184 



SECOND VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY 



March ^ rom nor ^ 1_west by south to south-east ; from which quarter it soon 

 ^v-w freshened to a gale, with much snow-drift. On the 3d it again drew round 

 Sun. 3. to the northward, but continued to blow as strong as before. During this 

 time the mercury in the barometer did not fall below 29.94 inches, and that 

 during a short intermission of the gale on the 2d. 



In the midst of this inclement weather a number of the Esquimaux were out 

 upon the ice to the southward, some of them at the distance of a mile and a half 

 from the land, with large spaces of clear water intervening between it and 

 ' them ; the very ice on which they trod being in rapid motion with the tide, and 

 themselves enveloped alternately in a cloud of frost-smoke or a tremendous 

 snow-drift, which often obscured them from our sight. They seemed, how- 

 ever, to think nothing of this, or at least to consider themselves amply repaid 

 for their risk and labour, by procuring abundance of seals or sea-horses on 

 most of these excursions. They were indeed so well furnished at this time, 

 that even our biscuit was occasionally refused. 



I to-day procured from little Toonek a string of bones, which on inquiry 

 we found to belong to a land animal called by the Esquimaux Kablee-arido, 

 and which we certainly had never met with. From the description given us 

 by these people on this and several other occasions, we considered it likely 

 to be the wolverene ; but it must be extremely rare in those parts of America. 

 On the 4th we had a long visit from Okotook and Iligliuk, who both looked 

 Mon. 4. very ill and were labouring under severe coughs. In the course of our con- 

 versation I found from Okotook, that the man whose tent I had visited in the 

 summer up Lyon Inlet, was named Arnalooa, and that he was uncle to Oko- 

 took, being the brother of his mother Ilhtmea, now at Winter Island. We 

 found indeed that they knew the whole history of our visit; for they not only 

 described and named the persons we saw, but related the exact manner in 

 which Mr. Sherer's drinking-cup had been stolen, its being secreted in the 

 boot of Arnalooa's wife, and their expulsion from our tents in consequence. 

 We subsequently discovered that Appokiuk, the woman already mentioned as 

 having somewhere seen Kabloona oomiak, was one of Arnalooa's wives, though 

 now separated from him, and that she was one of the party in question who 

 had visited our tents in the summer, though our short intercourse did not 

 allow us immediately to recognise her features. It turned out therefore that 

 the only oorniaks she had ever seen were our own boats on that occasion ; and 

 this was a striking instance out of many in which we at first totally misappre- 



