The little Eskimo children on the sledge are having a very happy time. They are merry little children, always smiling and happy, even in the long winter nights when the sun does not shine for months at a time. Wouldn’t you think it queer to have such a long night as that? When winter is coming their father builds a low, dome-shaped house of ice and snow, with a funny little door, through which one goes into a passageway, then into a big room where the whole family lives. A lamp burns in there, filled with whale blubber or fat, and having a wick of dried turf. This makes a smoky light, but it warms the house, and the Eskimos think their winter home very comfortable. In the long, cold season the father sometimes makes a sledge like the one in the picture. It is made of pieces of wood, with runners of ivory from the tusks of walrus, and sometimes with pieces of reindeer horn. The whole is fastened together with straps made of skin either from the reindeer or seal. It takes a long time to make a sledge, for the Eskimos do not have very good tools to work with, and have to work slowly. Usually the sledges are drawn by dogs. You have seen pictures of them, haven’t you? As many as twelve often draw a sledge, and they run very rapidly over the ice and snow, while their master keeps them in order with his long-lashed whip. IN THE OLD PARK AT NARA See these happy Japanese girls enjoying their ride through the park, in ’rickshaws. They look very comfortable and cool in their kimonos, don’t they? The park they are riding in is at Nara and is such a beautiful place! It is there that a very tame herd of sacred deer is kept. Nara is on the island of Hondo, Japan, and is a very old city, famous for its carvings, cutlery and toys. You would enjoy seeing the toys that are made there, wouldn’t you? India ink and fans come from there, too; perhaps your little fan, or your sister’s, was made in Nara. Did you know that all the figures on a Japanese fan mean something, and sometimes a whole story is connected with them? The parasols, too, are interesting, and the designs on them are not arranged simply to look pretty, but each has its meaning to the Japanese people. In Nara, as in most of the Japanese cities, there are some noted temples, and the carving in a few of them is said to be the finest in Japan. In one of the temples is a huge bell over thirteen feet high. Would you like to hear it? In another is a statue of Buddha more than ten times as tall as you are, the biggest one in Japan. In Nara, too, are storehouses in which there are specimens of articles used in the Imperial household hundreds of years before our grandfathers lived. [Illustration: _A Ride in the old Park at Nara, Japan. Pretty Japanese Maidens in ’Rickshaws_ _From Stereograph, copyright by Underwood & Underwood, New York_] A JAPANESE LADY IN A YAMA-KAGO