Chapter II: The people of Greenland――Labrador

In order to observe some method, in our account of the people of America, we shall introduce our readers in the first place to the Greenlanders, for I shall here consider Greenland as belonging to the American continent. For a long time Greenland was supposed to be united to this American continent; but it is now ascertained to be a large island. It lies so near to America, however, on the north-east, that it is proper to speak of it in this connection.

Greenland is a cold country, and very mountainous. It is quite barren, except in spots; but the sea is well stored with fish. The country also abounds with reindeer, foxes, white bears, sea-wolves, sea-dogs and sea-cows.

The Greenlanders are short in stature, seldom exceeding five feet in height; but well formed, and rather stout. Their faces are broad and flat; their eyes, nose, and mouth commonly small; their under lip sometimes thicker than the upper; they have high breasts and broad shoulders; their complexion is brown or olive, and their hair coal-black and long.

When they rise in the morning, they appear thoughtful and dejected, but in the evening, when their toil is over, they are cheerful and happy. In general, however, they are not very lively in their temper, yet good-humored and friendly. When a person dies, they think he goes to the land of spirits where he spends his time in hunting.

They are very fond of hunting and fishing; and in both they are very expert. They kill many seals; these furnish them with food. The oil they use as sauce, and of the blood they make soup. They use the oil also for lamp light and kitchen fire.

The clothing of the Greenlanders is composed of the skin of the reindeer, seals, and some kinds of birds, which they sew together with the sinews of the reindeer, seal, or whale. Their best garments they keep quite neat; but their ordinary dress abounds in filth and vermin. Their clothes smell so strong, that an inhabitant of the United States would be glad to get to the windward of a Greenlander.

The dwellings of the Greenlanders are of two sorts; one for summer, the other for winter. Their summer habitations are light tents, constructed with a few poles, covered with seal skins. Their winter habitations are built of stones, filled in with moss and covered with turf. The principal apartment is chiefly under ground, and the passage to it is so low, that it is necessary to creep rather than walk to it.

The Greenland women are very much degraded, and their lives are toilsome. They act as butchers and cooks; they dress all the skins, and then make them into garments, boots, shoes, &c. They are even obliged to build and repair the winter habitations, excepting that the men assist about the carpenter’s work.

We are sure that our readers would not wish to live in Greenland; yet the inhabitants of that island think their country the best in the world. If at any time a Greenlander is carried to a warmer clime, he longs for his native snows; and, if he cannot hope to return, he sometimes pines away and dies.

Crossing Davis’ Strait, which is not very wide, we reach that part of the American continent which is called Labrador. This is the country of the Esquimaux.

These people resemble the Greenlanders in several important respects. Like them, they are low in stature, and in complexion are very sallow. Their beards are thick and bushy; but, unlike the Greenlanders, their constitutions are feeble. They are a timorous people, and stroke their breasts in token of peace, when they approach a stranger.

The word Esquimaux, signifies “eaters of raw flesh.” They are very properly named. They are a rude and miserable race of beings, but some of them, it is said, have been taught to read the Scriptures. Their food consists chiefly of fish, with the flesh of the seal and the reindeer. Their greatest luxury is seal blubber, or oil, which they devour with as great relish as boys and girls of this country do sweetmeats.

The dress of these people is made of skins. Men and women dress nearly alike. The women use no trinkets except beads; but they ornament themselves by drawing a needle and thread, blackened with soot, under the skin. This leaves a light blue mark. It is a painful operation; but they delight so much in this kind of marks, that they sometimes cover almost their whole body with them.

The Esquimaux have a singular kind of dog, of which they keep large numbers. In this country, we should think it strange if a dog could not bark; yet theirs never bark. They make use of them to draw their sledges and guard their habitations. Sometimes they eat them, and use their skins for clothing.

Their dwellings in winter resemble caves or holes dug in the earth. They are rendered very filthy by the large quantities of fat or oil which are burnt in them, and which are used in cooking. In summer, they live in tents, much like the Greenlanders.

When Captain Parry made his voyage towards the north pole, a few years since, he found some Esquimaux people living north of Hudson’s Bay. These lived in huts, built of frozen snow. They were very talkative, good-humored and friendly. When they saw anything that pleased them, some fell to singing and dancing, while others screamed as loud as they could. Captain Parry’s men gave them some food; but they made up hideous mouths at it, till, at length, a sailor wet up some dried bread pounded fine, with train-oil, which they licked up with great delight. This would be a loathsome dish to some of our readers in the United States.

These people seem to have no idea of formal religious worship, yet they believe they shall live after death; and if they are good, according to their ideas, that they shall go to heaven and be perfectly happy. Perfect happiness, in their view, no doubt, consists in having plenty of blubber to eat. Without the light of the Bible, how degraded mankind are!

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“JOHN, your coat is too short.”

“Yes, sir; but it will be long enough before I get another.”

Bonaparte and the Leg of Mutton.

Some forty years ago, we are told that in England, such was the horror generally entertained of Bonaparte, that he was not only the fear of statesmen, but the bug-bear of the nursery and the schoolroom. “If you do this,” said the schoolma’m, birch in hand, “I’ll send Bony after you;” and, “if you don’t do that, I’ll do the same thing.” Bony was, in fact, the great scare-crow,――and many a child grew up under the impression that he was a sort of secondary evil spirit.

We are told by an English writer, that, at a certain boarding school, upon one occasion, a leg of mutton was stolen, and, as almost every evil thing was laid to Bonaparte, the children immediately supposed that he must be the thief! The writer himself, then a child, fancied the emperor, with the mutton in his fist, running off with it, and taking enormous strides in his eagerness to escape.

How many lasting prejudices, how many abiding errors are fixed in the mind by the inconsiderate threats of those who have the charge of youth! It is probable that many of the various defects, weaknesses and eccentricities of character,――those is some cases which are fatal to success in life,――are caused by the foolish and false modes of government to which we allude. We hardly know of a more unpardonable offence than for a person to endeavor to govern a child through fear of some fictitious evil.

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Names of Countries and Places.

The following countries were named by the Phœnicians, the greatest commercial people of the ancient world. These names, in the Phœnician language, signify something characteristic of the place which they designated. _Europe_ signifies a country of white complexions, so named, because the inhabitants there were of a fairer complexion than those of Asia and Africa. _Asia_ signifies between, or in the middle, from the fact that the geographers placed it between Europe and Africa. _Africa_ signifies the land of corn ears; it was celebrated for its abundance of corn and all sorts of grain.

_Lydia_ signifies thirsty or dry,――very characteristic of the country. _Spain_ signifies a country of rabbits or conies; this country was once so infested with these animals, that Augustus was besought to destroy them. _Italy_ means a country of pitch; and _Calabria_ has the same signification, for a similar reason. _Gaul_, modern France, signifies yellow-haired, as yellow hair characterized its first inhabitants. _Caledonia_ means a woody region. _Hibernia_ means last habitation; for, beyond this, westward, the Phœnicians never extended their voyages.

_Britain_ signifies the country of tin, as there were great quantities of tin and lead found here and in the adjacent islands. The Greeks called it _Albion_, which signifies, in the Phœnician tongue, either white or high mountain, from the whiteness of its shores, or the high rocks on the western coast. _Corsica_ signifies a woody place, and _Sardinia_, the footstep of a man, which it resembles. _Rhodes_, means serpents or dragons, which it produced in abundance. _Sicily_ means the country of grapes; _Scylla_, the whirlpool, is destruction. _Syracuse_ signifies bad savor, so called from the unwholesome marsh upon which it stood. _Ætna_ signifies furnace, or smoke.

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Snuff-Taking.

Snuff-taking is an old custom; yet, if we came suddenly upon it in a foreign country, it would make us split our sides with laughter. A grave gentleman takes a little casket out of his pocket, puts a finger and thumb in, brings away a pinch of a sort of powder, and then, with the most serious air possible, as if he were doing one of the most important acts of his life――for, even with the most indifferent snuff-taker, there is a certain look of importance――proceeds to thrust it into his nose; after which he shakes his head, or his waiscoat, or his nose itself, or all three, in the style of a man who has done his duty and satisfied the most serious claims of his well being.

It is curious to see the various ways in which people take snuff. Some do it by little fits and starts, and get over the thing quickly. There are epigrammatic snuff-takers, who come to the point as fast as possible, and to whom the pungency is everything. They generally use a sharp and severe snuff, a sort of essence of pins’ points. Others are all urbanity and polished demeanor; they value the style, as well as the sensation, and offer the box around them as much out of dignity as benevolence.

Some people take snuff irritably, others bashfully, others in a manner as dry as the snuff itself; generally with an economy of the vegetable; others with a luxuriance of gesture, and a lavishness of supply that announces a more moist article, and sheds its superfluous honors upon neckcloth and coat. Dr. Johnson was probably a snuff-taker of this kind. He used to take it out of his waistcoat pocket, instead of a box.

There is a species of long-armed snuff-takers who perform the operation in a style of potent and elaborate preparation, ending with a sudden activity. He puts his head on one side, then stretches forth his arm with pinch in hand, then brings round his arm as a snuff-taking elephant might his trunk, and finally shakes snuff, head and nose together, in a sudden vehemence of convulsion. His eyebrows are all the time lifted up, as if to make more room for the onset, and when he has ended, he draws himself up to the perpendicular, and generally proclaims the victory he has won over the insipidity of the previous moment, by a snuff and a great “Flah!”

Squirrels.

In the second volume of the Museum, we told some things about squirrels in general, but did not say anything about the different kinds particularly, which we will now proceed to do. They are so interesting a class (or, as the naturalists would say, genus) of animals, and especially so to children and young persons, that we think the readers of Merry’s Museum will like to hear more about them.

They have often, I have no doubt, been delighted at seeing their gambols, and their activity in leaping from tree to tree, and especially in seeing them eat nuts, sitting on their hinder legs, or haunches, with their bushy tails turned up over their bodies, and holding the nuts in their fore-paws, and making a hole through the shell with their sharp teeth to extract the kernel. It is very amusing to observe them thus engaged, and very surprising to see how rapidly they will make a hole through the hardest shelled nut. For this purpose, without doubt, it is, that He who made the squirrels, and who is the same glorious Being that created us, has formed their teeth very strong and very sharp.

There is quite a variety of squirrels that inhabit this country, but the most common in New England are the Gray Squirrel, the Red Squirrel, the Ground or Chip Squirrel, and the Flying Squirrel. All these kinds are frequently to be seen in almost every district, though the flying squirrel, on account of his habit of stirring about in the night, and lying still in the day-time, is not so frequently seen. They are all very beautiful and interesting creatures.

The gray squirrel is the largest of those I have named, and is frequently hunted for food, as his flesh is very palatable. A squirrel-hunt, in the fall, is a very common and very exciting amusement in many places in the country, and, when conducted with as much regard to humanity as practicable, is, perhaps, not only a pleasant, but a harmless and proper recreation. It is very apt, however, to be attended with the wanton slaughter of small birds, and other instances of unnecessary cruelty. In the newly-settled parts of the country, these squirrels are sometimes so numerous, that they make very serious havoc with the corn crop, and, in some cases, almost entirely destroy it. Its ordinary food, however, consists of nuts of various kinds, of which, like the other squirrels, it lays up a large supply for the winter. “This species,” says Godman, in his American Natural History, “is remarkable among all our squirrels for its beauty and activity. It is, in captivity, remarkably playful and mischievous, and is more frequently kept as a pet than any other.” I dare say many of my young readers have seen one or more of them in a rolling cage, and, by rapidly running over the bars, making it revolve almost with the speed of a mill-stone. Its general color is gray, as its name indicates, and it has a very large, bushy tail, which sometimes hides almost its whole body.

The red squirrel, or Chickaree, as he is sometimes called in the Middle States, is the next largest of the four, and is a common and beautiful animal, often seen on the trees by the road-sides. Frequently, you will hear a half barking and half twittering noise, and, looking up, you will see a red squirrel on the limb of a tree, a few feet above you, from which the sound proceeds. It seems to be a complaint for your encroachment on his premises, and a kind of warning to move out of his neighborhood. They frequently come around our dwellings for fruit and various sorts of food. Several of them now reside close by my house, and daily come into my woodshed for butternuts, which my children place there for them, and carry them up into a pear-tree standing by the side of the shed, and then devour them. I caught one of them in a box-trap, and kept him in confinement long enough to make a picture of him, and then set him at liberty, and he returns as freely as ever. Their food and habits generally are similar to those of the gray squirrel, though they are much more familiar, in the wild state, than the other. He is of a reddish brown color,――whence he takes his name,――and he has a dark stripe along his side, separating the red color from the white.

The account of the chip, or ground squirrel, and the flying squirrel, will be given in another number of the Museum.

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CONSOLATION IN SEA-SICKNESS.――A lady at sea, full of apprehension in a gale of wind, cried out, among other exclamations, “We shall go to the bottom! mercy on us, how my head swims!” “Madam, never fear,” said one of the sailors; “you can never go to the bottom _while your head swims_!”

The Blue Jay.

“A blue jay,” says Wilson, “which I have kept for some time, and with whom I am on terms of familiarity, is a very notable example of mildness of disposition and sociability of manners. An accident in the woods first put me in possession of this bird, when in full plumage, and in high health and spirits. I carried him home with me, and put him into a cage already occupied by a gold-winged woodpecker, where he was saluted with such rudeness, and received such a drubbing from the lord of the manor, for entering his premises, that, to save his life, I was obliged to take him out again.

“I then put him into another cage, where the only tenant was a female orchard oriole. She also put on airs of alarm, as if she considered herself endangered and insulted by the intrusion. The jay, meanwhile, sat mute and motionless on the bottom of the cage, either dubious of his own situation, or willing to allow time for the fears of his neighbor to subside. Accordingly, in a few minutes, after displaying various threatening gestures, she began to make her approach, but with great circumspection and readiness for retreat.

Seeing the jay, however, begin to pick up some crumbs of broken chestnuts, in a humble and peaceable way, she also descended, and began to do the same; but, at the slightest motion of her new guest, wheeled round and put herself on the defensive. All this ceremonious jealousy vanished before evening, and they now roost together, and feed and play together in perfect harmony and good humor. When the jay goes to drink, his messmate very impudently jumps into the water to wash herself, throwing the water in showers over her companion, who bears it all patiently, and venturing to take a sip now and then between the splashes, without betraying the smallest token of irritation. On the contrary, he seems to take pleasure in his little fellow-prisoner, allowing her to clean his claws from the minute fragments of chestnuts which happen to adhere to them.”

LINES PLACED OVER A CHIMNEY-PIECE.

Surly Winter, come not here;
Bluster in thy proper sphere:
Howl along the naked plain,
There exert thy joyless reign;
Triumph o’er the withered flower,
The leafless shrub, the ruined bower;
But our cottage come not near;――
Other springs inhabit here,
Other sunshine decks our board
Than the niggard skies afford.
Gloomy winter, hence! away!
Love and fancy scorn thy sway;
Love and joy, and friendly mirth
Shall bless this roof, these walls, this hearth,
The rigor of the year control,
And thaw the winter in the soul.

_Mrs. Barbauld._

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A GERMAN gentleman, in the course of a strict cross-examination on a trial was asked to state the exact age of the defendant.

“Dirty,” (thirty,) was the reply.

“And pray, sir, are you his senior and by how many years?”

“Why, sir, I am dirty-two.”

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THE SHOE-BLACK AND HIS DOG.――An English officer of the 44th regiment, who had occasion, when in Paris, to pass one of the bridges across the Seine, had his boots, which had been previously well polished, dirtied by a poodle dog rubbing against them. He, in consequence, went to a man, who was stationed on the bridge, and had them cleaned. The same circumstance having occurred more than once, his curiosity was excited, and he watched the dog. He saw him roll himself in the mud of the river, and then watch for a person with well-polished boots, against which he continued to rub himself.

Finding that the shoe-black was the owner of the dog, he taxed him with the artifice; and, after a little hesitation, he confessed that he had taught the dog the trick, in order to procure customers for himself. The officer being much struck with the dog’s sagacity, purchased him at a high price, and took him to England. He kept him tied up in London some time, and then released him. He remained with him a day or two, and then made his escape. A fortnight afterwards, he was found with his former master, pursuing his old trade on the bridge in Paris.

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ADVERTISEMENT EXTRA.――The following _morceau_ was copied from the original notice on board the steamboat William Caldwell, which plies on Lake George. The placard hung directly over the “bocks” containing the “snaick.”

_A Rattel Snaick too bee Shode._――Thee history off this snaick is as follors, hee was ketcht on tunn mounting buy a poore man with a large fammely being sicks yer ould and very wenumous he is now in a bocks and cant hirt no boddy which is much better than too bee runnin wilde cause hee don’t want to eat nothun.

Admittance is sickpents for them what pleese to pay it, and thrippents for them what dont, a libberall reduckshon for fammeliees for more particklelars pleese to cawl on OLD DICK.

T. N. Take notiss it was the poor man and not the snaick that had a large fammeley.

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PAT-RIOTISM.――W. E. Robinson, Esq., in a speech recently delivered in Baltimore, said that even the ridicule cast upon Irishmen was sometimes the highest praise. Thus, the nickname of _Pat_ was a word of the very best signification. No word beginning with _Pat_, in the English language, had a bad meaning. _Pat_ent is applied to something valuable; _Pat_ernal means fatherly or kind; _Pat_riarch, the father or head of the family; _Pat_rician, a nobleman; _Pat_riot, a lover of his country; _Pat_rol, one who guards the garrison; _Pat_ron, a protector and guardian; _Pat_tern, a thing to be copied.

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To our Readers.

We regret that we are obliged to omit, this week, the continuation of Bill Keeler’s story of the Lottery Ticket, as well as some other articles intended for this number.

We must also defer till another number several interesting letters from our correspondents.

[Music:] The Snow-Flakes.

WORDS AND MUSIC WRITTEN FOR MERRY’S MUSEUM.

“Gently, gently falls the snow,
Lightly, lightly, soft and slow;
Pretty crystals, tell me why,
Leave thy home in yonder sky?

“All above is pure and true,
Pretty snow-flakes――just like you.
Then why in heaven take thy birth,
Yet seek a home on this dark earth?”

Thus I spoke, and seem’d to hear
A gentle spirit whisper near――
“Though from heaven the snow-flakes fall,
And mix with earth――the fate of all――

“When their winter task is done,
They’ll melt and mingle with the sun;
And, with his beams, in dew-drops rise,
Pure as before, to yonder skies.”

MERRY’S MUSEUM.

Vol. VII. MARCH, 1844. No. 3.

arch――the blusterer――is here! It is a capricious month, often coming in like a lion and going out like a lamb; to-day it brings us sleet and tempest,――to-morrow, smiling sunshine and gentle showers. It appears to be a mixture of all the seasons――winter, spring, summer and autumn――yet not having the agreeable qualities of either. It is a sort of Jack-at-all-trades, yet good at none. Of all the months, it is the least of a favorite.

We are speaking, however, of our New England March; in the sunny south, it is otherwise. There it is a month of real spring; there it calls forth the buds and blossoms, and bids nature to assume her loveliest robes of azure, green and purple. At Charleston, in South Carolina, the people are regaling themselves with roses, lilacs and green peas, while we in the Bay State are shivering in the raw, cutting gales that come from the north-east, and bite as if dipped in acid. Well, never mind, we must button up our coats close for a few weeks longer; spring will come at last, and we shall enjoy the delights of that charming season. Let old Boreas roar, if he will; his time is nearly out for the season; he is fast retreating to Greenland, where he will have to stay till December, when we shall welcome him back, with his ice and snow.

Dick Boldhero.