Page:The open Polar Sea- a narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States" (IA openpolarseanarr1867haye).pdf/313

 keep from striking the stone rafters. Besides, the smell of the place had rather a tendency to fill one's mind with longings for the open air; but I managed to remain long enough to conclude some important arrangements with my ally and his useful spouse, and then I took my leave with mutual protestations of friendship and good-will. I said to him at parting, "You are chief and I am chief, and we will both tell our respective people to be good to each other;" but he answered, "Na, na, I am chief, but you are the great chief, and the Esquimaux will do what you say. The Esquimaux like you, and are your friends. You make them many presents." I might have told him that this all-powerful method of inspiring friendship was not alone applicable to Esquimaux.

This visit was a pleasant little episode. I was much pleased at the honest heartiness with which Kalutunah entered into my plans; while the childish simplicity of his habits and the frankness of his declarations won for him a conspicuous place in my regard.

He was greatly amused with our guns, and begged for one of them, declaring that he could sit in his hut and kill the reindeer as they passed by. He would put the gun through the window, and he pointed to a hole in the wall about a foot square, where the light was admitted through a thin slab of hard snow. In the centre of it he had made a round orifice, which he said, laughingly, was for the purpose of looking out for the Nalegaksoak,—a well-turned compliment, if it did come from a savage, and all the more adroit that the orifice was really for ventilation, at least it was the only opening by which the foul air could possibly escape. Both himself and wife were highly delighted with the presents which I had brought them.