Aug. 185S. BARTER WITH THE NATIVES. 131 



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 exceed- 

 ing 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. 



After toiling round the base of a precipice, we came rather 

 suddenly in view of a small semicircular bay ; the cliffs on 

 either side were 800 or 900 feet high, remarkably forbidding 

 and desolate ; the mouth of a valley or wide mountain gorge 

 opens out into its head. Here, in the depth of the bay, 

 upon a low flat strip of land, stood seven tents, — the summer 

 village of Kaparoktolik. I never saw a locality more 

 characteristic of the Esquimaux than that which they have 



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