38 ACCOUNT or THE ARCTIC REGIONS. 



or April, the party consisting of two or three Eu- 

 ropeans, one or two Esquimaux interpreters, and 

 two or more Indian^ guides, provided with every- 

 thing requisite for the undertaking, might set out 

 towards the north. The bad effects to he appre- 

 hended from the enmity knov/n to exist between 

 the Indian and Esquimaux, woukl probably be pre- 

 vented, by having persons of each nation along with 

 them • indeed, that enmity, which was a few years 

 ago so implacable, and of which such a horrid in- 

 stance was witnessed by Hearne in the year 1771, 

 is now, happily, considerably assuaged *. 



On the arrival of the travellers among the Es- 

 quimaux, their Indian guides, from fear of this 

 nation, would probably desert them, but the pre- 

 sence of their Esquimaux interpreters would secure 

 them a good reception. When once they should 

 meet with these people, they would have a strong 

 evidence of their being near the sea, as it is well 



* Between the Indians and the Esquimaux a mortal enmity 

 used to exist. An Indian who was unfortunate in losing his 

 friends, or in suffering any other particular calamity, was in 

 the habit of superstitiously attributing it to tlie agencies or 

 witcheries of the Esquimaux: to revenge himself, there- 

 fore, and to soften the anger of his tutelar deity, he thought it 

 necessary to engage in an " Esquimaux hunt," and thus glut 

 his vile passion for bloodshed, by destroying a certain number 

 of these unoffending people. This horrid practice, however, is 

 now, from the advance of civilization, rapidly sinking into 

 disuse. 



