732 THE WORLD'S WONDERS. 



We all felt that henceforth we should have an enemy in the 

 widow. 



"This widow greatly interested me. She ate birds for con- 

 science sake. Her husband's soul had passed into the body of a 

 walrus as a temporary habitation, and the Angekok had prescribed 

 that, for a certain period, she should not eat the flesh of this 

 animal ; and since, at this time of year, bear and seal were 

 scarce, she was compelled to fall back upon a small stock of birds 

 which had been collected during the previous summer," 



AN ESQUIMAU SLEDGE. 



CONSIDERING the means at hand, there are few things that 

 exhibit greater skill and ingeniousness than an Esquimau sledge. 

 It is constructed wholly of bone and leather, as follows : The 

 runners, which are of bone, are square behind and rounded up- 

 ward in front, usually about five feet in length, three-fourths of 

 an inch thick, and seven inches in height. These runners are not 

 of solid bone, but composed of many pieces, of various shapes and 

 sizes, most wondrously fitted or spliced together by means of 

 seal-skin strings ; so extremely nice are these fittings that but for 

 the strings the interstices would hardly be perceptible, while the 

 joinings are as strong as if the entire runner were one piece of 

 solid bone. One very remarkable fact connected with the making 

 of the runner is, that each piece of bone is cut into the required 

 shape by means of stone implements ; therefore the necessary 

 grinding to make such nice joints must require constant labor for 

 many months. The runners are shod with ivory obtained from 

 walrus tusks ; this also must be ground flat and very smooth, and 

 the corners squared with stones. This ivory sheathing is fastened 

 to the runner by a seal string looped through counter-sunk holes, 

 but as it, too, is in many pieces, the joining work is even more 

 deftly done than in the composition of the main slab, the surface 

 being left as uniform and smooth as glass. 



The runners stand about fourteen inches apart, fastened to- 

 gether by bone cross-pieces, tightly lashed by seal strings ; these 

 pieces are usually either the femur bone of the bear, antlers of 

 the reindeer, or ribs of the norwhal. Two walrus ribs are lashed 



