COUNTRY OF THE ARCTIC HIGHLANDERS. 177 



York, on June 27th, 1858. They asked after Dr. Kane, and immedi- 

 ately recognised the Danish interpreter, Petersen, who served both in 



the expeditions of Kane and McClintock. At Grodhavn Sir Leopold 

 received a request from the Eoval Danish Greenland Company, 

 through the Inspector of North Greenland, to convoy the tribe of 

 "Arctic Highlanders " to the Danish settlements in Greenland ; and, 

 he says, "had the objects and circumstances of my voyage permitted 

 me to turn aside for this purpose, it would have afforded me very 

 sincere satisfaction to carry out so humane a project." ' Dr. Hayes 

 saw much of them again during his voyage in 1860, as did Dr. 

 Bessels and the crew of the Polaris, when they wintered off Etah in 

 1872-73. 



It is from the accounts of writers and other observers who have 

 served in these different voyages, and more particularly from the 

 works of Dr. Kane and Dr. Hayes, that our knowledge of the 

 " Arctic Highlanders " is derived. 2 



The home of these people of the far north is between latitudes 

 76 c and -79°, just on the verge of the unknown Polar Region. It 

 is a deeply indented coast-line of granitic cliffs, broken by bays 

 and sounds, with numerous rock sand islands, and glaciers stream- 

 ing down the ravines into the sea. To the south it is bounded 

 by the glaciers of Melville Bay, which now bar all progress in 

 that direction, insomuch that when John Sackheuse told Captain 

 Boss's visitors that he came from the south, they replied — " that 

 cannot be, there is nothing but ice there." 3 To the northward, 

 in like manner, a glacier bounds their hunting-ground; while in- 

 land the mighty Semik-soalc, or great glacier of the interior, con- 

 fines them to the sea-coast, and to the shores of fiords and islands. 

 The vast interior glacier sends down numerous blanches to the 

 sea, the ends of which break of and form a great annual harvest 

 of ie lier-s. The rocky coast, between these streams of ice, is for 

 the most part of granite formation, and in many places is richly 



1 Fate of Franklin, p. 138. 



2 1. Sir John Ross's First Voyage, 1818; 2 Parker Snow's Arctic Voyage, 

 1851; 3. Osborn's Stray Leaves, 1852; -i. Markham's Franklin's Footsteps, 

 L853; 5. Sutherland's Journal, etc., 1852; 6. [nglefield's Summer Search, 1853; 

 7. Arctic Miscellanies, 1853; 8. McDougalls Voyage of the Resolute, 1855,; 

 ;». Kane's Arctic Explorations, 1856 ; 10. Hayes' Boat Voj ge, 1857; ll. Rev. 



J. B. Murray's A int. of Erasmus York; L2. McClintock 's Fate of Franklin, 



l - 0; 18. Hayes' Narrative of a Voyage towards the North Pole in the Bchooner 

 United States, 1867. Vocabularies 1. Balbi, Atlas Ethnographique ; 2. Wash- 

 ington, Eskimo Vocabularies; '■>. Fabricius, Greenland Dictionary; 1. Ross's 



ad Voyage; 5. Parry's Second Voyage; 6. Orantz's Greenland ; 7. Egede' 

 Greenland and Janssen'a Vocabularies. Siberia Strahleuburg ; Wraugell; 

 Hooper's Tent oftheTuski; Dr. Simpson's Rpport. 



■' The distance from Cape York to Opernivik, the nearest inhabited land to 

 th • outh, is about two hundred and fifty miles. 



