148 STRUCTURE OF THE HARNESS. 



a short handle ; with a circle of thick rope to throw over the run- 

 ners and impede the progress of the sled in case of accident or sud- 

 den desire to stop, and which is called a drag ; and a long stick 

 with which to pound and sound the surface of the ice to see if it 

 be safe to cross in doubtful places, the team is ready to start. 



One would think that such narrow bands as these of which the har- 

 nesses are made would be easily broken ; but though the width is sel- 

 dom three-eighths of an inch, the sealskin, of which they are made, 

 is so tough, stout, and unyielding, that they will wear rather than 

 break apart. A trace, as it is called, is often seventy or more feet 

 long ; and when you consider that a large muscular dog is either 

 dashing forward in short, quiet leaps, or straining his utmost to 

 draw a komatik on which a load of eight hundred pounds and over is 

 often fastened (three barrels of flour and other things being often 

 taken at a load), you can judge somewhat of the strength of these 

 thongs. If the going is bad the strain is in all probability more than 

 doubled. I have said before that the thong wears rather than 

 breaks, and when it does give way it is more often by the weak- 

 ness of some closely thinned place or the rotting of some portion 

 of the trace than by any other means. Sealskin thong is used every- 

 where for rope, when it can be procured, for tying or binding. No 

 wonder that the old legends, which till now I had regarded as such 

 in reality, were more than true, when Indians bound their captives 

 to trees quickly with deerskin bands (for deerskin is nearly as tough 

 as sealskin, though it perhaps gives more easily), which it was 

 impossible for them to break. The quickest and easiest to make, 

 yet surest tie is called a double half-hitch ; the rope is doubled 

 over itself in two loops with both ends projecting from the inner 

 side of the loop. It is made in about three seconds, and the more 

 one tries to stretch it the tighter it becomes, especially if the cut 

 ends are fastened to some object behind or even to themselves. 

 But the dogs (these wretched half-breed of Esquimaux and wolf 

 perhaps, that spend the greater part of their time in fighting each- 

 other, to whom play is fight and fight death, and I do not exag- 

 gerate these brutal furies) have started, and the footmen follow. 



