﻿1848. WINTER HOUSES. 245 



of Point Warren. These buildings are generally 

 placed on points where the water is deep enough 

 for a boat to come to the beach, such a locality 

 being probably selected by the natives to enable 

 them to tow a whale or seal more closely to the 

 place where it is to be cut up. The knowledge of 

 this fact induced us generally to look for the build- 

 ings when we wished to land. The houses are 

 constructed of drift -timber strongly built together 

 and covered with earth to the thickness of from 

 one to' two feet. Light and air are admitted by a 

 low door at one end ; and even this entrance is 

 closed by a slab of snow in the winter time, when 

 their lamps supply them with heat as well as light. 

 Ten or twelve people may seat themselves in the 

 area of one of these houses, though not comfortably ; 

 and in the winter the imperfect admission of fresh 

 air and the effluvia arising from the greasy bodies 

 of a whole family must render them most dis- 

 aofreeable as well as unwholesome abodes. I- 

 have been told that when the family alone are 

 present, the several members of it sit partly or 

 even wholly naked. 



As soon as supper was prepared, we withdrew 

 to the boats to eat it, having anchored them under 

 a sand-bank about a bow-shot from the shore. We 

 had scarcely assumed this position when a party of 

 Eskimos were perceived coming round a point a 



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