Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 1.djvu/283

 CHAPTER XIV.

several days after the search which was made for poor Brown on the 17th of March, I was much troubled with boils, the result of eating the ship's salt meats, which caused great prostration, and rendered me unable to do anything but take a few observations and register the weather. It was noticed by every one that I had considerably decreased in weight; indeed, my whole frame showed signs of hard usage, and that I was getting emaciated; but, having a good constitution, I soon recruited, and after a short period of rest, I was able to get about my work again. On the 20th of March several of our Innuit friends arrived from various places where they had been hunting and sealing, thus striving to find means of subsistence. The Innuits are, as I have frequently said, most persevering sealers, and will go, with their dogs, even in the very coldest of weather, and under most dangerous circumstances, to hunt for seal-holes. The sagacious dog, on snuffing the air and finding it charged with seal odour, follows it to the windward till he leads his master to the very spot where a seal has its hole. The man then proceeds prospecting with his spear through one to three feet depth of snow, until he finds the small opening in the ice leading to the main seal-hole. The hole found, the long spindle shank of the spear is withdrawn,