As every nation has its peculiar way of living and of getting their livelihood, suiting their genius and temper to the nature and produce of the country they inhabit; so the Greenlanders likewise have theirs, peculiar to themselves and their country. And though their way and customs may seem to others mean and silly, yet they are such as very well serve their turn, and which we can find no fault with. Their ordinary employments are fishing and hunting: on shore they hunt the rein deer, and at sea they pursue the whales, morses, seals, and other sea animals, as also sea fowls and fishes. The manner of hunting the rein deer has been treated of above in the fifth chapter; but there we took no notice of their bows and arrows, which they make use of in the killing those deer. Their bow is of an ordinary make, commonly made of fir tree, which in Norway is called tenal, and on the back strengthened with strings made of sinews of animals, twisted like thread: the bow string is made of a good strong strap of seal skin, or of several sinews twisted together; the bow is a good fathom long. The head of the arrow is armed with iron, or a sharp pointed bone, with one or more hooks, that it may keep hold, when shot into a deer’s body. The arrows they shoot birds with are at the head covered with one or more pieces of bone blunt at the end, that they may kill the fowl without tearing the flesh. The sea fowls are not shot with arrows, but with darts, headed with bones or iron, which they throw very dexterously, and with so steady a hand at a great distance, that nobody can hit surer with a gun. They are more frequently employed at sea than on shore; and I confess they surpass therein most other nations; for their way of taking whales, seals, and other sea animals is by far the most skilful and most easy and handy.