THE WHITE WORLD 



I think the Cape Lisburne Eskimo would have worried 

 even Job into vigorous speech, as they certainly did me. 

 Beg, beg, beg! without end — tobacco, shot, powder, caps, 

 matches; they were never tired of importuning us for these 

 staples, and when they shot they never hit a bird. They 

 are bad shots, except at very short range — about the length 

 of a gun barrel. 



They wear labrcts — one had a pair of stopples of Worces- 

 tershire Sauce bottles! They live in semi-subterranean 

 huts; use bidarms; have for the most part the cheapest 

 kind of muzzle-loading guns, though one had a Winchester 

 repeating rifle; their spear points are partly bone and 

 partly copper or other metal; their parkas are of reindeer 

 skin with hoods. Their curiosity is unbounded and they 

 torment whites as much as children would a good-natured 

 kitten. It was necessary to have an eye on each pocket 

 to protect its contents. One neighborly fellow wanted to 

 see my cap, which he immediately clapped on to his dirty 

 pate, much to my disgust. 



Notwithstanding the extreme annoyance endured from 

 these " untutored " minds, I made a good day's work, 

 securing fifteen birds, a marmot, fossils, lichens, flint chips, 

 etc. The birds seem to be blue gull, another gull, kitti- 

 wake, wagtail, dunlin, longspur and stone chat. The mar- 

 mot is quite common. I saw a good many cormorants, a 

 few eider, guillemots without end, and some mormons, 

 also a raven which I shot at. We tried two seine hauls 

 and took six species of fish — all small: salmon, sculpin, 

 polar cod, blenny, sea poacher, and capelin. We saw no 

 large fish. 



At 7.45 P. M. we got under way for the northward. The 

 fossils here seem to be carboniferous; there were many 

 fossil corals. The long plateau fronting our anchorage 

 is comparatively level, the soil rather springy, traversed 

 by numerous rills, though easy to walk over. 



This seems like sailing in a mill-pond, and the air at 

 9 P. M. was 50 . The moonlight is fine. Reindeer are 

 found near this cape. 



Sunday, August 22 

 After breakfast the anchor was let down, about ten miles 

 to the eastward of Cape Lisburne, there being no wind. 



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