VOL. LXIV.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 649 



great number of other nations, but of whom we have not the least infor- 

 mation. 



The mountaineers are esteemed an industrious tribe ; and for many years had 

 been known to the French traders. Their chief employment is to catch fur, and 

 procure the necessaries of life. They are extremely illiterate, but generally 

 good-natured ; and are reckoned to be less ferocious than any other of the 

 Indians. They come every year to trade with the Canadian merchants, who 

 have seal fisheries on the southern part of the coast, and have the character of 

 just dealers. They are immoderately fond of spirits; for which, with blanketing, 

 fire-arms, (in the use of which they are remarkably dexterous), and ammunition, 

 they truck the greatest part of their furs. Their canoes are covered with the 

 rind of birch; and though so light as to be easily carried, yet sufficiently large 

 to contain a whole family and their traffic. By means of the multitude of large 

 ponds throughout this country, they convey themselves a vast distance in a very 

 little time. Whenever they find a pond in their way, they embark on it, and 

 travel by water; when its course alters, and by following it they would lengthen 

 their distance any thing considerable, they land, place their canoe on their head, 

 and carry their baggage on their shoulders, till other water gives them an oppor- 

 tunity of reembarking. They are most excellent travellers. They bear incon- 

 ceivable fatigue with astonishing patience, and will travel 2 days successively 

 without taking any sort of nourishment. These Indians are of a deeper colour 

 than the Esquimaux; and are low of stature. Though of a robust constitution, 

 their limbs are small, and extremely well adapted to the rocky country they are 

 continually traversing. Tliey have no hair, except on the head. For many 

 years they have dressed their food, which they boil to a jelly ; whereas the other 

 Indians eat every thing raw. It is their custom to destroy the aged and decrepid, 

 when they become useless to the society, and burthensome to themselves. 

 They have been questioned on this seeming inhumanity ; and perhaps their 

 reasons are not totally devoid of sound philosophy. They tell you, that as it is 

 with difficulty they procure the necessaries of life, they can admit of none who 

 do not contribute towards acquiring it ; that having no fixed residence, and it 

 being impossible to carry the helpless with them, as they are obliged to be con- 

 tinually traversing the country ; they ask, if it is not better to put an end to miser- 

 able beings, than suffer them to perish with cold and hunger ? The son generally 

 does this kind office for the father ; and, it having ever been a practice among 

 them, they wonder at our considering it as an act of inhumanity. 



The Esquimaux Indians, inhabiting the sea-coast of the northern part of 

 Labradore, are doubtless from Greenland. They are a very deep tawny, or 

 rather of a pale copper-coloured complexion. They are inferior in size to the 

 generality of Europeans ; and but a few among them are of good stature. They 



