seemed to me to average well with, if not surpass, the Caucasian race, at least in weight. They were located in and around the mouth of Back's Great Fish River, living off seals that there abound, and from which diet they get their tribal name-the Netschilluk, or seal-eaters. Those of the west coast of Greenland, from their accessibility to travelers, have been described the most, and being below even the average height of the Eskimo as a whole race, our general notions have been derived too much from this source. The Eskimo of Alaska, or such as I saw of them, are larger framed than those of Hudson's Bay, Hudson's Strait or Greenland, and yet I do not think they will compare in this particular with the intermediate Netschilluk.

Although the Eskimo are smaller than the white races, I think they will compare very favorably with them in bodily strength, which means, of course, for equal weights they are more muscular. When returning from my sledge journey to King William's Land in the good muscular condition resulting from a walk of over 3,000 miles, and even then weighing 219 pounds, I do not think I had the strength of one of my Eskimo sledgemen, Toolooah by name, who weighed but 20 or 25 pounds over half as much. This was evidenced by our respective handlings of the loaded sledge in "tight pinches," and giving full allowance to him for greater experience in such matters, and amply acknowledging that many assumed feats of strength have more of dexterity and practice in them than that which they are claimed to prove.

When we started on our northern trip Toolooah's sledge had a weight of over 3,000 pounds on it, hauled by nineteen fine dogs, and when he was at its head, with a tight grip in the seal-thong lashings, he would readily sway the head of the vehicle backwards and forwards as it went over snow where occasional projecting stones made it dangerous for the shoe-runners unless quickly and promptly avoided by good guidance. I must say that he was about the average in strength of his own race. Their constant out-door life, winter and summer, doing the hardest work in the healthiest of

climates, is probably sufficient to account for their great muscular development.

Their universal clothing is made from the skin of the reindeer, which animal is fortunately abundant in their land, as a usual thing, for its peculiar fur is undoubtedly the warmest in the world for the same amount of weight. There are often many variations in the trimmings made of other furs, as that of the polar bear, musk ox, Arctic fox, wolverine, or even the downy breasts of the eiderduck, dovekie, or auk, and in some instances they replace the reindeer fur largely; but among the bands of central Eskimo, where the most of my northern travels were cast, the reindeer was the only fur used to warm them as covering day or night, for it was equally used as bedding or clothing, while the flesh of the animal gave them their most delicious meat. Their palates are not very exacting, however, and I doubt if

ESKIMO HEAD.

one-third the reindeer that are now slain would be killed were meat the only object in view, and not the clothing, without which their country would be almost uninhabitable, and with which they can spend the winter far more comfortably than can the savages of so-called temperate regions with their deficient appliances.

It is about equally difficult for the Eskimo hunter to secure a walrus or a reindeer, and as the former will give about a ton of meat, and the latter only about one-tenth as much, it is clear why the walrus would be selected if only the meat and its palatability were concerned.

The walrus forms the principal food of the Eskimo race wherever it is found, and it is so generally distributed over the Arctic part of the North American continent that it undoubtedly makes up the bulk of sustenance for the whole race, with the various seals following closely

REINDEER COAT OF ESKIMO WOMAN.

behind, and both these kind of meats amply supplemented by salmon, cod, whale, musk-oxen, reindeer and polar bear, with an occasional tribe here and there preponderating in some of these latter foods over the walrus and seal. The walrus will not live where it is so cold that all the water channels are frozen over in the winter, as he cannot cut a breathing hole through the thick ice like the smaller hair-seal, which is found in about every part of the Arctic that man has penetrated, and at about all seasons of the year. The greater amount of fatty tissue in the animals of the sea make them more acceptable as food to the northerner whose system craves such diet during the rigorous winter of that zone. The seal and walrus are fat throughout

the year, although varying appreciably in this respect during the different seasons, while the reindeer-for musk-oxen are nowhere numerous enough to enter largely as food-are only in good condition for a few months in the fall and early winter, the coldest months in the year, January, February and March, often finding them livid in their leanness. Yet, in spite of all this, my northern travels threw me in contact with a fair-sized tribe of Eskimo that lived largely on this kind of meat, catching only enough seal from an inlet that cut deep into their country to supply their stone lamps with a little light during the long dark winter night. Those living on seal and walrus had enough oil to warm their houses-though made of snow-many degrees higher than the intense cold outside, and would take off their outside suit of reindeer clothes when in the house, while the reindeer hunters seldom had a temperature even a little above that of the atmosphere outside, and often remained double clothed as if in the open.

Their homes were cold and cheerless in the extreme, but they had powers of resisting it that seemed phenomenal and far beyond human endurance as we have found it limited in our own zone. I have known one of these cold-weather cavaliers to take a reindeer hide that had been soaking in the water, and that was frozen as stiff as a plate of boileriron, and put it against his bare body, holding it there, not only until it was thawed out, but until it was perfectly dry. The skin was to be used as a drum-head for singing and dancing exercises, and had to be dry and hairless to answer that purpose, the soaking ridding it of the hair, while there were apparently no other means of drying it than the heroic method adopted. From the large number of reindeer killed by these Eskimo they are abundantly supplied with skins for bedding and clothing, and in the making up of these necessaries they have displayed so much tact and talent with the limited means at hand that they are the best dressed natives in the North. From one of their fancy dis

plays on certain garments-the boot-tops -they get their distinctive tribal name, the Kinnepetoos.

As I have already hinted, the winter houses of these central Eskimo are built of snow, and I think from a two years life in them that they are healthier and more comfortable than any of wood, which must be peculiarly constructed and generally void of proper ventilation to withstand such a rigorous winter. In some of the portions of territory covered by this widely distributed race timber is found, as along the Yukon and Kouskoquim Rivers of Alaska and where a few of their numbers face the Pacific Coast. In other places also driftwood is thrown upon the shores of their country, as all over the Alaskan coast and for some distance east of the mouth of the Mackenzie River, as well as parts of Greenland; and wherever these conditions obtain, there these polar people build their winter homes of logs and poles, the most of them being half-subterranean structures to conserve the warmth. In all other parts of their

among us in lower latitudes, and which makes it eminently adapted for the comfort and protection of these northern nomads. These snow-houses are called igloos by the natives, and have been so often described by polar travelers that I will only allude to a few of their more interesting features. They vary much in size according to whether they are to be permanently occupied or only for a night or two, for the wandering hunter of that lone land will make a score of igloos, in which he will spend only the night, to where one is made for a longer residence. Even the permanent igloos are so only relatively to their nomadic habits, and are seldom occupied over a month or six weeks, as in their constant use the snow, by the warmth of the stone lamp, is slowly converted into ice, and then the snow-house becomes chilly and uncomfortable, and is abandoned for a new one that it takes the Eskimo builder but two or three hours to make.

The temporary igloos are but mere kennels, where one can hardly turn around without scraping the snow off

structure, while the permanent ones often have two, three, or four snow-houses grouped around and

emptying into a single one, which might be called the hall. The hall proper, however, of every snow-house is usually a low passage-way of five to twenty feet in length, through which a person has to crawl on his hands and knees, and which is chiefly useful in excluding the intensely cold winds outside, and as a refuge for the numerous dogs whenever particularly stormy weather prevails.

Their almost universal method of transportation is by dogs and sledges, for the good and sufficient reason that the average winter season in Eskimo land, when sledges are used, far exceeds the summer time, when the streams and channels are open, and skin canoes and

SEAL AND WALRUS HUNTERS.

boats are employed. In fact, when I was on King William's Land, in 1879, we did not give up sledging on the land until June 22d, and after that used the shore ice of the sea until July 24th, when it broke up. In the early part of September, the first snows again allowed us to resume sledging. McClintock reported that the sea-ice near this point broke up with him as late as August 10th, and the natives told me that occasionally it happened that the ice did not break up at

all, so that sledging could have been continuous here the whole year. The most popular fallacy concerning our northern people is that about their being well supplied with tame reindeer to draw their sledges. These

trained animals are confined wholly to the Arctic regions of the eastern continent, the wild variety alone being known on the American side.

There is considerable diversity throughout all Eskimo land in even such simple matters as a dog-team and sledge would appear to be. In the far northwest the method employed is to have the dogs in one or two lines harnessed to a double trace on either side, or to a single trace between the two lines. In Greenland they radiate outwards like a fan, each dog having his own trace meeting at the sledge, while among the central Eskimo, where most of my travels were cast, the same general arrangement is maintained, but the traces are of unequal length, the longest one belonging to an unusually well-trained and intelligent dog, called the leader, whose movements as to going to the right or left, faster or slower, stopping or starting, all the others follow. The rate at which a team will travel is about as indefinite as that at which a horse will go. A number

of good dogs, on a light sledge with nothing but the driver to be hauled, can make 50 to 75 miles a day on smooth salt-water ice in the spring months, while a heavily laden sledge of 100 pounds to the dog on the rolling hill lands will do well at 15 to 20 miles a day, if it is to be kept up for a number of days. I have seen a sledge with 3,600 pounds on it, dragged by nineteen fine dogs on smooth saltwater ice.

The northernmost inhabitants of the earth are the Itanese Eskimo of Greenland, numbering between 100 and 150 people. Their wanderings are known to reach to the 79th parallel of latitude, where they are seemingly barred by the huge Humboldt Glacier. The highest reached by white men is not far beyond this, and Eskimo ruins have been found between; and, considering their far greater superiority to the Caucasian in traveling in those regions, it is more than likely that they have extended their excursions beyond any point ever attained by civilized explorers.

NOT

Edna Dean Proctor.