rKEDERIKSHAAB. 



coated on the outside with black tar, the windows and 

 doors being double, and painted white. They are kept 

 spotlessly clean, according to the custom of the Scandi- 

 navian peoples. The beams supporting the ceiling are 

 plainly seen, giving to the room an aspect not unlike the 

 ward-room of a man-of-war. The side-panels are painted 

 blue or green, the rest of the walls being white. The 

 stove in the corner is brightly polished ; the floor with- 

 out carpet, and beautifully clean ; the windows adorned 

 with a few European garden flowers, which bloom with 

 difficulty in this inhospitable region. 



After luncheon, we walked some way into the interior, 

 visiting, on our way, some of the huts. These are essen- 

 tially dirty and disagreeable to one unused to their 

 ways. The better class have a wooden frame and a 

 window ; but the greater part have only a shell made of 

 sods and earth, with a few props of wood or bones of 

 tke whale in the inside. The approach to the interior is 

 through a narrow passage some three feet and a half high, 

 opening into the hut, which rises to an elevation of five 

 feet or so. A raised dais serves the purpose of a seat by 

 day and a bedstead by night. On this dais the ladies sit, 

 tailor-fashion, and occupy themselves in domestic work. 

 Cooking is performed by means of a stone lamp hanging 

 at one extremity of the platform, and supplied with 

 blubber and moss. 



In a small hut of about six feet square, seven, eight, of 

 ev*p a Jarger number of persons will contrive to exist ; 

 and as personal cleanliness is not a virtue practised by 



