kisses, whilst tears of joy were streaming from her eyes. She kneeled and thanked God, and then she turned and thanked the good and charitable woman, who, herself poor, had saved her children. The little ones danced and jumped, for their mother was come again."

CHAPTER III.

THE MOON'S PEEP UPON THE COAST OF GREENLAND.

"I was yesterday floating, over Greenland," said the Moon, "that cold and dismal country. The very rays of the sun are chill there, but I give it much of my soft light. It was in the early morning; many stars were with me in the sky, and I showed my decreasing orb.

"The natives on one part of the coast, had, during the last few days, seen meteors scud across the heavens, and they had called upon an angekut, that is, a soothsayer, or wise man, to tell them what they should forebode. He was to take knowledge' through the night, and in the morning he was to 'declare the augury.' I saw him join his countrymen. 'You will have good luck,' he said.

"Torngarsuk is favourable; you will catch many seals." They were glad of this augury, for they had had no reindeer's flesh for some time, and fish had been shy of the coast for two week's past; for many days they had eaten only sea-weed, train oil, and a very little fish.

"The angekut went back to his own turf hut, and I saw the people who had called him, make busy preparations. Their wives brought them spears, small harpoons, and seal skins. Torngarsuk is favourable,' they said, one to another, hasten.'

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let us

"Torngarsuk is an imaginary deity of the Greenlanders; they consult him much, for they quite believe in his being and power. I saw some of them get into canoes, one man in each, who, packing himself tightly into the opening left in the sealskin deck of his tiny bark, and drawing it round his waist, pushed off to sea. I followed with my eye a sturdy native who did not get into a canoe; he chose a part of the coast where the water was frozen; he went out upon the ice, and when he got

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a little way from the shore, finding it firm under him, he drew a seal skin over his body, and crept softly onwards on his hands and knees. Presently he spied a seal. 'I have you, friend,' he cried, in the rude speech of his land, and he drew himself up into as round and lubberly a form as he could; on he went, crawling along, moving his head from side to side as the seal itself does. So he got close up to the sea monster, and when the animal might perhaps have supposed that a brother of his kind was about to bid him good evening, he felt the spear of the sportsman enter his side.

"His captor found some trouble in bearing him back to the shore, for he was a heavy weight; but he got him there presently.

"I now slipped away for a time; when I was out again, I saw one and another Greenlander return. So soon as they were all come back, they found that they had caught among them, twelve seals. There was great joy. They made a feast, and called their dogs and their wives to share it-those faithful, useful dogs, which draw their sledges, and the wives

who build their huts, and execute all the labours of the land, and a part of those of the sea also; for they manage the fishing boats, if they do not catch the fish, and they had dressed this very feast, to which their husbands now, were pleased to ask them. The dogs went first, asked or unasked.

"The people were in the open air, which was scented with the perfume of the ling and other wild flowers, which bloom even in Greenland, during the short summer that smiles there; but the summer was almost over, the weather was becoming cold, and they were dressed in skins of the white bear.

"The Greenlanders are short in stature, and now rolled up in these skins, with their long shaggy hair, they looked scarcely like human beings, especially when, after they had feasted, they danced and sang. Then the long fur flew outwards from the skin, and made the width of the wearers quite to equal their height.

"You will not imagine that a Greenlander's dance is graceful; it is, however, quick and emphatic. Round and round the people whirled in swift jerk