have a drill and bow so exactly like our own, that they need no farther description, except that the end of the drill handle, which our artists place against their breasts, is rested by these people against a piece of wood or bone held in their mouths, and having a cavity fitted to receive it.  With the use of the saw they were well acquainted, but had nothing of this kind in their possession better than a notched piece of iron.  One or two small European axes were lashed to handles in a contrary direction to ours, that is, to be used like an adze, a form which, according to the observation of a traveller[012] well qualified to judge, savages in general prefer.  It was said that these people steamed or boiled wood, in order to bend it for fashioning the timbers of their canoes.  As fishermen or seamen, they can put on a woolding or seizing with sufficient strength and security, and are acquainted with some of the most simple and serviceable knots in use among us.  In all the arts, however, practised by the men, it is observable that the ingenuity lies in the principle, not in the execution.  The experience of ages has led them to adopt the most efficacious methods, but their practice as handicrafts has gone no farther than absolute necessity requires; they bestow little labour upon neatness or ornament.

In some of the few arts practised by the women there is much more dexterity displayed, particularly in that important branch of a housewife’s business, sewing, which, even with their own clumsy needles of bone, they perform with extraordinary neatness.  They had, however, several steel needles of a three-cornered shape, which they kept in a very convenient case, consisting of a strip of leather passed through a hollow bone, and having its ends remaining out, so that the needles which are stuck into it may be drawn in and out at pleasure.  These cases were sometimes ornamented by cutting; and several thimbles of leather, one of which, in sewing, is worn on the first finger, are usually attached to it, together with a bunch of narrow spoons and other small articles liable to be lost.  The thread they use is the sinew of the reindeer (tooktoo =ew=all~o~o), or, when they cannot procure this, the swallow-pipe of the neiliek.  This may be split into threads of different sizes, according to the nature of their work, and is certainly a most admirable material.  This, together with any other articles of a similar kind, they keep in little bags, which are sometimes made of the skin of birds’ feet, disposed with the claws downward in a very neat and tasteful manner.  In sewing, the point of the needle is entered and drawn through in a direction towards the body, and not from it or towards one side, as with our seamstresses.  They sew the deerskins with a “round seam,” and the water-tight boots and shoes are “stitched.”  The latter is performed in a very adroit and efficacious manner, by putting the needle only half through the substance of one part of the sealskin, so as to leave