ake fled away incontinent and
would not be conjured back; though, indeed, the original discoverers
would have had yet further occasion to gaze at one another "with a wild
surmise" if they had seen shrieking companies "shooting the chutes." But
here was vastness, here was desolation, here was silence; jagged ice
masses in the foreground and boundless expanse beyond, solemn and
mysterious. The Arctic Ocean was even as I had pictured it.

The missionary in charge at Kikitaruk had been informed by letter of our
projected journey during the previous summer and had long expected us.
We were received with kindness and hospitality, and after supper began
at once our acquaintance with his work, for there was a service that
night which it was thought we should attend. I spoke for a few minutes
through an excellent interpreter and then spent a couple of hours
nodding over the stove, overcome with sleep, while there was much
singing and "testimony."

[Sidenote: TOTAL-ABSTINENCE ESQUIMAUX]

The Californian Society of Friends, established here a number of years
with branches at other points on Kotzebue Sound, has done an excellent
work amongst the Esquimaux. If they had accomplished nothing else it
would stand to the everlasting credit of the Society's missionaries that
they have succeeded in imbuing the natives under their charge with a
total aversion to all intoxicating liquor. We had come down from the
remotest points to which the influence of these people has extended; we
had met their natives five hundred miles away from their base of
instruction, and everywhere we found the same thing. It was said by the
white men on the Koyukuk that a Kobuk could not be induced to take a
drink of whisky. It seemed to us a pity that the force of this most
wholesome doctrine should be weakened by the unsuccessful attempt to
include tobacco in the same rigorous prohibition. In several cabins
where we stayed there was no sign of smoking until members of our party
produced pipes, whereupon other pipes were furtively produced and the
tobacco that was offered was eagerly accepted. From any rational point
of view the putting of whisky and tobacco in the same category is surely
a folly. There can be few more harmless indulgences to the native than
his pipe, and no one knows the solace of the pipe until he has smoked it
around the camp-fire in the arctic regions after a hard day's journey.

The decision to turn my back on Point Hope was, I think, the