SCHWATKAS SLEDGE ,OURNEY, 499 
I may have added that these strangers, twelve strong men, some of them 
from the West, had lived on the most friendly terms with my three fellows (who 
had constantly to be separated one from the other) and had not stolen or attempted 
to steal a single article, although some guns, boxes of saws, knives, files, daggers» 
etc., were lying on the rocks, covered and protected by only an oil cloth. Had 
these Eskimos been so inclined, they could have easily murdered my men, 
destroyed our boat, and carried all our property away beyond my reach, and left 
us 1N a very precarious position, as I was not placed as Hall and Schwatka were, 
namely, within a few days’ journey of a ship, but 700 or 800 miles distant from 
any assistance. Had they murdered any of Franklin’s people, as has been 
hinted, would they not have done the same to my men, where the temptation 
must have been very great ? 
We are given an extract from the writings of Admiral Shevard Osborn, as 
follows: ‘‘ We know that the surmises and assertions of savages are false.” This 
may be true of many savages—especially those who have come in contact with 
civilization—but it is not so with the Eskimos, for my own experience and that 
of men who have seen much of these people at Labrador, East Main and Church- 
ill lead me to think that it would be unjust, nay, almost an insult, to the poor 
‘‘Tnnuit ” to class him with the average Englishman for untruthfulness. Were it 
convenient to do so, I could give some striking illustrations of what I state; yet 
no further proof seems wanting than the disgraceful disclosures of bribery, false- 
hood and corruption at present being brought to light in connection with recent 
elections of certain Members of Parliament, among men from whom something 
better was to have been expected. 
_ The cravings of hunger become as irrepressibly painful to some men as the 
irresistible desire for alcohol by the drunkard or for opium by the opium-eater, 
both of whom know to what misery their excesses must lead, yet they cannot ab- 
stain. ‘These failings are certainly a disgrace and reproach to those possessed of 
them, whereas to have recourse to the most repulsive of food, in a few of many 
cases of starving men, when the craving amounts to a kind of madness, is as- 
suredly a misfortune, rather than a reproach. Had some of my dearest friends 
been among the Franklin party, I should have felt bound, in honesty, to tell the 
story as I told it. 
I have myself witnessed this painful craving for food in one or two cases 
when provisions ran short, and the most objectionable food would have been 
eaten, although I never had this terrible feeling myself, even when forced to ‘‘chew 
up” pieces of skin and ptarmigan bones up to the beak and down to the toe-nails. 
It is further stated that one of the officers seen alive was a ‘‘ Doctor.” This is 
probable enough, but the evidence on which Lieut. Schwatka founds this belief 
is envious, and possibly not quite reliable. The Eskimos told him that the word 
-Dook-dook was spoken by one of the white men, ‘‘an officer,” and this was in- 
terpreted to mean ‘‘ Doctor.” Now Dook-dook or Took-took is the Eskimo name 
for ‘‘ deer,” and was reported to me, in 1854, to be used in this meaning, when 
