The
old man had a large scar on one side of his head, which he
explained to us very clearly to be a wound he had received from a
_nennook_ (bear). Upon the whole, these people may be considered
in possession of every necessary of life, as well as of most of
the comforts and conveniences which can be enjoyed in so rude a
state of society. In the situation and circumstances in which the
Esquimaux of North Greenland are placed, there is much to excite
compassion for the low state to which human nature appears to be
there reduced; a state in few respects superior to that of the
bear or the seal which they kill for their subsistence. But, with
these, it was impossible not to experience a feeling of a more
pleasing kind: there was a respectful decency in their general
behaviour, which at once struck us as very different from that of
the other untutored Esquimaux, and in their persons there was less
of that intolerable filth by which these people are so generally
distinguished. But the superiority for which they are the most
remarkable is, the perfect honesty which characterized all their
dealings with us. During the two hours that the men were on board,
and for four or five hours that we were subsequently among them on
shore (on both which occasions the temptation to steal from us was
perhaps stronger than we can well imagine, and the opportunity of
doing so by no means wanting), not a single instance occurred, to
my knowledge, of their pilfering the most trifling article.
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