The Ohio Democrat. (Logan, O. [Ohio]) 1886-1906, 1892-01-02
ALONE AMONG EsQulMAux.
Unpleasant Experiences of IL Lone Carpen-
ter on st. Lawrence Island.

Unpleasant Experiences of IL Lone Carpen-
ter on st. Lawrence Island.
II thought | was a dead man, sure,
when was up among those savage Es-
quimauX," said a San Francisco man to
a Chronicle reporter a few days ago.
II went up there on the schooner
John Mccullough to put up house
which the vessel carried for the new
mission station on St Lawrence Isl.
and, and | have just returned to San
francisco | expected to find the reve-
nue. cutter Bear there so to protect me,
but she didn't show up, and there was,
the only white man among two or three
hundred savages.
"As soon as the schooner left the
trouble began. There were at least two
factions among the natives, headed by
rival chiefs. l didn't know a single
word of the language, but as well as
could make out they we're fighting TO
see which could get possession of me,
and consequently, as they thought, of
the house.
almost every day a lot of them
would get drunk on mean whisky, which
they had procured from the whalers,
and then there was the mischief to paw.
They would cut one another with knives
until the blood ran all over their bodies
and pistols and rifles We're brandished in
the most reckless manner imaginable.
| II had some food left me by the
schooner and had some more from the
English gunboat Pheasant when she
touched at the island but it didn't do
me oil
unscrupulous of the chiefs, I-you-ool<-
shook, took possession of me and nv
food, and he and his family ate most OF
it. | had revolver with me, but that
was no protection, for nearly every Es-
! quimau had a better one, besides a rife
or shotgun.
Even after completed the school.
house was forced to live in the chiefs
dirty tent, infested with vermin and
filled with the siclSening odors of half
putrid walrus meat and oil, and at night
had to sleep among those Esquimaux,
too. They all strip stark naked and
sleep under reindeer skins instead of
blankets.
when weeks passed and the Bear
didn't come, as | told them though she
would, the only one among them that
could speak little broken English
would say TO me: You bad man, you
lie; Bear no come, what for you no talk;
you think bad. Then they would all
look at me as if they had half mind
to kill me and be done with it, and
thought several times my last hour had
come.
What sort of houses have they?
Now they live in sort of tent formed
by pieces of driftwood and wreckage,
fastened together with sealslsin thongs
and covered with walrus hide: but they
formerly lived in underground houses,
using immense whale ribs for timbers
instead of logs. ! saw the remains of
several houses of the kind
"Yes much of their food is horribly
disgusting to us They kill walrus in
May and put the meat in holes in the
ground BY August it is horribly pu-
trid, but the poor creatures have moth
ing else to eat and SO they are obliged
to live on it.
''Do ] think they can be civilized?
o, yes They have plenty of sense and
show wonderful ingenuity in the man
ufacture of their tools and weapons
If the United States government would
only take more energetic measures to
suppress this unlawful liquor traffic
feel sure the Esquimaux could be rap
idly civilized. San Francisco Chron-
Gle.