246 DISPOSITION OF WESTEKN ESKIMOS. 



wonderfully acute for his time of life. There is another still alive, 

 who is said to be a few years older. 



Before offering any remarks on the character of these people, it 

 should be premised that the subject is approached with great 

 diffidence, lest we should give erroneous views respecting them ; for 

 although we have resided two years within three miles of their 

 largest settlement, we could never wholly divest ourselves of the 

 feeling that we were looked upon by them as foreigners, if not 

 intruders, who were more feared than trusted; the more favourable 

 points of their character were not therefore brought prominently 

 before us ; whilst from being frequently annoyed by petty thefts, 

 false reports, broken promises, and evasions, we perhaps too hastily 

 concluded that thieving and lying were their natural characteristics, 

 without attributing to them a single redeeming quality. Yet, as 

 we became letter acquainted, we found individuals of weight and 

 influence among them, whose conduct seemed guided by a rude 

 inward sense of honesty and truth, and whom it would be unfair to 

 judge by a civilized standard, or to blame for yielding to temptations 

 to them greater than we can conceive. A leaf of tobacco is a matter 

 of small value, yet the end of it sticking from one's pocket amid a 

 knot of natives at Nu-wuk, would be a greater temptation there, 

 and would more surely be stolen than a handkerchief or a purse 

 seen dangling from one's skirt in a London mob. And when the 

 parental and filial duties are so carefully performed, it would be 

 hard to deny the existence of even a spark of generosity. 



In disposition they are good-humoured and cheerful, seemingly 

 burdened by no care. Their feelings are lively but not lasting, and 

 the temper frequently quick, but placable. Of their placable temper, 

 an instance occurred in September 1852. An old man, of some con- 

 sideration at Nu-wuk, had with his wife been alongside the ship, 

 and in the crowd were refused admittance ; the woman also, by 

 some accident, had received a blow on the head from an oar. By 

 way of retaliation, a day or two afterwards he tried to send away 

 our watering-party from a pond near the village ; and finding our 

 men took little heed of him, he set about persuading his countrymen 

 to expel the strangers " for stealing the water." Captain Maguire 

 seeing the disturbed state of his feelings depicted in his countenance, 

 advanced to meet him, and at once presented him with a needle. 

 The man's embarrassment was extreme. Trifling as the present 

 was, it flattered him out of more than half of his anger, and he dis- 

 sipated the rest in a long talk, the people seating themselves in a 

 ring, and requesting the captain and his companions to take a place 

 in the centre, when the old man and his wife — his better half — 



