Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 1.djvu/159

138 long and six feet beam, and this to take across a channel where the sea is often very considerable. However, the tide helped them, and in time they got alongside.

In the evening one of our whale-boats came for me under charge of Mr. Rogers, who also found much difficulty in approaching any place where I could get on board. He neared a rock upon which I stepped, but instantly found myself slipping. I had in hand and about my person sextants, artificial horizon, nautical and surveying books, tape measurer, &c. &c., and there I was, poised upon the edge of a precipitous rock, fixed in deep water, with furious surf around it! I felt alarmed, more, perhaps for my instruments than myself, for the former would be lost, while I might readily be saved. All of the boat's crew were anxiously bending their eyes upon me as I kept slipping, and for a moment unable to help myself. But, thanks to my Esquimaux boots, which had been well "chewed" by the native women, I was able, by a great effort, to press my feet and toes upon the ice-covered rock, until Keeney, the "boat-header," managed to spring on shore to my assistance, and in another moment I was in the boat. Thus I was saved on this occasion simply by the flexibility of Esquimaux boots!

One Sunday after dinner I took the dingey, a small boat belonging to the ship, and, accompanied by four Esquimaux boys, directed it to the foot of the mountains north of our harbour. The mountains are God's temples; to them I like to bend my steps on Sundays.

"God, that made the world and all things therein, seeing that He is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands." I used, therefore, to say, "To what place shall I go where I can better worship my God than on the mountains? How can I so well learn His power as looking upon and contemplating His almighty works?" After leaving the boat in a safe little harbour, we began our upward tramp, and I was much interested in a pile of rock which seemed nearly undermined by old Father Time. The