to the present; and the first efforts of the imagination are the
depicting of fictitious occurrences, tradition and myth, story and
history; these make up most of the entertainment of conversation to
simple minds.

Hence, in this primitive literature which I am describing, the narrative
portion is the most abundant. There was a natural aspiration on the part
of the natives, as soon as they had learned the art of writing, to
preserve in permanent form the records, more or less authentic, of their
tribes and ancestors. This desire of preserving the national history is
shown by the works of Copway, Jones, Cusick, Ixtlilxochitl, and others,
to whom I have already referred, who wrote in European tongues.

If we begin our survey at the extreme north, we find the Eskimo, amid
his depressing surroundings of eternal frost and months-long nights, an
unwearied chatterbox, reciting his own and his ancestors' adventures,
and weaving from his fancy the most extraordinary web of fictitious
experiences. Once taught to write, hundreds of these tales were
committed to paper by native hands. The manuscript collection of such in
the possession of the learned and indefatigable Dr. Heinrich Rink
contains considerably over two thousand pages, and the charming
rendering into English, which has been published by his efforts, is a
storehouse of weird conceptions and partly historic traditions about the
past of Greenland and Labrador. What adds to their interest is that most
of the illustrations are wood-cuts by native artists, truthfully setting
forth their own mental pictures.[13]

Another Eskimo composition, in the dialogue style, is before me as I
write. It is the description by Pok, a Greenlander, of his journey to
Europe and his return. The narrative forms a pamphlet of eighteen pages,