The habitual drink is water, which these people consume in great
quantities when they can obtain it, and like to have very cold. In the
winter there is always a lump of clean snow on a rack close to the
lamp, with a tub under it to catch the water that drips from it. This
is replaced in the summer by a bucket of fresh water from some pond or
lake. When the men are sitting in their open air clubs at the summer
camps there is always a bucket of fresh water in the middle of the
circle, with a dipper to drink from. Hardly a native ever passed the
station without stopping for a drink of water, often drinking a quart
of cold water at a time. When tramping about in the winter they eat
large quantities of ice and snow, and on the march the women carry
small canteens of sealskin, which they fill with snow and carry inside
of their jackets, where the heat of the body melts the snow and keeps
it liquid. This great fondness for plenty of cold water has been often
noticed among the Eskimo elsewhere, and appears to be quite
characteristic of the race.[N107] They have acquired a taste for
liquor, and like to get enough to produce intoxication. As well as we
could judge, they are easily affected by alcohol. Some of them during
our stay learned to be very fond of coffee, “ka´fe,” but tea they are
hardly acquainted with, though they will drink it. I have noticed that
they sometimes drank the water produced by the melting of the sea ice
along the beach, and pronounced it excellent when it was so brackish
that I found it quite undrinkable.
[Footnote N107: See, for instance, Egede: “Their Drink is nothing
but Water” (Greenland, p. 134), and, “Furthermore, they put great
Lumps of Ice and Snow into the Water they drink, to make it cooler
for to quench their Thirst” (p. 135). “Their drink is clear water,
which stands in the house in a great copper vessel, or in a wooden
tub. * * * They bring in a supply of fresh water every day * * *
and that their water may be cool they choose to lay a piece of ice
or a little snow in it” * * * (Crantz, vol. 1, p. 144). Compare,
also, Parry, 2d voy., p. 506, where the natives of Iglulik are
said to drink a great deal of water, which they get by melting
snow, and like very cold. The same fondness for water was observed
by Nordenskiöld in Siberia (Vega, vol. 2, p. 114).]