They pull away joyously and hilariously on the great summer trip. As often as the wind will allow they hoist the great square sail made of seal intestine, and one member of the crew takes up a station beside it with a water bucket, to keep it constantly wet. Otherwise it would dry, and split into ribbons before the breeze. At the present day canvas sails are used. Every now and again, as they coast along among the islands, they put in here or there for fresh supplies of drinking water. At night they fetch some well-known point for an encampment. The umiaks are moored, heather and driftwood collected, fires lit, kettles slung, and the evening stew set to simmer, while the men forage afield for the next day’s provender. Then, rolling themselves up in their blankets, the travellers drop off to sleep right there on the ground, under the shelter of whatever cover it may afford, to be up and under way again before sunrise next morning. The days pass very pleasantly. The scenery is grand, the weather clear and sunny; the water, gemmed with islands dark brown and green, is still as a mill-pond. The fleet of primitive, uncouth-looking skin boats, filled with barbaric northern folk with tattooed faces and guttural speech, reproduces a picture of pre-historic times. Many of these scenes of Eskimo life and enterprise are deserving of record by the best of artists, if only to bring before us in these effete days of over-civilisation a vivid, still existent, picture of the very earliest adventures of the human race. At length the head of the inlet is reached. The boats proceed up river at high tide to the appointed place of debarkation. Here the umiaks are hauled well inshore, unloaded, dismantled, and turned over, to be covered with a pile of stones against the time of the hunter’s return. The personal treasures of the women are also hidden away in some safe cavity among the rocks, and left there. Then the loads are carefully apportioned all round, and made up in bundles according to the strength of their carriers. The men bear the weapons and ammunition only and travel light, in order to go on ahead and secure game on the trail. Children are lightly loaded, and the old people carry nothing but their own belongings; so that the bulk of the heavy transport falls on the able-bodied women of the tribe. Each one toils along under tent poles and coverings, piles of skins and meat, and the baby of the family into the bargain. The whole staggering load is hoisted on to the woman’s back and secured by lashings round the waist and a broad leather band round the forehead. She is almost wholly eclipsed by the enormous burden.