observe that wherever
there is a fleshy portion of the face that can be perforated by a stone
knife, or pierced by a whalebone, there will be tattooing and incisions;
and that wherever there are incisions, bones, nails, feathers, and such
like ornaments will be inserted. All this is the case. What European
ladies do with their ears, the Eskimo does with the cartilage of his
nose, the lips, the corners of his mouth, and the cheeks. More than
this--in the lower lip, parallel to the mouth, and taking the guise of a
mouth additional, a slit is made quite through the lip, large enough to
allow the escape of spittle and the protrusion of the tongue. The
insertion of a shell or bone, cut into the shape of teeth, completes the
adornment.

Then comes the question of colour. The Indian has a tinge of red; a
tinge which enables us to compare his skin to _copper_. The Eskimo is
simply brown, swarthy, or tawny.

Again, the Eskimo hold periodical fairs. Whales are scarce in the south,
and wood in the north of Greenland; and in consequence of this, there
are regular meetings for the business of barter. This gives us the
elements of commercial industry; elements which must themselves be taken
in conjunction with the maritime habits of the people. What stronger
contrast can we find to all this than the gloomy isolation of the
hunters of the prairie-countries, whether Sioux, Iroquois, or Algonkin?

Again, it is safe, in the way of intellectual capacity, to give the
Eskimo credit for ingenuity and imitativeness. The Indian, of the type
which we have chosen to judge him by, is pre-eminently indocile and
inflexible.

Yet all this, with much more besides, is capable of great
qualification--qualification which we find necessary, whether we look to
the extent to which the Eskimos approach the Indian, or the Indian the
Eskimo--each receding from its own more extreme representative.

The prominence of the nasal bones is certainly common amongst the Red
Indian tribes; and rare amongst the Eskimo. Yet it is neither universal
in the one, nor non-existent in the other. Oval features, a mixture of
red in the complexion, an aquiline nose, have all been observed amongst
the more favoured of the Circumpolar men and women.

In respect, too, to stature, the Eskimo is less remarkable for
inferiority than is generally supposed. His bulky, baggy dress makes him
look square and short. Measurements, however, correct this impression.
Men of the height of