Eskimo Life

For one whole winter we were cut off from the world and immured among the Greenlanders. I dwelt in their huts took part in their hunting and tried as well as I could to live their life and learn their language. But one winter unfortunately is far too short a time in which to attain a thorough knowledge of so peculiar a people its civilisation and its ways of thoughtthat would require years of patient study. Nevertheless I have tried in this book to record the impressions made upon me by the Eskimo and his polity and have sought as far as possible to support them by quotations from former authors. There may even be things which a newcomer sees more clearly than an observer of many years standing who lives in their midst.On many points perhaps the reader may not think as I do. I cannot it is true find that whatever is is very good; I am weak enough to feel compassion for a declining race which is perhaps beyond all help since it is already stung with the venom of our civilisation.