Feb. 1827. PASSAGES—NATIVES. 15 
exhibit, either in male or female, any indications of activity or 
strength. Their average height is five feet five inches; their 
habit of body is spare; the limbs are badly turned, and defi- 
cient in muscle; the hair of their head is black, straight, 
and coarse; their beards, whiskers, and eyebrows, naturally 
exceedingly scanty, are carefully plucked out; their forehead 
is low ; the nose rather prominent, with dilated nostrils ; their 
. eyes are dark, and of a moderate size; the mouth is large, 
and the under-lip thick; their teeth are small and regular, 
but of bad colour. They are of a dirty copper colour ; 
their countenance is dull, and devoid of expression. For 
protection against the rigours of these inclement regions, their 
clothing is miserably suited ; being only the skin of a seal, 
or sea-otter, thrown over the shoulders, with the hairy side 
outward. 
‘¢ 'The two upper corners of this skin are tied together across 
the breast with a strip of sinew or skin, and a similar thong 
secures it round the waist ; the skirts are brought forward so 
as to be a partial covering. Their comb is a portion of the 
jaw of a porpoise, and they anoint their hair with seal or whale 
blubber ; for removing the beard and eyebrows they employ a 
very primitive kind of tweezers, namely, two muscle shells. 
They daub their bodies with a red earth, like the ruddle used 
in England for marking sheep. The women, and children, 
wear necklaces, formed of small shells, neatly attached by a 
plaiting of the fine fibres of seal’s intestines. 
“The tracts they inhabit are altogether destitute of four- 
footed animals ; they have not domesticated the geese or ducks 
which abound here ; of tillage they are utterly ignorant; and 
the only vegetable productions they eat are a few wild berries 
and a kind of sea-weed. Their principal food consists of 
muscles, limpets, and sea-eggs, and, as often as possible, 
seal, sea-otter, porpoise, and whale: we often found in their 
deserted dwellings bones of these animals, which had under- 
gone the action of fire. 
‘© Former voyagers have noticed the avidity with which they 
swallowed the most offensive offal, such as decaying seal-skins, 
