July, 1858. COMMUNICATE WITH ESQUIMAUX. 127 



extends, and has given me the name of every point. She 

 says the ice will break up with the first fresh wind. These 

 two individuals are alone here. They remained on purpose 

 to barter with the whalers, and cannot now rejoin their 

 friends, who are only 25 miles up the inlet, because the ice 

 is unsafe to travel over, and the land precipitous and 

 impracticable. 



This afternoon the 'Tay' stood in towards us, and 

 Captain Deuchars kindly sent his boat on board with an 

 offer to take charge of our letters. The ' Tay ' reached this 

 coast only a few days ago, having met with the same 

 difficulties which we experienced. The ' Innuit ' was last 

 seen nearly a month ago beset off Jones' Sound. The re- 

 maining steamer, the ' Chase,' has not been seen or heard of. 



29//A — The old woman's denial of all knowledge of 

 wrecks or cast-away men was very unsatisfactory. I deter- 

 mined to visit her countrymen at their summer village of 

 Kaparoktolik, which she described as being only a short 

 day's journey up the inlet. 



Petersen and one man accompanied me. We started 

 yesterday morning with a sledge and a Halkett boat. 

 Although the ice over which we purposed travelling broke 

 away from the land soon after setting out, yet we managed 

 to get half-way to the village before encamping. This 

 morning we learnt the truth of the old woman's account. 

 A range of precipitous cliffs rising from the sea cut us off 

 by land from Kaparoktolik, so we were obliged to return to 

 the ship. Our walk afforded the opportunity of examining 

 some native encampments and caches. We found innumer- 

 able scraps of seal-skins, bird-skins, walrus and other bones, 

 whalebone, blubber, and a small sledge. The latter was 

 very old, and composed of pieces of wood and of large 

 bones ingeniously secured together with strips of whale- 

 bone. Five preserved-meat tins were found ; some of them 



