THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE KARLUK 
slabs a foot long, eight inches wide and three- 
fourths of an inch thick. In our honor the old 
woman brought out cups and saucers of the pret¬ 
tiest china I have ever seen; the cups were very 
small, holding about three sips. Each cup was 
wrapped in a dirty cloth, on which the old woman 
wiped it after carefully spitting on it to make it 
clean. When I saw her method of dish-washing, 
I was impolite enough to ask Kataktovick to go out 
and get my mug from the sledge; when he re¬ 
turned with it our hostess looked disappointed, 
though whether from the large size of the mug or 
because I did not apparently appreciate her kind¬ 
ness in using her best china for us, I cannot say. 
When we had finished the wooden dish of rein¬ 
deer meat, which though uncooked was good eating, 
they brought in another filled with walrus meat, 
evidently taken from a walrus killed the previous 
summer, which had a smell that I cannot describe. 
Out of politeness I tried to eat it, but found it was 
a little too much for me. Kataktovick enjoyed it. 
Later on I asked him why he wanted the same food 
we had aft while he was on the ship and yet was 
willing to eat this foul walrus meat; he said he 
liked it. Apparently although they live pretty 
much on white man’s food the Eskimo enjoy get¬ 
ting back once in a while to walrus meat and blub¬ 
ber that have seen better days. 
