200 A summer's cruise to northern LABRADOR. 



The women's dress differs from that of the men in the 

 long tail to their jacket-like garment ; some wore an old 

 calico dress-skirt over the original Eskimo dress, — a 

 thin veneer of civilization typical perhaps of the educa- 

 tion they had been receiving for the past few generations, 

 which was not so thorough-going as not to leave external 

 traces at least of their savage antecedents. But may this 

 not be said of all of us ? For only a few centuries ago our 

 ancestors were in a state of semi-barbarism, and the An- 

 glo-Saxon race can date back to Neolithic Celts and 

 bronze-using Aryan barbarians. However this may be, 

 the Eskimos at Hopedale were a well-bred, kindly, in- 

 teUigent, scrupulously honest folk, whereas their ances- 

 tors before the establishment of the Moravian mission- 

 aries on this coast were treacherous, crafty, and murder- 

 ous. To be shipwrecked on this inhospitable coast was 

 esteemed a lesser evil than to fall into the hands of wan- 

 dering bands of Labrador Eskimos, The natives have 

 evidently been well cared for by the missionaries, kept 

 from starvation in the winter, and their lives have been 

 made nobler and better. Even in an Eskimo tepic life 

 has been proved to be worth living. Fishermen and 

 cruisers are (1864) not welcomed here, and it was not 

 until a day or two had elapsed and the object of our ex- 

 pedition made known that we were cordially welcomed- 



There were four missionaries at Hopedale : Brothers 

 Shutt, Kreuchmer, VoUpracht, and Samuel Weiz, the 

 latter, who died in 1888, a good botanist and interested 

 in the zoology of the coast. They were now living 

 with their families under one roof in the new mission 

 house — a red-roofed yellow building of wood, of two 

 stories and a half, a large, convenient, warm house — 



