526 



SECOND VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY 



the main-spring of all their actions, and that too of a kind the most direct 

 and unamiable that can well be imagined. 



In the few opportunities we had of putting their hospitality to the test, 

 we had every reason to be pleased with them. Both as to food and accom- 

 modation the best they had were always at our service ; and their attention, 

 both in kind and degree, was every thing that hospitality and even good 

 breeding could dictate. The kindly offices of drying and mending our 

 clothes, cooking our provision and thawing snow for our drink, were per- 

 formed by the women with an obliging cheerfulness which we shall not 

 easily forget, and which commanded its due share of our admiration and 

 esteem. While thus their guest, I have passed an evening not only with 

 comfort, but with extreme gratification ; for with the women working and 

 singing, their husbands quietly mending their lines, the children playing 

 before the door, and the pot boiling over the blaze of a cheerful lamp, one 

 might well forget for the time that an Esquimaux hut was the scene of this 

 domestic comfort and tranquillity ; and I can safely affirm with Cartwright* 

 that, while thus lodged beneath their roof, I know no people whom I would 

 more confidently trust as respects either my person or my property, than 

 the Esquimaux. It is painful, and may perhaps be considered invidious 

 after this, to inquire how far their hospitality would in all probability be 

 extended if interest were wholly separated from its practice, and a stranger 

 were destitute and unlikely soon to repay them. But truth obliges me to 

 confess that, from the extreme selfishness of their general conduct, as well 

 as from their behaviour in some instances to the destitute of their own tribe, 

 I should be sorry to lie under the necessity of thus drawing very largely on 

 their bounty. 



The estimation in which women are held among these people is, I 

 think, somewhat greater than is usual in savage life. In their general em- 

 ployments they are by no means the drudges that the wives of the Green- 

 landers f are said to be ; being occupied only in those cares which may pro- 

 perly be called domestic, and as such are considered the peculiar business of 

 the women among the lower classes in civilized society. The wife of one of 

 these people, for instance, makes and attends the fire, cooks the victuals, 

 looks after the children, and is sempstress to her whole family ; while her 

 husband is labouring abroad for their subsistence. In this respect it is not 



* Cartwright's Labrador, III. #32. 



f Crantz, I. 164, 165. 



