There, he found, the Eskimo believed that Queen Victoria, away off there on the other side of the ocean, was sitting on a rock waiting for the Harmony (the Moravian mission ship from Labrador) to come in sight.
They loaded him down with all sorts of messages they wanted him to give her.
Especially, they wanted him to say to her that they were very, very grateful to her for sending him over the seas to help them.
When they learned that England was at war in Egypt, and a brave general was holding the upper Nile against a crowd of savages, although they hadn't the slightest notion as to where Egypt was or who the Egyptians were, they got out everything they had in the way of firearms and began to drill up and down on the rocky beach.
One old fellow had a policeman's coat split up the back and much too big for him, and he dragged the tail of it along the ground like a bedraggled water-fowl. He also had a single epaulet that had come in a box of cast-off clothing.
On the strength of that uniform they made him captain of the company.
Then they all marched up to the missionaries and said:
"We want to go to war and help the English!"
"It won't be any use," said the missionaries. "Egypt is a long, long way off—and the war will be over before you could get there!"
"Never mind!" insisted the "huskies." "We want to go!"