Page:The white czar; a story of a polar bear (IA whiteczarstoryof00hawk).pdf/18

 the Eskimos they only laughed. "He is all right," they said. "He take care of himself."

The hunter found later that his fears were groundless.

When the Eskimo found himself overtaken by the blizzard, he simply dug a good sized house in a snow bank and the dogs also dug in and he slept as comfortably as he would have at home in his own igloo.

The Eskimos are nominally Christian, those on the East coast of North America having come under the influence of the Moravian church in 1771. The Eskimos of the Alaskan peninsula probably felt the influence of the Greek church at about the same time as some of the most beautiful bells used upon the Greek churches in Asia were cast in Alaska, one hundred and fifty years ago.

The heathen conception that the Eskimo had of creation was much like that of most other primitive people. They believed that the earth was flat and supported by four pillars. But we believed that it was flat until about four hundred years ago. They be-