July, 1S69.] Conversations ivith Inmdts. 609 



busily engaged outside of the tent. By the by, I can use quite a number of the 

 Repulse Bay natives to good advantage as interpreters when I talk with natives 

 of distant places, such as Neit-chille, Pelly Bay, and Ig-loo-lik. With the English 

 Admiralty chart before us, I asked In-nook-iioo-shee-jook to tell me again where 

 the monument had been erected that had the long stone on top pointing toward 

 Ki-ki-tuk (King William's Land), which he told me about yesterday. He then 

 pointed to the same place as yesterday, to wit, on the coast south side of Inglis 

 Bay, south of the long narrow island which is but a little way east of the mouth 

 of Castor and Pollux Kiver, discovered by Dease and Simpson in 1839, the terminal 

 point of their discoveries in that direction. In-nook-poo-she-jook then placed a 

 board-nail which I had in my hand directly over the spot of the monument, the 

 same nail pointing to Shar-too, and thence on to Point Victory, where another 

 monument had been erected by white men and found by the Innuits. I was not 

 only deeply interested in this particular description of his, but greatly surprised, 

 for he particularly said that the long stone on the top of that monument not only 

 pointed in the direction of Shar-too (Cajje Colvile, low land opposite the S. E. 

 extreme of King William's Land) but to the place of the monument that had been 

 erected north side of the inlet at the northwest extreme of King William's Land — 

 that is, at Point Victory. He said that Innuits who saw the said monument 

 south side of Inglis Bay noted what he states. 



After seeing the direction in which this nail pointed to the northward and 

 westward, I drew a line in the opposite direction, to the southward and eastward, 

 to see if it might not, if prolonged, come near to Repulse Bay, and found such 

 to be the fact ; therefore, the pointing stone may have been intended by those 

 who placed it there to indicate whence they had come and to what i)lace they 

 were bound. But this latter is of my OAvn conjecture, founded upon what In- 

 nook-poo-shee-jook has told, and ui)on what information has been derived from 

 some of the Repulse Bay and Ig-loo-lik natives. 



Before I proceed to note the remainder of the information gained in this 

 morning's interview, I will transcribe a few lines from Dr. Rae's report of his 

 journey of 1854 — such part of it as refers to a monument he found in the very 

 locality pointed out as above by In nook-poo-sheejook. Dr. Rae at the time was 

 in Inglis Bay at the embouchure of Murchison River; when the report reads: 



" The weather was overcast with snow when Ave resumed our journey at 



8.30 p. m. On the 27th of April we directed our course directly for the shore, 



which we reached after a sharp walk of one and a half hours, in doing which we 



crossed a long stony island of some miles in extent. As by this time it was snow- 



S. Ex. 27 ;51) 



