246 ARCTIC RESEARCH EXPEDITION. 



• Numerous anecdotes of remarkable escapes were at different 

 times related to me by the Innuits. One or two may be aptly 

 brought forward here. The following was told me by Tookoo- 

 lito. 



In the spring of 1857, a company of Esquimaux, natives of 

 Northumberland Inlet, were far out on the floe, by open water, 

 for the purpose of whaling. A whale was at length seen mov- 

 ing leisurely along within striking distance, when the Esquimaux 

 succeeded in making fast to it by four harpoons, each of which 

 was fastened by a ten to fifteen fathom line of ookgook hide to a 

 drug made of an uncut sealskin inflated like a life-preserver. 



By some incautious act of one of the harpooners, one of his legs 

 became entangled in the line, and quick as thought the whale 

 dragged him down into the sea out of sight. His companions 

 were horror-stricken, and for a while all around was still as death. 

 The whole party earnestly peered out upon the blue waters far 

 and near, looking for the reappearance of their comrade. They 

 paced to and fro ; when at last a shout came from one of their 

 number — " The lost is found !" — which brought all to one spot. 



The circumstance that led to this fortunate discovery was the 

 sight simply of the finger-tips of one hand clinging to the top 

 edge of the floe. The rescuers, on looking over the verge, found 

 the almost dead man moving his lips, as if crying for aid, but his 

 voice was gone ; not even a whisper responded to his most des- 

 perate struggles to articulate. Another minute, it was certain, 

 would have sealed his fate — an ocean grave. 



It seems that, on coming up from the "great deep," the unfor- 

 tunate harpooner had attempted to draw himself on to the floe, 

 but this he was too enfeebled to do. When this whale turned 

 flukes, as it instantly did on being struck, it went down perpen- 

 dicularly for soundings, as the Mysticetus (Greenland whale) gen- 

 erally does. Its great speed, and the resistance of the " drug," 

 with that of the drag of the victim's body, caused such a strain 

 upon the line that it parted. On this very fortunate moment the 

 buoyant " drug" shot upward like an arrow, bringing with it its 

 precious freight — a living soul. A few weeks after, this same 

 whale, with the four harpoons fast to it, was found in drift ice 

 dead. The Esquimaux state that whenever a harpoon penetrates 

 to the flesh of the whale, it will surely die. Harpoons struck into 

 the blubber, and remaining there, will not prove fatal ; it is only 

 so when it goes through the blubber into the " krang" (flesh). 



