e different.

Meagre are the bits of knowledge of the Eskimo that have floated down
into our ken through the ages; on the icy edge of things this unique and
fascinating people worked out their drama, the world unknowing by the
world forgot. The white men who reached the Eskimo land from the south
were discoverers following to the sea the three great rivers that
disembogue into the Polar Sea: the Mackenzie, Coppermine, Back or Great
Fish. The first of these explorers was Samuel Hearne who, in 1771,
followed the Coppermine to the Frozen Ocean. For the northern natives
their first contact with white explorers was a disastrous one, for at
Bloody Falls on the Coppermine Hearne's Indians set upon the only band
of Eskimo they saw and almost exterminated them. Sir John Franklin in
1820 was more happy. He says, "The Eskimo danced and tossed their hands
in the air to signify their desire for peace; they exhibited no hostile
intention; our men saluted them by taking off their hats and making
bows." Back, who explored the Back or Great Fish River in 1834, has this
tribute of respect and appreciation. He says, "I called out '_Tima_'
(Peace), and putting their hands on their breasts they also called out
'_Tima_.' I adopted the John Bull fashion of shaking them each heartily
by the hand; patting their breasts, I conveyed to them that the white
man and the Eskimo were very good friends. They were good natured, and
they understood the rights of property, for one of them having picked up
a small piece of pemmican repeatedly asked my permission before he would
eat it."

Through all these years, if we except the noble devotion of the Moravian
missionaries on the northeast of Canada and the splendid Christianity of
such men as Bishop Bompas who sought them from the south, no one visited
the Eskimo from the outside with the purpose of doing him good, but
rather with the idea of exploiting him. Yet, from the days of Sir John
Franklin and Sir Alexander Mackenzie to the recent voyage of Amundsen,
the spontaneous tribute of every man who has met them, talked with them,
and received their hospitality is the same. The Eskimo is generous, and
his word is worth its full face value. What we have done for the Eskimo
is a minus quantity; what he has done for us is to point a splendid
moral of integrity, manliness, and intrepid courage.

Indians beg and boast, the Eskimo does neither. With no formulated
religion or set creed, he has a code of ethics w