2/0 THE LABRADOR ESKIMOS AND THEIR FORMER RANGE. 



between the carcass of a seal or a codfish, as the case 

 might be, and a vessel of familiar, democratic shape and 

 use, filled with urine, in which the sealskins are soaked 

 before being chewed between the teeth of the housewife, 

 an important step in the process of making or mending 

 sealskin boots ; while Eskimo dogs of various sizes and 

 colors blocked the devious way. 



Across the end of the interior, which was floored with 

 wood, and in which we could not stand erect, was a 

 wooden bed or seat, a sort of divan, on which sat a 

 woman in spectacles weaving a basket of dried rushes 

 which had been colored blue or red ; she nodded a wel- 

 come and made us feel quite at home. The other be- 

 longings of the house, were a hearth or fire-place of a few 

 pebbles situated on one side, a soapstone lamp, which 

 was a flat oblong dish carved out of soapstone, of nor- 

 mal Eskimo design, some knives of European manu- 

 facture, needles and thread, while on a shelf we noticed 

 an Eskimo Bible with the owner's name written in a 

 neat hand on the fly leaf. On the whole the interior 

 was neater and less offensive to the eye and nostril than 

 we expected, as was the exterior. Beside the house, on 

 a cross-pole supported by two uprights, rested a kayak, 

 and over other horizontal poles hung drying a black 

 bear's skin or dried codfish, as the- case might be. The 

 spaces between the houses were rudely drained, and sav- 

 ing the usual refuse heap at the rear of the house, a dog's 

 carcass, fish bones, and other rejectamenta, there was 

 nothing particularly repulsive, though certainly nothing 

 attractive about the houses. Two families sometimes 

 live in the same house, which is partitioned off simply 

 by a low rail passing through the middle. We do not 



