rightly on Kit.

"_Chymo?_" said Raed interrogatively.

Instantly they began to crowd round him, a dozen jabbering all at
once. Faster even than before they ran on, amid which we could now and
then distinguish words which sounded like _oomiaksook_, _hennelay_,
_cob-loo-nak_, _yemeck_. These words, as we had read, meant _big
ship_, _woman_, _Englishman_, _water_, respectively. But it was
utterly impossible to make out in what connection they were used.
Despite our vocabulary, we were as much at a loss as ever.

"Confound it!" Kit exclaimed. "Let's make signs. No use trying to
_talk_ with them."

"We shall want one of those _kayaks_ to carry home," remarked Raed.
"Captain, will you please bring up a couple of those long bars of iron
and three or four yards of red flannel? We will see what can be done
in the _chymo_ line."

Capt. Mazard soon appeared with the iron and the flannel; at sight of
which the exclamation of "_Chymo!_" and "_Tyma!_" ("Good!") were
redoubled. Raed then took the articles, and, going to the side,
pointed down to one of the canoes, then to the iron bars, and said
_chymo_. At that some of them said "_Tyma_," and others "_Negga-mai_,"
with a shake of their heads; but when Raed pointed to both the iron
and the flannel, undoubling it as he did so, they all cried "_Tyma!_"
and one of them (the owner of the _kayak_, as it proved) came forward
to take the things. Raed gave them to him. A line with a slip-noose
was then dropped over the nose of the _kayak_, and it was pulled on
board.

In plan it was much like our cedar "shells" used at regattas,--a
narrow skiff about twenty-three feet in length by eighteen inches in
width. At the centre there was a small round hole just large enough
for one to sit with his legs under the seal-skin deck, which was bound
tightly to a hoop encircling the hole. Indeed, the whole outside of
this singular craft was of seal-skins, sewed together and drawn tight
as a drum-head over a frame composed mainly of the rib-bones of the
walrus. The double-bladed paddle was tied to the _kayak_ with a long
thong; as was also a harpoon, made of bones laid together, and wound
over with a long thong of green seal-skin. The lance-blade at the
point was of very white, fine ivory; probably that of the walrus.
Attached to the harpoon was a very long coil of line, made also of
braided seal-skin, and wound about a short, upright peg behind the
hoop. We supposed that the paddle and the harpoon