catch the relation; they feel
themselves interested in every circumstance; they hear, and wish to
share in the toils and glory of their fathers. When they are a little
bigger they exercise themselves in small skiffs, with which they learn
to overcome the waves. Nothing can be more dangerous, or require greater
dexterity than the management of a Greenlander's boat. The least thing
will overset it, and then, the man who cannot disengage himself from the
boat, which is fastened to his middle, sinks down below the waves, and
is inevitably drowned, if he cannot regain his balance. The only hope of
doing this, is placed in the proper application of his oar, and,
therefore, the dexterous management of this implement forms the early
study of the young Greenlanders. In their sportive parties they row
about in a thousand different manners. They dive under their boats, and
then set them to rights with their paddle; they learn to glide over the
roughest billows, and face the greatest dangers with intrepidity, till
in the end they acquire sufficient strength and address to fish for
themselves, and to be admitted into the class of men.

_Harry._--Pray, sir, is this the country where men travel about upon
sledges that are drawn by dogs?

_Tommy._--Upon sledges drawn by dogs! that must be droll indeed. I had
no idea that dogs could ever draw carriages.

_Mr Barlow._--The country you are speaking of is called Kamtschatka; it
is indeed a cold and dreary country, but very distant from Greenland.
The inhabitants there train up large dogs, which they harness to a
sledge, upon which the master sits, and so performs his journey along
the snow and ice. All the summer the Kamtschatkans turn their dogs loose
to shift for themselves, and prey upon the remains of fish which they
find upon the shore or the banks of the rivers (for fish is the common
food of all the inhabitants); in the winter they assemble their dogs and
use them for the purposes I have mentioned. They have no reins to govern
the dogs, or stop them in their course, but the driver sits upon his
sledge, and keeps himself as steady as he is able, holding in his hand a
short stick, which he throws at the dogs if they displease him, and
catches again with great dexterity as he passes. This way of travelling
is not without danger, for the temper of the dogs is such, that when
they descend hills and slippery places, and pass through woods where the
driver is exposed to wound himself wit