108 NEW LAND. 



Americans' " good-bye," which on a similar occasion he had proudly 

 shouted to us. 



' Kolotengva's return home, rich as Croesus, through the gifts 

 of the KaUunaks, in the shape of ammunition, knives, bear- 

 spears, bits of iron, a file, a plane, tin boxes, matches, and as a 

 present to his good lady coffee and soap, naturally gave the 

 impetus to several more Eskimo visits on board the " Fram." First 

 of all came three men, of whom one was badly clothed, very much 

 frost-bitten, and miserable in appearance. Two of them went on 

 to the "Windward," while the third, Erri, who gave himself out 

 to be an angekok, or sorcerer, remained with us. Afterwards a 

 whole caravan of seven people turned up, among whom was a 

 kind-looking old man, who, with expressive pantomime and lively 

 gestures, tried to describe a bear-hunt, in which nanok the 

 bear fell head forem ost into a lane, whilst he and miki the dogs 

 stood crestfallen on the edge of the ice. His wife was an ugly old 

 witch, a perfect termagant, whose jaws were never still. 



'We had yet 'another, a fourth, visit of Eskimo on board a 

 handsome, well-dressed man, in a new fox-skin coat and bear-skin 

 trousers, accompanied by his wife, a rosy-cheeked, thriving 

 woman, in her best years, with a bundle on her back. We 

 wondered what she had in it, and our curiosity was soon gratified. 

 It contained a little baby, whose dark eyes gazed wonderingly at 

 all the strange men, and who lay as cosily in her nest on her 

 mother's warm back as any white man's child in its cradle. 



' Happily this was the last Eskimo visit on board, for, truth to 

 tell, we began to be heartily sick of them all. They spread all 

 over the vessel a peculiar, rank odour of blubber and train-oil, with 

 indefinable additions. We tumbled over them wherever we went, 

 both in the cabins and in the 'tween decks; while their shock 

 heads of hair looked as if they might accommodate a legion of 

 animals, of which we stood in far greater fear than of either the 

 polar ox or the bear. 



'In addition to this, it was not impossible that their dogs 

 might bring with them contagious disease, and pass it on to ours, 

 a contingency which would cost us dear, and might be of fateful 

 importance to the expedition ; so it was with a feeling of relief 



