372 
NOMADIC LIFE. 
miles’ travel, but with good news, and a flipper of 
walrus that must weigh some forty pounds. Ohlsen 
and Hans are in too. They arrived as we were sitting 
down to celebrate the Anoatok ratification of our treaty 
of the 6th. 
“It is a strange life we are leading. We are abso¬ 
lutely nomads, so far as there can be any thing of 
pastoral life in this region; and our wild encounter with 
the elements seems to agree with us all. Our table-talk 
at supper was as merry as a marriage-bell. One party 
was just in from a seventy-four miles’ trip with the 
dogs; another from a foot-journey of a hundred and 
sixty, with five nights on the floe. Each had his story 
to tell; and while the story was telling some at least 
were projecting new expeditions. I have one myself 
in my mind’s eye, that may peradventure cover some 
lines of my journal before the winter ends. 
“McGary and Morton sledged it along the ice-foot 
completely round the Reach, and made the huts by ten 
o’clock the night after they left us. They found only 
three men, Ootuniali, our elfish rogue Myouk, and a 
stranger who has not been with us that we know of. 
It looked at first a little doubtful whether the visit was 
not to be misunderstood. Myouk particularly was an 
awkward party to negotiate with. He had been our 
prisoner for stealing only a little while before, and at 
this very moment is an escaped hostage. He was in 
pawn to us for a lot of walrus-beef, as indemnity for 
our boat. He thought naturally enough that the visit 
might have something more than a representative 
