rded room for a few straggling huts of native
fishermen and hunters, with only now and then a more pretentious white
man's lodge,--I could hardly imagine that much would be found seductive
to the fancy or inviting to the eye. A country where there is no soil to
yield any part of man's subsistence seemed to offer such a slender
chance for man in the battle of life, that I could well imagine it to be
repulsive rather than attractive; yet I was eager to see how poor men
might be, and live.

While thus looking forward to a novel experience, I was unconsciously
preparing myself for a great surprise. Whatever there might be of
poverty in the condition of the few dozens of human beings who there
forced a scanty subsistence from the sea, I was to discover one person
in the place who did in no way share it,--who, born as it might seem to
different destinies, yet, voluntarily choosing wild Nature for
companionship, and rising superior to the forbidding climate and the
general desolation, rejoiced here in his own strong manhood, and lived
seemingly contented as well with himself as with the great world of
which he heard from afar but the faint murmurs.

The anchors had been down about an hour, and the bustle and confusion
necessarily attending an entrance into port had subsided. The sails were
stowed, the decks were cleared up, and the ropes were coiled. A port
watch was set. The crew had received their "liberty," and there was much
wondering among them whether Esquimau eyes could speak a tender welcome.
Nor had the Danish flag been forgotten. That swallow-tailed emblem of a
gallant nationality--which, according to song and tradition, has the
enviable distinction of having

"Come from heaven down, my boys,
Ay, come from heaven down"--

was fluttering from a white flag-staff at the front of the
government-house, and we had answered its display by running up our own
Danish colors at the fore, and saluting them with our signal-gun in all
due form and courtesy.

Soon after reaching the anchorage I had despatched an officer to look up
the chief ruler of the place, and to assure him of the great pleasure I
should have in calling upon him, if he would name an hour convenient to
himself; and I was awaiting my messenger's return with some impatience,
when suddenly I heard the thump of his heavy sea boots on the deck
above. In a few moments he entered the cabin, and reported that the
governor was absent, but that his office wa