ESKIMO TRADING. 267 



From what we know positively of the trade thus far, we are 

 inclined to believe there is a tolerably regular yearly communica- 

 tion between each Eskimo tribe and their neighbours of the same 

 race on either side. It seems highly probable the pan'-na, or 

 double-edged knife, described by Sir W. E. Parry as in use among 

 the tribe he met at Winter Island, may have been of Siberian 

 origin, from being of the same form and identical in name with 

 that brought by the Asiatics to Hotham Inlet, where they receive 

 in return oil-burners, or stone lamps, which we have often seen 

 in their tents in 1848-9, of a shape corresponding exactly with the 

 drawing in that gentleman's journal of his second voyage ; they 

 bear also a similar name, kod'-lan, and are said to be brought from 

 a very distant eastern country. Supposing a knife of this kind 

 made in Siberia, to be carried at the usual rate, we compute it 

 would not arrive at Winter Island before the sixth year, and, 

 having been exchanged the year before for a stone lamp, this might 

 come into the hands of the Asiatics on the ninth. The knife would 

 remain the first winter in the possession of the Reindeer Tuski 

 (or Tsau'-chu), the second with the inland Eskimo, Nu-na-tang'- 

 meun, the third at Demarcation Point with the Kang'-ma-li-meun, 

 the fourth with the East Mackenzie or the Cape Bathurst tribes, 

 and on the fifth possibly fall into the hands of the people who make 

 the lamps. The lamp, returning the same way, would remain the 

 sixth winter at Cape Bathurst, the seventh at Demarcation Point, 

 the eighth at Point Barrow, the ninth in the interior, and be 

 received by the Asiatics on the following summer. 



For a very large portion of our information, we have been in- 

 debted to a man called Erk-sin'-ra, who has sustained a most ex- 

 cellent character throughout the whole time the Plover remained 

 at Point Barrow. He drew the coast-line eastward as far as he 

 knew it, giving the names of many places, some of which ho 

 described so minutely as to be undeniably identified with thoso 

 mentioned in Sir J. Franklin's journal, and laid down in his chart. 

 Erk-sin'-ra's coast-line has been drawn in red, parallel to that copied 

 from the Admiralty chart, and a dotted line marks each place where 

 the two were made out clearly to correspond. What seemed to ns 

 most singular was, that whilst his description of the coast agreed 

 so minutely in many particulars with the narrative and chart of 

 Messrs. Dease and Simpson, he denied the existence of tlie lYll.v 

 Mountains, and maintained most positively that thero are no hills 

 on the west side of the Colvillo visible from the sea ; and at Length 

 said, "We never saw them, but perhaps you might with your long 

 spy-glasses." He was the head man of the first party Commander 



