In that cold country I saw some Indians.
They were dressed in skins. I never saw such
dirty-looking men and women before in all my life,
and I have never seen any such since. They had
never seen a ship before, I should think. I thought
they did not know much more than the white bears.
Why, they would sell almost all the clothes they had
on, if we would give them a few pieces of glass, or
a nail or two. One of the women who came to the
ship had a little girl about four years old, and she
said she would give us that girl, if we would let
her have a tin pan which she saw.
These Indians tie their children on
their backs, when they have to walk a great way.
They licked the oil on the outside of our lamps, just
as a dog or a cat would have done. Oh, what dirty
people! They eat their meat raw. We killed
a seal one day, and our captain gave it to one of
the young women. She took it, and bit it into
pieces with her teeth. Then she passed it round
to the rest of the Indians, and they all helped eat
it.