thickset bodies. Their
complexion was a dirty copper colour, but some of the women were
almost fair and ruddy. Their dress, their arms and fishing tackle were
precisely similar to those of the Greenland Eskimo. Their tents were
made of deerskins, and were pitched in a circular form. But these were
only their summer habitations, those for the winter being partly
underground, with a roof framework of poles, over which skins were
stretched; and of course Nature did the rest, covering the roof with
several feet of snow. Owing to being almost entirely surrounded by
snow, these winter houses were very warm. Their household furniture
consisted of stone kettles and wooden troughs of various sizes, also
dishes, scoops, and spoons made of musk-ox horns. The stone kettles
(which some people think they borrowed from the Norse discoverers of
America in the eleventh century) were as large as to be capable of
containing five or six gallons. They were, of course, carved out of
solid blocks of stone, every one of them being ornamented with neat
moulding round the rims, and some of the large ones with fluted work
at each corner. In shape they were oblong, wider at the top than the
bottom, and strong handles of solid stone were left at each end to
lift them up.

The Eskimo hatchets were made of a thick lump of copper about five or
six inches long, and one and a half to two inches broad. They were
bevelled away at one end like a chisel. This piece of copper was
lashed into the end of a piece of wood about twelve or fourteen inches
long. The men's daggers and the women's knives were also made of
copper. The former were in shape like the ace of spades, and the
handle was made of reindeer antler.

With the Eskimo was a fine breed of dogs, with erect ears, sharp
noses, bushy tails. They were all tethered to stones to prevent them
from eating the flesh that was spread all over the rocks to dry.
Apparently, these beautiful dogs were left behind still tethered by
the wicked Amerindians, after the massacre of their owners. Hearne,
however, noticed with these Coppermine River Eskimo that the men were
entirely bald, having all their head hair pulled out by the roots. The
women wore their hair at the usual length.

Before leaving this region to return southwards, Hearne was led by the
Indians to one of the copper mines about thirty miles south-east of
the river mouth. It was no more than a jumble of rocks and gravel,
which had been rent in many