142 cruise OF THE NEPTUNE 
prolonged, result in death or disaster, more natives dying at this 
time than throughout the rest of the year. The annual journey 
is made in stages; the native remains in a suitable spot for 
killing seals until enough of these animals has been secured to 
meet the requirements of food for the family and dogs, for a few 
days; then everything is securely lashed on the long, narrow 
sleds, and the party, usually consisting of two or more families, 
travels slowly southward along the shore ice, a woman often 
walking ahead of the dogs to encourage them. The men wander 
about on the ice in search of seal-holes, and occasionally secure 
a seal while on the journey. In the evening a halt is made, and 
the men build a small snowhouse with blocks cut from a con- 
venient bank. These small houses, built only for the night, 
seldom exceed nine or ten feet in diameter, and it is only when 
a considerable stay is expected that larger houses are built. 
The Labrador Eskimos rarely live more than one family in a 
house, but on the west shore of Hudson bay and at Cumberland 
gulf two or more families often live together, either in con- 
nected houses or in a single large house. The largest single 
house, seen by the writer, at Cape Fullerton, was twenty-seven 
feet in diameter and twelve feet from the floor to the centre of 
the dome; it was inhabited by four families. This house was 
too large for the material, and the roof had to be supported by 
props shortly after being built; but several others, eighteen feet 
in diameter, showed no signs of such weakness. 
The Eskimo first tests the snow of the neighbouring banks by 
probing with his long snow-knife, often a twelve-inch butcher 
knife, and when he finds a bank formed by the drift of 
a single storm, he cuts an oblong hole about five feet long, two 
or three feet wide, and about twenty inches deep, with a clean 
face on one of the longer sides. He next cuts blocks from this 
face; these blocks are about five or six inches thick, from 
twenty-four to thirty inches long and twenty inches deep. A 
line the width of the block is first drawn on the surface, then 
