101 



A SUMMER VOYAGE TO THE ARCTIC 



$100,000 aanuall3\ Almost eveiy village is provided with a 

 church and a school, and the language taught is not the Danish, 

 but that spoken by the natives themselves. The great majority 

 of the Eskimos can read and write and are nominally, if not 

 actually, christianized. Such a policy could hardl}^ have been 

 carried out in any region less isolated than Greenland. Whether 

 or not their contact with civilization has been beneficial to the 

 Greenlanders, it is probable that the continuance of the Danish 

 system is their only salvation, for if the Danes were to withdraw, 

 the wealth of this region in fisheries and hunting would soon 

 attract a population that would so far interfere with the life and 

 pursuits of the Eskimos as to cause their early extinction. 



These Greenland Eskimos, although they have been in contact 

 with civilization for 250 years and are largely intermixed with 

 foreign blood, have retained many of their original modes of life- 

 The more pure-blooded are an intelligent-looking people, with 

 smooth, round features and frank, open countenances ; they are 

 short in stature and have straight, black hair. The.v ordinarily 

 live in flat-roofed houses, built of rocks and turf, often contain- 

 ing but a single room, with a sleeping-bench at one end and a 

 long, low entrance for keeping out the cold in winter. In sum- 

 mer they often live in tents, moving from place to place. They 



A GREENLAND FAMILY 



