DKSCIUI'TION OF GIIEENI-AND. 217 



The history savs that these s;ivages are of a deceiti'ul and 

 ferocious disposition, and that they cannot be tamed, either 

 by presents or kindness. They are fat but active, and their 

 skins arc of an olive colour ; it is believed that there are 

 blacks among them like Ethiopians. They are dressed 

 in seal-skins, sewn together with sinews. Their women 

 wear their hair in disorder, and turn it behind their ears 

 to show their faces, which are painted blue and yellow. 

 They do not, like our women, wear petticoats, but several 

 pairs of drawers made of the skins of fish, which they put on 

 one over the other. Each pair has pockets, which they fill 

 with knives, thread, needles, little looking-glasses, and other 

 trifles which foreigners bring them, or that the sea throws up 

 from the shipwrecks of foreigners who attempt their shores. 

 The shirts of the men and chemises of the women are made of 

 the intestines of fish, sewn with very fine sinews. Their 

 clothes are large, and they bind them with straps of prepared 

 skin. They are very dirty and filthy. Their tongue serves 

 them for naj^kin and handkerchief, and they have no modesty 

 about things other men are ashamed of. Those who have 

 a great many bows, slings, boats, and skulls, are considered 

 rich men : their bov,'S are short and their arrows thin, armed 

 at the end with bone or sharpened horn. They are skilful 

 in drawing the bow and using the sling, as also in throwing 

 the javelin at fish in the water. Their little boats are 

 covered with seal-skin, and hold only one man. Their 

 large boats are made of pieces of wood joined one to the 

 other by cross beams, and covered with the skin of whales 

 sewn with large sinews. The largest of these hold twenty 

 men ; their sails, like their shirts, are made of intestines of 

 fish, sewn with fine sinews. And although there is no iron 

 in these boats, they are fastened with so much skill and 

 strength that they make easy way in the open sea, and are 

 not injured even by heavy storms. They have nothing of a 

 reptile or venomous nature in their country, with the ex- 



