400 DR JOHN RAE'S EXPLORA TIONS—18^Q-4:7 . 



with them. At first the natives were much afraid, but after a few words 

 with the interpreter, they became quite at ease, and chatted and laughed 

 with great good-nature. Rae obtained from them a few items of valuable 

 information, and one of them drew a chart, from which he learned that the 

 isthmus, from Repulse Bay to the sea on the west side of Melville Penin- 

 sula, was not much more than forty miles across, and that water communi- 

 cation by means of a chain of deep lakes existed along thirty-five miles of 

 the route, so that he would only have to haul his boat over about five miles. 

 None of the Eskimos had seen or heard anything of Sir John Franklin. 



The party to which these natives belonged consisted of twenty-six indi- 

 viduals, and on the morning of the 26th, Rae was favoured with a visit of 

 a number of the ladies of the tribe — three old, three young, and all married. 

 They appear to have been quite persons of quality, as things go among 

 the Eskimos. " They were all tattooed on the face, the form on each being 

 nearly the same, — viz., a number of curved lines drawn from between the 

 eyebrows up over the forehead, two lines across the cheek from near the 

 nose towards the ear, and a number of diverging curved lines from the lower 

 lip towards the chin and lower jaw. Their hands and arms were much 

 tattooed from the tip of the finger to the shoulder. Their hair was collected 

 in two large bunches, one on each side of the head, and a piece of stick 

 about ten inches long and half an inch thick being placed among it, a strip 

 of different-coloured deer-skin is. wound round it in a spiral form, producing 

 far from an unpleasing effect. They all had ivory combs of their own manu- 

 facture, and deer-skin clothes with the hair outwards ; the only difference 

 between their dresses and those of the men being that the coats of the former 

 had much larger hoods (which are used for carrying children), in having a 

 flap before as well as behind, and also in the greater capacity of their boots, 

 which come high above the knee, and are kept up by being fastened to the 

 girdle." One of these women had been on board the " Fury " and " Hecla," 

 both at Winter Island and Igloolik, twenty-three years previously, and still 

 wore round her wrists some beads which she had obtained from Captain 

 Parry. 



Dr Rae had noticed and explored a small stream which fell into Repulse 

 Bay about a hundred yards from where he had landed in Gibson Cove. 

 Pursuing the course of this stream, he found that it had its source in one of 

 the deep lakes which lay on his route from the head of the bay to the sea on 

 the other side of the isthmus. He resolved to have the boat which he meant 

 to take with him dragged up this stream, and on the morning of the 26th, 

 after having been interviewed by the Eskimo ladies, he had all the cargo of 

 the boats placed in a place of security on shore, ordered the " Magnet " to be 

 safely moored in the land-locked harbour of Gibson Cove, and then sent away 

 his men, assisted by four Eskimos, to drag the other boat, the " North Pole," 



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