FROM ICY CAPE BACK TO CIVILIZATION 373 



left, and we had to go inland behind the mountains. Twice 

 again the sledge broke down, and when we reached Joe Tucker's 

 house on the north side of the sand-spit of Point Hope it had 

 been dark for two hours. The meal which " Little Joe" pre- 

 pared for us even now seems to me one of the most delicious 

 banquets I ever sat down to, and I ate and ate till I could not 

 eat another morsel, then had a smoke, and after that we were on 

 the trail again, bound for Jim Allen's house. We arrived there 

 at 10.15 p - M -> an d Mr. Mclntoch, the school teacher, was just 

 saying good-bye. For half an hour we " spoke trail," then we 

 turned in, I enjoying the thought that I should not have to 

 wake up in the morning, just swallow a meal, and then be off 

 again on the trail. 



The next day I went down to Dr. Driggs, M.D., a physician, who 

 is at the same time a missionary and school teacher. Dr. Driggs, 

 who had been at the same place for nineteen years, had only 

 been out of it twice on a holiday, and one cannot but admire 

 a man who goes into a country of this kind, and for the sake 

 of the natives, for the sake of the religion he believes in, 

 changes a life of comparative ease for one of the hardest 

 drudgery. 



But his work had brought its own reward ; he is beloved 

 in the village, and the young men and women look upon him 

 as a father, wiser and better than their own a father who is 

 willing to help and guide, and who does all he can to make 

 the people for whom he has sacrificed his life a useful and 

 self-dependent race. They, like the natives at Point Barrow, 

 are to a great extent working for themselves, or for each other, 

 and the white men, who have whaling stations there, have often 

 great difficulties in getting crews for their boats. 



There is a large native colony at Point Hope, but here, 

 as everywhere, they are rapidly decreasing ; sicknesses and 

 epidemics, from which we are more or less immune, are the 

 death of many a native, and all along my marching line I saw 

 ruined houses and depopulated villages, a silent reproach to the 

 white man, who came to the country bringing diseases in his 

 wake. Now there are hardly three hundred natives living at 

 Point Hope, where before there were twice as many, and that 

 though Eskimos from all parts of the coast have congregated 

 round the two centres, Point Barrow and Point Hope. 



