CHAPTER XVII 



MY ESKIMOS* 



PLUMP and rounded figures, emphatically expres- 

 sive countenances, bronze-skinned, keen-eyed, 

 black-maned inhabitants of an icy desert; simple and 

 honest, occasionally sulky ; wandering, homeless people : 

 these are my children, the Eskimos. 



Their origin, no one can tell to a certainty ; but their 

 appearance indicates the strong probability of the 

 correctness of the theory advanced by Sir Clements 

 Markham, distinguished President of the Royal Geo- 

 graphical Society of London, that these people are 

 remnants of an ancient Siberian tribe, the Onkilon. 

 Many of them are of strikingly Mongolian type of 

 countenance. 



What first impresses one is their inquisitiveness. Dr. 

 Hayes records the case of an Eskimo woman who had 

 subjected herself to a temperature of thirty-five de- 

 grees below zero, with the liability to be caught in a 

 gale; she had travelled forty miles over a track, the 

 roughness of which frequently compelled her to dis- 

 mount from the sledge and walk; she had carried her 

 child all the way; her sole motive being her curiosity 

 to see the white men, their igloo (hut), and their strange 

 treasures. 



*For portions of this chapter taken from Peary's "Northward," the 

 courtesy oi the Frederick A. Stokes Oompan^ is hereby gratefully 

 acknowledged. 



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