Chap. XII. BACK'S JOURNEY TO THE POLAR SEA. 471 



by the assistance of numerous workmen which Mr. 



M'Leod had assembled was speedily completed. 



" Our hall was in a manner filled with invalids and other 

 stupidly dejected beings, who, seated round the fire, occu- 

 pied themselves in roasting and devouring small bits of 

 their reindeer garments, which, even when entire, afforded 

 them a very insufficient protection against a temperature of 

 102° below the freezing point (70° below zero). The father 

 torpid and despairing — the mother with a hollow and se- 

 pulchral wail, vainly endeavouring to soothe the infant 

 which with unceasing moan clung to her shrivelled and ex- 

 hausted breast — the passive child gazing vacantly around — 

 such was one of the many groups that surrounded us." — 

 p. 218. 



Those scenes of misery, among the poor natives, 

 for want of food and fuel, were more distressing to 

 the feeling heart of Back than any privation that 

 could happen to himself. The old, the sick, and 

 the miserable had heard of him, and were not long 

 in finding their way to the house of the ivhite man 

 to obtain that relief from starvation which, in sea- 

 sons of distress, it would be hopeless to seek for 

 among their own countrymen. 



The sufferings of the poor Indians at this period 

 are not to be described. " Famine with her gaunt 

 and bony arm," says Back, " pursued them at every 

 turn, withered their energies, and strewed them 

 lifeless on the cold bosom of the snow." Nine had 

 fallen victims, and others were on the eve of perish- 

 ing, when the old chief Akaitcho came to their 

 relief. 



