390 FOUR YEARS IN THE WHITE NORTH 



times we repeated this, until, the fourth morning. Jot 

 declared that he had cooked me scrambled eggs long 

 enough, and if I came back again I should have to 

 start without them the next time. He averred that our 

 stock of eggs was not inexhaustible, and, besides, if I 

 ate a few more eggs I should be so heavy that the dogs 

 could not pull my sledge. I could risk no such event- 

 uality, and on the fourth morning I got off without 

 having to turn back. 



We sledged over the Cape Alexander glacier to Nerkre, 

 where we stopped to sleep. Our march had seemed very 

 short to me, for we had been a merry company; our dogs 

 were fresh and strong, the going was good, and the ex- 

 perience novel, to me at least. Though not even a 

 flush of light appeared on the southern horizon at noon- 

 day, the starlight reflected from the frost-flowers on the 

 new-frozen ice gave us light enough to travel by. WTiile 

 crossing Smith Sound I had already ridden over thin, 

 rubbery ice that bent under the sledges, so I was not 

 alarmed when, south of Cape Alexander, we traversed 

 several miles over ice so springy that it sank beneath 

 the weight of the foot. 



At Nerkre we were warmly welcomed by the whole 

 population of perhaps thirty people. I elected to stay in 

 Inighito's big igloo, for Mac, who had been in the vil- 

 lage before, had told me that Tookey, Inighito's wife, 

 kept it spik-and-span clean. 



And so I found it; as a matter of fact, many igloos 

 are very clean; to quote Knud Rasmussen, "dirt and 

 cleanliness are only relative, anyway." Of course, 

 there are slovens among the Eskimo women as well as 

 among those of other peoples, but as a rule the people 

 are cleanly, when one considers that water is difficult 



