Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 1.djvu/249

228 our first igloo had been erected. He had found us out, and stated that he left behind, at the stopping place, Mingumailo the angeko, with his two wives. They had started for that spot a short time preceding us, but now, having been a long while without food, he came to see if we could supply him. The lad had an abundance given him, and never before did I see such an amount of gorging as I did then by that boy.

Next day Ugarng departed on a visit to the ship, and with sundry presents of seal-meat, &c. from Ebierbing to his aged grandmother and friends. I also sent a letter to Captain B, preferring to remain until I had completed all my observations. While taking some of these, however, I "burned" my fingers most sadly by laying hold of my brass pocket sextant with my bare hand. I say burned them, because the effect was precisely the same as if I had touched red-hot iron. The ends of my finger-nails were like burnt bone or horn; and the fleshy part of the tips of my fingers and thumbs were, in appearance and feeling, as if suddenly burnt by fire. On the 3d of February we caught sight of some reindeer on the ice, making their way slowly in single file northward, and eventually coming within a quarter of a mile of our igloos. I had given my rifle to Ebierbing on the first sight of them, that he might try his skill in killing one; but, owing to the charge of powder being too small, he missed, and the reindeer, alarmed, darted off with the speed of the wind, much to our regret.

That night, about 12 o'clock, we were aroused by a call from some one evidently in distress. The cry came from the passage-way just without the igloo, and was at once responded to by Ebierbing telling the stranger to come in. He did so, and who should stand before us but Mingumailo the angeko! He spoke feebly, and said that he was very ill, thirsty and hungry; and that he, with his family, had had nothing to eat for nearly one month! Immediately a pile of frozen seal-meat was pointed out to him, with permission to eat some, and, quick as lightning, the famished man sprang to it like