cake of
ice. They are sure of what they say, because although the oldest man
alive only heard about it from the oldest man when he was a baby, they
still find shells in the crannies of the rocks far beyond the maddest
reach of the sea: and somebody once found the remains of a whale at
the very top of a high mountain.

"You do not go up to heaven when you die: you go down,--way, way down,
to the bottom of the sea, where the best of everything is. There it's
summer all the time. To the Eskimo there is no hell in being hot--hell
is terrible cold. Down there where it is summer all the time you
don't have to chase reindeer if you want them to pull you about--they
come running up to you, obliging as taxicabs, and ask you please to
harness them and tell them where you would like to go. And your dinner
is ready for you all the time: the seals are swimming about in a
kettle of boiling water. The women don't have to spend their time
chewing on the sealskins to make them pliable for shoes and garments.
The skins come off, all by themselves, already chewed--as nice and
soft as can be, fit to make a bed for an Eskimo baby.

"His boat and his weapons go with the warrior to his grave, so that
his spirit may have the use of them in the next world.

"Once, one of the sailors from Newfoundland took something from a
grave and hid it in his bunk.

"That night the dead Eskimo came looking for his property.

"It was pitch dark--but one of the crew saw and felt the ghost
prowling about in the cabin!

"He yelled, and they lit the lamp.

"The ghost went out at the hatchway instantly.

"They put out the light, and the ghost came back. Then shouts were
heard, 'There he is! He's a Eskimo! He's huntin' in Tom's bunk!'

"After that, they kept the lamp lit all night long: and the next day,
Tom went back and with trembling fingers restored what he had stolen
to the grave.

"There are wide chinks in the rocky roof of every properly made Eskimo
grave. This is not so that prowling sailor-men may reach in: it is so
the spirits will have no trouble going in and out.

"You may still find lying in a grave a modern high-powered rifle ready
for business, and good steel knives ready to carve those cooked seals
down there in Heaven. I've even found pipes all ready filled with
tobacco, to save the spirits the trouble of using their fingers to
cram the bowl.

"Nowadays sealskins are exchanged for European goods, especially guns,
and the Labrador E