Stupart's Bay Station. 87 



when uninfluenced by Christianity, have no religious inclinations 

 whatever. They worship nothing and nobody, and have no ideas 

 of a future state that are very well denned, except that which is 

 usually found among the other savages of North America. They 

 have no doctors, take no medicines, and are (I was going to say, 

 therefore,) seldom sick. When they die their bodies are laid away 

 on the rocks, and covered over with boulders. 



They have no regular hours for eating, but eat whatever they 

 have on hand whenever they feel like it, which is quite often. They 

 seldom all eat together, except when they have been half starved 

 for some time, and are lucky enough to take a deer or seal. Then 

 they eat enough to make up for the deprivations of the previous 

 days of hunger. They do not keep track of the days of the week, 

 know nothing whatever of the Sabbath ; but they have a sort of 

 record by moons and winters. They have no summers. Their 

 store of knowledge is very small. The men are adepts in the use 

 of the gun, the spear, or the harpoon ; the women sew neatly, 

 and display good taste in making garments from skins. Both are 

 moderately industrious, generous toward white people, and willing 

 to do most everything they are told. They are something like the 

 Indian, but more enterprising. If they are filthy, they are honest ; 

 and if they are below the Indian in the first, they are above him in 

 the latter. But the corrupting influences of civilization soon over- 

 come their natural inclinations. They learn to steal with the 

 greatest ease, and take delight in practising the art when they have 

 learned it. 



One of the most attractive features of Eskimo life is the kayak. 

 What the canoe is to the Indian, the kayak is to the husky of the 

 north. They are not the same in shape, in construction, or in any- 

 thing else, except in weight and the dangers to which a greenhorn 

 is exposed in attempting to navigate them. In shape they are 

 similar to an old-fashioned weaver's shuttle, and draw less water 

 than the ordinary canoe. They are about thirty feet long, not more 

 than two feet from top to bottom at the centre, and about thirty 

 inches wide at the same point. The top is straight from forward 

 point to stern point, except that from the centre to the ends each 



