ESQUIMAUX HOMESTEAD. 
379 
suaded Ootuniah, the eldest of the Esquimaux, to 
have a tent-pole lashed horizontally across his shoul¬ 
ders. I gave him the end of a line, which I had fast¬ 
ened at the other end round my waist. The rest of 
the party followed him. 
“As I moved ahead, feeling round me for a prac¬ 
ticable way, Ootuniah followed; and when a table of 
ice was found large enough, the others would urge 
forward the dogs, pushing the sledge themselves, or 
clinging to it, as the moment prompted. We had acci¬ 
dents of course, some of them menacing for the time, 
but none to be remembered for their consequences; 
and at last one after another succeeded in clambering 
after me upon the ice-foot, driving the dogs before 
them. 
“Providence had been our guide. The shore on 
which we landed was Anoatok, not four hundred yards 
from the familiar Esquimaux homestead. With a 
shout of joy, each man in his own dialect, we hastened 
to the ‘wind-loved spot;’ and in less than an hour, our 
lamps burning cheerfully, we were discussing a famous 
stew of walrus-steaks, none the less relished for an 
unbroken ice-walk of forty-eight miles and twenty halt¬ 
less hours. . 
“When I reached the hut, our stranger Esquimaux, 
whose name we found to be Awahtok, or ‘Seal-bladder 
float,’ was striking a fire from two stones, one a plain 
piece of angular milky quartz, held in the right hand, 
the other apparently an oxide of iron. He struck 
them together after the true tinder-box fashion, throw- 
