May, 1859. NATIVE SLEDGES. 257 



extreme of Matty Island, in the hope of meeting 

 with natives, no traces of them having been 

 met with since leaving Cape Victoria. Off this 

 south-west point we found a deserted village of 

 nearly twenty snow huts, besides several others, 

 within a few miles upon either side of it ; in all 

 of them I found shavings or chips of different 

 kinds of wood from the lost expedition ; they 

 appeared to have been Jibandoned only within 

 a fortnight or three weeks. Abundance of 

 blubber was gathered up to increase our stock 

 of fuel, and, had we encamped here, the dogs 

 would have feasted sumptuously off the scraps 

 and bones of seals strewed about. 



The runners (or sides) of some old sledges left 

 here were very ingeniously formed out of rolls 

 of sealskin, about 3i feet long, and flattened so 

 as to be 2 or 3 inches wide and 5 inches high ; 

 the sealskins appeared to have been well soaked 

 and then rolled up, flattened into the required 



form and allowed to freeze. The underneath 

 part was coated with a mixture of moss and ice 

 laid smoothly on by hand before being allowed 



