AND KAYAK 197 



her head, and her little beady brown eyes all 

 aglow with the excitement of seeing a visitor, 

 and from her neat white apron and the 

 business-like way in which she trots about 

 in her soft sealskin boots you would judge, 

 and rightly, too, that she is the Eskimo 

 nurse. 



In the summer the windows are wide open, 

 with wire gauze to keep the gnats away ; and 

 through those open windows you can hear the 

 sounds of the village, and the rustle of the 

 tides upon the pebbly beach, and the babbling 

 of 'the brook that runs close by. The brook 

 looks harmless enough ; too small to harbour 

 even the smallest of fishes, and so quiet and 

 sedate in its course that the Eskimo women 

 come and do their family washing in the pools. 

 They have a queer way of doing it : they soap 

 the clothes well, then drop them in the water 

 and trample on them ; and if you looked out 

 of the window you might see two or three of 

 them standing in the pool where the brook 

 widens just outside the hospital railings, stand- 

 ing with their soft sealskin boots upon their 

 feet, and tramp, tramp, tramping on the week's 

 washing as though they were doing a slow sort 

 of Eskimo jig. And as they tramp they chatter 

 and laugh. This is the quiet little Okak brook 

 in the summer-time, tumbling and trickling 



