fitted into a shaft made usually of wood. This shaft, which is seven or eight feet in length, is only used for throwing the harpoon into the animal by means of a wooden rest, or " harpoon-thrower," which is held in the hand. As soon as the animal is struck, the shaft falls out and is picked up by the hunter as it floats on the surface, while the little harpoon-point remains in the seal's body, attached to a long line of carefully-prepared seal-skin, which has attached to it a large inflated seal-skin. This seal-skin marks where the animal is, but as it must come to the surface to breathe, and soon gets tired, the hunter follows it up in his kayak, spearing whenever he has an opportunity, until at length it is killed. He then coils his line anew on a stand in front of him, on his kayak, and proceeds as before. The kayak is one of the most ingenious contrivances of the Eskimo. It is shaped like a weaver's shuttle-pointed at either end-and built on a framework of whalebone or wood, covered completely over, with the exception of the hole in which the Eskimo seats himself, with seal-skin, with the hair off, and carefully prepared for that purpose. The hunter takes his seat in this fragile canoe, clad in a waterproof jacket made of seal-skin, or of the whale's intestines, buttons this jacket down so that no water can enter, puts on his waterproof mittens, and takes hold of his double paddle by the middle, and looks almost a part of the kayak. This craft is often ornamented with a knob of narwhal or walrus ivory at the end, and sheathed with runners of bone beneath, while the paddle has on either end a point of ivory or bone. The whole is one of the lightest and most elegant of contrivances. In straps in front are fastened the spears, knives, &c.; in front also is the stand for the line, nicely coiled up, and behind is the inflated seal-skin, or "drog," which is used in the manner I have described.*

No water can enter the kayak, and as the canoe-man paddles along, his face to the point to which he is going, propelling and steadying the kayak with alternate strokes of the long double paddle, the sea may dash over him with impunity. He rides buoyantly on the surface of the waves, often with a seal fastened at either side. If the spray, freezing on the sides of the kayak incommodes him, he scrapes it off with a blunt bone knife he carries in the straps in front of him. He can even overturn the kayak and right it again; but not unfrequently the ice cuts holes in it, when the fate of the buttoned-in kayaker is death by drowning. If he comes to a "neck" of ice between two spaces of open water, he forces the canoe on the ice, gets out of it, and carries it on his head, until he can again launch it in open water. On the shores of Behring Strait some of the kayaks are made with two holes, and are paddled by two men. There is another boat, called the omiak, which is also made of seal-skin on a framework of whalebone or wood, but it is open on the top, and of a more or less oblong form. It is essentially the women's boat, being used to carry them, the children, dogs, and baggage from one place to another. It is propelled by the women, with single paddles or oars, and is steered by an old man, who keeps up a stern discipline over his charge, not being at all particular what he throws at his chattering crew. The dog-sledge is made of two runners of wood, pointed at the end, with cross-bars, forming a sort of platform. In front, attached to long traces, the dogs, large wolfish brutes, are fastened by seal-skin harness; while behind is a sort of screen, on which spare harness, whips, lines, &c., are hung. The driver sits on the

The natives of the western shores of Vancouver Island use an identical inflated seal-skin, and for a similar purpose.

sledge and drives his canine team with a long-lashed whip, with a short handle. To wield this whip is no easy task, but one requiring long practice; when acquired thoroughly, the driver could with his twenty or thirty feet lash flick a fly off his leader's head, at a distance of as many feet. The dogs, to protect their feet, have on little seal-skin shoes or mufflers; and over tolerably even snow-covered ice will travel as much as 160 miles a day. Six dogs are generally attached to a sledge.

Unlike the Laps or Kamschatdales, the Eskimo have never thought of taming the reindeer, but only use it for food. Their summer dwellings are rude tents made of seal-skin, but their. stationary dwellings are square or conical huts, half under ground, built of earth, bones, turf, or any rubbish, lighted by a window of whale intestines, and entered by a long, low tunnel, which has to be traversed on all fours. On two sides are low raised platforms, covered with skins, and which can be used as seats or beds. A stone lamp, consisting of an oblong, hollow vessel, cut out of the soft steatite, or soap-stone, with moss for wick and blubber for fuel, is suspended from the roof. This serves at once for fire and light. The house is insufferably warm, there being scarcely any ventilation, and half the inmates have the upper portion of their body divested of clothing. In the roof are paddles, harpoons, &c.; a dead seal may be seen lying amid a pool of blood on the floor, and the dogs are growling just outside the door in the tunnel, as the visitor cautiously picks his way on all fours to the door. The object of this tunnel is to prevent unwelcome, unannounced visits of the fierce white polar bear. In winter, moreover, especially if moving about from one place to another, they erect snow huts, the blocks of snow being most ingeniously fitted into one another, no bridgebuilder being able to surpass them in the manner in which they arch over the roof. These houses are warm, though in the spring they begin to get rather wet and damp, and the heat of the summer soon compels them to be abandoned-though at that season it is almost unnecessary to say that these dwellings perforce become only temporary.

The Eskimo are enormous eaters, and take most of their food raw, or in a frozen condition. To eat eight or nine pounds of meat is not accounted an extraordinary feat, and a man will lie on his back while his wife feeds him with the tit-bits of flesh and blubber, when he is utterly unable to move himself. Their powers of fasting are equally extraordinary. Fat of every kind comes natural to them, and is necessary to keep up the animal heat of the body. In eating, they cut off a large piece of flesh, take it between their teeth, then with a knife cut off a bit, and so on, severing the attachment between the bit and the lump, until the whole is gone. The ordinary routine of Eskimo life has been so admirably sketched by Sir John Richardson that I may be allowed to quote it :-"In the month of September, the band, consisting of perhaps five or six families, moves to some well-known pass, generally some narrow neck of land between two lakes, and there awaits the southerly migration of the reindeer. When these animals approach the vicinity, some of the young men go out, and gradually drive them towards the pass, where they are met by other hunters, who kill as many as they can with the bow and arrow. The bulk of the herd is forced into the lake, and there the liers-in-wait in their kayaks spear them at their leisure. Hunting in this way, day after day, as long as the deer are passing, a large stock of venison is generally procure 1. As the country abounds in natural ice cellars, or at least everywhere affords great facilities for constructing them in the frozen subsoil, the venison might be kept sweet until the hard frost sets in, and so preserved

throughout the winter; but the Eskimo take little trouble in the matter. If more deer are killed in the summer than can be then consumed, part of the flesh is dried, but later in the season it is merely laid up in some cool cleft in the rock, where wild animals cannot reach it, and should it become considerably tainted before the cold weather comes on, it is only the more agreeable to the Eskimo palate. When made very tender by keeping, it is consumed raw, or after very little cooking. In the autumn also, the migratory flocks of geese and other birds are laid under contribution, and salmon trout and fish of various kinds are taken.

In this

way a winter stock of provision is procured, and not a little is required, as the Eskimo, being consumers of animal food only, get through a surprising quantity. In the autumn the berries of the cranberry, the blueberry, creeping Arctic brambles, &c., and the half-digested lichen in the paunch of the reindeer are considered to be a treat; but in other seasons this people never taste vegetables, and even in summer animal food is alone deemed essential. Carbon is supplied to the system by the use of much oil and fat in the diet, and draughts of warm blood from a newly-killed animal are considered as contributing greatly to preserve the hunter in health. No part of the entrails is rejected as unfit for food. Little cleanliness is shown in the preparation of the intestines, and when they are rendered crisp by frost they are eaten as delicacies without further cooking. On parts of the coast where whales are common, August

and September are devoted to the pursuit of these animals, deer-hunting being also attended to at intervals. The killing of a right whale (Balana mysticetus) or of the kelleluak, or

white whale (Beluga albicans), secures winter feasts and abundance of oil for the lamps of a whole village, and there is great rejoicing. On the return of light, the winter houses are abandoned for the seal-hunt on the ice, sooner or later, according to the state of the larder.