So much then for the voyage and the voyagers to the Arctic. Now for that frozen world itself, and for those strange people whose lot, compared with that of all the rest of the more genially situated sons of men, would seem to have fallen in the bleakest, harshest and most forbidding places, where human life might scarcely exist. When the first ship seen by an Eskimo tribe touched on the coast, what did they think of it; what was the bewildering impression they got? An old hunter, recounting the story of his tribe and its adventures, gave the writer a graphic account of just such an event. An enormous boat, he said, appeared, filled with Kabloonâtyet (strangers), speaking an unknown tongue and having hairy faces! The tall masts were hung with the clouds (sails), and there was a door in the roof (the companion leading from the deck), instead of in the side of the house. At first the tribesmen hovered round this amazing thing in their canoes, afraid to approach too near. Presents were thrown out to them of which they could make nothing. They just smelt at the tobacco, biscuit and sweets, and cast them aside. There were knives, but they cut themselves with these, not knowing how to handle steel ones. It was almost as if some unimaginable craft from another sphere were to visit the Earth and make incomprehensible overtures to us by means of objects which conveyed nothing to our intelligence—something after the style of Mr. Wells’s Martians. At last, however, looking glasses resolved the situation. These the Eskimo received with huge delight and amazement. Eventually they were induced to board the strange boat and open up some sort of initial overtures with her alarming crew. His fore-fathers, said the old hunter, had seen these things and carefully handed them down. CHAPTER II BAFFIN LAND A landfall in the Arctics is forbidding enough. Little is to be seen save bare rocks broken by ravines, filled with snow even so late as far into July and August—bare rocks, rising into gaunt hills from 500 to 1,500 feet high. The coastline is broken by bays and fiords, running deep inland. These inlets with their irregular outlines have a singular if rather drear beauty of their own, especially in the summer-time, when what little vegetation there may be—a spare, coarse grass and a red and white variety of heather—adds a grateful note of relief to the severe scene. There are miles and miles of rocky coast in places, where not so much as a handful of soil to support the hardiest little living thing could be found.