nd while Oolibuck
entertained the men on shore, he presented gifts to the women, who
received them with the most childish demonstrations of joy. There was
something irresistibly comic in the childlike simplicity of these poor
natives. Instead of the stiff reserve and haughty demeanour of their
Indian neighbours, they danced and sang, and leaped and roared, embraced
each other and wept, with the most reckless indifference to appearances,
and seemed upon all occasions to give instant vent to the feelings that
happened to be uppermost in their minds. As Stanley continued to
distribute his gifts, the women crowded out of the other oomiaks into
the one in which he stood, until they nearly sank it; some of them
extending their arms for beads, others giving a jolt to the hoods on
their backs, which had the effect of bringing to light fat, greasy-faced
little babies, who were pointed to as being peculiarly worthy of
attention.

At length Stanley broke from them and leaped ashore, where he was soon
followed by the entire band. But here new objects--namely, Mrs Stanley
and Edith--attracted their wondering attention. Approaching towards the
former, they began timidly to examine her dress, which was indeed very
different from theirs, and calculated to awaken curiosity and surprise.
The Esquimau women were dressed very much like the men--namely, in long
shirts of sealskin or deerskin with the hair on, short breeches of the
same material, and long sealskin boots. The hoods of the women were
larger than those of the men, and their boots much more capacious; and
while the latter had a short stump of a tail or peak hanging from the
hinder part of their shirts, the women wore their tails so long that
they trailed along the ground as they walked. In some cases these tails
were four and six inches broad, with a round flap at the end, and
fringed with ermine. It was, therefore, with no little surprise that
they found Mrs Stanley entirely destitute of a tail, and observed that
she wore her upper garment so long that it reached the ground. Becoming
gradually more familiar, on seeing that the strange woman permitted them
to handle her pretty freely, one of them gently lifted up her gown to
see whether or not she wore boots; but receiving a somewhat prompt
repulse, she began to caress her, and assured her that she did not mean
to give offence.

By this time Frank and some of the men had joined the group on the
shore, and as it was ge