In this dress we
perceived no difference from that of the other Esquimaux, except
that the jacket, instead of having a pointed flap before and
behind, as usual, was quite straight behind, and had a sort of
scallop before in the centre. In the dress of the women there was
not so much regard to decency as in that of the men. The jacket is
of sealskin, with a short, pointed flap before, and a long one
behind, reaching almost to the ground. They had on a kind of
drawers, similar to those described by Crantz as the summer dress
of the Greenland women, and no breeches. The drawers cover the
middle part of the body, from the hips to one third down the
thigh, the rest of which is entirely naked as far as the knee. The
boots are like those of the men; and, besides these, they have a
pair of very loose leggins, as they may be called, which hang down
carelessly upon the top of the boots, suffering their thighs to be
exposed in the manner before described, but which may be intended
occasionally to fasten up, so as to complete the covering of the
whole body. The children are all remarkably well clothed; their
dress, both in male and female, being in every respect the same as
that of the men, and composed entirely of sealskin very neatly
sewed.

The tents which compose their summer habitations are principally
supported by a long pole of whalebone, fourteen feet high,
standing perpendicularly, with four or five feet of it projecting
above the skins which form the roof and sides. The length of the
tent is seventeen, and its breadth from seven to nine feet, the
narrowest part being next the door, and widening towards the inner
part, where the bed, composed of a quantity of the small shrubby
plant, the _Andromeda Tetragona_, occupies about one third of the
whole apartment. The pole of the tent is fixed where the bed
commences, and the latter is kept separate by some pieces of bone
laid across the tent from side to side. The door, which faces the
southwest, is also formed of two pieces of bone, with the upper
ends fastened together, and the skins are made to overlap in that
part of the tent, which is much lower than the inner end. The
covering is fastened to the ground by curved pieces of bone, being
generally parts of the whale; the tents were ten or fifteen yards
apart, and about the same distance from the beach.

The canoe which I purchased, and which was one of the best of the
five that we saw, is sixteen feet eleven inches in le