“Not so fast, Ermigit; not so fast,” roared Simek.
Heedless of the advice, the brothers pushed on until they were brought up by the pack-ice at the mouth of the bay. Here they turned as quickly as possible, and raced back with such equal speed that they came in close together—so close that it was impossible for those on shore to judge which was winning as they approached.
As in all similar cases—whether on the Thames or on the Greenland seas—excitement became intense as the competitors neared the goal. They were still a hundred yards or so from land, when Ermigit missed a stroke of his paddle. The consequence was that the kayak overturned, and Ermigit disappeared.
A kayak, as is generally known, is a very long and narrow canoe, made of a light wooden frame, and covered all over with sealskin with the exception of a single hole, in what may be called the deck, which is just big enough to admit one man. This hole is surrounded by a strip of wood, which prevents water washing into the canoe, and serves as a ledge over which the Eskimo fastens his sealskin coat. As canoe and coat are waterproof, the paddler is kept dry, even in rough weather, and these cockle-shell craft will ride on a sea that would swamp an open boat. But the kayak is easily overturned, and if the paddler is not expert in the use of his paddle, he runs a chance of being drowned, for it is not easy to disengage himself from his craft. Constant practice, however, makes most natives as expert and fearless as tight-rope dancers, and quite as safe.
No sooner, therefore, did Ermigit find himself in the water, head downwards, than, with a rapid and peculiar action of the paddle, he sent himself quite round and up on the other side into the right position—dripping, however, like a seal emerging from the sea. He lost the race, as a matter of course. Norrak, after touching the beach, returned to Ermigit, laughing at his mishap.
“You laugh,” said his brother somewhat sharply, “but you cannot do that as quickly as I did it.”
Without a word of reply, Norrak threw himself on one side, vanished in the water, and came up on the other side in a decidedly shorter time.
“Well done!” cried Ermigit, who was, in truth, a good-natured fellow; “come, let us practise.”
“Agreed,” responded Norrak; and both brothers pushed a little nearer to land, so that their father and the others might observe and criticise their evolutions. As the exercises which they went through are practised by Eskimos in order to fit them to cope with the accidents and emergencies of actual life, we will briefly describe them.
First Norrak leaned over on one side, of course carrying the kayak with him, until his body lay on the water, in which position he maintained himself and prevented a total overset by manipulating his paddle, and then, with a downward dash of the blade and a vigorous jerk of his body, he regained his position, amid expressions of approval from the shore. Having performed the same feat on the other side, he nodded to Ermigit, and said—