f us
sitting round in a circle, with the dish in the centre, we set to. I
had become in no ways particular, or I might not have relished my meal,
for there was rather more blood and dirt in the mixture than might have
been wished for; but some of the ribs were very palatable, though I
should have preferred some bread and salt and potatoes with them.

I considered my appetite good; but Mr and Mrs Ickmallick and their
interesting family distanced me far, and in a few minutes each of them
had eaten more than would have served me for the whole day.

The dish out of which we were eating was made of whalebone, one piece
being bent for the sides, and another flat piece being used for the
bottom, and sewn so neatly together that it was perfectly water-tight.
The knives they used were made of the tusk of the walrus, cut or ground
sufficiently thin for the purpose, and retaining the original curve of
the tusk.

In the tent I observed a number of the weapons they use in the chase.
The spears or darts employed in killing seals and other sea animals are
something like harpoons, consisting of two parts, a spear and a staff.

The latter is of wood when it can be obtained, and is from three and a
half to five feet in length; and the former is of bone, ground to a
blunt point. The lines attached to the spears are cut out of sealskin,
well stretched and dried, and then coiled up like a rope. To serve as a
float, a large bladder is used.

Most of the ladies had their faces tattooed, and some their hands; and I
certainly did not think it improved their beauty, though I suppose they
did. The children were fat and rosy, and really interesting-looking,
and so were some of the younger girls; but my gratitude for their
hospitality prevents me saying anything about the elder ladies. Their
jet-black glossy hair hung down carelessly over their shoulders, and was
not tied up like that of the people we had seen on the Greenland coast.
They carried the younger children on their backs, in little sacks or
hoods, just as the gipsies do in England.

The women were under five feet in height, and few of the men surpassed
five feet four, five, or six inches. The complexion of the young women
was very clear, and by no means dark; their eyes were bright and
piercing, and their teeth of pearly whiteness, though their lips were
thicker and their noses flatter than people in England consider
requisite for beauty.

From the quantity of clothes they