62 AN ESKIMO VILLAGE 



was his New Testament. He passed it to me, and 

 as I took it into my hands I thought to myself : 

 " Never have I seen a more ragged, tattered, bat- 

 tered, oil-stained copy of the Holy Scriptures than 

 this." Its covers were blackened and its pages 

 yellow ; but as I held that battered book a picture 

 came into my mind a picture that showed me that 

 those stains and sears are honourable scars, and that 

 the pages so frayed and sodden with oil have become 

 so with much using. 



And so, as I took that trusted Book in my hand, 

 I pictured old Friedrik at his daily work. 



The daily work of an Eskimo is a hard battle with 

 Nature for the daily food. In the summer, when the 

 ice that has covered the sea for seven months has 

 broken and gone, when the trout are down to the 

 sea from their winter home in the fresh-water ponds, 

 and the codfish are thronging the deep channels 

 among the islands, the Eskimo goes a-fishing. He 

 rises with the sun, or sooner ; as the grey light of 

 the breaking day is showing in the sky and the rocks 

 stand black and bare, he wends his way to the beach 

 where his boat lies. With dogged strength he shoves 

 the little craft into the water ; he clambers nimbly in 

 and takes the oars, and while the sun is tinting the 

 hill-tops he is rowing towards his chosen fishing- 

 place. 



Hour after hour he jerks his jigger up and down. 

 On what he calls a good day he pulls the fish up 

 in goodly numbers ; on bad days he may jig for 

 hours without a catch. He seldom fails to pull at 



