[Sidenote: Their Food.] Their principal food consists in fish and other sea-animals, small shell-fish and sea-plants: their greatest delicacies are wild lilies and other roots, together with different kinds of berries. When they have laid in a store of provisions, they eat at any time of the day without distinction; but in case of necessity they are capable of fasting several days together. They seldom heat their dwellings; but when they are desirous of warming themselves, they light a bundle of hay, and stand over it; or else they set fire to train oil, which they pour into a hollow stone.
They feed their children when very young with the coarsest flesh, and for the most part raw. If an infant cries, the mother immediately carries it to the sea-side, and be it summer or winter holds it naked in the water until it is quiet. This custom is so far from doing the children any harm, that it hardens them against the cold; and they accordingly go bare-footed through the winter without the least inconvenience. They are also trained to bathe frequently in the sea; and it is an opinion generallly received among the islanders, that by that means they are rendered bold, and become fortunate in fishing.
[Sidenote: Dress.] The men wear shirts made of the skins of cormorants, sea-divers, and gulls; and, in order to keep out the rain, they have upper garments of the bladders and other intestines of sea-lions, sea-calves, and whales, blown up and dried. They cut their hair in a circular form close to their ears; and shave also a round place upon the top. The women, on the contrary, let the hair descend over the forehead as low as the eye-brows, and tie the remaining part in a knot upon the top of the head. They pierce the ears, and hang therein bits of coral which they get from the Russians. Both sexes make holes in the gristle of the nose, and in the under-lips, in which they thrust pieces of bone, and are very fond of such kind of ornaments. They mark also and colour their faces with different figures. They barter among one another sea-otters, sea-bears, clothes made of bird-skins and of dried intestines, skins of sea-lions and sea-calves for the coverings of baidars, wooden masks, darts, thread made of sinews and reindeer hair, which they get from the country of Alaska.