CEUISE OF STEAMER CORWIN IN THE ARCTIC OCEAN. - 37 



On the coast of Siberia I heard an Eskimo boy sinjj correctly a song he had learned while on board 

 a whaling vessel, and oii several of the Aleutian Islands the natives play the accordion quite well, 

 have music-boxes, and even whistle strains from l^inafore. 



From music to dancing the transition is obvious, no matter whether the latter be regarded in 

 a Darwinian sense as a device to attract the opposite sex or as the expression of joyous excitement. 

 This manifestation of feeling iu its bodily discharge, which Moses and Miriam and David indulged 

 in, which is ranked with poetry by Aristotle, and which old Homer says is the sweetest and most 

 perfect of human enjoyments, is'a pastime much in vogue among the Eskimo, and it required but 

 little provocation to start a dance at any time on the Corwin's decks wiien a party happened to be 

 on board. Their dancing, however, had not the cadence of " a wave of the sea," nor was there the 

 harmony of double rotation circling in a series of graceful curves to strains like those of Strauss 

 or Gungl. On the contrary, there was something saltatorial and jerky about all the dancing I saw both 

 among the meu and women. It is the custom at some of their gatherings, after the hunting season 

 is over, for the men to indulge in a kind of terpsichorean performance, at the same time relating 

 in Homeric style the heroic deeds they have done. At other times the women, more decollete 

 than our beauties at the German, for they strip to the waist, do all the daucing, and the men take 

 the part of spectators only in this choregraphical performance. 



ART INSTINCT. 



The aptitude shown by Eskimo iu carving and drawing has been noticed by all travellers among 

 them. Some I have met with show a degree of iutelligence aud ai>preciation in regai'd to charts 

 and pictures scarcely to be expected from such a source. From walrus ivory they sculpture figures 

 of birds, quadnipeds, marine animals, and even the human form, which display considerable indi- 

 \iduality notwithstanding their crude delineation and imperfect detail. I have also seen a fair 

 carving of a whale in plumbago. Evidences of decoration are sometimes seen on their canoes, on 

 which are found rude pictures of walruses, &c., and they have a kind of picture-writing by means 

 of which they commemorate certain events in their lives, just as Sitting Bull has done in an auto- 

 biography that may be seen at the Army Medical Museum. 



When we were searching for the missing whalers off the Siberian Coast some natives were come 

 across with whom we were unable to communicate except by signs, and wishing to let them know 

 the object of our visit, a ship was drawn in a note-book aud shown to them with accompanying 

 gesticulations, which they quickly comprehended, and one fellow, takiug the pencil and notebook, 

 drew correctly a pair of reindeer horns on the shii)'s jibboam — a fact which identified beyond doubt 

 the derelict vessel they had seen. M Point Hope an Eskimo, who had allowed us to take sketches 

 of him, desired to sketch one of the party, and takiug one of our note-books aud a pencil, neither 

 of which he ever had in his hand before, produced the accompanying likeness of Professor Muir: 

 At Saint Michael's there is an Eskimo boy who draws remarkably well, having 

 taught himself by copying from the Illustrated Loudon News. He made a correct 

 l)en-aud-ink drawing of the Corwin, and another of the group of buildings at Saint 

 Michael's, which, though creditable iu many respects, had the defect of many Chinese 

 pictures, being faulty in perspective. As these drawings ecpml those in Dr. Rink's 

 book, done by Greenland artists, I regret my inability to reproduce them here. 

 )As evidences of culture they show more advancemeut than the carvings of English 

 rustics that a clergyman has caused to be placed on exhibition at the Kensington 

 Museum. 



Sir John Ross speaks highly of his iutcr])reter as an artist; Beechy says that 

 the knowledge of the coast obtained by him from Innuit mai)s was of the greatest value, while Hall 

 and others show their geographical knowledge to be as perfect as that possible of attain?nent by 

 civilized meu unaided by instruments. 1 had frequent opportuuities to observe these Eskimo ideas 

 of chartography. They not only understood reading a chart of the coast when showed to them, but 

 would make tracings of the unexplored part, as I knew a uati ve to do in the case of an Alaskan- river, 

 the mouth only of which was laid down on our chart. 



Manifestation of the plastic art, which is found among tribes less intelligent, is rare among the 



