The Giant of the North | Page 2

began to look up to him as a
champion. None went so boldly into mimic warfare with the walrus and
the bear as Chingatok. No one could make toy sledges out of inferior
and scanty materials so well as he. If any little one wanted a succourer
in distress, Skreekinbroot was the lad to whom he, or she, turned. If a
broken toy had to be mended, Chingatok could do it better than any
other boy. And so it went on until he became a man and a giant.
When he was merely a big boy--that is, bigger than the largest man of

his tribe--he went out with the other braves to hunt and fish, and
signalised himself by the reckless manner in which he would attack the
polar bear single-handed; but when he reached his full height and
breadth he gave up reckless acts, restrained his tendency to display his
great strength, and became unusually modest and thoughtful, even
pensive, for an Eskimo.
The superiority of Chingatok's mind, as well as his body, soon became
manifest. Even among savages, intellectual power commands respect.
When coupled with physical force it elicits reverence. The young giant
soon became an oracle and a leading man in his tribe. Those who had
wished him dead, and in the centre of an iceberg or at the bottom of the
Polar Sea, came to wish that there were only a few more men like him.
Of course he had one or two enemies. Who has not? There were a few
who envied him his physical powers. There were some who envied him
his moral influence. None envied him his intellectual superiority, for
they did not understand it. There was one who not only envied but
hated him. This was Eemerk, a mean-spirited, narrow-minded fellow,
who could not bear to play what is styled second fiddle.
Eemerk was big enough--over six feet--but he wanted to be bigger. He
was stout enough, but wanted to be stouter. He was influential too, but
wanted to reign supreme. This, of course, was not possible while there
existed a taller, stouter, and cleverer man than himself. Even if Eemerk
had been the equal of Chingatok in all these respects, there would still
have remained one difference of character which would have rendered
equality impossible.
It was this: our young giant was unselfish and modest. Eemerk was
selfish and vain-glorious. When the latter killed a seal he always kept
the tit-bits for himself. Chingatok gave them to his mother, or to any
one else who had a mind to have them. And so in regard to everything.
Chingatok was not a native of the region in which we introduce him to
the reader. He and the tribe, or rather part of the tribe, to which he
belonged, had travelled from the far north; so far north that nobody
knew the name of the land from which they had come. Even Chingatok

himself did not know it. Being unacquainted with geography, he knew
no more about his position on the face of this globe than a field-mouse
or a sparrow.
But the young giant had heard a strange rumour, while in his far-off
country, which had caused his strong intellect to ponder, and his huge
heart to beat high. Tribes who dwelt far to the south of his northern
home had told him that other tribes, still further south, had declared that
the people who dwelt to the south of them had met with a race of men
who came to them over the sea on floating islands; that these islands
had something like trees growing out of them, and wings which moved
about, which folded and expanded somewhat like the wings of the
sea-gull; that these men's faces were whiter than Eskimo faces; that
they wore skins of a much more curious kind than sealskins, and that
they were amazingly clever with their hands, talked a language that no
one could understand, and did many wonderful things that nobody
could comprehend.
A longing, wistful expression used to steal over Chingatok's face as he
gazed at the southern horizon while listening to these strange rumours,
and a very slight smile of incredulity had glimmered on his visage,
when it was told him that one of the floating islands of these Kablunets,
or white men, had been seen with a burning mountain in the middle of
it, which vomited forth smoke and fire, and sometimes uttered a furious
hissing or shrieking sound, not unlike his own voice when he was a
Skreekinbroot.
The giant said little about these and other subjects, but thought deeply.
His mind, as we have said, was far ahead of his time and condition. Let
us listen to some of the disjointed thoughts that perplexed this man.
"Who made me?" he