AND KAYAK 73 



Within half an hour we were in the thick of 

 the drift, and I found that running before a 

 storm is no more pleasant than facing it. 

 Johannes, who was sitting by me, pulled his 

 sealskin dicky over him, and shouted " Anan- 

 aulungitok-ai " (this is not nice), and I shouted 

 my " Ahaila " back at him with some little 

 apprehension ; I knew that it is something 

 out of the ordinary that makes an Eskimo 

 driver put on sealskins over his blanket and 

 calico, but the men always had a word of 

 explanation for me. " All right," shouted 

 Johannes, " very cold now : get to Nain soon," 

 and then he turned his back to the wind, and 

 sat drumming on the runners with his feet 

 to let the dogs think that the driver had his 

 eye on them. As a matter of fact the dogs 

 were out of sight ; I could hear no sound of 

 them above the roaring of the wind, and there 

 was nothing to be seen but the main hauling 

 trace quivering away into the drift and the 

 white floor slipping past. 



As long as daylight lasted I could under- 

 stand how the drivers found the way, because 

 all the flying snow seemed to be whipped up 

 from the floor, and in the occasional lulls of 

 the wind we caught sight of the cliffs and 

 mountains of the land. In fact, when the 

 sled rose up to cross a neck of land we gradually 



