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THE SNOW BABY
THE SNOW BABY
FOURTH EDITION
THE SNOW BABY
Hundreds and hundreds of miles away in the white frozen north, far beyond where the big ships go to hunt huge black whales, there is a wonderful land of snow and ice, mountains, glaciers, and icebergs; where strange little brown people called Eskimos, dressed all in the skins of animals, live in snow houses.
In summer in this wonderful land the sun never sets, but shines all the time day and night; the snow melts off the ground; blue and white and yellow flowers spring up; and soft-eyed, brown-coated reindeer wander about, cropping the short grass.
The ice breaks up and drifts out to sea; glaciers or rivers of ice push forward, creaking and groaning, into the water, till enormous icebergs break off from them and float away like white ships. The blue waves dance and sparkle in the sun, and everywhere singing brooks rush down the mountains or fall in silvery cascades over the cliffs, where millions and millions of noisy seabirds come to lay their eggs.
Big black walrus, larger than oxen, crawl out upon the ice, and sleep in the sun, or fight with their long ivory tusks, and bellow till you can hear them miles away.
Glossy mottled seals swim in the water, and schools of narwhal, which used to be called unicorns, dart from place to place faster than the fastest steam yacht; with their long white ivory horns, longer than a man is tall, flashing like spears in and out of the water.
Once in a while a fierce shaggy white bear goes running over the ice-cakes, or swimming through the water in search of a poor little seal on which to dine.
The Eskimos, paddling swiftly through the water in their strange skin boats, or kayaks, pursue all these animals, and kill them with harpoons and lances.
In winter there is no sun at all, and for four long, long months it is dark all the time, day and night, just as it is here in the night, only the moon and stars giving light. The ground is covered deep with snow, through which the poor deer have to dig with their hoofs for a few mouthfuls of grass and moss, the sea is covered with ice five or six feet thick, the birds have flown away, and the walrus and narwhal have gone far off to the open water. Only a few hungry bears and the Eskimos with their dogs are left; and the cold is so terrible that these would freeze to death in an hour if it were not for their thick warm fur coats, and the blanket of blubber underneath.
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