Tower, devised his escape by making a rope of the hangings, &c., with which his cell was furnished; but being a bulky man the rope gave way, and he was precipitated to the ground, where, on the following morning, he was found dead, his head being literally driven into the trunk by the concussion. The head of Leoline, the last Prince of Wales, afterwards appeared upon the Tower crowned with a wreath of ivy. He was taken at Bluith Castle, and in an angry discussion there with an Englishman, Roger le Strange, the latter struck his head off, and thus ended the line of British sovereigns. EGEDE THE MISSIONARY; OR, SCENES IN "And, hark! how loud each hollow gust of wind A CONSIDERABLE time elapsed without any natives showing them- therefore, at any rate, quite unmolested; and winter, with all its terrors, beginning to set in, confined the colonists to the immediate neighbourhood of their dwelling. The north wind blew coldly, the snow fell fast at intervals, and masses of ice again filled the harbour, and piled themselves into icebergs with a crashing noise, so completely surrounding and walling up the ship, as to make its leaving the harbour utterly impossible; thus cutting off Egede and his party from all communication with home for many months to come. The sun now never showed itself till towards eleven o'clock in the day, and then did not remain much more than two hours above the horizon. In those short days-when time hung heavy on the men's hands, and darkness gave them an excuse for being idlewhile all vegetable life around had died away, and the very earth appeared fast asleep*-evil began to brew in the hearts of some of the men. The merchant-bookkeeper was terribly out in his reckoning: instead of the high heaps of bear, fox, hare, seal, and reindeers' skins which he had counted on; instead of the ladings of fat, train-oil, walrus-teeth, and fish-bones, which he had hoped to receive from the poor, foolish Greenlanders, in exchange for a few pipes, he saw nothing but mighty icebergs, which threatened to annihilate the ship altogether! The doctor had no practice, even as a barber, much less as a physician. The smith missed his brandy, the carpenter his tobacco; and the bricklayer had exhausted his snuff, and saw no prospect of getting any more. The sailors were weary of being told they must not swear, but pray and be sober; and the women were unable to wash out of doors, owing to the frost and cold, and therefore lost their best opportunity for a good chatter. As all had expected to find plenty of game in Greenland, they had brought but little smoked meat, pork, or salted fish out of Norway, and this proved to have been a great mistake. To be sure there were a good many wild animals, and great abundance of fish, but none of these could be caught without skill and trouble; so roast meat was a great rarity in the new colony. One day Egede was sitting with his family round the simple and rough dinner-table in his division of the house; his wife had just placed upon the table a dish * "Silence reigned around us,-a silence far different from that peaceable composure which characterizes the landscape of a cultivated country; it was the death-like stillness of the most dreary desolation and the total absence of animated existence."-PARRY'S 'Voyages,' vol. i. p. 210. Translator's Note. of water-gruel and a piece of roast meat, the last remains of a reindeer which had been recently shot. Whilst Egede was saying grace, a considerable tumult arose in the next room. Curses and angry words were mingled with blows on the table, so that Egede could hardly hear himself speak, and made his grace shorter than usual. When he opened the door of communication to inquire into the cause of the turmoil, he found the whole of the household together, in a state of the greatest excitement. The women's voices were heard above all. When Egede appeared, Plumper, the smith, stood up as spokesman for the assembly. "Sir," he began, in an angry tone, "we have long felt weary, even to loathing, of the monotonous food we are reduced to,nothing but groats, bread, and beer! Where are the full fleshpots, and the riches which you represented this land as abounding with? Whose fault is it, if not yours, that we sit imprisoned here like an oyster between two shells? What did these wretched, train-oily Greenlanders matter to you or to us? They don't feel the least grateful for your intentions of making Christians of them! You might as easily try and teach a sea-horse as one of these dirty creatures. Upon your head be all the evil that befalls us now and hereafter!" The end of this speech was chorused by loud murmurs amongst the bystanders, which passed into threats at last. The noise had attracted Gertrude and the children, who now all gazed with anxious eyes at the pastor through the open door, ready to fling themselves between him and any assailant. Egede, divining their thoughts, made a sign to his family to keep where they were, which detained them in the doorway. Then he drew himself up, and said in a loud clear voice, "Are you complaining that you have but little choice of food? Murmur not! nor tempt the Lord your God lest He prepare graves for you in the wilderness, as He did for the children of Israel! Do you despise the Greenlanders as blind heathens? Are you any better if you set your heart on earthly things which are nothing but dust and ashes?" "It's all very well preaching, sir!" replied the rough smith. "Greenland may suit your stomach better than it does ours, since we have to be content with your reverence's leavings! We may not even see your dishes; the smell is enough for us, I suppose יי! "Give me that piece of meat," said Egede to his wife; and, taking the dish from her, he put it into the smith's hands, saying, Plumper, I owe you many thanks for reminding me of my duty. 66 When the brave Alexander the Great chanced, once on a time, to be passing with his army through a desert, every mouth was parched with thirst, and all had the greatest difficulty to drag their wearied limbs along over the burning sand. Then the king descended from his horse Bucephalus, to march at the head of his faithful men, and share truly in all their sufferings. For the same reason he declined drinking the water a soldier brought him in his helmet, because there was not enough for all. The heathen sovereign shall not again put to shame the Christian teacher. Plumper, take and enjoy, what the tenderness of my wife had prepared for me. Henceforth we will all fare alike!" Plumper, however, left the dish untouched, and all the others. were silent, and looked not a little ashamed of themselves. When, about a week after this, the weather had become a little more peaceable, Egede determined to set forward on a hunting excursion with some of his men, in the district where they had before seen Greenlanders. Paul and Nicholas Egede begged their father so earnestly to take them with him, that at last he was obliged to consent. The party intended to be absent several days, and take up their quarters in the Greenlanders' forsaken hut, till a considerable quantity of game should have been secured. It took them about four hours to get there by water, and they were not particularly pleased to discover on landing, that not only the hut they thought empty was filled with Greenlanders, but that several more were built round it, altogether, perhaps, containing a hundred and fifty men. When the hunters discovered this fact, they would willingly have returned home again, but the shortness of the days made this impossible. They therefore found themselves compelled to ask hospitality of the Greenlanders, in the only way they could,—that is, by signs and gestures. The Greenlanders, who were very mistrustful of the strange intruders, did not seem willing to have anything to do with them; but when the white men made them at last understand they should die if left houseless in the cold dark night, the Greenlanders admitted them into a hut somewhat apart from the others, which seemed only inhabited by two old women, who were removed into a neighbouring hut. The present hut, or winter home of the Greenlanders, into which Hans Egede and his companions were ushered, was built, like all the others, of turf and stones, and roofed with thin stems of oaks and willows, which, when spread over with frozen clods of earth, made a very substantial ceiling. There was neither stove nor chimney to be seen, and the windows VOL. II. D were small holes covered with an inner membrane of the seal instead of glass. The door consisted of a sealskin, which of course left many an aperture for the air to penetrate through; but, to the travellers' great surprise, they found the inside of the hut was by no means cold, though filled with a thick mist and a horrible smell most offensive to the olfactory organs of the Europeans. A train-oil lamp, carved out of steatite, hung from the low ceiling by a string made of the muscles of seals, and was so contrived that the food of the inhabitants of the hut could be cooked over it in little kettles of iron, copper, or brass, which the Greenlanders got in exchange for some of their commodities from the whalers on the coast. Paul and Nicholas shuddered at the entrance of the hut, and could not repress an exclamation of disgust, while even their heroic father had a difficulty in entirely concealing his feelings. Aaron, on the contrary, holding his nose very tight, immediately took possession of the only seat. The others had no alternative, if they wished to repose themselves, but to sit upon the cold bare ground. "Whoever would not acknowledge the blessing snuff is, in this place," said the bricklayer-feeling about in his empty box for a few stray grains-" does not deserve to have a nose at all." "And I could soon bring a better smell into this hole," rejoined the carpenter, "if I could but fill my pipe with Varina's best tobacco. Burnt leather is a delicious smell compared to this!" "What does it come from?" inquired Kitterik, taking up his universal remedy, the brandy bottle. Nicholas Egede, who had been sniffing about in all directions, now exclaimed, in rather a pleased tone, "It is what Aaron is sitting upon that stinks so!" "That is pure envy," said Aaron crossly; "you grudge me my seat." sup The bookkeeper now took up a lamp, and, examining the posed seat more closely by its light, declared it really was the cause of all the smell. It consisted of nothing but a huge lump of whale's fat, which had begun to thaw with the warmth of Aaron's body, and had no doubt been put there as food for the inhabitants of the hut. On hearing this, Aaron (who had never moved while all the investigation of his seat was going on) fled precipitately to the other side of the hut, where he tried to rub and clean his polluted garments, and bitterly repented his selfish hastiness. * "Speckstein" steatite-a clayey stone, which is somewhat transparent but of several colours.-Translator's Note. |