Page:The Last Voyage of the Karluk, 1916.djvu/268

212 slabs a foot long, eight inches wide and three-fourths of an inch thick. In our honor the old woman brought out cups and saucers of the prettiest china I have ever seen; the cups were very small, holding about three sips. Each cup was wrapped in a dirty cloth, on which the old woman wiped it after carefully spitting on it to make it clean. When I saw her method of dish-washing, I was impolite enough to ask Kataktovick to go out and get my mug from the sledge; when he returned with it our hostess looked disappointed, though whether from the large size of the mug or because I did not apparently appreciate her kindness in using her best china for us, I cannot say.

When we had finished the wooden dish of reindeer meat, which though uncooked was good eating, they brought in another filled with walrus meat, evidently taken from a walrus killed the previous summer, which had a smell that I cannot describe. Out of politeness I tried to eat it, but found it was a little too much for me. Kataktovick enjoyed it. Later on I asked him why he wanted the same food we had aft while he was on the ship and yet was willing to eat this foul walrus meat; he said he liked it. Apparently although they live pretty much on white man's food the Eskimo enjoy getting back once in a while to walrus meat and blubber that have seen better days.