NESS ARK’S "WIFE. 
219 
They had found it hard travel, but were doing well. 
Brooks’s provision-report was the old story,—out of meat 
and nearly out of bread:—no pleasant news for a tired- 
out man, who saw in this the necessity of another trip 
to Etali. I was only too glad, however, to see that 
their appetites held, for with the animal man, as with 
all others, while he feeds he lives. Short allowance 
for working-men on bread diet was of course out of 
the question. For the past week, each man had eaten 
three pounds of dulf a day, and I did not dare to check 
them, although we had no more flour in reserve to 
draw upon. But the question how long matters could 
go on at this rate admitted of a simple arithmetical 
solution. 
Six Esquimaux, three of them women,—that ugly 
beauty, Nessark’s wife, at the head of them,— had 
come off to the boats for shelter from the gale. They 
seemed so entirely deferential, and to recognise with 
such simple trust our mutual relations of alliance, that 
I resolved to drive down to Etah with Petersen as 
interpreter, and formally claim assistance, according to 
their own laws, on the ground of our established bro¬ 
therhood. I had thought of this before; but both Mar- 
suinah and Metek had been so engrossed with their 
bird-catcliing that I was loath to take them from their 
families. 
Our dogs moved slowly, and the discolored ice ad¬ 
monished me to make long circuits. As we neared 
Littleton Island, the wind blew so freshly from the 
southwest, that I determined to take the in-shore chan- 
