68 DESCRIPTION or AN 



1824. which lay scattered around, those of the deer 

 Aug^ust. were most numerous. At a short distance 

 from the shore^ on one of the shingle ridges 

 which intersected the swamps^ I found a flint 

 knife lying near a small pile of stones^ under 

 which was another knife, an arrow, a dark 

 flint for making cutting-instruments, and two 

 little bits of decayed wood, one of which was 

 modelled like a canoe. Close to this was a 

 larger mound, which contained a dead person, 

 sewed up in a skin, and apparently long bu- 

 ried. The body was so coiled up, a custom 

 with some of the tribes of Esquimaux, that 

 it might be taken for a pigmy, being only two 

 feet four in length. This may account for the 

 otherwise extraordinary account given by Luke 

 Fox, of his having found bodies in the islands 

 in the ^' Welcome" which were only four feet 

 long. 



Near the large grave was a third pile of 

 stones, covering the body of a child, which 

 was coiled up in the same manner. A snow 

 buntin had found its way through the loose 

 stones which composed this little tomb, and 

 its now forsaken, neatly built nest, was found 

 placed on the neck of the child. As the 

 snow buntin has all the domestic virtues of 

 our English red-breast, it has always been 



