avage grandeur in this coast, carved by eternal conflict
with storms and glaciers, bergs and grinding ice-fields; but behind the
frowning outer mask nestle in summer many grass-carpeted,
flower-sprinkled, sun-kissed nooks. Millions of little auks breed along
this shore. Between the towering cliffs are glaciers which launch at
intervals their fleets of bergs upon the sea; before these cliffs lies
the blue water dotted with masses of glistening ice of all shapes and
sizes; behind the cliffs is the great Greenland ice cap, silent,
eternal, immeasurable--the abode, say the Eskimos, of evil spirits and
the souls of the unhappy dead.

In some places on this coast in summer, the grass is as thick and long
as on a New England farm. Here bloom poppies, with dandelions,
buttercups, and saxifrage, though to the best of my knowledge the
flowers are all devoid of perfume. I have seen bumblebees even north of
Whale Sound; there are flies and mosquitoes, and even a few spiders.
Among the fauna of this country are the reindeer (the Greenland
caribou), the fox--both blue and white--the arctic hare, the Polar bear,
and perhaps once in a generation a stray wolf.

But in the long sunless winter this whole region--cliffs, ocean,
glaciers--is covered with a pall of snow that shows a ghastly gray in
the wan starlight. When the stars are hidden, all is black, void, and
soundless. When the wind is blowing, if a man ventures out he seems to
be pushed backward by the hands of an invisible enemy, while a vague,
unnamable menace lurks before and behind him. It is small wonder the
Eskimos believe that evil spirits walk upon the wind.

During the winter these patient and cheerful children of the North live
in igloos, or huts, built of stones and earth. It is only when they are
traveling, as sometimes during the moonlit period of the month, that
they live in the snow igloos, which three good Eskimos can build in an
hour or two, and which we built at the end of every day's march on our
sledge journey to the Pole. In summer they live in the tupiks, or skin
tents. The stone houses are permanent, and a good one will last perhaps
a hundred years, with a little repairing of the roof in summer. Igloos
are found in groups, or villages, at intervals along the coast from
Cape York Bay to Anoratok. As the people are nomadic, these permanent
dwellings belong to the tribe, and not to individuals, constituting thus
a crude sort of arctic socialism. One year all t