200 BOOTHIA 



with snow, and the boys in constructing kennels for the 

 dogs. The laying the snow sofa with skins and the in- 

 sertion of the ice window complete the work ; the 

 passage only remaining to be added, as it is after the 

 house is finished, together with some smaller huts for 

 stores " -the design being similar to that of the yourts 

 of the Eskimos of the north, with a change of material, 

 snow for stone, and ice instead of seal-gut for the window 

 over the entrance. 



Making friends with the Eskimos, and gaining a 

 great reputation by the carpenter fitting one of them 

 with a wooden leg, Ross obtained much valuable in- 

 formation from them, particularly as to the geography 

 of the district. Like all Arctic men, he was impressed 

 by their quickness in understanding maps and their 

 skill in drawing them upon anything, snow, paper, or 

 otherwise, that lay handy. One of them, Ikmallik, 

 drew in the ship's cabin a map, which he reprints in his 

 book, showing the coast-line of the country south of 

 the Victory s quarters, with the capes, inlets, and islands, 

 giving the isthmus of Boothia and Committee Bay, and 

 Repulse Bay on the other side of the Melville Peninsula, 

 which is really wonderful, for neither the Eskimo, nor 

 Ross, had anything to copy from, it being nearly twenty 

 years before Rae's exploration ; and the one thing it 

 clearly demonstrated was that there was no waterway 

 to the westward, south of Felix Harbour. 



Ross owed much to Ikmallik, and really a good deal 

 of the time of the expedition was spent in confirming 

 the statements of that well-informed man. The west 

 coast of Boothia was surveyed down to Bulow Bay ; 

 the east side from Cape Nicholas down to Cape Porter, 



