moved
as occasion required and so provided for sanitation. These wooden huts
were undrained, dark and dirty to a remarkable degree. No water supply
was provided, and the spaces between the houses were simply
indescribable garbage heaps, presided over by innumerable dogs. The
average life was very short and infant mortality high. The best for
which we could hope in the way of morals among these people was that a
natural unmorality was some offset to the existing conditions. The
features of the native life which appealed most to us were the
universal optimism, the laughing good-nature and contentment, and the
Sunday cleanliness of the entire congregation which swarmed into the
chapel service, a welcome respite from the perennial dirt of the week
days. Moreover, nearly all had been taught to read and write in
Eskimo, though there is no literature in that language to read, except
such books as have been translated by the Moravian Brethren. At that
time a strict policy of teaching no English had been adopted. Words
lacking in the language, like "God," "love," etc., were substituted by
German words. Nearly every Eskimo counted "ein, zwei, drei." In one of
my lectures, on returning to England, I mentioned that as the Eskimos
had never seen a lamb or a sheep either alive or in a picture, the
Moravians, in order to offer them an intelligible and appealing
simile, had most wisely substituted the kotik, or white seal, for the
phrase "the Lamb of God." One old lady in my audience must have felt
that the good Brethren were tampering unjustifiably with Holy Writ,
for the following summer, from the barrels of clothing sent out to
the Labrador, was extracted a dirty, distorted, and much-mangled and
wholly sorry-looking woolly toy lamb. Its _raison d'etre_ was a
mystery until we read the legend carefully pinned to one dislocated
leg, "Sent in order that the heathen may know better."

Their love for music and ability to do part-playing and singing also
greatly impressed us, and we spent many evenings enjoying their brass
bands and their Easter and Christmas carols. We made some records of
these on our Edison phonograph, and they were overpowered with joy
when they heard their own voices coming back to them from the machine.
The magic lantern also proved exceedingly popular, and several tried
to touch the pictures and see if they could not hold them. We were
also able to show some hastily made lantern slides of themselves, and
I shall ne