Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 1.djvu/311

290 laughed—they bestowed upon me all the most pleasant epithets their language would permit. I was one of them—one of the honoured few! Soon as this round of feasting was ended, one of the old lady Innuits drew my attention to her afflictions. She had a dreadful pain in her side and back, and had been badly troubled for weeks. Before I had time for thought, she drew off her long-tailed coat over her head, and sat there before me nude as Nature made her. The laughing face and the joyful, ringing voice of the old lady were now exchanged for expressions indicative of suffering and the need of sympathy. The whole party present were now absorbed in the subject before me. I put on as long and dignified a face as I could in this trying scene, and, as much was evidently expected from me, I was determined no disappointment should follow. Therefore I proceeded to manipulate the parts affected, or, rather plowed my fingers in the rich loam—real estate—that covered the ailing places. The result was that I gave notice that she should live on, eating as much fresh seal and walrus as she wanted, drinking water several times a day, and applying the same amount at the end of every ten days that she had drank in that time to the outside of her body by the process of scrubbing, which I there and then practically explained to her and the others. I told her, moreover, that as the suk-e-neir (sun) was day by day getting higher and higher, she must keep herself warm and dry, and then, in my opinion, she would soon be quite relieved. So caressingly did I finger the old lady's side during the delivery of my impromptu advice, that she declared I was the best angeko she had known, and positively she felt much better already. Placing on her coat, she then jumped up and ran away to her own igloo, as lively as a cricket. During the time I was stopping in Sampson's igloo I made every inquiry possible about the tradition concerning ships entering the bay a long time ago; but I was unable, from my then slender knowledge of their language, to get intelligible answers. Therefore I had still to remain patient about it.