98 THE NORTH POLE 



was considerable sewing to be done. Old garments 

 had to be overhauled and mended, and new ones 

 made. 



The worst of the ice fighting did not begin immedi- 

 ately, and the new members of the expedition, Mac- 

 Millan, Borup, and Dr. Goodsell, were at first much 

 interested in watching the Eskimo women at their 

 sewing. They sit on anything that is convenient, a 

 chair, a platform, or the floor. In their own quarters 

 they remove their footgear, put up one foot, and hold 

 one end of the fabric between their toes, sewing a 

 seam over and over from them, instead of toward 

 them, as our women do. The foot of an Eskimo 

 woman is a sort of third hand, and the work is gripped 

 between the great toe and the second toe. 



The Eskimo women have great confidence in their 

 own skill at garment-making, and they take sugges- 

 tions from the inexperienced white men with a good- 

 natured and superior tolerance. When one of the 

 northern belles was shaping a garment for Bartlett 

 to wear on the spring sledge journey, he anxiously 

 urged her to give him plenty of room. Her reply 

 was a mixed Eskimo and English equivalent for: 



"You just trust me, Captain! When you get out 

 on the road to the Nor Pol, you'll need a draw-string 

 in your jacket, and not gussets." She had seen me 

 and my men come back from previous sledge jour- 

 neys, and she knew the effect of long continued fatigue 

 and scanty rations in making a man's clothes fit him 

 loosely. 



The Eskimos had the run of the ship, but the port 

 side of the forward deck house was given to them 



