AN ESKIMO VILLAGE 



CHAPTER I 



THE BROOK 



From the window of the room where the first jot- 

 tings for this book were written I could see the 

 Eskimo women doing their laundry. And the Eskimo 

 women have a queer way of washing clothes. 



But let me explain, first, that I was sitting in my 

 room in the hospital at Okak, on the island of 

 Kivaiek, off the coast of Labrador, in latitude 57 4o'. 

 Not many yards away stood the church, and be- 

 tween the hospital wall and the tower of the church 

 ran the brook. That is to say, it ran in the summer- 

 time ; and in a flat rock-pool outside my window the 

 women used to do their washing. Their way of 

 doing it, as I said, was queer. They wetted the 

 clothes, spread them on a rock, and rubbed them 

 over with soap, rolled them into a bundle, dropped 

 them into the pool and trampled on them. 



And so I could see them from my window. A 

 strange sight : women standing ankle-deep in a 

 pool, tramping, swaying from one foot to the other, 

 tramping, tramping, tramping. Oh, the queer 

 sight ! Some of them are smoking pipes and look 

 anything but lovely ; some of them carry babies in 

 their hoods, and lull them to sleep with the tramp- 



II 



