APPENDIX TO CASE OP GREAT BRITAIN. 239 



the otlier hand, the sea becomes more and more peopled. The Algce, gigantic species 

 of Tang, form inundated woods round the rocky coasts, such as are not met with in 

 tlie torrid zone. But tlie waters swarm with animal life, though all aquatic animals 

 seem to remain in a lower scale than their relatives of the same class on laud. The 

 Medusa; and Zoophytes, Moluscie and Crvstacece, innumerable species of tish, in incred- 

 ibly crowded shoals; the gigantic swimming mammalia, whales, physeters, dolphins, 

 morse, and seals, lill the sea and its strand, and countless fli.nhts of water-fowls rock 

 themselves on the bosom of the ocean, and in the twilight resemble floating islands. 

 (Vol.iii, p. SOfj.) 



We have little to observe on tlie maimers and character of the people 

 who iuliabit the shores of Behriiig Strait. They have long been sup- 

 posed, and are now unquestionably ascertained, to belong to that ex- 

 traordinary race ^f men generally known by the name of Esquimaux, 

 and who, commencing at the Kolyma, and probably much farther to 

 the westward of Asia, have settled themselves on the sea-coast and 

 islands of that continent, down to the Gulf of Anadyr, the islands of 

 Behriiig Strait, the Aleutian Islands, the western coast of America from 

 the promontory of Alaska, the northern coast along the Polar Sea, the 

 shores and islands of Hudson's Bay, BafQn's Bay, and Davis' Strait, of 

 Old Greenland and Labrador. Everywhere throughout this vast extent 

 of sea-coast, where the gigantic mammalia above mentioned abound, and 

 from which their food, raiment, dwellings and utensils are derived, 

 they are to be found. Of the deplorable circumstances which may have 

 driven these people (evidently of Tartar origin) to dwell only among 

 regions of " thick-ribbed ice" and snow, and to depend for their daily 

 subsistence almost solely on the sea, history is silent, and it would be 

 vain to form any hypothesis on the subject. 



Miserable, however, as their condition appears to be, they are con- 

 tented with it, and always cheerful, living in small independent hordes, 

 and apparently on terms of a perfect equality. Civil and obliging to 

 strangers, they are courteous to one another, and amidst their train 

 oil and putrid fish carefully observe the decencies of dom"estic life. 

 Woman here is not degraded from her rank in society by that curse 

 which polygamy has entailed on the whole sex where it exists, whether 

 in savage or half-civilized life. This common feature of Asiatic manners 

 they have happily lost; what is not a little remarkable, however, they 

 have preserved a language of singular complication in its mechanism, 

 which, with some little variety in the dialect, is spoken from the North- 

 east Cape of Asia to the southern point of Old Greenland. 



Captain Franklin found that his Esquimaux interpreter from the 

 banks of the Chesterfield Inlet understood the vocabularies composed 

 by the missionaries of Labrador; and Dr. Eschsoltz, surgeon of the 

 "Rurick," was fully convinced of the coincidence of the Aleutian lan- 

 guage with that of the Esquimaux. How has this community been 

 maintained through ages between tribes so very widely separated, with- 

 out anj^ written character, and with little or no intercourse, when among 

 nations apparently in a much higher state of civilization the languages 

 are frequently so different as not to be generally understood? Perhaps 

 the fewness of their wants, and the very limited number of objects of 

 sense by which they are surrounded (requiring but few words to express 

 them), may partly explain a phenomenon "so unusual in the history of 

 the species. 



It could not be expected that M. Kotzebue should have much new or 

 interesting information to communicate respecting the Aleutian Islands, 

 the coast of California, or the Sandwich Islands, at all of which he 

 touched in his progress towards the tropical islands of the Pacific, 

 where his intention was to pass the winter, and to prepare for a second 

 attempt at northern discovery. 



