Page:Voyages in the Northern Pacific - 1896.djvu/71

Rh birds, sewed neatly together; this part of the dress is the same in both sexes. When the men go in their canoes to hunt or fish, they wear a dress of the entrails of the seal; it is made like a large loose shirt, with a hood, and is water-proof. They also wear trowsers and boots, made from the throat of the sea-lion or elephant, which are water-proof also. They are extremely fond of ornaments, particularly of beads, with which they ornament their garments and person; they wear them round the neck, and pendant from the nose and ears, through which many holes are made. The men have a helmet or cap, ornamented with the beard of the sea-lion and with seed-beads. All the natives use paint. There are several villages about the harbour, but the island seems very thinly peopled, owing, I suppose, to the number that are employed by the Russians on their establishments on the N. W. coast of America Their canoes or bodarkees, are made from the skins of the hair-seal, stretched over a light wooden frame, leaving one, two, or three holes on the top for the sitters; the frame is sometimes of whalebone, and the vessels are from 10 to 16 feet long, and about 3 feet wide in the middle, gradually tapering towards the ends. They are pulled with great swiftness by a double paddle, about 12 feet long, with a blade at each end, and held by the middle; they are generally made of ask. The canoes perform voyages along the coast for several hundred miles, for the purpose of hunting the sea-otter and seal; they also kill black whales, which are about these islands in great plenty. If in their hunting excursions they are