CHAPTER XIV. 



Hall's Eskimo Friends : — Ebierbing (Joe) and Too-koo-li-too (Hannah) — Their Children- 

 Joe's Cousins — The Inscriptions in the Cemetery at Groton, Connecticut. 



At the close of this Narrative, it may be conceded as something due 

 in simple justice to the two Eskimos who have been so frequently named 

 within the previous pages, that a few items of their personal history be 

 recorded. Through all the trials of Hall's three expeditions — a period 

 of more than ten years — they were not only his steadfast friends, but 

 indispensable supporters without whom he could never have carried 

 forward his investigations, or have kept, in some emergencies, even his 

 life among the Innuits. Joe Ebierbing was, as has frequently appeared 

 ill the Narrative, Hall's dependence as hunter. On repeated occasions, 

 by his native skill in the use of the lance and line and by his readily 

 learned use of the rifle, he procured food in the darkest days of want, 

 not for Hall alone, but often for the less skillful and suffering Innuits 

 around him : — materially aiding Hall by this beyond the bare support 

 of the lives saved, and gaining for the expedition lasting good-will and 

 help. Hannah was perhaps the more intelligent and, as a woman, 

 naturally of quicker perception in the things of every-day life which 

 would serve the necessities of the white man among strangers. She 

 proved an interpreter without whom every effort to understand the 

 natives of Cumberland Gulf, of Repulse Bay, of Ig-loo-lik, of Pelly 

 Bay, or of the country on the route to King William's Land, w^ould 

 have been hopeless — every one of Hall's journeys and talks with the 

 Innuits nearly useless. 



441 



