210 OUR HUMBLE HELPERS 



casks ; that a glass of water thrown into the air falls 

 in flakes of snow; that the breath from the lungs 

 crystallizes at the opening of the nostrils into needles 

 of rime ; and that the beard, stuck to the clothing by 

 a coating of ice, cannot be detached except with 

 scissors. For whole months at a time the sun is 

 not once seen above the horizon and there is no dif- 

 ference between day and night; or rather, a per- 

 manent night reigns, the same at midday as at mid- 

 night. However, when the weather is clear, the 

 darkness is not complete : the light of the moon and 

 stars, augmented by the whiteness of the snow, pro- 

 duces a sort of wan twilight, sufficient for seeing. 



4 * Squat and under-sized, the inhabitant of these 

 rigorous climes, the Eskimo, divides his time be- 

 tween hunting and fishing. The first furnishes him 

 with skins for garments, the second with food. 

 Dried fish, stored up in a half -rotten condition, and 

 rancid whale-oil, viands repugnant to us, are the 

 dainties familiar to his famished stomach. He de- 

 pends also on his fishing for fuel to feed his lamp, 

 this fuel being the fat of the seal, and for materials 

 with which to make his sled, which is fashioned out 

 of large fishbones. Wood, in short, is unknown 

 there, no tree, however hardy, being able to with- 

 stand the rigors of winter. Willows and birches, 

 dwarfed to the size of mere shrubs trailing on the 

 ground, alone venture to the northern extremities of 

 Lapland, where the growing of barley, the hardiest 

 of cultivated plants, ceases. Nearer the Pole all 

 woody vegetation ceases, and in summer only a few 



