THE MONTAGNAIS INDIANS 



could not understand their language, nor they 

 mine, with one exception in the case of an 

 elderly man, who from time to time ejaculated 

 a few words of French, and who appeared to 

 understand some of my broken sentences in the 

 same language. However, all were pleasant and 

 jolly, and there was considerable laughter, 

 probably at my expense, a laughter in which 

 I joined as I wished to appear sociable and 

 was unable to express myself in any other 

 way. 



The faces of these people were dark olive 

 brown in colour, and glistened in the sun as if 

 they had been oiled, as I suspect was indeed 

 the case with some ; their noses were aquiline ; 

 their eyes were black and rather narrow and 

 in some set aslant as in the Mongolian type. 

 A few showed signs of admixture with the 

 white race. 



While the men wore their straight black hair 

 rather long about the neck, the women and 

 girls had theirs tied up in tight oblong knots 

 or rolls wound with black cloth in front of the 

 ears, forming a conspicuous and characteristic 

 mark of their sex, absent only in very young 

 children. The women and girls all wore pic- 

 155 



