Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 423: Volume 17, New Series, February 7, 1852Various
History
Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 423: Volume 17, New Series, February 7, 1852
Various
Periodicals
natives, even before their own provisions were exhausted; and after
that, we may be very sure their appetites would lose all delicacy, and
they would necessarily and easily conform to the usages, as regards
food, of the natives around them. We may strengthen our opinion by the
direct and decisive testimony of Sir John Boss himself, who says: 'I
have little doubt, indeed, that many of the unhappy men who have
perished from wintering in these climates, and whose histories are
well known, might have been saved had they conformed, as is so
generally prudent, to the usages and the experience of the natives.'
Undoubtedly they might!
Secondly, as to the Europeans being unable to capture the beasts,
birds, and fishes so dexterously as the natives, we have reason to
know that the reverse is the case. It is true that the latter know the
habits and haunts of wild creatures by long experience, and also know
the best way to capture some of them; but a very little communication
with natives enables the European to learn the secret; and he soon far
excels his simple instructors in the art, being aided by vastly
superior reasoning faculties, and also by incomparably better
appliances for the chase. Firearms for shooting beasts and birds, and
seines for catching fish, render the Esquimaux spears, and arrows, and
traps mere children's toys in comparison. Moreover, a ship is never
frozen up many weeks, before some wandering tribe is sure to visit it;
and all navigators have found the natives a mild, friendly, grateful
people, with fewer vices than almost any other savages in the World.
They will thankfully barter as many salmon as will feed a ship's crew
one day for a file or two, or needles, or a tin-canister, or piece of
old iron-hoop, or any trifling article of hardware; and so long as the
vessel remains, they and other tribes of their kindred will frequently
visit it, and bring animals and fish to barter for what is literally
almost valueless to European adventurers.
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