uld have met with numerous whalers under these
high latitudes, but at present the straits were not sufficiently open
to allow them to penetrate into Baffin's Bay. The following day the
brig, after having headed Woman's Island, came in sight of Uppernawik,
the most northerly settlement that Denmark possesses on these coasts.

CHAPTER X

DANGEROUS NAVIGATION

Shandon, Dr. Clawbonny, Johnson, Foker, and Strong, the cook, went
on shore in the small boat. The governor, his wife, and five children,
all of the Esquimaux race, came politely to meet the visitors. The
doctor knew enough Danish to enable him to establish a very agreeable
acquaintance with them; besides, Foker, who was interpreter of the
expedition, as well as ice-master, knew about twenty words of the
Greenland language, and if not ambitious, twenty words will carry
you far. The governor was born on the island, and had never left his
native country. He did the honours of the town, which is composed
of three wooden huts, for himself and the Lutheran minister, of a
school, and magazines stored with the produce of wrecks. The remainder
consists of snow-huts, the entrance to which is attained by creeping
through a hole.

The greater part of the population came down to greet the _Forward_,
and more than one native advanced as far as the middle of the bay
in his kayak, fifteen feet long and scarcely two wide. The doctor
knew that the word Esquimaux signified raw-fish-eater, and he
likewise knew that the name was considered an insult in the country,
for which reason he did not fail to address them by the title of
Greenlanders, and nevertheless only by the look of their oily sealskin
clothing, their boots of the same material, and all their greasy
tainted appearance, it was easy to discover their accustomed food.
Like all Ichthyophagans, they were half-eaten up with leprosy; and
yet, for all that, were in no worse health.

The Lutheran minister and his wife, with whom the doctor promised
himself a private chat, were on a journey towards Proven on the south
of Uppernawik; he was therefore reduced to getting information out
of the governor. This chief magistrate did not seem to be very learned;
a little less and he would have been an ass, a little more and he
would have known how to read. The doctor, however, questioned him
upon the commercial affairs, the customs and manners of the Esquimaux,
and learnt by signs that seals were worth about 40 pounds delivered