A GREENLAND CEMETERY. 185 



them, perhaps, descendants of kings from southern climes in 

 centuries past, and beyond the memory or history of the liv- 

 ing. It was noticeable that the mounds exhumed brought to 

 light mostly skulls, furnishing evidence of antiquity, as being 

 probably of those who died before the Lutheran missionaries 

 landed here. Yet the method of burial remains as before, 

 even though the present generation is blessed with religious 

 rites. The people on the western coast below Melville Bay 

 are all nominally Christians, and dispose of their dead in the 

 same manner as at Sukkertoppen. 



7t has been frequently asked, "Why do the Eskimos 

 remain in the frozen region ?" The answer is plain and 

 simple. They know not of the outside world, and withal 

 have neither the desire nor facilities to leave their bleak 

 and desolate habitation. To bring such a race to a warmer 

 climate and to civilization would insure its entire extinction. 

 The future of this side-tracked race can only be imagined. 

 My opinion is that ere many decades it will become extinct. 



