ces, be induced to strengthen their limbs with
eating blubber or drinking train-oil? Not a bit of it. Do you think they
can be induced to sleep outside of their own not overly elegant
lodgings, without groaning, and everlastingly desiring to get back
again? Not they."

I could not help asking the Doctor what impelled him to exposure, of
which he had grown so fond.

"The motives are various. I have done a good deal of exploring, have
reached many of the glaciers, have dabbled in natural history,
meteorology, magnetism, &c., &c., besides making many photographs and
geographical surveys, and have sent home to various societies and
museums many curiosities and much information. My name, as you know,
stands well enough among the dons of science. But apart from this, my
duties require me to travel about at all times and all seasons. You must
know that everybody in this country lives upon the shore, and therefore
the settlements are reached only by the sea. In the winter I travel over
the ice with my dog sledge, and in the summer, when the ice has broken
up, I go from place to place in that little five-ton yacht which you saw
lying in the harbor. Sometimes I go from choice, stopping at the
villages, and exhibiting my professional abilities upon Dane or native,
as the case may be. Often I am sent for. The Greenlanders don't like to
die any better than other people, and they all have an impression that,
if Dr. Molke only looks upon them, they are safe. So if an old woman but
gets the belly-ache, away goes her son or husband for the Doctor.
Perhaps it is in summer, and the distance may be a hundred miles or
more. No matter, he gets into his kayak and paddles through all sorts of
weather, and, at the rate of seven knots an hour, comes for me. Glad of
the excuse for a change, to say nothing (and the less perhaps any of us
say on that score the better) of the claims of humanity, I send Sophy
after Adam (a converted native), and directly along comes Adam with his
son Carl; and my medicine and instrument cases, my gun and rifle, and a
plentiful supply of ammunition, a tent, and some fur bedding, a lamp,
and other camp fixtures, and a little simple food, are put into the
boat, and off we go. Perhaps a gale springs up, and we are forced to
make a harbor in some little island; or perhaps it falls calm, and we
crawl into one, under oars. It is sure to be alive with ducks and geese
and snipe. The shooting is superb. Happen what may, come