SKETCH OP THE BOOTHIANS. 21 



Nothing can be more regular and orderly than their migrations 

 from one place to another, in pursuit of the different kinds of 

 game: while their system of storing up provisions, and oil for 

 fuel, in ditterent places, to meet future wants, seemed as perfect 

 as possible. These are prepared in advance, at the several stations 

 where the musk ox, the reindeer, and the seal are to be hunted ; 

 and thus they can undertake their furthest migrations with the 

 most perfect security. 



No one expects to hear that they are a more cleanly people 

 than their fraternity elsewhere, and I need not repeat the dis- 

 gusting details. Man is permitted to be more dirty than the 

 beasts, and he is certainly not slow in taking advantage of this 

 privilege wherever he dares. But, here there is really some 

 excuse, and the people were not nnwilling to be clean. They 

 cannot well avoid contamination from the oil which they use 

 as food and fuel ; as, in a confined hut, where every thing must 

 be dried at the flame of the lamp, the effects of smoke are equally 

 inevitable. But the excuse, above all, is the want of water: and 

 it has been resorted to as an excuse for similar neglect where it 

 is not the rare and expensive article which it is here. The ex- 

 penditure of fuel required to thaw what they drink is very great, 

 as the quantity of water which they thus consume is enormous ; 

 very often they cannot procure enough, or suffer severely from 

 thirst should their oil be expended: so that we need not be 

 surprised if they do not wash themselves in winter: while the 

 habit of ten months in every year of life can scarcely be broken 

 through in the two short ones during which water can be procuretl. 



