194 Captain Parry and Mr Fisher’s Journals of a 
renlly to shew that it was then legally their property,” A boat 
was sent on shore with the man who sold his canoe to Captain 
Parry, and the officer who accompanied it purchased another for 
his dirk, a Flushing-jacket, a shawl, a knife, and some beads. 
On the 7th September, the day following, the ships stood in- 
to the fiord where the Esquimaux landed, in order to visit their 
habitations, which consisted of two tents, supported by a long 
vertical pole of whalebone 14 feet high, and rising 4 or 5 feet 
above the seal-skins which formed their roofs and sides. They 
were about 17 feet long, and from 7 to 9 feet broad. 
“ The inhabitants of these huts,” says Mr Fisher, te they found 
to be the four men who visited us last night, four women, and 
nine children. One of the women was very old, and was supposed 
to be the wife of the old man. Tw o of the others were judged to be 
about thirty years of age, and they were supposed to be the mothers 
of all the young family. One of them was pregnant. The fourth 
damsel appeared to be too young to be yet living a conjugal life ; 
and there was another circumstance remarked with regard to her, 
that was considered as a mark that she had not yet arrived at the 
happiness of a matrimonial life. The circumstance alluded to is, that 
the other three were tattoed, whilst she was not ; from which it was 
supposed, that this barbarous decoration was the distinguishing 
badge of a married woman. This piece of artificial beauty consist- 
ed of two curved lines, extending from the outer corner of the eyes 
down to the upper lip. The convex side of these lines pointed 
back wards, and their junction at their lower end formed an acute 
angle. The chin and lower lip were also tattoed by straight lines 
which diverged from the mouth downwards. Whether it was ow- 
ing to her being free from these barbarous scores or not I do not 
pretend to say, but they who saw her speak of the young girl com- 
paratively as a great beauty ; whilst they describe the old dame as 
the picture of ugliness. With respect to their dress, the women 
seem to have been habited nearly in the same manner as the men, 
viz. in leathern jackets, boots, and breeches.” 
The huts of these people were of the same shape and size 
as those of Melville Island, and were less filthy than those of 
the Esquimaux usually are. They have stores of sea-horses’ 
flesh covered with stones, along the beach, and they had no 
fewer than fifty or sixty dogs. These dogs devour their food 
in a most ravenous manner, and when a bird is given them they 
swallow it, feathers and all : one of them which Captain Parry 
purchased, though regularly fed, eat up one day a piece of can- 
vas, a cotton handkerchief, and part of a check shirt. The 
Esquimaux had also a piece of a file set on a bone handle, like 
