GREENLAND BY THE POLAR SEA 



too late ; and in their regret over their own inhumanity they 

 continued to travel further and further north. At Anoritoq 

 they met many people who lived happily ; but sorrow weighed 

 on their minds and they could not bear the company of people, 

 so they continued their journey northward until at last they 

 settled by Aunartoq. Here they lived alone for many years, 

 and never travelled to visit other people. Those few who 

 visited them always spoke of their great hospitality, but never 

 did they open their mouths to let out a superfluous word, never 

 was a smile seen on their lips. Once when someone went to 

 visit them they were both found to be dead. There was a 

 sufficiency of meat in their stores, and the visitors concluded 

 that they had starved themselves to death so that they might 

 follow the child which they had killed. 



Since the " Eiderduck's " time nobody had lived by 

 Renslaer Harbour ; the place was in evil repute. First now 

 in 1916 Majaq had moved out here, but although the catch of 

 spring and summer had been so abundant that all his meat-pits 

 were flowing over, he nevertheless moved in the autumn down 

 to Etah, so great was his longing for companionship. Majaq 

 chose to struggle through the dark period far from his own 

 meat stores, wherefore his countrymen said that he was mad ; 

 but the loneliness had weighed on him so heavily in the place 

 where lay the bones of the " Eiderduck " that he preferred to 

 live in poverty among fellow-creatures. 



" SPRING-TIME " CAMP 



The camp Aunartoq, the place where spring comes early, 

 consisted merely of three houses, and these were all very old. 

 Among some ruins I found a piece of a sledge which seemed 

 to have been made entirely from whale-rib. There was also 

 a whale's head built into the wall. It was strange to see that 

 even so far north, in places where the ice seldom quite disap- 

 pears, the whale has played an important part, just as it has 

 done in other parts of Smith Sound. Besides these things I 

 found bones of walrus, bear, and musk-ox, and, of course, an 

 50 



