﻿GREAT EXTENT OF THEIR COUNTRY. 341 



language and customs are preserved more than any 

 other from innovations. 



They are truly a littoral people, neither wan- 

 dering inland, nor crossing wide seas ; yet the 

 extent of coast-line which they exclusively possess 

 is surprising. Commencing at the Straits of Bell- 

 isle, 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 Andreanow- 

 sky 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 

 Tchuktche. 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 va- 



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