mselves there as in days of yore.
Seals also abounded in the inlet, and multitudes of aquatic birds
swarmed around its cliffs.

The Eskimo village which had been built there, unlike the snow-hut
villages of winter, was composed chiefly of huts made of slabs of stone,
intermingled with moss and clay. It was exceeding dirty, owing to
remnants of blubber, shreds of skins, and bones innumerable, which were
left lying about. There might have been about forty of these huts, at
the doors of which--or the openings which served for doors--only women
and children were congregated at the time we introduce them to the
reader. All the men, with the exception of a few ancients, were away
hunting.

In the centre of the village there stood a hut which was larger and a
little cleaner than the others around it. An oldish man with a grey
beard was seated on a stone bench beside the door. If tobacco had been
known to the tribe, he would probably have been smoking. In default of
that he was thrown back upon meditation. Apparently his meditations
were not satisfactory, for he frowned portentously once or twice, and
shook his head.

"You are not pleased to-day, Mangivik," said a middle-aged woman who
issued from the hut at the moment and sat down beside the man.

"No, woman, I am not," he answered shortly.

Mangivik meant no disrespect by addressing his wife thus. "Woman" was
the endearing term used by him on all occasions when in communication
with her.

"What troubles you? Are you hungry?"

"No. I have just picked a walrus rib clean. It is not that."

He pointed, as he spoke, to a huge bone of the animal referred to.

"No, it is not that," he repeated.

"What then? Is it something you may not tell me?" asked the woman in a
wheedling tone, as she crossed her legs and toyed with the flap of her
tail.

Lest the civilised reader should be puzzled, we may here remark that the
costume of the husband and wife whom we have introduced--as, indeed, of
most if not all Eskimo men and women--is very similar in detail as well
as material. Mangivik wore a coat or shirt of seal-skin with a hood to
it, and his legs were encased in boots of the same material, which were
long enough to cover nearly the whole of each leg and meet the skirt of
the coat. The feet of the boots were of tough walrus-hide, and there
was a short peak to the coat behind. The only difference in the costume
of the woman was that the hood of her coat was larg