FROM FLAXMAN ISLAND TO ICY CAPE 353 



daily teaches about sixty natives, and many of them can read 

 a story and write a very intelligent summary of it. 



Besides reading and writing they are all taught mathematics 

 and religion. The girls furthermore are instructed in needle- 

 work, while some of the best of the pupils are taken in hand 

 by the wives of the missionaries and school teachers and taught 

 the household duties of a white woman, as well as how to cook 

 and prepare food. All in all, the Eskimos are fairly well taught 

 by now. Only it is a pity that they should have begun so late 

 and that their first acquaintance with white men should have 

 been made through the unscrupulous whalers. 



However, I had to start for the south ; my clothes were 

 repaired, and the tent cover which Mrs Brower had made for 

 me was ready. Mr. Brower had bought me the dogs I wanted, 

 so that I now had a good team ; he had likewise given me food 

 to make up for what the whalers had stolen, and in every 

 respect he had done much for my comfort on the trail. I could 

 get no one to travel with me, and had already made up my mind 

 to go alone, when, the day before I intended to start, a native 

 came from a place further down the coast. He was going back 

 on the following day, or rather such were his intentions, but my 

 friend met a woman, an old widow with several children, and 

 she made him change his mind. She had long been a public 

 charge at Point Barrow, where she and her children had been 

 fed and clothed by the white men, and consequently they 

 looked with interest at the opening courtship of the two. I also 

 was interested, but for another reason, for what I had heard 

 made me fairly confident that my companion would not be 

 induced to go at once. I sent word, and he came up to the 

 station a happy bridegroom ! The two had been married by 

 Mr. Spriggs, and now they insisted on having a honeymoon only 

 of one day and night. I could do nothing, so I agreed to wait, 

 and the native solemnly promised to come on the following 

 morning. But a kind Providence extended his honeymoon; a 

 gale sprang up during the night, which kept us there until the 

 i5th of November, when I finally took my leave of the white 

 men at the station, whom I was glad to have met and who had 

 been very kind to me. 



Mr. Brower promised to fit out Axel so that he could reach 

 Cape Halkett, where we had cached food for his return trip, 



A.I. A A 



