May, 1865.1 A Sledge Trip. 173 



ho, by an opening cut for the purpose through the snow-wall. She 

 was now to keep a little skin-hag hung up near her into which she 

 must put a little of her food at each meal, having first put it up to her 

 mouth. This is called la^dng up food for the infant, although none is 

 given to it. For a year from the birth, the mother must eat neither 

 anything raw nor that which has been wounded in the heart. Hall 

 notes that a birth occurring on a journey occasions no delay ; the In- 

 nuits of this locality differing as to this in a marked degree from those 

 further east. The mother is almost as well as ever an hour after the 

 birth. The new-comer nestles at its birth in its took-too bed (its 

 mother's hood), as naked as when born, and it usuall}^ remains without 

 clothing for at least two years. 



It now became very desirable to go down the coast 32 miles 

 southward and bring up the four whale-boats which belonged to Hall 

 and three of the natives, and the stores of the expedition with the 

 medicine-chest and other deposits, in order that an advance might 

 soon be made toward Repulse Ray. A well-known disease, which 

 threatened to sweep off very many of their dogs, having already de- 

 stroyed several, this journey became the more urgent. Accompanied 

 by Ebierbing and five others, with three sledges and twenty dogs, on 

 the 15th, Hall crossed the Wager, and, after tracking a bear, ascended 

 the high land to examine the condition of the bay. Two miles down, 

 a heavy black cloud hanging over it extended from shore to shore, 

 showing much ice drifting out with the swift ebb-tide. 



The journey occupied the traveling hours from seven in the morn- 

 ing of the 13th to 10 a. m. of the following day, some time having 

 been given, however, to the hunt of foolc-too. It had become so light 

 at midniirht that no stars were visible. Hall feasted in the igloo on 



