﻿214 rOKT GOOD HOPE. July, 



swept onwards to the fort, which it filled with 

 water, thereby destroying a quantity of valuable 

 fars. Mr. Bell, who was the resident ofiicer at the 

 time, escaped with the other inmates in a boat to 

 the centre of the island ; and shortly afterwards, 

 the dam of ice giving way, the flood subsided as 

 rapidly as it had risen, leaving the buildings still 

 standing, though much injured. A few turnips, 

 radishes, and some other culinary vegetables, grow 

 at Fort Good Hope in a warm corner, under shelter 

 of the stockades ; but none of the Cerealia are cul- 

 tivated there, nor do potatoes repay the labour of 

 planting. Mr. M'Beath, who had charge of the 

 post, supplied us with some rein-deer venison, 

 which he had kept fresh in his ice-cellar, dug under 

 the floor of his hall. This gentleman informed 

 us that no rain had fallen this season in his vicinity 

 except two very slight showers on one day ; there 

 had been no thunder-showers. From him we learnt 

 also that a rumour of guns having been heard on 

 the coast of the Arctic Sea, and supposed to have 

 been fired from the Discovery ships, originated 

 in a story brought by the Kutchin or Loucheux to 

 Peel's River Fort, but that the ofiicer in charge placed 

 no reliance upon it. He also gave us the unpleasant 

 intelligence of three Eskimos having been killed in 

 Peel's River last summer. A large body of that 

 nation, having ascended the Peel River, it was sur- 



