ey have gone through, and with whatever success in
procuring game, no individual ever seems to arrogate to himself the
credit of having done more than his neighbour for the general good. Nor
do I conceive there is reason to doubt their personal courage, though
they are too good-natured often to excite others to put that quality to
the test. It is true, they will recoil with horror at the tale of an
Indian massacre, and probably cannot conceive what should induce one set
of men deliberately and without provocation to murder another. War is
not their trade; ferocity forms no part of the disposition of the
Esquimaux. Whatever manly qualities they possess are exercised in a
different way, and put to a far more worthy purpose. They are
fishermen, and not warriors; but I cannot call that man a coward who,
at the age of one-and-twenty, will attack a polar bear single-handed, or
fearlessly commit himself to floating masses of ice, which the next puff
of wind may drift for ever from the shore.

Of the few arts possessed by this simple people, some account has
already been given in the description of their various implements. As
mechanics, they have little to boast when compared with other savages
lying under equal disadvantages as to scantiness of tools and materials.
As carpenters, they can scarf two pieces of wood together, secure them
with pins of whalebone or ivory, fashion the timbers of a canoe, shoe a
paddle, and rivet a scrap of iron into a spear or arrow-head. Their
principal tool is the knife (panna); and, considering the excellence of
a great number which they possessed previous to our intercourse with
them, the work they do is remarkably coarse and clumsy. Their very
manner of holding and handling a knife is the most awkward that can be
imagined. For the purpose of boring holes, they have a drill and bow so
exactly like our own, that they need no farther description, except that
the end of the drill handle, which our artists place against their
breasts, is rested by these people against a piece of wood or bone held
in their mouths, and having a cavity fitted to receive it. With the use
of the saw they were well acquainted, but had nothing of this kind in
their possession better than a notched piece of iron. One or two small
European axes were lashed to handles in a contrary direction to ours,
that is, to be used like an adze, a form which, according to the
observation of a traveller[012] well qualified to judge, savag