Toodla, says Dr. Hayes, was a character in his way. He was a tyrant of no mean pretension. Apparently he thought it his special duty to attack every dog, great or small, that was added to the pack: if the animal was a large one, in order, probably, that he might at once be forced to feel that he had a master; if a small one, in order that the others might hold him in the greater awe. It was sometimes quite amusing to see him set off in pursuit of a strange dog, his head erect, his tail curled gracefully over his back; slowly and deliberately he went straight at his mark, with the confident, defiant air of one who recognizes the power and importance of his office. Leagues and conspiracies were not unfrequently formed against him, induced, no doubt, by a feeling of despair; but he always succeeded in overthrowing them,--not, it is true, without occasional assistance from “without;” for the sailors, who petted him greatly, would sometimes take his part when the struggle was manifestly unequal. * * * * * But we must leave the dogs, and turn to the sledge. This was, in very truth, an ingenious specimen of native mechanical skill. It was made wholly of bone and leather. The runners, which were square behind and rounded upward in front, and about five feet long, seven inches high, and three-fourths of an inch thick, were slabs of bone; not solid, but made up of a number of pieces of various shapes and sizes, dexterously fitted and tightly lashed together. Some of these were not larger than one’s two fingers; some were three or four inches square; others were as large as one’s hand, and triangular in shape; others, again, were several inches in length, and two or three in breadth. They all fitted into their several places as exactly as the blocks of a Chinese puzzle. Near their margins ran rows of little holes, and through these strings of seal-skin were inserted, by which the blocks were fastened together, until the whole was as firm as a board. The marvel of the thing is that all these pieces are flattened and cut into the required shape, not with nicely contrived instruments and tools, but with stones. The labour must be immense. The grinding needed to make a single runner must be the work of months. The construction of an entirely new sledge would probably occupy the lifetime of a generation; and hence a vehicle of this kind becomes a family heirloom, and is handed down from father to son, and son to grandson, and is constantly undergoing repair and restoration; a new piece here, another there, until as little remains of the original structure as of the sailor’s old knife, when it had had a new blade and a new handle! The origin of some of the Eskimo sledges is lost in the mists of a remote antiquity.