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CHAPTER IV
THE LITTLE MEN OF THE DIOMEDES IN the unremembered ages it is
probable that the extreme end of Asia, which is East Cape, Siberia, was joined
to the extreme western end of America, which is Cape Prince of Wales, Alaska.
No tradition remains of the time when the sea broke through this slender
barrier, yet even now it is but about thirty miles in a straight line across,
and on clear days from the mountains of one promontory the other can be faintly
discerned. There is a halfway station, too, two storm-beaten islands which lift
rocky crests of grim granite in the very middle of the hurly-burly of the
straits. These are the Diomede Islands, the greater belonging to Russia, the
lesser to America, and the space between the two is so narrow that it seems in
bright weather as if one could almost throw a stone across, though in reality
it is more than a mile — farther than it looks. Across this slender land path
in those forgotten years came one race after another from Central Asia, which
was the birthplace of races, pressing southward and peopling the Western
hemisphere with tribes, of which scant traces remain in some instances, while
in others their degenerate descendants are still fading before the westward
rush of civilization. Individuals cross this narrow barrier of tempestuous sea
still, but races come no more, and we find on the halfway station of the
Diomedes a remnant of some ancient people that has stranded there and made a
home where it seems scarcely possible that human creatures could live the year
round. Here during the recent centuries met
the Asiatic and Alaskan Eskimos, to trade and fight; and the bold, bare cliffs
have been the scene of many a bloody battle. Now even this custom has passed,
and the men from one side of the straits rarely meet those of the other; but
the little remnant of an unknown people, who stranded there no one knows how
long ago, still cling to their rocky islets and live as did their forefathers.
You may find among them some who bear the mark of the Chuckchis, some who are
more like the Alaskan Eskimos, but the little folk, while having the manners
and customs of each, have characteristics which belong to neither. Hardly five
feet in height, they are too small to have battled successfully with their more
robust brethren, but they make up in slyness and ability what they lack in
brute strength. They are shy and reticent, clever workmen, clever thieves, and
cleverest of all in trading. No vegetation save grass and
chickweed grows on their cliffs. They build their dwellings of flat stones
banked with scant earth, and the icy sea, which rims them round and seems to
threaten with certain death, is their father and their mother in that it
provides all they have in the world. In the brief summer an occasional log of
driftwood is thrown against their cliffs, and from this they fashion their
canoe frames and their spear handles. During all the cold and cruel winter the
ice-floes which crash and grind against the worn granite of their islands bring
the seal and walrus and the polar bear. These and the myriad sea birds of
summer are their supplies. For many days the southerly gale
which had driven the Bowhead from the Siberian shore kept her in much danger.
The sea room was narrow, ice-floes came driving down before the wind, it was
impossible to get sight of the sun to find the ship’s position, and the drift
of the current toward the straits was an unknown factor. Most of the time the
vessel jogged under reefed topsails, with steam up for use in an emergency, and
Captain Nickerson was almost constantly on deck. Thick clouds made the nights
longer, and very dark, and Harry had a chance to see the full danger of Arctic
navigation. It was in the gloom of one of these
nights that he stood on deck. The vessel heeled to the gale, now and then an
icy wave sent a rush of spray over the windward rail, the wind howled and
wailed in the tense shrouds, and an eerie glow seemed to show in the darkness
without lighting it, as if dull fires burned behind the cloud curtains. It
seemed to Harry as if they were blown about in chaos, a place dreary, ghostly,
and lonely beyond expression. He shuddered and thought of the people at home,
happy in the bright June weather. For the first time he was sorry for himself,
and homesick. He thought with a great longing of the broad veranda looking out
upon the bay, of his mother sitting there, and he seemed with his mind’s eye to
see Maisie, in a pretty white gown, flitting gayly across the lawn toward the
boats. Then out of the night came a wild, despairing cry, and something
fluttered aboard, crashed against the mizzen rigging, and fell in a draggled
white heap at his feet. The thought of Maisie was so strong that he sprang
forward, with a great cry of alarm, to pick her up where she had fallen, when a
sudden tremendous gust of the gale threw the Bowhead on her beam ends. A wall
of white water roared down upon him, lifted him up with Maisie in his arms, and
he went out into the night with it, still clinging to the limp figure he had
clutched as he went down. It was well for Harry that the same
sea that sent him overboard sent with him a coil of line from a belaying-pin,
where it hung against the mizzenmast. The whirl of the wave wound this round
him, and the great boatswain, whose watch on deck it was, saw him go out with
it, and finding it taut, and something towing, hauled away at it until he could
reach down and get him by the collar. Then with one big swing of his enormous
arm he landed him aboard. He set him in a heap on the deck, and with a hand on
either knee peered down at him in the gloom. “Young feller,” he said, with much
emotion, “there’s just one thing I want you to do for me when we get back to
Frisco. Do you know what that is?” “What?” asked Harry, wholly dazed
and half drowned, replying mechanically. I want you to take all the money I
get this trip and go and bet it on something for me. A man that can win out the
way you’ve just done couldn’t lose at any game. Great jumping Jehoshaphat! what
have you got here?” “Is she all right?” asked Harry,
struggling to his feet. He was still dazed, and had forgotten all the events of
the last two months. It seemed to him that it was Griggs speaking, and that he
had just pulled him and Maisie out of the Fore River. The boatswain took the limp white
figure from his arms and looked at it. It was a great white bird, quite dead,
no doubt killed by its crash against the mizzenmast. “Go below, my boy,” he said; “and
get something hot and turn in. You’ve had trouble enough for one night.” The great boatswain went forward,
holding the bird in one hand and now and then slapping his great leg with the
other, and letting forth a roar of amazed laughter. “A goose,” he said; “a Yukon goose!
Went overboard and came back and brought a Yukon goose! Well, the young feller
is a seven-time winner. Bet ye we’ll raise whales this trip, all right.” He
went forward to the galley, where he left his game, and then went back on
watch. As light grew through the chaos of
struggling mist, the cry of “Land ho!” rang out from the lookout, and the ship
rounded to so near dark cliffs that stretched upward into the mists out of
sight that she was fairly in the wash of the great waves that thundered at
their base. A moment after, ice barred their farther way on the other tack, and
a great floe moved majestically along, bearing them down toward the cliffs. To
lie to was to be carried in and crushed between ice and rocks, and Captain
Nickerson, who was on deck, wisely guessing that it must be one of the
Diomedes, wore ship and ran before the gale, coasting within sight of the great
rock barrier. A half hour afterward he rounded to and swung close up under the
lee of the towering northeast cliff of the big Diomede; so close to its sheer
lift that one could almost throw a line ashore. Here was level water indeed, and
they were safe from the northward driven ice-floes, which would split on the
island’s prow and sail by to port and starboard; but they did not escape the
wind, which carne over the heights in tremendous “willie-waus,” blowing, as the
sailors say, “up and down like the Irishman’s hurricane.” This seems to be a
peculiarity of the Arctic gale. It comes tearing over the great heights,
plunges down the steep face of the cliffs, and striking the water at their base
with tremendous velocity, sends it whirling out to sea in great masses of
spoondrift that sail along the surface as blown snow does in winter. Two days more the ship lay head to the cliff, swinging to two anchors, then the mists blew away, the wind went down rapidly, and the sun shone brightly on lofty granite heights. Halfway up was a little space of level ground like a shelf set in a corner of rock, and out of holes in this green level came stubby fur-clad men and women, who swarmed down the cliff by paths of their own and launched umiaks from a sheltered little hidden cove, putting out to the ship.  HOME OF THE “LITTLE MEN” OF THE DIOMEDES Harry was none the worse for his
sudden plunge overboard a few days before. Instead of the weakness and
lassitude which bad followed his April upset in the Fore River, there came an
immediate reaction, and he declared a few hours afterward that it had done him
good; he would do it every day, if he could be sure of getting back to the ship
so handily. The Arctic air was already working wonders in him. The experienced
seamen shook their heads at this. They knew well that his chance had been one
in a thousand, and Captain Nickerson rated him soundly for being so careless as
to let a sea catch him that way. The little men had much walrus
ivory, but not much else that was of value to the ship, and their trading did
not last long. They did have many curios, and Harry had an opportunity to buy
some of these with the “trade goods” he had brought from Seattle for the
purpose. By Captain Nickerson’s advice he had laid in a few dollars’ worth of
rubber balls, huge beads, little mirrors, harmonicas, and trinkets, and he now
found these very useful. He bought with them many walrus teeth; the back teeth,
which are as large as one’s thumb, carved in grotesque but lifelike shape of
seals, bear, walrus, and other animals. Two bargains which lie made are
noteworthy as showing the ways of the little people in trading. One of these
was for an exquisite pair of little shoes, soled with walrus hide crimped up
into miniature boots, topped with the softest of fur from the reindeer fawn,
and with a bright edging of scarlet cloth. They were most skillfully fashioned,
and tasteful, for the Eskimo is a born artist, and were brought aboard by a
young woman who apparently was very proud of them, and wished rather to exhibit
than to sell them. Harry, proud of his newly acquired
Eskimo, asked her immediately, “Soonoo pechuckta?” (How much do you want?) but
she replied by shaking her head and putting the shoes away in her fur gown. By and by she brought them out again
and patted them lovingly. Again Harry tried to get her to name a price for
them, and after much labor he got from her the single word “Oolik” (Blanket). “Soonoo?” asked Harry again. “Tellumuk,” was the answer, further
emphasized by holding up five fingers. Five blankets was so obviously
exorbitant a price that Harry could not and would not think of giving it, so he
thought to tempt his adversary with the offer of other things. In vain he
brought out tin trumpets, harmonicas, bangles, beads, and even two alarm
clocks, which he had found elsewhere to be greatly desired by the tribes, and
offered them singly and in groups; the owner of the little shoes was
determined. To all his offers she replied with fine scorn, “Peluck” (No good), and
clung persistently to her first price. But Harry, grown wise, took a leaf
from her own book. He bethought him of a little plate-glass mirror, rimmed with
scarlet plush, which he had not offered thus far. It had cost him a dollar and
a half at Seattle, but he was willing to trade it for the shoes. Yet he was
convinced that direct offer would be useless. So he brought it on deck, and
without looking at the obdurate young woman began admiring his own countenance
in it. When she took a furtive interest in it, he thrust it back in his own
pocket. After a little he took it out again, and once more contemplated himself
in its depths. This ludicrous performance continued for some time, and he could
not tell whether or not his adversary were much interested, so cleverly did she
veil her thoughts. By and by her boatload of people were ready to go home, and
getting into the umiak, called to her to come with them. Harry saw that she
lingered, and he played his last card. “Ah de gar!” he exclaimed; “ah de
gar!” ( Wonderful! wonderful!) and held the mirror in front of the little
woman. She saw her own comely countenance in it, she saw the beveled glass and
the vivid scarlet plush, and as Harry held out his other hand she gave a twitch
of her shoulders, snatched the shoes from their concealment in her gown, and
gave them to him. At the same time she caught up the mirror, flounced clown
into the umiak, and settled herself on the bottom, with an air that was
ludicrously like that of her civilized sister when angry with herself for being
outwitted. Vanity and curiosity had conquered, but it was the only case in all
his dealings with Eskimos in which Harry ever knew one of them to name a price
for an article and then accept something different. The other trade, if trade it could
be called, was a different matter. It was with the smallest of the Eskimo men
of another boat. He had half a dozen ivory finger rings, carved symmetrically
with a seal’s head, or two or three, where stones would be. Harry sighted these
and wished to trade for the bunch, but this did not suit the little man at all.
Instead, with much pomp and much show of valuing it highly, he took one ring
from the string and offered it to Harry, saying: “Tobac, tobac, tunpanna kowkow” (Eating tobacco). The Eskimos are not great smokers, a
whiff or two is generally enough for them, but they are very fond of chewing
tobacco, or “eating tobacco” as they call it, and there was a good store of
this on the ship. Harry offered a moderate-sized piece for the ring and then wanted
to purchase the second with a similar piece. This he could not do. The crafty
little man’s price had risen fivefold, and it was only reluctantly that he
parted with the second ring at the price of five pieces of tobacco. But when it
came to the third one, there seemed to be no such thing as purchasing it. Harry
offered tobacco galore, added trinkets and trade goods, but the little man was
obdurate and all chances of trade seemed off. Harry remembered the shoes and the
mirror, and did not despair. He went down to his locker and brought out the
alarm clock again. He wound it up, set the alarm for a little ahead of the
moment, and took it on deck. There he set it up on a cask and waited. Several
of the Eskimos gathered round and admired it, but the little man only looked at
it out of the corner of his eye. After a few minutes the alarm went
off, and being a vigorous one, it startled the crowd of little men and women
around it. They nearly fell over one another in astonishment, and when Harry
wound up the alarm and set it off again, their delight was great. The
ring-maker tried to assume an air of indifference, but when his boat was ready
to go he came toward Harry as if to offer to trade. Harry had learned much of
the ways of the Eskimo trader by that time and turned away indifferently. When
the boat was loaded, he strolled to the side with the clock in his hand. The
little man held up one ring, but he shook his head. Then the Eskimo offered
two. The boat was just going, and Harry wanted the rings so much that he
yielded. It would make four in all, which was perhaps all he cared for anyway.
He handed the clock to the little man, and that worthy dropped something in his
palm as he did so. At the same time he pointed toward the cliff and jabbered
something excitedly in Eskimo. Harry looked where he pointed but
saw nothing. The boat was several lengths away now, the click of the windlass
pawl showed that the Bowhead’s anchor was coming up, and they were off. The
little man was no longer gesticulating, but looked back over his shoulder and
solemnly winked one eye. This was a new feature in Eskimo expression, and Harry
wondered much if a wink meant as much with these seemingly stolid people as
with us. As he mused, the umiak rounded the cliff and was gone, and Harry
looked at his two rings for the first time. They were not rings at all, only
two circular sections of a walrus back tooth, flat and useless disks, which the
little man may have meant to make into rings later. Then he realized that a wink is a
wink the world over, and the language of signs is common to all people. The day was bright, the gale was
over, and the Bowhead put to sea, once more heading northward into the
mysterious Arctic, keeping a keen lookout for whales. The southerly weather had
driven the ice of the straits far to the northward, and though there was now
and then a floating cake, the pack was many miles distant. “Suppose you could pull a whaleboat
oar?” asked Captain Nickerson of Harry that day at dinner. “Why, yes, sir,” replied Harry, “I
think so. I’m a good oarsman, though I have never used quite such large oars as
you have in the whaleboats.” “I’m sure he could, father,” said
Joe; “what of it?” “Why, this,” replied his father;
“you’ve been practically second mate of the Bowhead ever since we left Hawaii.
Now I think I shall let you take a second mate’s place in charge of one of the
boats, and am planning to have Harry pull an oar in your boat.” Both boys turned red with delight at
this prospect, and it was soon decided to thus promote them to the list of
regular whalemen. Billy, an experienced Kanaka harpooner, was assigned to their
boat as being a level-headed, skillful whaleman, whose counsel would be of use
to Joe, and the whole thing was arranged. If
the two boys had been anxious to
sight whales before, they were doubly eager now, and both spent as much
time as
they could in the rigging on the lookout. It was Joe who first of the
two boys
sighted a bow-head. The cry of “A–h–h
blow!” had rung from the crow’s nest, and
the Kanaka on the watch there reported a whale nearly dead ahead. All
hands
were on the lookout for “Don’t get gallied, younker,” he
said kindly; “the bowhead ain’t no whale. He’s jest a hundred tons or so of
blubber and bone. If we was goin’ up against a sperm now, or a fightin’ bull
humpback, ye might feel skeery, but a bowhead ain’t nothin’. They kill as easy
as a slaughter-house lamb.” Just then Harry fairly jumped from
his seat, and lost his stroke for a moment. A shout had sounded, and glancing
over his shoulder he saw that the first mate’s boat near by had already made
fast, but had not as yet used the bomb gun. Instead, the whale seemed to have
sounded too quickly, then changed his mind, and as Harry looked up over his
shoulder he saw a great black mass rise fairly under the attacking boat,
lifting it clear of the water, where it hung high for a moment, then, by some
miracle still uncapsized, slid from the broad mass as if being launched. Even
as the boat left the mountainous back, the mate leveled the bomb gun and
discharged it full into the whale’s side. There was a shiver, the great flukes
curled in one sweep that sent tons of spray into the air, which Mr. Jones with
a skillful sweep of the steering oar narrowly avoided, and then the great black
mass floated quivering on the surface. “I told ye so, younker,” said the
veteran, still swinging steadily and strongly to his oar. “He’s a dead un.
There ain’t no fight in a bowhead. Ef that had been a sperm bull, there
wouldn’t have been enough of that boat left to swear by. Oh, this ain’t
whalin’, this ain’t; it’s pickin’ up blubber.” Joe, standing by the steering oar,
lifted his hand in a gesture commanding silence. His eyes glowered big beneath
his cap, and Harry knew that they were close on to their game. A few more
strokes and then, “Way enough,” said Joe gently. They glided silently forward
with lifted oars. It seemed to Harry as if something took him by the throat and
stopped his breathing. He would have given much to look around, but something held
him motionless. He heard the stirring forward as the Kanaka harpooner moved to
his position in the very bow. Then there was a gentle jolt and a “Huh!” from
the harpooner as he drove the iron home. “Give it to him!” yelled Joe; “stern
all!” Harry backed water mechanically,
feeling curiously numb all over. He heard the report of the gun, and saw
something tremendous and black beat the water three times with great blows
within a few feet of the blade of his oar. A rush of foam shot from these blows
and seemed to overwhelm him in a smother of salt water. Then he found himself
still sitting on the thwart, wet to the skin and up to his knees in water, but
still, to his great astonishment, alive and right side up, and backing water
with mechanical precision. There was no sound save the whir of the line through
the chock and the voice of the veteran in his ear. “You’re all right, boy,” it said.
“Ye didn’t jump out, and ye kept your oar a-goin’. Ye’ll make a whaleman ‘fore
many days, an’ a good one, too. He’s soundin’ now, but he’ll come up dead. The
Kanaka put the bomb into him right. He’s our whale.” The rush of the line slackened and
then ceased, and they began to take in on it. A long time they pulled steadily,
and at last the black bulk showed in the wash of the dancing waves on the
surface, the nerveless flipper swaying in the swell, and blood flowing from the
spout-hole. Joe and Harry had captured their first whale in regulation fashion,
and two prouder boys it would be hard to find. A hole was cut in the gristle of
the great flukes, and the work of towing the monster to the ship was begun.
Harry could not put much strength into his stroke at first, he was too weak
with the reaction from the excitement, but he soon recovered from this and
tugged away manfully. A little way ahead of them was the
first mate’s boat with an equally large capture in tow; astern was the
captain’s boat, which had failed to make fast, and which soon pulled in to
their assistance; but the boatswain was having the greatest adventure of them
all. He had made fast to a good-sized whale, which had immediately become
gallied, and without waiting to be reached by bomb gun or lance had started out
at a terrific pace, headed apparently for the north pole. The boat was already
almost out of sight in the distance and diminishing steadily in size. By and by
it grew no smaller, but gradually moved along the horizon, proving that the tow
had changed its course. Indeed, it seems to be well established that a
frightened whale runs in a circle, though generally a very large one. This
particular bowhead had done this, though his circle was much smaller than many
would have made. Thus it happened that when the two whales which the first
mate’s boat and Joe’s had struck were alongside, the boatswain’s was looming
large on the horizon again and approaching rapidly. The circle which his whale
had taken seemed to include the position of the ship in a part of its
circumference. With strength and vivacity quite unusual for a bowhead, the
monster kept up the pace, and had thus far frustrated the boat’s attempts to
close up and kill. The boatswain, seeing that the whale was towing them toward
the ship again, had ceased to attempt it, confident that even such a wonder of
a pace-setter would finally tire, and wishing to be as near the ship as
possible when the final stroke was made. Much attention to the race was given
by those aboard, and Harry had an uneasy feeling that the monster, even though
a proverbially timid bowhead, was bent on wreaking vengeance on the ship. If
the huge creature should hurl himself against it at the pace at which he was
coming, the result would be wreck beyond a doubt. On he came at a great rate,
ploughing through the water like a torpedo boat, the boatswain now straining
every nerve to get up with him, but when the whale was within an eighth of a
mile, there was an unexpected interference. He swerved to the right, again to
the left, sounded and then breached, and the next moment a mottled black and
white orca flung itself into the air, turned end over end, and came down with a
tremendous thud in the middle of the bowhead’s back. A strange groaning bellow came from
the whale, but he plunged on desperately. Again the orca launched its
twenty-five feet of length into the air and came down on the poor bowhead; and
now another appeared, and the two alternately beat the frenzied and exhausted
whale till it apparently had what little breath there was left hammered out of
its body. Right alongside he gave up the fight and rolled motionless on the surface.
The bellow had already subsided to a moan; this was followed by a gasp or two,
and the bowhead ceased to breathe, turned on his side with the flipper in the
air, dead before the boat could get alongside and finish the matter. The orcas
had literally hammered the exhausted whale to death, and were now tearing at
his lip to get his mouth open and devour the soft, spongy tongue, which is
their chief delight. They seemed to pay no attention to the ship or the boat,
and Harry had a good opportunity to see the behavior of these wild wolves of
the sea before the boatswain, with much indignation, lanced them both to death.
“You’ll try to eat up my whale, will
you, you blasted davy devils! Take that — and that — and that!” and with every
“that” the keen lance searched the vitals of the gnawing orcas. One died still voraciously tearing
at the whale’s under lip, but the other turned at the blow of the lance and bit
at what had stung it, taking the bow of the boat in its jaws and crushing and
shaking it in the final agony as a terrier might worry a cat. The great teeth
crunched the wood, and the men, with cries of terror, were shaken out of the
boat, but luckily none were caught in the grasp of the jaws. The lance-thrust
was deadly, and in a moment the orcas lay, belly up, beside the dead whale. The
men were so near the side of the ship that ropes were thrown to them and they
clambered aboard, after some trouble to save the gear and the crushed boat,
which was towed alongside and hoisted on deck. Thus ended the first adventure with
a school of bowheads in the Arctic. Not so badly, though the whales had been
much more lively and the events far more exciting than is common in the pursuit
of this gentlest of cetaceans. A week of calm, warm weather followed, and at the
end of that time the three whales were cut in, the blubber tried out, and the
oil stowed away, together with three good heads of bone, making a fine
beginning of what bade fair to be a very prosperous summer cruise. |
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