410 SECOND VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. 



1823. mouth were quite black with disease, so that whatever supplies mierht latterly 

 February «. , , , , , , , , i , • • 



have been anorded her she could not eat, and her stomach being quite 



empty, starvation was probably the occasion of her death. Having publicly 

 made known her death to the Esquimaux, and allowed the body to remain 

 unburied the whole of the following day, to give them an opportunity of 

 doing something towards her biirial, wc placed her remains in a grave near 

 the observatory, together with her lamp, the only residue of her original 

 property. Not an inquiry was afterwards made about her ; and Nuyakka 

 now disclaimed any relationship to her, though he had before asserted that 

 she was his wife's sister, and had at least tacitly admitted her claim upon 

 them, by offering to take her into his hut. Thus perished a young woman 

 not more than threc-and-twenty years of age, the victim of the barbarous 

 policy or savage inhumanity of her own countrymen ! There is something 

 peculiarly unpleasant in relating facts which degrade and discredit human 

 nature ; but he who professes faithfully to delineate the character and dis- 

 position of a people, must be careful not to mutilate facts, or to palliate errors, 

 merely for the sake of making a pleasing picture. 



Nothing worthy of notice occurred during the rest of February, which 

 month it was gratifying to find presented, as to temperature, a similar ano- 

 maly with January, the mean being only — 20°. 41, which is probably a high 

 one for this latitude. 

 March. On the 3d of March, the Esquimaux were excluded from the Fury for 

 some hours, on account of a shovel having been stolen from alongside the 

 preceding day. Soon after this, Oo-ob-took, a middle-aged man, who had 

 seldom visited the ships, was in Mr. Skeoch's cabin when that gentleman 

 explained to him the reason of his countrymen being refused admittance ; 

 upon this he became much agitated, trembled exceedingly, and comjjlaiued 

 of being cold. There could be no doubt that he thought Mr. Skeoch had 

 dived into his thoughts ; for hastening upon deck, he was a minute or two 

 afterwards detected in bringing back the lost shovel from the place where 

 he had buried it behind our wall. A day or two before this occurrence, 

 Captain Lyon had in a manner somewhat similar recovered a knife that 

 had been stolen from him, for which, by way of punishment, the offender 

 was consigned to solitary confinement for some hours in the Hecla's coal- 

 hole. As, however, the Esquimaux only laughed at this as a very good 

 joke, and as, the time was shortly coming when numerous loose stores must 

 be exposed upon the ice near the ships, I determined to make use of the 



Mon. 3. 



