Intellectual Character of the Esquimauz. 315 
they are led by curiosity to within gun-shot.* Boys from 12 
to 16 years of age at once comprehend the mechanism of the 
gun, and will discharge it for the first time with perfect steadi- 
ness ; and the men, with very little practice, soon become supe- 
rior marksmen.t A case is recorded of a native of Labra- 
dor who killed an animal with the first shot he ever fired.{ 
The same individual, in company with two of his country- 
men, while on a visit to Lord George Sutton at Kelham in 
Nottingharashire, in 1772, was in at the death of a fox, which 
happened in an open field, with three couples and a-half of 
hounds out of twenty-five, a proof how hard they must have 
driven him, although neither of them had been on horseback 
more than three times before.§ 
A disposition for aping European gait and manners was ap- 
parent among the natives of Kotzebue’s Sound,| the River 
Clyde,§ Melville Peninsula,** and Regent’s Inlet.}+ A favour- 
ite mode of shewing this propensity was by aping the English 
custom of walking up and down the deck of a ship. A shrewd, 
observing, merry fellow of Iotzebue’s Sound, perceiving the 
officers of Captain Beechy’s ship thus employed, determined 
to turn them into ridicule, by seizing a young midshipman by 
the hand, and strutting with him up and down the deck in a 
most ludicrous manner, to the great diversion of all present ; 
and two native women of Melville Peninsula insisted upon 
walking arm-in-arm with Captain Lyon, in consequence of hay- 
ing been told that such was the practice of the Kabloona 
ladies, as they term our fair countrywomen. The father of a 
young female of Kotzebue’s Sound shewed this kind of talent 
in another way. Observing Captain Beechy sketching his 
daughter’s portrait, he seated himself down with a piece of 
flat board and plumbago, and very good humouredly com- 
menced a portrait of him, aping his manner, and tracing every 
feature with the most affected care, whimsically applying, at 
* Lyon’s Private Journal. + Parry’s Second Expedition. 
~ { Cartwright’s Journal, § Idem. || Beechy. 
{| Parry’s First Expedition. ** Lyon’s Private Journal. 
tt Ross’s Expedition in the Victory. 
