FROM FLAXMAN ISLAND TO ICY CAPE 359 



but very slow was our progress towards the house. The sledge 

 was very hard to pull over the pebbles, and when we had 

 stopped three times in five minutes to recover our breath, I 

 unharnessed the dogs and started for the house to get assistance. 

 The natives went out at once, and shortly afterwards my sledge 

 and everything belonging to it was brought into camp. After 

 the hard day's work it was a glorious feeling to rest, to stretch 

 my legs and remove my outer garments. I was waiting for 

 my food to be cooked, but before it came I was in " dreamland," 

 where everything I had gone through during the day kept on 

 repeating itself, until a woman woke me up with the welcome 

 news that a meal, consisting of flapjacks, molasses, and bacon 

 with crackers and tea, was ready for me. 



It is always the custom in Eskimo houses, when a white man 

 has come into camp and eats of his own food, for him to give 

 the owners what is left of his meal, and they consequently cook 

 an immense amount of food if the traveller does not himself 

 take care to prevent them. In this case I had been asleep, 

 and the woman had profited by my sleep to make twenty-seven 

 flapjacks, fry about six pounds of bacon, and make a barrel of tea. 

 It was telling hard on my food, but I was too tired to protest. 



They told me that the ice was very rough from their house 

 to Icy Cape, that I should never be able to reach it alone, and 

 that I had better take one of their sons with me. I did not 

 want a repetition of the toil of the day before, so I consented, 

 although I had to pay the boy handsomely. They were rather 

 strange people I had fallen among. For one thing, they were 

 highly religious, in theory, and prayed for blessings on every- 

 thing on their water and their pots before they commenced 

 cooking ; they said grace for me, and afterwards for themselves. 

 Then they probably thought that they had done their duty 

 towards God, and commenced gambling. Everything was 

 staked: clothing, food, and dogs, and comparatively big stakes 

 changed hands in this curious household. Next morning they 

 begged hard of me, and as I was not inclined to give them any- 

 thing, they stole whenever my back was turned. Then they 

 fed their dogs out of my scanty food supply of course without 

 my knowing it and upon the whole they were by far the most 

 villainous natives I had ever met. 



But it was true that the ice was rough from their house to 



