THE ESKIMO WE SAW 



It was at Prince William Sound that the Harriman Ex- 

 pedition saw the first Eskimo. According to Dr. Dall, 

 the native people of Kadiak, the eastern end of Alaska 

 Peninsula, and Cook Inlet down to Copper River, are 

 genuine Eskimo and speak a dialect closely like that of 

 the Arctic Eskimo and quite different from that of the 

 Aleuts. The Aleuts do not come farther east than the 

 Shumagin Islands. We first met them at Unalaska; 

 afterward at the Pribilof Islands. 



At the present day the Aleuts are supposed to number 

 less than 2,000 people, though the old navigators who dis- 

 covered their existence gave them a population of from 

 25,000 to 30,000, which seems not unreasonable when we 

 consider the conditions of their life in their primitive 

 estate, and the abundance of their food supply. These 

 people are of Eskimoan stock, but the separation of the 

 two branches must have been long ago for they speak a 

 language which the Eskimo do not understand. Their 

 traditions are so similar to those of the Eskimo, and the 

 implements which they used in primitive times so much 

 the same that there is no longer any doubt about their 

 relationship. 



(167) 



