234 EARLY MAN IN BRITAIN. [CHAP.VII. 



and fowling. They collect round their habitations vast 

 refuse-heaps, of precisely the same kind as those of the 

 Cave-men in Europe. Captain Lyon gives the following 

 account of one of these which he visited in the summer 

 at Igloolik : l 



" The ground all around was strewed with skulls and 

 skeletons of animals ; and human heads were picked up 

 to the amount of at least a dozen ! Bones indeed were 

 so numerous that we literally trod on them. A large 

 stagnant field of mud surrounded the place, adding its 

 full share of sweets, as it was constantly ploughed up 

 by all who walked through it to the huts : the bottom 

 of this also felt as if covered with bones. Near at hand 

 were several large tumuli, which had formerly been dwell- 

 ings, but which were now solid moss-covered mounds. 

 From their appearance in decidedly different states of 

 antiquity, from the very slow progress either of vegeta- 

 tion or decay in a country which for at least nine 

 months in the year is frozen as hard as a rock, and from 

 the natives never recollecting them as being inhabited, 

 I am led to suppose that the island of Igloolik must 

 have been, for centuries, the residence of Eskimaux. It 

 is strange that the skulls of men should have been left 

 to lie neglected under foot amongst those of all kinds of 

 animals; but the natives treated the matter with the 

 utmost indifference, and a lad who accompanied me a 

 few miles inland to shoot, carried down to the boat for 

 me a couple of human heads I had found near a lake, 

 with the same willingness as some ducks I had killed. 

 In the course of my rambles I saAV four more of these 

 remnants of Eskimaux, which were eagerly pointed out 

 by the boy when he saw I was interested in them. 



1 Lyon's Private Journal, p. 236. 



