372 SECOND VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY 



1822. arrival at Owlitleeweek, near which island we overtook him, he had buried 

 ^^,-^' the greater part of his baggage under heaps of stones, the ice no longer 

 being fit for dragging the sledge upon. Here also he was happily eased of 

 a still greater burthen by the death of his idiot boy, who thus escaped the 

 miseries to which a longer life must, among these people, have inevitably 

 exposed him. As for that noisy little fellow " John Bull," (Kooillitiuk,) he 

 employed almost the whole of his first visit in asking every one, by name, 

 " How d'ye do, Mr. so and so?" a question which had obtained him great 

 credit among our people at Winter Island. Being a very important little per- 

 sonage, he also took great pride in pointing out various contrivances on 

 board the ships, and explaining to the other Esquimaux their different uses^ 

 to which the latter did not fail to listen with all the attention due to so 

 knowing an oracle. 



We had for several days past seen no birds near the ships except one or 

 two ravens ; but those who had visited the huts had met with a covey or two 

 of grouse in that neighbourhood, of which a few were killed by the Esqui- 

 maux with arrows. Mr. Edwards found, on examination, that these birds, 

 and also one or two obtained in the summer on the south shore of the Strait, 

 were not of the same species as those we had procured farther to the south- 

 ward, the latter being the tetrao rupestris, and these the tetrao albus, (Pen- 

 nant's Arct. Zool.) or the willow-partridge of Hearne. Two wolves had 

 lately paid us some nocturnal visits, and the Esquimaux had killed several 

 bears in the neighbourhood of the open water. 



Having now brought up the account of our proceedings to the time of the 

 ships being once more established in their winter-quarters, it may not be im- 

 proper to take a brief review of the result of our late eflTorts, and then to 

 close this part of the narrative by stating the determination which I now 

 formed with respect to the future movements of the Expedition. 



Flattering as our prospects appeared at the commencement of the past 

 summer, our efforts had certainly not been attended with a proportionate de- 

 gree of success ; and little satisfaction remained to us at the close of the sea- 

 son, but the consciousness of having left no means within our reach untried, 

 that could in any way promote our object. It required indeed but a single 

 glance at the chart to perceive, that whatever the last summer's navigation 

 had added to our geographical knowledge of the eastern coast of America, 

 and its adjacent lands, very little had in reality been effected in furtherance 

 of the North-West Passage. Even the actual discovery of the desired outlet 



