Home life around the world

Front matter

ORGE PICTURES BY ICK | BURTON HOLMES

HOME LIFE AROUND THE WORLD By © GeorceE A. Mirick

Tis book invests the facts of geography — particularly the geography of remote and unfamiliar places — with the charm of a story. It is, in fact, a series of true stories, written for children from eight to ten years of age. In simple, lively language, these describe the home life of children in other lands than our own, and they show that these little people, while living a very different sort of life from ours, yet at heart are not totally unlike the boys and girls of the United States. ‘Told in the sequence of a voyage around the world, the stories finally bring the reader home to the newest part of our own country, the Far West of the forest rangers.

Contents

. A Home on THE IcE

. At THE NortTH POLE .

. COLONEL, THE Eskimo Dog . COLONEL HELPS TO FIND THE SouTH POLE . In THE LAND OF THE REINDEER .

Chapter I. A Home On The Ice

1. NoGASAK was a little Eskimo girl. She lived with her father, mother, and little brother in a village on the edge of the northern ice-cap.

- There were only fifteen families in the village, but in these there were other children so that Nogasak and her brother did not lack for playmates.

2. The village was an odd-looking place. ‘The houses were rounded mounds of snow about as tall as a man. They were huddled together in no particular order. Hach family built its house where it pleased without regard to streets. There was really no need for streets in so small a village in a land of ice and

AN ESKIMO GIRL Snow. This little girl is about Nogasak’s age and xe 4 looks very much like her. 3. Besides, it was not so important where they built their houses as it is with us, for they do not occupy them very long. When they have caught or frightened away the fish and seals in one place, they pack their furs, their kettles and lamps upon sleds. They harness the dogs to the sleds. The women put their babies on their backs. The men take their bows and arrows, their spears and hunting knives.

MAKING A SNOW HOUSE

There are no trees where this picture was taken. That shows that it is very far north. Tell how a snow house is made. The man at the left is standing in the trench that will become the entrance to the house. How are the dogs kept from running away?

‘Then, with a ery to the dogs and the snapping of the long whips, the whole village moves off to a new place where seals and fish are plenty. In a few hours the new houses are built and the families take possession.

4. Nogasak’s home was so far away in the North that strangers seldom visited it. For many, many miles in all directions nothing was to be seen but glistening ice and white snow, except where the blue waters of the

A HOME ON THE ICE 3

Arctic Ocean sparkled in the cold sunlight. In all the ten years of Nogasak’s life she had never seen any one but her own family and neighbors. You may be sure that it was an exciting day for her and the other children, as well as for the grown people, when three strange men and a big sled drawn by a team of fine dogs were seen coming over the snow towards their little village.

5. Eskimo children do. not go to school, and they cannot read and write, but they can tell a story like other children. This is Nogasak’s story of what happened the first day of the strangers’ visit.

NOGASAK’S STORY

6. “One bright winter day we children were watching the men as they were cutting up a seal that bad just been caught. All at once the dogs began to bark furiously. Most of the women were in the snow houses at the time, sewing together pieces of bear or seal skin for clothes or preparing the mid-day meal. They crawled out and we all stood about wondering what was disturbing the dogs. |

7. “Tt did not take us long to find out. Far off over the snow we could see coming towards us a sled piled high with bundles, drawn by six dogs. Walking by the sled were three strange looking men.

8. “ At first we thought they were spirits, for we had never seen any but our own people. But when they came hear we were greatly relieved to discover that they were really men. By their actions it was evident that they were friendly.

9. “ When we learned that they had come from a warm country, many hundred miles to the south, to visit us, we all tried to make them welcome. Each one wanted them to stay at his house. But as we build our houses just large enough for the family, all were too small to accommodate them. So it was decided to build a special house for them.

10. ““While the house was being built by the men, our mothers were busy preparing food for the strangers. When the food was ready, the children were sent to invite the men to dinner. One of them came to our house, much to our delight. | 11. “The man sat Oe Na eae down on a pile of furs,

and mother asked him if his feet were not damp. She pulled off his boots and hung them over the lamp to dry, as the lamp is the only fire we have. She hung up the damp socks with the boots and gave the man a pair of father’s dry ones to put on. Mother found that his mittens had a hole in them and she promised to mend it after dinner. We stood around ready to do what we could to make the visitor comfortable.

A HOME ON THE ICE 5

12. “Mother had cut up some seal meat and boiled it in a kettle. She cut off a piece with a copper knife. ‘This copper knife is considered a great treasure in our family. It is made from a piece of copper that father found nailed to a stick-of wood. The wood was part of a vessel that had been crushed somewhere in the ice. ‘There are only two copper knives in our village. All the others are made of bone. |

13. “But, as I was saying, mother cut off a piece of seal meat and squeezed the water out of it with both hands, so it would not drip. The man took it in his hands and ate it with great relish. Mother then passed him a slice of raw fat and an ox-horn full of soup that she dipped from another kettle.

14. “While the stranger was eating, mother sat on one side of him and father on the other side. ‘There was just room left in the house for two children to stand on the floor, my brother and I. Our dogs poked their noses into the house from the passageway to watch what was going on and to get the bones that we threw to them. They had a bountiful meal.

15. “ Mother did not forget the neighbors. She cut off some nice pieces of meat and told my brother and me to carry them to some families in the village that had not been able to catch any seals. Soon children came from other houses with gifts of meat for the stranger, and with invitations to eat the next meal at their house. He was promised seal kidney and a whole seal flipper if he would go. We were sure such fine things to eat would tempt him.

16. “ After dinner mother poured some oil into the lamp so it would not go out while we were away, and we all went to see the new house that the men had been building for the strangers. We found it was finished and ready to occupy. It had been built big enough to accommodate all the people in the village. Every one came to call on the strangers and to talk. They wanted to learn where the men had come from, why they had come, and all about the people among whom they lived.

17. “The children gathered behind one of the houses and talked about the wonderful men. After we were tired of talking, we played with the puppies, and chased each other around the snow houses. The older boys had a shooting-match with bows and arrows.

18. “ Late in the afternoon I crawled into our house to take a rest. I found a piece of raw meat on the floor and lay down on the snow bench to eat it and take a nap. We can generally find some frozen pieces of raw meat or chunks of fat on the floor. These taste good when you are hungry.

19. “In the evening there was to be a dance to celebrate the coming of the strangers. A dozen young men put on their house-building clothes and mittens and with their snow-knives began to build a dance-house. Before night the big house was ready. All the grown people crawled in and sat around on the snow-platforms that had been covered with the soft fur skins of the seal, the bear, and the musk-ox. There was one musical in-

A HOME ON THE ICE if strument, a drum. Each one danced alone, in turn. All the time-the drum was sounding and those who could were singing.

20. “The dancing continued till far into the night. When it was over, all the people went with the strangers

A COMPANY OF ESKIMOS

How does the mother carry her baby? The bandage over the eyes of several of them is to protect their eyes from the glare of the white snow. What else shows that the sunlight hurts their eyes?

from the dance-house to the house that had been built for them, and then scattered, each family to his own home. We crawled through the twenty-foot passageway into our house. We found the oil-lamp burning as we had left it, and home seemed very snug and cozy. The dogs curled up in the passage. We rolled ourselves in the furs and lay down, some of us on the snow-platform and some on the floor. We were soon fast asleep.”

GREENLAND

Courtesy of American Museum of Natural History, New York

THE NORTH POLE, THE ICE CAP, AND THE POLAR REGIONS

Chapter II At The North Pole

1. Iv was a cold winter’s day. On the edge of the northern ice-cap, not far from the home of Nogasak, a company of men, dressed in fur, with two sleds each drawn by a team of Eskimo dogs, was going north over the ice.

2. The sleds were loaded with cans of meat, condensed milk, biscuit, tea, and solid alcohol; sleeping

AT THE NORTH POLE bags, spare mittens and boots of fur; axes, snowshoes, and instruments of different kinds, some for measuring the depth of the water, if they should come to any open places in the ice, others for determining how cold it was, and yet others for finding out when they had actually reached the most northern point on the earth.

3. A tall man was marching ahead. With stern face and with firm step he was leading the way straight to the north where no human being had ever been before. He could not be sure that he and his brave companions would ever return. This was Admiral

Robert E. Peary.

ONE OF ADMIRAL PEARY’S DOGS This dog went to the North Pole.

ADMIRAL PEARY’S SLEDGE

This sledge went to the North Pole.

How are the parts held together?

Why were not nails used? Name the different things you see on the sledge and tell what they were used for. Can you make a model of this sledge with your jackknife?

4. Mr. Peary was an admiral in the United States Navy, but he had spent many years in these cold regions and he loved the snow, the ice and. the freezing winds. This is what he says about them.

“More than once I have come back from the great. frozen spaces, battered and worn and baftled, sometimes maimed, telling myself that I had made my Jast journey thither. But somehow, it was never many months before the old restless feeling came over me. I began to long for the battles with the ice and the gales, the handful of odd but faithful Eskimos who had been my friends for years, the silence and the great white lonely North. And back I went accordingly, time after time,

ee eee Sa until at last my dream of Where do you think he is standing? What years came true.”

5. Admiral Peary’s dream was to find the North Pole. He had many friends who wanted to help him make his dream come true. They built a vessel for him, called the Aoosevelt, in honor of

AT THE NORTH POLE 11 the man who was then President of the United States. In this he had sailed from New York with the men whom he had selected to go with him. He had stopped along the way to take on board the Eskimos and the dogs that he needed.

The Roosevelt had pushed its way as far north as it could go and was now frozen fast in the ice at the edge of the ice-cap.

Sled loads of food had been carried from the vessel and been buried in the snow where Admiral Peary eould find it on his way back from the Pole. The strongest and most faithful dogs had been har-

THE ROOSEVELT nessed to two sleds. Starting from New York Harbor. The boat has sails and a smokestack. Why will they need steam power, if

| Last of all the most they have sails? Can you find anything in the picture that shows that the Roosevelt is an American vessel?

trusted of his companions had been chosen to go with him. They had left behind the rest of the company, who were to stay in the Roosevelt until their return.

6. Day after day Admiral Peary, his five companions and his sturdy dogs, traveled over the ice and snow. We will not try to describe their adventures and hardships. At last they did reach the Pole. They were the first and only people who have ever been to the North Pole.

7. What do you suppose he found there ? Nothing but snow and ice stretching in all directions as far as the eye could see. There was nothing to show where the Pole is, but he could tell by his instruments that he was very near where it must be. This is what he has written about the place and what he did there.

AT THE NORTH POLE

8. “The North Star was practically overhead.

9. “ Hast, west, and north had disappeared for us. Only one direction remained and that was south. Every breeze that could possibly blow upon us must be a south wind.

10. “ We planted five flags at the top of the world. The first one was a silk American flag which Mrs. Peary gave me fifteen years ago. That flag had done more traveling in the cold regions of the North than any other ever made. I carried it wrapped about my body on all my trips. By the time it reached the Pole, therefore, it was somewhat worn and discolored.

11. “ After I had planted the American flag in the ice, I told the men to give three rousing cheers, which they did with the greatest enthusiasm.”

12. Admiral Peary then put into a bottle a piece of the flag with two notes, and left it in a crack of the ice. One of the notes reads: —

AT THE NORTH POLE 13

“90° North Latitude, North Pole, “ April 6, 1909.

“JT have to-day hoisted the national ensign of the United States of America at this place, which my obbe the North Polar axis of the servations indicate to earth, and have formally taken possession of the entire region in the name of the President of the United States of America.

14. “I leave this record and United States flag in possession.

“¢ ROBERT EH. PEARY,

GSS aaVauey 2

15. Now Admiral Peary and his companions must find their way back to the edge of the ice-cap where those whom they had left behind were waiting for them. Southward they go over the

THE ROOSEVELT IN THE ICE

The Roosevelt frozen into the ice waiting for Admiral Peary’s return from the North Pole.

snow, sometimes along the tracks they had recently made and at other times guided only by the stars and their compass. One after the other they find the places where their food had been buried. Snowstorms often blind them and nearly cause them to lose their way. They climb over high ridges of snow and cross wide cracks in the ice that lie in their pathway. But after days of toil and danger, they see in the distance the tall, slender masts of the Zoosevelt rising out of the snow, and with shouts of joy they soon join their friends.

Courtesy uf American Museum of Natural History, New York

ESKIMO TENT FRAME

Over this frame are thrown skins of animals or canvas.

CHAPTER III COLONEL, THE ESKIMO DOG 1. He was born in a country called Labrador, some distance south of the northern ice-cap. It is warmer here than it is where Nogasak lives. The ground is not al-

COLONEL, THE ESKIMO DOG 15 ways covered with ice and snow. In July and August grass grows and dandelions, buttercups, and other bright-colored flowers. Strangely enough none of the flowers in these cold countries has any perfume.

2. Of course the flowers and their lack of perfume were matters of no concern to Colonel, as they are to us, for he was a puppy. But he was very much interested, when the bare earth appeared, to dig in it and bury bones in it. He delighted, too, to chase the wild hares, to wander among the reindeer and to lie on the warm rocks in the sun and watch the birds flying overhead. Besides there were the mosquitoes that bothered him so much in the summer time! They rose in clouds from the damp places left by the melting snow. They bit through his thick, fur-covered skin and tormented him cruelly.

3. In many ways Colonel had a hard life. When he was very, very little the children played with him, but they had not been taught to treat animals gently, so he often was glad to escape from their games. The grown people did not want him around. They kicked and cuffed him and seldom spoke a kind word to him. He never was allowed to stay indoors summer or winter. When rain and sleet were beating down on his back or the winter blizzard was blinding him with snow, how he longed to creep into the hut where people seemed to be so comfortable !

4. But all these hardships compelled Colonel to learn how to take care of himself. When the freezing winds blew from the north and deep snow covered the ground, he noticed that the older dogs dug deep holes in the snow and disappeared in them. One day he crept up to one of these holes and looked in. There at the bottom was a dog rolled up like a ball with his nose tucked under his bushy tail. Colonel went away and dug a hole for himself too and found that he could sleep there as comfortably as we do in our warm beds. It was even more comfortable when the snow blew in and coyered him over like a blanket. If meat and bones were scarce, as they often were, if he had failed to catch a bird or a wild hare or to pull.a fish out of the water with his paw, which he became very skillful in doing, Colonel learned to go hungry and not complain. He also learned that snow would quench his thirst as well as water. In winter he found that was a great advantage.

5. So the weeks and months passed while Colonel was growing strong and wise, and the day came for him to be harnessed to a sled and to learn how to work with other dogs. He was quick to learn and ready to work, so he did not receive as many cuts with the stinging lash as the slower and less intelligent dogs did. His master saw very soon that he was going to be a remarkable dog, and that is why he was chosen to go across the Atlantic Ocean to Norway and from Norway southward, almost halfway around the earth, to help find the South Pole.

COLONEL HELPS TO FIND THE SOUTH POLE 17

ESKIMO FAMILY IN LABRADOR: THE HOME OF COLONEL

Chapter IV _ Colonel Helps To Find The South Pole

1. One day a ship sailed into the harbor of the little village where Colonel lived. He had seen other ships come during the short summer bringing from somewhere cloth, guns and ammunition, knives, iron tools, matches, flour, sugar, tea, and a variety of other things that the people in the village used. He had watched these same ships sail away carrying bundles of furs and dried fish, barrels of whale-oil and piles of whale-bone. He ought to have guessed that there was a big world beyond his own little harbor, but he probably thought nothing about it. He certainly did not suspect that he was soon to visit foreign lands and even go to the other side of the earth.

2. So Colonel watched this particular ship, on this particular day, as he lay in a warm corner of the rocky shore, with the same sleepy interest with which he had watched other ships come and go. If he had known what was to happen, he surely would have been wide awake and probably would have run away.

Then this story could never have been told.

But he didn’t know, and this is what happened.

3. There was a man named. Captain Roald Amundsen who lived in a country in the northern part of Europe, called Norway. Like Admiral Peary he had spent much time in the cold regions of the north. When he learned that Admiral Peary had discovered the ae eee eer North Pole, he made up ee ae HAE i AE eee his mind to find the South

Pole,if he could. T’omake the journey over the snow and ice of the southern ice-cap he too must have the help of Eskimo dogs. So he had sent this ship, that Colonel was watching as it sailed into his harbor, to carry back to Norway one hundred of the best dogs to be found in all Labrador.

COLONEL HELPS TO FIND THE SOUTH POLE 19

4; Although Colonel was not yet fully grown, he was selected with ninety-nine other dogs and put on board the ship. They sailed away eastward, across the Atlantic Ocean, until they came to Norway. On the way they passed the island called Greenland, from whose shores

SAILING ALONG THE SHORES OF NORWAY Notice the bare steep rocks and the beautiful waterfalls.

huge icebergs break off every spring and float southward. They sailed by the little island called Iceland, and saw the clouds of steam that rise from its many hot-springs. They went so near the Shetland Islands that they could see the tiny noni scampering over the rocky hillsides.

5. In due time they reached Norway and fide another ship waiting for them. It was called the #ram. It had been built small and strong so that blocks of floating ice might not break its sides and that it might not be crushed if it became frozen into an ice-pack.

6. Clothes for hot weather and for cold weather had been put on board the “ram, and canned food, oil for lamps, matches, sleds, snowshoes, axes, guns, tents, in

A HARBOR OF NORWAY

In what particulars is this harbor different from any harbor that you know? The men are drying fish on the rocks.

fact, everything that would be needed on the long and dangerous journey. ‘The cabin had been made tight and warm, and kennels had been built on the deck for the dogs. When all was ready, Colonel and the other dogs were put into their kennels and the ship set sail.

7. The course of the ship was first westward and then southward over the Atlantic Ocean. This ocean is like a broad river between the four continents, North

COLONEL HELPS TO FIND THE SOUTH POLE 21

America and South America on the west, and Kurope and Africa on the east.

8. Each day, as they sailed southward across the North Temperate Zone, the air grew warmer. When they reached the Torrid Zone the men changed their woolen clothes for thin, cotton clothes. As they neared the Equator the heat became almost greater than they could bear. The dogs lay about the deck panting and longing for the cold, crisp air of their northern homeland.

9. The stanch little “ram made its way safely through the Torrid Zone into the South Temperate Zone. The air began to grow cocler once more. Men and dogs became more comfortable, and the farther south they sailed the more cheerful they became. From the South Temperate Zone they sailed into the South Frigid Zone and felt the cold south winds blowing from the South Pole. Soon they met big cakes of ice that had broken away from the southern ice-cap, and in a few days the ice-cap itself could be seen like a long white line on the southern horizon. They were all glad when they felt the sides of the Hram scrape the solid ice and realized that their long sea voyage was at an end.

10. During the voyage Colonel had behaved as well as an Eskimo dog could in such strange surroundings. He had kind masters who fed him well, petted him, and let him select his own companions. He had _ his preferences. Some of the dogs he did not like at all, and for others he had not much liking. But there were two that he was so fond of that he was very unhappy away from them.

11. How glad he was when he felt the cool, soft snow under his feet again. He rolled in it. He ate it. He barked and jumped. about and became so excited that he began to fight all the other dogs. Ifhis master had not stopped them he would have killed and eaten one of them, or they would have killed and eaten him. We must not blame him for this, for he was an Eskimo dog and that was his nature. |

12. The day had come on which they

COLONEL ON THE FRAM were to start for the Colonel seems to be quite contented on board the South Pole Colonel ship. What shows that the Fram is sailing through a warm part of the ocean ?

was chosen to be leader of one of the teams. He could be relied on to obey his master’s voice, to keep the other dogs in his team at work, to pull hard, and to be steady in time of danger.

13. Over the ice and snow they went, mile after mile. They climbed over hills of ice, they jumped over deep cracks, pulling the sled after them. They were

COLONEL HELPS TO FIND THE SOUTH POLE = 23 often hungry and so tired they could hardly keep on their feet. But led on by Colonel they kept to their task until they reached the Pole. Here, above their heads,

Underwood and Underwood

AT THE SOUTH POLE

One of Captain Amundsen’s companions and the sledge and team of dogs. Which one do you think is Colonel? To what country does the South Pole belong? What shows it in the picture?

at night shone the bright stars of the Southern Cross, and all the winds that blew were north winds.

14. Colonel watched while the flag of Norway was unfurled at the South Pole as the flag of our own country had been unfurled at the North Pole. Captain Amundsen knew that he and his four companions could never have reached this place that no man had ever seen before, if it had not been for the help of Colonel and the other dogs.

15. There were fifty-two dogs that started for the Pole from the edge of the ice-cap and only eleven returned. Some had died by the way from overwork. Some had strayed away and been lost. Some had fallen into the cracks of ice and been dashed to pieces. But Colonel came back at the head of the faithful eleven, always the leader of the team.

Courtesy of American Museum of Natural History, New Yor.

THE SOUTH POLE. THE ICE CAP, AND THE POLAR REGIONS