We had much difficulty, owing to the fogs, current, and icebergs, in getting up Whale Sound; but, after much patient perseverance, we arrived at length in Barden Bay, and came to anchor off the native settlement of Netlik.

The settlement was found to be deserted. The fog lifting next day, disclosing much heavy ice, among which it would be dangerous to trust the schooner, I took a whale-boat and pulled up the Sound.

The Sound narrows steadily until a few miles beyond Barden Bay, where the coasts run parallel until the waters terminate in a deep bay or gulf, to which I gave the name of the enterprising navigator, Captain Inglefield, who first passed the entrance to it. The coast on the north side runs much further south than appears on the old charts; and two conspicuous headlands, which Inglefield mistook for islands, I have designated on my chart by the names which the supposed islands have on his. A cluster of islands at the farther end of the gulf I called Harvard Islands, in remembrance of the University at Cambridge, to members of whose faculty I am indebted for many courteous attentions while fitting out in Boston; and a range of noble mountains which rise from the head of the gulf and with stately dignity overlook the broad mer de glace, holding the vast ice-flood in check, I named the Cambridge Hills.

On the south side of the Sound, toward which the Harvard Islands seem to trend, there are two prominent capes which I named respectively Cape Banks and Cape Lincoln;[16] while two deep bays are designated as Cope's Bay and Harrison Bay. Another, on the north side, I called Armsby Bay.

[16] In honor of His Excellency N. P. Banks, Governor of Massachusetts, and of His Honor F. W. Lincoln, Mayor of Boston, at the time of my sailing, in 1860.

AN ESQUIMAUX VILLAGE.

I had to regret that I could not reach the further end of the gulf. The ice for about twenty miles remained quite solid and impenetrable, so that I was obliged to draw back. Skirting along the southern coast we came upon the village of Itiplik and found it inhabited by about thirty people. They were living in seal-skin tents, three in number, and were overjoyed to see us. Near by, there was a rookery of auks similar to that near Port Foulke, which, together with the seal and walrus that were observed to be very numerous in all parts of the Sound, furnished them ample subsistence. There were in all nine families, but there was no family that consisted of more than four persons,—the parents and two children. The largest family that I have seen among them was that of Kalutunah. Hans told me of several families of three children; and Tattarat, now a lonely widower, lives on Northumberland Island, near the auk-hill of that place, with three orphans; and his wife bore him a fourth, which disappeared in some mysterious manner soon after its mother died and while it was yet a babe at the breast.

ESQUIMAU STATISTICS.

With the aid of Hans, I endeavored to get at a correct estimate of the whole tribe, and, commencing with Cape York, took down their names. In this community there can be no domestic secrets, and everybody knows all about everybody else's business,—where they go for the summer, and what luck they have had in hunting,—and talk and gossip about it and about each other just as if they were civilized beings, having good names to pick to pieces. But I strongly suspect that Hans grew tired of my questioning and cross-questioning, and stopped short at seventy-two. I have good reason to believe, however, that the tribe numbers more nearly one hundred. I obtained a complete list of the deaths which had taken place since Dr. Kane left them, in 1855. They amounted to thirty-four; and, during that time, there had been only nineteen births.

ESQUIMAU MARRIAGE CEREMONY.