NATIVES OF GREENLAND. 77 



The men are the carpenters; the women the tailors, 

 shoe-makers, house-masons, and cooks, the last more par- 

 ticularly, as the men, on returning with game, no sooner 

 are disengaged from their kaiaks than all further concern 

 on their part ceases. This arises very probably from the 

 excessive fatigue to which they have been exposed, rather 

 than to any indifference towards their women. The women's 

 labour then commences. They have to haul the seals 

 ashore, and convey to the tent or hut the different 

 animals taken. Their first concern being to draw a little 

 blood from the seal (which, after being killed, is staunched 

 for that purpose), and present it to the men, by way of 

 cordial after their fatigue. Then, having provided the men 

 with dry clothes, they proceed to flay and cut up the spoil. 

 Seals' flesh forms their chief support; and they employ 

 various modes of preserving it for future use. The most 

 common is to cut it into thin slips, and so dry it over a line 

 in the interior of their huts. The blubber is most carefully 

 preserved, as being convertible to almost every domestic 

 comfort, more precious by far to them than wine is to 

 others. Oil is the luxury of their meals, their bread being 

 nothing more than the dried muscular part of the seals or 

 of birds. 



Such a representation of life would form little induce- 

 ment to an European to exchange his comforts in its room. 

 The picture is to such appetites truly disgusting ; and the 



