ESQUIMAU GRATITUDE.
Kalutunah and his companions had scarcely been
gone when another sledge came, bringing two more
Esquimaux,—Amalatok, of Northumberland Island,
and his son. They had four dogs; and having stopped
on the way to catch a walrus, part of which they had
brought with them, they were much fatigued; and,
having got wet in securing the prize, they were cold
and a little frozen. Both were for several days quite
sick in Tcheitchenguak's snow-hut, and I had at last
a patient, and the snow-hut became a sort of hospital,
for old Tcheitchenguak was sick too. I either visited
them myself or sent Mr. Knorr twice daily; but the
odor of the place becoming at length too much for
that gentleman's aristocratic nose, I could no longer
prescribe by proxy, and so went myself and cured my
patients very speedily, winning great credit as a Narkosak,
the "medicine man," in addition to being the
Nalegaksoak, "the big chief." Amalatok thought at
one time that he was going to die, and indeed I became
sincerely alarmed about my reputation; but he
came round all right in the end, and, strange though
it may appear, his memory actually outlived the service
long enough for him to do more than to say
"Koyanak,"—"I thank you;"—that is to say, as
soon as he could get about he brought me his best
dog, and, in token of gratitude, made me a present of
it. Afterward, upon the offer of some substantial gifts,
he sold me another, and he went home as rich as the
party that had preceded him, and happy as Moses
Primrose returning from the fair with his gross of
shagreen spectacles.
And thus my kennels were being once more filled up, and my heart was rejoiced.
