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Updated: May 24, 2025
The majority were here crowded into huts of a permanent construction, the materials composing the sides being stones and the bones of whales, and the roofs being formed of skins, turf, and snow; the rest of the people were lodged in snow-huts.
The Esquimaux soon built quite a little town of snow-huts all round the Dolphin, and the noise of traffic and intercourse was peculiarly refreshing to the ears of those who had long been accustomed to the death-like stillness of an Arctic winter. The beneficial effect of the change on men and dogs was instantaneous.
But by means of the boats the stores were recovered, and then a fresh floe was occupied, whereon snow-huts were erected, Esquimaux fashion. Time passed. October went and November came; food was scarce, and the exploring party were "allowanced."
We brought certain stores aboard and provided space on deck for the dogs in case they had to be removed from the floe at short notice. We had run a 500-fathom steel wire round the ship, snow-huts, and kennels, with a loop out to the lead ahead, where the dredge was used.
I ought to have mentioned that for the sake of being nearer the edge of the ice, where seals could be caught, some of our friends had built for themselves snow-huts on the ice. For this purpose they completely swept away the snow, leaving a flooring of clear ice, which was of the richest and most splendid blue that nature affords.
Great ice-bergs rose in wild confusion in the distance, and all along the shore for a few hundred yards were clusters of snow-huts. They looked exactly like bee-hives. I have seen many a strange house, but the strangest of all is certainly a house of snow! To-day I was fortunate enough to see one built. It was done very neatly. The hard snow was cut into slabs with a wooden knife.
The Eskimo women and men, and dogs, and all the rest of them, are marching before us. Follow me for ten days, and you will come to the snow-huts where we are to winter." Could anything be plainer? The happy father thought not. He took an extra meal.
"It doesn't really matter," said Mims; "the officer has gone, and the boy would only have been scared by all his questions. He might ha^e frightened the boy out of his wits. I wonder where the young monkeys have got to. They were going to build snow-huts, like the Indians. Perhaps they're hiding in one now." We were, had she only known it; Hugh and I grinned at each other.
The Esquimaux soon built quite a little town of snow-huts all round the Dolphin, and the noise of traffic and intercourse was peculiarly refreshing to the ears of those who had long been accustomed to the death-like stillness of an Arctic winter. The beneficial effect of the change on men and dogs was instantaneous.
All this, and a great deal more, we are compelled to skip over here, and leave it unwillingly, to the vivid imagination of our reader. Late in the day, by the bright light of the stars, the sailors and the Esquimaux left the snow-huts of the village, and, travelling out to seaward on the floes, with dogs and sledges, lances and spears, advanced to do battle with the walrus.
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