Morning journal and courier., 1891-03-19
AN ESKIRIO AT BILE.

oil 1s Oil Everywhere, Hut Hts Forms
 Are Different.
 From Goldthwaite's Geographical Magazine
 had read about Eskimo eating habits how once upon time, for instance, an Arctic explorer offered some Eskimo girls some sweetmeats which were rejected, while tallow candles were eagerly accepted and eaten. Now I was to see an Eskimo eat. With many smiles Peter entered the cabin and sat down at the table. I should have apologized to him on account of the scantiness of our fare, for we had no can dies and there wasn't bit of tallow on deck oven, let alone in the cabin, but mo- ticed that the butter plate was heaping full, the sight of which made me wish for some of my friends so that we could make pool on the number of bites he would take in swallowing the roll. Then Peter sat down and without ceremony helped himself to lot of baked beans, piece of dry bread and large piece of very lean, salt beef, all of which he bit into and swallowed as 8 hungry 'longshoreman might have done. Then he took more beans and more bread and more lean beef, and with them several cups of coffee with great deal of sugar to each cup. He was a long time getting to it, but he finally be- gan on the butter. He had poured his last cup of coffee and was looking about for something to eat with it when his eye fell on plate of cake. Taking small piece he put small lump of butter on it and slowly ate the combination with the cof- fee. To the reader of a geographical mag azine it may seem strange, but the fact is, until saw this man at the table 1 had really expected to find the Eskimos of south Greenland showing the habits and tastes of those living thousand miles further up the coast. I had not quite ex- pected to find them living in snow houses, but I had misty idea that an Eskimo was little black Indian whose chief delight among the things brought from civilized country was the tallow candle. The sta pie food is seal meat and blubber. Next to that is the little fish taken in the ford and dried for winter use, known to them salmo villosus. A favorite way of eating the dried augmatfat is to take it by the tail, poke it into the oily blubber for a while and then chew it down. Awful, isn't ita It is almost as bad as eating sar- dimes. There is a deal in Q name. Blub- Der is disgusting; oil, if for use on a salad, is delicious and indispensable. have eat en seal oil and found it Every unexpected ly) good. I had supposed it would have flavor of fish oil. There is no such flavor about it. It is equal to the best extract of cotton seed-that quality sold as olive oil in all American groceries. Augmatfat and blubber, under French label, would be esteemed luxury in New York as in Ar suk. For the rest, the Eskimos trade seal oil and skins to their governor for three kinds of hard tack, for coffee, sugar and tea. They catch Arctic codfsh (misarkor- nak in Eskimo, and gadus navaga in the books) and salmon in the seasons; they shoot no end of gulls, ducks, ptarmigans and the Arctic hare; they have eggs in endless quantity in the season, and many foxes are trapped. Tho fox is to the Eski- mo what the 'possum is to the plantation darkey. He likes to smoke, and, under favoring circumstances, will swap every
 thing he's got, including his wife, for rum.