OF A NORTH-WEST PASSAGE. 165 



of the island. One of the women named IUgliuk, a sister of the lad Toolooak, 1822> 

 who favoured us with a song, struck us as having a remarkably soft voice, an 

 excellent ear, and a great fondness for singing, for there was scarcely any 

 stopping her when she had once begun. We had, on their first visit to the 

 ships, remarked this trait in Iligliuk's disposition, when she was listening for 

 the first time to the sound of the organ, of which she seemed never to have 

 enough ; and almost every day she now began to display some symptom of that 

 superiority of understanding for which she was so remarkably distinguished. 

 A few of the women learned several of our names to-day, and I believe all 

 thought us Angekoks * of a very superior class, when we repeated to them 

 all round, by the assistance of our books, the names of all their husbands 

 obtained on board the preceding day. On our way back to the ships we 

 saw a party of them., with their dogs, returning over the hill from the north- 

 eastward ; and we afterwards met another of eight or ten who had walked 

 round by the south-east point on the ice, all alike unsuccessful, after being 

 out in the wind for six hours with the thermometer from eighteen to twenty- 

 two degrees below zero. Thus hardly did these people obtain their daily 

 subsistence at this severe season of the year ! 



A wolf being caught in one of the traps this evening which was so close as 

 to be easily watched from the ship, a party of the officers ran out to secure 

 the depredator, and fired two balls into the trap at once to despatch him. 

 Finding after this that he continued to bite a sword that was thrust in, a third 

 shot was fired at him. The trap was then sufficiently opened to get his hind 

 legs firmly tied together, after which being considered tolerably secure he 

 was pulled out of the trap, which, however, his head had scarcely cleared 

 when he furiously flew at Mr. Richard's throat, and would certainly have done 

 him some serious mischief had not that gentleman, with great presence of 

 mind, seized the animal in his turn by the throat, squeezing him with all his 

 force between both hands. This made the wolf relinquish his first attempt, 

 and Mr. Richards only suffered by a bite in his arm and another in his knee, 

 which, on account of the thickness of his clothes, were happily not severe 

 ones. As for the wolf he prudently took to his heels, though two of them 

 were still tied together, and being favoured by the momentary confusion occa- 

 sioned by his late rencontre with Mr. Richards, succeeded in escaping his pur- 



* Sorcerers, or wizards, pronounced as written above in Greenland ; but at Winter Island 

 Ang-et-kook ; and by the people at Igloolik An-ndt-ko. 



