ESQUIMAUX DWELLINGS. 
113 
white. Coming nearer, you see that the dirt-spots 
are perforations of the snow: nearer still, you see abdve 
each opening a smaller one, and a covered roof con¬ 
necting them. These are the doors and windows of 
the settlement; two huts and four families, but for 
these vent-holes entirely buried in the snow. 
The inmates of the burrows swarmed around me as 
I arrived. “Nalegak! nalegak! tima!” was yelled in 
chorus: never seemed people more anxious to propitiate, 
or more pleased with an unexpected visit. But they 
were airily clad, and it blew a northwester; and they 
soon crowded back into their ant-hill. Meantime pre¬ 
parations were making for my in-door reception, and 
after a little while Metck and myself crawled in on 
hands and knees, through an extraordinary tossut thirty 
paces long. As I emerged on the inside, the salute of 
“nalegak” was repeated with an increase of energy 
that was any thing but pleasant. 
There were guests before me,—six sturdy denizens of 
the neighboring settlement. They had been overtaken 
by the storm while hunting, and were already crowded 
upon the central dais of honor. They united in the 
yell of welcome, and I soon found myself gasping the 
ammoniacal steam of some fourteen vigorous, amply- 
fed, unwashed, unclothed fellow-lodgers. I had come 
somewhat exhausted by an eighty miles’ journey 
through the atmosphere of the floes: the thermometer 
inside was at +90°, and the vault measured fifteen feet 
by six. Such an amorphous mass of compounded 
humanity one could see nowhere else: men, women, 
Vol. II—8 
