132 KAPAROKTOLIK. Chap. IX. 



here selected for their abode ; — it is wildly picturesque in the 

 true arctic application of the term. 



Although August had arrived, and the summer had been a 

 warm one, the bay was still frozen over ; and if there was an 

 ice-covered sea in front, there was also abundance of ice- 

 covered land in the rear — a glacier occupied the whole valley 

 behind, and to within 300 yards of the chosen spot ! 



The glacier's height appeared to be from 150 to 200 feet; 

 its sea-face extending across the valley, — a probable width of 

 300 or 400 yards, — was quite perpendicular, and fully 100 

 feet high. All last winter's snow had thawed away from off 

 it and exposed a surface not free from earth and stones, 

 fissured by innumerable small rivulets, which threw them- 

 selves over the glacier cliffs in pretty cascades, or shot far 

 out in strong jets from their deeply serried channels in its 

 face ; whilst other streamlets near the base burst out through 

 sub-glacial tunnels of their own forming. 



A strange people to confine themselves to such a mere 

 strip of beach ! Upon each side they have towering rocky 

 hills rising so abruptly from the sea that to pass along their 

 bases or ascend over their summits is equally impossible ; 

 whilst a threatening glacier immediately behind bears 

 onward a sufficient amount of rock and earth from the 

 mountains, whence it issues, to convince even the unreflect- 

 ing savage of its progressive motion. 



The land is devoid of game, although lemmings and 

 ermines are tolerably numerous ; it only supplies the moss 

 which the natives burn with blubber in their lamps, and the 

 dry grass which they put in their boots ; even the soft stone, 

 lapis ollaris, out of which their lamps and cooking vessels 

 are made, and the iron pyrites with which they strike 

 fire, are obtained by barter from the people inhabiting the 

 land to the west of Navy Board Inlet. But the sea com- 

 pensates for every deficiency. The assembled population 



