not task one more, nor exhibit more
degrees of success. Some fail, and never graduate; some become
illustrious for kayak-erudition.

This culture has also the merit of entire seriousness and sincerity.
Life and death, not merely a name in the newspapers, are in it. Of all
vehicles, on land or sea, to which man intrusts himself, the kayak is
safest and unsafest. It is a very hair-bridge of Mohammed: security or
destruction is in the finest poise of a moving body, the turn of a hand,
the thought of a moment. Every time that the Esquimaux spears a seal at
sea, he pledges his life upon his skill. With a touch, with a moment's
loss of balance, the tipsy craft may go over; over, the oar, with which
it is to be restored, may get entangled, may escape from the hand,
may--what not? For all _what-nots_ the kayaker must preserve instant
preparation; and with his own life on the tip of his fingers, he must
make its preservation an incidental matter. He is there, not to save his
life, but to capture a seal, worth a few dollars! It is his routine
work. Different from getting up a leading article, making a plea in
court, or writing Greek iambics for a bishopric!

Probably there is no race of men on earth whose ordinary avocations
present so constantly the alternative of rarest skill on the one hand,
or instant destruction on the other. And for these avocations one is
fitted only by a _scholarship_, which it requires prolonged schooling,
the most patient industry, and the most delicate consent of mind and
body to attain. If among us the highest university-education were
necessary, in order that one might live, marry, and become a
householder, we should but parallel in our degree the scheme of their
life.

Measured by post-Adamite standards, the life of the Esquimaux is a sorry
affair; measured by his own standards, it is a piece of perfection. To
see the virtue of his existence, you must, as it were, look at him with
the eyes of a wolf or fox,--must look up from that low level, and
discern, so far above, this skilled and wondrous creature, who by
ingenuity and self-schooling has converted his helplessness into power,
and made himself the plume and crown of the physical world.

In the kayak the Esquimaux attains to beauty. As he rows, the extremes
of the two-bladed oar revolve, describing rhythmic circles; the body
holds itself in airy poise, and the light boat skims away with a look of
life. The speed is greater than our swiftest b