some natives were come across with whom we were unable to communicate
except by signs, and wishing to let them know the object of our visit, a
ship was drawn in a note-book and shown to them, with accompanying
gesticulations, which they quickly comprehended, and one fellow, taking
the pencil and note-book, drew correctly a pair of reindeer horns on the
ship's jib-boom--a fact which identified, beyond doubt, the derelict
vessel they had seen. At Point Hope an Eskimo, who had allowed us to
take sketches of him, desired to sketch one of the party, and taking one
of our note-books and a pencil, neither of which he ever had in his hand
before, produced the accompanying likeness of Professor Muir:

[Illustration]

At Saint Michael's there is an Eskimo boy who draws remarkably well,
having taught himself by copying from the _Illustrated London News_. He
made a correct pen-and-ink drawing of the _Corwin_, and another of the
group of buildings at Saint Michael's, which, though creditable in many
respects, had the defect of many Chinese pictures, being faulty in
perspective. As these drawings equal those in Dr. Rink's book, done by
Greenland artists, I regret my inability to reproduce them here. As
evidences of culture they show more advancement than the carvings of
English rustics that a clergyman has caused to be placed on exhibition
at the Kensington Museum.

Sir John Ross speaks highly of his interpreter as an artist; Beechy says
that the knowledge of the coast obtained by him from Innuit maps was of
the greatest value, while Hall and others show their geographical
knowledge to be as perfect as that possible of attainment by civilized
men unaided by instruments. I had frequent opportunities to observe
these Eskimo ideas of chartography. They not only understood reading a