The Eskimos are, in fact, the only inhabitants of a vast territory, which includes the shores of Arctic America, the whole of Greenland, and a tract about four hundred miles long on the Asiatic coast beyond Behring Strait, thus extending over a distance of five thousand miles from east to west, and three thousand two hundred miles from north to south. Notwithstanding this wide distribution, there is a remarkable uniformity, not only in the physical features of the Eskimos, but also in their manners, traditions, and language. Consequently very much that may be said of the Canadian Children of the Cold (that is, the Eskimos of Labrador and Hudson Bay) would be equally true of the other branches of the race. For a great deal of interesting information concerning them we are indebted to the writings of such men as Ribbach and Herzeburg, Moravian missionaries, who, with a heroic zeal that only those familiar with their lot can adequately appreciate, have devoted themselves to "the cure of souls" among the Eskimos. There are six of these Moravian missions scattered along the eastern coast of Labrador. Nain, the chief one, was established as far back as 1771, Okkak in 1776, Hopedale in 1782, and Hebron, Zoar, and Ramah more recently. The bestowal of so attractive Biblical names helps very little, however, to mitigate the unfavourable impression produced by the forbidding surroundings of these tiny oases almost lost in a seemingly illimitable desert. Sheer from the sea, except where broken by frequent gulf and fiord, the coast line towers up in tremendous and unpitying sternness, and at its base the breakers thunder with a force and fury that knows little pause throughout the year. From end to end the shore is jagged like a gigantic saw with innumerable bays and inlets, sprinkled thick with islands and underlaid with hidden reefs, which makes these waters difficult to find and dangerous to navigate. The interior of the country is equally repellent. Although toward the west it becomes less mountainous and slightly undulating, like the American prairie, it presents nothing but an inhospitable and savage wilderness, covered with immense forests, broken by numerous swamps and lakes, and untouched by human foot, save when now and then a band of Red Indians venture thither, lured by the hope of food and fur. The Eskimos upon the eastern coast of Labrador are, as a rule, small of stature, not much exceeding five feet. Those upon the western shore, however, are taller and more robust; they are quite strongly built, with hair and beard sweeping down over the shoulders and chest. When the good seed sown by the patient missionary finds lodging in a Husky’s heart, he usually signalizes his adoption of Christianity by indulging in a clean shave, or at least by cutting his beard short with a pair of scissors, in deference perhaps to the judgment of St. Paul that "if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him."