This Eskimo was named Metek. He stood a head taller than Dr. Kane, and was well built and strong, with a dark skin and black, piercing eyes. Metek wore booted trousers of white bearskin. At the toe the boot ended with the claw of the animal. His coat, or jumper, was of white and blue fox fur, and a hood of the same fur was on his head. Around his neck was tied a dirty, greasy strip of deerskin. At first the white men thought this an ornament, Metek was so careful of it. Later, Dr. Kane found that it was tied closely around his neck to keep out the air. When an Eskimo is fully dressed in his furs, and his deerskin is tied closely around the neck so that no air can enter, he is, as it were, in a bag of fur. The heat from his body keeps him warm. As long as he is incased in air-tight clothing, he is safe from the most severe weather. All of the Eskimo party were invited to come aboard the _Advance_. They were large, strong men, and many of them could hunt the white bear and the walrus single-handed. The Eskimos had with them fifty-six fine dogs, tied by deerskin traces to their sledges, which were made of bone and lashed together by leather strips. The runners were of polished ivory, from the tusks of the walrus, and glistened like steel. The Eskimos’ weapons were knives, which they carried in their boots, and lances, which were lashed on their sledges. They had no wood for the handles of these weapons, because no trees grow in this cold country. All of the handles were made of bone. You would have thought these natives very rude indeed, could you have seen how they behaved on Dr. Kane’s ship. They opened all the doors and rummaged around in the dark corners. They opened boxes, handling everything they saw, and putting all they could inside their jumpers and boots. In fact, they stole so much that Dr. Kane and his companions had to follow them continually and take the things out of their hands. [Illustration: ESKIMOS AND THEIR DOGS.] At last the Eskimos became tired, and when the white men spread a buffalo skin on the floor near the fire, they threw themselves upon it. For supper each man had a large piece of raw walrus meat, from which he ate until he was tired. Then he went to sleep with the raw meat lying beside him. When he awoke he would seize his meat, eat more of it, then drop off to sleep again. Many slept in a sitting position, with their heads falling forward low on their breasts. Dr. Kane made a treaty with these people. He bought all the walrus meat they had, giving them needles, beads, and old cask staves for it. They promised to bring Kane more food very soon, and also to lend him their dogs for his journey to the north. Then Metek said they must go, and it did not take them long to get ready. They harnessed the dogs to the sledges quickly, jumped on, cracked their long sealskin whips, and off they went, dashing over the ice at a speed of twenty miles an hour.