526 
PI i Tee oH | 
SAMOYEDE DOGS HARNESSED TO ANTARCTIC SLEDGE. 
THE NEAR MIDDLE DOG IS MRS. RINGER'S OUSSA. 
CHAPIER Lx. 
ARCTIC AND OTHER DRAUGHT DOGS. 
““ Unmeet we should do 
As the doings of wolves are, 
Raising wrongs ’gainst each other 
As the dogs of the Norns, 
The greedy ones nourished 
In waste steads of the earth.” 
HE uncivilised Polar tribes, both those 
who inhabited the Siberian tundras, 
and the Eskimos of America and 
Greenland, had discovered long before Arctic 
expeditions had begun, a safe and easy 
means of traversing the barren, trackless 
regions of the frozen North: namely the 
sledge drawn by dogs They were a semi- 
nomadic people, moving their habitations 
at certain seascns of the year in accordance 
with the varying facilities for procuring 
food, and the need for a convenient method 
of locomotion by land and the absence of 
any other animal fitted for the work of 
hauling heavy burdens very naturally 
caused them to enlist the services of the dog. 
Nor could a more adaptable animal have 
been chosen for travelling over frozen ground 
and icebound seas, had these inhabitants of 
the frigid zone been at liberty to select from 
the fauna of the whole earth. Had the 
horse been possible, or the reindeer easily 
available, the necessity of adding fodder to 
the loaded sleds was an_ insuperable diffi- 
Lay oF Hamopir. 
culty; but the dog was carnivorous, and 
could feed on blubber, walrus skin, fish, 
bear, or musk ox, obtained in the course of 
the journey, or even on the carcases of his 
own kind ; and his tractable character, the 
combined strength of an obedient pack, and 
the perfect fitness of the animal for the 
work required, rendered the choice so 
obvious that there can hardly have been a 
time when the Arctic peoples were ignorant 
of the dog’s value. 
The Eskimos are not an artistic race ; 
but the few ancient records rudely inscribed 
on rock or bone give proof that in the very 
earliest times their sledges were drawn by 
dogs. In the sixteenth century Martin 
Frobisher, who voyaged to Greenland in 
search of gold, and the early navigators who 
penetrated far into the Arctic seas to seek 
a north-west passage, observed with interest 
the practical uses to which the wolf-like dog 
of the north was put. In later times the 
European explorers recognised the advantage 
of imitating the Eskimo method of locomo- 
