the neighbourhood of some settlement. The land and sea are both open to their use, and they are kindly welcomed by others who may be considered prior settlers, no matter how large may be their number. They rarely cheat, much less rob each other; but they think it fair, and even to the credit of their shrewdness, to cheat or steal from Europeans all they can. The blubber and skins which they sell to them are in exchange for almost any article manufactured from iron or steel. They are ignorant of the value of gold, which they do not prize more than tin or brass; but iron, in any shape, is invaluable to them.

The Esquimaux are not without their festivities. They play ball, sometimes arranging themselves on sides, and testing their skill with much spirit. The children arm themselves for the game with the curved bones of some animal, and play among the snow-drifts with as much frolic as if they had the most attractive sports and commodious play-grounds.

The chief festivity of the Esquimaux is called the Sun Feast, at the winter solstice, to celebrate the re-appearance of the sun, and the renewal of hunting and fishing opportunities. Throughout the country they assemble together in companies, and do their best in the way of entertainment. After eating to fulness, they play and make music. Their only musical instrument is a sort of drum or tambourine, consisting of a stout wooden or whalebone hoop, about thirty inches in diameter, over which, when it is to be used, a wet deer-skin, or the skin of a whale's tongue, is stretched. The Esquimaux takes hold of it with his left hand, and strikes with a stick on the hoop. He stands in the centre of the company, and at every stroke he gives a jump and a whirl, and makes sundry motions with his head and arms. He also sings, in a monotonous tone, a song in honour of seal-catching, and of joy at the return of fair weather.

As the Esquimaux have no general government, no political constitution, but are a mere collection of families, they are governed to a great extent by public sentiment and by general custom. Yet they have a few regulations, which have all the force of law among themselves :---Any one may join them in hunting and fishing.

Whoever finds drift-wood, whether near his own residence or remote from it, has only to place a stone on it, and it is respected as his property. Whoever plunges a javelin into a seal, although it may escape and be killed by another person, has a right to the animal. If two or more kill a creature together, they divide it among them. If several shoot at random at the same time, the one who lodges an arrow nearest the heart can claim the animal, and he bestows a portion of the meat upon the others. These, and many other customs, which spring from their manner of life, control their conduct with great force.

INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF THE ESQUIMAUX.

THE perfection to which the Esquimaux carry such work as they attempt is quite wonderful, when we consider the scarcity of material and the want of emulation, and of any division of labour among them. Their arts are handed down from father to son, and remain with no perceptible change from generation to generation. Their houses are built with mathematical regularity, and are well adapted for securing warmth and protection against the encroachments of the weather. But still greater skill is shown, perhaps, in the construction of their boats,—the kayak, or man's boat, and the oomiak, or woman's boat.

It is acknowledged that the intelligence of the civilised artisan could not produce a result of greater symmetry and finish than the kayak of the Greenlander; and the same vessel which William Baffin described with so much admiration in 1607, is described by Dr. Kane as "beautiful in model, and graceful as the nautilus.” With the exception of the hole in the centre, it is perfectly water and air tight, and is propelled by a double-bladed oar, grasped in the middle. The rapidity, ease, and lightness with which it follows the motion of the wave, are wonderful, and the man and his boat seem to be one creature, passing like a sea-bird over its native element.

The kayak, or man's boat, has a canoe-shaped frame-work,

from eighteen to twenty feet in length, tapering to a point at the head and stern, so that it is shaped like a weaver's shuttle. The breadth at the centre is from one foot and a half to two feet, and the depth about one foot. The under surface of the vessel is rounded just enough to allow a person to sit with his feet extended on the bottom; and as each man is his own boat-builder, it is always constructed with a nice adaptation to his particular size and weight. When completed the whole weight of the vessel is not more than sixty pounds, and can be easily carried on the head without the assistance of the hands.

In front of the kayaker lies his line, rolled up on a little raised seat made for it; and behind him rests his seal-skin bladder, an air-tight sack which is always kept inflated and fastened to the sealing-line. This is said to answer the double purpose of a buoy and a break or drag to retard the motion of the prey after it has been struck. The double-bladed oar is about seven feet in length. It is made of solid red deal, if that can be procured, with inlaid bone at the sides. The navigator takes it with both hands in the middle, striking the water on both sides with great rapidity and regularity, as if he were beating time.

As already stated, the speed which the kayakers make in their shell-like vessels is very great. One has been known to go at the rate of from sixty to seventy miles a day. These men become so habituated to the changes of the sea that they glide triumphantly over the roughest billows. If a wave threatens to upset them, they counteract it by their oar, and maintain an upright position; or, if overturned, they swing round and come up again to the surface, as they have taught themselves to do by long practice. It is only when they lose their oar that they are overpowered by the elements, or when the ice or drift-wood drives furiously against them. The kayak is covered with new seal-skin once a year, and is so expeditious and convenient that the Danish authorities of Greenland use this kind of boat as an express for communication between different posts.

The oomiak, or woman's boat, is usually about twenty feet long, five feet broad, and three feet deep. It is sometimes built so as

to accommodate twenty persons. It is made of slender laths, fastened with whalebone, and covered with dressed seal-skin. These boats are generally managed by three or four women together; and in fair weather they row them very rapidly. In any danger, a man with his kayak keeps them in sight, to aid them if required.

The next object of importance to the Esquimaux is the sledge, which finds occupation during at least three-fourths of the year. A native who possesses both a kayak and a sledge is considered a person of property.

To give a particular description of the sledge would be impossible, as there are no two exactly alike, and the materials of which they are composed are as various as their form. The best have their runners made of the jaw-bones of the whale; the upper part consisting of bones, pieces of wood, or deer horns lashed across. The length of a bone sledge is from four to fourteen feet, and the breadth about twenty inches.

The skin of the walrus is also often used in winter, when frozen, to make sledge-runners. And another ingenious contrivance is by putting moss and earth into a seal's skin and pouring a little water into it. The whole soon becomes frozen into one solid piece, and an excellent sledge-runner is thus easily formed. Across both these kinds of runners there is the same arrangement as in the bone sledge. The surface of the runners is coated with ice by pouring water over them mixed with snow; this makes them slide forward with ease, and greatly assists in lightening the load for the dogs.

In the second voyage of Sir John Ross to the Arctic regions, it is related of the steward that he purchased a sledge of the Esquimaux, and, on examining it, found it to be made of salmon, with skins sewed over them; but the cross pieces were the leg bones of the rein-deer. It sometimes happens that when these poor creatures are driven to extremity for food, they break up their sledges, and make a dainty meal of them!

ANIMAL LIFE IN THE ARCTIC REGIONS.

THERE are scarcely any coasts in the world more teeming with animal life than the sterile and ice-bound shores of the Arctic regions. From Greenland westward along the northern coasts of America, countless thousands of bears, seals, walruses, foxes, dogs, and other Arctic mammals, and countless millions of gulls, geese, auks, and other far-flying aquatic birds,-some through the air, and others upon vast fields of ice either fixed or moving,—are continually passing to and fro.

The animals found in these frozen regions have a double interest to the voyager, both because they supply him with nourishing food, and because they interrupt the intense solitude of that vast and silent land. Vegetable life grows more scant and stunted as he advances north, but animal life is larger and more abundant in development, although seen in less variety. The Arctic animals show less beauty of colouring than those of warmer climates; white and different shades of brown principally supplying the place of the more brilliant tints.

There is a wonderful adaptation in creatures to their natural condition. In warm latitudes, the quadrupeds have thin and short hair, but those of the polar regions are supplied with the thickest furs. The aquatic birds, also, are protected by a coat of oily feathers, so that they can plunge securely into the icy

waters.

Almost all Arctic animals are beasts and birds of prey; and they derive their sustenance mainly from the sea-the land furnishing very scanty means of supporting life. The ultimate source from which the food of all these animals comes-and which, from its abundance, is the cause of the extreme prolificness of life in all those regions-is derived from the vast number of medusa or jelly-fishes, with which the seas in those latitudes are filled.

There is a very large class of these creatures, known to naturalists by the name of Acaleptæ, from a Greek word meaning