( ns ) 



Their beards, their fair hair, the whitenefs of 

 their fkin, and the little refemblance and intercourfe 

 they have with their nearer! neighbours leave no 

 room to doubt of their having a different original 

 from the reft of the Americans ; but the opinion of 

 their being defcended from the Bafques feems to 

 me to have little foundation, if it is true, as I am 

 informed it is, that the languages of the two nati- 

 ons have no affinity with one another. This alli- 

 ance at any rate can be of no honour to any nati- 

 on ; for if there is not on the furface of the earth a , 

 region lefs fit to be inhabited than Newfoundland 

 and Labrador, fo there is not, perhaps, a people 

 which deferves better to be confined to it than the 

 Efkimaux. For my part, I am of opinion, that 

 they are originally from Greenland. 



Thefe ravages are covered in fuch a manner that 

 only a part of their faces and the ends of their 

 hands are to be feen. Over a fort of a fhirt made 

 of bladders, or the interlines of fifh cut into fillets, 

 and neatly enough fewed together, they throw a 

 kind of a furtout made of bear- (kin, or of the 

 fkin of fome other wild beaft, nay, fome times of 

 the fkins of birds, whilft their head is covered with 

 a cowl of the fame (luff, with the fhirt fixed to it 5 

 on the top of which is a tuft of hair, which hangs 

 down and Ihades their forehead. The fhirt falls 

 - no lower than their loins, the furtout hangs down 

 behind to their thighs, and terminates before in a 

 point fomewhat lower than their girdle ; but in the 

 - women it defcends on both fides as far as the mid- 

 leg, where it is fixed by a girdle, at which hang 

 little bones. The men wear breeches made of 

 fkins, with the hairy fide inwards, and faced on the 

 outfide with ermine, and fuch like furs. They 

 likewife wear on their feet pumps of fkins, the 



/ 



