CRUISE OF STEAMER CORWIN IN THE ARCTIC OCEAN. 29 
and astonishment at some exhibitions we gave them on several occasions. Receiving a challenge 
to run a foot-race with an Eskimo, I came off easy winner, although I was handicapped by being 
out of condition at the time; a challenge to throw stones also resulted in the same kind of victory ; 
I shouldered -and carried some logs of drift-wood that none of them could lift, and on another 
occasion the captain and I demonstrated the physical superiority of the Anglo-Saxon by throwing 
a walrus lance several lengths farther than any of the Eskimo who had provoked the competition. 
As a rule they are deficient in biceps, and have not the well-developed muscles of athletic white 
men. The best muscular development I saw was among the natives of Saint Lawrence Island, 
who, by the way, showed me a spot in a village where they practiced athletic sports, one of these 
diversions being lifting and “ putting” heavy stones, and I have gracefully to acknowledge that 
a young Eskimo got the better of me in a competition of this kind. It is fair to assume that one 
reason for this physical superiority was the inexorable law of the survival of the fittest, the natives 
in question being the survivors of a recent prevailing epidemic and famine. 
ESKIMO APPETITES. 
As far as my experience goes the Eskimo have not the enormous appetites with which they 
are usually accredited. The Eskimo who accompanied Lieutenant May, of the Nares Expedition, 
on his sledge journey, is reported to have been a small eater, and the only case of scurvy, by 
the way; the Eskimo employed on board the Corwin as dog drivers and interpreters were as 
a rule smaller eaters than our own men, and I have observed, on numerous occasions, among 
the Eskimo I have visited, that instead of being great gluttons they are on the contrary mod- 
erate eaters. It is, perhaps, the revolting character of their food—rancid oil, a tray of hot 
seal entrails, a bowl of coagulated blood, for example—that causes overestimation of the quantity 
eaten. Persons in whom nausea and disgust are awakened at tripe, putrid game, and moldy and 
maggoty cheese affected by so-called epicures, not to mention the bad oysters which George I 
preferred to fresh ones, would doubtless be prejudiced and incorrect observers as to the quantity 
of food an Eskimo might consume. From some acquaintance with the subject I, therefore, venture 
to say that the popular notion regarding the great appetite of the Eskimo is one of the current 
fallacies. The reported cases were probably exceptional ones happening in subjects who had been 
exercising and living on little else than frozen air for perhaps a week. Any vigorous man in the 
prime of life who has been shooting all day in the sharp, crisp air of the Arctic will be surprised 
at his gastronomic capabilities; and personal knowledge of some almost incredible instances 
among civilized men might be related, were it not for fear of being accused of transcending the 
bounds of veracity. 
ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT. 
There is so much about certain parts of Alaska to remind one of Scotland, that we wonder why 
some of the more southern Eskimo have not the intrepidity and vigor of Scotchmen, since they live 
under almost the same topographical conditions amid fogs and misty hills. Perhaps if they were 
fed on oatmeal, and could be made to adopt a few of the Scotch manners and customs, religious 
and otherwise, they might, after infinite ages of evolution, develop some of the qualities of that 
excellent race. Itis probably not so very many generations ago that our British progenitors were 
like these original and primitive men as we find them in the vicinity of Bering Straits. Here the 
mind is taken back over centuries, and one is enabled to study the link of transition between the 
primitive men of the two continents at the spot where their geographical relations lead us to 
suspect it. Indeed the primitive man may be seen just as he was thousands of years ago, by 
visiting the village perched, like the eyry of some wild bird, about 200 feet up the side of the cliff at 
East Cape on the Asiatic side of the Straits. This bold, rocky cliff, rising sheer from the sea to the 
height of 2,100 feet, consists of granite with lava here and there, and the indications point to the 
overflow of a vast ice sheet from the north, evidences of which are seen in the trend of the ridges on 
the top and the form of the narrow peninsula joining the cliff to the mainland. From the summit 
of the cape the Diomedes, Fairway Rock, and the American coast are so easily seen that the 
view once taken would dispel any doubts as to the possibility of the aboriginal denizens of America 
having crossed over from Asia, and it would require no such statement to corroborate the opinion 
