THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 437 



two sled loads of ethnological material, but it was not nearly so 

 good as it would have been had he been able to select and bargain 

 for separate articles instead of being compelled to take whatever 

 they brought him. 



Before this I had been eager to persuade the Eskimos in as large 

 numbers as possible to visit the ship, but it now appeared that if they 

 came in large numbers they might rob us of whatever they wanted, 

 as they had done with the Captain's party. It seemed that the only 

 thing to do now was to let them know that no Eskimo would be al- 

 lowed to come within a distance of one or two hundred yards of our 

 base camp. I told the Captain that I would pass this information on 

 to the natives and directed him to see to it that if Eskimos came in 

 any number they should not be allowed to enter the house or come 

 to close quarters with the crew. Men armed with rifles have a 

 great advantage over those armed with bows and arrows and knives 

 as long as there is a considerable distance between them, but at 

 close quarters the knives of the Eskimos would have been as effi- 

 cient weapons for them as revolvers in the hands of white men. 

 Revolvers, too, were scarce with us — there were probably two or 

 three altogether. 



The day after meeting the Captain's party we reached Illun's 

 camp at Ramsay Island. Four or five Eskimos had accompanied 

 the Captain from the village to Illun's place. They had been pleas- 

 ant while they were there and had said they would come back again 

 to visit Illun. The prospect of this visit was by no means pleasing 

 to him, for he had the same idea that I had, that having once found 

 that they could take things in a high-handed way and having, as 

 they thought, a grievance against us, there was no telling how far 

 they might go. 



After a day or two at Illun's place I sent Palaiyak and Emiu to 

 the Eskimo village to see if half a dozen men would not come over 

 and trade with us. My main purpose was to have a talk with them 

 under as favorable conditions as possible, so as to smooth things 

 over. I sent the explicit message that we would not deal with a 

 large party, and that I wanted no more of them to come than could 

 sleep in our house over-night. Palaiyak and Emiu were not very 

 enthusiastic about making this trip. We took the precaution to 

 have them carry nothing that would appear of great value to the 

 Eskimos, the message being that if they wanted such things they 

 would have to come to Ramsay Island to get them. 



The next day our messengers returned accompanied by an old 

 man, Allanak, and his grandson, Kuniluk. They did not come to 



