PORT CLARENCE ESKIMO 



179 



jgg -w. 



ESKIMO UMIAK. 



clad in skins and some wearing red or blue shirts. The bot- 

 toms of the boats were covered with sealskin bags, min- 

 gled with deer skins, dogs, and babies. The only silent 

 and impassive living creatures in the vessels were the 

 dogs and the babies; 

 all the others were hold- 

 ing up the articles they 

 wished to trade — hides, 

 bits of carved ivory, 

 mukluks or skin boots, 

 and walrus teeth, and 

 all were shouting at the 

 tops of their voices. It 

 was a scene of great 



confusion. Most of what they offered to sell was not 

 worth buying, since they had undoubtedly parted with 

 all their best things to the whalers. The members of the 

 ship's company gave exorbitant prices for some very 

 worthless things, and paid chiefly in silver, most of which 

 unquestionably soon found its way on board the whalers, 

 to be traded there for spirits. After a time the Eskimo left 

 the ship to return to the beach, and soon the party landed 

 and spent some hours wandering through their camps. 



There was a con- 

 tinuous camp of na- 

 tives stretching all 

 along the curving 

 beach for a mile or 

 more. Some of these 

 had come from Cape 

 Prince of Wales, 

 others from Cape 

 Nome, and others still 

 from St. Michael. 

 Most had recently arrived, and their property was not yet 



ESKIMO KAYAK. 



