SUMMER CKUISE 57 



A wide belt of heavy field ice, which was dangerous to enter 

 in the low fog that obscured the shores, lay along the land ; con- 

 sequently the impressions of the northern part of the island 

 were obtained from a distant view between the banks of fog. 

 The scenery was characteristic of the northern lands occupied 

 by the crystalline rocks, the principal feature being sharp 

 rugged peaks upwards of 1,500 feet in height, rising above the 

 deep glaciers of the valleys and backed by a continuous ice-cap 

 a few miles inland. 



PONDS INLET. 



During the night much field-ice and many icebergs were 

 passed as we steamed along the shores. Next morning at eleven 

 o'clock, having rounded Cape Graham Moore, we came to an 

 Eskimo encampment just inside Button point on the north side 

 of the entrance to Ponds inlet. A landing was made at the 

 mouth of a small stream, on the clay banks of which were 

 located thirteen cotton and skin tents of these natives. All the 

 able-bodied men were away in the whaleboats, either at Erik 

 harbour, on the south side of the inlet, or some distance up it. 

 There were a large number of women and children who, with a 

 few sick men, completely filled a whaleboat in which they 

 visited the ship in search of food. Many were sick with a 

 disease resembling typhoid-pneumonia, being troubled by inter- 

 nal bleeding and a high fever. 



We secured the services of a very intelligent man as pilot to 

 the place some miles up the inlet where the Scotch whalers 

 were anchored. From him we learned that the sloop Albert 

 had wintered in Erik harbour, and that two small whales nad 

 been captured by natives in her boats during the early summer. 

 Continuing our way up the inlet, a second encampment of six 

 tents was passed about six miles beyond Button point. From 

 the pilot we learned that the total native population about Ponds 



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