Page:The open Polar Sea- a narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States" (IA openpolarseanarr1867haye).pdf/302

 hut, and, bleeding from a mortal wound, had been dragged out and buried in the stones and snow, where the cold and the hurt together soon terminated as well his life as his mischief.

Death had made fearful ravages among his people since I had seen them five years before, and he complained bitterly of the hardships of the last winter, in consequence of a great deficiency of dogs, the same distemper which swept mine off having attacked those of his people. Indeed, the disease appears to have been universal throughout the entire length of Greenland. But notwithstanding this poverty, he undertook to supply me with some animals, in return for which I was to make liberal presents; and, as a proof of his sincerity, he offered me two of the four which composed his present team. From Tattarat I afterwards purchased one of his three, and for a fine knife I obtained the fourth one of that hunter's team, the property of Myouk, and the only dog that he possessed.

The hunters were all well pleased with their bargains, for they went away rich in iron, knives, and needles,—wealth to them more valuable than would have been all the vast piles of treasure with which the Inca Atahuallpa sought to satisfy the rapacious Pizarro, or the lacs of rupees with which the luckless Rajah Nuncomar strove to free himself from the clutches of the remorseless Hastings. And we had made a treaty of peace and friendship, and had ratified it by a solemn promise, befitting a Nalegak and a Nalegaksoak. The Nalegak was to furnish the Nalegaksoak with dogs, and the Nalegaksoak was to pay for them. This exceedingly simple treaty may at first strike the reader with surprise; but I feel sure