158 A YEAR WITH A WHALER 



skins. Our turns up and down deck became 

 fashion parades. We strutted like peacocks, it 

 must be admitted, and displayed our fine clothes 

 to best advantage under the eyes of the Eskimo 

 beauties. 



It remained for Peter, our rolypoly little 

 Swede, to make the only real, simon-pure con- 

 quest. In his new clothes, which sparkled like 

 a silver dollar fresh from the mint, and with his 

 fresh boyish face, he cut quite a handsome figure 

 and one little Eskimo maid fell a victim to his 

 fatal facinations. 'E's killed her dead," said 

 English Bill White. She was perhaps fifteen 

 years old, roguish eyed, rosy cheeked, and with 

 coal-black hair parted in the middle and falling 

 in two braids at the sides of her head. Plump 

 and full of life and high spirits, the gay little 

 creature was as pretty as any girl I saw among 

 the Eskimos. 



Peter was all devotion. He gave his sweet- 

 heart the lion's share of all his meals, feasting 

 her on salt horse, hardtack, soup, and ginger- 

 bread which to her primitive palate that never 

 had risen to greater gastronomic heights than 



