With the aid of Hans, I endeavored to get at a correct estimate of the whole tribe, and, commencing with Cape York, took down their names. In this community there can be no domestic secrets, and everybody knows all about everybody else's business,--where they go for the summer, and what luck they have had in hunting,--and talk and gossip about it and about each other just as if they were civilized beings, having good names to pick to pieces. But I strongly suspect that Hans grew tired of my questioning and cross-questioning, and stopped short at seventy-two. I have good reason to believe, however, that the tribe numbers more nearly one hundred. I obtained a complete list of the deaths which had taken place since Dr. Kane left them, in 1855. They amounted to thirty-four; and, during that time, there had been only nineteen births. [Sidenote: ESQUIMAU MARRIAGE CEREMONY.] Their marriage engagements are, of necessity, mere matters of convenience. Their customs allow of a plurality of wives; but among this tribe, even if there were sufficient women, no hunter probably could support two families. The marriage arrangement is made by the parents, and the parties are fitted to each other as their ages best suit. When a boy comes of age, he marries the first girl of suitable years. There is no marriage ceremony further than that the boy is required to carry off his bride by main force; for, even among these blubber-eating people, the woman only saves her modesty by a sham resistance, although she knows years beforehand that her destiny is sealed and that she is to become the wife of the man from whose embraces, when the nuptial day comes, she is obliged by the inexorable law of public opinion to free herself if possible, by kicking and screaming with might and main until she is safely landed in the hut of her future lord, when she gives up the combat very cheerfully and takes possession of her new abode. The betrothal often takes place at a very early period of life and at very dissimilar ages. A bright-looking boy named Arko, which means "The spear thrower," who is not over twelve years of age, is engaged to a girl certainly of twenty, named Kartak, "The girl with the large breasts." Why was this? I inquired. "There is no other woman for him." I thought he looked rather dubious of his future matrimonial prospects when I asked him how soon he proposed to carry off this big-breasted bride. Two others, whom I judged to be about ten years each, were to be married in this romantic style as soon as the lover had caught his first seal. This, I was told, is the test of manhood and maturity.