GREENLAND BY THE POLAR SEA 



poverty is ennobled and becomes the work of the great light - 

 bringer. 



A land without a heart, where everything living must fight 

 a hard battle for life and food. Like a frozen expanse of cold 

 and waste, the Polar Sea presses itself up above the shores to 

 meet its brother the inland-ice, who threatens the last land from 

 the inner deserts. The poor seals coming from the living ocean 

 occasionally find their way up on the ice, but everywhere they 

 are frightened by the giant mill of the pressure-ice, and they 

 rush down in the deep again before they have had time to enjoy 

 the sky and the sun. Down there they become lean, their layer 

 of blubber becomes thin, they must fight against the cold which 

 the fat ones do not notice ; and the mighty vault above the 

 ocean passages separates them from their friends, so that they 

 are banished to the dead loneliness. 



Now and then the ice-bear plants his paws on the snow of 

 the shore-ice, but the tracks show that he walks with feet turned 

 inward and with pinched belly, distrustful of the ice which is 

 stronger than he himself, and with no inducement to visit the 

 valley tracts, which are too poor to offer him a meal. Only the 

 musk-ox and the little lemming, which is the incarnation of 

 easy contentment, thrive and grow fat, together with the hares, 

 whose teeth and digestion are satisfied with frozen little plants. 

 Amidst these the slim ermine, like a bunch of living muscles,, 

 stalks hares and lemmings ; rich, fat and strong it is, quite 

 unconcerned with the poverty of the country because it lets the 

 little vegetarians work for it. It is the good beast of prey of 

 the region, because it is open in its animosity ; thus it becomes 

 a happy and sympathetic animal in spite of its blood-smeared 

 jaws. Behind it sneaks the white wolf, which is always hungry 

 and thin, although it seeks its food on the same hunting- 

 ground : cowardly and wretched, with lowered tail and the fever 

 of an evil conscience in its eyes — more of a hyena than a hunter. 



Behind the lives of all these animals lies a miracle, the miracle 

 of the country and the vegetation ; for in this one month during 

 which the sun rules, grows the mean vegetation which creates 

 animal life. Without these stunted children of the sun, there. 

 164 



