The.oily nature of their food contributes probably some what to deepen their colour ; their blood becoming so dark, dense, warm, and oily, that their skin has the smell of oil, and their hands and feet are as clammy as bacon. Their bodies being very fleshy and fat, and coated as it were with a varnish of oil and dirt, they can bear the cold better than an European. They sit compAnly naked in their houses ; and the effluvia from their bodies is such, that an Europe an who sits by them can scarcely endure it. Their chil dren arc in general very healthy ; and one rarely sees among them a human being mis-shapen from its birth. They consider themselves to be very well educated and informed ; and when they meet together, nothing is so customary among them as to ridicule the Europeans and their manners. The women, in particular, understand that sort of humour extremely well. They use a mode of very expres.,we mimicry, consisting of certain grimaces, by means of which they can make themselves understood from one corner of the house to the other ; and a European coining to their country will instantly he characterised by a nickname, ex pressive of his manners, or behaviour, or personal defects. They reckon themselves the most modest people in the world : and seeing a modest foreigner, they say, innuck sisimavok, or innungor/iok, that is, •4 he is as modest as a Greenlander." Although, there may be sonic presumption in this, yet it cannot be denied, that they are modest, friendly, and not litigious : generally compliant ; but, when exasperated, they are so desperate, that no danger deters them from their revenge. Although very ignorant, they are by no means stupid. They learn easily to read and to write their language, not only the children, but also men advanced to twenty and thirty years of age. Some of them, besides their maternal tongue, speak Danish very well, and they have a great inclination to mechanics. As their supply of food is but precarious, their patience in hunger is astonishing. Their strength, in proportion to the size of their bodies, is not less wonderful. Pinched with hun ger for some days, the man is nevertheless able to row out, and to manage his kajak in the most boisterous sea.
Their manner of clothing is quite correspondent to the climate. Men, women, and children, from the time they are three years old, are cloathed nearly in the same man ner. Their ordinary dress is a sort of close frock, or ra ther robe, which reaches to the knees. It has at the upper part a round hole, sufficient to put the head through, and not large enough to achnit the cold. The sleeves are rather wide on the shoulders, becoming narrower as they reach the wrists. A hood similar in shape to the cowl used by monks, is attached to the back of the frock. This is drawn over the head in winter or bad weather. In warm weather they generally walk bareheaded. Some of them now use the round hats of the Europeans. Their breeches are nearly like those of Europeans. Their stockings are in summer of seal-skin, in winter of dog or rein-deer skin ; and those of the women are of fowl-skin. Their boots are made in a very neat and ingenious manner ; sometimes of seal skin, sometimes of rein-deer skin. The frocks are also made of seal or rein-deer skin. At the seams, where the different skins are sewed together, they are usually adorned with nal row thongs of different skin, sometimes coloured red ; they are worn with the hairy side outwards. In cold weather they use under the frock a shirt made of fowl-skin, of the ?1ca pica, or ?nas mollissima or Pelicanus carbo.
When at sea in their small canoes (called kajak), they use a sort of frock impenetrable to water, witn the hair taken away, called Erysak. The bottom part is fastened round a ring or hoop made of bone; and this hoop is join ed to the hole in which the Greenlander sits, so that no water can penetrate it. They have also another frock made very ingeniously from the intestines of whales, dol phins, or seals, prepared with such skill as to resemble, in a great measure, our goldbeater's leaf. The clothes of the women differ very little from those of the men. The sleeves are very high and wide on the shoulder, and reach only to the elbow. They are cut out downwards from the top of the thigh, and form a long tongue-formed flap both behind and before, the end of which reaches to the knee. It is very carefully sewed, and bordered round the body with narrow thongs of white or coloured leather, sometimes of red cloth. They wear breeches, with very short drawers underneath: Their common boots are made of black or brown seal-skin, their dress boots of white or red coloured seal-skin, reaching over the knees. Shoes
are rarely used either by the men or women.
They live in winter in houses, and in summer in tents. When the summer is over, which is generally at the end of August, the women belonging to the family or to the house are very busy in repairing an old or in 'building a new house. It is done in a very few days ; and this la bour resembles the liveliness of an ant-hill. Some carry stones, others bring sod ; several turf, timber, shrubs, or earth. The walls are made of water-worn stones, put to gether with turf or sod instead of mortar ; and the roof is formed of pieces of floating timber. It is flat, and is covered with shrubs, turf or sod, and earth. The stones are taken from the shores, as they never build a house at a greater distance from the sea than 20 or 30 paces ; the timbers are picked up from the sea during the summer. Their houses are sometimes regular, sometimes oblong squares; being from 12 to 18 feet in length, and from 10 to 12 feet in breadth. The height' is generally six feet. The walls are at their base two feet, and on the top one foot thick. The entrance is usually under the earth, two feet high,, two feet broad, and from 12 to I S feet long. It is in the centre of the house, and generally faces the south. The house has no door, and one must always creep in on hands and feet. Above the entrance is one, and sometimes two windows, which are made of the intestines of whales, or dolphins, or seals, sewed together. The house con sists of only one room, at the back of which there is a kind of stage, raised from One foot to one and a half from the ground, and extending the whole length of the house. It is covered with seal-skin, and is used as bench, chair, table, and bed-stead. Being divided in the front by per pendicular standing timbers, it has the appearance of low cow-sheds or stables, separated by skins. Each family occupies such a division. They sit on this bench the whole day, the men with their legs hanging down, the women generally cross-legged. Each family has at least one bunting lamp, made by the Greenlanders themselves of pot-stone. All round the margin of the vessel oiled moss is placed, which serves instead of a wick ; and the ves sel contains about a quart of oil. The lamp serves them as candle, chimney, and cooking fire ; and is attended by the women. On the roof of the house, over the lamps, are racks for the purpose of drying clothes, boots, gloves, cc. The extremities of the large bench on both sides of the house are considered to Ise the best places, being most removed from the entrance, and therefore given to the first women of the house, or to travellers of distinction. A narrow bench runs along on both sides, and under the windows of the house; and in this place strangers of less consideration sit and sleep. The houses are very well heated, and the heat is increased by the uncommon eva poration of the natives. A European is obliged to go out occasionally, to get fresh air. The interior of their houses looks very well at the beginning of the winter, as long as any degree of order exists in them. But this is over in a very short time ; and even this irregularity and confusion is exceeded by their nastiness and stench. They not only keep a number of dead seals, fowls, Ste. in their warm houses, but they also gut them there. This, together with the bones, and rotten or half eaten fragments of boiled and raw flesh, occasions several heaps of filth, which are never removed, till, from their bulk, it becomes troublesome to pass over them. thing about the house smells of train oil and smoke ;. and every part of it is as filthy as can be imagined. It is revolting to Europe ans to see their dirty hands and faces, almost always drip ping oil ; their meat dressed and eaten in such a disgust ing manner ; and their nasty clothes, literally alive with vermin. They are also very dirty in cooking their meat ; they seldom wash a vessel ; the colour and the odour of the last dish must remove that of a former one. They lay their boiled meat in wooden dishes of fir wood, made by themselves, which are never cleaned ; and first drink the soup, or cat it with spoons made_of bones or wood. Their undressed meat lies on the bare ground, or on an old seal skin. They have no determined time for dinner or sup per ; but when the men of the Itouse return with the game, which generally happens in the evening, part of the day's spoil is immediately boiled, and all the people who live in the neighbourhood are invited.