A HUNTER'S CAMP-FIRES 



in the quieter waters between Northumberland Island and the 

 mainland. As the Diana steamed steadily toward the pans 

 we could at first simply discern, with the glasses, dark blotches 

 here and there on the ice which, on closer approach, resolved 

 themselves into compact sleeping herds, while the sea around 

 the pans was thickly dotted with the round heads of swimming 

 wall-US. Within a mile from the game the Diana reversed her 

 engines, and had not yet lost headway when the three whale- 

 boats, filled with hunters, splashed into the sea, and the race 

 toward the herds began. 



I happened to be in the stem of our boat and to be the 

 only idle man aboard at the commencement of this hunt, and 

 so had the opportunity of realizing the picturesque side as well 

 as participating in the excitement of this method of hunting. 

 In the bow of the whaleboat crouched our three Eskimo hunters 

 whispering to one another in their language and fingering their 

 harpoons. Their shaggy polar -bear and sealskin clothing, 

 their long, unkempt, black hair, and their dirty, greasy, and 

 excited yellow faces gave a completing touch of savagery to the 

 already wild setting of scenery. The scent from these un- 

 sophisticated savages of the North left the impression of things 

 wild and unwashed. Behind our oily companions five white 

 men, dressed in a motley combination of civilized and native 

 garments, supplemented by a loaded rifle on the seat beside 

 them, pulled at five long single-sweeps, and wondered if they 

 could be paid to do this sort of work in civilized environment. 

 Standing beside me in the stern was Matt Henson, Peary's col- 

 ored servant. Dressed in Eskimo costume, he skilfully guided 

 the boat by means of a long steering-oar. Some distance apart 

 and rapidly diverging, two other boats, somewhat similarly 

 equipped, had each selected a herd of walrus, and were racing 

 toward it with the long, steady strokes of sweeps. On a small 

 floe a couple of hundred yards to the right of us two large blue 

 seals (Phoca barbata, or the oogsook of the natives) raised their 



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