CHAPTER XVII.
Innuit Food—Picture of a Dinner-party—Rabbit-charming—Proposed Flying Trip—Freaks of Jennie—Her Foot-race after the Sledge—Feminine Coquetry—Sharkey's Despair—Change of Plans—Koojesse's Ugliness—Final Adjustment of Plan.—Departure on Flying Trip—An Upset—Wolves—Chase of a Bear and Cub—Capture of the latter—Night Travelling—Return to Place of Starting—Set out for the Ship—Arrive on Board.
On leaving our ninth encampment on Saturday, May 3d, 1862, we proceeded toward some islands nearly due east of us, and, after a journey of ten miles, came to M'Lean Island,[1] where we found two igloos occupied by the Innuits Koo-kin and "Bill," with their families. We were hospitably received, and made our tenth encampment[2] there.
I was now living wholly on Innuit food, to which I had become so accustomed as to eat it without difficulty. Were I to mention in detail what took place, and what was eaten at our meals, it would doubtless appear disgusting to most of my readers; but there is no alternative in the matter of eating with Innuits. One has to make up his mind, if he would live among that people, to submit to their customs, and to be entirely one of them. When a white man for the first time enters one of their tupics or igloos, he is nauseated with everything he sees and smells—even disgusted with the looks of the innocent natives, who extend to him the best hospitality their means afford. Take, for instance, the igloo in which I had an excellent dinner on the day last mentioned. Any one from the States, if entering this igloo with me, would see a company of what he would call a dirty set of human beings, mixed up among masses of nasty, uneatable
