safe, so I will not expect him. I have
brought my small Testament with me. It has hitherto been my constant
travelling companion. I am thus provided with mental food. But, in
truth, I shall not want much of that for the next twelve hours. Rest!
rest! rest! is what we require. No one can imagine how a man can enjoy
rest, after he has been for many months exposed to constant, exhausting,
heart-breaking toil, with the thermometer _always_ below zero, and with
nothing but salt food to keep him alive.

"_Tuesday night_.--Here we are at last--among the Eskimos! and what a
queer set they are, to be sure. All fat and fur! They look as broad as
they are long. They wear short fox and seal-skin coats, or shirts, with
hoods to then; no trousers, but long boots, that come up and meet the
coats. Women, men, and babies, all dressed alike, or nearly so. The
only difference is that the women's boots are longer and wider than
those of the men. But I forgot--yes, there is one other difference; the
women have _tails_ to their coats; the men have none! Real tails--not
like the broad skirts of our dress-coats, but long, narrow tails,
something like the tail of a cow, with a broadish flap at the end of it.
This they evidently look upon as a handsome ornament, for I observe
that when they go off on a journey, each woman buttons her tail up to
her waist, to keep it out of the way, and when she returns she unbuttons
it, and comes into camp with her tail flowing gracefully behind her!

"We had a terrible journey of it down here. The captain returned to us
on Monday morning early, and the next two days we spent struggling over
the hummocks and out upon the floes. It was so cold that the wind cut
into our very marrow. We have all had our faces frozen, more or less,
but not badly. Baker will have an ugly spot on the end of his nose for
some weeks to come. It is getting black now, and as the nose itself is
bright red and much swelled, his appearance is not improved. I
foolishly tried to eat a little snow yesterday morning, and the
consequence is that my lips are sore and bloody. On Monday afternoon
the dogs and sledge went head over heels into a deep rut in the ice, and
it cost us two hours to get them out again. Luckily no damage was done,
although the captain was on the sledge at the time.

"We had almost despaired of finding the village when we came upon a
sledge track that led us straight up to it. I shall never forget the