90 THE LIFE OF E. J. PECK 



due to favourable impressions that had been made 

 upon the minds of the natives by the visits of former 

 missionaries and Bishop Horden, as well as to the 

 example and influence of some of the European 

 traders. In this respect Mr. Peck's work began under 

 very favourable auspices when compared with that 

 of Hans Egede and the Moravians of the eighteenth 

 century among the Eskimos of Greenland. 



But the sojourn of a new white man at the trading 

 settlement called forth much comment from among 

 the Eskimos, and especially among those who were 

 constantly coming in for barter. They knew the 

 Company's agents as men who had goods for 

 exchange. But here was another most extraordinary 

 agent who had no merchandise for traffic, but merely 

 a wondrous message from which self-interest seemed 

 to be entirely absent. " Ho ! come, buy without 

 money and without price ! " 



Many were the surmises made by these heathen 

 as to the origin of so strange a being. Where had he 

 come from ? Why had he come ? etc. 



" Once, when speaking to a party of these people," 

 Mr. Peck says, " I overheard a few of the newest- 

 comers asking some of those who had first arrived 

 where I came from. 



" One of the questioned, in the most sincere and 

 simple manner, replied : ' He fell down from heaven 

 to save the Eskimos.' 



" Many of them, when I entered their dwellings, 



