The men showed me some curious
puzzles with knots on their fingers, and I did what I could in
return. The little girls were very expert in a singular but dirty
amusement, which consisted in drawing a piece of sinew up their
nostrils and producing the end out of their mouths. The elder people
were, for the most part, in chase of the tormentors, which swarmed
in their head and clothes; and I saw, for the first time, an
ingenious contrivance for detaching them from the back, or such
parts of the body as the hands could not reach. This was the rib of
a seal, having a bunch of the whitest of a deer's hair attached to
one end of it, and on this rubbing the places which require it, the
little animals stick to it; from their colour they are easily
detected, and, of course, consigned to the mouths of the hunters.
"The weather clearing in the afternoon, one ship was seen in the
distance, which diffused a general joy among the people, who ran
about screaming and dancing with delight. While lounging along the
beach, and waiting the arrival of the ship, I proposed a game at
'leap frog,' which was quite new to the natives, and in learning
which some terrible falls were made.
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