Aug. 1858. BARTER WITH NATIVES. 165 



quainted with Ee-noo-loo-apik, the Esquimaux 

 who once accompanied Captain Penny to Aber- 

 deen, and told us he had died, lately I think, at 

 a place to the southward called Kri-merk-su- 

 malek, but that his sister still lives at Igloolik. 



Although they told us the Igloolik people 

 were worse off for wood than they were them- 

 selves, yet it was evident that here also it is 

 very scarce. We could not spare them light 

 poles or oars such as they were most desirous to 

 obtain for harpoon and lance staves and tent- 

 poles ; and they would willingly have bartered 

 their kayaks to us for rifles (having already ob- 

 tained some from the whaling-ships), but that 

 they had no other means of getting back to 

 their homes, nor wood to make the light frame- 

 work of others. 



They collect whalebone and narwhals' horns 

 in sufficient quantity to carry on a small barter 

 with the whalers. A-wah-lah showed us about 

 thirty horns in his tent, and said he had many 

 more at other stations. A few years ago, when 

 first this bartering sprang up, an Esquimaux 

 took such a fancy to a fiddle that he offered a 

 large quantity of whalebone in exchange for it. 

 The bargain was soon made, and subsequently 

 this whalebone was sold for upwards of a hun- 

 dred pounds ! Each successive year, when the 



