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"Makitok!" shouted Benjy, gazing open-eyed at the white-bearded wizard, who returned the gaze with some astonishment. "Why, old boy," cried the boy, jumping up and seizing the wizard's hand, "you're a Scotsman!" "So he is," said the Captain with a look of profound interest.
Their descendants inhabit the Great Isle of Flatland at the present day. They are good and strong; great hunters and warriors. The first forefather lived long, till he became white and blind. His power and wisdom lay in a little strange thing which he called `buk. How it made him strong or wise no one can tell, but so it was. His name was Makitok. When he died he gave buk to his eldest son.
Two india-rubber boats were on the shore. Two kites were flying overhead. The third boat and kite had been damaged beyond repair, but the two left were sufficient. The Englishmen were about to depart, and the Eskimos were inconsolable. "My boat is on the shore, " Said Benjy, quoting Byron, as he shook old Makitok by the hand
"Tok," said Leo; "Makitok. Everything almost ends in tok or tuk hereabouts." "Who, and what, is this man?" asked the Captain. "No one seems to know precisely. His origin has been lost in the mists of antiquity. His first forefather so tradition styles him seems, like Melchisedec, to have had no father or mother, and to have come from no one knows where.
From that day, during the brief period of preparation for the setting out of an expedition to visit Makitok of Great Isle, Leo received daily visits from the Prime Minister, who was deeply interested and inquisitive about the strange "thing," as he styled the Bible, which told the Kablunets about God and the Prince of Peace.
The land was clothed in mosses and grasses of the richest green, and decked with variegated wild-flowers and berries. The voyagers were received with deep interest and great hospitality by the inhabitants of the coast, who, it seemed, never quarrelled with the neighbouring islanders or went to war. Makitok dwelt in the centre of the island. Thither they therefore went the following day.
"Why not?" echoed Chingatok. When Amalatok and Makitok heard the question propounded, they also said, "Why not?" and, as nobody objected, the thing was settled off-hand then and there. "But," said the prime minister of Flatland, starting a difficulty, "who is to be greatest chief?"
My son, these Kablunets are ignorant fools, and you are not much better for believing them. Boo! I have no patience with the nonsense talk of Blackbeard." The old chief flung angrily out of the hut, leaving his more philosophic son to continue the discussion of the earth's mysteries with Makitok, the reputed wizard of the furthest possible north.
Yes, he's a Scotch Bohemian Jew, or I'm a Dutchman." This discovery seemed almost too much for Benjy. He could not think or talk of anything else the remainder of that day. Among other things he undertook to explain to Makitok something of his origin and antecedents.
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