The Giant of the North: Pokings Round the Pole

“What is the other string?” asked Leo, as he administered a flip to the flank of a lazy dog.

“Ah, that remains to be seen, lad,” replied the Captain.

“Why, what a tyrant you are, uncle!” exclaimed Alf, who had recovered from his disappointment about the splendid specimen. “You won’t tell us anything, almost. Who ever before heard of the men of an expedition to the North Pole being kept in ignorance of the means by which they were to get there?”

The Captain’s reply was only a twinkle of the eye.

“Father wants to fill you with bliss, Alf,” said Benjy, “according to your own notions of that sort of thing.”

“What do you mean, Ben?”

“Why, have we not all heard you often quote the words:– ‘Where ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise.’”

“Hear, hear! That’s it, Benjy,” said the Captain, with a nod and a short laugh, while his son assumed the satisfied gravity of look appropriate to one who has made a hit; “I won’t decrease his bliss by removing his ignorance yet awhile.”

“Hain’t Buzzby got nuffin’ to say on that ’ere pint?” whispered Butterface to Benjy, who sat just in front of him.

“Ah! to be sure. I say, Alf,” said the boy with an earnest look, “hasn’t your favourite author got something to say about the bliss of ignorance? I’m almost sure I heard you muttering something in your dreams on that subject the other day.”

“Of course he has. He has a long poem on that subject. Here is a bit of it.”

Alf, whose memory was good, immediately recited the following:

“How sweet is ignorance! How soothing to the mind,
To search for treasures in the brain, and nothing find!
Consider. When the memory is richly stored,
How apt the victim of redundant knowledge to be bored!
When Nothing fills the chambers of the heart and brain,
Then negative enjoyment comes with pleasures in her train!
Descending on the clods of sense like summer rain.

“Knowledge, ’tis said, gives power, and so it often does;
Knowledge makes sorrow, too, around our pillows buzz.
In debt I am, with little cash; I know it—and am sad.
Of course, if I were ignorant of this—how glad!
A loving friend, whom once I knew in glowing health,
Has broken down, and also, somehow, lost his wealth.
How sad the knowledge makes me! Better far
In ignorance to live, than hear of things that jar,
And think of things that are not,—not of things that are.

“‘If ignorance is bliss,’ the poet saith—why ‘if?’
Why doubt a fact so clearly proven, stubborn, stiff?
The heavy griefs and burdens of the world around,
The hideous tyranny by which mankind is ground,
The earthquake, tempest, rush of war, and wail of woe,
Are all as though they were not—if I do not know!
Wrapped in my robe of ignorance, what can I miss?
Am I not saved from all—and more than all—of this?
Do I not revel in a regal realm of bliss?”

“Bravo! Buzzby,” cried the Captain, “but, I say, Alf, don’t it seem to smack rather too much of selfishness?”

“Of course it does, uncle. I do not think Buzzby always sound in principle, and, like many poets, he is sometimes confused in his logic.”

“You’re right, Benjy, the land is clear enough now,” remarked the Captain, whose interest in Buzzby was not profound, and whose feelings towards logic bordered on the contemptuous, as is often the case with half-educated men, and, strange to say, sometimes with highly-educated men, as well as with the totally ignorant—so true is it that extremes meet!

In the course of a couple of hours the sledges drew near to the island, which proved to be a large but comparatively low one, rising not more than a hundred feet in any part. It was barren and ragged, with patches of reindeer moss growing in some parts, and dwarf willows in others. Myriads of sea-birds made it their home, and these received the invaders with clamorous cries, as if they knew that white men were a dangerous novelty, and objected to the innovation.

Despite their remonstrances, the party landed, and the Eskimos hurried over the rocks to that part of the island where they had left their kayaks and women’s boats in charge of a party of natives who were resident on the island at the time they passed, and from whom they had borrowed the dogs and sledges with which they had travelled south.

Meanwhile the white men took to rambling; Leo to shoot wild-fowl for supper, Alf to search for “specimens,” and Benjy to scramble among the rocks in search of anything that might “turn up.” Butterface assisted the latter in his explorations. While the rest were thus engaged, the Captain extemporised a flag-staff out of two spears lashed together with a small block at the top for the purpose of running up a flag, and formally taking possession of the island when they should re-assemble. This done, he wrote a brief outline of his recent doings, which he inserted in a ginger-beer bottle brought for that very purpose. Then he assisted Anders in making the encampment and preparing supper.

The two were yet in the midst of the latter operation when a shout was heard in the distance. Looking in the direction whence it came they saw Chingatok striding over the rocks towards them with unusual haste. He was followed by the other Eskimos, who came forward gesticulating violently.

“My countrymen have left the island,” said Chingatok when he came up.

“And taken the kayaks with them?” asked Captain Vane anxiously.

“Every one,” replied the giant.

This was depressing news to the Captain, who had counted much on making use of the Eskimo canoes in the event of his own appliances failing.

“Where have they gone, think you?” he asked.

“Tell Blackbeard,” replied Chingatok, turning to Anders, “that no one knows. Since they went away the lanes of open water have closed, and the ice is solid everywhere.”

“But where the kayak and the oomiak cannot float the sledge may go,” said the Captain.

“That is true; tell the pale chief he is wise, yet he knows not all things. Let him think. When he comes to the great open sea what will he do without canoes?”

“Huk!” exclaimed Oolichuk, with that look and tone which intimated his belief that the pale chief had received a “clincher.”

The chattering of the other Eskimos ceased for a moment or two as they awaited eagerly the Captain’s answer, but the Captain disappointed them. He merely said, “Well, we shall see. I may not know all things, Chingatok, nevertheless I know a deal more than you can guess at. Come now, let’s have supper, Anders; we can’t wait for the wanderers.”

As he spoke, three of the wanderers came into camp, namely Leo, Benjy, and Butterface.

“What’s come of Alf?” asked the Captain.

Neither Leo nor Benjy had seen him since they parted, a quarter of an hour after starting, and both had expected to find him in camp, but Butterface had seen him.

“Sawd him runnin’,” said the sable steward, “runnin’ like a mad kangaroo arter a smallish brute like a mouse. Nebber sawd nuffin’ like Massa Alf for runnin’.”

“Well, we can’t wait for him,” said the Captain, “I want to take possession of the island before supper. What shall we call it?”

“Disappointment Isle,” said Leo, “seeing that the Eskimos have failed us.”

“No—I won’t be ungrateful,” returned the Captain, “considering the successes already achieved.”