38 AN ESKIMO VILLAGE 



hardness as good soldiers ; they suffered things that 

 we know not of." 



So the missionaries made friends with the 

 Eskimos, and knew that their labour would not be 

 in vain. 



Followed by a gaping crowd they wandered 

 among the huts, seeking for a place on which to 

 build their dwelling-house and some day their 

 church. Four things they looked for ; four things 

 they had been taught to look for by the counsel of 

 seafarers and the wise thought of Mission Board. 



First, a safe anchorage for the ship. 



They went in faith, those early pioneers, but in 

 their hearts they hoped that a ship would be found 

 each year to come and bring them news from home 

 and some supply of food. They would do their best 

 to live as the Eskimos lived ; they would learn to eat 

 seal's flesh and whale and dried fish ; they would 

 hunt for their own larder, and so save buying ; they 

 would read and live by the light of seal-oil lamps ; 

 they would make their own furniture ; they would 

 trust for warmth to a little iron stove, burning such 

 drift-wood and branches as they could gather. Even 

 to-day you may catch glimpses of the thrifty ways 

 of the pioneers. The first night that I slept ashore 

 in Labrador I had in my bedroom the guest-room 

 in a mission-house a wooden bedstead, a wooden 

 washstand, and a wooden chair with a leathern seat 

 home-made and solid, all of them. 



I turned the chair upside down out of curiosity, 

 and on the framework I found carved the letter 

 " K " and the date " 1804." So I knew that the 



