Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 1.djvu/213

192 fallen, others about to. The men Innuits are busily engaged in erecting outer walls, filling in snow between the old and the new. I visited nearly every habitation, and found the natives exclaiming, ' ''pe-ong-e-too! pe-ong-e-too!'' ' —bad! bad! ' Karg-toon ' —very hungry. "At Ebierbing and Tookoolito's there was great distress. Their igloo was nearly destroyed. In the night the whole of the dome had fallen in, covering their bed, furs, dresses, &c. in wet snow. Ebierbing was busy in making a canvas tent over the ruins, while Tookoolito cleared out the snow from beneath. He was wet through, and had not a dry skin upon his back, having been out all the morning trying to save his igloo from the almost universal ruins around him. "Dec. 22d.—Raining hard throughout this day, with occasional sleet and snow. Tookoolito visited the ship, and upon her return I let her have an umbrella, which, though she well knew the use of it, was really a novelty to others of her people, who considered it a 'walking tent.' "The extraordinary mildness of the season has caused a most sad state of things among the natives. They cannot obtain their accustomed food by sealing, as the ice and cold weather alone give them the opportunity. Hence in many of the igloos I have seen great distress, and in some I noticed kelp (sea-weed) used for food. "Whenever I visited the natives, such small quantities of food as I could spare from my own slender but necessary stock were taken to them, and on one occasion I gave Tookoolito a handful of pressed 'cracklings' which I had brought with me from Cincinnati. They were given me by a friend there for dog-food, and I can now record the fact that Cincinnati pressed 'cracklings' made as rich a soup as ever I had eaten."

The preceding extracts from my diary about the weather, and its effects upon the condition of things around me, will show that almost the very existence of these children of the icy North depends upon the seasons being uniform with the time of year. The high temperature we had experienced,