119 
ESQUIMAUX DEGENERATING. 
length; and her husband bore her unattended to her 
resting-place, and covered her, stone by stone, with a 
rude monumental cairn. The blubber-lamp was kept 
burning outside the hut while the solitary funeral was 
in progress; and when it was over the mourners came 
together to weep and howl, while the widower recited 
his sorrows and her praise. His penance was severe, 
and combined most of the inflictions which I have 
described above. 
It is almost as difficult to trace back the customs of 
the Smith’s Sound Esquimaux as it is to describe their 
religious faith. They are a declining—almost an obso¬ 
lete—people, “ toto orbe divisos ,” and too much engaged 
with the necessities of the present to cherish memorials 
of the past. It was otherwise with those whom we 
met in the more southern settlements. These are 
now for the most part concentrated about the Danish 
posts, in very different circumstances, physical as well 
as moral, from their brethren of the North. 
