Page:The open Polar Sea- a narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States" (IA openpolarseanarr1867haye).pdf/308

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and then there was a roll of dried grass, which they use as we do cork soles for the boots, and some dried moss for lamp-wick; and for food they had a few small pieces of walrus meat and blubber. This cargo was covered with one of the seal-skins, over which was passed from side to side a line, like a sandal-lacing, and the whole was bound down compactly to the sledge; and on the top of it rode the family, Kalutunah himself walking alongside and encouraging on his team rather with kind persuasion than with the usual Esquimau cruelty. In front sat the mother, the finest specimen of the Esquimau matron that I had seen. In the large hood of her fox-skin coat, a sort of dorsal opossum-pouch, nestled a sleeping infant. Close beside the mother sat the boy to whom I have before referred, their first-born, and the father's pride. Next came a girl, about seven years old; and another, a three year old, was wrapped up in an immense quantity of furs, and was lashed to the up-*standers.

As the sledge rounded to, near the vessel, I went out to meet them. The children were at first a little frightened, but they were soon got to laugh, and I found that the same arts which win the affections of Christian babies were equally potent with the heathen. The wife remembered me well, and called me "Doc-tee," while Kalutunah, grinning all over with delight, pointed to his dogs, exclaiming with pride, "They are fine ones!" to which I readily assented; and then he added, "I come to give them all to the Nalegaksoak;" and to this I also assented.

What surprised me most with this family was their apparent indifference to the cold. They had come from Iteplik in slow marches, stopping when tired in