CH. Ill] 
Tribes A round the Pole 
19 
Eskimos average a height of 5 feet 4 inches, with square 
shoulders, deep chests, and great muscular strength in 
the back. The hands are small and thick, and the 
lower limbs well proportioned. In walking their tread is 
firm and elastic, the step short and quick. Their hair 
is black and cut in an even line across the forehead, the 
complexion fair enough to make the rosy hue of the 
cheeks visible, giving place to a weather-beaten appearance 
before middle age. The face is flat and plump with high 
cheek-bones, forehead low, nose short and flat, eyes dark, 
sloping obliquely. The mouth is prominent and large, 
the jaw-bones strong, with firm and regular teeth. The 
expression is one of habitual good humour, but marred 
by wearing large lip ornaments of stone. 
The dress consists of a frock reaching half down the 
thighs, with a hood and loose waist-belt, and a tail of 
some animal attached to it behind. The breeches are 
tied below the knee over long boots. The clothes are 
doubled, the inner frock of fawn-skin with the fur inwards, 
and the outer of full-grown deer-skin with the hair 
outwards. The winter habitations are entered by a 
passage 35 feet long, terminating under the floor of the 
iglu or hut, which is a square chamber from 12 to 14 feet 
by 8 or 10. The walls are of stout plank, and the roof 
has a double slope with a square window on one side, 
covered with a transparent membrane stretched by two 
pieces of whalebone. The oil burner or fireplace is the 
most important piece of furniture. It is a flat stone, 
hollowed on the upper surface, and placed on two hori- 
zontal pieces of wood fixed in the side of the hut a foot 
from the floor. A flame is kept up from whale or seal 
oil, by means of wicks made of dry moss. The summer 
tents are conical, of deer or seal-skins, on poles slung 
together by a stout thong. 
In October the sea becomes closed and the men set 
nets under the ice for fish, also angling with hook and 
line through ice holes. In January they set out in search 
of reindeer, hollowing out dwellings in the snow-drifts. 
Their hunting employment lasts until April, when they 
return home to get ready their boats for whaling. In 
summer they are scattered over the country in search 
of seals and birds. 
2 — 2 
