January, J 866.] Hatd mul Poor Fare. 211 



for butter. A favorite dish with both Hall and the Innuits was sea- 

 bread soaked in ice-water sweetened with molasses ; with this he often 

 treated his visitors. At times his storehouse was filled with meat, 

 and a season of feasting ensued; often, however, through failure in 

 recovering deposits, or through caprice in the Innuits, he was placed 

 on short rations. One extract from the record of January 21 will show 

 his condition at such times: 



I arise usually between seven and eight in the morning, and then smoke a 

 little, which for a time makes me feel less hungry. After a while I cut a few chips 

 from whatever little choice block of venison I may happen to liave, and eat the 

 same raw and hard frozen. As eating venison alone is dry work unless one has 

 tood-noo, I eat seal-blubber, which is old, of strong odor, and of strong-old-cheese 

 taste. About 4 ounces of venison and 1 ounce of blubber make my breakfast. Had 

 1 abundance of the former, I should eat nearer 4 pounds than 4 ounces, for it must 

 be remembered that it takes a great deal of the venison of this country to supply 

 one's appetite and necessities in the winter. In the neighborhood of noon (really 

 there is no particular time of one's taking his meals when living as the Innuits 

 do), I dine on what would be caUed old, stinking, nauseating whale-skin; but to a 

 hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet, and I, indeed, find it so. Some of the effects 

 on eating the first few times of this muTc-tuk (whale-skin) are severe griping i^aius 

 in the stomach and bowels, followed by copious diarrhea. Nearly every luuuit, 

 great and small, in the village, as well as myself, has suffered thus by eating this 

 whale-skin; there were seven patients on my hands one day last week suffering 

 with the above-named complaints. For my lunch, or supper, I pick out the fatty 

 substance of a whale-fin, and eat with it a little more of my toolc-too meat, about 

 the same amount as for breakfast, toj)ping off with delicate slices of raw whale- 

 beef, or of the aforesaid whale-skin, and go to bed hungry; but as soon as asli*ep 

 I dream of friends and better times coming. 



From the scarcity of fuel, little cooking could be done. But the 

 customs of the Innuits now required Too-koo-li-too in her peculiar 

 condition to eat nothing but cooked meat, and an additional drain was 

 made upon their small store of fuel in drying skins for their clothing. 

 The seal-oil, which had been so industriously collected, had suffered 



