182 AECTIC VOYAGES. Chap. VI. 



that, by making publicly known to the world, that 

 this despised and persecuted race, (for nothing short 

 of persecution could have driven them to take up 

 their abode in these extreme parts of the globe, 

 amidst ice and snow, where worse than Cimmerian 

 darkness dwells for half the year) — would that they 

 might be looked upon more generally than they 

 are, as rational beings, and treated accordingly. 

 Theirs, it must be confessed, is a most cruel and 

 wretched lot, for whom any permanent relief ap- 

 pears to be hopeless, surrounded as they are in 

 every part of the coast-land, bounding the dreary 

 Polar Sea — in Asia, Europe, and America — and 

 driven, as they are, into bye creeks and corners, or 

 what is still worse, by the savage Indians of the 

 northern parts of America, to the very shores of 

 that sea — the Ultima Thule of all civilization — 

 what hope, then, is there that any change or any 

 exertion of humane and well-disposed communities 

 can afford them relief from a state of perpetual op- 

 pression, misery, and starvation? 



At the same time that Parry dwells with plea- 

 sure on the virtues and the superior understanding 

 of Iligliuk, he is not blind to her failings, the chief 

 of which appears to be vanity (to which he has 

 himself not a little contributed), selfishness, and 

 ingratitude. " I am compelled to acknowledge," 

 he says, " that in proportion as the superior under- 

 standing of this extraordinary woman became more 



