Yet learned curiosity is known to have found its
way into these abodes of poverty and gloom: Lapland
and Iceland have their historians, their criticks,
and their poets; and love, that extends his dominion
wherever humanity can be found, perhaps exerts
the same power in the Greenlander's hut as in the
palaces of eastern monarchs.
In one of the large caves to which the families of
Greenland retire together, to pass the cold months,
and which may be termed their villages or cities, a
youth and maid, who came from different parts of
the country, were so much distinguished for their
beauty, that they were called by the rest of the
inhabitants Anningait and Ajut, from a supposed
resemblance to their ancestors of the same names, who
had been transformed of old into the sun and moon.
Anningait for some time heard the praises of Ajut
with little emotion, but at last, by frequent
interviews, became sensible of her charms, and first made
a discovery of his affection, by inviting her with her
parents to a feast, where he placed before Ajut the
tail of a whale. Ajut seemed not much delighted by
this gallantry; yet, however, from that time was
observed rarely to appear, but in a vest made of
the skin of a white deer; she used frequently to
renew the black dye upon her hands and forehead,
to adorn her sleeves with coral and shells, and to
braid her hair with great exactness.
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