means, "blubber eating." The name they give themselves is Innuit, which means "the people," as if they were the foremost people in the world.

The

They still secure their livelihood by hunting and fishing. polar bear, the walrus, whale, seal, reindeer, wolves and foxes are their game. It is an incessant and hard life, struggling with the storms of wind, ice and snow and wintry waves. Many a brave hunter far out at sea in his frail kyak, harpoon in hand, hunting the walrus and seal, has found. an untimely and watery grave.

The Eskimos in winter, when on their hunting trips, have often occasion to build their snow houses or iglus.

These are made of blocks carved out of the snow, white as Parian marble, and built in dome

shaped structures. They are approached through a long, low passageway cut in the snow, are warmed and dimly lighted with blubber lamps, and are made tolerably comfortable by skins of the seal and other animals of prey.

Mr. David T. Hanbury, in his "Sport and Travel in the Northland of Canada," speaks highly of the Eskimo iglus, and refutes the idea that they are close and unhealthy, and abound in filth, squalor, vermin and stench. He lived for eight months in the iglus and should know. Speaking of their construction, he says:

"All the snow-bricks for the construction of the iglu are cut from the snow on the ground on which the iglu is to be built, or from what may be called the floor of the house. Two

Eskimo work together, one cutting the bricks of snow, the other placing them in position. The bricks are laid in an endless coil which, as it increases in height, decreases in breadth. The walls are thus gradually drawn in towards each other, until finally only à small hole remains in the top at the centre of the roof. Into this a circular or square plug of snow is inserted, and the edifice is complete. The iglu The iglu is circular in shape, and the roof, when built by experts, forms a perfect dome. All the work is done from the inside, and when the iglu is finished the two workmen are still within.

"They cut a hole, crawl to the outside, and then close up this hole with a snow-brick. Next, snow-bricks are cut for a distance of some ten feet outwards from the snow house, and are laid close against each other in

two lines so as to form a passage, the bricks being piled higher on the windward side. Through the side of the iglu a square hole for a permanent doorway is then cut on a level with the floor of the passage. The two builders now re-enter and inspect the result of their labor. Some of the bricks are seen not to fit closely, light appears in the interstices. These are carefully gone over and plastered with loose snow. There still remain a considerable number of bricks in the interior, for the area of the floor has furnished more bricks than were required for building up the walls and roof. These spare bricks are now used to form benches, one on either side. On these snow benches the inmates sleep and sit, only a narrow passage is left between them. While the men complete the iglu, the women

shovel snow against its sides and on the roof to ensure perfect freedom from draughts of cold air.

"When the house is completed, inside and out, the women enter with the deer-skin robes and the rest of their stuff.' Mats made of dwarf birch are laid on the snow benches on either side. The deerskins are laid on these, and the iglu is ready for occupation."

The Eskimo mothers and fathers are extremely fond of their children. A lady of our party learned the native words for "pretty baby." This she used indiscriminately to all the roundheaded, bead-eyed, snub-nosed little brownies, and so won her way straight to the hearts of the mothers, who were as proud of their little ones as any white mother in the world.

The Eskimos of the Moravian Missions can all read, write and, to some extent, cipher. The long winter nights are enlivened by magic-lantern lectures in the chapel on the life of Christ, and scenes in foreign lands. Nothing so interests and astonishes the natives as the pictures of the skyscrapers of New York. A little printing press at Nain publishes probably the smallest paper in the world, a

monthly religious journal, of which we possess a copy.

Many of the Eskimos are still pagan and exhibit much of their early barbarous habits and appearance. Such are some of those figured in these pages. Under the benign influence of the Moravian missionaries all those on the Labrador coast have been brought to a knowledge of the Gospel, and most of them to a conscious experience of its blessedness. The difference between the Christian and pagan Eskimo is strikingly shown in the contrasted portraits of this and the preceding number of this magazine.

In the depth of the Arctic winter of 1904-5 an Eskimo in the employ of Captain Bernier travelled two hundred miles alone, in the endeavor to find the post of Dr. Mundsen, the Norwegian explorer, who was trying to locate the magnetic pole. The man succeeded in his attempt, brought back a reply to Dr. Bernier, returned again to Dr. Mundsen, and on his return trip badly injured his hand by the discharge of his gun, but still reached safely to the good ship "Arctic."

h

A visit to Labrador and the Moravian Missions can be made with great ease and comfort by the Reid Company steamers sailing from St. John's, Newfoundland, fortnightly during the summer. St. John's is readily reached from Sidney, Cape Breton, in a romantic journey, by steamship and rail, in forty hours. The ride across Newfoundland in the narrow-gauge Pullman cars is quite a unique experience.

OW utterly passionless, and how startlingly illustrative of the irreverence of the moderns for the high and mighty potentates of antiquity, is the following well authenticated account of an occurrence in the custom-house of Cairo not very long ago. Brugsch Bey, the famous explorer of the tombs of ancient Egypt, who discovered the mummy believed by all the authorities to be that of the Pharaoh who oppressed the Israelites, afterwards. found another mummy, on the coffin of which was the royal cartouche, indicating that the body was one of the Pharaohs. The explorer was delighted with his discovery, and with great care packed it for conveyance to Cairo. On arriving at the railway station, he was directed to have his baggage" put in the baggage van. The Bey was concerned about its safety, and insisted on its going in the car with him. The officials consented on condition that the fare was paid as a living passenger. Brugsch Bey accordingly paid Pharaoh's fare, and the mummy went in the passenger coach.

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At the custom-house at Cairo a new difficulty arose. The customs officers demanded duty. The Bey explained that the package contained the mummy of a Pharaoh, and that no duty could be levied upon it.

But the officers were convinced that it might be made dutiable under some category, and they searched their lists for a suitable class. Finally, we are told, they decided to charge for it

THE HEAD OF SETI I.

as dried fish, on which a duty is imposed. The Bey scorned to contend about the small charge involved, and the mummy having been weighed and the duty paid, the dead body of one of the Pharaohs entered the capital of Egypt as a package of dried fish!

Such is the contempt poured on one who doubtless in his lifetime was a mighty sovereign, and who, no doubt, commanded the homage of all who came into his presence, and wielded the forces of a far-extended empire as well.

If we require further examples of history's pitiless revenges, we may stand for a few moments in the Bulak Museum, in some respects the most suggestive and remarkable collection of relics in the world. There, in a glass case, in a royal gilded coffin, lies. a shrunken, withered mummy. The lower limbs are yet wrapped in the cerements of the grave, but the skull is exposed and perfect. The long, hooked Roman nose, the deeply sunken eyeballs, the heavy, square

jaw, tell of the warrior and the conqueror. Notwithstanding the somewhat grotesque disguise of mummification, there is plainly to be seen an air of old-time majesty, of relentless resolve, and of boundless pride.

This pathetic, solemn relic of a human form is no other than the veritable Rameses II., the Pharaoh of the Oppression, whose identity has been established beyond question. For more than twice fifteen hundred years the old tyrant lay in the silent, patient earth, until at last the aggressive empire of the spade broke into this dark resting-place and uncovered before the fierce light of the modern world a face and form with a message all may read.

Here is Moses' playfellow, the object of a strange resurrection, and the source of interest to a curious, gazing, wide-awake, and wondering world. What a fate is this! To lie in utter, worthless impotency for more than three thousand years after the poor glories of a brutal reign are all vanished; to be in possession of the wandering, lawless children of the desert as a prized secret simply for the gain it brought; to be wrangled over for years by the gatherers of ancient relics; to be handled and owned by foreigners whom the old king would have despised and crushed without a tear or sigh; to be borne, without one touching recollection, to a museum where the wrappings of thirty centuries would be stripped off one by one before an assemblage of curious eyes; and to have the merciless, unflattering camera send out to every nation the face and form of one whose power was once feared and obeyed by crowding millions of men, is a destiny where the ironies, humiliations and remorseless revenges of history seem to reach a climax and to point a tale that all may read.

What a "find" the antiquarian has made! And how carefully, yet without a moment's hesitation, the uncomplaining scissors clip and clip, until the last shred of the winding-sheet is removed, and cool science discloses the cruel despot of the Oppression for the candid comment of a curious world, as it looks and passes on!

The

But what a fate! To be held up on infamy's high stage for ever as a hard, cruel man, for the condemnation of every succeeding age! matter and manner of splendid burial are only a passing show; but character is enduring, and time's long and honest years will repeat the verdict until the solemn end. What an awful, immortal pre-eminence is this for a human being to secure-a memory for wrong-doing written out in the everlasting custody of the printed page, which no ruin can hide, and