36 THE LAST CRUISE OF THE MIRANDA. 



general intercourse or social amusements. A dance takes 

 place occasionally, and this is always a great event. We had 

 a dance during our stay, which was quite a unique affair; but 

 the native ladies were shy of dancing with us, and our dances 

 were strange to them, so our mainstays were the two Eskimo 

 girls, Mary and Clara, who were quite equal to the occasion, 

 and enjoyed exceedingly being the belles of the ball. Our 

 orchestra was the old man Peter, the father of the girls, who 

 played the fiddle ; so it was mainly the Eskimos who kept the 

 ball rolling. We danced by the light of a few dim lanterns 

 in a little storehouse whose floor was so slippery with cod- 

 liver oil that we had to throw salt upon it to increase the 

 friction, and enable us to retain our equilibrium. All the 

 elite of Cape Charles attended, which added to the group of 

 wallflowers very materially, and encroached upon the dancing 

 space. It was a remarkable scene altogether, and our pho- 

 tographer, Mr. Kersting, took an excellent flash-light picture 

 of it ; but, alas ! this, together with a vast number of other 

 photographs, many of them of scenes and places never before 

 seen by white men, went down with the unfortunate Miranda. 



Of course, our vessel was an object of great interest to the 

 Cape Charles people : so large a steamer had never been 

 there before. We were as popular as a circus in the rural 

 districts of the United States, and the men brought their 

 wives and children over to look at the wonders of the ship, 

 and to see the sheep on board — natural curiosities which 

 were much admired and never before seen in that place. 

 One old fellow was very much struck with the ice-water 

 cooler ; he thought it the most remarkable piece of mechan- 

 ism that he had ever seen, and never tired of standing by it 

 and watching people, as they drew a glass of water, with 

 open-mouthed admiration. 



There was always quite a collection of small fishing craft 

 which kept in the neighborhood of the Miranda, in wait for 



