At work in the shell beds we were indeed expert, either in the digging at low tide or in the dredging from boats with rakes made of wood with teeth of stag’s horn, and at the fishing, as well, we were all skilful. The big fish were no safer from us than were the smaller ones. Those which were accustomed to come to the surface of the water we hunted with javelins barbed with bone. To the end of the javelin’s shaft would be attached a strong cord at the end of which was fastened securely an inflated bladder. The javelin we could throw to a long distance and with the greatest surety, and the fishing with it was most successful. The impaled fish might dive deeply, but the wind-filled bladder would pull upward and, as the fish neared the surface, reveal his whereabouts; another javelin cast into him would make his diving still more difficult until, at last, he became exhausted and, so, easily speared. Sometimes not the javelin, but the bow, would be used in this sort of fishing. There were the leister or fish trap, too, which was of service and of course, and, chiefly, the barbed bone hooks we used upon our lines. We were an indolent people, we of the kitchen middens, yet we might have been still more so had there been caves along the shore such as we knew were inhabited by those who lived in other regions, but there were no such natural homes to occupy, and we must build our own shelters against wild beasts and winter’s cold. This was by no means difficult, for driftwood and the wood of the forest were at our hands, and our homes were but rude ones, varying in size according to the number in the family, some built up squarely, but most of them not unlike my own in shape. In summer they were not uncomfortable, and in winter they were covered with sods or earth, and were kept warmer by a skin across the entrance and the burning of beech sticks in shells filled with oil from the seal or certain fish. Sometimes in winter, too, blocks of ice would be built up into an enclosure of the huts, keeping out the cold as well as could anything else. Fuel of all kinds was about us, but we paid little attention to our fires in any weather. We had become hardened to the climate. To the south our land was endless, so far as we could tell, but we knew its boundaries well to the north and east and west. To the west were the blending seas; the Kattegat lay east of us, with no great island in sight, but with many little islets along the shore. Upon these islets a few of our people lived since the shell beds were beside and among them, and there was gained an added degree of safety from any sudden danger. It was easy to row to the nearby shore for hunting or for any other purpose. Toward the north our peninsula gradually lessened in width until it ended in the Skagen Rock. Between us and the rock was a weary distance, along which, not near together, but wherever the shell beds were, lived other clans of our race, with whom we had slight dealing.