Walk into the Interior. 251 



maux village, most of the huts having been actually 

 composed of the ribs and trucks of whales. We 

 counted no less than thirty-four huts, seven of 

 which had originally been made of stone, seven 

 very old ones, and the remainder built from the 

 bones of whales. Sixty skulls had been used to 

 form the foundation and entrances to these "igloos." 

 It would be interesting to know how these re- 

 mains of whales had reached this place, whether 

 they had been washed on shore, or whether they 

 had been killed by the inhabitants of the settle- 

 ment. Comparing these with the bones which we 

 found at Fury Beach, and which we knew to be 

 about fifty years of' age, I should say that no 

 Esquimaux had been to this locality, at any rate to 

 reside, for fully eighty or a hundred years. I picked 

 up a couple of pieces of bone, which had evidently 

 been used either for a sledge or a kyak. We ob- 

 served traces of deer, bears, foxes, and lemmings, 

 and saw plenty of ducks and brent geese. About 

 1 a.m. we returned to the dingy, and having re- 

 freshed ourselves with Australian mutton and 

 biscuits, made sail again to the southward, the ship 

 being now nearly out of sight on the horizon. 

 Having sailed about six miles along the coast, we 

 landed on a point which formed the north extreme 

 of a large deep bay, unmarked on the chart ; where 

 I put up my horizon and got my first set of sights 

 at about o a.m. The tide falling rapidly, almost 



