LAST VOYAGE OF CAPT. ROSS. 
209 
in his exposure to it, the hardy natives were constant in their 
daily visits to the ship, although on one of these occasions, we 
shall have shortly to relate some circumstances, which do not 
speak loudly for the humanity or philanthropy of the officers of 
the Victory, and especially where a parallel could be drawn of 
the conduct of the rude and uncivilized savages, under circum¬ 
stances of almost a similar nature. It may lead to an investigation 
of the great and important question whether civilization and educa¬ 
tion have a tendency to soften and ameliorate the naturally brutal 
dispositions of the human character, or whether in the acquisition 
of a show of exterior refinement, the intrinsic value of the character 
becomes so corrupted and adulterated, that every action becomes 
more or less distinguished by deceit and hypocrisy, and the chief 
intent of the life of a civilized being then appears to be, to cheat 
and over-reach his fellow-man. 
During the morning of the 28th, the wind blew strongly from 
the north, with heavy driving snow, but notwithstanding these 
discouraging circumstances, the ship was visited by fifteen Esqui¬ 
maux, ten men and five women, and by the latter, certain indi¬ 
cations were given, that although they had neither dresses nor 
skins to barter for any of the commodities to which they might 
take a fancy, yet they were nothing loath to enter into a certain 
private negotiation, by which the crew might receive the best 
equivalent which they had to give, for any old rusty knife or 
other article which they had to dispose of. There are certain 
words which have a peculiar expression attached to them, when 
proceeding from the mouth of a beautiful woman, and although 
it cannot be exactly said, that the Esquimaux ladies came up to 
any ideal which the crew of the Victory may have formed in their 
own minds of feminine beauty, or that their lips were fashioned 
to pronounce, or were rendered still more beautiful by the 
whisper of some endearing word, such as my dear, my duck, or 
my darling, yet when the word koonig issued fron the mouth of 
a buxom Esquimaux dame, there scarcely remains a doubt that 
the sailor to whom it was addressed, would have liked the lips 
that pronounced it better had he understood the meaning of it, 
but so little had he any notion of the real signification of it, tha? 
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