AND KAYAK 25 



that the meaning has not dropped out of it as 

 it has out of some greetings. 



&quot; Aksuse,&quot; shouted the steersman ; &quot; be 

 strong put your hearts into it do your 

 best,&quot; and the oarsmen obeyed with a will. 

 What more noble greeting could you imagine 

 than this old Eskimo password, the people s 

 greeting through all time ? 



&quot; Aksuse,&quot; shouted the folk as we walked 

 along the jetty, and we could not but feel 

 heartened for our task by the very sincerity 

 of the welcome. One man thought to go one 

 better ; he had a trifle of English to air : he 

 touched my wife s arm, and held out his hand. 

 &quot; Good evening, sir,&quot; he said ! 



And this in the middle of the morning : 



I was very much interested in the great 

 corner-stones of the foundations for the new 

 hospital ; they were so ponderous that I 

 wondered however they had been raised into 

 place, for in a land like Labrador there are no 

 great cranes and engines such as we see in 

 England. I asked the missionary about those 

 stones, because the building had been his work. 



He looked at me with a smile : &quot; We just 

 pulled all together,&quot; he said. Then he went 

 on to explain how they had made a tripod of 

 tree-stems, slung a pulley from the top, passed 

 a thick rope over the pulley and tied it to the 



