TRIBE AT THE HEAD OF BAFFIN'S BAY. L73 



glaciers, and became the ancestors of that veiy curious and in- 

 teresting race of men, the "Arctic Highlanders." 



Unlike the Parry Islands, the coast of Greenland was found to be 

 suited for the home of the hardy Asiatic wanderers, and here al 

 length they found a resting place. Its granite cliffs are more covered 

 with vegetation than are the bare limestone ridges to the westward. 

 The currents and drifting bergs keep pools and lanes of water open 

 throughout the winter, to which walrus, seals, and bears resort. 

 \\ ithout bows and arrows, without canoes, and without wood, the 

 "Arctic Highlanders" could still secure abundance of food with 

 their bone spears and darts. For generations they have been com- 

 pletely isolated by the Humboldt glacier to the north, and the glacier 

 near Cape Melville to the south. Thus their range extends along 

 600 miles of coast-line, while inland they are hemmed in by the 

 Sernik-soaJc, or great ice-wall. Dr. Kane tells us that they number 

 about 140 souls, 1 powerful, well-built fellows, thick-set, and muscu- 

 lar, with round chubby faces, 2 and the true warm hearts of genuine 

 hunters ; ready to close with a bear twice their size, and to enter 

 into a conflict with a fierce walrus of four hours' duration on weak 

 ice. Their iglu, or winter habitation, is a circular stone hut, about 

 8 feet long by 7 broad, and is identical in all respects with the 

 ruins which we found on the shores of the Parry Islands. It should 

 be observed also that on comparing the vocabulary of the language 

 of the Greenland Eskimo with that of the Tuski of Northern 

 Siberia, it will be seen that both are dialects of the same mother- 

 t< »ngue. 



The discoveries of geologists have recently brought to light the 

 existence of a race of people who lived soon after the remote glacial 

 epoch of Europe, and who were unacquainted with the use of metals. 

 Their history is that of the earliest family of man of which wo yet 

 have any trace; while here, in the far north, there are tribes still 

 living under exactly similar conditions, in a glacial country, and in 

 a stone age. A close and careful study of this race, therefore, and 

 more especially of any part of it which maybe discovered in hitherto 

 unexplored regions, assumes great importance, and becomes a subject 

 of universal interest. 



I ventured to hint that, after the arrival of the Asiatic emigrants 

 at the " wind-loved " point, while some went south, and, driving out 

 the Norsemen, peopled Greenland; and while others remained be- 

 tween the folks of the great glacier, a third lino may have been 

 taken far to the north, towards the Pole itself. 1 beliove this t<> be 



1 Kane, ii. |>. 108. 2 Ibid., p. 230. 



