810 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE KARLXJK 
inner inclosure and on to a platform where three 
native lamps were going, one at each end and the 
other in the middle. The roof was so low that my 
head touched it, so I sat down. The woman 
brushed the snow off my clothes with a snow-beater 
shaped like a sickle and thinner than ours, placed 
a deerskin on the platform for me to sit on, pulled 
off my boots and stockings and hung them up to 
dry. Then she gave me a pair of deerskin stock¬ 
ings, not so long as ours, because, as I could see, 
the trousers that these Siberians wore were longer 
than ours. After that she took off my parka or 
fur jacket and hung it up to dry, while I pulled 
off my undershirt. Others were waiting upon 
Kataktovick in the same way and here we were, 
when we had hardly had time to say, “Thank you,” 
clad only in our bearskin trousers and seated com¬ 
fortably about a large wooden dish, filled with 
frozen reindeer meat, eating sociably with twelve 
or fourteen perfect strangers to whom, it might 
be said, we had not been formally introduced. 
Never have I been entertained in a finer spirit of 
true hospitality and never have I been more thank¬ 
ful for the cordiality of my welcome. It was, as I 
was afterwards to learn, merely typical of the true 
humanity of these simple, kindly people. 
When I had time to look about me, I found that 
I was seated in a large, square room, shaped some- 
