140 G- Holm. 



way they received far too high payment, because I was hoaxed into 

 paying the first of the lot far too high , merely in order to gratify 

 tlieir desire for things wliich tliey declared they were badly in want 

 of. Had I known that the seller had more and better things of the 

 same kind, I would of course never have given him a more valu- 

 able thing in exchange for an inferior one. 



When we arrived at Angmagsalik , there were only a few 

 of the inhabitants who understood the use of tobacco — and 

 even then only in the form of snuff — with which they had be- 

 come acquainted on their journeys south. The southern East Green- 

 landers on their trade journeys to the West coast often make large 

 purchases, often buying a whole big roll of Dutch tobacco. The 

 tobacco is prepared just as on the West coast, being ground to- 

 gether with quartz in order to make it last longer, and is kept in, 

 and used from, a horn specially made for the purpose. (Specimens 

 of these snuff-horns are seen in fig. 287 ; one of them is made from 

 the thigh-bone of a reindeer, the other from a bear's leg, and the 

 third from a bear's tooth.) However, all the inhabitants at Ang- 

 magsalik had heard of tobacco as being an extraordinarily refreshing 

 stimulant. Many of them therefore were at once very eager to 

 make acquaintance with it, even if at first it cost them much 

 coughing and made the tears start to their eyes. They went on, 

 however, pouring snuff into their noses, until they nearly choked 

 with coughing. Groaning heavily and with the tears trickling down 

 their cheeks, they snufi'ed enough to keep them going quite a long time. 

 When they had once acquired a taste for tobacco, they all became very 

 passionate votaries of it, so that we were able to pay almost everything 

 in tobacco. They said that when they were sleepy, tired, or hungry, 

 they only needed to take a pinch of snuff in order to be set up 

 again at once. When Ilinguaki's snuff ran short in the course of 

 the winter, he sent his foster-son to us from Sermilik — a very 

 toilsome and difficult journey — in order to have his supply renewed; 

 for, he declared, this stimulant had become quite a necessity to him. 



When we left Angmagsalik, we of course left the inhabitants 

 as plentiful supplies as possible, but many of them told us that 

 they didn't know how they could do without the snuff when the 

 supply ran short, and they besought us to see that when Kavdlunaks 

 came up to them in the future, they should take plentiful supplies 

 of it with them. 



I am sure that of all the things we brought with us for them, 

 there was nothing that was in such universal request and was 

 therefore likely to be missed so much as tobacco. It is of course 

 to be regretted that we gave them a taste for this luxury; but it 



