Part 15 (2/2)

At the first sign of the approaching hunters a cry goes up: ”They are coin to count

They thank their own idea of Heaven when they find that--seals or no seals--theirseals, they shout his napok,” which ”

The women haul in the boats, rub noses with their husbands to show their affection, and proceed to prepare the feast of raw blubber

After that feast the , but with touches of huhter

The story-telling is a part of the seal-hunt The phrases are straight-flung as a seal-lance

”When the ti the harpoon, I looked to it, I took it, I seized it, I gripped it, I had it fast in ape,the Eskimos have to motion pictures--and what a motion picture the whole of the seal-hunt is! No wonder the hunter lolls back like a lord, and lets hi hero

The old men feel their youth renewed as they sit and listen to these wonder-tales In their turn, they are ht and overcah the side of the boat and wounded the hunter But there are no friends like Eskiht They killed the walrus--they dined off the meat--and the tusks are kept to this day to show for it A skin canoe against a walrus--that is a battle indeed The younger men knohat it means: and the old man is comforted by the remembrance of what he used to be

They are patient people, the Eskimo, and they need all the patience they have An Inspector sent a boat-load of Eskioats

They were gone a long time, and he wondered what had become of them

When at last they returned, he asked the They told hio, they found the grass was too short So they had to sit down and wait until it grew Their time was of no value And they had their orders to obey!

The world owes it to these brave people not to take froht to their few possessions in the far places where they dwell

VII

LITTLE PRINCE POMIUK

There was an Eskimo boy named Pomiuk who lived in the far north of Labrador, at Nachoak Bay Po of the Eskimo boy In summer his faloo It is a fine artblocks must be shaped and fitted exactly, so as to come out even at the top

Blubber in a stone dish supplied light and heat If the air got too thick, father could thrust the handle of his dog-whip through the roof nobody bothered about bathing on Saturday night, and nobody s In an atmosphere that would stifle a white hed and had the time of their lives Pomiuk had his ohip of braided walrus hide, and even when he was little the dogs respected hiht at ”ouk!” and stopped and sat down panting when he shouted ”ah!”

When Poe errand

Po for cod But when the strange shi+p dropped anchor, they flocked to it shouting in their own tongue ”Stranger! stranger!” When they learned why it came they were amazed

An Eskimo interpreter who came with the white men from the south explained that what they wanted was to take the Eskimo to that far-off land called As were gathered together in huge igloos for all the world to see

They wanted the Eski with thes, their sleds, their tools, their clothing, and the things hich they hunted whales and seals and polar bears In fact the whitevery reht their things with theued till a number of the Eskimo let themselves be persuaded The Eski themselves in for, or they never would have started The beautiful fairy-tales told by the white inations They had always been very well pleased with their ohite, cold world of whales and seals and kayaks--those canoes in which they are as much at home as the fish in the sea But here was a chance to travel, and see marvels, and come hoood a chance toto do but brag about their adventures for the rest of their lives

Poo But he was broad- sacrifice for him to part with his wife and son, for it is the teeth of the women that must chew the sealskins to ers of wo But Pomiuk's mother could show the helpless white women how to make skin boots, and Po whip as he used it every day If the Eskis at the nearest trading-post, the ti southward trek would not be wasted The Eskiood businesshis puppies after they are born and his fox-skins before he spends them

So the Eski hoh their lips were silent about it: and when they got to Chicago the life was strange with hideous sight and sound, and altogether unbearable: and they longed to get away froain their northern lights, which to the Eskimo are the spirits of the dead at play