MORE OF AURORAL MAGNIFICENCE.

153

movements as quick as the eye could follow. It seemed as if there was a struggle with these heavenly lights to reach and occupy the dome above our heads. Then the whole arch above became crowded. Down, down it came; nearer and nearer it approached us. Sheets of golden flame, coruscating while leaping from the auroral belt, seemed as if met in their course by some mighty agency that turned them into the colors of the rainbow, each of the seven primary, 3° in width, sheeted out to 21°; the prismatic bows at right angles with the belt.

"While the auroral fires seemed to be descending upon us, one of our number could not help exclaiming,

"Hark! hark! such a display! almost as if a warfare was going on among the beauteous lights above—so palpable—so near —seems impossible without noise.'

"But no noise accompanied this wondrous display. All was silence.

"After we had again descended into our cabin, so strong was the impression of awe left upon us that the captain said to me,

"Well, during the last eleven years I have spent mostly in these northern regions, I never have seen any thing of the aurora to approach the glorious vivid display just witnessed. And, to tell you the truth, Friend Hall, I do not care to see the like ever again." "

That this display was more than ordinarily grand was evidenced by the testimony of the Innuits, particularly Tookoolito, who, when she came on board a few days afterward, stated that she had been much struck by its remarkable brilliancy, and that "it had exceeded in beauty and magnificence all displays ever before witnessed by her." I would here make the remark that the finest displays of the aurora only last a few moments. Though it may be playing all night, yet it is only now and then that its grandest displays are made. As if marshaling forces, gathering strength, compounding material, it continues on in its silent workings. At length it begins its trembling throes; beauty anon shoots out here and there, when all at once the aurora flashes into living hosts of powdered coruscating rainbows, belting the heavenly dome with such gorgeous grandeur sometimes that mortals tremble to behold!

On October 13th we had an unexpected arrival. A steamer and a sailing vessel were observed coming up from sea, and in the evening both vessels anchored on the opposite side of Field

Bay. In a short time we ascertained that the strangers were well-known English whalers, being no less than the famous Captain Parker, of the True-love, and his son, commanding the steamship Lady Celia. They had come from Cornelius Grinnell Bay in less than a day, leaving Captain Allen, of the Black Eagle, there. Intelligence of our schooner's wreck had reached them at that place a few days after it had occurred, an Esquimaux and his wife having traveled by land and carried the news.

Directly there was an opportunity I paid a visit to the newcomers, starting from our ship early in the morning. Ugarng's boat and crew took me there. The party consisted of himself, his wife Nikujar, and child, Kokerjabin (Kudlago's widow), Sterry, and myself, besides other Esquimaux.

When we were one mile from Look-end Island the sun was lifting his bright face from the sea. The whole ridge of mountains, running southeasterly to "Hall's" Island of Frobisher, was in plain sight, covered with white, and as we approached them, no opening into the harbor where the vessels were supposed to lie could be seen. But Nikujar, being a capital pilot, knowing every channel and inlet within two hundred miles of our anchorage, the steering-oar was given to her; and there, seated upon the loggerhead, with her pretty infant in its hood behind her neck, she steered us correctly to the spot.

PARKER AND THE "TRUE-LOVE.”—NIKUJAR THE PILOT. 155

With a few good strokes of the oars, we soon entered the snug little cove where the Parkers had taken shelter. In a moment or two after passing the steamer we were standing on the deck of the True-love, most kindly welcomed by Captain Parker, senior, and shortly afterward by his son, who came on board. I there found "Blind George," who immediately recognized my voice, calling me by name, and saying, "How do you, Mitter Hall?" and then, without waiting for reply, adding, "Pretty well, I tank you!"

I was, indeed, right glad to again meet this noble but afflicted Esquimaux. The four times I had seen him at Cornelius Grinnell Bay caused him to be much impressed upon my memory, and now, strangely, here he was, and actually in presence of Nikujar, who was his former wife, before Ugarng took her away and made her his. Ugarng, however, could support the woman, and poor blind George could not; hence the latter had to submit, and be content with an occasional visit of their only child, as an idol which he cherished even more than his own life.

Captain Parker soon took me into his cabin, and had an excellent breakfast spread on the table. After this, conversation turned upon many subjects of a most interesting nature. He had brought his ship, guided by an Esquimaux pilot — Ebierbing — from Niountelik, in Northumberland Inlet, to Cornelius Grinnell Bay, through a channel 128 miles long, and not above one to two miles broad, behind a line of islands facing the sea. The steamer towed the sailing ship, as no vessel of their size could pass up or down such a channel unless with a fair wind. In the channel the flood tide runs south, while elsewhere it runs north. Captain Parker said the scenery was most magnificent, and there was plenty of salmon, deer, and other game. Altogether it was a trip, as he expressed it, that I would have been delighted with.

Among the many incidents related to me by Captain Parker, one or two may be worth recording here. He said that in 1833-4 he had been down Prince Regent's Inlet as far as Cape Kater, in company with the Isabella, Captain Humphreys, who rescued Sir John Ross and his companions after their four years' abode in an icy home. Parker had seen Ross's boats while on their way to escape, but supposing them to be the Isabella's, took no especial notice. In Regent's Inlet, he said, there were hundreds of whales between Cape York and Cape Kater. He had caught five off Cape Kater, and twenty-three more between there and Cape

York. Seals, narwhals, white whales, and the walrus, were also in great abundance.

He likewise described to me, in a most graphic manner, the terrible storm of 1830 in Baffin's Bay, when twenty-two vessels were wrecked, and yet his own ship escaped without the slightest damage. One thousand men had to make good their retreat upon the ice toward the Danish settlements, some 600 miles distant, and all arrived safely with the exception of two, who died from the ef fects of spirituous liquors they injudiciously drank.

Captain Parker, at the time I saw him, was sixty-nine years of age, and good, to all appearance, for half a score more in the arctic regions. He had been navigating those northern seas (whaling) for forty-five years, with an interval of about five years, when he rested. He commenced in 1815, and was a commander in 1820. He had never lost a ship. On the present voyage neither vessel had a chronometer. They depended upon dead reckoning for their longitude.

There was a doctor on board, quite a young man, and apparently of merit. He had been one year in Springfield, Ohio.

The True love is well known in arctic history as connected with the late searching expeditions. In 1849 she landed some coals at Cape Hay, in Lancaster Sound, as requested by Lady Franklin, who sent them out, that fuel might be deposited at every likely spot where her husband and his companions might possibly visit. This remarkable vessel is 100 years old, and was built in Philadelphia, Pa.

I explained to Captain Parker all about my plans, and he expressed himself much interested in them, promising to let me have a boat I desired, as an additional one to that I should get from the George Henry, and which would be needed to carry my

stores.

On Captain Parker's invitation I remained to dinner, and then, after a most agreeable visit, returned to the George Henry.

In a few days after this both the Parkers suddenly went to sea —as we supposed, driven out of their anchorage by a gale that had been blowing, and, owing to this, I did not receive the boat promised me, nor were we able to send home the letters that had been prepared.

It was about this time I was visited by two Esquimaux, man and wife, who will henceforth often appear in my narrative, and who, together with a child afterward born to them, accompanied

EBIERBING AND TOOKOOLITO.

157 me to the States. The man's name was Ebierbing — otherwise called by us "Joe"—his wife's, Tookoolito, or " Hannah."

I was informed that this couple had been taken to England in 1853, and presented to her majesty Queen Victoria, and that the female was a remarkably intelligent, and what might be called an accomplished woman. They had remained nearly two years in Great Britain, and were every where well received. I heard, moreover, that she was the sister of To-to and Ee-noo-loo-a-pik, both celebrated in their country as great travelers and intelligent men, and the latter well known in England from his visit there in 1839, and from a memoir of him published by Surgeon Macdonald, of the ill-fated Franklin Expedition. Ebierbing was a good pilot for this coast, and had brought Captain Parker's ship through the channels, as already narrated. At the time of the gale, when my boat and the Rescue were wrecked, he was up in Northumberland Inlet, and also lost a boat of his own.

When I visited Captain Parker "Joe" was not on board, nor did I know much of him until the above particulars were furnish. ed to me. I was, therefore, naturally anxious to see this couple, and looked forward to our meeting with much hope that it would prove not only pleasing, but useful in many ways. The first interview I had is recorded in my journal as follows:

"November 2, 1860. While intently occupied in my cabin, writing, I heard a soft, sweet voice say 'Good morning, sir.' The tone in which it was spoken—musical, lively, and varied—instantly told me that a lady of refinement was there, greeting me. I was astonished. Could I be dreaming? Was it a mistake? No! I was wide awake, and writing. But, had a thunder-clap sounded on my ear, though it was snowing at the time, I could not have been more surprised than I was at the sound of that voice. I raised my head: a lady was indeed before me, and extending an ungloved hand.

"Of course, my welcome to such an unexpected visitor in these regions was as befitting as my astonished faculties for the moment could make it. The doorway in which she stood leads from the main cabin into my private room. Directly over this entrance was the skylight, admitting a flood of light, and thus revealed to me crinoline, heavy flounces, an attenuated toga, and an immensely expanded 'kiss-me-quick' bonnet, but the features I could not at first make out.

"Coming events cast their shadows before them.' Ladies are