Feb. 1827. 



PASSAGES NATIVES. 



75 



exhibit, either in male or female, any indications of activity or 

 strength. Their average height is five feet five inches ; their 

 habit of body is spare ; the limbs are badly turned, and defi- 

 cient in muscle; the hair of their head is black, straight, 

 and coarse ; their beards, whiskers, and eyebrows, naturally 

 exceedingly scanty, are carefully plucked out; their forehead 

 is low ; the nose rather prominent, with dilated nostrils ; their 

 eyes are dark, and of a moderate size ; the mouth is large^ 

 and the under-lip thick; their teeth are small and regular, 

 but of bad colour. They are of a dirty copper colour ; 

 their countenance is dull, and devoid of expression. For 

 protection against the rigours of these inclement regions, their 

 clothing is miserably suited ; being only the skin of a seal, 

 or sea -otter, thrown over the shoulders, with the hairy side 

 outward. 



" The two upper corners of this skin are tied together across 

 the breast with a strip of sinew or skin, and a similar thong 

 secures it round the waist ; the skirts are brought forward so 

 as to be a partial covering. Their comb is a portion of the 

 jaw of a porpoise, and they anoint their hair with seal or whale 

 blubber ; for removing the beard and eyebrows they employ a 

 very primitive kind of tweezers, namely, two muscle shells. 

 They daub their bodies with a red earth, like the ruddle used 

 in England for marking sheep. The women, and children, 

 wear necklaces, formed of small shells, neatly attached by a 

 plaiting of the fine fibres of seal's intestines. 



" The tracts they inhabit are altogether destitute of four- 

 footed animals ; they have not domesticated the geese or ducks 

 which abound here ; of tillage they are utterly ignorant ; and 

 the only vegetable productions they eat are a few wild berries 

 and a kind of sea-weed. Their principal food consists of 

 muscles, limpets, and sea-eggs, and, as often as possible^ 

 seal, sea-otter, porpoise, and whale : we often found in their 

 deserted dwellings bones of these animals, which had under- 

 gone the action of fire. 



" Former voyagers have noticed the avidity with which they 

 swallowed the most offensive offal, such as decaying scal-skinsj 



