virtues, as
the Englishman is to the Esquimaux.

The strongest--indeed, I am assured, the only--symptom of the advantage
of religious instruction perceptible in the Greenlander, over his North
American brethren, is in the respect they show for the marriage tie,
and strong affection for their children. The missionary, with this
race, appears to have few difficulties to contend with: naturally
gentle, and without any strong superstitious prejudices, they receive
without resistance the simple creed of Reformed religion, which he has
spread amongst them; and the poor Esquimaux child sends up its prayers
and thanksgiving, in the words taught us by our Saviour, as earnestly
and confidently as the educated offspring of Englishmen.

An old man, whom I pressed to accompany me as pilot to the Island of
Disco, declined, under the plea that his wife was very ill, and that
there was no one but himself to take care of the "piccaninny."
Interested from such proper feeling in the man, Dr. P---- and I entered
his winter abode, which he apologized for taking us to,--the illness of
his "cara sposa" having prevented him changing his residence for the
usual summer tent. Crawling on all fours through a narrow passage, on
either side of which a dog-kennel and a cook-house had been
constructed, we found ourselves in an apartment, the highest side of
which faced us, the roof gradually sloping down to the ground.

[Illustration:

A B. Gallery.
B C. Section of house.
E. Bed and seats.
H. Cook-house and kennel.]

The above section will give some idea of the place. Along one side of
the abode a sort of bed-place extended for its whole length, forming
evidently the family couch; for on one end of it, with her head close
to a large seal-oil lamp, was the sick woman. She was at the usual
Esquimaux female's employment of feeding the flame with a little stick
from a supply of oil, which would not rise of its own accord up the
coarse and ill-constructed wick; over the flame was a compound, which
the sufferer told us was medicine for her complaint,--the rheumatism, a
very prevalent one amongst these people. Leaving the kind Doctor to do
the part of a good Samaritan, I amused myself with looking over the
strange home into which I had got. The man took much pride in showing
me his family,--consisting of a girl and three fine boys. His wife, he
assured me, was only twenty-eight years of age: she looked at least
six-and-thirty; and he likewise, th