ESKIMOS 149 



When an Eskimo leaves a snow-house, his household goods 

 are removed by breaking a hole in the side of the wall. They 

 are then loaded on the sled, and retained by cross-lashings of 

 sealskin passed from side to side, where they are secured in the 

 niches of the cross-bars. 



When the ice has frozen several miles out from the shore 

 many of the seals remain in the shallow waters of the bays and 

 sounds. In order to do this they are compelled to keep holes 

 open so that they may breathe from time to time. They form 

 these holes either by enlarging natural cracks or, when such do 

 not occur, by scraping with their front flippers a conical hole 

 big enough to admit their body and with a few inches to spare 

 at the surface. As the time approaches to bring forth her 

 young, the female enlarges a hole, usually in rough ice where 

 the snow is deeply drifted, and there clears away the snow about 

 the hole, forming a flat-domed house sufficiently large to accom- 

 modate herself and her young. The pups are born in March and 

 April. A seal does not necessarily confine itself to one or more 

 breathing holes of its own, but uses those of other seals, so that 

 the chances of killing a seal at any particular hole varies. The 

 Eskimo now forsakes the edge of the floe and hunts his seals 

 at these holes. In order to find the holes he employs his keenest 

 scented dog, harnessed, who soon smells a hole and rushes to it 

 dragging his master with him. If the hole appears well fre- 

 quented, and the Eskimo is anxious to obtain a seal, he takes 

 the dog some distance away and ties him securely by his trace 

 to the ice. He then returns to the hole, and clears the snow 

 from about its opening, replacing it with a fresh thin slab, on 

 which the centre of the hole is plainly marked. If he intends 

 to remain until a seal comes, he often erects a low wall of snow 

 to windward, and sometimes places a block close to the hole as 

 a seat. A piece of deer or bear skin is put down to stand on ; he 

 then ties a thong around his legs at the knees so that they may 

 make no noise by striking together when shivering with the 



