FOOD. 399 



landers, counted the following dishes : 1. Dried herrings. 2. 

 Dried seal's flesh. 3. Boiled ditto. 4. Half raw and rotten 

 ditto, called Mikiak. 5. Boiled willocks. 6. A piece of a 

 half rotten whale's tail : this was the dainty dish or haunch 

 of venison to which the guests were properly invited. 7. 

 Dried salmon. 8. Dried reindeer venison. 9. A dessert of 

 crowberries mixed with the chyle out of the maw of a rein- 

 deer. 10. The same, enriched with train oil." 



During the greater part of the year they have considerable 

 difficulty in obtaining water enough even to drink. It may 

 seem surprising that people who are surrounded by snow 

 and ice should suffer for want of water, but the amount of 

 heat required to melt snow is so great, that a man with- 

 out the means of obtaining fire might die of thirst in 

 these arctic regions as easily as in the sandy deserts of 

 Africa. Any direct " resort to snow," says Kane, "for the 

 purpose of allaying thirst was followed by bloody lips and 

 tongue ; it burnt like caustic." * When the Esquimaux 

 visited Captain Parry, they were always anxious for water, 

 which they drank in such quantities, " that it was impossible 

 to furnish them with half as much as they desired." f In 

 the extreme north one of the principal duties of the women 

 in the winter is to thaw snow over their lamps, feeding the 

 wick with oil, if it does not rise well of its own accord ; J 

 the natural heat of the room is not sufficient to melt snow, 

 as the temperature of the huts is always kept if possible 

 below the freezing-point. In South Greenland, however, 

 the huts are built of turf, etc., and are very warm. But 

 we must remember that coolness, rather than heat, is re- 

 quired by the Esquimaux who live in snow dwellings, 

 because if the temperature rises to thirty-two degrees, the 

 continual dripping from the roof produces extreme incon- 



* Arctic Explorations, vol. i., p. 190. f Lc. p. 188. 



t Osborn's Arctic Journal, p. 17. Egede, I.e. p. 116. 



