138 Distinctive characteristics of the 



among the continental Asiatics, who, if they ever possessed it, would 

 have yet preserved it among some at least of their numberless tribes. 



After this rapid view of the principal leading characteristics of the 

 American race, let us now briefly inquire whether they denote an 

 exotic origin ; or whether there is not internal evidence that this 

 race is as strictly aboriginal to America as the Mongolian is to Asia, 

 or the Negro to Africa. 



And first, we turn to the Mongolian race, which, by a somewhat 

 general consent is admitted to include the Polar nations, and among 

 them the Eskimaux of our continent. It is a very prevalent opinion 

 that the latter people, who obviously belong to the Polar family of 

 Asia, pass insensibly into the American race, and thus form the con- 

 necting link between the two. But without repeating what has al- 

 ready been said in reference to the Indian, we may briefly advert, for 

 the purpose of comparison, to the widely different characteristics of 

 the Eskimaux. These people are remarkable for a large and rather 

 elongated head, which is low in front and projecting behind ; the 

 great width and flatness of the face is noted by all" travellers : their 

 eyes are small and black, the mouth small and round, and the nose 

 is so diminutive and depressed, that on looking at a skull in profile 

 the nasal bones are hardly seen. Their complexion, moreover, is 

 comparatively fair, and there is a tendency throughout life to fulness 

 and obesity. The traveller Hearne, while in company with a tribe 

 of northern Indians, mentions a circumstance which is at least cu- 

 rious, because it shows the light in which the Eskimaux are regard- 

 ed by their proximate neighbours on the south. He was the unwill- 

 ing witness of a premeditated and unprovoked massacre of an entire 

 encampment of Eskimaux, men, women, and children ; and it is cu- 

 rious to remark that the aggressors apologised for their cruelty not 

 only on the plea of ancient feud, but by asserting that their unof- 

 fending victims were a people of different nature and origin from 

 themselves, even, in respect to sexual conformation. 



The moral character of the Eskimaux differs from that of the In- 

 dian chiefly in the absence of the courage, cunning, cruelty and im- 

 providence so habitual in the red man, who, in turn, is inferior in 

 mechanical ingenuity, and above all in aquatic exercises. The 

 Eskimau, notwithstanding the intense cold of his climate, has been 



