They live in a state of perfect freedom; no one apparently claiming the superiority over, or acknowledging the least subordination to another, except what is due from children to their parents, or such of their kin as take care of them when they are young and incapable of providing for themselves. There is, however, reason to think that, when grown up to manhood, they pay some attention to the advice of the old men, on account of their experience.
[72] Several species inhabit the region; the commonest is the ringed or fetid seal (Phoca hispida).—E. A. P.
[73] In the summer of 1821, fifty years after Hearne's visit, Sir John Franklin, accompanied by Sir John Richardson and Sir George Back, descended and surveyed the Coppermine River from Point Lake to the sea. He was at the Bloody Falls from the 15th to the 18th of July, exactly fifty years after Hearne, and found the latitude to be 67° 42' 35" N. He speaks of it as follows:
"Several human skulls which bore the marks of violence, and many bones were strewed about the ground near the encampment, and as the spot exactly answers the description, given by Mr. Hearne, of the place where the Chipewyans who accompanied him perpetrated the dreadful massacre on the Esquimaux, we had no doubt of this being the place. This rapid is a sort of shelving cascade, about three hundred yards in length, having a descent of from ten to fifteen feet. It is bounded on each side by high walls of red sandstone, upon which rests a series of lofty green hills. The surrounding scenery was accurately delineated in a sketch taken by Mr. Hood" ("First Journey," pp. 349-350).
In 1838 Thomas Simpson determined the latitude of Bloody Falls as 67° 42' 52" ("Narrative of Discoveries," Thomas Simpson, p. 261).
Sir John Richardson revisited the lower part of the Coppermine River in 1826, and again in 1848, and he knew it better than any other white man. Speaking of Hearne, he says: "His description of the lower part of the Coppermine River is evidently that of one who has been on the spot."
"He appears to have fallen on the Coppermine River first at the Sandstone rapids of Franklin, and to have traced it to Bloody Falls; but as, contrary to his usual practice, he under-rates the distance from thence to the coast, we are led to conclude that he did not actually go down to the sea, but was content to view it from the top of the hill which overhangs the falls; and, indeed, it is not very probable that he could have induced the Indians, over whom he had little influence, to accompany him on his survey, after they had completed the massacre which was the object of their long and laborious journey; nor, had he gone actually to the mouth of the river, would he have mentioned marks of a tide fourteen feet high" (Back, pp. 147-151).
Hearne's description of the occurrence of the timber on the banks of the river, is particularly accurate, and I am inclined to give him credit for having been at or near the mouth of the river, even though his statement in regard to the rise and fall of the tide is inaccurate.
[74] Wishacumpuckey is one of the species of Ledum; jackasheypuck = Arctostaphylos uvaursi Spreng.; cranberry = Vaccinium vitisidæa Linn.; heathberry probably = Empetrum nigrum Linn.—E. A. P.
[AP] See Hist. of Greenland, vol. i. pp. 132-156.