ic, and the mainspring of
all their actions, and that, too, of a kind the most direct and
unamiable that can well be imagined.

In the few opportunities we had of putting their hospitality to the
test, we had every reason to be pleased with them. Both as to food and
accommodation, the best they had were always at our service; and their
attention, both in kind and degree, was everything that hospitality and
even good-breeding could dictate. The kindly offices of drying and
mending our clothes, cooking our provision, and thawing snow for our
drink, were performed by the women with an obliging cheerfulness which
we shall not easily forget, and which commanded its due share of our
admiration and esteem. While thus their guest, I have passed an evening
not only with comfort, but with extreme gratification; for, with the
women working and singing, their husbands quietly mending their lines,
the children playing before the door, and the pot boiling over the blaze
of a cheerful lamp, one might well forget for the time that an Esquimaux
hut was the scene of this domestic comfort and tranquillity; and I can
safely affirm with Cartwright,[011] that, while thus lodged beneath
their roof, I know no people whom I would more confidently trust, as
respects either my person or my property, than the Esquimaux.

The estimation in which women are held among these people is, I think,
somewhat greater than is usual in savage life. In their general
employments they are by no means the drudges that the wives of the
Greenlander's are said to be; being occupied only in those cares which
may properly be called domestic, and, as such, are considered the
peculiar business of the women among the lower classes in civilized
society. The wife of one of these people, for instance, makes and
attends the fire, cooks the victuals, looks after the children, and is
sempstress to her whole family; while her husband is labouring abroad
for their subsistence. In this respect it is not even necessary to
except their task Of cutting up the small seals, which is, in truth, one
of the greatest luxuries and privileges they enjoy; and, even if it were
esteemed a labour, it could scarcely be considered equivalent to that of
the women in many of our own fishing-towns, where the men's business is
at an end the moment the boat touches the beach. The most laborious of
their tasks occur, perhaps, in making their various journeys, when all
their goods and chattels are to b