A CLIMB TO THE TOP OF THE SHIP HILL AT ZOAR.
The ascent to the spot whence the approach of the ships can best be
descried is by no means so easily accomplished at Zoar as at Hopedale.
But the hour's stiff climb is richly rewarded by a magnificent
prospect. Our path lies first through the fir woods, then over a bare
plain on which tufts of beautiful and very variegated mosses alternate
with rocks and withered roots. This is evidently the site of a forest,
which at no very distant date has been killed by the terrible climate.
Up again through low thick brushwood and over great rocks, till at
last we reach the summit. Seaward we can see the course by which the
"Harmony" came in. Northward the eye ranges along the rugged coast
with its innumerable islands and deep fjords. Yonder sheet of water is
not an arm of the sea, but a great freshwater lake, long an object of
superstitious dread to the Eskimoes. Neither in summer or winter dared
they cross it, until their missionaries did so, for they believed a
monster dwelt in it, who could eat up the man and his kayak, or
sledge, dogs and driver. Inland one sees mountain after mountain,
whose wild slopes are traversed by no human foot unless the Nascopie
Indian, or "mountaineer," may pass that way in pursuit of the
reindeer.
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