10 ALEUTIAN ISLANDERS. 



and many to the mainland of America, and were 

 accustomed to tattoo their faces with a red-hot 

 needle. 



Otcheredin, who made a lengthened visit in 1770, 

 describes the Fox Islands as generally rocky, but 

 destitute of wood, and abounding with rivulets and 

 lakes which contain very little fish ; the population, 

 free and numerous ; living principally in holes 

 dug in the earth, and subsisting on sea animals and 

 small shell-fish, with the wild lily-root as their 

 greatest luxury. 



Dr. Latham, in his " Varieties of Man," asserts that 

 the inhabitants of these islands, including Behring's, 

 Copper, Rat, Andreanowsky, and Prebiilowiini, are 

 all of Esquimaux origin ; this he principally infers 

 from the radical construction of the language. 



To Captain Cook, our own enterprising navigator, 

 belongs the merit of the true discovery of the Straits 

 between the two continents, although, with his usual 

 good taste and modesty, he gave to them the name 

 of Behring, in honour of, as he supposed, the first 

 European who ever navigated those seas. There is now, 

 however, little ground for reasonable doubt, although 

 the fact long remained involved in obscurity, that to 

 Simeon Deslmew, or Deshnef, may be attributed the 

 first passage of them by civilised man. Iseai Ignatiew, 



