574 



THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. 



[chap. XIV. 



lip. It struck me, however, that this strange custom was about 

 to disapi^ear completely, or at least to be Europeanised by the 

 exchange of holes in the ears for holes in the mouth. An 

 almost full-grown young woman had a large blue glass bead 

 hanging from the nose, in whose partition a hole had been 

 made for its suspension, but she was very much embarrassed and 

 hid her head in a fold of mama's jjfsZ:, when this piece of grandeur 

 attracted general attention. All the women had long strings of 

 beads in the ears. They wore bracelets of iron or copper, resem- 

 bling those of the Chukches. The colour of the skin was not 

 very dark, with perceptible redness on the cheeks, the hair black 

 and tallow-like, the eyes small, brown, slightly oblique, the 

 face flat, the nose small and depressed at the root. Most of 

 the natives were of average height, appeared to be healthy and 





ESKIMO AT PORT CLARENCE. 



(After photographs by L. Palander.) 



in good condition, and were marked neither by striking thinness 

 nor corpulence. The feet and the hands were small. 



A certain elegance and order prevailed in their small tents, 

 the floor of which w&s covered with mats of plaited plants. In 

 many places vessels formed of cocoa-nut shells were to be seen, 

 brought thither, like some of the mats, by whalers from the 

 South Sea Islands. For the most part their household and 

 hunting implements, axes, knives, saws, breechloaders, revolvers, 

 &c., were of American origin, but they still used or preserved in 

 the lumber repositories of the tent, bows and arrows, bird-darts, 

 bone boat-hooks, and various stone imi^lements. The fishing 

 implements especially were made with extraordinary skill of 

 coloured sorts of bone or stone, glass beads, red pieces of the 

 feet of certain swimming birds, &c. The different materials 



