252 
LAST VOYAGE OF CAPT. ROSS. 
a British sailor could withstand them, were to suppose with an 
equal degree of truth, that destiny had selected Capt. Ross as 
the fittest of all the British navigators to discover the North 
West Passage. Many a needle did a graceful projection of the 
nose obtain, and without attempting to penetrate deeper into the 
Eleusinian mysteries of Felix Harbour than properly becomes us, 
we may be allowed, sub silentio, to venture an opinion, that the 
sailors of the Victory obtained for a fish-book or a rusty nail, 
what the late Duke of York very generously paid for by places, 
pensions, and promotions. 
A British sailor and gallantry are synonymous, not that kind 
of gallantry is here meant, which laid a Nelson prostrate on his 
quarter deck, or a Moor, on the plains of Corunna, but we mean 
that peculiar attention and civility towards the female sex, which 
are ever shown by the kind hearted, the noble, and the brave. 
Although the Esquimaux ladies were not allowed to experi¬ 
ment their seductive wiles on the callous heart of Capt. Ross, and 
his subordinate officers, yet permission was granted to the sailors 
to accompany their female visitors on their way to their huts, and 
although they did not exactly offer them their arm, to enable 
them the better to surmount the hillocks of snow, which impeded 
their progress, yet many kind endearments passed between them, 
such as those that are in practice amongst the more passionate 
sons and daughters of Italy, France and England. A quadrille 
on the snow, even to the inspiring sounds of Weippert’s band, 
would doubtless be a human phenomenon, and not less so was 
the dance with which the Esquimaux women delighted the sailors 
previously to their taking leave of each other; it was neither a 
bolero, nor a fandango, nor a waltz, but it was a compound of 
the wildest distortions, and the most grotesque movements which 
ever human limbs attempted, and at the same time accompanied 
with some gestures, the meaning of which could not be mistaken. 
A song succeeded to the dance, and the performers were not con¬ 
tent with kooniging each other, but they proceeded sans ceremonie 
to koonig the sailors, some of whom testified rather a dislike to 
participate of so much kindness, by which a satisfactory proof 
was given, that woman in one particular is the same, whether 
