of those regions, and who, as he acknowledges, bear no resemblance to the other nations of America, but a strong one to some of the northern Europeans. With regard to them, therefore, the learned historian has to suggest another origin, — that they are descendants of Norwegians and Icelanders, adopting the theory of Grotius, but applying it to another people. If, however, this theory is at all admissible, it must be on the supposition of the progenitors of the Esquimaux having been inhabitants of Norway and the north of Europe prior to the Scandinavians, by whom they had been driven to the extreme north. The peopling of Iceland, as before observed, comes within the limits of history, and we know that when first inhabited by the Scandinavians they found it uninhabited. It cannot be intended that the Esquimaux were to be supposed of the same family as the Scandinavians, considering the vast difference in their language, manners, and physical appearance; though we may admit that the first tides of emigration might have carried to the north the people from whom the Esquimaux are descended, and that they had been driven there at a very early period, so as to have made them at length become inured to the climate, and the mode of life it necessitated. Such a people, so inured to the climate, were the Esquimaux when the Norwegians first reached their shores, and, in their surprise at seeing them so different from themselves, called them Scrælings, or dwarfs, shewing that there was no affinity whatever, at that time, between them. It could be only long years of privations and endurings of hardships that could enable the Esquimaux to traverse over those icy regions with the facilities they have learned to practise; but they are very different people from the other almost numberless nations of America, in its vast extent from Cape Horn to the south limits of Labrador, who cannot be supposed, therefore, to be derived from their stock. These nations, it should be remembered, had also a great variety of languages, and, though bearing a general resemblance among themselves, yet nevertheless had still among themselves a number of strong distinguishing characteristics. It is scarcely possible, therefore, to suppose, under these circumstances, that they all came across the snows of Behring's Straits, and to have had the means of subsistence for that purpose, or the necessary defences against the inclemency of the climate, so as all to have been the same, or cognate people from the same quarter, and divided after their arrival in America, as they were found to be divided. Before any people would expose themselves to the severe climate of
