gs, whom one can hardly call men. They go about
in the inclement climate without a rag of covering on, save a bit of raw
sealskin which they shift from shoulder to shoulder as a protection
against the wind, just as we get a vessel's sails round on the port or
starboard tack.

"The inhabitants of one island are hostile to those of the next, killing
them, and eating them too, whenever they have the chance! They have no
sort of government, as most other islanders, even the most savage, have,
and, of course, no laws--in which perhaps they are all the better off.
They never cultivate the soil, or do anything for a living, as we would
say at home; and they mainly occupy the sea-shore, living on whatever
mussels they can manage to pick up, and the blubber of any occasional
fish they come across. I'm told they also eat that toad-stool we see
growing on the beech trees; and if they'd do that, they'd eat anything!
Sometimes they venture out long distances to sea in their rude canoes,
like catamarans, which they contrive out of a couple of branches of a
tree and sealskins sewn together with fish-gut, but they never go
without their blessed fire, though--always carrying it along with them
wherever they go, up the mountains, on the beach, in their frail boats,
the live embers resting always in the latter on a bed of leaves--the
reason for this solicitude being, not that they are followers of
Zoroaster and worship the god of fire, but because they know the
difficulty they would have in rekindling it again if they once allowed
it to go out, as Pat Doolan suffered ours to do the other day, when you
know the consequences, eh?"

"Yes, I remember well," I said, laughing. "We hadn't another match
left, none of us having thought of bringing a supply from the ship, save
a box which one of the men in the jolly-boat fortunately had in his
pocket that first evening of our landing. Then we wanted a fire badly,
and couldn't build one until he got ashore, and this box was expended up
to the last match; so, on the second occasion, Mr Macdougall had to
snap off nearly all the caps he had for his gun before he could get a
light, the snow having damped them. Oh, yes, I remember Pat's fire
going out very well!"

A day or two after this conversation I had the chance of corroborating
the skipper's statement about the natives.

We had now been on the island nearly a fortnight, and our stores were
becoming rapidly diminished; for we were now only