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them, drawing a knife out of his boot, exclaimed 'Go away, or I will kill you.' Saccheous told them that he had a father and mother like them, and wished to be their friend; and as a proof of it, he threw across the canal some beads and a chequed shirt, to the latter of which they pointed, asking him of what skin it was made. It was some time before they ventured to touch it, entertaining no doubt the same superstitious fears as the Esquimaux in general, (noticed by the old navigators,) that to touch any strange thing would cause their death. They then pointed to the ships, and inquired with great eagerness, What great creatures those were; whether they came from the sun or moon, whether they gave light by night or by day?' Saccheous told them they were houses made of wood: this, they replied, could not be, for they were alive, and they had seen them flap their wings. Saccheous again assured them of the truth of all he had told them, and that he was a man like themselves; and, pointing to the south, said he came in those houses from a distant country in that direction. To this they immediately replied, That cannot be: there is nothing but ice there.' On his asking who they were, they told him in return they were human beings; that they lived to the north, (pointing in that direction,) that there was plenty of water there, and that they had come to the present spot where there was ice, to catch seals and sea unicorns. Saccheous finding that they mutually understood each other, and wishing to become better acquainted, now returned to the ship for a plank to enable him to cross over to them; but on his approach they entreated he would not touch them, as in that case they should certainly die. One of them however, more courageous than the rest, ventured at last to touch his hand; then pulling his own nose, he set up a loud shout, in which he was joined by Saccheous and the other three. This pulling of noses, it seems, is a token of friendly salutation.*

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The whole eight now came forward, and were met by the two commanders of the vessels, and the other officers; but they were evidently in a state of great alarm until the ceremony of pulling noses had been gone through by both parties, shouting at the same time heigh-yaw! an exclamation of surprize and pleasure, the more remarkable as being precisely that which is universally used by the Chinese and Tartars, to express the same emotions. The old trick, we are told, of shewing them their faces in a looking-glass created the utmost astonishment; this we cannot

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*The officers of the Expedition, we understand, declare that they never saw nor heard of this pulling of noses' till it was mentioned by Captain Ross on their return, at Shetland. We are altogether at a loss to account for this. It seems scarcely possible that Captain Ross could be mistaken in a ceremony of so singular a kind, and which he represents not only as frequently, but solemnly repeated.

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well conceive; since ice, in which they could not fail to have observed reflected images, is so familiar to them-in fact, they inquired if it was not ice, and seemed surprized that it did not wet their fingers.

On approaching the ship, they halted, and were evidently much terrified; and one of the party, after surveying the Isabella and examining every part of her with his eyes, thus addressed her in a loud tone- Who are you? Where do you come from? Is it from the sun or moon?' pausing between every question, and pulling the nose with the greatest solemnity, a ceremony which was repeated in succession by all the rest.

'Saccheous now laboured to assure them, that the ship was only a wooden house, and pointed out the boat, which had been hauled on the ice to repair; explaining to them that it was a smaller one of the same kind. This immediately arrested their attention, they advanced to the boat, examined her, as well as the carpenters' tools and the oars, very minutely; each object, in its turn, exciting the most ludicrous ejaculations of surprize; we then ordered the boat to be launched into the sea, with a man in it, and hauled up again, at the sight of which they set no bounds to their clamour. The ice anchor, a heavy piece of iron, shaped like the letter S, and the cable, excited much interest; the former they tried in vain to remove, and they eagerly inquired of what skins the latter was made.

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By this time the officers of both ships had surrounded them, while the bow of the Isabella, which was close to the ice, was crowded with the crew; and, certainly, a more ludicrous, yet interesting, scene was never beheld, than that which took place whilst they were viewing the ship; nor is it possible to convey to the imagination any thing like a just representation of the wild amazement, joy, and fear, which successively pervaded the countenances, and governed the gestures, of these creatures, who gave full vent to their feelings; and, I am sure, it was a gratifying scene, which never can be forgotten by those who witnessed and enjoyed it.

'Their shouts, halloos, and laughter, were heartily joined in, and imitated by all hands, as well as the ceremony of nose pulling, which could not fail to increase our mirth on the occasion. That which most of all excited their admiration, was the circumstance of a sailor going aloft, and they kept their eyes on him till he reached the summit of the mast; the sails, which hung loose, they naturally supposed were skins. Their attention being again called to the boat, where the carpenter's hammer and nails still remained, they were shown the use of these articles; and no sooner were they aware of their purposes, than they shewed a desire to possess them, and were accordingly presented with some nails. They now accompanied us to that part of the bow from which a rope-ladder was suspended, and the mode of mounting it was shewn them, but it was a considerable time ere we could prevail on them to ascend it. At length the senior, who always led the way, went up, and was followed by the rest. The new wonders that now sur

rounded

rounded them on every side caused fresh astonishment, which, after a moment's suspense, always terminated in loud and hearty laughter.' p. 89.

That a person who had never beheld a piece of wood larger than the twig of a birch rod, of the thickness of a goose quill, should be unacquainted with the weight of a ship's top-mast, and lay hold of it with the view of carrying it away, we can readily conceive; but that these people should be equally ignorant of the nature of iron, and attempt to run off with an anchor and a smith's anvil, surprizes us:-and the rather, as the blades of their knives were made of this metal, and, of course, they could not be ignorant of its weight. It is almost needless to add how much they were astonished at every thing they saw, for the first time in their lives, in and about the ships, and at the people on board, so different from themselves. They were offered refreshments, but they had no relish for biscuit, salt meat, or spirits: and preferred to them all the dried flesh of the sea unicorn, which they carried about with them. Having received some trifling presents, they returned to the shore, hallooing and apparently delighted with the treatment they had met.

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The ships in the mean time took up a new anchorage in the neighbourhood; and two or three days afterwards were visited by three other natives, a father and two sons, who had been informed by their countrymen of the wonderful things which they had The most important information obtained from this party that the iron with which their knives were edged,' was found in a mountain; that it was in great masses, of which one in particular, harder than the rest, was a part of the mountain; that the others were in large pieces above ground; that they cut it off with hard stone, and then beat it flat into pieces of the size of a sixpence, but of an oval shape.' Captain Ross made them several presents, and promised further to reward them if they would bring him specimens of this iron-' having reason,' he says, 'to believe from their account, that the rocks from which they had procured it were masses of meteoric iron-not surely because it was part of the mountain,' which we rather think would be decisive at once against its meteoric origin. The fact however is, that the blades of their knives have been found, on analysis, to contain about the usual proportion of nickel which is met with in meteoric iron; but we have understood that the interpretation of Saccheous did not extend to the existence of whole rocks of it, but was confined to two pieces only, about two feet in their greatest length, one of which was broader than the other, and defied the exertions of the natives to cut off any part of it with the sharpest

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sharpest and hardest stones they could make use of; the other was angular, and much softer, and from this they were able to chip off pieces with a sharp stone. The endeavours of Captain Ross to procure specimens of this iron in its native state were unavailing; and however desirable it might be to obtain these, and some more explicit information respecting the real state of this insulated tribe of Esquimaux, yet, considering how much time had already been lost in struggling through the ice, he would, in our opinion, have been highly culpable, had he neglected the first opportunity that presented itself for getting farther to the northward.

We are now in possession of the fact that aerolites, if the term be allowable, have been discovered in almost every region and climate of the globe-on the burning deserts of Arabia, and on the icy mountains in the farthest nook of Baffin's Bay; and the very circumstance of their being met with equally under the torrid and frigid zones would seem to militate against their meteoric origin, unless we are to suppose them formed in all states, and in the opposite extremes, of the atmosphere. We have mentioned Arabia, because we think that the thunderbolt, black in appearance, like a hard rock, brilliant and sparkling,' of which the blacksmith forged the sword of Antar,* was a true aerolite. It was long before the ancients were allowed any credit for their celestial showers of stones, and all were ready to laugh, with the facetious author of Hudibras, at the fable of the Thra cian rock, which fell into the river Ægos.

'For Anaxagoras long agone

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Saw hills, as well as you, i'th' moon,
And held the sun was but a piece
Of red hot iron as big as Greece.

Believ'd the heavens were made of stone
Because the sun had voided one.'

It is now discovered that the ancients were correct in the fact, and
we are even ready to meet them half way in their hypothesis.
The falling in with these Esquimaux has furnished Captain
Ross with no unimportant episode, occupying about one-fourth
part of his narrative. Not content with detailing the particulars
of the two or three short interviews on board the ships, he has
presented us with a whole chapter dedicated to the Arctic
Highlanders;' an appellation with which he has thought fit to
dignify this insulated tribe; as if a little nook in Baffin's Bay
ought to monopolize a name which would be equally applicable
to the natives of every mountainous region within the Arctic
Antar, a Bedoween Romance, translated from the Arabic, by T. Hamilton, Esq.
VOL. XXI. NO. XLI.

p. 152.

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circle in Europe, Asia, and America. But Captain Ross is a great adept in nomenclature: he has transferred one half of Scotland to the shores of this Bay-reserving, however, a due share for the Prince Regent and the other members of the royal family, for his Majesty's Ministers, the Lords of the Admiralty, &c. The title of the chapter, considered under all circumstances, is rather amusing: The Arctic Highlands-Nature of the CountryIts Produce-Inhabitants-Language-Mode of Living-Manners and Customs-Religion,'-no scanty bill of fare; but, like that of the landlord in the play, all of the good things are stuffed into the bill while nothing is found in the larder. A chapter of this kind must be exceedingly edifying from the pen of a writer who never set foot on any part of these Arctic Highlands,' who understands not a syllable of the 'language' spoken in them, and who could only converse with the inhabitants through the medium of one who had much difficulty in comprehending their discourse, and more in making himself intelligible in the English language; who saw the country and its produce' only from the ship; and whose acquaintance with the mode of living, manners, and customs, and religion,' of the people was the produce of a few hours study in the cabin of the Isabella. We shall deem it, under those circumstances, quite sufficient to cull a few facts.*

These poor people, it would seem, are so completely shut out, by mountains covered with perpetual snow, from their southern neighbours, as to have no knowledge of any other human beings besides themselves; judging, from surrounding appearances, that all the rest of the world to the southward was a mass of ice and snow. How far they extend to the northward is not known, though Captain Ross, in his usual decisive manner, fixes the limit at 77° 40'. One circumstance appears very remarkable, that their winter's habitations are in the northern extreme, where, in summer, the weather is so warm, that the ice disappears from the water and the snow from the land; and as both these are necessary to enable them to procure their chief articles of food and raiment, they are compelled to descend to the southward in search of them. Another remarkable circumstance is, that, though their sustenance is principally derived from the sea, they have no sort of embarkation in which they can go afloat, nor have they any knowledge of the names kaijac and umiak, by which the boat and canoe are generally designated among all the tribes of Esquimaux. This,' says Captain Ross, is easily accounted for, by their total want of wood:'-not so easily, we conceive; for, if it be admitted,

* Au interesting account of this poor tribe of Esquimaux, drawn up by Captain Sabine may be seen in Mr. Brande's Journal of Literature, &c. for April. and

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