn. in winter the frost completely does away with all moisture, so that the indian moccasin is better at that season than the esquimau boot.
for these boots, and a few articles of native clothing, stanley paid the natives at the rates of the regular tariff throughout the country; and this rate was so much beyond the poor esquimau estimate of the relative value of boots and goods, that they would gladly have given all the boots and coats they possessed for what they received as the value of one pair.
overjoyed at their good fortune, and laden with treasure, they returned to their camp to feast, and to sing the praises of the kublunat, as they termed the fur-traders.
