338 COOK S VOYAGE TO MAY, 



but the other is the most common form, and seems 

 to be their whole dress in good weather. When it 

 rains, they put over this another frock, ingeniously 

 made from the intestines of whales, or some other 

 large animal, prepared so skilfully as almost to re- 

 semble our gold-beaters' leaf. It is made to draw tight 

 round the neck ; its sleeves reach as low as the wrist, 

 round which they are tied with a string; and its 

 skirts, when they are in their canoes, are drawn over 

 the rim of the hole in which they sit, so that no 

 water can enter. At the same time, it keeps the men 

 entirely dry upward. For no water can penetrate 

 through it, any more than through a bladder. It 

 must be kept continually moist or wet ; otherwise it is 

 apt to crack or break. This, as well as the common 

 frock made of the skins, bears a great resemblance 

 to the dress of the Greenlanders, as described by 

 Crantz.* 



In general, they do not cover their legs or feet ; 

 but a few have a kind of skin stockings, which reach 

 half-way up the thigh ; and scarcely any of them are 

 without mittens for the hands, made of the skins of 

 bears' paws. Those who wear any thing on their 

 heads, resembled in this respect our friends at Noot- 

 ka ; having high truncated conic caps, made of straw, 

 and sometimes of wood, resembling a seal's head 

 well painted. 



The men commonly wear their hair cropt round 

 the neck and forehead ; but the women allow it to 

 grow long, and most of them tie a small lock of it 



* Crantz's History of Greenland, vol.i. p. 136 138. The 

 reader will find in Crantz many striking instances, in which the 

 Greenlanders and Americans of Prince William's Sound resemble 

 each other, besides those mentioned in this chapter by Captain 

 Cook. The dress of the people of Prince William's Sound, as 

 described by Captain Cook, also agrees with that of the inhabit- 

 ants of Schumagin's Islands, discovered by Beering in 1741. 

 Muller's words are, " Leur habillement dtoit de boyaux de baleines 

 pour le haut du corps, et de peaux de chiens-marins pour le 

 bas." Decouvertes dcs Russes, p. 274. 



