256 



cording to a census taken by Peary in tlie summer of 1895 the 

 tribe then numbered 263 individuals in all, of which 140 were 

 of the male sex and 113 female. Already two years later the 

 number had sunk to 234. And in 1906, when Peary again 

 made a census of all the natives, he found there only 207, of 

 which 119 were men, 85 women and 3 small children, of whose 

 sex Peary could obtain no information. These numbers, which 

 also agree with the observations of the Danish Expeditions, are 

 certainly correct. On the other hand, the estimates given by 

 Kane in 1854, of about 150, and by Hayes in 1861, of about 

 100, and by Bessels in 1873;, of 112, were certainly incom- 

 plete. 



It was so long ago as 1616, that William Baffin in his 

 small ship "Discovery" sailed along this part of the Greenland 

 coast, past Gapes York, AthoU and Parry, and on the 5^^^ of 

 July reached his furthest point, within sight of Gape Alexander. 

 Baffin narrates, that he was forced by the ice "to stand backe 

 some eight leagues to an island we called Hakluit's He — it 

 lyeth betweene two great Sounds, the one Whale Sound, and 

 the other Sir Thomas Smith's Sound; this last runneth to the 

 north of 78° ..ГК 



We must pass over two hundred years, however, before 

 we learn anything of the inhabitants of this land. They were 

 first discovered in 1818 by John Ross. On the 9^^ of August, 

 while the two ships of John Ross were lying in the neighbour- 

 hood of Gape York, 18 natives visited them, approaching over 

 the ice. They had sledges and dogs, lances and knives, con- 

 cerning which Ross says, that they were made of meteoric 

 iron , said to occur in abundance in the neighbourhood of 

 Bushnan Island. Ross adds, further, that they apparently had 

 no idea of other people living to the south ^. 



1 The voyages of W. Baffin of 1612 — 22, ed. by С R. Markham. Hakluyt 



Society London 1881, p 145. 

 - John Ross: A voyage of discovery etc. London 1819. 



