ost
the same care-free irregularity as usual. The best-natured people on
earth, with no bad habits of their own, but a ready ability to
assimilate the vices of civilization. Twenty years ago, when I first
met them, not one used tobacco or craved it. To-day every member of the
tribe has had experience with tobacco, craves it, and will give most
everything, except his gun, to get it. Even little toddlers, three and
four years old, will eat tobacco and, strange to say, it has no bad
effect. They get tobacco from the Danish missionaries and from the
sailors on board the whaling, seal, and walrus-ships. Whisky has not yet
gotten in its demoralizing work.

It is my conviction that the life of this little tribe is doomed, and
that extinction is nearly due. It will be caused partly by themselves,
and partly by the misguided endeavors of civilized people. Every year
their number diminishes; in 1894, Hugh J. Lee took the census of the
tribe, and it numbered two hundred and fifty-three; in 1906, Professor
Marvin found them to have dwindled to two hundred and seven. At this
writing I dare say their number is still further reduced, for the latest
news I have had from the Whale Sound region informs me that quite a
number of deaths have occurred, and the birth-rate is not high. It is
sad to think of the fate of my friends who live in what was once a land
of plenty, but which is, through the greed of the commercial hunter,
becoming a land of frigid desolation. The seals are practically gone,
and the walrus are being quickly exterminated. The reindeer and the
musk-oxen are going the same way, for the Esquimos themselves now hunt
inland, when, up to twenty years ago, their hunting was confined to the
coast and the life-giving sea.

They are very human in their attributes, and in spite of the fact that
their diet is practically meat only, their tempers are gentle and mild,
and there is a great deal of affection among them. Except between
husband and wife, they seldom quarrel; and never hold spite or
animosity. Children are a valuable asset, are much loved, never scolded
or punished, and are not spoiled. An Esquimo mother washes her baby the
same way a cat washes her kittens. There are lots of personal habits the
description of which might scatter the reading circle, so I will desist
with the bald statement, that, for them, dirt and filth have no
terrors.

CHAPTER VII

SLEDGING TO CAPE COLUMBIA--HOT SOLDERING IN COLD WEATHER