Chapter XI: In Julianeshaab. Excursion to Igalliko.35

Julianeshaab.--Unfriendly behaviour of the Governor of
the Colony.--Missionary Dräxler.--Shelter on board the
Constance.--Visit to Dr. Gundlack.--Greenland leather-work.--A
ball.--Excursion up the Igalliko-Fjord.--Northman ruins.--The
Egede family in Igalliko.--Peculiar customs.--Inspection
of the plan of the Northman buildings.--Geological
observations.--Return.--Pastor Anton.--Lake near
Julianeshaab.--On the Storefjeld.

Julianeshaab is situated in 60° 43′ N.L. and 46° 1′ W.L. (Greenwich); a group of islands, some of larger, some of smaller circumference, lies in front of the real continent. The colony lies in a small Fjord, and you are only aware of its existence when you are near to it. Julianeshaab is the most southerly Danish colony, as well as the most southerly point which can be reached by large vessels. The small outlying towns--Nennortalik, South and East Pröven, and so on--are only visited by small coasting vessels. Founded about the end of the last century, Julianeshaab first rose in the present one to be a colony. From the term _colony_, in regard to Julianeshaab, one must not form too great expectations. On either bank of a stream, the outlet of a lake which lies half an English mile inland, the settlement is built along the harbour on the slope of a mountain. The centre is occupied by the residence of the superintendent of the colony, which is close to the harbour; next to that lives the doctor; on the other side of the stream stands what, for Greenland, is a stately church, and the dwelling of the preacher. The house of the clerks of the colony, some stores, and a small house for strangers, are the only buildings built in the European style; they are all painted black, but look quite neat with their white window-frames. The remaining houses, inhabited by the natives, are partly the old turf huts, and partly a mixture of Greenland and European, as indeed the inhabitants are, too, being mostly half-breeds. These huts have a slanting plank roof; their interior fittings and their whole appearance are Greenlandish: even the dung-heaps are not wanting, though there are exceptions. A high, round-topped mountain, the Starefjeld, overtops the whole, whilst the lower highland (the Harefjeld) juts out as a cape into the sea. The harbour is large and roomy. It is, as a rule, only visited by one ship in a year.

Long before we had rounded the Harefjeld cliffs we had looked eagerly for the longed-for journey’s end. At last, as we rounded the last of them, the colony lay close before us, with the trim brig, the Constance. Our boat’s flag was of course hoisted, and it was not long before the Danish colours fluttered from the Constance. Our first visit was to the vessel on whose hospitable deck we were to begin our homeward journey. A happy feeling came over us as, after so long a time, we once more felt the planks of a good ship under our feet. We were received most heartily on board, and the seamen showed much interest in our sad story.

After having stowed our luggage on and between decks, the question rose where should we stow ourselves? The captain, officers, and Dr. Buchholz found shelter in the cabin, but the men had still to be cared for, as the room for their reception was not yet prepared. We hoped to find a sheltering roof for them in the colony in the meantime; that was really necessary, as it still rained fast. And now we would at once pay a visit to the governor.

He received us with cold ceremony, seemed to think it unnecessary to offer us a seat, and allowed himself very unwillingly to be drawn into conversation. This conversation gave us more the idea of an examination than a conference. To our narrative the governor replied, now and then, by a short but very decided, “That I do not think.” The question then followed as to whether we had enough provisions for the homeward journey. Upon the captain’s answer, that in that respect we must trust to the goodness of our hospitable friends, and that we hoped to supply ourselves with much that was necessary in the colony, his worship merely answered, “If you have good Danish thalers in your pocket, you can buy all you want of me.” For manners’ sake, and as there were other guests present, we were offered a glass of wine. At length we asked about a lodging for our comrades who were out in the rain. Upon this point, too, the answer was rough and short, “For them I have no room; they must stay in the boats, or raise a tent and stay there.” Upon our remarking that in rainy weather a stay in the boats was not exactly the thing, his worship said, half-sneeringly, “If you really have borne so much, a little rain will not kill you.” With this answer we left.[36]

In Julianeshaab we had unexpectedly met a countryman and his family, Mr. Dräxler, who had been acting as missionary at Lichtenau, and was now going to Friedrichsthal to free our friend Starick, who was to go to Lichtenfels. According to the custom of Greenland, he travelled with two “Women’s” boats. His people he had housed under a tent, but a traveller has to obtain a lodging on shore. To him we complained of the wants of our men, and he at once offered to take them into his own tent. Brave Captain Bang then came to the rescue. He learnt our trouble and gave his advice. The schoolmaster was fetched, the schoolroom opened, the forms removed, and our men were placed at once under dry shelter.

Somewhat less imposing did the governor of the colony look, when later we saw him in his shop taking small coin from the natives for sugar and coffee. After seeking the doctor of the colony, who received us very kindly, on behalf of our sick comrade, we returned on board to arrange our things more comfortably.

The room was scanty enough; and as only two berths were provided in the cabin, and one we wanted for the sick man, the pilots preferred, as they would not go with the men, to make their lodging in the hold.

We now, for the first time, experienced the disagreeableness of a Greenland summer; for when it did not rain, the dreadful swarm of gnats destroyed all peace in the open air. We visited our countrymen in the colony, and our men made acquaintance with the natives. The shyness of the people, who yesterday were gaping in crowds at the strangers, had vanished; and they seemed, on the contrary, to take much pleasure in the intercourse with our people. We, too, were introduced to the society of Julianeshaab. Dr. Gundlack invited us to coffee. Our kind host, who during the day had trudged about in heavy wooden shoes and long fur-lined coat, with a long pipe and a broad flop-hat, through the colony to his patients, or visiting friends, seemed not at all put out at our primitive dress. There we sat in a motley row, with three European ladies (a very silent elderly one and two young ones), and kept up a conversation. That same day Captain Hegemann signed the passage-contract with the Danish official, and now there seemed no obstacle in the way of our homeward journey.

But the weather would not change. An ashy grey fog enveloped the mountains, and the rain poured down without intermission. We had, therefore, nothing to do but to get rid of the time. The German missionaries were still there, and with them we passed some pleasant hours. But the next day separated us. The weather improved, and our friend hastened to his destination. The small fleet, with men, women, and children, and all the baggage, pulled up by the Constance once more, and our dear countrymen parted from us, sending many greetings to those at home. We much wanted to take some Greenland products home with us. The people in Julianeshaab were much more accessible to trading than the southern settlers, and also we had more time and opportunity to get acquainted with them; so we soon found a woman, who, for a certain sum, was ready to sew us some shoes. The dwelling of this woman and her daughter differed advantageously from the surrounding Greenland houses. The sitting-room, which was japanned with white varnish, was kept very clean, and ornamented with pictures, and the never-failing looking-glass; the window-panes were transparent, which is a great matter in Greenland. The inhabitants, now busied eagerly for us, were in their own persons laudable exceptions to the rule. Very elaborate is the finishing and ornamenting of shoes with the customary leather mosaic in Greenland. With untiring patience the women sew on little beads of leather in stripes, with thread made of seals’ sinews. The preparation of this thread caused us some merriment. The tail-sinews are dried, then cut into filaments. As these filaments are not smooth and fit to sew with, they must first be prepared; this is done by the sewer rolling the thread quickly under her hand over her cheek shining with grease. The price of the work was, of course, not high, and we were soon possessors of it. Our people, however, had become much more intimate with the natives. In the evening we went again on land. From the store resounded dance-music and merriment.

Let the respected reader imagine a low square room, not very large, feebly lit by the rays of an oil lamp hanging from the centre. In one corner stands an empty oil tub, on which two Greenlanders have taken their stand, and are working with great delight at their fiddles. The melody and the manner of dancing which it elicits sounds very strange. According to the time of this music, the couple whirl round each other under the oil lamp. Man and woman crack and stamp with their feet, and clap with the hands, at which the lady dancer in an opportune moment tickles her partner under the nose with a tuft of hair. The couple now form chains and circles. After a short rest the dance begins again. Over the scene hangs a thick cloud of dust and smoke from the oil lamp, which only allows one to see the outlines of the native youths leaning against the walls. For the amusement of the guests, they gave themselves up to the pleasures of the dance. Our men disported themselves bravely, and the Greenlanders showed themselves agile dancers. Pleasure shone in their eyes, and one could plainly see that, on the other side of the Arctic circle, the young folk dance as passionately as on this. Many of the ladies had dressed for the occasion; but others, relying on their native charms, ventured contentedly into the ball-room in their everyday dress. The winding up of the festival consisted in a general coffee-drinking in a neighbouring house. Such dancing entertainments were of course repeated, and one was so noisy as to disturb the governor of the colony, who lived close by, from his slumbers. Driven from the store, the company withdrew to the Harefjeld, where, upon a somewhat swampy meadow, they kept it up till early morning.

This fondness for dancing is moreover peculiar to the full-blooded Greenlander, but the strict customs of the Moravian fraternity do not permit this amusement, and the missionaries have, therefore, declaimed against it. In the southern mission stations, where the intercourse of the community of the Moravian mission is less brisk, this is easily prevented. In the north, however, it is more difficult; in Gotthaab, for instance, where the inhabitants rejoice in unbridled dissoluteness. The neighbouring relatives come, too, to join in the revels. Two kinds of dances are customary in Greenland. The one is a social dance, resembling French quadrilles. Here, too, circles are made and groups formed. The step is peculiar. The foot is dragged and stamped according to the rhythm, and then again quickly brought up in time. The other is danced by two persons, and reminds me of the Hungarian “csardas.” It is an ever seizing and escaping, a quick twisting, now together, now separately. Both dances are pretty, and show the goodnatured, as well as the wild expression of the national character perfectly. Moreover, the Greenlander dances the customary European dances quite as well as we do. The national dance-music does not enrich its treasures by teaching; a sailor learned in the accordion brings this instrument with its new tunes over the sea, and the musically gifted Greenlander soon fiddles it after him. The Greenlanders’ treasures of melody have now been enriched with some German tunes by our men.

By degrees, our stay in the colony grew very wearisome. In vain we waited for a fair wind to run us out of the harbour. At last, after long rain, fine weather set in. But in the meantime, as the Constance could not run out, the fine days must be turned to account, and I found an opportunity for an excursion to the Fjord of Igalliko.

On the boat voyage from Friedrichsthal to Julianeshaab, I had everywhere sought for traces of the ancient Norse buildings, which, according to the chart of the Archæological Society of Copenhagen, were to be found in many places; but, except the small remains of Härjulfsnäs, the Igikait of the Greenlander of the present day, had not yet seen any. The district of Julianeshaab, however, was rich in them. In all probability, the deep Fjord in the neighbourhood of this colony, had been, in the time of the Northman settlers, thickly peopled. In Julianeshaab itself, the Danish officials could tell us a good deal; for they pride themselves much on these monuments of their ancestors, and repeatedly offered to show us the ruins of the Church of Kakorlok near Kakorlok Fjord, though in the meantime they did not at all help us to profit by their invitation. We had, therefore, to ask for a boat and provisions. From the moment we went on board the Constance, we had given up all claim to our own, the possession of which had in reality gone over to the Danes. It was very hard for us to ask our hosts for anything they did not offer, and thus the Norse ruins remained unvisited. From the Harefjeld, however, I examined them with the telescope, and eventually I had an opportunity of making acquaintance with this ancient monument.

A store of fresh meat is not easily obtained in Greenland; and some we wanted for the voyage. In the Igalliko Fjord, on the very spot where Erick Rauda’s (the first Northman settler’s) house is said to have stood, there now lived a Greenland family, which--the only one in the country--bred cattle. There, according to Captain Bang’s opinion, we might hope to get some meat.

A boat journey must, therefore, be made to it. The Danish sailors had very little desire to pull a good forty miles to Igalliko; our people on the contrary were ready enough to take to their oars for another day or two; so the crew was soon fixed upon, and I accompanied the party.

The weather was lovely; merrily the boat flew over the smooth surface of the water; soon we were out of the Julianeshaab Fjord, and sailing between the island and the continent. A deep sea bay, overlooked by gloomy mountains, opened to our left. This was the Kakorlok Fjord, on the inner coast of which lay the ruins of a Northman house, known by the name of the Cathedral of Kakorlok. Straight across the Fjord, and round Storö, did the road to Igalliko take us. The Fjord itself from its entrance to its end is thirty-two miles long. The overhanging rocks to the left as you sail inwards are very steep. Along the whole length, from beginning to end, there is scarcely a place to be found fit to haul the boat in; and in many places it is utterly impossible, owing to the steepness of the rocks. The rocky masses which encircle the Fjord on this side belong to the mountain chain of Redekam, which runs between the two great Fjords north and south from Julianeshaab up into the land. The opposite bank is in many places flatter, the ground rises more gradually, and between the distant lying rocks shines here and there the inland ice. The landscape here is decidedly much more pleasing. About the middle the Fjord sends out a short southerly arm. There once settled the Northmen, and the place was called Gammelgard; at this day the Greenlander calls the ruined town Kaksiarsuk.

On the road hither, one naturally asks oneself how is it possible to breed cattle here? At the time when the ancient settlers were here, it might have worn a somewhat more habitable aspect; but to-day the eye sees nothing but the Greenland stereotyped plots of moss, with a few willow bushes and bare masses of rocks, in whose rifts the dear sun has enticed a flower out here and there. As to the view, the neighbourhood is beautiful; but a fruitful appearance it certainly has not. Indeed, provender must be some days’ journey from this spot, and fetched with much trouble; for the places overgrown with sweet grass are sparse and very far apart; and only when quite within the Fjord can one understand how cattle, at all events Greenland cattle, that is animals not pampered with fodder, can be reared.

Here another kind of landscape spreads before us. The high overhanging downs open out by degrees into a smooth table-land, shut in by a rampart of red rocky wall, opening in one spot by a pass to the neighbouring Fjord. This is covered with vegetation; though not the usual velvety green mat of moss, but the real juicy fresh-coloured domestic meadow. Here it is, indeed, more habitable; but here, too, the traveller misses, as he does everywhere in Greenland, tree and shrub. Further inland there is a continuation of willow bushes about the height of a man. On the meadow-land one sees from far stones of large extent laid in long rows; this is the first trace of man’s energy having once ruled here.

Before this, the journey had become laborious; not to me indeed, for I sat near the steersman, and had nothing to do but to smoke my pipe, survey the neighbourhood, now and then let loose a rope, and help bravely with the meals. But from the entrance into the Fjord, the wind had dropped; our poor fellows had, therefore, to work hard. It was late in the night, when we at length found ourselves under the low cliffs of Igalliko. Twilight was scarcely worth mentioning. The air was agreeably mild. With united efforts we hauled the boat up on to the strand; and while the men were busy unloading the craft, I went with the steersman to wake the inhabitants of Igalliko, who in spite of our shouts had as yet taken no notice of our arrival.

The honest Greenland cattle-breeder had spread his store of Angmaksätten and Owak (_Gadus ovac_, Rhd.) on the grass and cliffs, and the drying fish emitted a pestilential odour, which fortunately later on dispersed a little. From a low rocky pinnacle we could overlook the whole settlement. The houses were larger than those usually erected by the natives, and strikingly better built. From the distance the building materials looked like brick, or artificially-hewn stone.

We passed over a hillock, and came to the flat top of a rock, which seemed to be surrounded by a number of regular blocks. Close by, however, they seemed to possess more and more order; and the first Norse remains lay before us. The ancient builders had, in the erection of this house, made use of the steep rock as a wall. The building materials were huge blocks of stone. To all appearances it was rather a low building. The rocky wall was about six feet and a half high, one foot broad, and deeply hollowed out, which plainly had the effect of limiting the upper part of the room; and it seemed to me from this simple grooving, that the closing up was performed by large stone slabs, which, later on, I saw applied to other buildings, of which the neighbourhood of Igalliko has many.

At last we reached the house. There, in spite of all shouting, the inhabitants gave no sign of life, so there remained nothing for it but to knock them up. From the mildness of the air, it did not seem strange that the cattle were out all night.

The present inhabitants of Igalliko were not originally Greenlanders; they are rather European, and wandered into Greenland scarcely a hundred years ago. The family ancestor was called Olsen; he was the first merchant in Julianeshaab. His descendants have dropped the name of Olsen, and taken that of the beloved Greenland apostle, Egede. This family is a striking example how by degrees a tribe settling here may become naturalized into natives. Except the features, I could discover nothing in the inhabitants of Igalliko which now remained to them from their European ancestors. Language, customs, and manner of living, all have they taken from the Greenlanders. We now entered the house of young Sörn Egede. After going happily round the dung-heaps, and several muddy puddles, we reached the utricular building, in which the door of the dwelling-room was found. No movement was to be heard in the half-darkened room. Only when the steersman called, did Sörn spring from the wooden bed common to all, in a highly primitive toilette. He forthwith recognized the visitors. But now the skin coverlet of the bedstead became alive underneath. Children’s voices in every different tone were heard; and from the dark mass soon peeped out here and there a head. Near Sörn, his wife Annie had rested, who now, anything but put out by nature’s costume in which she was, viewed us attentively, and in spite of the prevailing darkness, read the letter which the steersman had brought. She then turned gracefully round and suckled her youngest child. At the sight of the dirty figures, maids, and shepherdboys, who now appeared from under the fur covering, it dawned upon me that we had better sleep somewhere else. So after waking Sörn’s family, we went into the next building, where Sörn’s father, Paul Egede, lived with his wife and his youngest son, who was also married. Paul Egede was a feeble, grey-headed old man, in whom the flame of life barely seemed to flicker. His brown wife, nevertheless, seemed to have a good quantity of Greenland blood in her veins; she was younger than he, and quite active. Paul Egede was luxuriously clad in a shirt. Madame found this superfluous while sleeping. Awakened from slumber, she at first seemed to think of putting on such an article of clothing; soon, however, she relinquished the idea, and stared at us vacantly.

Old Paul spoke Danish. We greeted him, and went back to the boats with his sons, which we finally hauled on land. We met, too, with some preparations for our stay.

Sörn’s dwelling was, according to Greenlandish ideas, very roomy, and betrayed the certain well-to-do position of the owner. Gold-framed looking-glasses and large lithographs of English origin decorated the walls, even a “Dutch” clock was not wanting. The greater part of the room was taken up by the one common bedstead. Sörn himself was a robust young man with the typical Danish face, tolerably clean; his wife Annie, a blonde, had once been a pretty girl, but now that she had been married a little while, she seemed to us somewhat faded, and not free from the vice of uncleanness peculiar to all Greenland women. I say purposely _women_, for though I do not mean to assert that the Greenland girls are so thoroughly clean that they wash themselves at least once a day, and that even amongst the grown up daughters of the land one does not see many unclean faces, still the young girls are not wanting in a certain innate desire to please, which can even rise to vanity and love of finery. After marriage, however, this all vanishes; then the Greenland women take but little care of their outward appearance, particularly when a family comes on. Exceptions are not often met with. Annie brought us some tea which we had given her to make, and china cups to drink out of, which were decorated with gold rims and gaudy flowers. Our friendly hosts looked at us quite delighted, and Sörn and Annie felt much honoured and very happy, when we handed back a rye loaf with butter. The others, too, had some bread, but dry. The remainder of the tea, and some candied sugar, we also presented to the Greenland company, who immediately made the most of the strange drink, and gulped it down speedily.

For our sleeping apartment we chose the fodder-house. The Egedes at once conducted us there. The small building served as a store-room for all sorts of things, and greatly needed air. They offered us some milk in a washing-basin, but we preferred drinking it out of an unsuspicious-looking stone dish. Meanwhile, a window had been made in the room; that is, Sörn had simply pushed out a stone in the wall, and through the opening now flew all superfluous objects; a calf’s head, old shoes, dried fish, calves’ entrails, and divers other things in no way belonging to each other. At last the atmosphere became endurable; fresh hay was spread, and we lay down on our sacks to sleep.

The next morning we had undisputed proof of the twofold use of the dish, which had at first been offered us as a washing-basin; it now appeared full of coffee and milk. Sörn’s kindly invitation to help ourselves, we were still less able to accept from the fact that the children took an innocent pleasure in dipping their cups in the dish, by which proceeding their unwashed arms dived up to the elbow in the milk.

Sörn, the steersman, the cook, and some of our men then went to kill the oxen, and I turned towards the ruins.

On the spot where Igalliko now stands, the oldest Norse settlement once stood--Brattelid, Erick Rauda’s, the first emigrant’s, house, when Igalliko Fjord was known as Eimar Fjord, and the arm of the sea to the northern end of Julianeshaab, which is not far distant overland from Brattelid, was called Erik Fjord. What degree of value this statement deserves, Archæologists must determine. Norse ruins exist, and to a rather large extent. Next appears a large room, forming a square on one side enclosed by a re-entering angle, with huge stones. The blocks lie close together and are not joined with mortar. In former times, doubtless, there were more rows lying one on the other; now there is but one; though the stones lying around may have fallen down. In the re-entering angle of this court lie the ruins of a house, which, if a dwelling-house, indicates but small dimensions. I will here give a hasty sketch. The extent of space enclosed by walls was from about twenty-six to thirty feet long, and ten paces broad. Here, too, the walls were made of low blocks of stone, and, exactly like the Cyclopean walls of the south of Europe, not set in mortar. None of the blocks were hewn; the hewn portion of the stone formed the smooth side. The holes were filled up with small stones. In that part of the building facing the south were two entrances. This, too, reminded one of those ancient buildings; for the sides of the door, built of stones, inclined inwards towards the top, and were closed by giant stone-slabs laid over them, and therefore exactly resembled the entrances in the Cyclopean walls of Greece. Both doors were in full preservation. One room was transformed by the Egedes into a store-house, the door of the other was open. They were at the utmost six feet high; a big man, so it seemed, could not have gone through the doorway upright. On the stone slab which covered the door lay some earth; grass grew upon it, and as this layer of earth was pretty thick, and as, according to all circumstances in Greenland, this can arise neither from the course of time, vegetation, or decay, we may assume that this is the remainder of the old roof, and that the builder, like his descendants in Iceland, covered his house with sods. The space in the enclosure of the stone circle is covered with pieces of rock. If time has not set its teeth quite in vain upon the old walls, the population of Greenland have at all events done their best to destroy them; for all the stones, with which the inhabitants of Igalliko build their houses in the present day, have been hewn by Northman hands so beautifully even, that they make splendid building materials. A Greenlander would not give himself such trouble, but takes it from the Norse buildings, only allowing those to remain which require great strength to move.

Some hundred steps off lie the ruins of another seemingly smaller building, unenclosed. Still further on, a plain stone wall is to be seen. On the grass, too, towards the end of the Fjord, lay heaped-up masses of stone, which apparently can only have been the work of human hands. On a small low island, too, in the Fjord, facing the harbour, the foundations of some Norse buildings exist. Perhaps these were used partly as dwellings for the servants, partly for magazines; that on the island was possibly a place of refuge in time of threatened danger. The ancient settlers had their building materials very near at hand. Immediately behind Igalliko, which itself stands upon a steep slope rising from the sea, is a terrace-shaped row of red rocks. This stone, which has many perpendicular clefts, and forms as steep declivities, is a red sedimentary kind of sandstone which in its under strata is harder, has more quartz in it, and is lighter; but towards the surface is unequal, and in its red masses contains white flint stones. This stone splits easily in its strata into slabs, and was therefore very serviceable in building, such as I have never met with in any other part of Greenland. Very interesting to me was one other appearance which I noticed on that sandstone rock. Even from below, at a height of about 300 feet above the sea, a heap of débris had struck me from its peculiar appearance. At first I fancied it was artificially built, and strewn with stones. Upon closer investigation, however, it seemed that this débris must have floated there. The loose blocks of stone had been broken off by the tide, and lay in such masses that it would have been impossible for the hand of man to have brought them there. From above, I noticed on the shore a very low spot, where things were rolled up on a lower terrace in the same way. It is not easy to imagine that storm-floods, however high, could roll such masses over the ground and carry them up here. Rather would the assumption of an ancient coast-line be justified, and that the inner part of the Igalliko Fjord had later on been raised, certainly at a time when Norse settlements were unknown. I was sorry that I had not the leisure to investigate this phenomenon, as well as the surrounding neighbourhood. Scarcely had I finished some hasty sketches, when our people were ready for departure. With my sleeping-sack across my shoulder, I said good-bye to Sörn, his Annie, and the whole household.

On our return journey we enjoyed the most lovely weather: at noon we rested on a cliff, where we found willow-bushes enough to boil the kettle. Unwashed and unmolested, however, we were not to return home. As we were half-way in the Fjord the sky clouded over, and it began to rain, and also the boat very decidedly to rock; and the idea of stopping at some place on the bank, roofless and unprotected, having to wait for better weather, was seriously entertained. But it cleared again; and, after a fourteen hours’ journey, we pulled up alongside the Constance. We found her in the harbour quite blocked up with ice, which had come in with the current, being a bad omen for our speedy release.

The day after my return from Igalliko Fjord, I had an opportunity of making the acquaintance of a very amiable man. He was, too, the only Dane who of his own accord offered us help and support, Pastor Anton. He had just returned to Julianashaab from an official circuit. As this included every Danish settlement in South Greenland to Cape Farewell, and northwards to Cape Kaksimiut, it could not be effected under some weeks. In the smaller settlements of Greenland there is now a certain degree of order and management in the matter of religious worship. A catechist, a native, who has received his education at the seminary at Gotthaab, looks after the native school and devotional services: Europeans generally attend to their own families. At the best part of the year the pastor arrives; and during his stay children are baptized, weddings blessed, the Holy Communion administered, the grown up youth are prepared for confirmation, and admitted in the religious community; graves, too, are not forgotten by this shepherd of souls. All outlying places are visited, and then he returns to his own station. The return journey in the hide-boat, often in unfavourable weather, is difficult enough. Pastor Anton had greeted all belonging to us on board heartily, as already said, and most kindly offered his help in any way that could be useful. We were to ask him for anything we wanted; he would give it willingly. These offers we received with the warmest thanks, but we were nevertheless able to decline them, as we were already provided with all that was most necessary. He invited us to his house for the afternoon, where we passed some hours chatting pleasantly with the chief people of Julianeshaab. It was quite a political chat, and interested us greatly. The Danish gentlemen could not help showing how deeply they still felt the loss of Schleswig and Holstein, and made no secret of their hope that France would take upon herself the office of avenger. Greatly astonished were they when I informed them that we Germans in Austria had long since calmed ourselves with regard to the events of 1866, and that no sensible man amongst us would ever dream of entering into an alliance with France against Germany. Who thought then that the dénouement was so near? that at home things were happening, which in a short time would lead to war,--to a war from which Germany would, in an unlooked-for manner, come forth united, conqueror, and mighty, and France punished, crushed, and humbled!

We sat long with the pastor. It was home-like and comfortable there; and in his little study there came over me once more a great longing for home. Without raged a violent storm from the south-east; we could scarcely stand; though it was clear, and the air, for Greenland, particularly warm. The thermometer showed 27° Fahr. This temperature lasted the whole night. Towards morning it fell somewhat lower. I accompanied Captain Bang in a walk to the Harefjeld, where he wished to survey the condition of the ice. The sea seemed quiet, but broad stripes of ice lay before us, and above and below the Islands Akkia and Storö, the straits were full. That did not look like soon getting away! In the evening I was invited alone to the house of the governor of the colony. There I met the pastor and the doctor. If my host thought that I should reveal myself as a thorough Austrian, he had an opportunity of undeceiving himself.

The walk to the lake near Julianeshaab is as pleasant as it is instructive. Huge cliffs, from which a foaming torrent after a short course falls into the sea, hem it in, towards the colony. In the background rise picturesque rocks, reflecting their bald high tops in the clear quiet waters. On the banks lie soft moss cushions, in which the feet sink up to the ankles. The majestic peace of the far north lies over the landscape, and particularly over the sea. How utterly different is the character of our own Alpine scenery. “We are strongly reminded of that hidden sea basin, which no one seeks, and which touches the feet of the glaciers.

The Storefjeld, too, a high mountain of 1200 feet, the highest anywhere near the colony, was climbed. To the dome-shaped top we made our way over cliffs and through ravines; it was climbing the Alps in miniature; one could once more use ones limbs properly, if only the abominable Greenland summer plague, the gnats, had not been there. These small tormentors followed us at every step; no beating about helped one, and no tobacco smoke; they swarmed in the valley as on the heights, and the body was covered over and over with them. Even if their sting on our hardened bodies did not have quite the same effect as those bloodthirsty gnats have upon the tender skin of our ladies at home, still this continual worrying was in the highest degree irritating.

The view from the summit of the mountain is extensive and beautiful. Over the bald mountain chain, strewn with giant rocks, and its neighbours beyond (which remind one of the Brockenfeld of the Hartz), the eye strays, until the far distant mountains of the inland with their glaciers set the last boundaries. At our feet the lake shimmered blue, and on the other side of the island and strait the eye met the glistening sea with its icebergs and floes. It was an excursion well rewarded; deep in the contemplation of this grand scenery, one could even forget the gnats’ stings. The steersmen were not particularly edified by the sight of the ice in the sea. Did it mean longer waiting?

The bay of Julianeshaab seemed very rich in fish. A boat sent out by the Constance dorse-fishing, returned to the ship after a short absence with a rich booty. The fish were split up and salted, and, in angling, a dog-fish nine feet long was pulled up. Immediately a whole body of natives received the sea-hyæna, brought it to the shore, there dissected it, and quite close to the dung-pits before their houses buried it, in order, according to their ideas, to improve the taste of the meat. For the next day, which was Sunday, another pleasant dance was in prospect. The men, too, now wished to be of the party. Sixty ladies, after the last ball, had escorted those who were returning on board, and the shouting and noise was heard in the lower deck of the ship. Still greater enjoyment did this Sunday promise; a “Women’s” boat had already arrived from some distance; but it was destined to turn out otherwise.