INDIANS OF NOVA SCOTIA — GILPIN. 273 



the curve is near the ankle and the inetep flat. This beauty which 

 was formerly brought out by the tight gaiter and moccasin, the 

 fisherman's heavy boots is fast destroying ; and the loose trouser 

 with its baggy knees hiding from sight. He is beginning to turn 

 his toes outwards. Even the Indian squaw who once stole so softly 

 on you with her parrot-toed foot, fringed to the ground like her 

 native grouse, now flaunts with outward toe, a crimson topped high 

 laced boot. He wears his hair cropped now, which brings still 

 more in relief the small and narrowed skull, high and broad cheek 

 bone, high frontal ridges, and square heavy jaw bone of the red 

 man, or Mongolian type. 



If we look in the children and women we find the oblique eye of 

 the same race ; but in the adult the continual exposure has caused 

 the muscles of the orbit drawing and puckering around the eye for 

 its defence, to draw down the corners. The nose sometimes 

 approaches to the Roman, but always has wide nostrils; the 

 mouth large with the upper lip convex, and the chin retreating. 



In the women and children the mouth is the worst feature, being 

 large, unmeaning, and often open, — the greater force in man giving 

 it stronger expression. The eye is dark, oblique and small, and 

 rather intelligent than bright. The French called their colour olive. 

 This now could scarcely be true. We miss the richness of the 

 olive. The men were almost a clay yellow, and it is only in the 

 women and young we find a reddish tint or coloured lip or cheek. 

 The beard is scanty, a small moustache and a few hairs on the point 

 of chin. Such is the description at present of the Stone man of 

 two hundred and fifty years ago, — how little changed in habit or 

 feature. The ceaseless influences of civilization, of different food 

 and altered habits, have worn down and softened his contour. The 

 high cheek bone is lessened, the strong jaw is less square, and the 

 wild aspect of savage life softened. He has ceased to tear his meat 

 like a dog, therefore the square jaw is more pointed, and the cheek 

 bone, which is only a bridge for the jaw and its muscles to play 

 beneath, has fallen ; nor has he the wild utterance or startled look 

 of one always fearing his enemy. 

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