LAST VOYAGE OF CAPT. ROSS. 
249 
acerbity of the preceptor, and little doubt remains, that had any 
instrument of a flagellating power been at hand, some part or 
parts of the corporeal frame of the stupid and indecorous pupil 
would have been visited by its severest infliction. If human 
actions however are to be weighed by their motives, it would 
have been an error in judgement on the part of Capt. Ross, to 
have poured out the vial of his indignation upon the head of the 
unoffending savage ; and further, had he been thoroughly ac¬ 
quainted with the manners and customs of the people, with whom 
he was then associating, he would have known, that the offer 
which the young Esquimaux had so unceremoniously, and in his 
opinion so indecorously made him, so far as being to be considered 
an insult, was in reality, a decided proof of his respect and 
esteem, for the Esquimaux not only eat the vermin of their own 
heads, but they in the most friendly manner present them as 
a bonne bouche, to be enjoyed by those for whom they enter¬ 
tain a particular regard. It was on this principle that the 
boy tendered the insect, which he had just entrapped to Capt. 
Ross, and which on its being rejected, he very deliberately put 
into his own mouth, holding it for some time between his fore 
teeth, as the French would say, four savour er mieux le gout. 
It may be easily supposed that this thriving pupil was soon 
expelled the school, as in the first place, it was found impossible 
to convey the least instruction to his mind ; and in the second, 
he was by no means a proper associate for the crew in his filthy 
state, with the majority of whom, cleanliness was a distinguished 
feature in their character, and when taken into due consideration, 
it was perhaps a politic step which Capt. Ross adopted, in re¬ 
stricting the intercourse of the crew with the natives, as it was 
found impossible to come in contact with them, without being 
visited also by their vermin. 
It cannot have escaped observation, that in many instances 
during the stay of the Victory in Felix Harbour, the crew were 
called upon to perform some duty exterior to the ship, at a time 
when the common feelings of humanity would have prompted 
their commander to have kept them under shelter, and not to have 
exposed to the severity of a climate, which even the natives of 
n % K 
