198 BOOTHIA 



this was a typical Eskimo snow camp we may as well 

 copy his picture and quote his description. 



" The village soon appeared, consisting of twelve 

 snow huts, erected at the bottom of a little bight on 

 the shore, about two miles and a half from the ship. 

 They had the appearance of inverted basins, and were 

 placed without any order ; each of them having a long 

 crooked appendage, in which was the passage, at the 

 entrance of which were the women, with the female 

 children and the infants. We were soon invited to 

 visit these, for whom we had prepared presents of glass 

 beads and needles ; a distribution of which soon drove 

 away the timidity which they had displayed at our first 

 appearance. The passage, always long, and generally 

 crooked, led to the principal apartment, which was a 

 circular dome, being ten feet in diameter when intended 

 for one family, and an oval of fifteen by ten where it 

 lodged two. Opposite the doorway there was a bank 

 of snow, occupying nearly a third of the breadth of the 

 area, about two feet and a half high, level at the top, 

 and covered by various skins, forming the general bed 

 or sleeping place for the whole. At the end of this sat 

 the mistress of the house, opposite to the lamp, which, 

 being of moss and oil, as is the universal custom in 

 these regions, gave a sufficient flame to supply both 

 light and heat ; so that the apartment was perfectly 

 comfortable. Over the lamp was the cooking dish of 

 stone, containing the flesh of deer and of seals, with 

 oil ; and of such provision there seemed no want. 

 Everything else, dresses, implements, as well as pro- 

 visions, lay about in unspeakable confusion, showing 

 that order, at least, was not in the class of their virtues. 



