a whole family, together with the materials of their traffic. In
winter the mountaineers of Labrador pass over the snow, by means of what
are called snow-shoes.

These mountaineers are esteemed an industrious people. They bear fatigue
with almost incredible resolution and patience; and will often travel
two successive days without food. They, every year, come to the Canada
merchants, who have seal-fisheries on the southern coast, and bargain
their furs, in exchange for blanketing, fire-arms, and ammunition; and
they are immoderately fond of spirits. Some of them profess to be Roman
Catholics; but their whole religion seems to consist in reciting a few
prayers, and in counting their beads.

It is customary with these Indians, to destroy such persons among them
as become aged and decrepit. This practice they endeavour to vindicate
from their mode of life: for they assert that those who are unable to
procure the necessaries requisite for their existence, ought not live
merely to consume them.

The _Esquimaux_, who inhabit the northern parts of the country, are a
race similar to the Greenlanders. They have a deep tawny or rather
copper-coloured complexion; and are inferior in size to the generality
of Europeans. Their faces are flat, and their noses short. Their hair is
black and coarse; and their hands and feet are remarkably small. Their
dress, like that of the mountaineers, is entirely of skins; and consists
of a sort of hooded shirt, of breeches, stockings, and boots. The dress
of the different sexes is similar, except that the women wear large
boots, and have their upper garment ornamented with a kind of tail. In
their boots they occasionally place their children; but the youngest
child is always carried at the back of its mother, in the hood of her
jacket. The women ornament their heads with large strings of beads,
which they fasten to the hair above their ears.

The weapons of these Esquimaux are darts, bows, and arrows; and their
food consists chiefly of the flesh of seals, deer, and birds; and of
fish. Some of their canoes are near twenty feet in length, and not more
than two feet wide. They each contain only one person; are formed of a
frame-work, covered with skins; and are so extremely light, that they
are easily overset. Notwithstanding this, and the circumstance that few
of the Esquimaux are able to swim, these people are able to navigate
them, in safety, without a compass, and even in the thickest fogs. W