A LETTER FROM PROF. R. C. JILLSON. 227 



When the Miranda lay in the liarbor of Sukkertoppen, a 

 few liours after yonr party had started on a hunting trip, my- 

 self and seven others, with five Eskimos, left to study the 

 glaciers at the head of Ikamiut fiord. For eleven days we 

 lived in a small tent pitched on a narrow neck of land where 

 two fiords meet. It was cold and stormy, and we were sub- 

 jected to many inconveniences, but were amply repaid by the 

 result of our studies and by living in the midst of such grand 

 scenery, with such strange surroundings. We had for neigh- 

 bors fifteen natives — nine women and six men — who lived in 

 two igloos — miserable liuts made of rough stone covered with 

 sod. We were surrounded by solid rocks, which rose straight 

 from the water a thousand or more feet, their toi)s covered 

 with snow and ice which extended in long arms nearly to the 

 water's edge. Several glaciers were in view, and our ears 

 were frequently saluted by the boom ! boom ! like the dis- 

 charge of heavy artillery, as icebergs broke from the parent 

 mass and floated away. As we rowed over the fiords, or 

 climbed the rough rocks, or wandered over the glaciers, not a 

 tree was to be seen — not a shrub. Only a little grass between 

 the rocks and a few flowers gave life to this " Land of Deso- 

 lation." 



On Sunday we held service, to which our Eskimo friends 

 were invited. The front of our tent was thrown back, and 

 we sat at the entrance, while before us on our boat-seats were 

 the natives clothed in their picturesque costumes made of 

 fur. Of course, we did not omit tliat grand old missionary 

 hymn, " From Greenland's Icy Mountains," and we sang it, 

 too, as we never sang it before, for were we not in the midst 

 of those very mountains covered with ice and snow, and those 

 wonderful fiords with tlieir floating icebergs ? Is it any won- 

 der that our thoughts frequently wandered to that far distant 

 land where our friends were worshipping with such different 

 surroundings ? 



