CRUISE OF STEAMER OORWIN IN THE ARCTIC OCEAN. 29 



and astonislimeut at some exhibitions we gave them on several occasions. Receiving a challenge 

 to run a foot-race with an Eskimo, I came off easy winner, although I was handicapped by being 

 out of condition at the time ; a challenge to throw stones also resulted in the same kind of victory ; 

 I shouldered and carried some logs of drift-wood that none of them could lift, and on another 

 occasion the captain and I demonstrated the physical superiority of the Anglo-Saxon by throwing 

 a walrus lance several lengths farther than any of the Eskimo who had i)rovoked the competition. 

 As a rule they are deficient in biceps, and have not the well-developed muscles of athletic white 

 men. The best musciUar development I saw was among the natives of Saint Lawrence Island, 

 who, by the way, showed me a spot in a village where they practiced athletic sports, one of these 

 diversions being lifting and " putting" heavy stones, and I have gracefully to acknowledge that 

 a young Eskimo got the better of me in a competition of this kind. It is fair to assume that one 

 reason for this physical superiority was the inexorable law of the survival of the fittest, the natiA'es 

 in question being the survivors of a recent prevailing epidemic and famine. 



ESKIMO APPETITES. 



As ftir as my experience goes the Eskimo have not the enormous appetites with which they 

 are usually accredited. The Eskimo who accompanied Lieutenant May, of the Nares Expedition, 

 on his sledge journey, is reported to have been a small eater, and the only case of scurvy, by 

 the way ; the Eskimo employed on board the Corwin as dog drivers and interpreters were as 

 a rule smaller eaters than our own men, and I have observed, on numerous occasions, among 

 the Eskimo I have visited, that instead of being great gluttons they are on the contrary mod- 

 erate eaters. It is, perhaps, the revolting character of their food — rancid oil, a tray of hot 

 seal entrails, a bowl of coagulated blood, for example — that causes overestimation of the quantity 

 eaten. Persons in whom nausea and disgust are awakened at tripe, putrid game, and moldy and 

 maggoty cheese affected by so-called epicures, nt)t to mention the bad oysters which George I 

 preferred to fresh ones, would doubtless be prejudiced and incorrect observers as to the quantity 

 of food an Eskimo might consume. From some acquaintance with the subject I, therefore, venture 

 to say that the popular notion regarding the great appetite of the Eskimo is one of the current 

 fallacies. The reported cases were probably exceptional ones happening in subjects who had been 

 exercising and living on little else than frozen air for perhaps a week. Any vigorous man in the 

 prime of life who has been shooting all day in the sharp, crisp air of the Arctic will be surprised 

 at his gastronomic capabilities; and personal knowledge of some almost incredible instances 

 among civilized men miglit be related, were it not for fear of being accused of transcending the 

 bounds of veracity. 



OHIGIX JND DEVELOPMENT. 



There is so much about certain parts of Alaska to remind one of Scotland, that we wonder why 

 some of the more southern Eskimo have not the intrepidity and vigor of Scotchmen, since they live 

 under almost the same topographical conditions amid fogs and misty hills. Perhaps if they were 

 fed on oatmeal, and could be made to adopt a few of the Scotch manners and customs, religious 

 and otherwise, they might, after infinite ages of evolution, develop some of the qualities of that 

 excellent race. It is probably not so very many generations ago that our British progenitors were 

 like these original and primitive men as we find them in the vicinity of iJering Straits. Here the 

 mind is taken back over centuries, aud one is enabled to study the link of transition between the 

 primitive men of the two (jontinents at the spot where their geographical relations lead us to 

 suspect it. Indeed the primitive man may be seen just as he was thousands. of years ago, by 

 visiting the village perched, like the eyry of some wild bird, about 200 feet up the side of the cliff at 

 East Cape on the Asiatic side of the Straits. This bold, rocky cliff, rising sheer from the sea to the 

 height of 2,100 feet, consists of granite with lava here aud there, aud the indications point to the 

 overflow of a vast ice sheet from the north, evidences of which are seen in the trend of the ridges on 

 the top and the form of the narrow peninsula joining tlie cliff to the mainland. From the summit 

 of the cape the Diomedes, Fairway Rock, and the American coast arc so easily seen that the 

 view once taken would disjiel any doubts as to the possibility of the aborigiual denizens of America 

 having crossed over from Asia, and it would require no such statement to corroborate the opinion 



