ESQUIMAUX INFORMATION.
Thinking it not quite impossible that this Igloolik might be the place where Parry wintered in 1822-3, I told Petersen to ask whether ships had ever been there? She answered, "Yes, a ship stopped there all one winter; but it is a long time ago." All she could distinctly recollect having been told about it was, that one of the crew died, and was buried there, and his name was Al-lah or El-leh. On referring to Parry's 'Narrative,' I found that the ice-mate, Mr. Elder, died at Igloolik! This is a very remarkable confirmation of the locality,—for there are several places called Igloolik. She also told us it was an island, and near a strait between two seas. The Esquimaux take considerable pains to learn, and remember names; this woman knows the names of several of the whaling captains, and the old chief at De Ros Islet remembered Captain Inglefield's name, and tried hard to pronounce mine.
She now told us of another wreck upon the coast, but many days' journey to the south of Pond's Bay; it came there before her first child was born. Her age is not less than forty-five.
Aug., 1858.
August 4th.—Our Esquimaux friends have departed from us with every demonstration of friendship, to return to their village. We have had free communication with them for four days—not only through Mr. Petersen, but also through our two Greenlanders; the result is, that they have no knowledge whatever of either of the missing or the abandoned searching ships. Neither wrecked people nor wrecked ships have reached their shores. They seemed to be much in want of wood; most of what they have consists of staves of casks, probably from the Navy Board Inlet depôt.
TOOLS USED BY THE ESQUIMAUX.
In their bartering with us, saws were most eagerly sought for in exchange for narwhal's horns; they are used by them in cutting up the long strips of the bones of whales with which they shoe the runners of their sledges, also the ivory and bone used to protect the more exposed parts of their kayaks and the edges of their paddles from the ice.
Files were also in great demand, and I found were required to convert pieces of iron-hoop into arrow and spear heads. If any suspicion existed of their having a secret supply of wood such as a wreck or even a boat would afford, it was removed by their refusing to barter the most trifling things for axes or hatchets.
But I must relate the events of the last few days as they occurred. When 17 miles within the inlet we reached the unbroken ice and made the ship fast. Here the strait—originally named Pond's Bay, and more recently Eclipse Sound—appears to be most contracted, its width not exceeding 7 or 8 miles. Both its shores are very bold and lofty, often forming noble precipices. The prevailing rock is grey gneiss, generally dipping at an angle of 35° to the west.
Early on the 1st of August I set out for the native village with Hobson, Petersen, two men, and the two natives from Button Point. Eight miles of wet and weary ice-travelling, which occupied as many hours, terminated our journey; the surface of the ice was everywhere deeply channelled and abundantly flooded by the summer's thaw; we were almost constantly launching our small boat over the slippery ridges which separated pools or channellings through which it was generally necessary to wade.