SKETCH OP THE BOOTHIANS. 3 



come into contact with Europeans: while the nature of the 

 country surrounding the isthmus which divides them from the 

 larger mass of the continent of America, together with that of 

 the country which must be traversed to reach this, as effectually 

 precludes the visits of the Indians and the western Esquimaux, 

 as it checks any desire on their parts to roam beyond their 

 present limits. 



Excepting, therefore, the people whom I found in 1818, and 

 whom I termed Arctic Highlanders, the natives of this spot form 

 the narrowest and most insulated tribe of men that has yet been 

 discovered by navigators : a fact which gives interest to whatever 

 their characters may present. Here, if any where, we ought 

 therefore to find how the human mind is developed under the 

 narrowest education, in what manner the " light of nature" as it 

 is termed, operates on the moral character and conduct, and how 

 far human reason can proceed, under the smallest possible 

 quantity of materials to act on, and under a very narrow range 

 of application. If also there are peculiarities of character, 

 whether for good or evil, the moralist and metaphysician may 

 here speculate on what belongs to the original mental constitution 

 of these people, and what is derived from their narrow and 

 limited intercourse with their own species, in a society so 

 restricted in numbers, and so incapable of changing customs or 

 altering habits, where there is nothing beyond themselves to see, 

 and no one to imitate. 



Whatever species of purity this may imply, the vices which 

 they possess must, like their virtues, be those that originate 



b2 



