ESQUIMAU GRAVES. 109 



great usefulness. Indeed, everybody in the vessel 

 seems desirous of adding to my collections ; but this 

 zeal has to-day led me into a rather unpleasant embar- 

 rassment. Jensen, whose long residence among the 

 Esquimaux of Southern Greenland has brought him 

 to look upon that people as little better than the dogs 

 which drag their sledges, discovered a couple of graves 

 and brought away the two skin-robed mummies which 

 they enclosed, thinking they would make fine museum 

 specimens ; and in this surmise he was quite right ; 

 but, unfortunately for the museum, Mrs. Hans was 

 prowling about when Jensen arrived on board, and, 

 recognizing one of them by some article of its fur 

 clothing as a relative, she made a terrible ado, and 

 could not be quieted even by Jensen's assurance that 

 I was a magician, and would restore them to life when 

 in my own country ; so, when I learned the circum- 

 stances, I thought it right, in respect to humanity if 

 not to science, to restore them to their stony graves, 

 and had it done accordingly. 



The Esquimau graves appear to be numerous about 

 the harbor, giving evidence of quite an extensive set- 

 tlement at no very remote period. These graves 

 are merely piles of stones arranged without respect 

 to direction, and in the size of the pile and its loca- 

 tion nothing has been consulted but the convenience 

 of the living. The bodies are sometimes barely hid- 

 den. Tombs of the dead, they are, too, the mourn- 

 ful evidences of a fast dwindling race. 



October 18th. 



I have been well repaid for my course in re-interring 

 the mummies; for I have won the gratitude of my 

 Esquimau people, and Hans has brought me in their 



