ANIMALS. 



179 



however, at first, required no small skill to in- 

 vent. They launch a javelin, also, with great 

 force, and some say, that they can hit a mark, 

 no larger than a crown, at thirty yardsdistarice, 

 and with such force as would pierce a man 

 through. They are all hunters; and particu- 

 larly pursue the ermine, the fox, the ounce, 

 and the martin, for the sake of their skins. 

 These they barter, with their southern neigh- 

 bours, for brandy and tobacco ; both which 

 they are fond of to excess. Their food is prin- 

 cipally dried fish, the flesh of rein-deer and 

 bears. Their bread is composed of the bones 

 of fishes, pounded and mixed with the inside 

 tender bark of the pine-tree. Their drink is 

 train oil or brandy; and, when deprived of 

 these, water, in which juniper berries have 

 been infused. With regard to their morals, 

 they have all the virtues of simplicity, and all 

 the vices of ignorance. They offer their wives 

 and daughters to strangers; and seem to 

 think it a particular honour if their offer be 

 accepted. They have no idea of religion, or 

 a Supreme Being ; the greatest number of 

 them are idolaters ; and their superstition is 

 as profound as their worship is contemptible. 

 Wretched and ignorant as they are, yet they 

 do not want pride ; they set themselves far 

 above the rest of mankind ; and Krantz as- 

 sures us, that when the Greenlanders are got 

 together, nothing is so customary among them 

 as to turn the Europeans into ridicule. They 

 are obliged, indeed, to yield them the pre- 

 eminence in understanding and mechanic arts ; 

 but they do not know how to set any value 

 upon these. Th^y therefore count themselves 

 the only civilized and well-bred people in the 

 world ; and it is common with them, when 

 they see a quiet or a modest stranger, to say 

 that heisalmost as well bred asaGreenlander. 

 From this description, therefore, this whole 

 race of people may be considered as distinct 

 from any other. Their long continuance in a 

 climate the most inhospitable, their being ob- 

 liged to subsist on food the most coarse and 

 ill prepared, the savageness of their manners, 

 and their laborious lives, all have contributed 

 to shorten their stature, and to deform their 

 bodies. 3 In proportion as we approach to- 

 wards the north pole, the size of the natives 



Ellis's Voyage, p. 256. 



appears to diminish, growing less and less as 

 we advance higher, till we come to those lati- 

 tudes that are destitute of all inhabitants 

 whatsoever. 



The wretched natives of these climates seem 

 fitted by nature to endure the rigours of their 

 situation. As their food is but scanty and 

 precarious, their patience in hunger is amaz- 

 ing." A man, who has eaten nothing for four 

 days, can manage his little canoe in the most 

 furious waves, and calmly-subsist in the midst 

 of a tempest, that would quickly dash an Eu- 

 ropean boat to pieces. Their strength is not 

 less amazing than their patience ; a woman 

 among them will carry a piece of timber, or 

 a stone, near double the weight of what an 

 European can lift. Their bodies are of a dark 

 gray all over ; and their faces brown, or olive. 

 The tincture of their skins partly seems to 

 arise from their dirty manner of living, being 

 generally daubed with train-oil; and partly 

 from the rigours of climate, as the sudden al- 

 terations of cold and raw air in winter, and 

 of burning heats in summer, shade their com- 

 plexions by degrees, till, in a succession of 

 generations, they at last become almost black. 

 As the countries in which they reside are the 

 most barren, so the natives seem the most bar- 

 barous of any part of the earth. Their more 

 southern neighbours of America, treat them 

 with the same scorn that a polished nation 

 would treat a savage one ; and we may rea- 

 dily judge of the rudeness of those manners, 

 which even a native of Canada can think 

 more barbarous than his own. 



But the gradations of nature are impercep- 

 tible ; and, while the north is peopled with 

 such miserable inhabitants, there are here 

 and there to be found, upon the edges of these 

 regions, people of a larger stature, and com- 

 pleter figure. A whole race of the dwarfish 

 breed is often found to come down from the 

 north, and settle more to the southward ; and, 

 on the contrary, it sometimes happens that 

 southern nations are seen higher up, in the 

 midst of these diminutive tribes, where they 

 have continued for time immemorial. Thus 

 the Ostiac Tartars seem to be a race that 

 have travelled down from the north, and to 

 be originally sprung from the minute savages 



b Krantz, p. 134. vol. i. 



2K 



