138 THE FACULTY OF IMITATION. 



gurgle of approval with a continuous though sub- 

 dued current of conversation, occasionally breaking 

 out with the elders in short notes, to their fellows 

 or the actor, of satisfaction at his efibrts. By the 

 very general interest displayed, I have little doubt 

 that he was the Garrick of his tribe ; indeed, I 

 never saw any other among them so expert as 

 himself by many shades : the poor fellow deserved 

 applause if only for the labour of his performance. 

 It may briefly be noticed, that he was clad to 

 resemble those he mimicked, having among other 

 pecuharities, only one mitten on — a familiar trait 

 of Esquimaux — and threw into his action, tones 

 and expression, a character so entirely foreign to 

 his own that one would, unwarned, fail to recog- 

 nise him as of the Tuski. I was much impressed 

 with the view of this spectacle. Here, on the 

 extreme of a sterile and desolate waste, on whose 

 edge only a few uncivilised persons are scattered, 

 the imitative faculty of man had burst forth without 

 example, his untaught and unaided ingenuity develop- 

 ing itself in a -thousand instances. The contemplative 

 mind cannot but find in all these things indications of 

 the universal superiority of man over the brute — ample 

 food for reflection upon the mightiness of the Power who 

 bestowed reason to direct and capability to perform. 



