The natives use
those of home manufacture--that is, a piece of wood with a notch to fit
over the bridge of the nose, and a narrow, horizontal slit opposite
each eye. This rude spectacle, called by them igearktoo, is made to fit
close to the eyes, and is held in place by strings passing behind and
over the top of the head. It serves to shelter the eyes from the direct
and reflected rays of the sun, but also interrupts the vision so much
that they habitually push it up on top of their heads, and run a risk
which almost invariably results to their disadvantage, yet their
goggles are so unsatisfactory that no amount of adverse experience is
sufficient to serve as a warning to them. The civilized visitors among
them wear goggles of various patterns and degrees of excellence. Some
are made of differently colored glass, from the various shades of
smoked glass to blue and green of varying degrees of opacity; some are
of glass surrounded with wire gauze; others of wire gauze without the
glass, and some are merely a strip of bunting hanging from the peak of
the cap. Of all the various kinds the general experience seems to be in
favor of the wire gauze without glass. They interfere very little with
the vision, and yet furnish a perfect protection for the eyes. Glass of
any pattern or shade subjects the wearer to constant annoyance by
fogging from the breath, which congeals very rapidly upon the surface
of the glass, and apparently always at the most inconvenient time, as
when the hunter is stalking a deer by crawling a long distance upon
his hands and knees, and just as he raises his rifle for a shot his
goggles are like pieces of ground glass.
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