CHAPTER V 



CHOOSING A HOME 



So it came about that in the days when those 

 mounds on the hillside slope were homes, and when 

 the old ruined houses were a heathen village, the 

 missionaries had come to Labrador. 



Seven years after their first landing at Nain they 

 found their way to that little bay ; they drew their 

 boat up that shingly beach ; they walked among the 

 huts of the village ; they talked to the people who 

 crowded, half in fear, about them. "We are your 

 friends," said Jens, "we are your friends." The 

 rough folk made the missionaries welcome ; they 

 haled them to their huts and fed them on their 

 choicest. Think of that feasting 1 Poor mission- 

 aries ! Imagine yourself sitting on the floor of a 

 badly lit and worse ventilated Eskimo turf-house, 

 eating the fishy-flavoured meat handed to you by 

 fingers innocent of washing excepting the dippings 

 in the sea at the hunting of seals ! But this was 

 Eskimo friendliness, and in the name of friendship 

 nay, rather, for the sake of the Master they 

 served those early missionaries would endure all 

 things, not alone the greater things of pain and hard- 

 ship and terrible climates, but the lesser things of 

 dirt and vermin and nauseous food. 



"All honour to the pioneers," say I ; "all honour 

 to the pioneers in whatsoever land ; they endured 



37 



