248 
VOYAGE TO THE 
CHAP. St. Lawrence Islanders, though of inferior workmanship. The people, 
however, differed from them in many respects ; their complexion was 
July- darker, their features were more harsh and angular, they were 
' deficient in the tattooing of the face ; and what constituted a wider 
distinction between them was, a custom, which we afterwards found 
general on the American coast, of wearing ornaments in their under 
lips. Our visiters were noisy and energetic, but good-natured, laughed 
much, and humorously apprized us when we were making a good 
bargain. 
They willingly sold every thing they had, except their bows and 
arrows, which they implied were required for the chase on shore ; but 
they could not resist “ tawac” (tobacco) and iron knives, and ulti- 
mately parted with them. These instruments differed from those of 
the islanders to the southward, in being more slender, but they were 
made upon the same principle, with drift pine assisted with thongs of 
hide, and occasionally with pieces of whalebone placed at the back of 
them neatly bound round with small cord. Their arrows were tipped 
with bone, flint, or iron, and they had spears or lances headed with the 
same materials. Their dress was the same as that worn by the whole 
tribe inhabiting the coast. It consisted of a shirt which reached half 
way down the thigh, with long sleeves and a hood to it, made ge- 
nerally of the skin of the reindeer, and edged with the fur of the gray 
or white fox, and sometimes with dog’s skin. The hood is usually edged 
with a longer fur than the other parts, either of the wolf or dog. They 
have besides this a jacket made of eider drakes’ skins sewed together, 
which put on underneath their other dress is a tolerable protection 
against a distant arrow, and is worn in times of hostility. In wet wea- 
ther they throw a shirt over their fur dress made of the entrails of the 
whale, which, while in their possession, is quite water-tight, as it 
then, in common with the rest of their property, tolerably well suppH®^^ 
with oil and grease ; but after they had been purchased by us and be- 
came dry, they broke into holes and let the water through. They are 
on the whole as good as the best oil-skins in England. Besides the 
shirt, thev have breeches and boots, the former made of deer’s hide, 
the latter of seal’s skin, both of which have drawing strings at the upper 
