380 OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE. 



knees. The interior arrangement of such a winter house is sim- 

 ple, and is nearly the same with all these tribes. A piece of bear- 

 or reindeer-skin is hung before an inner opening of the doorway ; 

 in the centre of the enclosure is a fireplace, which is a square ex- 

 cavation directly under that smoke-hole in the roof ; the floor is 

 rarely planked, and frequently two low platforms, about four feet in 

 width, extend along the sides of the house from the entrance to the 

 back, and covered with mats and skins which serve as beds at night. 

 In the larger dwellings, occupied by more than one family, the 

 sleeping-places of each are separated from each other by suspended 

 mats, or simply by a piece of wood. All the bladders containing 

 oil, the wooden vessels, kettles, and other domestic utensils, are 

 kept in the front part of the dwelling, and before each sleeping- 

 place there is generally a block of wood upon which is placed the 

 oil-lamp used for heating and cooking. 



The only ingress or egress is afforded by a small, low, irregu- 

 larly shaped aperture (it cannot rightfully be called a door), through 

 which the natives stoop and enter, passing down a foot or two 

 through a short, depressed passage that is created by the thickness 

 of the walls to the hut ; the floor is hard-tramped earth, and the 

 ground-plan of it a rude circle, or square, twelve, fifteen, or twenty 

 feet in diameter, as the case may be, and in which the only light of 

 day comes feebly in from a small smoke-opening at the apex of the 

 roof, the ceiling of which rises tent-like from the floor. A faint, 

 smouldering fire is always made directly in the centre, and the at- 

 mosphere of the apartment is invariably thick and surcharged with 

 its combustion. 



Hard and rude are the beds of the Innuit a clumsy shelf of 

 poles is slightly elevated above the earth, and placed close against 

 the walls ; upon this staging the skins of bears and reindeer, seals, 

 and even walrus-hides, together with mats of plaited sedge and 

 bark, are laid ; sometimes these bedsteads are mere platforms of sod 

 and peat. If the hut stands in a situation where it is exposed to 

 the full force of boisterous storms, then the architect builds a rough 

 hallway of earth and sods, with a bulging expansion, whereby room 

 is given in which to shelter his dogs and keep many utensils and 

 traps under cover. He also, in warm weather, lives outside of this 

 winter hut, to a great degree, when at home ; and, for that pur- 

 pose, he builds a summer cook-house, or kitchen, which resembles 

 the igloo itself, only it is not more than five or six feet square, and 



