THE MISSIONS 231 



doctor. It was a new experience to see an Eskimo trying 

 to accommodate himself to a bed. The warmth of the ward 

 was objectionable. The additional heat of bedclothes was 

 intolerable. Washed to a fine nut-brown, with their jet- 

 black hair and large, dark eyes, they formed a most pleas- 

 ing contrast to the white sheets on which they lay when 

 we paid our first morning visit. Covering of any kind they 

 had long disposed of, and even then they were perspiring 

 and panting. Nature seems to have taught them what 

 civilization has made us forget, the value of fresh air. 



In a terribly fatal epidemic of typhoid fever in 1896, 1 had 

 tried to persuade some of my patients to remain in their 

 tents when very feverish. In one case I had endeavoured 

 to enforce my ruling by removing the patient's garments. 

 Such a trifling " impediment" had not daunted him. Why 

 stay under cover when you are hot ? Next morning when 

 I returned, I found him stark-naked, huddled up in the 

 cold, waiting for the doctor and the ravished clothes. He 

 eventually recovered, in spite of me. 



Nain, the fifth station, is ninety miles farther south, and 

 accessible by mail steamer. It is a perfect harbour, en- 

 tirely shut in from the sea by countless islands, great and 

 small. Its beautiful bay runs inland over forty miles, 

 and one can travel by steamer for a hundred miles south 

 without once going into the open ocean. Nain is at once 

 the head station of the Brethren, the seat of the Bishop, 

 who is also a German consul, and is of the oldest standing. 

 The well-tended vegetable patches, the tidy paths through 

 the woods so long preserved, and now so lonely looking 

 against the otherwise absolutely naked ground, the prim 

 flower-gardens, and the orthodox tea-houses (with more 



