CHAPTER XXV 



ESKIMO HOUSES MAKING WINDOWS STUBBORN LEARNERS A 

 SCRUBBING-BRUSH EPISODE MY HARMONIUM A CONCERT 



DURING my years in Labrador I saw very 

 little of the old snow-house dwellings. They 

 have vanished, except in the neighbourhood of Killi- 

 nek and some other parts of the north, and all that I 

 saw of them was on my sledge journeys. But snow 

 houses on sledge journeys are but poor imitations of 

 the real thing, with its ice-window and its carefully 

 jointed protecting wall and porch, and especially its 

 luxurious size. Sledge drivers always misjudged my 

 length, at least until they got used to me. They 

 persisted in building snow houses to fit Eskimos, and 

 I had usually several inches of spare leg to tuck away 

 into some cramped and awkward position. Julius 

 and Johannes got to know my measure, so to say, 

 and used to build me a house in which I could at 

 least stretch comfortably if I lay across the middle ; 

 but, as I was about to say, in spite of their popularity 

 as shelters on journeys, snow houses as permanent 

 winter dwellings are getting very scarce. 



At all the older villages the people have huts of 

 wood or turf. I feel something like a war-horse with 

 the scent of battle in its nostrils when I think of 

 those old turf huts iglos, the Eskimos call them 

 What unsavoury dens they were ! How I thirsted 

 to abolish them ! Description is a poor thing when 



an Eskimo iglo is the subject ; but try to imagine a 



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