1915] WAITING FOR THE SHIP 191 



Smith Sound tribe, and the oil, equally with that of the 

 narwhal, is the very purest and best for heating and 

 lighting purposes. 



A third day at the oars of the heavily loaded boat saw 

 the finish of our forty-mile row. The green grass at 

 Nerky was fairly dotted with the white bodies of twenty 

 Arctic hare. Jot squatted on the shore and, resting 

 his elbows on his knees, killed five before they decided 

 that he was dangerous. The Eskimo girls looked over 

 the old stone houses and generously offered us the 

 largest and by far the best, standing well back from the 

 shore. For days we threw out bones, decayed meat, 

 old skins, and wet grass. Finally, despairing of ever 

 digging down to something really clean, we decided 

 to cover everything with white sand from the beach. 



In the mean time, Al-ning-wa and Ah-ka-ting-wa had 

 been digging and scraping in their respective and pro- 

 spective homes. This house-cleaning in the North with 

 a pointed stick would certainly interest our matrons 

 here at home. Chloride of lime would help some, but 

 a good strong smell scares away the devils, so the Eskimos 

 say. I do not doubt it for an instant. It is fortunate 

 that such an effective weapon is such a common pos- 

 session. 



Arklio and Oo-bloo-ya, the looked-for husbands, ar- 

 rived with their dogs and sledges via the Greenland ice- 

 cap on September 13th. We immediately made prepara- 

 tions for an expedition to the head of the bay after 

 a boat-load of grass which should serve as a covering 

 for our winter homes against the bitter temperatures 

 which were sure to come within a few months. The 

 Eskimo igloo, covered with sod, then with dry grass, 

 skins, and, lastly, with that almost perfect insulator. 



