not be just as palatable to the northern appetite as pig, sheep, and beef are to the inhabitants of temperate latitudes. As food they renew the nitrogenous tissues, reconstruct the parts and restore the functions of the Eskimo frame, prolong his existence, and produce the same animal contentment and joy as the more civilized viands of the white man's table. There are more palatable things than bear or eider duck, yet I know many persons to whom snails, olive oil, and paté de fois gras are more repugnant. A tray full of hot seal entrails, a bowl of coagulated blood, and putrid fish are not very inviting or lickerish to ordinary mortals, yet they have their analogue in the dish of some farmers who eat a preparation of pig's bowels known as "chitterlings," and in the blood-puddings and Limburger cheese of the Germans. Blubber-oil and whale are not very dainty dishes, yet consider how many families subsist on half-baked saleratus biscuits, salted pork, and oleomargarine.

On the mess table of the Fur Company's establishment at St. Paul island, seal meat is a daily article of consumption, and from personal experience I can testify as to its palatability, although it reminded one of indifferent beef rather overdone. Hair seal and bear steaks were on different occasions tried at the mess on board the Corwin, but everybody voted eider duck and reindeer the preference. It is not so very long since that whale was a favorite article of diet in England and Holland, and Arctic whalemen still, to my personal knowledge, use the freshly tried oil in cooking; for instance in frying cakes, for which they say it answers the purpose as well as the finest lard, while others breakfast on whale and potatoes prepared after the manner of codfish balls. The whale I have tasted is rather insipid eating, yet it appears to be highly nutritious, judging from the well-nourished look of natives who have lived on it, and the air of greasy abundance and happy contentment that pervades an Eskimo village just after the capture of a whale. Being ashore one day with our pilot, we met a native woman whom he recognized as a former acquaintance, and on remarking to her that she had picked up in flesh since he last saw her, she replied that she had been living on a whale all the Winter, which explained her plumpness.

It must not be supposed, however, that the whale, seal and walrus constitute the entire food supply of the Arctic. There is scarcely any more toothsome delicacy than reindeer, the tongue of which is very dainty and succulent. There is one peculiarity about its flesh—in order to have it in perfection it must be eaten very soon after being killed; the sooner the better, for it deteriorates in flavor the longer it is kept. Indeed, the Eskimo do not wait for the animal heat to leave the carcass, as they eat the brains and paunch hot and smoking.

While our gastronomic enthusiasm did not extend this far, we dined occasionally on fresh trout from a Siberian mountain lake, young wild ducks as fat as squabs, and reindeer, any of which delicacies could not be had in the same perfection at Delmonico's or any similar establishment in New York for love or money. There is scarcely any better eating in the way of fish than coregonus—a new species discovered at Point Barrow by the Corwin—and certainly no more dainty game exists than the young wild geese and ptarmigan to be found in countless numbers in Hotham inlet. At the latter place, doubtless the warmest inside the straits, are found quantities of cranberries about the size of a pea, which not only make a delicious accessory to roasted goose, but act as a valuable antiscorbutic. These berries and a kind of kelp, which I have seen Eskimo eating at Tapkan, Siberia, seem to be the only vegetable food they have. The large quantities of eggs easily procurable, but in most cases doubtful, also constitute a standard article of diet among these people, who have no scruples about eating them partly hatched. They seemed never to comprehend our fastidiousness in the matter and why our tastes differed so much from theirs in this respect. They will break an egg containing an embryonic duck or goose, extract the bird by one leg and devour it with all the relish of an epicure. Gull's eggs, however, are in disrepute among them, for the women—who, by the way, have the same frailties and weaknesses as their more civilized sisters—believe that eating gull's eggs causes loss of beauty and brings on early decrepitude. The men, on the other hand, are fond of seal eyes, a tid-bit which the women believe increases their amorousness, and feed to their lords after the manner of "Open your mouth and shut your eyes."

Game is, as a rule, very tame, and during the moulting season, when the geese are unable to fly, it is quite possible to kill them with a stick. At one place, Cape Thompson, Eskimo were seen catching birds from a high cliff with a kind of scoop-net, and I saw birds at Herald island refuse to move when pelted with stones, so unaccustomed were they to the presence of man. In addition to being very tame, game is plentiful, and it is not uncommon, off the Siberian coast, to see flocks of eider ducks darkening the air and occupying several hours in passing overhead. It was novel sport to see the natives throw a projectile known as an "apluketat" into one of these flocks with astonishing range and accuracy, bringing down the game with the effectiveness of a shotgun.

Game keeps so well in the Arctic that an instance is known of its being perfectly sweet and sound on an English ship after two years' keeping, and whalemen kill a number of pigs, which they hang in the rigging and keep for use during the cruise. It is also noticeable that leather articles do not mildew as they generally do at sea, some shoes kept in a locker on board the Corwin having retained their polish during the entire cruise.

The food of the Eskimo satisfies their instinctive craving for a hydrocarbon, but they do not allow themselves to be much disturbed or distracted in its preparation, as most of it is eaten raw. They occasionally boil their food, however, and some of them have learned the use of flour and molasses, of which they are very fond.

Their aversion to salt is a very marked peculiarity, and they will not eat either corned beef or pork on this account. It may be that physiological reasons exist for this dislike.

SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC RELATIONS.

Omitting other ethnographic facts relative to the Eskimo, which might be treated in a systematic way except for their triteness, we pass from the means of the renewal of the animal economy to its reproduction. Courtship and marriage, which, it is said, are conducted in the most unsentimental manner possible, are for that reason not to be discussed; and for obvious reasons many of the prenatal conditions cannot here be dwelt upon. Having never witnessed the act of parturition in an Eskimo my knowledge of the subject is merely second-hand, and consequently not worth detailing. It appears, though, that parturition is a function easily performed among them, and that it is unattended by the post-partum accidents common to civilization. As a rule the women are unprolific, it being uncommon to find a family numbering over three children, and the mortality among the new-born is excessive, owing to the ignorance and neglect of the ordinary rules of hygiene. They seem, however, to be kind to their children, who in respect to crying do not show the same peevishness as seen in our nurseries; indeed, the social and demonstrative good nature of the race seems to crop out even in babyhood, as I have often witnessed under such circumstances as a baby enveloped in furs in a skin canoe which lay along side the ship during a snowstorm; its tiny hands protruding held