202 THE WORLD OF ICE.

felt that they must depend on their own exertions in
the hunt for this indispensable article of food, without
which they could not hope to escape the assaults of
the sailors’ dread enemy, scurvy.

Meetuck’s duties were not light upon this occasion,
as you may suppose.

“Arrah! then, don’t ye onderstand me?” cried
O’Riley, in an excited tone, to a particularly obtuse
and remarkably fat Esquimau, who was about as
sharp at a bargain as himself-—*Hallo! Meetuck,
come here, do, and tell this pork-faced spalpeen what
I'm sayin’. Sure I couldn’t spake plainer av I wos
to try.”

“Pl never get this fellow to understand,” said
Fred. Meetuck, my boy, come here and explain to
him.”

“Ho! Meetuck,” shouted Peter Grim, « give this
old blockhead a taste o’ your lingo. I never met his
match for stupidity.”

“I do believe that this rascal wants the ’ole of
this ball o’ twine for the tusk of a sea’oss—Mectuck !
were’s Meetuck? I say, give us a ’and ’ere, like a
good fellow,” cried Mivins; but Mivins ericd in vain,
for at that moment Saunders had violently collared
the interpreter and dragged him towards an old
Esquimau woman, whose knowledge of Scotch had
not proved sufficient to enable her to understand the
energetically-expressed words of the second mate.

During all this time the stars had been tw inkling
brightly in the sky, and the aurora shed a clear light