He describes them as a most _un_human-looking pair. Everything on and about them told of the battle they fought so gallantly and patiently with the elements. From head to foot they were invested in a coat of ice and snow. Shapeless lumps of whiteness, they resembled the snow-kings or statues which boys delight in making, except that they possessed the faculty of motion. Their long, heavy fox-skin coats, reaching nearly to the knees, and surmounted by a hood, covering, like a round lump, all of the head but the face, the bear-skin pantaloons and boots and mittens were saturated with snow. Their long, black hair, which fell from beneath their hoods over their eyes and cheeks, their eyelashes, the few hairs growing upon their chins, the rim of fur around their faces, all glittered with white frost--the frozen moisture of their breath. Each carried in his right hand a whip, and in his left a lump of frozen meat and blubber. The meat they flung down on the floor of Dr. Hayes’ hut; then, without pausing for an invitation, they thrust their whipstocks under the rafters, and divesting themselves of their mittens and outer garments, hung them thereon. Underneath their frosty coats they wore a warm, close shirt of bird-skins. In the same bold explorer’s narrative of his voyage of discovery in 1860, two other Eskimos figure very conspicuously; and one of these, named Hans, would seem to have been a very fair type of the Eskimo character. Hans, we may observe, had originally served in Dr. Kane’s expedition, and had then gained the confidence of Dr. Hayes; so that when the latter undertook his own memorable voyage, he became anxious to secure the Eskimo’s services. When his ship had crossed Melville Bay, and lay in the grim shadows of Cape York, Dr. Hayes bethought himself of the Eskimo hunter. He remembered to have heard that Hans had fallen in love, and taken a wife, and repaired, with her at his side, to share the fortunes of the wild Eskimos who inhabit the remote northern shores of Baffin Bay. But Dr. Hayes felt confident that the hunter, having known something of the superior comfort and happiness of the social life of civilization, would soon weary of his voluntary banishment, and of the penury and hardships of the existence of the Eskimo nomads. He made up his mind that Hans would return to Cape York, and there take up his residence, in the hope of being picked up by some passing ship. So Dr. Hayes stood close in-shore, to find that his conjectures were completely realized. As he sailed along the coast he discovered a group of human beings eagerly endeavouring by signs and gestures to attract attention. Heaving the schooner to, he and his second in command, Mr. Sountag, went ashore in a boat, and there was Hans! The Eskimo recognized both of them immediately, and called them by name. [Illustration: DR. HAYES FALLS IN WITH HANS THE HUNTER.] * * * * *