Chapter II (3)

By midday I had passed the island and was moving out into the ever-widening bay. It was scarcely safe to stir on the pan for fear of breaking it, and yet I saw I must have the skins of some of my dogs--of which there were eight on the pan--if I was to live the night out. There was now from three to five miles of ice between me and the north side of the bay, so I could plainly see there was no hope of being picked up that day, even if seen, for no boat could get out.

Unwinding the sealskin traces from my waist, around which I had them coiled to keep the dogs from eating them, I made a slip-knot and passed it over the first dog’s head, tied it round my foot close to its neck, threw him on his back, and stabbed him to the heart. Poor beast! I loved him like a friend, but we could not all hope to live. In fact, at that time I had no hope that any of us would, but it seemed better to die fighting.

In the same way I sacrificed two more large dogs, receiving a couple of bites in the process, though I fully expected that the pan would break up in the struggle. A short shrift seemed to me better than a long one, and I envied the dead dogs, whose troubles were over so quickly. Indeed, I began to debate in my mind whether, if once I passed into the open sea, it would not be better by far to use my faithful knife on myself than to die by inches. There seemed no horror whatever in the thought; I seemed fully to sympathize with the Japanese view of _hara-kiri_. Working, however, saved me from dangerous philosophizing. By the time I had skinned the dogs and strung the skins together with some rope unravelled from the harnesses I was ten miles on my way and it was already getting dark.

Away to the northward I could now see a single light in the little village where I had slept the night before. One could not help picturing them sitting down to tea, little thinking that there was anyone watching them, for I had told them not to expect me back for four days. I could also see the peaceful little school-house on the hill, where many times I had gathered the people for prayer.

_From a Photograph._]

I had now frayed out some rope into oakum and mixed it with some fat from the intestines of my dogs, with the idea of making a flare. But I discovered that my match-box, which was always chained to me, had leaked, and my precious matches were in pulp. Had I been able to make a light, it would have looked so unearthly out there on the ice that I felt sure they would have seen me. However, I kept the matches, hoping that I might be able to dry them if I lived through the night. While working at the dead dogs, about every five minutes I would stand up and wave my hands towards the land. I had no flag and I could not spare my shirt, for, wet as it was, it was better than nothing in that freezing wind, and, anyhow, it was nearly dark.

Unfortunately, the coves in among the cliffs are so placed that only for a very narrow space can the people in any house see the sea. Indeed, most of them cannot see the sea at all, so that whether it was possible for anyone to see me I could not tell, even supposing it had been daylight.

Not daring to take any snow from the surface of my pan to break the wind with, I piled up the carcasses of the dogs. Moreover, I could now sit down on the skin rug without finding myself in a pool of water, thawed out by my own heat. During these hours I had continually taken off all my things, wrung them out, swung them in the wind, and put on first one and then the other inside, hoping that what heat there was in my body would thus serve to dry them. In this I had been fairly successful.

My feet were the most trouble, for they immediately got wet again on account of my thin moccasins being easily soaked through on the snow. I suddenly thought of the way in which the Lapps, who tend our reindeer, manage to dry socks. They carry grass with them, which they ravel up and put into the shoe. Into this they put their feet, and then pack the rest with more grass, tying up the top with a binder. The ropes of the harness for our dogs are carefully “served” all over with two layers of flannel, in order to make them soft against the animal’s sides. So, as soon as I could sit down, I started with my trusty knife to rip up the flannel. Though my fingers were more or less frozen, I was able to ravel out the rope, put it into my shoes, and use my wet socks inside my knicker-bockers, where, though damp, they served to break the wind. Then, tying the narrow strips of flannel together, I bound up the tops of the moccasins, Lapp fashion, and carried the bandage on up over my knee, making a ragged though most excellent puttee.

In order to run easily and fast with our dogs in the spring of the year, when the weather is usually warm, we wear very light clothing; thus we do not perspire at midday and freeze at night. It chanced that I had recently opened a box of football garments which I had not seen for twenty years. I had found my old Oxford University running “shorts,” and a pair of Richmond Football Club stockings of red, yellow, and black, exactly as I wore them twenty years ago. These, with a flannel shirt and sweater, were all I now had left. Coat, hat, gloves, oilskins--everything else--were gone, and I stood there in that odd costume exactly as I stood in the old days on a football field. These garments, being very light, dried all the quicker until afternoon; then nothing would dry any more, everything freezing stiff.

My occupation till what seemed like midnight was unravelling rope, and with this I padded out my knickers inside and my shirt as well, though it was a clumsy job, for I could not see what I was doing. Now, getting my largest dog, as big as a wolf and weighing ninety-two pounds, I made him lie down in order that I could cuddle around him. I then piled the three skins so that I could lie on one edge, while the other came just over my shoulders and head.

My own breath, collecting inside the newly-flayed skin, must have had a soporific effect, for I was soon fast asleep. One hand I had plunged down inside the curled-up dog, but the other hand, being gloveless, had frozen, and I suddenly woke, shivering enough, I thought, to break my pan. What I took to be the sun was just rising, but I soon found it was the moon, and then I knew it was about half past twelve. The dog was having an excellent time; he had not been cuddled up so warmly all the winter. He resented my moving with low growls, till he found it wasn’t another dog.

The wind was steadily driving me now towards the open sea, where, short of a miracle, I could expect nothing but death.

Still I had only this hope--that my pan would probably be opposite another village, called Goose Cove, at daylight, and might possibly be seen from there. I knew that the _komatiks_ would be starting at daybreak over the hills for a parade of Orangemen about twenty miles away. I might, therefore, be seen as they climbed the hills, though the cove does not open seaward. So I lay down and went to sleep again.

I woke some time later with a sudden thought in my mind that I must have a flag to signal with. So I set to work at once in the dark to disarticulate the legs of my dead dogs, which were now frozen stiff, and seemed to offer the only chance of forming a pole to carry a flag.

Cold as it was, I determined to sacrifice my shirt for that purpose with the first streak of daylight. It took a long time in the dark to get the legs off, and when I had patiently marled them together with old harness rope they formed the heaviest and crookedest flag-post it has ever been my lot to see. Still it had the advantage of not being so cold to hold, because the skin on the paws made it unnecessary to hold the frozen meat with my bare hands.

What had awakened me this time, I found, was that the pan had swung around and the shelter made by my dogs’ bodies was on the wrong side, for, though there was a very light air, the evaporation it caused from my wet clothes made quite a difference. I had had no food since six o’clock the morning before, when I had porridge and bread and butter. I had, however, a rubber band on instead of one of my garters, and I chewed that for twenty-four hours. It saved me from thirst and hunger, oddly enough. I did not drink from the ice of my pan, for it was salt-water snow and ice. Moreover, in the night the salt water had lapped up over the edges, for the pan was on a level with the sea. From time to time I heard the cracking and grinding of the newly formed “slob,” and it seemed that my little floe must inevitably soon go to pieces.

At last the sun really did rise, and the time came for the sacrifice of my shirt. I stripped, and, much to my surprise and pleasure, did not find it was half so cold as I had anticipated. I now reformed my dog-skins, with the raw side out, so that they made a kind of coat, quite rivalling Joseph’s. But with the rising of the sun the frost came out of the joints of my dogs’ legs, and the friction--caused, I suppose, by waving it--made my flag-pole almost tie itself in knots. Still, I could raise it three or four feet above my head, which seemed very important.

Now, however, I found that, instead of having drifted as far as I had reckoned, I was only off some cliffs called Ireland Head, near which there is a little village looking seaward, whence I should certainly have been seen had the time been summer. But as I had myself, earlier in the season, been night-bound at the place, I had learnt there was not a single soul living there in the winter. The people had all, as usual, migrated to their winter houses up the bay, where they get together for schooling and social purposes.

It was impossible to wave so heavy a flag as mine all the time, and yet I dared not sit down, for that might be the exact moment someone would be in a position to see me from the hills. The only thing in my mind was how long I could stand up, and how long go on waving that pole at the cliffs. Once or twice I thought I saw men against their snowy faces, which I judged were about five or six miles from me. In reality, however, all the time I knew in my heart of hearts that the black specks were only trees. Once, also, I thought I saw a boat approaching. A glittering object kept appearing and disappearing on the water, but it was merely a small piece of ice sparkling in the sun as it rose on the surface.

Physically I felt as well as ever I did in my life, and with the hope of a long sunny day I felt sure I was good to last another twenty-four hours if my ice-raft would only hold out. I determined to kill a big Eskimo dog I had at midday and drink his blood (only a few days before I had been reading an account of the sustaining properties of dogs’ blood in Dr. Nansen’s book) if I survived the battle with him.

I could not help feeling, even then, my ludicrous position, and I thought if I ever got ashore again I would have to laugh at myself standing hour after hour waving my shirt at those lofty cliffs, which seemed to assume a kind of sardonic grin, so that I could almost imagine they were laughing at me. I thought of the good breakfast my colleagues were enjoying just at the back of those same cliffs, and of the snug fire and comfortable room which we call our study.

I can honestly say that from first to last not a single sensation of fear entered my mind, even when struggling in the “slob” ice. It all seemed so natural; I had been through the ice half-a-dozen times before. Now I merely felt sleepy, and the idea was very strong in my mind that I should soon reach the solution of the mysteries that I had been preaching about for so many years.

It was a perfect morning, a cobalt sky and an ultramarine sea, a golden sun, and an almost wasteful extravagance of crimson pouring over hills of purest snow, which caught and reflected its glories from every peak and crag. Between me and their feet lay miles of rough ice, bordered with the black “slob” formed during the night. Lastly, there was my poor little pan in the fore-ground, bobbing up and down on the edge of the open sea, stained with blood, and littered with carcasses and _débris_. It was smaller than last night; the edges, beating against the new ice around, had heaped themselves up in fragments that, owing to its diminutive size, it could ill spare. I also noticed that the new ice from the water melted under the dogs’ bodies had also been formed at the expense of its thickness. Five dogs and myself in a coloured football costume and a blood-smeared dog-skin cloak, with a grey flannel shirt on a pole of frozen dogs’ legs, completed the picture.

The sun was almost hot by now, and I was conscious of a surplus of heat in my skin cloak. I began to look longingly at one of my remaining dogs, for an appetite will rise even on an ice pan. The idea of eating made me think of fire, so once again I inspected my matches. Alas! the heads had entirely soaked off them all, except three or four blue-top wax matches which were in a paste. These I now laid out to dry, and I searched around on my snow pan to see if I could get a bit of transparent ice with which to make a burning-glass, for I was pretty sure that, with all the unravelled tow stuffed into my nether garments and the fat of the dead dogs, I could make smoke enough to be seen if I could only get a light.

I had found a piece which it seemed might answer the purpose, and had gone back to wave my flag, which I did every two minutes, when suddenly, for the second time, I thought I saw the glitter of an oar. It did not seem possible, however, for it must be remembered that it was not water that lay between me and the land, but “slob” ice, which, a mile or two inshore of me, was very heavy. Even if people had seen me, I did not think they could get through, though I knew all of them would be trying. Moreover, there was no smoke rising on the land to give me hope that I had been seen. There had been no gun flashes in the night, and I felt sure that, had anyone seen me, there would have been a bonfire on every hill to encourage me to keep going. So I gave it up and went on with my work. But the next time I went back to my flag it seemed very distinct, and though it kept disappearing as we rose and fell on the surface, my readers can well imagine I kept my eyes in that direction. Through my dark spectacles having been lost, however, I was already partly snow-blind.

I waved the flag as high as I could raise it in a direction to be broadside towards those places where I thought people might have gone out around the ice after ducks, which is their main occupation a little later in the year. I hoped that they might then see my flag and come straight on for me. At last, beside the glitter of a white oar, I made out the black speck of a hull. I knew then if the pan held out for another hour that I should be all right.

With that strange perversity of the human intellect, the first thing I thought of when I realized that a rescue boat was under way was what trophies I could carry with my luggage from the pan! I pictured the dog-bone flagstaff adorning my study--the dogs intervened, however, and ate it later on--and I thought of preserving my ragged puttees in my museum.

I could see that my rescuers were frantically waving, and when they came within shouting distance I heard someone shout, “Don’t get excited; keep on the pan, where you are.” As a matter of fact, they were infinitely more excited than I. Already it seemed just as natural to me now to be saved as half an hour before it seemed inevitable that I should be lost. Had my rescuers only known, as I did, the sensations of a bath in the ice when you cannot dry yourself afterwards, they need not have expected me to throw myself into the water.

At last the boat came up, crashing into my pan with such violence that I was glad enough to catch hold of the bow, being more or less acquainted by now with the frail constitution of my floe, and being well aware it was not adapted for collisions. Moreover, I felt for the pan, for it had been a good and faithful friend to me.

A hearty handshake all round and a warm cup of tea--thoughtfully packed in a kettle--inside, and we hoisted in my remaining dogs and instantly started back, for even then a change of wind might have penned the boat with ice, which would have cost us dearly. Indeed, the men thought we could not return, and we started for an island, in which direction the way was all open.

There were not only five Newfoundland fishermen at the oars, but five men with Newfoundland muscles in their backs and arms and five as brave hearts as ever beat in the bodies of human beings. So we presently changed our course and forced our way through to the shore.

To my intense astonishment they told me that the night before four men had been out on a point of land, from which the bay is visible, cutting some dead harp seals out from a store. The ice had been extraordinarily hard, and it had taken them till seven o’clock at night to cut out twenty-four seals. Just at the very moment before they left for home, my pan of ice had drifted out clear of the island called Hare Island, and one of them, with his keen fisherman’s eyes, had seen something unusual. They at once returned to their village, saying there was a man on a pan, but they had been discredited, for the people there thought it could only be the top of some tree.

All the time I had been driving along I knew well that there was one man on the coast who had a good spy-glass, and that he had twelve children, among them some of the hardiest young men on the coast. Many times my thoughts had wandered to him, for his sons are everywhere, hunting seals and everything else. It was his sons, and another man with them, who saw me, and were now with him in the boat. The owner of the spy-glass told me he got up instantly in the middle of tea on hearing the news, and hurried over the cliff to the look-out with his glass. Immediately, dark as it was, he made out that there really was a man out on the ice. Indeed, he saw me wave my hands every now and again towards the shore. By a process of reasoning very easy on so unfrequented a shore, they immediately knew who it was, but tried to argue themselves out of their conviction. They went down at once to try and launch a boat, but found it absolutely impossible. Miles of ice lay between them and me, the heavy sea was hurling great blocks on the land-wash, and night was already falling, with the wind blowing hard on shore. These brave fellows, however, did not sit down idly. The whole village was aroused, messengers dispatched at once along the coast, and look-outs told off to all the favourable points, so that while I considered myself a laughing-stock, waving my flag at those irresponsive cliffs, there were really men’s eyes watching from them all the time.

Every soul in the village was on the beach as we neared the shore, and everybody wanted to shake hands when I landed. Even with the grip that one after another gave me, some no longer trying to keep back the tears, I did not find out that my hands were frost-bitten--a fact I have not been slow to appreciate since. A weird sight I must have looked as I stepped ashore--tied up in rags stuffed out with oakum, wrapped in the blood-stained skins of dogs, with no hat, coat, or gloves, and only a short pair of knickers on! It must have seemed to some of them as if the Old Man of the Sea had landed.

No time was wasted before a pot of tea was exactly where I wanted it to be, and some hot stew was locating itself where I had intended an hour before that the blood of one of my remaining dogs should have gone.

Rigged out in the warm garments that fishermen wear, I started with a large team as hard as I could race for hospital, for I had learnt that the news had gone over that I was lost. It was soon painfully impressed upon me that I could not much enjoy the ride; I had to be hauled like a log up the hills, my feet being frost-bitten so that I could not walk. Had I guessed this before I might have avoided much trouble.

We all love life, and I was glad to be back once more with a new lease of it before me. My colleague soon had me “fixed up,” and I was presently enjoying a really refreshing sleep.

_From a Photograph._]

(Copyright, 1908, by Fleming H. Revell Company.)

THE WIDE WORLD: In Other Magazines.

UNIQUE POST-OFFICE IN NEBRASKA.

Some years ago, a traveller recounting his experiences of the early days of the city of Nebraska, U.S.A., says that on arriving at the odd collection of shanties that then represented the beginnings of the city, he inquired for the post-office, and was referred to an old chap sitting on a log. Of this man he further inquired where he could find the post-office, as he expected a letter. The old chap removed his sombrero, and, fumbling inside it, produced the expected letter. Since then Nebraska has grown into considerable importance as the capital of the State of Nebraska.--“THE CAPTAIN.”

CURIOUS FISHING SUPERSTITIONS.

In British Columbia the Indians ceremoniously go out to meet the first salmon, and in flattering voices try to win their favour by calling them all chiefs. Every spring in California the Karaks used to dance for salmon. Meanwhile one of their number secluded himself in the mountains and fasted for ten days. Upon his return he solemnly approached the river, took the first salmon of the catch, ate some of it, and with the remainder lighted a sacrificial fire. The same Indians laboriously climbed to the mountain-top after the poles for the spearing-booth, being convinced that if they were gathered where the salmon were watching no fish would be caught. In Japan, among the primitive race of the Ainos, even the women left at home are not allowed to talk, lest the fish may hear and disapprove, while the first fish is always brought in through a window instead of a door, so that other fish may not see.--“TIT-BITS.”

FLEMISH FISHERWOMEN.

On the coasts of Holland, Belgium, and Northern France fisherwomen are a familiar sight, with their great hand-nets and quaint costumes. Many of the towns have distinctive costumes by which their women can be recognised anywhere. Those of Maria-Kirke, near Ostend, wear trousers and loose blouses, while their heads and shoulders are covered by shawls. They carry their nets into the sea, and scoop up vast quantities of shrimps and prawns, with an occasional crab or lobster and many small fish. They often wade out till the water is up to their necks, and they remain for hours at a time in water above their knees, rarely returning until their baskets are full.--“WOMAN’S LIFE.”

CANADA FOR THE SPORTSMAN.

Canada is an ideal country for the sportsman. Notwithstanding its rapid commercial development, it still has thousands of miles of wild and unexplored land, where man has seldom or never trodden. Even in the Eastern provinces, within a very short distance of civilization, wild animals of many kinds--moose, caribou, elk, deer, and even bears--still abound. From the Atlantic coast to the Pacific slope, from the international boundary line north to the Arctic circle, Canada offers magnificent opportunities to the sportsman, whatever his tastes may be; big and small game-shooting, fishing, camping, canoeing.--“FRY’S MAGAZINE.”

THE GEESE OF NIEDER-MÖRLEN.

In the little Hessean village of Nieder-Mörlen, between Giessen and Frankfort, a strange scene may be witnessed every evening at half-past five. Some two thousand geese, which have spent the day on the river’s bank below the village, at a given signal from their leaders make their way homewards with much pomp and circumstance and raucous noise. The strangest part of the proceeding is seen when they reach the village street and, without any guidance or driving, waddle each into its own yard for the night. Like so many squads they break off in their dozens from the main body, knowing instinctively their owners’ door, and with solemn gait enter in as though conscious of their own innate cleverness.--Mr. A.H. Ross, in “THE STRAND MAGAZINE.”

Odds and Ends.

A Wonderful Balanced Rock--What a Lightning Flash Did--The Sea Captain’s House, etc.

Near Dome Rock, Colorado, thirty-two miles up Platte Canyon from Denver, is situated one of the most wonderful balanced rocks in the world. This rock, as will be seen from the illustration, is poised with very little of its surface touching the ground. The most peculiar feature about the boulder is the fact that it does not rest on a flat surface of soft earth, but is perched out on an incline with a very steep angle. The slope on which it stands, moreover, is of smooth, solid rock, too slippery for anyone to walk up, and how the boulder maintains its position is a mystery.

_From a Photo. by J. R. Bauer._]

Church bells and church plate, as related in a recent WIDE WORLD article, are not the only kinds of buried treasure of which there are traditions in Worcestershire. Mr. J.W. Willis Bund, in his “Civil War in Worcestershire,” says: “There is hardly a family who possessed a landed estate at the time of the Civil War that has not some legend of concealed treasure. For instance, the Berkeleys, of Spetchley, say their butler, to save the family plate, hid it under one of the elms in the avenue. The butler was wounded, and tried with his last breath to confide his secret to a member of the family, but could get no further than ’plate,’ ‘elm,’ ‘avenue,’ and died; so that the plate remains hidden to this day.” The occasion upon which the Berkeley plate was hidden was the sack and burning of their family mansion at Spetchley, upon the eve of the Battle of Worcester, by the Scots troops who accompanied Charles II. from the North. Sir Robert Berkeley was a devoted Royalist and had suffered much for the King, and members of his family were serving in the Royal army; but the Scots, who had fought upon both sides, were not careful to distinguish between friend and foe. The only portion of Spetchley which escaped the flames was the stabling. Here Cromwell made his head-quarters, and after the war Judge Berkeley converted the building into a house and lived there for many years. The elm avenue in Spetchley Park, where the plate was buried, still exists, and is one of the finest in Worcestershire. For the photograph given above we are indebted to the courtesy of Mr. T. Duckworth, of the Worcester Victoria Institute.

_From a Photograph._]

The curious little building seen in the next photograph stands at the end of a private walk on the shores of the River Orwell, in Suffolk. It is known as the “Cat House,” for the reason that, in the “good old times,” a white cat used to be exhibited at a window visible from the river as a signal to smugglers, who flourished in the locality. When the animal was shown, the “Free-Traders,” as the contrabandists were euphemistically called, knew that the coast was clear, and promptly sailed up and landed their cargo, secure from the attentions of the “preventives.” Near “Cat House” is Downham Reach, which was the scene of some of Margaret Catchpole’s most exciting adventures.

_From a Photo. by Frith & Co._]

_From a Photograph._]

The accompanying photograph depicts a terrific oil fire, which occurred on the night of June 23rd, 1908, at Warren, Pennsylvania. The conflagration started through a tank being struck by lightning, and in a very short time twenty-five oil-holders, large and small, together with the wax-house, were destroyed. The fire burned for nearly twenty-four hours, and its fierceness is almost impossible to conceive. The total loss incurred was something like one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

The extraordinary-looking dwelling seen in the next picture was built to exactly resemble a steamship’s bridge, with chart-room and other appurtenances all complete. This curious erection is situated at Algorta, near Bilbao, in the North of Spain, and is called “Casa-Barco,” or “house-boat.” It was probably built by a retired sea-captain, who felt like a fish out of water until he had provided for himself the same environment to which he had been used during his active career at sea. One can imagine the old gentleman taking his evening walk to and fro along the lofty bridge, scanning the surrounding country with a sailor’s eye, and half inclined now and then to ring for “more speed,” or to send an order down the tube to the steersman.

_From a Photograph._]

The cat seen in the next photograph was the pet of the crew of the ill-fated whaler _Windward_, which was wrecked in Baffin’s Bay last season. After the disaster pussy had a long, cold voyage in the open boats in which the ship-wrecked men pulled--amidst ice-bergs, snow, and tossing seas--for over five hundred miles, encountering dangers and adventures galore, till after three weeks of fearful exposure and hardship they were picked up by the whaler _Morning_, in which the correspondent who sent us the picture was a passenger. “Pussy then made up for her sufferings by making her home in my bunk,” he writes. “During the cold nights of the Arctic autumn I found her a very good substitute for a hot-water bottle.”

_From a Photograph._]

_From a Photograph._]

On the foreshore of the Mata Beach, Mangapai, New Zealand, stands the remarkable rock shown above. It is an almost perfect sphere of hard blue rock, shot with white quartz, of an entirely different formation from any other known rocks in the district. The mystery is, of course, to know how it reached its present position on the soft sandstone of the beach. Popular opinion is that in distant ages it was shot from a volcano, since extinct. The rock, which probably weighs twenty tons, rests in a cup like depression in the sandstone formation on which it stands, and is so nicely poised that four strong men, encircling it with their arms and all pushing one way, can set it spinning on its base.

_From a Photograph._]

_From a Photograph_]

The two snapshots reproduced above illustrate striking phases of an exciting Mexican pastime--that of flooring bulls with the hand from horseback! The rider, galloping after the bull, seizes it by the tail and, passing his leg over the tail for the sake of leverage, pulls the poor beast round sideways until it trips and goes crashing to earth amidst a cloud of dust. Needless to say, the bull-thrower needs a strong hand and steady nerves, or he may find himself in trouble.

[Transcriber’s Note:

Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation are as in the original.]