DOMESTICATED REINDEER INTO ALASKA. 65 



On the 3d of November last we commenced teaching school and con- 

 tinued it until January C, when it was discontinued on account of cold 

 weather and the utter impossibility of making the schoolroom com- 

 fortable. Teaching was again resumed on March 6 and continued until 

 April 20, when school was closed for the summer on account of the 

 natives leaving on their spring hunt for seal and walrus. 



Every day in the week, excepting Sunday, a session of from one hour 

 and a half to two hours was taught, Mr. Gibson and myself teaching 

 alternately, he one day and I the next. When one or the other was 

 absent from the station, the one remaining taught every day. 



When it is borne in mind that at the time we commenced teaching 

 Mr. Gibson and myself had but little knowledge of the language, and 

 not a person in the village understood a word of English, some of the 

 difficulties we labored under may perhaps be imagined. Perhaps a 

 better idea of the difficulties we experienced in the start will be had 

 from my experience the first day. 



The sun set at 3:45 p. in. and we had given notice that school would 

 begin at sundown. By that time every man, woman, and child in the 

 village had gathered about the building and were anxiously waiting 

 for the door to be thrown open. When they swarmed in and squatted 

 on the floor, very much as a tailor does when at work, they were packed 

 into our small room as closely as sardines in a box. 



it was a strange and interesting sight, and, looking at them under 

 the light of three lamps hung on the walls, I thought that under the 

 heavy fringes of black hair hanging low over the foreheads of the boys 

 and men, and the heavy braids of the same thick and glossy hue of the 

 girls and women, there beamed as much intelligence as could be found 

 among the same number of creatures anywhere in Christendom. The 

 reindeer, squirrel, and rabbit clothing in which they were clothed 

 made strange shadows on the walls, and, taken all together, it would 

 have been an interesting picture for any one to view. 



I should perhaps have stated that we have only three chairs at the 

 station, and those were needed for our private use. Neither had we a 

 stick of lumber with which to construct benches, and the natives had 

 only the smooth, hard surface of the floor to sit upon. 



In the four months of our residence among these people, up to this 

 time we had found no leisure for learning the language, and we were 

 hardly able to frame a single sentence that was intelligible to them. 

 What few words we did use brought a smile to their faces, and, as a 

 consequence, our vocabulary consisted in a word now and then, inter- 

 spersed with a half-dozen signs. 



In the opening exercises the words I had at my tongue's end would 

 not fit, and 1 staggered about among Eskimo verbs and English nouns 

 until I had the whole school laughing at me. I could not keep a 

 straight face myself, and for a while enjoyed my own discomfiture as 

 much as my pupils, but the most distressing part of it was to have my 

 S. Ex. 70 5 



