The First Landing on Wrangel Island | Page 6

at sea of his little
shuttle-shaped canoe, which is a kind of marine bicycle, but I doubt
very much the somersaults he is reported to be able to turn in them. In
fact, after offering rewards of that all-powerful incentive, tobacco, on
numerous occasions, I have been unsuccessful in getting any one of
them to attempt the feat, and when told that we had heard of their doing
it they smiled rather incredulously. The Eskimo are clearly not
successes in a cubistic or saltatorial line, as I have had ample
opportunities to observe. They seem to be unable to do the simplest
gymnastics, and were filled with the greatest delight and astonishment
at some exhibitions we gave them on several occasions. Receiving a
challenge to run a foot-race with an Eskimo, I came off easy winner,
although I was handicapped by being out of condition at the time; a
challenge to throw stones also resulted in the same kind of victory; I
shouldered and carried some logs of driftwood that none of them could
lift, and on another occasion the captain and I demonstrated the
physical superiority of the Anglo-Saxon by throwing a walrus lance

several lengths farther than any of the Eskimo who had provoked the
competition. As a rule they are deficient in biceps, and have not the
well-developed muscles of athletic white men. The best muscular
development I saw was among the natives of Saint Lawrence island,
who, by the way, showed me a spot in a village where they practiced
athletic sports, one of these diversions being lifting and "putting" heavy
stones, and I have frankly to acknowledge that a young Eskimo got the
better of me in a competition of this kind. It is fair to assume that one
reason for this physical superiority was the inexorable law of the
survival of the fittest, the natives in question being the survivors of a
recent prevailing epidemic and famine.
ESKIMO APPETITES.
As far as my experience goes the Eskimo have not the enormous
appetites with which they are usually accredited. The Eskimo who
accompanied Lieutenant May, of the Nares Expedition, on his sledge
journey, is reported to have been a small eater, and the only case of
scurvy, by the way; several Eskimo who were employed on board the
Corwin as dog-drivers and interpreters were as a rule smaller eaters
than our own men, and I have observed on numerous occasions among
the Eskimo I have visited, that instead of being great gluttons, they are,
on the contrary, moderate eaters. It is, perhaps, the revolting character
of their food--rancid oil, a tray of hot seal entrails, a bowl of coagulated
blood, for example--that causes overestimation of the quantity eaten.
Persons in whom nausea and disgust are awakened at tripe, putrid game,
or moldy and maggoty cheese affected by so-called epicures, not to
mention the bad oysters which George I. preferred to fresh ones, would
doubtless be prejudiced and incorrect observers as to the quantity of
food an Eskimo might consume. From some acquaintance with the
subject I therefore venture to say that the popular notion regarding the
great appetite of the Eskimo is one of the current fallacies. The reported
cases were probably exceptional ones, happening in subjects who had
been exercising and living on little else than frozen air for perhaps a
week. Any vigorous man in the prime of life who has been shooting all
day in the sharp, crisp air of the Arctic will be surprised at his
gastronomic capabilities; and personal knowledge of some almost

incredible instances amongst civilized men might be related, were it not
for fear of being accused of transcending the bounds of veracity.
ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT.
There is so much about certain parts of Alaska to remind one of
Scotland that we wonder why some of the more southern Eskimo have
not the intrepidity and vigor of Scotchmen, since they live under almost
the same topographical conditions amid fogs and misty hills. Perhaps if
they were fed on oatmeal, and could be made to adopt a few of the
Scotch manners and customs, religious and otherwise, they might, after
infinite ages of evolution, develop some of the qualities of that
excellent race. It is probably not so very many generations ago that our
British progenitors were like these original and primitive men as we
find them in the vicinity of Bering straits. Here the mind is taken back
over centuries, and one is able to study the link of transition between
the primitive men of the two continents at the spot where their
geographical relations lead us to suspect it. Indeed, the primitive man
may be seen just as he was thousands of years ago by visiting the
village perched like the eyry of some wild bird about 200 feet