CHAPTER VIII 



GETTING RECRUITS 



WHEN on August 1 the Roosevelt steamed out 

 from Cape York, she had on board sev- 

 eral Eskimo families which we had picked 

 up there and at Salvo Island. We also had about one 

 hundred dogs, bought from the Eskimos. When I 

 say "bought," I do not mean paid for with money, 

 as these people have no money and no unit of value. 

 All exchange between them is based on the principle 

 of pure barter. For instance, if one Eskimo has a 

 deerskin which he does not need, and another has 

 something else, they exchange. The Eskimos had 

 dogs which we wanted, and we had many things which 

 they wanted, such as lumber, knives and other cut- 

 lery, cooking utensils, ammunition, matches, et cet- 

 era. So, as the Yankees say, we traded. 



Steaming in a northwesterly course from Cape 

 York, we passed the "Crimson Cliffs," so named by 

 Sir John Ross, the English explorer, in 1818. This 

 vivid name was applied to the cliffs by reason of the 

 quantities of "red snow" which can be seen from a 

 ship miles out at sea. The color is given to the per- 

 manent snow by the Protococcus nivalis, one of the 

 lowest types of the single, living protoplasmic cell. The 

 nearly transparent gelatinous masses vary from a 

 quarter inch in diameter to the size of a pin-head, and 



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