Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 7, 2025
He preferred that, because his powers with the rifle were not yet developed. Sometimes he went with Toolooha, or Tekkona, or Oblooria, in one of the native oomiaks to fish. At other times he practised paddling in the native kayak, so that he might accompany Chingatok on his excursions to the neighbouring islands after seals and wild-fowl.
Submitting to authority while among the ice-floes of the polar seas, Nazinred had, as we have seen, consented to take his place humbly among the women and children in one of the oomiaks. Anteek and one of his companions were permitted to paddle the birch-bark canoe, to their very great satisfaction, until Whale River was reached.
Here and there Eskimo oomiaks, fat, walrus-hide boats, slid about like huge, many-legged water- bugs. An endless, ant-like stream of tenders, piled high with freight, plied to and from the shore. A mile distant lay the city, stretched like a white ribbon between the gold of the ocean sand and the dun of the moss-covered tundra. It was like no other in the world.
When at last the ocean currents and summer heat broke up the solid floes and set the icebergs free to resume their majestic southward course, our Eskimos put their sledges en cache, got out kayaks and oomiaks, and, wielding both the short and the long paddle, started off towards the southwest, in the direction of Waruskeek some of the tribe, however, with a few of the old people, remaining behind.
"I would have asked Him to clear the sea of ice," replied the Eskimo promptly, "and send us kayaks and oomiaks to take us on shore." "And if He had answered you according to your prayer, you would have said, no doubt, `That is well." "Yes," answered Simek emphatically, and with a smile.
"If Amalatok were to kill all his enemies all the men, women and children," said the Captain, raising a fierce gleam of satisfaction in the old man's face at the mere suggestion, "and if he were to knock down all their huts, and burn up all their kayaks and oomiaks, the insult would still remain, because an insult can only be wiped out by one's enemy confessing his sin and repenting."
There were also five oomiaks or women's boats, of considerable size, formed of a framework of wood and whalebone, covered with deer-skins, and having flat sides and bottom. One of these contained no less than twenty-one women, boys, and young children. They were of a wild tribe, and evidently more debased than those of the Greenland shore.
When, however, the time came for setting off on this grand hunt, he carried his boat, still bundled up in skins, down to the water's edge, where kayaks and oomiaks in hundreds lay ready to be launched. The news spread like wild-fire that the Kablunet was going to "act wonderfully!" Every man, woman, and child in the place hurried to the spot.
On coming to within a quarter of a mile of the fort, the men halted to allow the women to come up; then forming in a crescent in front of the oomiaks, the whole flotilla advanced slowly towards the beach. When within a hundred yards or so, Stanley said, "Now, Oolibuck, give them a hail." "Chimo! Chimo! Chimo-o-o!" shouted the interpreter. The word acted like a talisman.
The end of it was that a shot was fired as a preconcerted signal for the Eskimos to advance. In a few minutes the kayaks and oomiaks came sweeping round the point and made straight for the landing-place. The reception of the men-of-the-ice by the traders was of course hearty and sincere, but the hereditary ill-will of the Indians was not quite overcome at the first.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking