witnessed. I feel justified in using the language of the fairy
Ariel, in Shakespeare's "Tempest": "Now is Hell empty, and all the
devils are here."

Backward and forward, the foredeck of the ship was a howling, snarling,
biting, yelping, moving mass of fury, and it was a long round of fully
ten or fifteen minutes before the two king dogs of the packs got
together, and then began the battle for supremacy of the pack. It lasted
for some time. It would have been useless to separate them. They would
decide sooner or later, and it was better to have it over, even if one
or both contestants were killed. At length the fight was ended; our old
king dog, Nalegaksoah, the champion of the pack, and the laziest dog in
it, was still the king. After vanquishing his opponent and receiving
humble acknowledgments, King Nalegaksoah went stamping up and down
before the pack and received the homage due him; the new dogs, whining
and fawning and cringingly submissive, bowed down before him.

The chief pleasure of the Esquimo dogs is fighting; two dogs, the best
of friends, will hair-pull and bite each other for no cause whatever,
and strange dogs fight at sight; team-mates fight each other on the
slightest of provocations; and it seems as though sometimes the fights
are held for the purpose of educating the young. When a fight is in
progress, it is the usual sight to see several mother dogs, with their
litters, occupying ring-side seats. I have often wondered what chance a
cat would stand against an Esquimo dog.

The ship kept on, and I had turned in and slept, and on arising had
found that we had reached a place called Igluduhomidy, where a single
family was located. Living with this family was a very old Esquimo,
Merktoshah, the oldest man in the whole tribe, and not a blood-relation
to any member of it. He had crossed over from the west coast of Smith
Sound the same year that Hall's expedition had wintered there, and has
lived there ever since. He had been a champion polar bear and big game
hunter, and though now a very old man, was still vigorous and valiant,
in spite of the loss of one eye.

We stopped at Kookan, the most prosperous of the Esquimo settlements, a
village of five tupiks (skin tents), housing twenty-four people, and
from there we sailed to the ideal community of Karnah. Karnah is the
most delightful spot on the Greenland coast. Situated on a gently
southward sloping knoll are the igloos and tupiks, where I have spent