Page:The open Polar Sea- a narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States" (IA openpolarseanarr1867haye).pdf/156

 *some rival in the hunt, or an old decrepit man or woman who are a burden; or a person who is supposed to be bewitched, or a lazy fellow who has no dogs, and lives off his more industrious neighbors. They even destroy their own offspring when there happen to be too many of them brought into the world, or one should chance to be born with some deformity which will make it incapable of self-support; but they never meet in open combat; at least, such are the habits of the tribes who have not yet been reached in some degree by the influences of Christian civilization, or who have not had ingrafted upon them some of the aggressive customs of the old Norsemen, who, from the ninth to the fourteenth centuries, lived and fought in Southern Greenland.

With such traits of character they are naturally disinclined to be amiable toward any one who is particularly fortunate, and it is not surprising, therefore, that Hans should be envious of Peter. Even had I given the latter no more clothing than was sufficient to cover his nakedness, it would have been all the same. Had I crowded upon Hans the best of every thing in the vessel, without respect to quantity or usefulness, it would not be more than he covets. But the fellow is especially jealous of my personal kind attentions to Peter, for he sees in that the guaranty of still further gifts.

Hans, by the way, keeps up an establishment of his own; and, having a piece of feminine humanity, he can claim the dignity of systematic housekeeping. Within the house on the upper deck he has pitched his Esquimau tent, and, with his wife and baby, half buried in reindeer-skins, he lives the life of a true native. His wife bears the name of Merkut, but is