LAST VOYAGE OF CAPT. ROSS. 
136 
weather prevents his accustomed hunting; he tills no land, nor 
concerns himself about any right of property, his experience 
extending only to the arts befitting his mode of life, and the 
climate forbidding his desiring any thing beyond common animal 
wants. In person they are short but stoutly made, the complexion 
is olive ; the face broad, and the eyes small and piercing; good 
humour is fully expressed, but they have an indescribable mixture 
of wildness and ignorance. 
Notwithstanding their rude habits and their seclusion from all 
civilized society, they are still an ingenious people, and their 
clothing and implements display considerable skill in the manu¬ 
facture. Their sledges, knives, spears, &c., are formed from 
the bones of the whale and other fish, for wood is scarcely known 
amongst them. Their garments are sewed with great strength 
and neatness, their needles being made of bone, and their thread 
of mosses. The upper garment resembles a smock frock with a 
tapering skirt, and has a hood, in which the women carry their 
infants, but the dresses of the men have the hood also, and the 
trowsers and boots are alike for each. In very severe weather 
the natives wear a double set of garments, the furs being next 
the skin and outwards, the fleshy sides of the two hides coming 
together. They use immensely long whips with great dexterity, 
made of hides and plaited extremely well; the thongs are as 
thick at the large end as a man’s thumb, tapering off gradually, 
and terminating with a single lash of the same material. The 
children have them for their amusement, and the whole tribe 
crack their whips in a style superior to French postillions. The i 
number of Esquimaux at this time amounted to thirty one, but 
their dogs and families were about three miles from the ship, 
where they had built their huts. Capt. Ross took some of them 
into the cabin, and showed them some pictures of Igloolik voyage, 
whilst others on the ice amused themselves with the fiddle, and 
with looking at themselves in the looking glasses. Some food 
was offered them, but they refused to eat anything, although they 
did not testify any great objection to drink some of Felix Booth’s 
gin, which gradually rendered them merry and familiar, and in 
the evening they returned to their huts. Capt. Ross and Com- 
