180 THE GERMAN ARCTIC EXPEDITrON. 



pipe seldom went out. His young wife came from one 

 of the West Indian islands ; slie was sent to him by the 

 mission. Mr. Gericke, a man of about fifty, had a 

 European wife who was born in Greenland, and had been 

 brought up at Gnadau, near Magdeburg. Their marriage 

 is blessed with three children, from two to six years old. 

 Not long did we have to wait for the women of the house. 

 A white cloth flew over the table ; a heaped-up dish of 

 rusks had the place of honour, and near it appeared 

 some beautiful shining butter. Then the amiable house- 

 wives brought in a mighty can of coffee. And for us — 

 we set to work upon the good things of this Hfe with an 

 appetite which defies all description. We sat, talked, 

 drank and eat. To our no little dismay, the contents of 

 the dish of rusks had disappeared in an indecorously 

 short space of time. We looked at one another with 

 signs of astonishment, when lo ! another stood before us. 

 Captain Hegemann could not help saying something 

 regarding modesty, and so on. But our hosts would not 

 hear of it ; on the contrary, begged us to set to work 

 again, which friendly invitation a still unfortunate grum- 

 bling in the stomach made us willingly follow. With 

 some apology, the contents of the second dish disap- 

 peared. How the good people rejoiced over our blessed 

 appetites ! I thought it would frighten them to think 

 how much fourteen famished stomachs could contain ! 

 But not we alone, the men, too, sat in the church-room 

 at a cheerful meal, and the Schonroggen (ship's biscuits 

 made of sifted rye-flour) disappeared there no less 

 quickly. The good, good missionaries ! What they 

 possessed they brought out to help us. They offered us 

 hnen and clothes, but we had enough of them ; what 



