The Savannah morning news., 1903-11-08
EXILED FROM THE WORLD.
White Men who Make Their Homes
on a Lonely Island.
Ernrn the Mnntrna1 Star

From the Montreal Star.
Probably the last white man to hear
of the death of Pope Leo will be Rev
James Peck, an Anglican missionary
laboring among the Eskimos in Cum
berland Sound, an inlet on the vast
UNEMPLOYED area north of Hudson bay
He did not learn of the death of Queen
Victoria for eighteen months after its
occurrence, when a storm tossed
whaler entered the region and inn
parted the news in July, 1902. This
developed cleric has established him
self in that far-off country in order to
bring to the pagan Eskimos the bless
ings of the Christian faith, but the
extremes to which men will go in pur-
suit of wealth are illustrated by the
fact that there are two haling sta
tions in the same region, the principal
of which, a German and a Scotchman,
have been thirty and thirty-seven
years there, respectively, without once
leaving.
Cumberland Sound is $50 miles north
of Hudson strait, and is one of the
most desolate, cherries regions in the
world. Two whaling stations are es-
tablished there, at Kekkerton and
BIacklead, and the fishing is done by
the Eskimos. These, through inter-
course with the civilized men and the
use of civilized weapons, have quite
lost their native art of killing the
leviathans with the primitive har-
poems of bone and flint which their an
cestors hurled with stout arms from
sealskin kayaks, firing out the great
creatures by inflated buoys attached to
ropes of walrus hide.
Use Modern Appliances.
In stead the Eskimos of to-day pur-
sue the hunt after the civilized fash
ion-in stout wooden boats, with steel
harpoons and lines of hemp-and the
industry pays chiefly because such lab
or is cheap, being paid for in goods
and necessaries of life. AS has been
the experience with aboriginal races
elsewhere, the Eskimo had no longer
return to his primitive condition of
existence. He would certainly starVe
if he did, and therefore he must rely
upon the white man, to whom he be-
comes a dependent-a slave, indeed, in
all but the name
At Kekkerton the factor is a Mr..
Mulch, a Stochman, who for twenty
seven years has remained welded to
this solitary existence. The Blacklead
station is controlled by Mr.. Sheridan.
a German, who has seen thirty years
Lnefe. BOtn nave al0aSSed COnSid-
cradle wealth, but evince no inclina-
ton to return to the outer world, with
all the marvels of science and art
which have marked the advancement
of the last generation. Every two years
a whaling steamer from Scotland visits
them, bringing supplies for them and
their Eskimo followers and removing
the stock of whale oil, whalebone,
hides, ivory and other articles of
trade accumulated in the meantime.
With these self-eXiled settlers mon
ey has no meaning. Everything is
done by barter; every service paid for
with a fragment of iron or a pound
of biscuit. The profits of the venture
go to the credit of their accounts in
Aberdeen, where the products are mar
keted, and, possibly, when beyond
their labor these two refuses NAV
make their way back to civilization
to mourn the lost advantages which
they are now too old to enjoy.
Raw Fnt Is Necessary.
They live in frame houses. the only
ones besides the clergyman's. in that
northern land. They fare on canned
foods, eked out with vension from the
muskox Of the interior or steak from
the whales captured a by no means
unappetizing dish. But they are NOT
averse to the raw seal, bear and wal
rus which the Eskimos affect. for
no man can maintain his strength
more than a season or two in that