EXTINCTION OF THE ESKIMO. 185 



children. The captain rowed over, and by the merest 

 good luck found young Cole, who agreed to pilot our 

 vessel up to Strawberry Harbor, twenty-five miles dis- 

 tant, where there were said to be two Eskimos who 

 would be glad to show us the way from there to Hope- 

 dale, since they were desirous of going there, but had 

 no boat, and would otherwise have to wait until the 

 autumn. 



Never shall I forget the grandeur, the utter desolation,, 

 and the purple glories of the sky and shore as we rowed 

 back that evening down Stag Bay, which is a wide 

 sound, bordered with lofty terraced hills, the last rays of 

 the setting sun lighting up the heights of the Webiic 

 Range, as we may term it, up whose slopes gradually 

 rose the purplish tints ushering in the darker shades of 

 the twilight. 



Young Cole came aboard the vessel in the evening 

 after we had returned, in a large jack, which was decked 

 over ; it had a small punt on it, beside his wife and 

 child, upon whom he depends to help him row back 

 should we be fortunate enough to reach Strawberry 

 Harbor by noon. 



It seems that there were formerly a few Eskimos 

 living in this region, but they have died off rapidly 

 within a few years past. They had gone with the eiders, 

 the geese, and the sea-fowl, the walrus and the fish ; 

 their game and their race had been banished, like them, 

 to the arctic regions. Our pilot, Captain French, said 

 that there was now but one Eskimo where there used to 

 be twenty. Their disappearance here seems due partly 

 to natural causes, to the absence of abundant game and 

 birds, and partly to contact with the civilization of this 



