The Irish standard., 1910-01-22
Copyright, by Joseph B. Bowles.)

By HUGH PENDEXTER

matte conditions, but also by sheer
avoirdupois. He had first learned of
this overgrown race, he continued,
from the Innuits. In fact, several of
his freely perspiring children, who
ought to have been in better business,
declared that they had met with stray
specimens while penetrating the far
north. But If all the legends and stale
stories were true, our quarry would
not readily eat from our hands.
"Yet the more he. rambled, the more
Tbs eyes twinkled, and he was all
aglow to learn more of these museum
possibilities. Consequently, three ad-
ditional hours found us in Philadelphia
in search of old sea-dogs, who prowl
about the Greenland waters yearly in
their cryolite-ladened banks. The mis-
sionary had furnished us with the
name Of one of this ilk, a man who
was4a crude expert upon ;the aborig-
! ines of the polar ice.cap, and who had
recently returned to civilization. On
finding him, lib easily managed to
make him talk, and the old salt startled
us by declaring he had seen some of
the Goliaths in a mining settlement
near Ivigtut bay. He pictured them
as being from seven to nine feet tall,
but apologized for the former and ex-
planned they probably had been i'm
properly nurtured. He believed they
celebrated their at homes in the
burglar-proof regions of the ultimate
! north, and had rambled down to the
southwest coast because Of terribly
severe storms and the sub-zero stunts
, of the thermometer.
"This was enough for my patron,
and another day saw us in consulta-
ton with the handspring Of the cir
Gus. The upshot was, we took passage
on a cryolite bark Immediately bound
for the frost-bitten, isle-girted coast of
Ivigtut. Greenland, you know, is the
only spot on the map that yields cryo-
lite in commercial quantities, and q
company in the Keystone state enjoys
the exclusive privilege of shipping the
stuff to the Americas. We embarked
on one Of their boats so as not to at
tract attention, for there were collec-
tors who kept close tabs on Tib-why,
Jenkins, collecting for a wild-animal
show, once trailed US all through the
Congo district, realizing we were after
something good!
'sWhile bounding over the pillows,
lib kept school and informed me we
would arrive at Ivigtut at the begin
ming of the summer season, when the
average mean temperature is 48 de-
grees Fahrenheit for three months,
and where the officials of the Danish
government try to eradicate homesick-
ness by growing turnips, lettuce and
very small potatoes, mainly under
glass. BY the time we began to be an
noyed by the waters of Davis strait I
was so crammed full of arctic lore that
l had to step softly so as not to jolt
any vital facts out of my system. That
was Tbs way; he never went into a
strange place but what he was loaded.
"At Ivigtut we presented our cre-
dentials to the agents, who sent us on
to Godthaab. the capital of Danish
South Greenland. Here we were
shaken down for newspapers and any
information that didn't date back be-
yond the stone age. But, on the whole,
we were handsomely treated by those
holding the reins Of government over
this gigantic cold-storage plant; and
we qu aly learned that the captains
yarn about the strange people was
within the truth zone, and that some
of them had spent the long winter
months on the coast. Now they had
retreated up the fords into the in
terior, we were told, where in sheltered
places the moses and Towering plants
have the nerve to come forth in the
stingy sunshine. Best of all, we were
supplied with some faithful Eskimos,
| one of whom could do rough out-of-
| door work on the English language.
1.-THE course we took largely evaded
| the ice and snow, yet we carried
! along a light sledge and a bunch of