BIRTHDAYS 



their subject; a mere question will not set them 

 going. I thought that they must have a great fund 

 of anecdote and adventure ; and so they have, if they 

 only knew it. I imagined that a question would 

 start the hunter on a long recital of hairbreadth 

 escapes and thrilling races after runaway dogs, of 

 fights with polar bears, and lonely nights among the 

 wolves in the woods. But no ; these adventures and 

 escapes are commonplace to them ; so much a part 

 of the Eskimo life that they are passed over as too 

 trivial to notice. I heard from an old missionary 

 that Abia, my next-door neighbour, had been in his 

 youth the strongest man in Okak, strong enough to 

 kill a dog with a single blow of the whip from the 

 full length of the thirty-feet lash. And I used to 

 put leading questions to Abia, such as " I suppose 

 you sometimes met bears when you went to your 

 fox-traps ? " or " You were a very great hunter, were 

 you not ? " but Abia's mind was on the present ; he 

 had no room in it for reminiscences ; and he would 

 1 say, " Yes, I used to be a great hunter, but I cannot 

 I hunt now, I am old. My son Samuel can hunt, and 

 I he is now gone after seals. I have been chopping 



P""3wood to-day." 

 And they can talk furiously. They are very 

 citable, and fly into a passion over a trifle. 

 But though they are quickly aroused, they are 

 | just as easily appeased. A man may be in a terrible 

 ; temper, and with his wild eyes and tumbled hair and 

 I waving arms make a very threatening picture as he 

 jabbers and shouts ; but a few minutes afterwards he 

 is friendly and smiling again, bearing no malice. 



I heard very little of family feuds or long-drawn 



quarrels while I was among the Eskimos : the 



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