﻿342 ESKIMOS. 



riation 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 north-west 

 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 what- 

 ever, either from the Europeans or ^Tinne^ the con- 

 terminous Indian people. 



The faces of the Central Eskimos are in general 

 broadly egg-shaped, with considerable prominence 

 of the rounded cheeks ; but few or no angular pro- 

 jections even in the old people. The greatest 

 breadth of the face is just below the eyes ; the fore- 

 head is generally narrow and tapers upwards ; and 

 the chin conical, but not acute; most commonly 

 the nose is broad and depressed, but it is not always 



