TIO 
LAST VOYAGE OF CAPT. ROSS. 
have poked his nose further into the face of a newly married 
Esquimaux lady than might have been agreeable to her husband, 
without however the slightest intention existing on his part of 
offering her one of his chaste salutes, and certainly it will be 
allowed by ail who have had the happiness of seeing it, that the 
hose of the captain is by no means of that unseemly make, as not 
perhaps to have raised some desire in the breast of the Esquimaux 
ladies to enjoy the delight of a rub of it. It must further be sup¬ 
posed that the same diversity of taste may exist amongst the 
Esquimaux ladies, in regard to the peculiar shape of the nose, 
which is to come into collision with their own, as we Europeans 
exhibit ourselves in the choice of the lips which we may covet to 
kiss, for whilst one affects the full and pouting lips, another 
affects the thin and cherry one, and similarly may it be consti¬ 
tuted with the Esquimaux, for whilst one may prefer the flat or 
snub nose, another may give the preference to the large aquiline 
one which adorns the countenance of Capt. Ross. The method 
of kissing amongst the Esquimaux had however now been dis¬ 
covered by the crew of the Victory, and some information is 
extant, that they at times took advantage of the discovery, 
although it was observed, to the great credit of the Esquimaux 
ladies, and as a decided proof of the extreme delicacy of their 
tastes, that they manifested a great degree of reluctance to per¬ 
form the ceremony of koonigiwg, with those who were addicted 
to the filthy habit of snuff taking. 
It has been said by Isaac Iselin, who penetrated deeper into 
the physiology of man than any other philosopher ancient or 
modern, that, in a rude uncivilized state, man seldom exhibits 
any examples of wit or humour; a pun or an epigram from an 
Ashantee or an Esquimaux would indeed be considered as a lite¬ 
rary phenomenon, and certainly we could not expect amongst 
the members of either of those nations, to meet with an editor of 
the Comic Annual, or of Figaro. There is however one habit 
peculiar to the Esquimaux, in which some humour is exhibited, 
and that is in the aptitude in which they applied their nicknames 
to the officers of the ship, according to the different characters 
which they exhibited, and which shewed, that notwithstanding 
