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Page 16
We repeat, that since the poor, ignorant natives live in rude
abundance, and lack nothing for mere animal enjoyment of life, it is
impossible to doubt that Europeans, who in intelligence and resources
are a superior race of beings, can fail to participate equally in all
things which the Creator has provided for the support of man in this
extremity of the habitable globe; also let it be borne in mind, that
half-a-dozen Esquimaux devour almost as much food every day as will
suffice for a ship's crew. Sir John Ross declares, that if they only
ate moderately, any given district would support 'double their number,
and with scarcely the hazard of want.' He says that an Esquimaux eats
twenty pounds of flesh and oil a day, and, in fact, never ceases from
devouring until compelled to desist from sheer repletion. Speaking
of one meal taken in their company, we have this edifying
observation:--'While we found that one salmon and half of another were
more than enough for all us English, these voracious animals (the
Esquimaux) had devoured two each. At this rate of feeding, it is not
wonderful that their whole time is occupied in procuring food: each
man had eaten fourteen pounds of this raw salmon, and it was probably
but a luncheon after all, of a superfluous meal for the sake of our
society!.... The glutton bear--scandalised as it may be by its
name--might even be deemed a creature of moderate appetite in
comparison: with their human reason in addition, these people, could
they always command the means, would doubtless outrival a glutton and
a boa-constrictor together.'
Finally, we expressly deny that the Esquimaux can or do bear extreme
cold and privations better than Englishmen who have been a season or
two in their country. Arctic explorers testify that the natives always
appeared to suffer from cold quite as much as Europeans; and what
little we have ourselves seen of northern countries, induces us to
give ample credence to this.
The conclusion, then, at which we arrive is this: that under such
experienced and energetic leaders as Sir John Franklin and his chief
officers, the gallant crews of the missing expedition have _not_
perished for lack of food, and will be enabled, if God so wills, to
support life for years to come. Great, indeed, their sufferings must
be; for civilised men do not merely eat to sleep, and sleep to eat,
like the Esquimaux; but they will be upheld under every suffering by a
firm conviction that their countrymen are making almost superhuman
exertions to rescue them from their fearful isolation. What the final
issue will be, is known only to Him who tempers the wind to the shorn
lamb, and can, if He deems meet, provide a way of deliverance when
hope itself has died in every breast. Our individual opinion is, that
it is not improbable the lost crews will, sooner or later, achieve
their own deliverance by arriving at some coast whence they may be
taken off, even as Ross was, after sojourning during four years of
unparalleled severity. But it is the bounden duty of our country never
to relax its efforts to save Franklin, until there is an absolute
certainty that all further human exertions are in vain.
[We give the above as a paper on the food of the arctic regions, and
can only hope that our correspondent's cheering views as to the fate
of the missing expedition may prove to be correct.--ED.]
THE ARTIST'S SACRIFICE.
On a cold evening in January--one of those dark and gloomy evenings
which fill one with sadness--there sat watching by the bed of a sick
man, in a little room on the fifth floor, a woman of about forty, and
two pretty children--a boy of twelve and a little girl of eight. The
exquisite neatness of the room almost concealed its wretchedness:
everything announced order and economy, but at the same time great
poverty. A painted wooden bedstead, covered with coarse but clean
calico sheets, blue calico curtains, four chairs, a straw arm-chair, a
high desk of dark wood, with a few books and boxes placed on shelves,
composed the entire furniture of the room. And yet the man who lay on
that wretched bed, whose pallid cheek, and harsh, incessant cough,
foretold the approach of death, was one of the brightest ornaments of
our literature. His historical works had won for him a European
celebrity, his writings having been translated into all the modern
languages; yet he had always remained poor, because his devotion to
science had prevented him from devoting a sufficient portion of his
time to productive labour.
An unfinished piece of costly embroidery thrown on a little stand near
the bed, another piece of a less costly kind, but yet too luxurious to
be intended for the use of this poor family, shewed that his wife and
daughter--this gentle child whose large dark eyes were so full of
sadness--endeavoured by the work of their hands to make up for the
unproductiveness of his efforts. The sick man slept, and the mother,
taking away the lamp and the pieces of embroidery, went with her
children into the adjoining room, which served both as antechamber and
dining-room: she seated herself at the table, and took up her work
with a sad and abstracted air; then observing her little daughter
doing the same thing cheerfully, and her son industriously colouring
some prints destined for a book of fashions, she embraced them; and
raising her tearful eyes towards heaven, she seemed to be thanking the
Almighty, and in the midst of her affliction, to be filled with
gratitude to Him who had blessed her with such children.
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