AN ESKIMO HOUSEHOLD 55 



and at considerable personal risk succeeded in 

 bringing us a rope. It was a courageous act per- 

 formed with apparent ease and with admirable 

 coolness and skill. The catechist, Jacob Olsen, 

 afterwards accompanied Knud Rasmussen as a 

 member of the Fifth Thule Expedition. 



As contrary winds prevented our return to 

 Godhavn under sail, we despatched two kayakers 

 as soon as the storm abated with a letter to the 

 Arctic Station, a distance of seventy miles, and 

 waited for the arrival of a relief boat to take us in 

 tow. Two nights were spent in the house of the 

 native Manager of the Settlement, Ludwig Geisler 

 (Fig. 23), an exceptionally intelligent man skilled 

 in hunting and in all the arts that a Greenlander 

 practises: he is seen in the photograph with his 

 family. In the room adjoining ours the whole 

 family slept on the raised platform which takes the 

 place of beds: the almost incessant coughing of 

 the young baby served to emphasise the draw- 

 backs of the persistent and unhygienic custom of 

 members of Eskimo households sleeping together. 

 We were well entertained by our host, who knew 

 a few words of English picked up by intercourse 

 with whalers. The drinking-water, as in many other 

 Settlements, was obtained by melting blocks of ice, 

 pieces of icebergs washed ashore, and stored in a 

 large tub which gave it a slight flavour of seal oil. 

 As it was our intention to make an early start in 

 the morning our host wound up an alarum clock 

 which we afterwards discovered was a most 

 effective instrument and a refinement of civilisa- 



