52 CONQUERING THE ARCTIC ICE 



after we had anchored off the houses, and were rather surprised 

 to see so many white men. There were about ten of them 

 living with Eskimo women ; they had rather large families 

 pretty and intelligent-looking children. Most of the places 

 looked prosperous, but the inhabitants asserted that business 

 was slack and that they had only caught six small whales during 

 the last spring. 



As we did not wish to go too far away from our boat, we did 

 not visit the Eskimo village further out towards the point, nor 

 Dr. Driggs, the missionary, but stayed in " Jabbertown," the 

 place where almost all the white whalers lived. The name 

 of the place, by the way, seemed very appropriate to us, as 

 their chief subject of conversation was the doings and sayings 

 of their neighbours. We passed most of our time with a young 

 American, Jim Allen, who did us good service, especially in 

 pointing out some good dogs. He made us a present of a 

 pup, but that pup brought an illness, something very like 

 hydrophobia, among our dogs, of which many of them died 

 later on. 



An old German had collected and salted down numerous 

 eggs taken on an auk's rookery at Cape Lisburne. They tasted 

 very nice, and we bought as many as we could possibly use. 



As the wind abated a little on July 26, we tried to go, but as 

 soon as we came outside the shelter of the sand-spit the sea was 

 so heavy that we could do absolutely nothing, and had to return 

 to Cape Thompson to take in water supplies. 



We had to be very careful while running along the shore 

 from Point Hope to Cape Thompson, as the wind came down 

 the gullies in violent squalls. We had barely time to see them 

 coming on the water before they were over us with so great a 

 force as almost to throw the schooner on her beam ends. 

 Sometimes we would get into a head-wind, and get the wind 

 from all points of the compass in the course of a few minutes. 

 We anchored outside a small river, close to the Revenue Cutter 

 Thetis, and immediately sent our boats ashore for water. 



The Thetis was also taking in water, and steamed up to the 

 village when the work was done. When, later on in the day, 

 we had managed to beat back against the wind, we anchored 

 alongside of her, and while Mr. Leffingwell went ashore I went 

 over to the Thetis to talk things over with Captain Hamlet. We 



