Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 1.djvu/65

44 house; and these stoves require 100 barrels of coal and five fathoms of wood.

There are reckoned to be 1,700 Esquimaux sealers in Greenland, 400 fishers, and one Esquimaux officer (a clerk), whose father was a Dane and the Governor of Lieveley—Goodhavn. In addition, there are of Esquimaux 17 foremen and boatsmen; 22 coopers and blacksmiths; 87 sailors; 15 pensioners, whose business is to look after goats, and who get half rations of beer, pork, meat, and butter, &c. but full rations of peas, barley, &c. There are also 20 native catechists or missionaries. The European missionaries and priests number 13 German and 11 Danish.

Of first and second governors there are 31.

Three doctors visit each place one year. There are 36 European clerks; 7 boat-steerers; 28 coopers, carpenters, and blacksmiths; 19 sailors and cooks; and 8 pensioners.

The whole body of missionaries are paid per annum, in Danish money, $16,360; of which amount Government House gives $14,650, and the East India Missions, at the outside, $2,000. For schools and school-books the sum of $6,500 is appropriated.

I now proceed with my personal narrative.

Among the numerous visitors that greeted us on our arrival, I was astonished to find myriads of musquitoes. Little did we expect so warm a reception in the arctic regions. Talk about musquitoes in the States as being numerous and troublesome! Why no man who has not visited the arctic shores in the months of July and August can have a good idea of these Liliputian elephants. In the States the very hum of a musquito is enough to set any one upon his guard. How many a poor soul there has been kept in a state of torment all night by the presence of only two or three musquitoes! But here, in the North, it is a common, every-hour affair to have thousands at one time around you, some buzzing, some drawing the very life-blood from face, hands, arms, and legs, until one is driven to a state approaching