IN NORTHERN MISTS 



peoples. Small, slanting eyes; the nose small and flat, 

 narrow between the eyes and broad below; cheeks broad, 

 prominent, and round; the forehead narrowing compara- 

 tively above; the lower part of the face broad and powerful; 

 black, straight hair. The color of the skin is a pale brown. 

 The Eskimo are not, as is often supposed, a small people 

 on an average; they are rather of middle height, often 

 powerful, and sometimes quite tall, although they are a good 

 deal shorter, and weaker in appearance, than average Scan- 

 dinavians. In appearance, and perhaps also in language, they 

 come nearest to some of the North American Indian 

 tribes. 



From whence they originally came, and where they 

 developed into Eskimo, is uncertain. The central point of 

 the Eskimo culture is their seal hunting, especially with 

 the harpoon, sometimes from the kayak in open water, and 

 sometimes from the ice. We cannot believe that this sealing, 

 especially with the kayak, was first developed in the central 

 part of the regions they now inhabit; there the conditions of 

 life would have been too severe, and they would not have 

 been able to support themselves until their sealing culture 

 had attained a certain development. Just as in Europe we 

 met with the Finnish sea fishing on a coast that was 

 connected with milder coasts farther south, where seaman- 

 ship was able first to develop, so we must expect that the 

 Eskimo culture began on coasts with similar conditions, 

 and these must be looked for either in Labrador or on 

 Bering Strait. 



As the coasts of Labrador and Hudson Bay are ice- 

 bound for a great part of the year, it is not likely that traffic 

 by sea began there at any very early time; and consequently 

 no particularly favorable conditions existed there for an 

 early development of seamanship. Nor is this the case to 

 any great extent on the east coast of North America farther 

 south, which, with the exception of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, 

 has little protection from the sea, and offers few facilities 

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