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Aug 6th Cape Wankarem

The natives came off early in the morning bringing a miscellaneous assortment of chairs & other things obtained from the wrecked whaler last autumn. These were bought for a liberal price as an incentive to bring other things out but nothing of great interest was found and about 9 am Captain H. Muir & myself & Doctor went ashore and had a look through the place which contained about a dozen houses or rather skin lodges. These are about 9 to 10 ft high in centre & are formed by a frame work of wood weighted down with heavy stones & covered with old deerskins & seal & walrus hides - with an entrance about 3½ to 4 ft. high facing the sea & 3 ft wide - see next page & block of wood - with which these people obtain fire very quickly. They have had so little intercourse with whites that most of them do not know how to light a match and though they ask for matches to light their pipes yet they would look at 

The middle of the side opposite the door is occupied by a polog of deerskins forming the family sleeping room & in the back of which burns a lamp. The floor of this polog is generally covered with sod & thus raised 6 or 8 inches above the surrounding level & the front is limited by a log of drift wood which rests at each end upon a white bear skull or one of the latter & a walrus skull. A few wooden troughs & dishes roughly hollowed out of driftwood lie about with rarely a