we assembled in the hall, where I read divine service and returned thanks to the Almighty for our safety. The fishermen who were stationed about five miles from the house came in on this day, so that the whole party were met together. The Canadians, though Roman Catholics, were present on the occasion ; and most of them regularly attended our Sunday services in the winter. In addition to the party from the coast, Mr. Bell had with him here fourteen men, with three women and four children; so that we had in all forty-two souls to provide for, exclusive of Indians coming casually on our store.

On Monday the 18th of September, the packet of letters was placed in charge of François Chartier and Louis La Ronde, who were directed to carry it on without delay to Isle à la Crosse, where the wife of the latter resided. Henry Smith, Joseph Plante, and Henry Wilson, Canadians, accompanied them for the purpose of wintering at the fishery on Big Island, Great Slave Lake; and with them I sent the following men of the English party, whose services could be well dispensed with at our winter quarters: Stairs, Sully, and Clarke, seamen; Frazer, Dall, Dodd, Sulter, Hobbs, Ralph, Geddes, Webb, Weddell, and Bugbee, sappers and miners. Being thus relieved from the maintenance of eighteen people, the resources of the post were considered equal to feeding the remainder, and I looked forward to the winter without anxiety.

Mr. Bell had placed two fishermen, by my desire, at the west end of Great Bear Lake, near its outlet, to be ready to feed my party, had I found it necessary to return up the Mackenzie. I judged it prudent to continue these men there, not only as their fishing hut would be a convenient station for parties traveling to and fro, between Fort Confidence and the posts on the Mackenzie, but also that they might give aid, should our fisheries near the fort fail.

CHAPTER XI.

ON THE ESKIMOS OR INUIT.

The four Aboriginal Nations seen by the Expedition.-Eskimos.-Origin of the Name.-National Name Inu-it.-Great extent of their Country.-Personal Appearance.-Occupations.-Provident of the Future.-Villages.-Seal Hunt.Snow-houses.-Wanderings not extensive.-Respect for Territorial Rights.Dexterous Thieves. - Courage. - Traffic. - Compared to the Phœnicians.Skrellings. Western Tribes pierce the Lips and Nose.-Female Toilet.-Mimics.-Mode of defying their Enemies.-Dress.-Boats.-Kaiyaks.-Umiaks.-. Dogs.-Religion.-Shamanism.-Susceptibility of Cultivation-Origin.-Language.-Western Tribes of the Eskimo Stock.-Tchugatchih.-Kuskutchewak. -A Kashim or Council House.-Feasts.-Quarrels.-Wars.-Customs.-Mammoth's Tusks.-National Names.-Namollos or Sedentary Tchuchke-Reindeer Tchukche.-Their Herds.-Commerce.-Shamanism.-Of the Mongolian Stock.

To keep the interruptions of the narrative within reasonable limits, I have hitherto avoided saying much of the native tribes that occupy the countries through which the Expedition traveled, and shall here supply that deficiency by giving some details of the manners and customs of the four nations whose boundaries we crossed in succession.

Reversing the order of our journey, the first of the native nations that presents itself in descending from the north, is that of the Eskimos, as Europeans term them. This appellation is probably of Canadian origin, and the word, which in French orthography is written Esquimaux, was, probably, originally Ceux qui miaux (miaulent), and was expressive of the shouts of Tey-mō, proceeding from the fleets of kaiyaks, that surround a tradingvessel in the Straits of Hudson, or coasts of Labrador. The sailors of the Hudson's Bay Company's ships, and the Orkney men in the employment of the Company, still call them Suckĕmòs or Seymòs. Some writers, however, have thought the word to be a corruption of the Abenaki term Eskimantik, signifying “eaters of raw flesh," which is certainly a habit peculiar to the Eskimos. But be the origin of the name what it may, it certainly does not belong to the language of the nation, who invariably call themselves Inu-it (pronounced Ee-noo-eet), or "the people," from i-nuk a man," though families or tribes have, in addition, local designations.

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The Eskimos offer an interesting study to the ethnologist, on account of the very great linear extent of their country-of their being the only uncivilized people who inhabit both the old and new continents-and of their seclusion to the north of all other American nations, with whom they have a very limited intercourse; so that their language and customs are preserved more than any other from innovations.

They are truly a littoral people, neither wandering inland, nor crossing wide seas; yet the extent of coast-line which they exclusively possess is surprising. Commencing at the Straits of Bellisle, they occupy the entire coast of the Peninsula of Labrador, down to East Main in Hudson's Bay; also, both sides of Greenland, as far north as they have been examined; and they also inhabit the islands which lie between that land and the continent, and bound Baffin's Bay and Davis's Straits on the west. On the main shore of America, they extend from Churchill, through the Welcome, to Fury and Hecla Straits; thence along the north shore to Beering's Straits, which they pass, and follow the western coast, by Cook's Sound and Tchugatz Bay, nearly to Mount St. Elias; members of the nation have also possessed themselves of the Andreanowsky Islands, Unalashka, and Kadiak. They even cross the Straits of Beering, a part of the nation dwelling on the Asiatic coast, between the Anadyr and Tchukotsky Noss, where they are known to the Russians by the names of Namollos or Sedentary Tchukche. Outside of Beering's Straits, on the North Pacific, their language and customs have undergone considerable changes, as we shall have occasion to notice; but elsewhere there is no substantial variation in either; the modes of life being uniform throughout, and the differences of speech among the several tribes not exceeding in amount the provincialisms of English counties.

The Greenlanders have been known to Europeans longer than any of the other North American nations, and full accounts of their manners and customs have been given to the world long ago. All the recent voyages in search of a northwest passage, also, contain characteristic portraits and descriptions of the Eskimos that reside on the west side of Davis's Straits and Melville peninsula. I shall not, therefore, attempt a systematic account of the nation, but shall confine myself chiefly to what fell under my personal notice in the central parts of the northern coast-line,

where the Eskimos, from their position, have little or no intercourse with other nations, and have borrowed nothing whatever, either from the Europeans or 'Tinnè, the conterminous Indian people.

The faces of the Central Eskimos are, in general, broadly eggshaped, with considerable prominence of the rounded cheeks; but few or no angular projections even in the old people. The greatest breadth of the face is just below the eyes; the forehead is generally narrow and tapers upward; and the chin conical, but not acute; most commonly the nose is broad and depressed, but it is not always sɔ formed. Both forehead and chin in general recede, so as to give a more curved profile than is usually to be observed in any variety of the Caucasian race, or among the male Chepewyans or Crees, though some of the female 'Tinnè have countenances approaching to the egg-shape. As contrasted with the other native-American races, their eyes are remarkable, being narrow and more or less oblique. Their complexions approach more nearly to white than those of the neighboring nations, and do not merit the designation of "red," though from exposure to weather they become dark after manhood. As the men grow old, they have more hair on the face than Red Indians, who take some pains to eradicate it, but I observed none with thick bushy beards or whiskers like those of an European who suffers them to grow. An inspection of the portraits in "Franklin's Second Overland Journey," and in Back's Great Fish River," will show that in elderly individuals both the upper lip and chin have a tolerable show of hair, though none have the flowing beard which was productive of so much benefit to Richard Chancellor and his countrymen.

Dr. Pickering says of the Mongolian, with which, in common with other ethnologists, he classes the Eskimos and the major part of the other American nations, that both sexes have a feminine aspect; that the stature of the men and women is nearly the same; and that the face of the male is pre-eminently beardless. These peculiarities are but faintly developed among the Central Eskimos, and the females are uniformly conspicuously shorter than the males. Most of the men are rather under the medium English size; the defect in height being, perhaps, attributable to a disproportioned shortness of the lower extremities, though this opinion was not tested by measurements. They are

APPEARANCE.-OCCUPATIONS.

205

broad-shouldered, and have muscular arms; so that, when sitting in their kaiyaks, they seem to be bigger men than they do when standing erect. Some individuals, however, would be considered to be both tall and stout even among Europeans, and they certainly are not the stunted race which popular opinion supposes them to be. The comparative shortness of the females is common to them and the neighboring 'Tinnè (Hare Indians and Dogribs), whose women are of small stature.

In both sexes of Eskimos the hands and feet are small and well-formed, being less than those of Europeans of similar height. The boots which we purchased on the coast were seldom large enough in the feet for our people, none of whom were tall men.

The Central Eskimos, when young, have countenances expressive of cheerfulness, good nature, and confidence; and the females, being by no means inclined to repress their mirth, are wont to display a set of white teeth that an European belle might covet. The elderly people have features more furrowed than those we see in civilized life, as we might expect when the passions are not habitually repressed; and in some of the old men the lines of the countenance denote distrust and hatred. These ill-favored individuals were, happily, not numerous, and several of the patriarchs we communicated with had a truly benevolent aspect. The weather-beaten faces of some of the old women, gleaming with covetousness, excited by seeing in our possession wealth beyond the previous creations of their imagination, lead one to bes lieve that the poet who sang, "Old age is dark and unlovely," had drawn his picture from a people equally hard and unsoftened by the cultivation of intellect; and I feel no surprise that Frobisher's people should have suspected the unfortunate elderly woman who fell into their hands of being a witch, while they let the free. young one go

Year after year sees these people occupied in a uniform circle of pursuits. When the rivers open in spring they resort to rapids and falls, to spear the various kinds of fish that ascend the streams at that period to spawn. At the same date, or a little earlier in more southern localities, they hunt the reindeer, which drop their young on the coasts and islands while the snow is only partially melted. Vast multitudes of swans, geese, and ducks, resorting to the same quarters to breed, aid in supplying the Eskimos with food during their short but busy summer of two months. In the