NORTH POLE OF THE WINDS 



outlet of Taserssuak. We had not altogether 

 escaped without accident and before setting out 

 the next morning it was necessary to mend a leak 

 where the umiak had been on the rocks. 



After our supper our Eskimos got out their 

 Bibles and Lutheran hymn books and lying curled 

 up together in their minute tent, their voices 

 blended musically in simple and familiar hymns, 

 which as children we had learned but now for the 

 first time heard sung in the Eskimo language. 

 In their Lutheran Church schools the south Green- 

 land Eskimos learn to write the Eskimo language 

 with its curious characters. Abraham's son Nathan- 

 iel, who was one of our party, kept the diary. These 

 younger Eskimos were as anxious to learn English 

 as Gould and Belknap were to learn Eskimo. So 

 after supper squatting on the ground one of our 

 men would point to some object, such as a knife, 

 and say "Greenland", meaning, "What is the 

 Eskimo word for it?" The Eskimo word is pro- 

 nounced and recorded phonetically in the notebook. 

 Nathaniel then points to the same objects and says, 

 "America", and Gould and Belknap at once give 

 him the word "knife". This they set down as it 

 sounds in their own Eskimo characters. Then the 

 stadia rod is brought out and the figures upon it 

 are used for learning the simple numbers by the 



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