CHAPTER X 



AN URGENT CALL ALONG THE ICE-EDGE OUR GUIDE 

 A COMIC TOUCH STARTING HOME OVER THE LAND 



I HAD imagined Labrador to be an ideally 

 healthy land, a sort of extra- Arctic Switzerland, 

 and I was disappointed to find that it did not quite 

 come up to my expectations. Europeans of sound 

 constitution enjoy good health, if one overlooks such 

 trifles as teeth coming loose as a result of too much 

 tinned food, and a touch of influenza when that 

 miserable complaint is in season. Influenza time 

 comes twice a year, in midwinter (February) and 

 midsummer (August) ; and the Eskimos knuckle 

 under with one accord. When an epidemic begins 

 it seldom misses any of them ; they all fall ill to some 

 extent, be it mild or severe, and so one learns to 

 view the onset of an infectious sickness with appre- 

 hension. 



Happily, only a few of the actual fevers have 

 been known in Labrador, for if there were an out- 

 break of anything really fatal among the Eskimos 

 it would mow them down as a scythe mows grass. 



It was a sudden and very real feeling of alarm 

 that made the Hebron missionary hurry over to 

 Okak with the message, " Come, my people are 

 dying ! " 



It was ten o'clock at night when he arrived, a 

 black night with a cloudy sky and a moaning wind 

 the east ; and when I heard the rushing of feet 





