The "little book" Wolmar showed me. It was a curious black-letter pamphlet, printed at London in the time of Charles II., and in Dutch types. I took a particular fancy for it, as it contained the relation of a perilous voyage performed by a ship which belonged to the Seven United Provinces.
Wolmar Fynböe offered to barter it for the horns of the musk-ox; but I assured him that he was welcome alike to the entire head, the bears' skins, and hams to boot. To this he agreed at once, conceiving, probably, that one who parted so readily with spoil did not deserve to possess any; so I retired with my literary acquisition (the contents of which I shall give to the reader elsewhere), begging Wolmar Fynböe to have me summoned betimes in the morning, as I was most anxious to reach Cunninghame's Haven, and rejoin my friends on board the _Leda_.
Next morning I was up early, my bed not being exactly so luxurious as I could have wished; and there was about everything that overpowering odour of blubber which pervades a Greenland household. For breakfast, Grethe brought in a gaily-painted Muscovite bowl, full of warm milk, and a hot barley-cake, made by Alfa. Her father soon after brought my gun, cleaned and oiled; and then bidding adieu in rather symbolical language to his daughters, we set forth into the clear, cold atmosphere of the young May morning--for we were now in what is deemed in kindlier climes the second month of summer--but as yet no sun was visible.
Far away in distance stretched the Fin Whale Strait, towards Kalla Fiord, which opens into the Icy Sea; its broken scenery, its splintered crags, its lofty bluffs and pinnacles, exhibiting the most singular combinations of light and shadow in the yellow blaze of the yet unrisen sun. The summits seemed tipped with fire, while the bases which rose sheer from the still, deep waters of the waveless strait were dark and sombre as ebony.
Waveless it truly was, save where broken by the knoblike head of a blackfin-whale, as he swam against the wind, and blew clouds of water into the air.
As we proceeded, I could perceive that Wolmar Fynböe, though merry and good-humoured, like all Greenlanders was deeply imbued with superstitions dark and gloomy as those of the Scandinavian Edda. Leaning on his hunting-spear, he pointed to a rock in the strait, saying that his mother's sister Alfa (from whom he named his youngest daughter) was wont to see a handsome young merman seated thereon, every time she came to the beach to gather shell-fish or dry nets.