﻿254 KASHIM. August, 



Point Atkinson is a flat, low piece of ground, with 

 a range of sand hills, forty or fifty feet high, thrown 

 up along its northern side by the winds and waves. 

 "When we visited it in 1825, its extreme point was 

 a small island separated from the main by a ditch 

 but this was now choaked up and formed a marshy 

 pond, the water of which being brackish, and fetid 

 as well as greasy, from the quantity of whale oil 

 with which the ground was saturated, was totally 

 unfit for use. The oil had acted as a manure on 

 the soil, and produced a luxuriant crop of grass 

 from one to two feet high (Elymus mollis^ 

 Calamagrostis stricta, Spartina cynosuroides, and 

 some shorter Carices.) A small village of seven or 

 eight huts stood on the point, among which is the 

 Kashim, or house of assembly, described and figured 

 in the narrative of my former voyage along this 

 coast. I am not aware that a house of this de- 

 scription, appropriated as a council chamber and 

 eating-place for the males, has been described as 

 existing among the more eastern Eskimos. They 

 possess, however, the appellation for it in their lan- 

 guage. It is of more importance among the west- 

 ern tribes, as I shall have occasion to mention in 

 a subsequent chapter. 



The sea has carried away much of the sandy 

 bank on which the Kashim stood, and the spray 

 now washes its walls, so that it Avill likely be over- 



