Each band of Eskimo inhabits some particular spot or tract of the coast, and takes its name after the country, or some peculiarity it exhibits. For instance, the land at the point of Fox Channel and Hudson Strait is called Sikkoswelak, a term which describes the fact that the ice just there is seldom stable, owing to the swift local tides. Thus the tribe is known to the rest as the Sikkoswelangmeoot or “The-People-of-the-Place-which-never-Freezes.” Again, there are the Puisortak or the “People-who-live-where-Something-Shoots-up” (a blow-hole in a glacier). The tribe is not a very big unit. It consists of about ten to twenty families (generally less, and, be it noted, the people are polygamists), but the birth-rate is a low one. The deaths fairly balance the births, so that their numbers remain more or less stable. Were not this the case, the regions they inhabit could never support them, for the Eskimo are voracious eaters (naturally, considering the climate!) and so far as land animals are concerned, the hunting is very scanty for many months of the year. Apropos of this peace-loving, non-belligerent quality in the Eskimo character, some word should be offered in explanation of the fact that these people have occasionally shown themselves dangerous to the white men, and have murdered a few whalers and traders. As far as any historical records of them exist at all, it would seem that on one occasion only did the Eskimo ever go to war, or make an active and successful stand against their enemies. This was many centuries ago. The handful of Norsemen from Iceland who originally colonised some spots along the coast of southern Greenland, lived peaceably enough with the natives they discovered there. At last, however, a quarrel broke out, blood was spilt, and the Eskimo, plucking up a courage and spirit never since repeated, fought and killed off the foreigners. But in America, whenever the Innuit came into contact with the Red Indians they simply fled before them ever farther and farther into the icy fastnesses of the north. The red men seem to have been always particularly savage and inimical to the others. And when in the course of time they became possessed of firearms, they pressed this overwhelming advantage against the spear and bow-and-arrow people more ruthlessly than ever.