48 INTRODUCTION 



service as a linguist, and annually sailed in one of their vessels 

 in that character. The [xxx] account which we received from 

 them was full, clear, and unreserved, and the sum of it was to 

 the following purport : 



When the vessels arrived at this place (Marble Island) 

 it was very late in the Fall, and in getting them into the 

 harbour, the largest received much damage ; but on being 

 fairly in, the English began to build the house, their number 

 at that time seeming to be about fifty. As soon as the ice 

 permitted, in the following Summer, (one thousand seven 

 hundred and twenty), the Esquimaux paid them another visit, 

 by which time the number of the English was greatly reduced, 

 and those that were living seemed very unhealthy. According 

 to the account given by the Esquimaux they were then very 

 busily employed, but about what they could not easily describe, 

 probably in lengthening the long-boat ; for at a little distance 

 from the house there is now lying a great quantity of oak 

 chips, which have been most assuredly made by carpenters. 



Sickness and famine occasioned such havock among the 

 English, that by the setting in of the second Winter their 

 number was reduced to twenty. That Winter (one thousand 

 seven hundred and twenty) some of the Esquimaux took up 

 their abode on the opposite side of the harbour to that on 

 which the English had built their houses,* and [xxxi] fre- 

 quently supplied them with such provisions as they had, which 

 chiefly consisted of whale's blubber and seal's flesh and train 



* I have seen the remains of those houses several times ; they are on the 

 West side of the harbour, and in all probability will be discernible for many 

 years to come. 



It is rather surprising, that neither Middleton, Ellis, Christopher, Johnston, 

 nor Garbet, who have all of them been at Marble Island, and some of them 

 often, ever discovered this harbour ; particularly the last-mentioned gentleman, 

 who actually sailed quite round the island in a very fine pleasant day in the 

 Summer of 1766. But this discovery was reserved for a Mr. Joseph Stephens ! 

 a man of the least merit I ever knew, though he then had the command of 

 a vessel called the Success, employed in the whale-fishery ; and in the year 1769, 

 had the command of the Charlotte given to him, a fine brig of one hundred 

 tons ; when I was his mate. 



