HUDSON BAY ESKIMOS. 249 



the northward ; and part of them in all probability passed 

 over to Greenland in the fourteenth century, either 

 crossing Davis's Strait in their boats from Cape Walsing- 

 ham in lat. 66° to the South Bay, a distance of scarcely 

 forty leagues, or otherwise proceeding by land round the 

 extremity of Baffin's Bay, where, if we may trust the re- 

 ports of the Greenlanders, stone crosses, like guide-posts, 

 are still to be seen at intervals along the coast." 



That the Eskimos were more abundant on the eastern 

 shores of Hudson's Bay may be proved by the following 

 extracts from Coats's Notes on the Geography of Hud- 

 son's Bay, reprinted by the Hakluyt Society.* It ap- 

 pears from his notes that the Eskimos inhabited Labrador 

 from the Gulf of St. Lawrence around to James's Bay, 

 i.e., as far south in Hudson's Bay as Belcher's Island 

 (lat. 56° 6') and the Sleepers. Their southern range 

 was probably Hazard Gulf, in lat. 56° 22'. The coast of 

 Hudson's Bay is wild and barren, with floating ice. 

 Speaking of the barren, treeless coast from Cape Diggs 

 to Hazard Gulf, Coats says : " Doubtless the native Us- 

 quemows know the time and seasons of those haunts, 

 and nick it, for we found vestiges of them at all the 

 places we stopt att." From the foregoing extract it is 

 obvious that Captain Coats obtained his knowledge of the 

 Labrador Indians and the Eskimos from his personal ob- 

 servations and inquiries while in Hudson's Bay ; he per- 

 sonally only by hearsay received information that the 

 Eskimos, by whalers called "Huskies," lived as far south 

 as St. Lawrence Bay ; but his statement will be seen to 



* Notes on the Geography of Hudson's Bay, being the remarks of Capt. W. 

 Coats in many voyages to that locality between the years 1727 and 1751. Ed- 

 ited by John Barrow. London, Haliluyt Society, 1852. 8vo. 



