22 BOWDOIN BOYS IN LABRADOR. 



The only remains of their picturesque national costume that 

 we saw, was the cap. The women wore a curious knot of hair, 

 about the size of a small egg, over each ear, while the men wore 

 their hair cut off straight around, a few inches above the 

 shoulders. 



In point of personal cleanliness, these people equal any abo- 

 rigines we have seen, though their camp exhibited that supreme 

 contempt for sanitation that characterizes every village except 

 the Hudson Bay Co.'s posts on the Labrador coast, whether of 

 Indians, Esquimaux or " planters," as the white and half-breed 

 settlers are called. 



Some curious scenes were enacted while the professor was 

 trading for his desired ethnological material. With inexhaust- 

 ible patience and imperturbable countenance, he sat on a log, 

 surrounded by yelping dogs, and by children and papooses of 

 more or less tender ages and scanty raiment, playing on ten cent 

 harmonicas that had for a time served as a staple of trade, 

 struggling with the dogs and with their equally excited mothers 

 and sisters for a sight of the wonderful basket from whose 

 apparently inexhaustible depths came forth yet more harmonicas, 

 sets of celluloid jewelry, knives, combs, fish-hooks, needles, etc., 

 ad infinitum. The men, whose gravity equalled the delight of 

 the women and children, held themselves somewhat aloof, seldom 

 deigning to enter the circle about the magic basket, and making 

 their trades in a very dignified and careless fashion. 



That these people are capable of civilization there can be no 

 doubt. Missing the interpreter, without whom nothing could 

 be done, the professor inquired for him and learned that he had 

 returned to his wigwam. Upon being summoned he said he was 

 tired of talking. Thereupon the professor bethought himself 

 and asked him if he wanted more pay. The interpreter, no 

 longer tired, was willing to talk all night. 



The camp was in a bend of the river and at the head of rapids 

 about four miles from the mouth, up which we had to track, that 

 is, one man had to haul the boat along by the bank with a small 

 rope called a tracking line, while another kept her off the rocks 

 by pushing against her with an oar. At that point the river 



