5^0 
A VOYAGE TO 
1773. I know not. I am equally unacquainted with their diver- 
lions ; nothing having been feen that could give us an in- 
light into either. 
They are remarkably cheerful and friendly amongft each 
other; and always behaved with great civility to us. The 
Ruffians told us, that they never had any connections with 
their women, becaufe they were not Chriftians. Our people 
were not fo fcrupulous; and fome of them had reafon to 
repent that the females of Oonalalhka encouraged their 
addreffes without any referve ; for their health buffered by 
a diltemper that is not unknown here. The natives of 
this iiland are alfo fubjeCt to the cancer, or a complaint like 
it, which thofe whom it attacks, are very careful to con¬ 
ceal. They do not leem to be long-lived. I no where faw 
a perfon, man or woman, whom I could fuppofe to be fixty 
years of age ; and but very few who appeared to be above 
fifty. Probably their hard way of living may be the means 
of fhortening their days. 
I have frequently had occalion to mention, from the time 
of our arrival in Prince William’s Sound, how remarkably 
the natives, on this North Weft fide of America, refemble the 
Greenlanders and Efquimaux, in various particulars of per¬ 
fon, drefs, weapons, canoes, and the like. However, I was 
much lefs ftruck with this, than with the affinity which we 
found fubfifting between the dialects of the Greenlanders 
and Efquimaux, and thofe of Norton’s Sound and Oona- 
lafhka. This will appear from a table of correfponding 
words, which 1 put together, and will be inferted in the 
courfe of this work *. It muft be obferved, however, with 
regard to the words' which we collected on this fide of Ame¬ 
rica, that too much ftrefs is not to be laid upon their being 
* It will be found, amongft other vocabularies, at the end of the third volume. 
accurately 
