106 
FOOD PLENTY. 
entered this morning on their eighth day of fasting 
from flesh. One or two have been softening about 
the gums again for some days past, and all feel weak 
with involuntary abstinence. The evening comes, and 
‘ Bim! him! him!’ sounds upon the deck: Hans is hack 
•with his dogs. Rabbit-stew and walrus-liver!—a supper 
for a king! 
“ This life of ours—for we have been living much in 
this way for nine months past—makes me more cha¬ 
ritable than I used to be with our Esquimaux neigh- 
bors. The day provides for itself; or, if it does not, we 
trust in the morrow, and are happy till to-morrow dis¬ 
appoints us. Our smoke-dried cabin is a scene worth 
looking at: no man with his heart in the right place 
but would enjoy it. Every man is elbowed up on his 
platform, with a bowl of rich gravy-soup between his 
knees and a stick of frozen liver at his side, gorging 
himself with the antiscorbutic luxuries, and laughing 
as if neither ice nor water was before him to traverse. 
“ Hans has brought Metek with him, and Metek s 
young nephew, a fine-looking boy of fourteen. 
“ I do not know whether I have mentioned that 
some little time before our treaty of alliance and mu¬ 
tual honesty Metek stole the gunwale ol the Red Eric. 
He has been, of course, in something of uncertainty as 
to his political and personal relations, and his present 
visit to the nalegak with a noble sledge-load of walrus- 
meat is evidently intended as a propitiation tor his 
wrong. 
“They are welcome, the meat and Metek, abun- 
