72 



THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. 



[CUAP. 



The young woman also, even here as everywhere else, bedecks 

 herself as best she can ; but fair she certainly is not in oar eyes. 

 She competes with the man in dirt. Like the man she is small 

 of stature, has black coarse hair resembling that of a horse's 

 mane or tail, face of a yellow colour, often concealed by dirt, 

 small, oblique, often running and sore eyes, a fiat nose, broad 

 projecting cheekbones, slender legs and small feet and hands. 



The dress of the man, which resembles that of the Lapps, 

 consists of a plain, full and long " pesk," confined at the waist 

 with a belt richly ornamented with buttons and brass mount- 

 ing, from which the knife is suspended. The boots of rein- 

 deer skin commonly go above the knees, and the head covering 

 consists of a closely fitting cap, also of reindeer skin. 



SAMOYED BELT WITH KNIKE. 



One-sixth of natural size. 



The summer tents, the only ones we saw, are conical, with a 

 hole in the roof for carrying off the smoke from the fireplace, 

 which is placed in the middle of the floor. The sleeping 

 places in many of the tents are concealed by a curtain of varie- 

 gated cotton cloth. Such cloth is also used, when there is a 

 supply of it, for the inner parts of the dress. Skin, it would 

 appear, is not a very comfortable material for dress, for the first 

 thing, after fire-water and iron, which the skin-clad savage 

 purchases from the European, is cotton, linen, or woollen cloth. 



Of the Polar races, whose acquaintance I have made, the 

 reindeer Lapps undoubtedly stand highest ; next to them 

 come the Eskimo of Danish Greenland. Both these races are 

 Christian and able to read, and have learned to use and require a 

 large immber of the products of agriculture, commerce, and the 



