LAST VOYAGE OF CAPT. ROSS, 
287 
as an individual departs from the course pointed out to him by 
nature, and allows himself to be governed by the forms and 
ceremonies of civilized life, the more he is to be feared and sus¬ 
pected, and to be treated, as if with the acquired knowledge of 
those ceremonies, he had also become habituated to all the vices 
which disfigure the human character. It was the influence of 
this principle that impelled the crabbed cynic Diogenes to strip 
the cock of its plumes, and turning him loose into the academia 
exclaimed, ‘ Behold the man of civilization f 
Whilst thus descanting on the relative advantages of nature 
and education, the hubbub of war has been sounding in the Esqui¬ 
maux village, and happy will posterity deem itself, that a faithful 
chronicler has been found, to record the various exploits which 
were then achieved, the singular instances of generalship per¬ 
formed by the combatants, and lastly the peace that was affected 
by the all conquering power of female persuasion. Singular 
indeed would it have been if the latter event had not taken place, 
considering that Ulunena had succeeded in enlisting every fe¬ 
male of the tribe in her behalf, and they, in addition, holding a 
considerable number of the male population under their dominion, 
for let it not be thought that such a weighty difference exists in 
the domestic relations of an Esquimaux and a European, that 
the character of a henpecked husband is not to be found amongst 
them, for as Adam was the first person who appeared in that 
character in the theatre of this world, it is not to be wondered at 
that a number of people, have been ever since most anxious to 
follow in his steps, and to show themselves as willing and able 
as he was to enact the character, to the very life, in all its shades 
and diversities. It was indeed confessed that on the present 
occasion the Esquimaux women assumed a power, which did 
not belong to them, but that is by no means a circumstance of 
any very great rarity, either in the vicinity of Felix Harbour or on 
the banks of the Thames, for instead of allowing their husbands 
to interfere personally in the business, they placed themselves 
at the entrance of their huts, and prevented their egress, con¬ 
sidering that there was already a sufficiency without, to bring 
the matter to an amicable issue, and that were the number to 
