DESERTED SETTLEMENTS 81 
push before them a block of ice. Being attracted 
by the native, we engaged him to accompany us 
for a few days and took his kayak on board. He 
soon became an expert fossil collector and ex- 
pressed his satisfaction by singing doleful tunes 
that he had learnt in church. The natives generally 
regarded us with curiosity and, we were told, spoke 
of us as vagabonds or tramps. 
Traces of former habitations in localities now 
deserted always appeal to the imagination, particu- 
larly on a desolate coast such as that of the stormy 
and gloomy Vaigat. A small wooden cross on the 
summit of a low hill close to the water’s edge 
marked the burial-place of some nameless Green- 
lander from one of the half-ruined stone houses 
not far away and abandoned some years ago. On 
the site of the former Settlement there were 
luxuriant patches of two common grasses which 
are invariably found on ground rich in organic 
material in the neighbourhood of dwellings. Older 
graves were often met with, consisting of rough 
blocks of stone enclosing a small space in which, 
if the grave had not been disturbed, fragments 
of bones might still be seen. Another relic of the 
past, it may be of a comparatively remote past, was 
represented by the remains of two series of stones, 
placed on the ground about ayardapart and forming 
the intersecting arms of across twenty or thirty yards 
long. In former days the Eskimoes arranged blocks 
of stone in long rows to serve as a test of skill and 
endurance; the game consisted in the competitors 
hopping from stone to stone on one leg, the other 
8.8.G. 6 
