Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 2.djvu/229

210 me and the fire-light. I looked at it, rolled it over, and looked again. Behold, it was the contents of a reindeer's paunch! On this discovery I stopped feasting for that night. While the guests were arriving, I was busily writing in my note-book; several Innuits crowded round me, interested in this curious work. I wrote two or three of their names, pointing to the writing and pronouncing the word, as Kop-e-o, Ning-u-ar-ping, Koo-choo-ar-chu; this pleased them much. The call was then raised for me to write my own name, which I did, also pronouncing it. Then "Hall! Hall! Hall!" rung from tongue to tongue through the igloo amid general laughter.

After securing what skins I wanted, I started on my return to the ship on December 18th with the sledge and dogs. A few minutes after passing Kodlunarn we rounded the point of Tikkoon, the place I had visited on the 23d of September. Having passed by this spot and made a short distance, less than a quarter of a mile, "Kooksmith" pointed to a bluff on the main land, saying, "Ki-ete, oo-mi-ark-chu-a Kodlunarn"—that is, the ship came from Kodlunarn to the said place. He then proceeded to say (though I did not fairly understand his meaning at the time), that after the ship was built and launched the kodlunas towed her round to this spot in order to have a good place for raising the masts and, putting them in the vessel. Kooksmith represented by the handle of his whip how they raised one end of the mast up on the bluff by the coast. At the time, as I said above, I did not fully comprehend what he wanted to say, but supposed him to mean that a mast was made there, and then taken round to Kodlunarn; later, as will be seen shortly, the whole force of his description came out.

The most tiresome portion of our day's work was the ascent of the Bayard Taylor Pass. Our load was not heavy, but it required the combined exertions of all to push and pull the sledge up the abrupt mountain's side. We were all tired, the dogs quite so, for they had had nothing to eat since leaving the vessel. The little "camels" of the North—the Innuit