GREENLAND. 
(ii'vour rotten flesh with avidity. In times of scarcity they will sub- 
sist on pieces of old skin, reeds, sea-weeds, and a weed called tiig- 
loronet, dressed with train oil and fat. The intestines of rein-deer, 
the entrails of partridges, and all sorts of offals,, are counted dainties 
among these savages, and of the scrapings of seal skins they make 
pancakes. At first they could not taste the Danish provisions 
M'ithout abhorrence ; but now they are become extremely fond of 
bread and butter, though they still retain an aversion to tobacco and 
spirituous liquors; in which particular they differ from almost ail 
savages on the earth. 
The Greenlanders commonly content themselves with one wife; who 
is condemned, as among other savage nations, to do all the drudgery, 
and may be corrected and even divorced by the husband at pleasure. 
Heroes, however, and extraordinary personages, are indulged with a 
plurality of wives. These people never marry within the prohibited 
degrees of consanguinity, nor is it considered decent for a couple 
to marry who have been educated in the same family. 
They have a number of ridiculous superstitious customs. While a 
woman is in labour, the gossips hold a chamber utensil over her 
head, as a charm to hasten the delivery ; when the child is a year old, 
the rhother lick's and slabbers it all over, to render it, as she imagines, 
more strong and hardy. The Greenlanders are constantly employed 
either in fishing or hunting. At sea they pursue the whales, mooses, 
seals, fish for eating, and sea fowls. On shore they hunt the rein- 
deer in different parts of the country. They drive these animals, 
which feed in large herds, into a narrow defile, where they kill them 
with arrows. Their bow is made of fir-tree, wound about with the 
twisted sinews of animals ; the string is of the same stuff, or of seal- 
skin ; the arrow is a full fathom in length, pointed with a bearded iron 
or a sharp bone ; but those with which they kill birds are blunt, that 
they may not tear the flesh. Sea-fowls they kill with lances, which 
they throw to a great distance with surprising dexterity. 
Their manner of catching whales is quite different from that prac- 
tised by the Europeans. About fifty jrersons, men and women, set out 
in one long boat, which iscalledakone-boat, from /^onea women, because 
it is rowed by females only. When they find a w hale, they strike him w'ith 
harpoons, to which are fastened, w ith long lines, some seal-skins, blown 
up like bladders. These, by floating on the surface, not only discover the 
back of the whale, but hinder him from foundering under water for any 
length of time. They continue to pursue him until he loses strength, 
when they pierce him with spears and lances till he expires. On 
this occasion they are dressed in their spring coats, consisting of one 
piece, with gloves, boots, and caps of seal skin, so closely laced and 
sewed, that they keep out the water. Thus accoutred, they leap 
into the sea, and begin to slice off the fat, even underwater, before the 
whale is dead. 
They have many different w'ays of killing seals ; namely, by strik- 
ing them with a small harpoon, equipped also wuth an air-bag ; by 
watching them when they come to breathe at the air-holes in the ice, 
and striking them with spears ; by approaching them in the disguise 
of their own species, that is, covered with a vseal skin, creeping upon 
