STARTING HOME 



in their practical way they shouldered our rugs and 

 boxes and led the way to the Mission house. 



I need not say much about the two days I spent 

 in Hebron. The people were in a state of great 

 excitement, ready to fall in with any plan, for typhus 

 fever had broken out in two of the huts, and four 

 of the victims were already dead. 



I got the sick ones isolated, the infected huts 

 destroyed, and the clothes and bedding sunk into 

 the sea through a hole in the ice, and the pestilence 

 spread no further. 



It meant the outlay of a little money on helping 

 those so summarily rendered homeless to set up 

 housekeeping afresh; but I shall always think 

 that the money was well spent and I was sur- 

 prised to find how little it costs to make an Eskimo 

 home. 



As soon as it was safe to go I started home, and 

 this time my sledge was the only one, for Johannes 

 was still busy buying walrus hide. We set off at 

 daybreak on a fine bright morning, with the whole 

 population lined up to see us off or to run the first 

 half mile with us. My drivers sat grinning on the 

 sledge and let the Hebron men do the guiding ; and 

 if many hands make light work that sledge must 

 have slid easily, for there were more hands to heave 

 it from side to side among the stones and to steady 

 it down the sudden dips than could find room for 

 a grip. A horde of boys ran in front of the dogs, 

 shouting and chattering and chasing one another ; 

 and the women and older folks on the bank behind 

 us yelled " Aksuse, aksuse " as long as we could hear 

 them. A good send-off is half the journey ; and I 

 could see by the smiles on the drivers' faces, as they 



138 





