VISITING 



a great trick of doing that ; so I set off to investigate. 

 But the man was not in the village, and I was puzzled 

 until a feeble hail from across the water set me on 

 the right track. There was the sick man, alone in a 

 little boat, pulling manfully at the oars, and coughing 

 as he pulled. " 1 am all right now," he shouted, 

 " yesterday I was very ill ; I had much pain. Now 

 I am better ; I have only got a cough." He had 

 been to clear his trout net ! 



There is plenty of incident in a doctor's daily 

 round in Labrador, though it be only in the mild 

 form of peeps at typical Eskimo life, or small ad- 

 ventures such as falls down great snow-pits or even 

 a plunge through the roof of a buried hut or a sudden 

 and painful descent into a sort of cave full of vicious 

 sledge-dogs which was the householder's buried snow 

 porch. But visits are not always tame ; they can be 

 well spiced with adventure, even on a summer's day. 



I remember as if it were yesterday the quaint, 

 squat figure that came trotting along the beach 

 round the head of the bay ; before she reached me 

 she had begun to deliver her message. " Come," she 

 said, " come, tuavigit (be quick), my sister very ill 

 quick." She pointed towards a white dot on the 

 rocks at the mouth of the bay. " Tuppivut-una " 

 (that is our tent), she went on ; " umiakarket ? " (have 

 you a boat). I had a boat, a rare little tub, but there 

 was nobody to help with the rowing. " Unet," said 

 Augusta, and in a few minutes she and I were taking 

 turns at the rowing, for an Eskimo woman is brought 

 up to take her share of the work in a boat, and 

 besides, we could not spare the time to trudge those 

 nine miles over the pebbly beach. The tide was on 



the ebb, and we got across in splendid time. Many 



300 



