470 THE FRANKLIN SEA ECff— 184:8-51. 



World as Europeans have hitherto penetrated, and their capability of inhabit- 

 ing these hyperborean regions is essentially owing to their consuming 

 blubber for food and fuel, and their invention of the use of ice and snow as 

 building materials. Though they employ drift timber when it is available, 

 they can do without it, and can supply its place in the formation of their 

 weapons, sledges, and boat-frames, wholly by the teeth and bones of whales, 

 morses, and other sea animals. The habit of associating in numbers for the 

 chase of the whale has sown among them the elements of civilisation ; and 

 such of them as have been taken into the Company's service at the fur posts 

 fall readily into the ways of their white associates, and are more industrious, 

 handy, and intelligent, than the Indians. The few interpreters of the nation 

 that I have been acquainted with (four in all) were strictly honest and ad- 

 hered rigidly to the truth ; and I have every reason to believe that within 

 their own community the rights of property are held in great respect, even the 

 hunting-grounds of families being kept sacred. Yet their covetousness of 

 the property of strangers, and their dexterity in thieving, are remarkable, 

 and they seem to have most of the vices as well as the virtues of the Nor- 

 wegian vikings. Their personal bravery is conspicuous, and they are the 

 only native nation on the North American continent who oppose their 

 enemies face to face in open fight. Instead of flying, like the northern 

 Indians, on the sight of a stranger, they did not scruple, in parties of two or 

 three, to come ofi" to our boats and enter into barter, and never on any occa- 

 sion showed the least disposition to yield anything belonging to them 

 through fear." 



By the 8th of August the expedition had crept laboriously along the 

 Arctic shores eastward to Cape Brown, in longitude about 130° W. Land- 

 ing near the cape to prepare breakfast, the voyagers encountered four 

 Eskimos, of whom the usual inquiries were made, with the usual result. 

 " These people," says Richardson, ' ■ like the other parties we had previously 

 communicated with, declared that no large ships nor boats had been seen on 

 their coasts, and that we were the first white men they had ever beheld. I 

 could not discover that any remembrance of my visit to their shores twenty- 

 three years previously existed among any of the parties I saw on the present 

 voyage, though I never failed to question them closely on the subject." 

 Pushing on on the following day, Richardson crossed Liverpool Bay and 

 encamped under the frozen clifis of Cape Maitland on the night of the 9th 

 August. On the 10th the explorers held on their course between Baillie 

 Islands and the mainland, and at night, finding no suitable landing-place 

 either on the islands or the main, they slept in their boats, which were 

 anchored about a mile from the beach. Early on the morning of the 11th, 

 the voyage was resumed under the guidance of a considerable company of 

 the Eskimos of Cape Bathurst, and Richardson, after crossing a bar on which 



Digitized by IVIicrosoft® 



