258 KALUTUNAH. 



they rolled over among the reindeer skins of Tchei- 

 tchenguak's hut and slept. 



Next morning I had Kalutunah brought to my 

 cabin, thinking to treat him with that distinguished 

 consideration due to his exalted rank. But caution 



9 



was necessary. For a stool I gave him a keg, and I was 

 particularly careful that his person should not come in 

 contact with any thing else, for under the ample furs of 

 this renowned chief there were roaming great droves 

 of creeping things, for which no learned lexicographer 

 has yet invented a polite name, and so I cannot fur- 

 ther describe them. Nor can I adequately describe 

 the man himself, as he sat upon the keg, his body 

 hidden in a huge far coat, with its great hood, and his 

 legs and feet inserted in long-haired bear-skin, — the 

 whole costume differing little from the hitherto de- 

 scribed dress of the dark-faced Tcheitchenguak. He 

 was a study for a painter. No child could have ex- 

 hibited more unbounded delight, had all the toys of 

 Nuremberg been tumbled into one heap before him. 

 To picture his face with any thing short of a skillful 

 brush were an impossible task. It was not comely 

 like that of " Villiers with the tiaxen hair," nor yet 

 handsome like that of the warrior chief Nireus, whom 

 Homer celebrates as the handsomest man in the whole 

 Greek army, (and never mentions afterwards,) nor 

 was it like Ossian's chief, " the changes of whose ftice 

 were as various as the shadows which Hy over the 

 field of grass \ " but it was bathed in the sunshine of 

 a broad grin. Altogether it was quite charactciis- 

 tic of his race, although expressing a much higher 

 type of manhood than usual. The features differed 

 only in degree from those of Tcheitchenguak, hereto- 

 fore described \ the skin was less dark, the face 



