AN ESKIMO HOUSEHOLD 55 
and at considerable personal risk succeeded in 
bringing us a rope. It was a courageous act per- 
formed with apparent ease and with admirable 
coolness and skill. The catechist, Jacob Olsen, 
afterwards accompanied Knud Rasmussen as a 
member of the Fifth Thule Expedition. 
As contrary winds prevented our return to 
Godhavn under sail, we despatched two kayakers 
as soon as the storm abated with a letter to the 
Arctic Station, a distance of seventy miles, and 
waited for the arrival of a relief boat to take us in 
tow. Two nights were spent in the house of the 
native Manager of the Settlement, Ludwig Geisler 
(Fig. 23), an exceptionally intelligent man skilled 
in hunting and in all the arts that a Greenlander 
practises: he is seen in the photograph with his 
family. In the room adjoining ours the whole 
family slept on the raised platform which takes the 
place of beds: the almost incessant coughing of 
the young baby served to emphasise the draw- 
backs of the persistent and unhygienic custom of 
members of Eskimo households sleeping together. 
We were well entertained by our host, who knew 
a few words of English picked up by intercourse 
with whalers. The drinking-water, as in many other 
Settlements, was obtained by melting blocks of ice, 
pieces of icebergs washed ashore, and stored in a 
large tub which gave it a slight flavour of seal oil. 
As it was our intention to make an early start in 
the morning our host wound up an alarum clock 
which we afterwards discovered was a most 
effective instrument and a refinement of civilisa- 
