BEARING BURDENS 273 



greeting and welcome awaited him from Mr. C. G. 

 Sampson, whose coming, as recorded in the last 

 chapter, had enabled the senior missionary to go 

 home the year before. 



The report Mr. Sampson was able to give of the 

 work of the past year was most encouraging, and 

 he himself had made such progress in the language 

 that he had been able to conduct meetings and teach 

 the people regularly. 



When Mr. Peck and Mr. Parker first went to 

 Blacklead Island, a two-roomed hut, as was men- 

 tioned in a previous chapter, had been assigned 

 them as a dwelling-place. Now a more commodious 

 dwelling had been brought out, and the first work 

 was to find a site for it and fit it together. To 

 find a site among the rough rocks was no easy task, 

 and the erection of the building in the absence of 

 all skilled labour occupied the two missionaries 

 many days, aided as they were by Eskimos only. 



They were at this time working daily, in various 

 ways, seventeen hours out of twenty-four a fairly 

 high pressure. 



But when their nice new building was ready it 

 was devoted to another purpose. It had been 

 Mr. Peck's intention to move into the new abode 

 and then adapt the old house for Church purposes. 

 But there were so many Eskimos at this time on 

 the island that " we have decided to use the building 

 which was intended for our dwelling-house for a 



