I02 AN ESKIMO VILLAGE 



standstill he had bustled away on his usual errand 

 of ' ' finding snow, ' ' prodding and searching with his 

 great snow-knife for the proper sort of snow for 

 building ; and now the men were busy cutting circles 

 in the hard drift, and the spiral walls of the houses 

 were growing in a magical way. Tired and cold, I 

 turned to my usual task of making tea, and the 

 reader may imagine me, a padded, fur-clad figure 

 with frosted face, bending over a fire which crackled 

 in a hole in the snow, stuffing handfuls of broken ice 

 into the blackened kettle that swung upon a stick. 

 So I crouched over the blaze, trying, like the little 

 match-girl in the story, to imagine myself warm in 

 the bitter cold, until the kettle spluttered and the tea 

 was made, and I went stumbling over the snow in 

 the twilight to see how John was faring with his 

 building. I found the little man strewing the dog's 

 harness on the floor for his bed, mainly, as he told 

 me, to keep the dogs from eating it in the night. 

 He had spread my sleeping-bag across the middle 

 of the house, and so we were ready for the passing 

 of the night. But close beside us the other men were 

 finishing a noble house, a great snow hut fully ten 

 feet across, and high enough for me to stand with- 

 out stooping. " Let us take our tea together in that 

 great house," said I. " Piovok " (It is good), said 

 John, and in we went with our kettle. 



The house was full of people, although the snow 

 was still powdering down from the roof as the men 

 put the finishing touches to their work. We sat 

 around the wall, on boxes, on coils of harness, on 

 bags of dogs' food, and we passed the steaming 



