Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 1.djvu/247

226 The next morning, January 26th, the Innuits Ugarng, Ebierbing, and Jack all separated for some place where they hoped to get seals. I supplied them as liberally as I could with my provisions, and then myself remained behind to proceed with certain observations I daily made in reference to determining positions, and otherwise noting down particulars concerning the locality around me. The rations sent me from the ship were examined and placed in safety from the dogs, but not from the truly honest Innuits, for such precaution was not needed; and then I tried to go on with some work. But it was colder than we had yet experienced, the thermometer being that night (the seventeenth of my igloo life) 75° below the freezing point! Remembering that our sealers were out on the ice, and, as they had said, would each be watching for a prize, I shuddered, fully expecting they must be frozen to death; but what was my surprise and pleasure in the afternoon to see Jack and Ebierbing return, each with a seal—the one captured about midnight, the other early in the morning. Ebierbing admitted that he had felt the cold very much while watching, and, though well wrapped in furs tied around him, could hardly prevent his feet from freezing. As to his nose, that did get touched by the frost, but he soon remedied it by smoking a Yankee clay pipe "loaded" with Virginia tobacco. Ugarng returned in the evening unsuccessful. Another "seal-feast" was of course made, and on this occasion I supped on seal soup, with about two yards of frozen seal's entrails (very good eating) as a finish to the affair.

These seal suppers I found to be most excellent. The seal-meat is cooked in a pan suspended for three or four hours over the fire-lamp. Generally it is boiled in water—half of it sea water—and blood! When ready, it is served up by first giving to each person a piece of the meat. This is followed by a dish of smoking-hot soup, that is, the material in which the seal has been cooked; and I challenge any one to find more palatable food in the United States. It is