her civilized sisters. The different kinds of spears and harpoons used in capturing the seal, walrus, and whale are admirably adapted for their purpose. We doubt whether we could improve upon the design, and, with all our facilities in the way of material, very much in the way of execution. The Innuits have clearly given their whole minds to the fabrication of these weapons. They have the bow and arrow, and are quite clever in its employment; but for them it is of little use except in the shooting of birds, for a seal or walrus would not even feel an arrow shot from the strongest bow.

Although the Innuits have never domesticated the reindeer, it yet plays a great part in their economy. Their clothing and bedding is composed almost wholly of deer-skin, which is one of the best non-conductors of heat known. Even when the thermometer marks 70 degrees below the freezing-point, they never use but one for bedding; and Mr. Hall says that he has slept under a

dozen of the best woollen blankets and been almost frozen, while a single slender skin kept him abundantly warm. During the summer the deer furnishes a great part of the food of the people. The grass and mosses upon which the deer live are very abundant. Nowhere, except on the prairies of the West, had Hall ever seen such luxuriant pasturage, and the deer in August were so plentiful that they were killed merely for the sake of their hides and tallow, which is a great luxury, fully equal, in Hall's opinion, to the finest butter. If the Innuits would only store up their provisions in the season of plenty, they need never suffer from famine; but they never do this, and the consequence is that from November till May they are almost always on the verge of starvation, while during the rest of the year they revel in plenty.

As a pendant to Mr. Hall's account of a seal-feast, we give his description of a reindeer-feast. The date is December, the season of scarcity. "Four months before, they had more deer-meat than they could eat-and the quantity that an Innuit and his dog can consume is something almost incredible. But one day a man came in from a hunting excursion bearing with him a portion of the carcasses of two deer, frozen as hard as a rock. A general invitation for a feast was of course given out; and the entire population, about thirty in all, rushed in. Sampson, the giver of the feast, acted as master of ceremonies. He first made the ladies on the bed give away, so as to clear a space whereon he might do the carving. Then he placed a huge seal-skin on this spot, by way of tablecloth, upon which the frozen carcass was laid. This he began to carve with a hatchet. Slabs of its side were chopped and peeled off; chips of ice flew here and there into the faces of the guests at each stroke of the axe. As fast as the fragments of venison rolled off, other men took the pieces, and by means of a saw and seal-knives reduced them to a size adapted for handling. Then Sampson distributed these bits, one to each, till every mill had its grist to grind. Thus for half an hour Sampson carved; then his hatchet-handle broke off close up to the head. Another axe was sent for, and meanwhile, with the half of a saw, the two saddles were divided into the proper number of pieces, ready for distribution. The carcass was then once more attacked, and the shell was broken, split, and sawed to pieces. In it was the kernel,' to which all looked with anxious eyes; this was at last divided into as many pieces as there were pieces of saddle, and then one of each was given to every guest. I received my share with gratitude, and, with a piece in each hand, began eating. I bit off a mouthful of the saddle-piece; it was good. I took a morsel of the other; it was delightful: its flavor was a kind of sorrel acid; it had an ambrosial taste ; it fairly melted in my mouth. When nearly through, I had the curiosity to crowd my way to a light to see what this delicious frozen food was, for where I sat I was shaded by large forms between me and the firelight. I looked at it, rolled it over, and looked again. Behold, it was the contents of a reindeer's paunch! On this discovery I stopped feasting for that night.”

Mr. Hall passes judgment upon various other articles of Innuit food. Seal's blood, smoking hot, is excellent. The skin of the whale, three-quarters of an inch thick, looking like India-rubber, even when raw, is good eating; but when boiled and soused in vinegar, is most excellent. The "gum" of the whale, that

is, the substance in which whalebone is set, is a special Innuit delicacy; it looks like cocoa-nut meat, and tastes like unripe chestnuts. Hall could not fully appreciate this; but he adds savingly, "If the struggle was for life, and its preservation depended upon the act, I would undoubtedly eat whale's gum until I got something better to my liking." Once a substance which looked like a choice bit from a turkey's breast was handed to him. He thought he had stumbled upon a delicacy, but after vainly trying to masticate it for half an hour, he found it as solid as when he began. This substance was the ligament lying between the vertebræ of the whale. He had made a mistake in the way of disposing of it. The Innuit mode is to take a huge piece into the mouth, lubricate it thoroughly, and then bolt it whole, as the boa-constrictor swallows a deer. Hall thinks well of the Innuit practice of eating their meat raw, in a sanitary point of view; but he never quite liked it. He never fully came up to the opinion of Mansfield Parkyns, the Abyssinian traveller, who assures us that no man knows what a good beef-steak is until he has eaten it raw, before it has had time to get cold.

The costume of the Innuits is admirably adapted to the climate. The winter dress, commencing with the feet, is thus composed: Long stockings of reindeer skin, with the hairy side next to the person; socks of eider-duck skin, with the feathers on both sides, and of seal-skin with the hair outside; boots, the legs of reindeer skin with the hair outside, the soles of seal-skin. The jacket is of reindeer skin, fitting rather loosely; those of the women have long tails reaching almost to the ground. The ornamentation of the female dress depends on the means and taste of the wearer. One "very pretty style," mentioned by Mr. Hall, had a fringe of colored beads across the neck, bowls of Britannic-metal tea-spoons down the front flap, and a double row of copper cents, surmounted by a small bell, down the tail, which was bordered by a beading of leaden shot. The jacket has no opening before or behind, but is slipped on over the head. The women's jacket has a hood which serves a variety of purposes, among others, that of carrying the children. The breeches reach below the knee, and are fastened by a string drawn about the waist. Finger-rings and a head-band of bright brass, complete the fashionable cos

tume.

The religious ideas of the Innuits are very vague. They believe that there is one Supreme Being who created the earth, sea, and stars; and also a secondary divinity, his daughter, who created all things having life, whether animal or vegetable. She is the tutelary deity of the Innuits. They believe in a heaven and a hell, but have no very well defined ideas about them. According to Tookoolito, heaven was upward; it is light there all the time, and there are no ice or storms. Hell is downward; no sun there, but storms and snows all the while; it is cold, and there is a great deal of ice there. Any one who has been killed by accident goes straight to heaven. They have a kind of priests, or rather conjurers, called Angekos, whose business is to charm away sickness, and secure good hunting-seasons, with an abundance of seals, walrus, and deer, and an early disappearance of the ice. When his services are called for, he is always, like a wise man, careful to get his pay in advance, and it is generally

understood that the success of his incantations depends greatly upon the amount of his fee.

Upon the whole, the Innuits must be regarded as an amiable and kindly people. They are exceedingly tender parents, and not unaffectionate husbands and wives. The main exception to their general kindness is their treatment of the aged and infirm. When one, especially a woman, is hopelessly sick or infirm, she is not unfrequently abandoned. Mr. Hall relates several incidents of this kind which came within his own knowledge. In one case the husband, when he found that his wife was hopelessly sick of consumption, abandoned her, and took another while the poor creature was still alive. The deserted woman lingered several weeks, supplied with food by the neighbors. In another case a sick woman, in the depth of winter, was left behind in an igloo, with a small quantity of provisions. Hall, learning of this, made an attempt to go to her rescue. But in the mean time a heavy snow-storm had come on, and A few the igloo was entirely buried, so that no traces of it could be found. days after, Hall, accompanied by Ebierbing, made another attempt. The spot. was finally found, though the snow lay level above the ice-hut, the position of

which could be ascertained only by exploring with their spears. They broke through the roof, and, looking down, saw the woman frozen as solid as a marble statue. She had been dead for days, and the indications showed that she had perished from cold very soon after being abandoned. There were supplies of whale-skin for food, and blubber to keep up the fire, but she was too feeble to rise from the bed and replenish the lamp.

The Innuits of the present day are a purely nomadic race, roaming from place to place, following the seal, walrus, and deer. But their wanderings appear to be confined to the region of the coast, never extending far into the interior. Their dwellings are therefore constructed for mere temporary occupation, being snow-huts (igloos) for winter, and tents (tupics) for summer.

But

there are indications in the form of trenches and excavations which show that they formerly led a more settled life, and constructed more permanent habitations. Their numbers have been gradually diminishing ever since they have come into contact with the whites. How this comes to pass is a mystery. There is nothing to show that the climate has become more rigorous, or that the animals which constitute their food have grown scarcer or less easy of capture. The Indians of America have been destroyed by the occupation of their hunting-grounds, by whisky, and the small-pox, introduced by the whites. The natives of the South Sea Islands have been eaten up by nameless diseases, contracted from their licentious white visitors. There is scarcely a trace of either drunkenness or licentiousness among the Innuits. Consumption is the great