ESQUIMAUX DOGS. 283 



were wrong. The dogs obeyed the command, and took them 

 towards Hudson's Bay. When the weather cleared the servant 

 found his mistake ; but, alas ! it was too late for the tender 

 boy, and he froze to death in the servant's arms. 



" We saw also to-day the carcasses of fifteen hundred seals 

 stripped of their skins, pilpd up in a heap, and the dogs feeding 

 on them. The stench filled the air for half a mile around. 

 They tell us the dogs feed on this filthy ilesh until the next 

 seal season, tearing it piecemeal when frozen in winter. 



"Mr. Jones's house was being painted white, his oil-tubs 

 were full, and the whole establishment was perfumed with 

 odours which were not agreeable to my olfactory nerves. The 

 snow is to be seen in large patches on every hill around us, 

 while the borders of the water-courses are fringed with grasses 

 and weeds as rank as any to be found in the middle states in 

 like situations. I saw a small brook with fine trout, but what 

 pleased me more was to find the nest of the shore-lark ; it was 

 embedded in moss, so exactly the colour of the bird, that when 

 the mother sat on it, it was impossible to distinguish her. We 

 see Newfoundland in the distance, looking like high moun- 

 tains, whose summits are far above the clouds at present. Two 

 weeks since the harbour whete we now are was an ice-field, 

 and not a vessel could approach it ; since then the ice has sunk, 

 and none is to be seen far or near. 



" July 28. A tremendous gale has blown all day, and I have 

 been drawing. The captain and the rest of our company went 

 off in the storm to visit Blanc Sablons, four miles distant. The 

 fishermen have corrupted the French name into the English of 

 " Nancy Belong." Towards evening the storm abated, and 

 although ^it is now almost calm, the sea runs high, and the 

 Eipley rolls in a way which makes our suppers rest unquietly 

 in our stomachs. We have tried in vain to get some Esquimaux 

 mocassins and robes ; and we also asked to hire one of them, 

 to act as a guide for thirty or forty miles into the interior. 

 The chief said his son might go, a boy of twenty-three, but he 

 would have to ask his mother, as she was always fearing some 

 accident to her darling. This darling son looked more like a 

 brute than a Christian man, and was so daring, that he would 

 not venture on our journey. 



