OF A NORTH-WEST PASSAGE. 
283 
years of age, was a remarkably fine and even handsome lad. *They were 1820 . 
rather scared at us at first; but kind treatment, and a few trifling pre- 
sents, soon removed their fears, and made them almost as importunate as 
the rest. 
The dress of the men consists of a seal-skin jacket, with a hood which is 
occasionally drawn over the head, of which it forms the only covering. 
The breeches are also generally of seal-skin, and are made to reach below the 
knee, and their boots which meet the breeches are made of the same ma- 
terial. In this dress we perceived no difference from that of the other Es- 
quimaux, except that the jacket, instead of having a pointed flap before 
and behind, as usual, was quite straight behind, and had a sort of scollop 
before in the centre. In the dress of the women there was not so much 
regard to decency as in that of the men. The jacket is of seal-skin, with 
a short, pointed flap before, and a long one behind, reaching almost to 
the ground. They had on a kind of drawers, similar to , those described by 
Crantz, as the summer-dress of the Greenland women, and no breeches. 
The drawers cover the middle part of the body, from the hips to one-third 
down the thigh, the rest of which is entirely naked nearly as far as the 
knee. The boots are like those of the men, and besides these they have 
a pair of very loose leggins, as they may be called, which hang down 
carelessly upon the top of the boots, suffering their thighs to be exposed in 
the manner before described, but which may be intended occasionally to 
fasten up, so as to complete the covering of the whole body. The children 
are all remarkably well clothed ; their dress, both in male and female, being 
in every respect the same as that of the men, and composed entirely of 
seal-skin, very neatly sewed. 
The tents ,which compose their summer-habitations, are principally sup- 
ported by a long pole of whalebone, fourteen feet high, standing perpen- 
dicularly, with four or five feet of it projecting above the skins which form 
the roof and sides. The length of the tent is seventeen, and its breadth 
from seven to nine feet, the narrowest part being next the door, and 
widening towards the inner part, where the bed, composed of a quantity 
of the small shrubby plant, the Andromeda Tetragona, occupies about 
one-third of the whole apartment. The pole of the tent is fixed where the 
bed commences, and the latter is kept separate by some pieces of bone laid 
across the ,tent from side to side. The door which faces the south-west, 
is also formed of two pieces of bone, with the upper ends fastened together, 
2 0 2 
