370 



THE POLAR WORLD. 



He had carefully studied the Esquimaux, and determined that their form of 

 habitations and their mode of diet, without their unthrift and filth, were the 

 safest and best that could be adopted. The deck was well padded with moss 

 and turf, so as to form a nearly cold-proof covering, and, down below, a space 

 some eighteen feet square — the apartment of all uses — was inclosed and packed 

 from floor to ceiling with inner walls of the same non-conducting material. The 

 floor itself, after having been carefully caulked, was covered with Manilla oakum 

 a couple of inches deep and a canvas carpet. The entrance was from the hold, 

 by a low moss-lined tunnel, with as many doors and curtains to close it up as 

 ingenuity could devise. Large banks of snow were also thrown up along the 

 brig's sides to keep off the cold wind. 



All these labors in the open air wonderfully improved the health of the ex- 

 iles, and their strength increased from day to day. A friendly intercourse was 

 opened with the Esquimaux of the winter settlements of Etah and Anoatok, 

 distant some thirty and seventy miles from the ship, who, for presents of nee- 

 dles, pins, and knives, engaged to furnish walrus and fresh seal meat, and to 

 show the white men where to find the game. Common hunting-parties were 

 organized, visits of courtesy and necessity paid, and even some personal attach- 

 ments established deserving of the name. As long as the Americans remained 

 prisoners of the ice, they were indebted to their savage friends for invaluable 

 counsel in relation to their hunting expeditions, and in the joint hunt they 

 shared alike. 



The Esquimaux gave them supplies of meat at critical periods, and they 

 were able to do as much for them. In one word, without the natives, Kane 

 and his companions would most likely have succumbed to the winter, and the 

 Esquimaux on their part learned to look on the strangers as benefactors, and 

 mourned their departure bitterly. 



On December 12 the party which had abandoned the ship returned, hav- 

 ing been unable to penetrate to the south, and was received, as had been prom- 

 ised, with a brotherly welcome. They had suffered bitterly from the cold, 

 want of food, and the fatigues of their march among the hummocks. 



"The thermometer," says Kane, "was at —50°; they were covered with 

 rime and snow, and were fainting with hunger. It was necessary to use cau- 

 tion in taking them below ; for, after an exposure of such fearful intensity and 

 duration as they had gone through, the warmth of the cabin would have pros- 

 trated them completely. They had journeyed three hundred and fifty miles ; 

 and their last run from the bay near Etah, some seventy miles in a right line, 

 was through the hummocks at this appalling temperature. One by one they 

 all came in and were housed. Poor fellows ! as they threw open their Esqui- 

 maux garments by the stove, how they relished the scanty luxuries which we 

 had to offer them ! The coffee, and the meat-biscuit soup, and the molasses, 

 and the wheat bread, even the salt j^ork, which our scurvy forbade the rest of 

 us to touch — how they relished it all ! For more than two months they had 

 lived on frozen seal and walrus meat." 



Thus Kane, by his determination not to abandon the ship, proved the saviour 

 of all his comrades ; for what would have become of them had he been less firm 



