MOONSHINE AND HYGIENE 163 



kimo " moonshiner " who made unlicensed whis- 

 key under the midnight sun and yet was as gen- 

 uine a " moonshiner " as any lawless southern 

 mountaineer. The sailors, being thirsty souls, 

 at once opened negotiations with him for liquor. 

 He drew from beneath his deer-skin coat a skin 

 bottle filled with liquor and sold it to us for fif- 

 teen hardtack. Wherefore there was, for a 

 time, joy in the forecastle — in limited quantity, 

 for the bottle was small. This product of the 

 ice-bound North was the hottest stuff I ever 

 tasted. 



The captain was not long in discovering that 

 the Eskimo had liquor to sell and sent a boat 

 ashore with a demijohn. The jug was brought 

 back filled with Siberian "moonshine," which 

 had been paid for with a sack of flour. The 

 boat's crew found on the beach a little distillery 

 in comparison with which the pot stills of the 

 Kentucky and Tennessee mountains, made of 

 old kitchen kettles would seem elaborate and 

 up-to-date plants. The still itself was an old 

 tin oil can; the worm, a twisted gun barrel; the 

 flake-stand, a small powder keg. The mash 



