

i 



XIX 



ON THE SMITH SOUND ICE 



SOME ten miles west of our musk-ox camp we 

 came to a high mountain. Here a halt was 

 made to permit Eiseeyou to climb to the sum- 

 mit to view the country beyond through my glasses. 

 Upon his return he reported that we were not far 

 from the place where the western coast of Ellesmere 

 Land drops down into the Frozen Ocean. 



Eiseeyou could see no game, and in his judgment 

 there was little prospect of finding musk-oxen in 

 this vicinity, though he assured me that a journey of 

 four "sleeps" to the northwest would carry us into 

 a region where we should certainly find game in 

 abundance. 



Four "sleeps" indicated nothing. It might have 

 meant two hundred miles, or it might have meant 

 fifty miles. The Eskimo has no conception of dis- 

 tance. He is endowed with certain artistic instincts 

 which enable him to draw a fairly accurate map of a 

 coast line with which he is thoroughly familiar, but 

 he cannot tell you, even approximately, how far it 

 is from one point to another. Often when they told 

 me a place we were bound for was very close at hand, 

 it developed that we were far from it. This is some- 



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