356 OUR COMPULSORY RETURN. 



favourable turn of wind or current might drive 

 the ice off shore and aflford a passage for advance. 

 But such good fortune was not ours, and it was at 

 length resolved to turn our boats' heads once more 

 towards the Mackenzie. Those who have fixed their 

 ardent hopes on the attainment of some distant goal, 

 who in the pursuit have unheedingly encountered toil, 

 privation, weariness, and countless inconveniences, 

 and who have finally been forced to relinquish their 

 desires, will be able to enter into the sentiments of 

 chagrin and disappointment which possessed our souls 

 when " to return " was spoken. 



During our sojourn here the Esquimaux were 

 constantly with us, and accepted without hesitation 

 our friendly professions. No lingering distrust was 

 ever apparent ; if the men were absent in the chase 

 by sea or land, the women and children were aroimd 

 and about us in unrestrained communication, and 

 affording us all the assistance in their power. Their 

 curiosity and pilfering propensities were the only 

 annoyances to which we were subjected ; of the latter 

 I have already spoken ; to satisfy the former we had 

 much ado : our clothes, beards, and possessions, were 

 all unsparingly handled, and the Esquimaux ladies 

 don't always have clean hands. One of the young 

 men of the tribe had a wound in his arm which he 



