headland, and saw the
whales spouting at a distance. He therefore placed himself in his
fishing-boat, called his associates to their several employments, plied
his oar and harpoon with incredible courage and dexterity; and, by
dividing his time between the chace and fishery, suspended the miseries
of absence and suspicion.

Ajut, in the mean time, notwithstanding her neglected dress, happened,
as she was drying some skins in the sun, to catch the eye of Norngsuk,
on his return from hunting. Norngsuk was of birth truly illustrious. His
mother had died in child-birth, and his father, the most expert fisher
of Greenland, had perished by too close pursuit of the whale. His
dignity was equalled by his riches; he was master of four men's and two
women's boats, had ninety tubs of oil in his winter habitation, and
five-and-twenty seals buried in the snow against the season of darkness.
When he saw the beauty of Ajut, he immediately threw over her the skin
of a deer that he had taken, and soon after presented her with a branch
of coral. Ajut refused his gifts, and determined to admit no lover in
the place of Anningait.

Norngsuk, thus rejected, had recourse to stratagem. He knew that Ajut
would consult an Angekkok, or diviner, concerning the fate of her lover,
and the felicity of her future life. He therefore applied himself to the
most celebrated Angekkok of that part of the country, and, by a present
of two seals and a marble kettle, obtained a promise, that when Ajut
should consult him, he would declare that her lover was in the land of
souls. Ajut, in a short time, brought him a coat made by herself, and
inquired what events were to befall her, with assurances of a much
larger reward at the return of Anningait, if the prediction should
flatter her desires. The Angekkok knew the way to riches, and foretold
that Anningait, having already caught two whales, would soon return home
with a large boat laden with provisions.

This prognostication she was ordered to keep secret; and Norngsuk
depending upon his artifice, renewed his addresses with greater
confidence; but finding his suit still unsuccessful, applied himself to
her parents with gifts and promises. The wealth of Greenland is too
powerful for the virtue of a Greenlander; they forgot the merit and the
presents of Anningait, and decreed Ajut to the embraces of Norngsuk. She
entreated; she remonstrated; she wept, and raved; but finding riches
irresistible, fled away into