530 SECOND VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY 



to render severity towards them quite unnecessary. Even from their earliest 

 infancy, ihcy possess that quiet disposition, gentleness of demeanour, and 

 uncommon evenness of temper, for which in more mature age they arc for 

 the most part distinguished. Disobedience is scarcely ever known, a word 

 or even a look from a parent is enough ; and I never saw a single instiuice 

 of that frowardness and disposition to mischief, which, with our youth, so 

 often requires the whole attention of a parent to watch over and to correct. 

 They never cry from trifling accidents, and sometimes not even from very 

 severe hurts, at which an English child would sob for an hour. It is indeed 

 astonishing to see the indifference with which, even as tender infants, they 

 bear the numerous blows they accidentally receive, when carried at their 

 mothers' backs. 



They arc just as fond of play as any other young people and of the same 

 kind ; only that while an English child draws a cart of Avood, an Esquimaux 

 of the same age has a sledge of whalebone ; and for the superb baby-house 

 of the former, the latter builds a miniature hut of snow, and begs a lighted 

 Avick from her mother's lamp to illuminate the little dwelling. Their parents 

 make for them, as dolls, little figures of men and women, habited in the true 

 Esquimaux costume, as well as a variety of other toys, many of them having 

 some reference to their future occupations in life, such as canoes, spears, 

 and bows and arrows. The drum or tambourine mentioned by Crantz * is 

 common among them, and used not oidy by the children, but by the 

 grown-up people at some of their games. They sometimes serrate the 

 edges of two strips of whalebone and whirl them round their heads, just as 

 boys do in England to make the same peculiar humming sound. They will 

 dispose one piece of wood on another, as an axis, in such a manner that 

 the wind turns it round like the arms of a wind-mill ; and so of many other 

 toys of the same simple ki nd. These are the distinct property of the children, 

 who will sometimes sell them while their parents look on, without interfering 

 or expecting to be consulted. 



When not more than eight years old, the boys are taken by their fathers on 

 their sealing excursions, where they begin to learn their future business; and 

 even at that early age, they are occasionally intrusted to bring home a .sledge 

 and doffs from a distance of several miles over the ice. At the age of eleven 

 we see a boy with his water-tight boots and mocassins, a spear in his hand, 



» Crantz, I. 176. 



