128 FOUR YEARS IN THE WHITE NORTH [Jan. 



nursing from the right breast, concluded that the left 

 had atrophied through disuse, it being inconvenient for 

 the mother to feed her child from the "inside"! This 

 was published and accepted as gospel, if not scientific, 

 truth. 



Oo-bloo-ya was not to be outdone in hospitality by 

 our previous hosts. A new and strange dish awaited 

 our ever-ready appetites, sharpened by healthy work 

 and strengthened by tlie purest of air. What resembled 

 in outward appearances a fat frozen seal was squeezed 

 through the small circular entrance in the floor. W^ith 

 a sharp knife a slit, about one foot in length, was made 

 in the belly. The man of the house rolled back his 

 sleeve, plunged his arm in to the elbow, and withdrew 

 it, smeared with grease and clutching black strips of 

 meat. "Sausages packed in lard, same idea!" said I to 

 myself. Strips of sun-dried narwhal packed in narwhal 

 oil! Was anything ever better! Long we ate, and 

 swelled and slept, and ate again, and praised and 

 thanked our host for his well-stocked larder. 



Now that the village feasts were over, our retinue 

 of camp-followers turned toward the north with other 

 overflowing caches as their objective points. The re- 

 port came to us from a near-by igloo that faithful E-took- 

 a-shoo, our best man, was ill. This would never do. 

 Clean grit from the soles of his sealskin kamiks to the 

 hood of his sealskin netcha, I knew that he would go 

 if he could wiggle his eyelash. Within a few minutes our 

 sledge stood harnessed before his door. 



"Yes," he grinned, "I am all right." 



Here I had my first misgivings as to the probable 

 success of Freuchen's plans, if he had made any, which 

 I now doubt. Possibly familiarity with conditions had 



