218 WRETCHED OBJECTS. 



Accordingly they were again divided, one party 

 being directed to take their nets and proceed to 

 the only remaining fishery, and the other to 

 make the best of their way to the Indians. 



Our hall was in a manner filled with invalids 

 and other stupidly dejected beings, who, seated 

 round the fire, occupied themselves in roast- 

 ing and devouring small bits of their reindeer 

 garments, which, even when entire, afforded 

 them a very insufficient protection against a 

 temperature of 10 6 2° below the freezing point. 

 The father torpid and despairing — the mo- 

 ther, with a hollow and sepulchral wail, vainly 

 endeavouring to soothe the infant, which with 

 unceasing moan clung to her shrivelled and 

 exhausted breast — the passive child gazing 

 vacantly around ; such was one of the many 

 groups that surrounded us. But not a mur- 

 mur escaped from the men. When the weather 

 was a little milder, we took them into the store, 

 and showing them our remaining provision, re- 

 presented the necessity of their making an effort 

 to reach Akaitcho, where their own relations 

 would supply them plentifully : for, trifling as 

 was the pittance dealt out to them by us, yet 

 it contributed to the diminution of our stock, and 

 it was evident that by strict economy alone we 

 could get through the season at all. With the 

 apathy so strikingly characteristic of the inert 

 and callous savage, to whom life itself is a thing 



