THE KAYACK. 
475 
On the twenty-fifth we reached the Whale -fish 
Islands, and at six in the evening were near enough 
to he towed in hy our boats and anchor off Kronprin- 
sen. Flocks of kayacks hung about our vessel, like 
birds about a floating spar. We thought them more 
sprightly and active than the Esquimaux we had been 
among ; hut perhaps it is as unfair to judge of the Es- 
quimaux without his kayack as of a sloth off his tree. 
There was a bright boy among them, under ten years 
of age, who could manage a little craft they had built 
for him admirably. He called to us that his name 
was Paul. Next him was our old friend, Jans, of the 
overturners — whose portrait I have given in the mar- 
gin of the following page — and under our bow, Zach- 
arias, the quarter-breed ; and Paul, senior, the pilot of 
my fur expedition to Lievely. 
I promised, in an early part of my book, to say some- 
thing more about the kayack and its occupant. I re- 
turn for a few minutes to the subject now. 
The common length of the kayack is about eight- 
een feet, its breadth on deck some twenty-one inches. 
