FUETHEB STAT IN FETEDRTCHSTHAL. 189 



fair Greenlanders displayed the same naive coyness and 

 affectation as our lovely ones at home. What a tittering 

 and whispering, what turning and twisting ! At last they 

 all stood on the page ; even the honoured fifty-year old 

 Miss Sybilla had, with much bashfulness, entered her name. 

 When we went away they thanked us for our visit. 



But a curiosity was still to be seen this morning in the 

 shape of a Greenland cellar or storehouse. The respected 

 reader must not think of a similar locality in our country. 

 The Greenlanders are contented in this respect with an 

 excavation in the overhanging rock, which they build up 

 with a stone wall like a swallow's nest. In this, without 

 any choice, is heaped all that is good for winter use — dried 

 fish, seal-bacon, and meat — until the place is full, when 

 the last hole is blocked up with a stone. Such cellars 

 the Greenlanders like to have away from their houses. 

 Accustomed to live from hand to mouth, they are no 

 friends to saving. They eat as long as there is anything 

 there, or they see anything. When, however, the cellar 

 with its store is not near them, and cannot provoke their 

 appetite, then, in the long winter-time, when there would 

 often be poor fare, they have something to fall back upon. 

 It never enters their heads to injure the possessions 

 of another ; so they need never fear that their neighbour 

 will empty their cellar. The missionaries praised their 

 converts particularly for their honesty, and assured 

 us that nothing but the bitterest hunger would occa- 

 sionally tempt any of them to take anything eatable from 

 their neighbour. 



Even in this respect we had nothing to complain of 

 but something more I can say to the honour of the good 

 Greenlanders. There was scarcely one who could not 



