ESQUIMAUX LIFE. 427 
ously in the summer's lodge, a tent of seal or reindeer 
skin, pitched out of doors. Then the room has its an- 
nual ventilation, and its cooking and chamber furni- 
ture are less liable to be confounded. For the winter 
the arrangement is this : on three sides of the room, 
close by the ledge I have spoken of, stand as many 
large pans of porous steatite or serpentine, elevated on 
slight wooden tripods. These, filled with seal-blub- 
ber, and garnished with moss round the edge to serve 
as a wick, unite the functions of chandelier and stove. 
They who q[uarrel with an ill-trimmed lamp at home 
should be disciplined by one of them. Each boils its 
half-gallon kettle of coffee in twenty minutes, and 
smokes — like a small chimney on fire ; and the three 
burn together. There is no flue, or fire-place, or open- 
ing of escape. 
" On the remaining side of the room stand a valued 
table and three chairs ; and with these, like a buhl 
cabinet or fancy etagere, conspicuous in its modest 
corner, a tub. It is the steeping-tub for curing skins. 
Its contents require active fermentation to fit them for 
their ofiice ; and, to judge from the odor, the process 
had been going on successfully." 
We warped out to sea again on the afternoon of the 
third, with our friend the cooper for pilot ; the entire 
settlement turning out upon the rocks to wish us good- 
by, and remaining there till they looked in the dis- 
tance like a herd of seal. But we found no opening 
in the pack, and came back again to Proven on the 
fourth, not sorry, as the weather was thickening, to 
pass our festival inside the little port. 
Our celebration was of the primitive order. We 
saluted the town with one of the largest balanced 
stones, which we rolled down from the clifi" above ; 
