TO THE ARCTIC REGIONS. 279 
manners, mode of living, as well as their language, 
tend to confirm this point. With regard to their 
origin, most of the writers who have written about 
them suppose them to be of Samoeid or Tartar 
descent ; but on this point I have no pretensions to 
offer an opinion. 
After our visitors had bartered every thing they 
had to dispose of, and we had obtained from them 
all the information that was possible to be acquired, 
they were assisted into their canoes again, and a 
boat was sent with them to land the man that sold 
his canoe. On leaving the ship they made no 
signs indicative of taking farewell, but they went 
away apparently very much pleased with their 
reception, and the bargains they had made. On 
the way going ashore our boat tried for a little 
while to pull against them, but our people soon 
found that they were no match for them, espe- 
cially the two young men, for the old man either 
could not, or did not, exert himself much on the 
occasion. During this trial an opportunity occurred 
for observing how quickly they noticed any thing 
that was said when they could make out the mean- 
ing of it ; for on hearing the officer who had charge 
of the boat tell the men to “ pull away,” they 
immediately comprehended, from the exertions 
that were made, that this was an injunction to the 
men to increase their efforts, and by way of jocosely 
showing their own dexterity, they used to go on 
a-head of our boat, and call out ‘ Pull away, pull 
away.”’ Immediately after they landed, another of 
them sold his canoe to the officer who went in the 
boat, for his dirk, a Flushing-jacket, a shawl that 
he | 
