Their efforts and their sacrifices, let us add, have not been barren. Not only has the great North-West Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific been finally explored, but the discovery of an open and comparatively warm sea around the geographical pole of our globe—the discovery, too, of the magnetic pole, and of the double pole of cold—ought to be ranked with the most brilliant scientific achievements on which our age can pride itself. Thanks to those heroes of science, the Arctic Polar region is now extensively known and very generally surveyed. It is not possible to say so much of the Antarctic Polar region. There the approach is not facilitated by any continent, or, indeed, any fraction of a continent. The “Land of Fire” (Tierra del Fuego), which is the nearest point, is not calculated to brighten the hopes of the explorer, and the difficulties and perils which oppose themselves to his southward progress seem insurmountable. Three illustrious travellers—sons of England, France, and America respectively—Sir James Ross, Dumont D’Urville, and Rear-Admiral Charles Wilkes, attempted, however, in the first half of the present century, to penetrate the mystery which enshrouds this extremity of our globe.
After sailing for many days amongst prodigious icebergs, which sometimes threatened to crush his ships, and sometimes to immure them in a gloomy prison, Dumont D’Urville considered himself fortunate in sighting, on the very line of the Antarctic Circle, a range of black rocky cliffs which he named Clarie Coast and Adelie Land. About the same time Rear-Admiral Wilkes discovered, in 67° 4´ south latitude, and 147° 30´ east longitude, a bay which he called the Bay of Disappointment, because he found himself there stopped short by impassable ice, and deceived in his hope of reaching the Austral Continent. The same navigator, in 65° 59´ south latitude, and 105° 18´ east longitude, saw, or thought he saw, an extent of coast which he computed at 65 miles in length, and 3000 feet in elevation above the sea-level. This coast appeared to him entirely covered with snow. Disembarking at the point mentioned, he ascertained the presence, under the snow, of clay, red granite, and basalt, but no sign of stratification. On the beach, frequented by the Cachalot whale, the seal, and legions of sea-birds, were found numerous zoophytes and some small crustaceans.
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Adelie Land (Antarctic Ocean).
Adelie Land (Antarctic Ocean).
The accuracy of the American navigator’s observations has been, however, disputed by geographers, and in 1841 Sir James Ross demonstrated that the threshold of this problematical continent was, at least in certain places, much more distant than Wilkes had supposed. Sir James himself discovered, between 70° and 78° south latitude, an extensive tract of land which he named South Victoria, and which extends nearer the South Pole than any other yet known. Its shores are rendered imposing by a line of lofty and snow-crowned mountains, some of which are volcanic. To two of the more majestic of these the English voyager gave the names of his two ships—Mount Erebus and Mount Terror. The former is 12,400 feet in height.[192]
Sir James Ross traced the continents of this desolate icy coast for seven hundred miles, until his progress was arrested by a solid impenetrable barrier of lofty ice. He reached, however, on another meridian, the latitude of 78° 4´ south, the nearest approach yet made to the Antarctic Pole.
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THE mantle which Flora has spread over the naked body of this earth is, says Humboldt, unequally woven. Thickest in those places where the sun soars to a great altitude in a cloudless sky, it is of thinner texture towards the poles, where Nature seems benumbed and torpid, where the precipitate return of frost leaves no time for the buds to unfold, and surprises the fruits before they have attained maturity.
The number of plants capable of withstanding the prolonged and terrible Arctic winters, and of contenting themselves with the scanty heat and light which the pale sun of those regions pours upon them during his brief stay above the horizon, is, in effect, very limited. We have seen, in the preceding chapter, how restricted is the flora of that part of the American polar lands which has received the somewhat ambitious appellation of the “Wooded Region.” This flora, so poor and stunted, is nevertheless the flora of a comparatively fortunate zone. We find it, with some variations, to the north of Sweden, Russia, and Siberia. There we encounter those ultimate masses of foliage which have any pretensions to the title of Forests—Pines, Firs, Elms, and Birches are the only species which compose them. Further north these trees form but small woods, alternating with clumps of poplars and dwarf willows. The Myrtle of our sub-Alpine forests, and a small winding Honeysuckle, with rounded leaves, rosy and fragrant flowers, cover in certain places considerable surfaces. Still further north the arborescent species are completely wanting; but vivacious plants, belonging to the families of Ranunculaceæ, Saxifragaceæ, Cruciferæ, and Gramineæ, spread out their flowers on the surface of the rocks. To the firs and birches, already so stinted, succeed, in the same localities, a few scattered shrubs; among others, the thorny Gooseberry bush, the common Strawberry, the Raspberry-pseudo-Mulberry (Rubus Chamæmorus)—exclusively indigenous to these regions—and the Oleander of Lapland (Rhododendron Laponicum). Still advancing northward, we meet, on the extreme confines of the continent, some Dravas (Cruciferæ), Potentillas (Rosaceæ), Bur-weeds and Rushes (Cyperaceæ), and, finally, a few Mosses and Lichens. The commonest mosses are the Splechnum, which resemble small umbels; and, in moist localities, the Sphagnum, or Bog-Moss, whose successive accumulation, from a very remote epoch, has formed, with the detritus of some Cyperaceæ, extensive breadths of peat, which might be utilized as a combustible. The lichens and the mosses are the last plants which, owing to the simplicity of their organization, are able to develop and reproduce themselves on the Arctic rocks and under the dense layer of snow which covers them. Their abundance in almost all the polar wastes, where every other nutritious plant is wanting, proves an inestimable benefit for the few inhabitants of those deserts. It will suffice to mention, as representatives of the singular family of Cryptogams, the Iceland Moss, which medical science employs in the treatment of pulmonary diseases; and the Reindeer Moss, whose foliaceous expansions frequently cover vast extents of soil, and form veritable pasture-grounds where the reindeer find almost their only nutriment.
But if the Polar Flora offers few details of interest, it is otherwise with the Polar Fauna. The most important orders of the Animal Kingdom, and particularly of the class Mammalia, are there represented by species not less worthy of attention than those that people the savage countries of the torrid and temperate zones.
Among the Ruminantia we may mention the Eland and the Stag of Canada, which range—the former in the Old and New Continents, the latter in the New World only—to a very high latitude; but, to confine myself to the characteristic species of the Hyperborean Fauna, I shall here speak only of the Musk-Ox and the Reindeer.
The Musk-Ox, or Ovibos (Ovibos Moschatus), is, as its zoological name indicates, an intermediate animal between the ox and the sheep. Smaller than the former, larger than the latter, he reminds us equally of both in his form and appearance. He has an obtuse nose; horns broad at the base, covering the forehead and crown of the head, and curving downwards between the eye and ear until about the level of the mouth, where they turn upwards; the tail is short, and almost lost in the thickness of the hair, which is generally of a dark brown, and of two kinds, as with all the animals of Polar regions,—a long hair, which on some parts of the body is thick and curled, and, beneath it, a fine kind of soft, ash-coloured wool; the legs are short and thick, and furnished with narrow hoofs, resembling those of the moose. The female is smaller than the male, and has also smaller horns. Her general colour is black, except that the legs are whitish; and along the back runs an elevated ridge or mane of dusky hair.
The musk-ox, as might be inferred from his name, exhales a strong odour of musk, with which his very flesh is impregnated, and which communicates itself to the knife employed in cutting him up. Not the less is he esteemed a precious prey by the Indians and Eskimos, who hunt him actively. He wanders in small herds over the rocky prairies which stretch to the north of the great lakes of North America. He is an irascible animal, and will fight desperately in defence of the female.
The Reindeer (Cervus Turandus) is about the size of our English stag, but of a squatter and less graceful form. He stands about four feet six inches high. His head is crowned with remarkably long and slender horns; and they have branched, recurved, and round antlers, whose summits are palmated. His colour is brown above and white beneath; but as the animal advances in age, it changes into a grayish-white, and is sometimes almost wholly white. The nether part of the neck droops like a kind of hanging beard. His hoofs are large, long, and black; and so are the secondary hoofs behind. The latter, while the reindeer is running, make by their collision a curious clattering sound, which may be heard at a considerable distance.
This species formerly spread over Europe and Asia to a tolerably low latitude.Cæsar particularizes it among the animals of the Hercynian Forest. Even at the present day troops of wild reindeer traverse the wooded summits of the prolongation of the Ural Mountains. They advance between the Don and the Volga to the 46th parallel of latitude; and they extend their wanderings even to the foot of the Caucasus, on the banks of the Kouma. But their true habitat is that belt of ice and snow bounded by the Arctic polar circle, or, more properly, by the isothermal line of 0° centigrade. “Both the wild and the tame reindeer,” says Desmoulins, “ change their feeding-grounds with the seasons. In winter they descend into the plains and valleys; in summer they take refuge upon the mountains, where the wild herds gain the loftiest terraces, the more easily to escape the attacks of gadflies and other insect enemies. It is very remarkable that each species of animal has, so to speak, his insect parasite. The œstre so terrifies the reindeer that the mere appearance of one in the air will infuriate a herd of a thousand animals. As it is then the moulting season, these insects deposit their eggs in the skin, where the larvæ lodge and multiply ad infinitum, incessantly renewing centres of suppuration.”
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THE REINDEER OF LAPLAND.
THE REINDEER OF LAPLAND.
To the natives of North America, says a zoologist, the reindeer is only known as a beast of chase, but he is a most important one. There is hardly a part of the animal which is not made available to some useful purpose. Clothing made of the skin is, according to Sir J. Richardson, so impervious to the cold, that, with the addition of a blanket of the same material, any one so clothed may bivouac on the snow with safety in the most intense cold of an Arctic winter’s night. The venison, when in high condition, has several inches of fat on the haunches, and said to equal that of the fallow-deer in our best English parks: the tongue and some of the tripe are reckoned most delicious morsels. Pemmican is formed by pouring one-third part of melted fat over the pounded meat, and incorporating them well together. The Eskimos and Greenlanders consider the stomach or paunch, with its contents, a great delicacy; and Captain Sir James Ross says that these contents form the only vegetable food which the natives of Boothia ever taste.[193]
The order of Rodents has no other representatives in the Arctic Deserts than the Arctic Hare and the Alpine Lagomys. The former is a little larger than our European hare. His abundant fur, gray in summer, grows white in winter, and affords him protection, by a merciful provision of nature, against the carnivorous beasts of prey. It becomes impossible to discern him from the snowy mantle which covers all the earth. He is a native of Labrador and Greenland.
The Lagomys are small animals, scarcely exceeding the Guinea-pig in size, and measuring only nine inches in length. His long head is ornamented with a pair of short, broad, and rounded ears. He inhabits the Altaï Mountains, but extends even into Kamtschatka, seeking an asylum in the wooded tracts among the mossy rocks and flashing waterfalls, lodging in the fissures or burrowing in the most sequestered corners. During the autumn he lays up a store of winter provision by collecting the finest grass and moss and herbs. These he dries in the sun, and disposes in small heaps or hayricks, which vary in size according to the number of animals employed, and frequently furnish the sable-hunter with provender for his horse in the hour of direst emergency.
The group of Arctic Carnivora, more numerous than the reader would at the first glance suppose, includes those animals which furnish commerce with the costliest furs.
Except the Fox and the White Bear, of which I shall presently speak, all these Carnivora belong to the family which has for its type the “long-spined animal”—the common European Weasel (Mustela)—and which borrows from it its zoological appellation of Mustelidæ.
In this family the most remarkable genera are undoubtedly the Martens, the Polecats, the Gluttons, and the Otters.
The Martens of the North are cousins-german of the weasels, so justly feared by our farmers and villagers on account of the extensive depredations which they commit in the poultry-yard. The martens are not less ferocious; but in the fir and birch forests which they inhabit, it is upon the small rodents, the birds, and, when necessity prompts, upon the reptiles, that they exercise their sanguinary tyranny. They scale trees as nimbly as cats; and their flexible body enables them to introduce themselves into the smallest openings, where a cat could not pass, and into the burrows and fissures of the trees or rocks which serve as an asylum for their victims. They are, moreover, very pretty animals, with lively manners, a cunning physiognomy, and a rich furry attire. Besides the ordinary marten, which is found in all the north of Europe, zoologists distinguish in this genus several species exclusively indigenous to the coldest regions of the two continents. The most renowned for the beauty of his coat is the Zibelline, or Sable, which we must look for in Northern Russia and Siberia. Its hairs, whose general shade is a grayish-brown, possess this singular property, which distinguishes them from every other kind of fur—they have no particular inclination, and consequently may be laid down indifferently in any direction whatever.
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Ermine and Sable-Marten.
Ermine and Sable-Marten.
The genus Polecat (Mustela putarius) comprehends the smallest of all known Carnivora—the Weasel, the Ferret, and the Ermine. The temperate countries of Europe possess one variety of the latter species; but the ermines of the extreme north have a much fuller and softer fur. These animals, like many others, change their garb according to the season. The ermine, which poets have adopted as the emblem of purity, on account of his spotless whiteness, in reality only merits that dangerous honour in the winter; it is then only that he assumes that immaculate robe which the proudest monarchs are content to wear. In summer its colour is a clear maroon. His tail alone remains at all times of a beautiful shining black.
The Glutton (Gulo Arcticus) is a carnivorous quadruped of a very voracious nature, about the size of a large badger, between which and the polecat he appears to form a link. His legs are short and robust; he has a compact body, large head, and unwieldy gait. His ears are small; his tail is short and tufted. His skin is a black brown on the top of the head and back; a white line extends along each flank, from the shoulder to the root of the tail. The muzzle is black; the remainder of the body a deep brown. Like most of the mammals of the Polar region, he has two kinds of hair—the upper long and coarse, the lower soft, fine, and of an uniform brown colour. The glutton owes his name to his extreme voracity. He does not fear to attack animals of the size of the reindeer; he leaps upon them, fastens his claws in them, rends them to pieces, until at length they fall exhausted. After having gorged himself on their flesh and blood, he hides the remainder for another repast.
The genus Otter (Lutra vulgaris) comprehends several species, distributed over nearly all the countries of the world. I shall here speak only of the Otter of Kamtschatka, or Sea Otter (Enhydra lutris), so named on account of his essentially aquatic habits. He weighs from seventy to eighty pounds. In full season his colour is perfectly black; at other times, of a dark brown. He attains the length of three feet, including his tail; has hind-feet resembling those of a seal; the upper jaw is armed with six, and the lower with four incisors. The grinders are broad, and well adapted for crunching crustaceous animals. He runs with great rapidity, and swims with astonishing ease and swiftness. Of late years, however, he has been the object of so murderous a chase on the part of the Russian and American hunters that he has almost disappeared from the Polar shores. The skins of the sea otter are much prized by the Chinese, who pay for them from seventy to one hundred roubles a-piece. Very few ever reach the European market.
Among those Carnivora which are able to accommodate themselves to the severest climates, I may mention the Foxes. These animals attire themselves, under the Polar latitudes, in a fur of sufficient thickness to endure the intense cold they are required to support; and this fur is esteemed among the most precious varieties, under the names of Isatis skin, White Fox, Black, Blue, and Tricoloured Foxskins. The shades vary according to Reynard’s habitat, his age, and also the season; they correspond in like manner to the differences of race, but not to the differences of species. The most valuable skins are obtained from those foxes which belong to very cold countries; and it seems that as they recede from a certain latitude, they lose their value. “Some Blue Foxes were killed by our hunters,” says Madame Léonie d’Aunet, “which were stunted and ugly. The Spitzbergen foxes do not in any respect resemble the foxes of Iceland or Siberia, whose fur is so beautiful and in such high repute. That they may be thoroughly protected from the cold, they do not wear upon their bodies a fur so much as several thick folds or layers of very thick hair, so intermingled and threaded that it is rather a mattress than a coat of fur. Moreover, instead of being of a somewhat tawny colour, like the Iceland foxes, they are of an ashen-gray. Their skin, nevertheless, is excellently adapted for making carpets.”
I see no intermediaries between the small Carnivora we have just passed in review, and the formidable tyrant of the icy Deserts, the Polar or Marine Bear (Ursus marinus), popularly known as the White Bear; an improper appellation, as it confounds the Bear of the Arctic Seas with the Albino variety of the Common Bear.
The former constitutes a perfectly distinct species, whose characteristics, apart from the yellowish-white colour of his rich soft fur, are a flattened and elongated head, a long neck, high legs, and feet whose conformation is admirably adapted to the habitat and amphibious existence of the animal. In fact, the sole of each foot is garnished with a thick fleece, which permits the Arctic bear to walk on the ice as on a carpet, and the toes are connected by a membrane which renders them eminently fit for natatory purposes.
The Arctic bear seldom visits the land; his favourite sojourn is the floating ice-field, and his diet the corpses of whales and seals, or even living Phocæ, which he fearlessly attacks at the impulse of hunger. “On seeing his intended prey,” says Captain Lyon, “he gets quietly into the water, and swims until to leeward of him, from whence, by frequent short dives, he silently makes his approaches, and so arranges his distances that at the last dive he comes to the spot where the seal is lying. If the poor animal attempts to escape by rolling into the water, he falls into the bear’s clutches; if, on the contrary, he lies still, his destroyer makes a powerful spring, kills him on the ice, and devours him at leisure.”
In cases of urgency the bear does not scruple to make a prey of man, and he is assuredly a formidable antagonist. His dimensions are enormous; he is endowed with prodigious strength. Some individuals have been met with who measured nine to ten feet in length. Their average size is about six feet in length, and about three in height, to the top of the shoulder. Spite of their ferocity, which with them, as with nearly all the Carnivora, is a natural consequence of their appetite, the white bears are sociable in their habits: they frequently wander about in small troops, and those of a family invariably “flock together.” The male, the mother, and their young are united by the ties of an affection which is capable of the most intrepid devotion. The female especially watches over her cubs with the most anxious solicitude, and defends them to the last extremity. Of this philoprogenitiveness a voyager relates what seems to me a truly pathetic example:—
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The White Bear and her Cubs.
The White Bear and her Cubs.
A vessel belonging to a small squadron commanded by Captain Philippe was caught in the Polar ice. One morning, the look-out man signalled the approach of three bears, which were advancing rapidly towards the vessel, attracted by the odour of some seal’s flesh roasted on the previous evening. The three consisted of a she bear and her two cubs. The seamen at a suitable moment fired at the latter, and killed them. The mother was also wounded, but not mortally. It was a spectacle which drew tears from the least susceptible to see the marks of sorrow and tenderness lavished by this poor beast upon her young. She carried to them a piece of the flesh which she had taken possession of, and divided it into two portions, which she placed before them. Seeing that they did not eat, she touched them alternately with her fore-paws, and endeavoured to raise them, uttering at the same time the most lamentable groans. Then she withdrew, halted a few paces, and summoned her little ones by a low sad cry. As they remained insensible to her appeal, she returned to them, moved them anew, smelt them on every side, dragged them some distance, again returned, still moaning and bewailing, licked their wounds, called them; and finally, when assured that they had ceased to live, and understanding what had transpired, she stood half erect by a great effort, turned towards the ship, and gave vent to a roar of agony and rage, an unmistakable imprecation against her murderers. The latter replied with a discharge of musketry. The poor bear fell smitten between her two little ones, and died licking their wounds.
Among other Mammiferous animals belonging to the Polar regions, my space only permits me a brief allusion to the Seal and the Walrus. The Seal (Phoca vitulina) seems to the eye a compound of the fish and the quadruped; having the tail of the former, the head, spine, and body of the latter. Its physiognomy is remarkable for its peculiarly mild and intelligent expression. Its elongated, conical body tapers from the shoulders to the tail. Its feet are of singular construction. They are covered with a membrane, and so united to the body that they might be mistaken for fins, but for the sharp strong claws that terminate them.
Seals swim with great rapidity, and can remain under water for a considerable period. The species are very numerous. The Greenland or Harp Seal (Phoca Greenlandica) measures about six feet in length. The Bearded Seal (P. barbata) is from seven to ten feet long. The largest known species is the Elephant Seal or Sea-Elephant (Macrorhinus proboscideus), whose girth at the largest part of the body is from fifteen to eighteen feet, and its length from twenty-five to thirty feet. It is a native of the Antarctic Seas. The Sea-Lion (Platyrhynchus leoninus), so called from its long full mane, inhabits both the northern and southern coasts of the Pacific. The Sea-Bear (Arctocephalus ursinus) derives its name from the fur and shape of the head.
The Walrus or Morse (Trichecus) is a genus of the Phocidæ, or Seal family, distinguished by its widely different cranium and teeth. In the adult lower jaw are neither incisors nor canines, while the upper bristles with two enormous tusks, which are directed downwards, and are sometimes two feet long. It chiefly feeds upon molluscs and marine vegetables, and its flesh in its turn affords a dainty repast to the inhabitants of the Polar Deserts.
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TO the various populations which occupy the Arctic regions of both the Old and the New World, the general appellation of Hyperboreans is sometimes given. Do these populations truly form, as some ethnologists assert, a distinct and homogeneous race; or are they not rather independent offshoots of the Japhetic race in Europe, of the Mongolian in Asia, of the Redskins in America? To this question I can give no satisfactory reply. I will only say that if the different fractions of this great group exhibit among themselves external differences of a very marked character, they are drawn together, on the other hand, by no less striking resemblances. In truth, these resemblances are markedly physiological, and should, I think, be exclusively attributed to the powerful and irresistible action of external agencies. If there be, indeed, one region where the influence of climate on the constitution of man is manifest, that region is assuredly the Polar Zone. There the conditions of life differ wholly from those which prevail in all other parts of the globe, and it necessarily results that modifications take place in the organism of the men subject to those conditions, which ought to be regarded as wholly independent of the origin of races and of their ethnographic characters properly so called.
The Hyperboreans are small, squat, ugly, and deformed. Their legs are short and sufficiently straight, but so thick, says Bory de St. Vincent, that to the spectator they seem swollen and diseased. Their head is generally of large size. They have long, coarse, straight hair, a thin beard, a broad countenance, a great mouth, high cheek-bones, and half-closed eyes, of a light colour, as gray or yellowish, but never blue. Their complexion is sometimes of a yellowish-white, as with the Laplanders; sometimes of a deep yellow or reddish-brown, as with the Eskimos and the Greenlanders. The latter peculiarity may be invoked as a very plausible argument in support of the opinion which gives to the Arctic peoples different origins. It shows also, once more, that the more or less intense colouring of the skin among the African races is not an effect of the solar heat, as was commonly supposed.
Considered from a physiological point of view, the Hyperboreans are distinguished by a remarkable uniformity of characteristics, which deserve to be specified. The sanguine temperament predominates among them. Their nervous system is but slightly developed, their sensibility blunted, their intelligence slow, their imagination feeble. Their external perspiration is almost null, and they are accustomed to suppress it entirely by induing their bodies in oily substances. On the other hand, their organs of nutrition and respiration are endowed with an extraordinary activity; and in this lies the secret of the extreme facility with which they support for several successive months the most rigorous cold. We know, indeed, that man and the warm-blooded animals possess, in their respiratory apparatus, a positive internal furnace, where a notable part of the carbon and the hydrogen contained in their venous blood is consumed in contact with the air. But to maintain this furnace at such a degree of heat as shall always preserve the temperature of the body at its normal standard (39° C.), the inhabitants of Arctic climes need constantly feed it with fuel, that is, with substances rich in carbon and hydrogen. Hence the keen appetite of the Hyperboreans for oil, fat, and flesh; hence, too, their voracity. The inhabitants of torrid or temperate regions, while sojourning among the icy wastes of the Pole, quickly become sensible of the same necessity, and eagerly feed upon aliments which elsewhere would inspire them with insurmountable disgust.
It is a remarkable fact that most of the diseases so frequent and so murderous in civilized countries are unknown in the Polar lands. But, on the other hand, ophthalmia is endemic, and the cutaneous affections, as well as cerebral and pulmonary congestion, are of common occurrence. To sum up: the already scattered and scanty population of the Arctic Zone is daily decreasing, and will probably be extinct in a few generations.
The manners of all the Hyperboreans present the same general features: they are peaceable, inoffensive, and reduced, if I may use the expression, to the utmost possible minimum of physical and intellectual activity. This race, or group of races, is represented on the two continents by several distinct peoples. Those most clearly defined are:—
The Laplanders inhabit the northernmost coasts of the Scandinavian peninsula. They are ignorant, uncultivated, and torpid, rather than savage. In spite of their frequent contact with the Russians and the Swedes, they have no industrial resources, no art, no other commerce than that which is afforded by the products of the chase, of their fisheries, or their herds of reindeer. Christianity, to which they were converted about two centuries ago, has not aroused them as yet from their moral and intellectual lethargy. All religion being reduced, so far as they are concerned, to oral tradition, the devotion of each is in proportion to his memory. Education among them has attained to this standard, that a Laplander who knows his alphabet corresponds to a young man among us who has graduated at Oxford or Cambridge.
A French traveller, M. de Saint-Blaize, furnishes some details respecting this people:—
“The race of Laplanders is constantly diminishing in numbers. It is of Asiatic origin, as may be clearly discerned in their language and the type of their physiognomy. Some are fishers, and dwell upon the coast; others are shepherds, who traverse the mountains in every direction, pasturing their reindeer on the white moss. During the three months’ summer the Laplander leads his herd into the elevated regions, to withdraw them from the excessive heats and the mosquito-plagues: in winter, he brings them near the dwellings of men, principally for the sake of protecting them more effectually from his bitter enemies, the wolves, of whom he never speaks but with a sentiment of profound hatred. The Laplander’s wealth is his herd, which feeds him, clothes him, and procures him, by way of barter, brandy and tobacco, the only objects of his desire.
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Lapland Fishers.
Lapland Fishers.
“The independent life of this nomadic people is not without its charm. Accustomed from his infancy to privations and fatigues of every kind, the Laplander suffers little. His body acquires an extraordinary vigour, and most of our maladies are unknown to him. If during a journey a Lapland woman gives birth to a child, she places the new-born in a piece of hollow wood, where a hole has been cut out to receive the little one’s head; then slings this cradle on her back, and resumes her journey. When she halts, she suspends her wooden chrysalid to a tree, and the wire-work protects it from the teeth of ferocious beasts. The reverse of this simple medal is an old age almost inevitably very unhappy. It is said that when a Laplander has no longer the strength to render himself useful, his children abandon him by the roadside, with just provisions enough to support him for a few days. The traveller frequently encounters in the forest the skeletons of old men who have thus perished in gloomy solitude.”
The cradle to which our authority refers is described by Professor Forbes as cut out of solid wood and covered with leather, in flaps so arranged as to lace across the top with leathern thongs; the inside and the little pillow are rendered tolerably soft with reindeer moss, and the infant fits the space so exactly, that it can neither stir hand nor foot.
The Lapp hut, says Professor Forbes,[194] is formed interiorly of wood, by means of curved ribs uniting near the centre in a ring, which is open, and allows free escape for the smoke; the fire being lighted in the centre of the floor. The exterior is covered with turf. The door is of wood on one side. The inmates recline on skins on the floor, with their feet towards the fire; and behind them, on a row of stones near the wall of the hut, are their various utensils. Their clothing—chiefly of tanned skins and woollen stuffs—looked very dirty.
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A Samoiede Family.
A Samoiede Family.
The Samoiedes (or Samoyedes) are scattered, to the number of about a thousand families, along the coasts of the Frozen Sea, in the government of Archangel, and, in Siberia, in the governments of Tobolsk and Tomsk. Ethnologists generally consider them to have a common origin with the Finns of Europe. In stature they are somewhat taller than the Lapps, and their colour is more of a tawny. The marked features of their countenance recall the Hindu type. The forehead is high, the hair black, the nose long, the mouth well-formed; but the sunken eye, veiled by a heavy lid, expresses a cruel and perfidious nature. The manners of the Samoiedes are brutal. In character they are wily, fierce, and cunning. They are shepherds, hunters, traders, and, when opportunity serves, robbers. They clothe themselves in reindeer-skins, like the other Hyperboreans of the old continent. They shave off their hair, except a tolerably large tuft which they allow to flourish on the top of the head, and they pluck out the beard as fast as it grows. The women adorn themselves with a belt of gilded copper, and with a profusion of ornaments in glass beads and metal. They are heathens, worshipping the sun and moon, the water and the trees; in fact, whatever object meets their eyes they convert into a deity; and, above all, they adore the bear, offering prayers and sacrifices to him before venturing on an expedition to hunt him down!
The Ostiaks and the Yakouts are established in the northernmost districts of Siberia, from the Oural Mountains to Kamtschatka. I borrow from a Polish lady, Madame Felinska, long exiled in Siberia, some curious details relative to the Ostiaks, whom, during her banishment, she had numerous opportunities of studying. Seeking one day a pathway through a wood, she encountered a couple of Ostiaks on the point of performing their religious duties. These consist in placing themselves before a tree—a larch in preference—in the wildest and densest part of the forest, and there executing a series of epileptic contortions. Such pagan demonstrations are forbidden them, says Madame Felinska; but, despite the Christianity which they have professed to accept, they are and will remain pagans.
Nearly every Ostiak carries about his person a rude image of the divinities which he adores under the name of Schaïtan; but this does not prevent him from wearing on his breast a small copper crucifix. The Schaïtan represents the human figure, carved in wood, or, rather, cut out of a small fragment of wood. It is of different sizes, according to the price and the various uses for which it is intended: if for carrying on the person, it is small; images for decorating the hut are much larger; but in every case the god is clothed in seven pearl-embroidered chemises, and suspended to the neck by a chaplet of silver coins. The wooden deity occupies the place of honour in the huts and cottages, and before commencing a repast, they take care to offer him the daintiest morsel, smearing his lips with fish or raw game; when this sacred duty is performed, they eat in contentment.
The priests of the Ostiaks are called Scha-mans; they enjoy immense influence, which they employ in furtherance of the basest superstition and in promotion of their own personal interest. Ambition and egotism dispense with knowledge and science in order to corrupt mankind.
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Yakout Hunter Worried by a White Bear.
Yakout Hunter Worried by a White Bear.
The Ostiaks and the Samoiedes are great hunters of the white bear. It is the same with the Yakouts, a people dwelling near the Bouriats, and approaching, like them, to the Mongol type. It seems that the object of the chase is not always to kill the animal, but to catch him alive. Madame Felinska relates that she saw one day a considerable troop of bears conducted to Bérézov like a herd of tame cattle, and apparently quite as inoffensive. She neglects to inform us, however, by what means they had been reduced to this state of passive obedience. The Ostiaks and the Yakouts frequently attack the white bears body to body, without any other weapon than a hatchet or a long cutlass. They need to strike the animal with extreme skill and vigour, to slay him at the first blow, or otherwise they incur extreme peril. If he misses his stroke, the hunter’s only resource is to fling himself on the ground and lie motionless, until the bear, while smelling his body and turning him over, incautiously offers himself again to his attack.
The Yakouts are nearly of average height. They are robust and brave, honest and hospitable, but addicted to idolatry and polygamy.
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Kamtschatdales.
Kamtschatdales.
The Kamtschatdales are smaller and shorter than the Yakouts. They have a round flat face, a broad depressed nose, and prominent cheek-bones. They are of a friendly, mild, and peaceable character. They have a strong partiality for the song and the dance, and their amusements frequently degenerate into orgies. Small-pox and excessive brandy-drinking have reduced to a few hundred families a population which numbered, a century ago, fully 15,000 souls.
One sole population inhabits the immense icy plains which extend into America even beyond the Polar circle. I refer to the Eskimos, who are found—encamped in summer under tents made of reindeer or seal-skin, hidden in winter in their snow-huts—from Behring’s Strait even to Cape Farewell. This race has the reddish-brown tint of the North American Indians. In its small stature and physical forms it does not differ from other Hyperboreans; but in physiognomy and the flattened skull it singularly recalls the men of lofty stature who inhabit the other extremity of the American continent, the Patagonians. The physiognomy, the character, and the manners of the Eskimos have been frequently described. The courageous navigators who have explored the Polar Sea in quest of a North-west Passage have held frequent intercourse with these poor people, and all agree in eulogizing their gentleness, their patriarchal life, their eagerness to succour strangers. An American, Captain Hall, the last adventurer who has set himself the task of discovering the wrecks of Franklin’s ill-fated expedition, spent a whole year in the midst of the Eskimos, whose amiability and generosity he praises in no stinted terms. Exclusively hunters and fishers, the Eskimos have no other domestic animal than the dog; they harness it to their sledges, and also train it to chase the seal, the walrus, and the reindeer. It is in the summer only that they hunt the latter animal. In that genial season there is no lack of other game, terrestrial and marine. It is for them a season of abundance, wherein they gorge themselves with flesh, blood, and fat. During the winter they often fast several days at a time, and remain immured in their huts like hybernating animals; but at length, driven by famine and by want of oil, they go forth upon the ice in search of the seals which come up to breathe. When they have been fortunate enough to kill one, they divide it amongst them amicably, and regale themselves upon it until only the bones remain, after which they endure a new period of privation. Thus they live from day to day, in continual alternations of gluttony and abstinence, without injury to their health, and without shortening their lives. And it is worthy of notice that Europeans who once consent to adopt this regime—to drink the warm blood and eat the raw flesh and fat of seals—soon accept of it without the slightest repugnance, and become capable of enduring, like true Hyperboreans, the terrible cold of the long Polar winters.
The inhabitants of Sagalien, one of the northerly Asiatic islands, are a race called the Anios, the same people who form the aboriginal population of Jesso, and some tribes of whom also dwell on the opposite shores of Manchooria. They are uncultured and pagan savages, who dwell in huts built of rough logs, and live upon the proceeds of their fishery and the chase. Their women are ugly and little; the men are tall, lithe, straight, and strong, with flowing hair and unkempt beard and moustaches. Like the Samoiedes they worship the bear; feasting the living animals on the choicest dried fish, and planting young pines round the cages in which they are kept. Their graves they regard with similar feelings of veneration.
The other Hyperborean races do not widely differ in character and physical appearance from those already described.
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FROM the Polar deserts to the icy crests of the mountains the transition is natural. There are here, so to speak, two varieties of a single class of deserts, which we might call the Deserts of Cold, since the coldness of the climate is the dominant cause which in both renders the soil more and more unproductive and uninhabitable. In effect, it is not only in departing from the Tropic Zone that we see the mean temperature gradually sinking even to the point whereat all liquids congeal and all terrestrial life becomes impossible. The same phenomenon occurs in proportion as we ascend in the atmosphere. It is a consequence of the properties of the gaseous medium which envelops our globe, and takes place in obedience to certain laws which science has been able to ascertain and define. We know now that the decline of the temperature is always in proportion to the elevation of places or of the atmospheric strata; but the value of the relation which exists between the two terms may be modified by various circumstances—such as the direction of the prevailing wind, the hygrometrical state of the atmosphere, the hour of the day, and particularly the climate, or, to speak more exactly, the thermic latitude. The warmer the climate, the more sensible the difference between the temperature of the air at the level of the sea and that which we observe at a certain height; greater, nevertheless, is the height to which we must rise to find the region where the thermometer never descends below 0°, and where, consequently, the snows and ices of the mountains do not melt in any season.
As a mean, we estimate every 580 feet of elevation in the Torrid Zone as equal to one thermometrical degree, and in the Temperate Zone at one degree for every 450 feet, the cooling of the air. That is, for every 580 feet in the one instance, and every 450 feet in the other, as we ascend above the sea’s level, the temperature decreases one degree. In the Polar regions the decrease of temperature is insensible up to a certain height, which has not yet been ascertained. At Ingloolich, in 69° 21´ north latitude, Captain Parry flew a kite to a height of 400 feet, with an à minima thermometer attached. At this elevation the temperature of the air was 31° below zero, or the same as on the ice-fields of the sea. Humboldt counted one degree of declination for every 550 feet on Chimborazo. De Saussure obtained one degree for every 440 feet on Mont Blanc.
The limit of eternal snows, or perpetual snow-line, which at the Pole sinks to the very level of ocean, rises higher and higher as it approaches the lower latitudes, and attains its maximum elevation towards the Equinoctial Line. It follows, that in the countries bordering on the Arctic Circle, mountains of very moderate altitude show themselves all through the year in a shroud of radiant snow; while, under the Tropics, if we would meet with masses of eternal ice, we must mount to a height of 13,500 feet and more. The limit of the permanent snows is, however, affected by a variety of local circumstances, such as the neighbourhood of great seas or forests. The subjoined table, therefore, which shows the height of the curve of congelation in different latitudes, is founded upon the known law of the decrease of heat by elevation, and must be regarded rather as approximatively correct than strictly accurate.
TABLE OF SNOW-LINE.
| LATITUDE. | MEAN TEMPERATURE AT THE LEVEL OF THE SNOW-LINE. |
HEIGHT OF THE SNOW-LINE. | |
| Degrees Centrigrade. | Degrees Fahrenheit. | Feet. | |
| 0 | 29·00 | 84·2 | 15,207 |
| 1 | 28·99 | 84·2 | 15,203 |
| 2 | 28·96 | 84·1 | 15,189 |
| 4 | 28·86 | 83·9 | 15,135 |
| 5 | 28·78 | 83·8 | 15,095 |
| 6 | 28·68 | 83·6 | 15,047 |
| 7 | 28·57 | 83·4 | 14,989 |
| 8 | 28·44 | 83·2 | 14,923 |
| 9 | 28·29 | 82·9 | 14,848 |
| 10 | 28·13 | 82·6 | 14,764 |
| 15 | 27·06 | 80·7 | 14,220 |
| 20 | 25·61 | 78·1 | 13,478 |
| 25 | 23·82 | 74·9 | 12,557 |
| 30 | 21·75 | 71·1 | 11.484 |
| 35 | 19·46 | 67·0 | 10,287 |
| 40 | 17·02 | 62·6 | 9,001 |
| 45 | 14·50 | 58·1 | 7,671 |
| 50 | 11·98 | 53·6 | 6,334 |
| [195]51½ | 11·24 | 52·3 | 5,950 |
| 54 | 10·02 | 50·0 | 5,290 |
| 55 | 9·54 | 49·2 | 5,034 |
| 56 | 9·07 | 48·3 | 4,782 |
| 57 | 8·60 | 47·5 | 4,534 |
| 58 | 8·14 | 46·6 | 4,291 |
| 60 | 7·25 | 45·0 | 3,818 |
| 65 | 5·18 | 41·3 | 2,722 |
| 70 | 3·39 | 38·1 | 1,778 |
| 75 | 1·94 | 35·5 | 1,016 |
| 80 | ·87 | 33·6 | 457 |
| 85 | ·22 | 32·4 | 117 |
| 86 | ·14 | 32·3 | 76 |
| 87 | ·08 | 32·2 | 44 |
| 88 | ·04 | 32·1 | 20 |
| 89 | ·01 | 32·0 | 5 |
| 90 | ·00 | 32·0 | 0 |
That the foregoing table needs considerable modification in particular localities is evident from the following facts:—In the Scandinavian Alps, lat. 65° north, the snow-line occurs at an elevation of 5200 feet, instead of 2722; in the Alps of Savoy, lat. 45° north, it is found at 7650 feet, which is nearly that of the table. On the southern slope of the Himalayas the traveller ascends to an elevation of upwards of 15,000 feet before he enters the realms of snow and ice, and on the northern slope to 12,750 feet. Finally, in the Andes of Bolivia, according to Pentland, the curve of congelation lies between 14,400 and 14,800 feet.
Thus, then, in the mid Torrid Zone, we must accomplish a weary ascent of 13,000 to 15,000 feet before we can find ourselves transported from the calcined plains whose sands scorch and blister our feet, or the dense forests whose innermost depths teem with the most exuberant and beautiful floral life, to the heart of icy deserts and the sublime silence of the mountains. And in passing from one to the other of these extremes, we traverse in a few hours all the climates which succeed one another from the Equator to the Pole. Nevertheless, I must point out an important difference between the Polar deserts and the snowy regions of the mountains, which is wholly to the advantage of the former.
I have already shown that, under the highest latitudes, men find, in the exceptional activity of their functions of nutrition, and, above all, of respiration, a powerful re-agent against the intensity of the external cold. This resource fails him on the mountain summit. In vain will he attempt, as a succedaneum against the cold, to modify his ordinary regimen, to drink warm blood, to eat fat and raw flesh; his stomach will reject such aliment, or digest it only with difficulty, and he will not suffer less from the extreme rigour of the temperature. At the Pole air pours freely into our lungs, and its pressure stoutly maintains the equilibrium of the fluids of our body. Such is not the case when we soar, Icarus like, into the higher regions of the atmosphere; in proportion as we ascend, the air rarefies, and its pressure diminishes. Consequently, respiration becomes difficult and painful; the quantity of oxygen designed to cherish animal heat by the combustion of the carbon and hydrogen of the blood becomes insufficient; at the same time, the tissues and the liquids which they enclose expand; perspiration, instead of diminishing, experiences a relative augmentation; if the atmospheric pressure is much too weak, the blood extravasates, and forces itself out through the nose, the ears, and the pores of the skin. In a word, that peculiar malady which has been named the mal des montagnes, and which is not always unattended with danger, attacks the hardiest traveller, and compels him with all speed to return to lower and securer levels.
When, therefore, we speak of “the pure and living air” of the mountains, of the vigour and health of their inhabitants—even as the poet says—