THE LYCISCAN GROUP. 701 



light and their brilliant aurora ; and, when the snow covers 

 all the frozen huts to the top, the red glimmer of their light 

 of whale-oil alone testifies to those above that human beings 

 breathe below. Into these holes are crowded men, women, 

 and children, like pigs beneath their straw, with all their 

 store of blubber and flesh, producing an odour more fetid 

 than the caves of wild beasts, and habits more disgusting 

 than civilized men can imagine. But do the victims of so 

 many horrors murmur at their lot? They would not ex- 

 change it for all the pomp of cities ; and Nature has been 

 no more neglectful here of her living offspring than in her 

 happiest climes. In these regions of winter, the human 

 body becomes adapted to the conditions affecting it as per- 

 fectly as in the intertropical plains. By a marvellous pro- 

 vision, the people become fitted to breathe an atmosphere in 

 which the vital air would seem to be almost exhausted, and 

 enjoy cheerfulness of mind, and health of body, which those 

 might envy who are doomed to suffer bodily afflictions worse 

 than death on beds of down. They issue forth from their steam- 

 ing holes to an atmosphere without, where mercury freezes in 

 a few minutes, and infants at the breast endure a cold which 

 would destroy a giant of the lower latitudes. The women, 

 clad like the men in skins, pursue their daily toils without a 

 murmur ; and the men follow the chase, their darling pur- 

 suit, over wastes of frozen snow, and in pools, morasses, and 

 seas filled with moving ice. Nor are the subjects of the 

 chase wanting to them in their frozen deserts. The seas 

 abound in seals, walruses, and whales ; the reindeers, in 

 herds, find food in plants elsewhere innutritious ; bears are 

 everywhere ; the waters are alive with fishes ; and innumer- 

 able waterfowls cover the rocky shores and inland rivers. 

 These men, savages as we deem them to be, have been able to 

 form weapons for all their uses, canoes of skin, and garments 

 of hide, nay, to subject the animals of their icy wilderness 

 to their service. Some of them have subjected the Rein- 

 deer to a domesticity as perfect as that of the Sheep in other 



