ed the skin to the trader.

"I am in debt," he replied, "but they will only allow me eight dollars
off my account for this skin, and I want to buy some food."

"Very well," I answered. "If you will promise to go at once and pay
eight dollars off your debt, I will give you eight gold sovereigns for
this skin."

To this he agreed, and faithfully carried out the agreement--while the
English lady scored a bargain, and I a very black mark in the books of
my friend the trader.

On another occasion my little steamer had temporarily broken down, and
to save time I had journeyed on in the jolly-boat, leaving the cook to
steer the vessel after me. I wanted to visit a very poor family, one
of whose eight children I had taken to hospital for bone tuberculosis
the previous year, and to whom the Mission had made a liberal grant
of warm clothing. As the steamer had not come along by night, I had to
sleep in the tiny one-roomed shack which served as a home. True, since
it stood on the edge of the forest, there was little excuse that it
was no larger; but the father, a most excellent, honest, and faithful
worker, was obviously discouraged. He had not nearly enough proper
food for his family; clothing was even more at a discount; tools with
which to work were almost as lacking as in a cave man's dwelling; the
whole family was going to pieces from sheer discouragement. The
previous winter on the opposite bank of the same river, called Big
River, a neighbour had in desperation sent his wife and eldest boy out
of the house, killed his young family, and then shot himself.

When night came five of the children huddled together for warmth in
one bed, and the parents and balance of the family in the other. I
slept on the floor near the door in my sleeping-bag, with my nose
glued to the crack to get a breath of God's cold air, in spite of the
need for warmth--for not a blanket did the house possess. When I
asked, a little hurt, where were the blankets which we had sent last
year, the mother somewhat indignantly pointed to various trousers and
coats which betrayed their final resting-place, and remarked, "If
you'se had five lads all trying to get under one covering to onct,
Doctor, you'd soon know what would happen to that blanket."

Early in the morning I made a boiling of cocoa, and took the two elder
boys out for a seal hunt while waiting for my steamer. I was just in
time to see one boy carefully upset his mug of cocoa, when he thought