Page:The open Polar Sea- a narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States" (IA openpolarseanarr1867haye).pdf/157

 better known as Mrs. Hans. She is a little chubby specimen of womankind, and, for an Esquimau, not ill-looking. In truth she is, I will not say the prettiest, but the least ugly thorough-breed that I have seen. Her complexion is unusually fair, so much so that a flush of red is visible on her cheeks when she can be induced to use a little soap and water to remove the thick plaster of oily soot which covers it. This, however, rarely happens; and as for undergoing another such soaking and scrubbing as the sailors gave her on the way up from Cape York, she cannot be induced to think of it.

The baby is a lively specimen of unwashed humanity. It is about ten months old, and rejoices in the name of Pingasuk—"The Pretty One." It appears to take as naturally to the cold as ducklings to water, and may be seen almost any day crawling through the open slit of the tent, and then out over the deck, quite innocent of clothing; and its mother, equally regardless of temperature or what, in civilized phrase and conventional usage we designate as modesty, does not hesitate to wander about in the same exposed manner. The temperature, however, of the house is never very low, mostly above freezing.

My other two Esquimau hunters, Marcus and Jacob, are lodgers with the Hans family. They are a pair of droll fellows, very different from Hans and Peter. Marcus will not work, and Jacob has grown like the Prince of Denmark, "fat and scant of breath," and cannot. As for hunters, they are that only in name. They have been tried at every thing for which it was thought possible that they could be of any use and it is now agreed on all sides that they can only be serviceable in amusing the crew and in cutting up