JOUIJNEY ALONG THE COAST OP GREENLAND. 170 



numerous family. Some rooms, such as tlie dining-room 

 and the kitchen, are used jointly by the missionaries. The 

 room in which we first were, was the sitting-room of Mr. 

 Gericke, the superintendent of the community. It was 

 plainly furnished ; a sofa with cushions, a table, and 

 some stuffed chairs, formed the whole of the furniture. 

 The walls were decorated with photographs of missio- 

 naries. Homely and comfortable the room looked to us, 

 however ! It was painted with oil paint, and all looked 

 clean and orderly. The long dispensed-with European 

 cleanliness, and the feeling that y^e were once more in 

 a circle where a German matron could exercise her 

 beneficient activity, acted like a charm upon us. Even 

 in Greenland, amongst everlasting ice, the German wife, 

 we now found, had managed to provide a souvenir of her 

 own country. Some flowers in the windows supplied 

 a necessity which the coldness of the climate refused 

 outside ; for the garden before the house, the surface of 

 which, as well as that before the Esquimaux dwell- 

 ings and other favourable spots, had been ploughed, 

 looked sad and dreary enough. Turnips, which alone 

 thrive here, scarcely showed their first green. Entering 

 the house, after crossing a stone hall, we reached the 

 sitting-room of Mr. Gericke, which lay to the left. To 

 the right lay Mr. Starick's room. Another door led to 

 the kitchen. 



Soon we sat in Mr. Gericke' s room at table, giving an 

 account of our experiences, to the great astonishment of 

 our hearers. Mr. Starick is a big, thin man, in his 

 thirtieth year, a Lusatian, dressed partly in Greenland 

 fashion (seal stockings and shoes). He is very talkative, 

 though throughout the friendly conversation, his long 



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