them are
absolutely out of their world, as far beyond their own unaided efforts
as the moon and Mars are beyond the dwellers on this planet.

My various expeditions into that region have had the effect of raising
the Eskimos from the most abject destitution, lacking every appliance
and accessory of civilized life, to a position of relative affluence,
with the best material for their weapons, their harpoons and lances, the
best of wood for their sledges, the best of cutlery, knives, hatchets,
and saws for their work, and the cooking utensils of civilization.
Formerly they were dependent upon the most primitive hunting weapons;
now they have repeating rifles, breech-loading shotguns, and an
abundance of ammunition. There was not a rifle in the tribe when I first
went there. As they have no vegetables, and live solely on meat, blood,
and blubber, the possession of guns and ammunition has increased the
food-producing capacity of every hunter, and relieved the whole tribe
from the formerly ever-present danger of starvation for a family, or
even an entire village.

There is a theory, first advanced by Sir Clements Markham, ex-president
of the Royal Geographical Society of London, that the Eskimos are the
remnants of an ancient Siberian tribe, the Onkilon; that the last
members of this tribe were driven out on the Arctic Ocean by the fierce
waves of Tartar invasion in the Middle Ages, and that they found their
way to the New Siberian Islands, thence eastward over lands yet
undiscovered to Grinnell Land and Greenland. I am inclined to believe in
the truth of this theory for the following reasons:

Some of the Eskimos are of a distinctly Mongolian type, and they display
many Oriental characteristics, such as mimicry, ingenuity, and patience
in mechanical duplication. There is a strong resemblance between their
stone houses and the ruins of the houses found in Siberia. The Eskimo
girl brought home by Mrs. Peary, in 1894, was mistaken by Chinamen for
one of their own people. It has also been suggested that their
invocation of the spirits of their dead may be a survival of Asian
ancestor worship.

As a general rule the Eskimos are short in stature, as are the Chinese
and Japanese, though I could name several men who stand about five feet
ten inches. The women are short and plump. They all have powerful
torsos, but their legs are rather slender. The muscular development of
the men is astonishing, though their fatty roundness hi