Cape Chidley — Port Burwell. 59 



high in all, the huts or caves were smaller. In this heap of ruins 

 there were probably ten or fifteen dwellings, yet well defined, while 

 originally there had not been less than forty. This number would 

 be more than doubled in the winter, by means of snow houses, 

 whieh, in the case of villages, are built up among the mounds of the 

 underground caves. 



In these cave-huts we found numerous relics, such as thrown- 

 away stone shot and bullet moulds, old rusty pieces of lances and 

 spears, and other evidences of Eskimo industry. Two or three 

 bore evidence of recent habitation, and, upon inquiry, I learned that 

 old chief Ki-ur-chur, the last of the long line of illustrious Ut- 

 tericks, who have ruled the Cape Chidley natives for centuries, and 

 who, in late years, takes up his summer residence on the extreme 

 northern point of the cape, resides, in winter, with his two wives 

 and large family of children, in one of these caves, at the seat of 

 power of his royal ancestors. I paid the tented castle of Ki-ur-chur 

 a visit, of which I will speak presently. 



From the ruins of ancient Newnango, I visited the Eskimo 

 tent a little way off, where a native named Komikan, with his 

 brother, two sons, wife and daughter, and a little papoose whose 

 sex I could not guess from its great youth, resides, and has his 

 miserable being. The tent was made of skins of the reindeer, held 

 up by a few drift poles picked up on the shores, and held down 

 around the bottom by heavy gneiss boulders which were everywhere 

 at hand. Near the tent, strung on cords of walrus and seal-skin 

 were vast quantities of black seal's flesh, in all stages of drying, 

 seal's blubber, seal's liver, seal's hearts, and even seal's entrails, which 

 are stretched, dried and made into very light water-proof garments. 

 Among the stones at hand were vast heaps of oily blubber and seal 

 flesh mixed together. Thus was Mr. Komikan's larder well stored ; 

 nor was he wanting in venison and wild fowl. 



Passing within, the scene was one well calculated to sicken an 

 ordinary stomach. The stench was intense, but, so to speak, a sort 

 of oily stench, and therefore slightly endurable. On one side were 

 huge piles of venison, seals' carcases, seal blubber, in a promiscuous 

 mass, well-besmeared with blood and grease. Behind these were 



