A C C 0 M 0 D A II. 
24 3 
us was enormous. They fed us and our dogs at the 
rate of eight thousand birds a week, all of them 
caught in their little hand-nets. All anxiety left 
us for the time. The men broke out in their old 
forecastle-songs; the sledges began to move merrily 
ahead, and laugh and jest drove out the old moody 
silence. 
During one of our evening halts, when the congrega¬ 
tion of natives had scattered away to their camp-fires, 
Metek and Nualik his wife came to me privately on a 
matter of grave consultation. They brought with 
them a fat, curious-looking boy. “Accomodah,” said 
they, “is our youngest son. His sleep at night is bad, 
and his nangati ’—pointing to that protuberance which 
is supposed to represent aldermanic dignity—“is always 
round and hard. He cats ossuk (blubber) and no 
meat, and bleeds at the nose. Besides, he does not 
grow.” They wanted me, in my capacity of angekok- 
soak, to charm or cure him. 
I told them, with all the freedom from mystery that 
distinguishes the regulated practitioner from the em¬ 
piric, what must be my mode of treatment: that I 
must dip my hand into the salt water where the 
ice cut against the sea, and lay it on the offending 
nangah; and that if they would bring to me their 
rotund little companion within three days, at that 
broad and deep Bethesda, I would signalize my con¬ 
sideration of the kindness of the tribe by a trial of mv 
powers. 
They went away very thankful, taking a preliminary 
