TENT LIFE 



if it should burn low. I warrant she licks her 

 fingers after the filling ; and more than that, if she 

 happens to fill the trough of the lamp too full I can 

 well imagine her taking a few sips. 



I could not do much more than look into Bob's 

 tent ; there was no room. The floor was strewn 

 with relics of work and mealtimes ; scraps of seal- 

 skin, fishbones, chips of wood, bits of calico, either 

 flung down as useless or left by the children when 

 we interrupted their play. A fat, pale-faced baby 

 was crawling about, exercising its sturdy limbs 

 before returning to that queerest of queer cradles, 

 the hood of its mother's smock. It found a bone, and 

 i squatted to gnaw it, cutting its teeth and acquiring 

 a taste for the fishy flavour of seal meat at the same 

 itime. A family of pups romped and tumbled and 

 snarled in their own corner ; and all around the edge 

 of the tent lay dogs' harness, spare clothing, sails 

 ifor the boat, and pots of seal meat and fish heads. 



This was a Killinek Eskimo's home. 



Bob was well-to-do in his way. He had a home 

 of his own, though it was only a grimy little tent, 

 so small that I wondered how they all packed them- 

 selves in for the night. 



Some folks are not so well off; they have to 

 share a tent with some other family, a custom which 

 leads to endless quarrels and jealousies. However, 

 :imes are better since the missionaries came, and 

 .he aim of every man to have his own tent or house 

 s being realised in Killinek, just as it has been 

 ealised all along the coast. 



And Bob was proud of his calico home. 



The walls flapped in the breeze and strained 

 igainst the poles. 



