﻿1848. THE ESKIMOS. 243 



great difficulty in understanding and making him- 

 self understood by the Eskimos 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. Traces of their 

 encampments have been discovered as far north 

 in the new world as Europeans have hitherto 

 penetrated ; and their capability of inhabiting these 

 hyperborean regions is essentially owing to their 

 consuming blubber for food and fuel, and their 

 invention of the use of ice and snow as building 

 materials. Though they employ drift- timber when 

 it is available, they can do without it, and can 

 supply its place in the formation of their weapons, 

 sledges, and boat-frames, wholly by the teeth and 

 bones of whales, morses, and other sea animals. 

 The habit of associating in numbers for the chase 

 of the whale has sown among them the elements 

 of civilisation ; 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 asso- 

 ciates, and are more industrious, handy, and in- 

 telligent 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 within their own community the 

 rights of property are held in great respect, 



s 2 



