TENT LIFE 



"Doesn't the rain come in sometimes ?" I asked. 



Bob looked at the hole in the top of the tent, 

 where the cover was gathered round the bunch of 

 poles. "Oh yes," he said, "the rain sometimes 

 comes in and trickles down the poles, but we get out 

 of the way." Admirable idea ! Imagine the tent- 

 dwellers on a rainy night. With real Eskimo good 

 humour they arrange themselves between the poles 

 and watch the drops collect and trickle and drip beside 

 them. What care they ? They are dry, and that is 

 something to be thankful for. But sometimes they 

 are wet, for calico is not proof against the torrential 

 downpour that sometimes comes in summer time at 

 Killinek. I have seen them at work after a rainy 

 night, soaked and bedraggled, and looking, as some- 

 body said, like drowned rats ! But they went about 

 their work with the same placid smile ; their clothes 

 would dry in the wind and the sunshine. It is part 

 of their life : they are content to take the rough and 

 the smooth together. 



The hunter comes home from his morning's toil, 

 drenched with the rain and the spray. There is no 

 fire to give him warmth ; no stove to dry his sodden 

 clothes ; nothing but a smoky seal-oil lamp. He 

 takes no heed. He contentedly munches his meal 

 of dried fish heads or raw seal meat, and flings 

 himself, wet as he is, on to the bed of moss and skins, 

 to sleep like a tired child. They are a wonderfully 

 hardy folk, able to endure the incidents of their 

 rough life simply because it is their nature. Hunger 

 and exposure are parts of the very existence of a 

 hunter, and only seem to harden him the more. 



Sometimes, I think, the cold must be fearful for 

 those Killinek tent-dwellers. From the moist days 



34 



