368 FranTclin Expedition, 



clotting, and beds. The Esquimaux were very expert in killing 

 deer. They drove them into the water in the autumn in herds 

 and sometimes killed 30 or 40 at a time. In winter they drove 

 them into pit-falls ingeniously contrived in the snow. These were 

 so prepared that when the deer got in, their haunches were im- 

 prisoned and they could not leap out. His men never could man- 

 age it. They managed to kill seals too with their spears, when 

 his men could not manage it with rifles. Instead of going head- 

 foremost toward the seal, they wriggled themselves towards them 

 on their sides, presenting a broadside to the seal ; and whenever 

 they seemed startled, the Esquimaux would imitate a peculiar 

 noise or cry they made from their throats. When they got near 

 enough they speared and held on to them. Dr. Eae's party never 

 managed to shoot them so entirely dead that they would not tum- 

 ble into their holes and so be lost. With very large ones, the 

 Esquimaux would, while imitating the flipping of the seal's fin, 

 dig a hole in the ice and fasten their line in that, and so hold 

 them. Had they attempted to hold them by their own strength, 

 they ran the risk of being drawn into the water themselves. The 

 Esquimaux he met were much more cleanly than those Dr. Kane 

 described. In winter he was ashamed of his own men in compa- 

 rison with them. In order to preserve their furs, they cleaned 

 them of all filth or moisture before entering their huts at night ; 

 they stripped themselves of all their clothing, each night, and got 

 in between their fur blankets. They washed themselves with 

 snow from time to time, and so kept their bodies clean. His party 

 had tried washing with water, but found they could never dry 

 themselves, as they had no furs. Their snow huts were very 

 warm and clean. They used stone lamps with moss wicks, such 

 as described by Dr. Kane, but they managed so to arrange them 

 that they gave out no smoke, and the ceilings of their huts were 

 pure white and polished, after being heated, with the breath of 

 the dwellers, and the lamps were brazen again like glass. He 

 was satisfied that Kane, who deserved all the credit he had ob- 

 tained, or more, for the courageous manner in which, with a con- 

 stitution so weakened, he had endured so much — had made a 

 great mistake when he had used tents, instead of conforming to 

 the habits of the Esquimaux and building snow-huts. His party 

 had slept comfortably in these huts with a deer-skin beneath 

 them on the snow, and one blanket above them. The weight of 

 this bedding for four of them was but 24 lbs. for each man. It 



