MURDOCH.) TOBACCO. 65 



it liquid. This great fondness for plenty of cold water has been often 

 noticed among the Eskimo elsewhere, and appears to be quite charac 

 teristic of the race. 1 They have acquired a taste for liquor, and like to 

 get enough to produce intoxication. As well as we could judge, they 

 are easily affected by alcohol. Some of them during our stay learned 

 to be very fond of coffee, &quot; ka fe,&quot; but tea they are hardly acquainted 

 with, though they will drink it. I have noticed that they sometimes 

 drank the water produced by the melting of the sea ice along the beach, 

 and pronounced it excellent when it was so brackish that I found it quite 

 uudriukable. 



NARCOTICS. 



The only narcotic in use among these people is tobacco, which they 

 obtain directly or indirectly from the whites, and which has been in use 

 among them from the earliest time when we have any knowledge of 

 them. When Mr. Elson, in the Blossom s barge, visited Point Barrow, in 

 1826, he found tobacco in general use and the most marketable article. 2 

 This undoubtedly came from the Russians by way of Siberia and Ber 

 ing Strait, as Kotzebue found the natives of the sound which bears his 

 name, who were in communication with the Asiatic coast by way of the 

 Diomedes, already addicted to the use of tobacco in 181(5. It is not 

 probable that tobacco was introduced on the Arctic coast by way of the 

 Russian settlements in Alaska. There were no Russian posts north of 

 Bristol Bay until 1833, when St. Michael s Redoubt was built. When 

 Capt. Cook visited Bristol Bay, in 1778, he found that tobacco was 

 not used there, 3 while in Norton Sound, the same year, the natives &quot;had 

 no dislike to tobacco.&quot; 4 Neither was it introduced from the English 

 posts in the east, as Franklin found the &quot;KfifimiYdllfi&quot; not in the habit 

 of using it &quot;The western Esquimaux use tobacco, and some of our 

 visitors had smoked it, but thought the flavor very disagreeable,&quot; 5 nor 

 had they adopted the habit in 1837. 



When the Plover wintered at Point Barrow, according to Dr. Simpson s 

 account, 7 all the tobacco, except a little obtained from the English dis 

 covery ships, came from Asia and was brought by the Nunatanmiun. 

 At present the latter bring very little if any tobacco, and the supply is 

 obtained directly from the ships, though a little occasionally finds its 

 way up the coast from the southwest. 



See, for instance, Egcde: &quot;Their Drink is nothing but Water&quot; (Greenland, p. 134), and, &quot;Fur 

 thermore, they put great Lumps of Ice and Snow into the Water they drink, to make it cooler for to 

 quench their Thirst&quot; (p. 135). &quot;Their drink is clear water, which stands in the house in a great copper 

 vessel, or in a wooden tub. * * They bring in a supply of fresh water every day * * * and 

 that their water may be cool they choose to lay a piece of ice or a little snow in it&quot; * * * (Crantz, 

 vol. 1, p. 144). Compare, also. Parry. 2d voy., p. 506, where! the natives of Iglulik arc said to drink a 

 great deal of water, which they get by molting snow, and like very cold. The same fondness for water 

 was observed by Nordenskiiild in Siberia (Vega, vol. 2, p. 114) 



2 Becchey, Voyage, p. 308. 



3 Third Voyage, vol. 2, p. 437. 

 1 Ibid, 2, p. 479. 



5 Second Exp., p. 130. 



6 See T. Simpson, Narrative, p. 156. 



7 Op. cit., pp., 235, 236. 260. 



9 ETII 5 



