196 



NA TURE 



\June 30, 1 88 1 



William's Land onJy kgu ! kgu ! kgu ! Amongst these 

 two latter tribes the whip is almost unknown; the dogs 

 are led or turned from side to side by means of a piece of 

 wood which the driver throws out on the side from which 

 they are to turn. The Esquimaux of Alaska appear to 

 have no stereotyped driving cries, but merely to use 

 various oaths promiscuously as they come to mouth. 



During one of the author's sledge expeditions, where 

 the going was very bad in consequence of the yielding of 

 the snow, the dogs could hardly be got along with the 

 whip, so two Esquimaux who accompanied him took 

 turns to run in front of the team, trailing a fish tied to a 

 string. The dogs struggled to get at the herring, always 

 out of their reach, and excellent progress was made. 



Some interesting details concerning the habits of 

 Esquimaux dogs are given by the author. The instant 

 halt is called by the driver the dogs throw themselves to 

 the ground with their snouts between their forepaws ; 

 they rise again to stretch, and then lie down again at 

 once. Two Newfoundland dogs which belonged to the 

 Polaris pack gradually assumed similar habits ; but before 

 lying down they always turned round and round in their 

 resting-place, like all dogs except the Esquimaux breed, 

 for the author never saw an Esquimaux dog do this. 

 Mr. Darwin, as will be remembered, has explained this 

 habit of turning round before lying down, invariably to 

 be observed in other domestic dogs, as a survival of the 

 instinct of the wild ancestor, which leads him to form a 

 bed in the grass by this means. Every one has heard of 

 the extraordinary voracity of the Esquimaux dogs ; they 

 will even sometimes snap oft' a piece of their master's flesh 

 if carelessly exposed. C)ne day, on board the Polaris, the 

 porcelain door-handle of one of the cabins fell off with the 

 usual square rod of iron attached to it. Five or six of the 

 dogs made a rush at it, there was a momentary struggle, 

 the dogs were hastily driven avva\', but the door knob was 

 already swallowed. The dog that ate it was none the 

 worse, nor the handle either in the end. An Esquimaux 

 told the author that the following were the points to be 

 noticed in selecting a good dog : — a broad breast, short 

 ears, strong legs, large feet, low loins, and a moderately 

 long tail. The tail must not bend too near its root, as this 

 shows the loins to be weak. 



The descriptions of the Esquimaux and their habits 

 throughout the work are worth reading. The most inte- 

 resting are those relating to the Ita Esquimaux, inhabiting 

 the north shore of the Foulke F'"jord,with whom the author 

 and his companions spent their second winter. They con- 

 sisted of nine men, three women, and eight children, who 

 crowded at night the small house built by the ship- 

 wrecked party, and as there was no room for them usually 

 to lie down, slept sitting with their backs against the 

 walls. The floor measured only twenty-two feet by six, 

 yet had to accommodate thirty-four persons, and once 

 thirty-eight. It was no use erecting a tent for the visitors 

 under the lee of the house ; they preferred the close 

 quarters inside. 



The author's principal friend was Awatok, the priest of 

 the tribe. He usually accompanied him when it was his 

 watch, on his hourly rounds to the meteorological instru- 

 ments. " We walked generally arm-in-arm, and when 

 there was no snow drifting sang the tune of the spirited 

 student's song, ' Was kommt dort von der Hoh',' using 

 bum — bum — bum instead of the words. After a little 

 while he learnt to hum the tune fairly well." After some 

 time the natives built snow huts near the Polaris house, 

 and settled for the winter. The first to do this was one 

 named Stokirssuk, but called "Jimmy" by the Polaris 

 people. He was born near Cape Searle, about 650 miles 

 south of Port Foulke. Whilst he was a youth he and his 

 father left their home and wandered north and reached 

 Cape Isabella, where they fell in with an Esquimaux 

 tribe, of whose existence they had been ignorant. Here 

 Jimmy married a wife with tattooed face, and five 



summers before the arrival of the Polaris had moved up 

 thence to Ita, in a company consisting of a woman's boat 

 and four kajaks. He had forgotten how many persons 

 composed the expedition. They found Capt. Hayes' life- 

 boat on Littelton Island and destroyed it, and discovering 

 the observatory at Port Foulke which Hayes had left filled 

 with provisions and other things, lighted a fire there to cook 

 birds. Unfortunately close to the fireplace was a canister 

 full of powder; the observatory was blown up, and several 

 persons killed and wounded. Jimmy related, his face 

 beaming with laughter, how his father-in-law was killed, 

 and indicated with a movement of his hand how the old 

 fellow was shot up into the air. A dog which had accom- 

 panied Jimmy during all his wanderings was still fresh 

 and strong. 



Another noticeable native of the band was Majuk 

 Kane's former companion ; he was always hungry and a 

 beggar. He named his youngest son, scarcely six weeks 

 old, Dakta-ke, which meant no more or less than Doctor 

 Kane. This he did in order to flatter the Polaris people 

 and ingratiate himself. Sometimes he brought a walrus 

 liver or a few tongues, and got bread or tinned meat for 

 them, at others a skin to get a harpoon for it. But in 

 some moment, when unwatched, he would eat the tongues 

 himself and carry off the liver again ; but he did it so 

 innocently that it was impossible to be angry with him. 

 At one time during the winter the Esquimaux were nearly 

 starving, yet one of them — Awatok — would not beg for his 

 family, and when a present was at last sent to him of 

 bread and bacon, had already killed five of his dogs to 

 keep his wife and children alive. His strength of cha- 

 racter and power of self-denial were remarkable. 



The Ita people have no boats, and do not possess the 

 bow and arrow, although words for these things still exist 

 in their language. These facts show a very remarkable 

 degradation, especially in a hunting people. Jimmy 

 alone had a bow and three arrows. They had often been 

 mended, and being very seldom used, were in a wretched 

 condition, and Jimmy himself was a very bad shot. 



One burial took place during the stay of the author. 

 The corpse was wrapped in skins placed on a sledge, 

 and buried in the snow with the face turned westwards. 

 After the body was covered the sledge was turned over 

 on top of it, and the hunting implements of the deceased 

 laid by it. The men plugged their right nostril with hay, 

 and the women their left, and these plugs were worn for 

 several days, and only taken out when the wearers entered 

 a hut. When it is possible a heap of stones is usually 

 raised over the corpse. The nineteenth chapter is devoted 

 to an ethnological sketch, in which the culture and 

 characteristics of the various Esquimaux tribes are 

 compared. 



A good many musk-oxen were met with, and the author 

 gives a valuable account of the habits of this animal. None 

 of those killed by the Polaris people had a very marked 

 musk smell. Theauthor is uncertain whetherthis peculiarity 

 is to be attributed to the very high latitude in which they 

 were obtained, or to their having been killed out of the 

 breeding season. No difficulty was found in distinguish- 

 ing the tracks of these animals from those of reindeer, 

 although some former observers have not found this easy. 

 In all the herds there are from ten to twenty cows to one 

 bull. Their voice is somewhat like the snorting of the 

 walrus, and never resembles in the least the cry of the 

 goat or the sheep. When danger approaches they never 

 give signal with their voice, but only by stamping or 

 striking their neighbour with their horns. They have 

 dire combats with bears sometimes, and often come off 

 victors. 



A report, as will be remembered, was spread by news- 

 papers at the time of the return of the expedition, that the 

 Polaris had discovered walnut driftwood in the high north, 

 and gave the author as an authority for the statement. 

 Nothing however but coniferous wood was in reality 



