RICHARDSON'S AND RAE'S EXPLORATIONS. 271 



if they think that they can thereby gain any of theii 

 petty ends. Even in their familiar intercourse with 

 each other, the Indians seldom tell the truth in the first 

 instance ; and if they succeed in exciting admiration or 

 astonishment, their invention runs on without check. 

 From the manner of the speaker, rather than by his 

 words, is his truth or falsehood inferred ; and often a 

 very long interrogation is necessary to elicit the real 

 fact. 



" The Esquimaux/' says Richardson, " are essen- 

 tially a littoral people, and inhabit nearly five thousand 

 miles of seaboard, from the Straits of Belleisle to the 

 Peninsula of Alaska ; not taking into the measurement 

 the various indentations of the coast-line, nor including 

 West and East Greenland, in which latter locality they 

 make their nearest approach to the western coasts of the 

 Old World. Throughout the great linear range here 

 indicated, there is no material change in their language, 

 nor any variation beyond what would be esteemed in 

 England a mere provincialism. Albert, the interpreter, 

 who was born on the East Main, or western shore of 

 James's Bay, had no great difficulty in understanding 

 and making himself understood by the Esquimaux of 

 the estuary of the Mackenzie, though by the nearest 

 coast-line the distance between the two localities is at 

 least two thousand five hundred miles. 



" The habit of associating in numbers for the chase 

 of the whale has sown among them the elements of 

 civilization ; and such of them as have been taken into 

 the company's service, at the fur-posts, fall readily into 

 the ways of their white associates, and are more indus- 

 trious, handy, and intelligent, than the Indians. The few 

 interpreters of the nation that I have been acquainted 

 with (four in all) were strictly honest, and adhered rigidly 

 to the truth ; and I have every reason to believe that 



