"The _Samoyt_ hath his name (as the _Russe_ saith) of eating himselfe: as if in times past they lived as the _Cannibals_, eating one another. Which they make more probable, because at this time they eate all kind of raw flesh, whatsoeuer it bee, euen the very carrion that lyeth in the ditch. But as the _Samoits_ themselves will say, they were called _Samoie_, that is, _of themselves_, as though they were _Indigenae_, or people bred upon that very soyle that never changed their seate from one place to another, as most Nations have done. They are clad in Seale-skinnes, with the hayrie side outwards downe as low as the knees, with their Breeches and Netherstocks of the same, both men and women. They are all Blacke hayred, naturally beardless. And therefore the Men are hardly discerned from the Women by their lookes: saue that the Women weare a locke of hayre down along both their eares." In nearly the same way the Samoyeds are described by G. DE VEER in his account of Barents' second voyage in 1595. Barents got good information from the Samoyeds as to the navigable water to the eastward, and always stood on a good footing with them, excepting on one occasion when the Samoyeds went down to the Dutchmen's boats and took back an idol which had been carried off from a large sacrificial mound. [Illustration: SAMOYEDS. From Schleissing's Neu-entdecktes Sieweria, worinnen die Zobeln gefangen werden. Zittau 1693.[59] ] The Samoyeds have since formed the subject of a very extensive literature, of which however it is impossible for me to give any account here. Among other points their relations to other races have been much discussed. On this subject I have received from my learned friend, the renowned philologist Professor AHLQUIST of Helsingfors the following communication:--