THE WHITE WORLD 



most miserable-looking human habitations that it is possi- 

 ble to imagine. They were, however, friendly voices, and 

 we did not scorn the help rendered us in unloading our 

 boats and hauling them to a place of safety, nor the 

 advice given us as to the most suitable camping-place. 



In the morning we took more careful note of our situa- 

 tion, and of the condition of the people who were to be 

 our neighbors. Across the channel, at a distance of about 

 three miles, rose the picturesque eastern face of Sermersut 

 Island to a height of something over four thousand feet, 

 showing clearly the westerly dip of the strata, and con- 

 cealing the vast ice fields which cover the northwestern 

 slope of the island. Amid the fogs and rains and snows of 

 the next two weeks this mountain outline was destined to 

 fix itself in our memories in innumerable aspects which 

 could never be forgotten. The interest of the scene was 

 enhanced by the squalor of the igloos of the Eskimo in 

 the foreground. Of these there were only three, occupied 

 by twenty-five people. They consisted simply of walls of 

 stone and turf about twenty feet square and three and a 

 half feet high, covered over with a slightly conical turf 

 roof, through which, in one or two of the cases, a stove- 

 pipe protruded, for use on the occasion when a fire was 

 built in the sheet-iron cylinder which served for a stove 

 inside ; but the turf used for fuel is usually so wet that much 

 of the time a fire is entirely out of the question. 



The squalid condition of the igloos, or huts, was partly 

 due to a flood which had swept over the village in the 

 spring. How a flood could have risen in such a situation 

 it was difficult for us to see, but the fact had to be ac- 

 cepted, for the ruins of an igloo in which two or three of 

 the inmates were drowned was a mute but constant witness 

 to the sad event, and the vivid memories of the poor sur- 

 vivors enabled them to make us understand the story, even 

 when told in an unknown language, so expressive were 

 their gestures and pantomimes. 



In August a small stream of pure water from the melting 

 masses of snow which still lingered in the low, rockv 

 mountain rising above the settlement on the east, rushed 

 merrily down past the place, furnishing an unfailing supply 

 for summer use. But it seems that when the deep snows 



