introduced by a shrewd and economic old lady, which was to suspend, by a string from the ceiling, a large lump directly over the tea-table, so that it could be swung from mouth to mouth. 12. At these primitive tea-parties, the utmost propriety and dignity prevailed.-No flirting nor coquetting; no gambling of old ladies, nor chatting and romping of young ones; no self-satisfied struttings of wealthy gentlemen, with their brains in their pockets; no amusing conceits and monkey diversions of smart young gentlemen, with no brains at all. 13. On the contrary, the young ladies seated themselves, demurely, in their rush-bottomed chairs, and knit their own woolen stockings; nor ever opened their lips, excepting to say yah, Mynheer, or yah, yah, Vrouw, to any question that was asked them. The parties broke up without noise or confusion. The guests were carried home by their own carriages; that is to say, by the vehicles nature had provided them, excepting such of the wealthy as could afford to keep a wagon. Washington Irving. XXXVI. THE SABBATH. FRESH glides the brook, and blows the gale, Yet, yonder halts the quiet mill! The whirring wheel, the rushing sail,- 2. Six days of toil, poor child of Cain, Thy strength the slave of want may be ; 3. Ah! tender was the law that gave 4. But, where the waves the gentlest glide, 5. To teach the soul its nobler worth, 6. They tell thee, in their dreaming school, 7. Alas! since time itself began, That fable hath but fooled the hour; Each age that ripens power in man, But subjects man to power. 8. Yet, every day in seven, at least, One bright republic shall be known; Man's world awhile hath surely ceased, When God proclaims His own! 9. Six days may rank divide the poor, O Dives, from thy banquet-hall! The seventh, the Father opes the door, And holds His feast for all! EDWARD BULWER LYTTON. XXXVII. —A WALRUS HUNT. THE party which Morton attended on a walrus hunt had three sledges. One was to be taken to a cache in the neighborhood; the other two were dragged, at a quick run, toward the open water, about ten miles to the southwest. They had but nine dogs to these two sledges, one man, only, riding, the others running, by turns. As they neared the new ice, where the black wastes of mingled cloud and water betokened the open sea, they from time to time removed their hoods, and listened intently for the animal's voice. 2. After a while, Myouk became convinced, from signs or sounds, or both, for they were inappreciable by Morton, that the walrus were waiting for him in a small space of recently open water that was glazed over with a few days' growth of ice; and, moving gently on, they soon heard the characteristic bellow of a bull awuk.1 The walrus, like some of the higher order of beings to which he has been compared, is fond of his own music, and will lie for hours, listening to himself. His vocalization is something between the lowing of a cow and the deepest baying of a mastiff; very round and full, with its barks or detached notes repeated rather quickly, from seven to nine times in succession. 3. The party now formed in single file, following in each other's steps, and wound behind hummocks and ridges in a serpentine approach toward a group of pondlike discolorations, recently frozen ice-spots, but sur rounded by firmer and older ice. When within half a mile of these, the line broke, and each man crawled toward a separate pool,- Morton, on his hands and knees, following Myouk. 1 The Esquimau name for the walrus, in imitation of its cry. 4. In a few minutes, the walrus were in sight. They were five in number, rising, at intervals, through the ice, in a body, and breaking it up with an explosive puff that might have been heard for miles. Two large, grim-looking males were conspicuous as the leaders of the group. 5. Now for the marvel of the craft. When the walrus is above water, the hunter is flat and motionless; when he begins to sink, alert and ready for a spring. The animal's head is hardly below the water-line before every man is in a rapid run; and, again, as if by instinct, before the beast returns, all are motionless behind protecting knolls of ice. They seem to know beforehand, not only the time he will be absent, but the very spot at which he will re-appear. 6. In this way, hiding and advancing by turns, Myouk, with Morton at his heels, has reached a plate of thin ice, hardly strong enough to bear them, at the very brink of the water-pool in which the walrus are frolicking. Myouk, till now phlegmatic, seems to waken with excitement. His coil of walrus-hide, a well-trimmed line of many fathoms' length, is lying at his side. He fixes one end of it in an iron barb, and fastens this loosely, by a socket, upon a shaft of unicorn's horn; the other end is already looped, or, as sailors would say, "doubled in a bight." 7. It is the work of a moment. He has grasped the harpoon, the water is in motion. Puffing with pent-up respiration, the walrus is close before him. Myouk rises slowly - his right arm thrown back, the left, flat at his side. The walrus looks about him, shaking the water from his crest; Myouk throws up his left arm, and the animal, rising breast high, fixes one look before he plunges. It has cost him all that curiosity can cost,the harpoon is buried under his left flipper. 8. Though the awuk is down in a moment, Myouk is running at desperate speed from the scene of his victory, paying off his coil freely, but clutching the end by its loop. As he runs, he seizes a small piece of bone, rudely pointed with iron, and by a sudden movement drives it into the ice; to this he secures his line, pressing it down close to the ice-surface with his feet. 9. Now comes the struggle. The water is dashed in mad commotion by the struggles of the wounded animal; the line is drawn tight at one moment, relaxed the next. The hunter has not left his station. There is a crash of the ice; and, rearing up through it, are two walrus, not many yards from where he stands. One of them, the male, is excited and, seemingly, terrified; the other, the female, is collected and vengeful. 10. Down they go again, after one grim survey of the field; and at that instant Myouk changes his position, carrying his coil with him, and fixing it anew. He has hardly fixed it, before the pair has again risen, breaking up an area of ten feet in diameter about the very spot he left. As they sink once more, he again changes his place. Thus the conflict goes on between address and force, till the victim, half-exhausted, receives a second wound, and is played like a trout by the angler's reel. 11. Some idea may be formed of the ferocity of the walrus, from the fact that the battle which Morton witnessed-not without sharing in its dangers-lasted for four hours; during which, the animal rushed continually at the Esquimaux as they approached, tearing off great tables of ice with his tusks, and showing no indication of fear, whatever. He received upwards of seventy lance wounds, Morton counted over sixty; and, even then, the walrus remained hooked by his tusks to the margin of the ice, either unable or unwilling to retire. His female fought in the same manner, but fled on receiving a lance wound. Dr. Elisha Kent Kane. |